Category Archives: Working conditions

Inside Higher Ed: Prof Risks Pay to Avoid Harassment Training

Alexander McPherson is facing a deadline next week. The tenured professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of California at Irvine has until November 12 to complete a training program on sexual harassment. He’s never been accused of sexual harassment, but he is among the 3,522 faculty members and other employees at the university who have supervisory responsibilities and are therefore covered by a 2004 state law mandating the training.

Already, McPherson has been stripped of the supervision of workers in his lab — a program that has brought in millions in federal research grants. And he’s been warned by deans and others that if he doesn’t change his mind in a week, the university will stop paying him his salary of $148,000 a year. McPherson won’t budge.

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World University News: EUROPE: A better life for EU researchers?

The 27 European Union governments have moved to improve the working conditions and career prospects of their researchers by approving measures designed to provide them with “real social recognition and a satisfactory standard of living”.

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The Chronicle: U. of Georgia Limits Faculty Travel in New Cost-Cutting Move

Some faculty members at the University of Georgia at Athens are trying to understand why out-of-state and international travel must now be approved by the provost, even if professors plan to pay for conferences and meetings with their own money.

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The Chronicle News Blog: AAUP Weighs In on Dispute Over Professor’s E-Mail at Rensselaer Polytechnic

In early July, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute pulled the plug on Donald Steiner’s e-mail account. Now the American Association of University Professors wants the university to reconnect the retired professor of nuclear engineering and engineering physics to the e-mail system.

The flap over the disconnected e-mail is the latest flashpoint in a continuing war between the administration and professors over faculty governance at Rensselaer. The provost, Robert E. Palazzo, shut down the institute’s Faculty Senate in September 2007, citing concerns about its possible interference in a review of university governance. The faculty voted overwhelmingly in favor of restoring the Faculty Senate shortly afterward.

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WHAS11.com: UL may not be paying an overdue bill to company hired to help in Robert Felner situation

Two years before Robert Felner resigned as the Dean of the University of Louisville’s college of education and human resources, the college’s faculty senate took a vote of no confidence in his leadership, asking that he be removed.

A bill for nearly $10,000 dollars from that local non-profit company was allegedly sent three times, but the University of Louisville says it never received the bill.

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Inside Higher Ed: Are 4-Day Workweeks the Future?

Sure, it sounds like a great idea. But how well does it work in practice?

With energy prices skyrocketing, a number of colleges tried longer day, four-day schedules this summer, letting commuting students and employees save on gas, while also cutting utility costs, since some offices could be shuttered an extra day. Now with a few months of experience and institutional data under their belts, some college administrators are convinced that the four-day workweek is the shape of things to come in higher education.

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Secaucus Reporter: ‘Atmosphere of fear and intimidation’

‘Atmosphere of fear and intimidation’

HCCC discusses its poor grade for integrity

Roger Jones, spokesperson for Hudson County Community College, told members of the County Freeholder Board at their meeting on Tuesday that it is next to impossible to evaluate the validity of charges made regarding a recent report issued by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

The Middle States Commission gave HCCC a warning that the institution failed to comply with one of 14 accreditation standards it needs to meet. The college failed to comply with the Integrity category, which covers areas including conflicts of interest, ethical standards, and policies regarding support for academic and intellectual freedom. According to the recently released report, “The team interviewed a number of employees who felt intimidated by Human Resources and recalled a number of instances when they were publicly berated by the vice president for Human Resources [John Shinnick].”

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Inside Higher Ed: If One Professor Gropes, Does Everyone Need Training?

That what Arthur H. Miller is accused of doing would constitute sexual harassment is, one would hope, obvious to anyone who works in higher education. The political science professor at the University of Iowa was arrested last week on bribery charges arising out of accusations by female students that he told them he would give them higher grades if they let him fondle their breasts. In one case, he is alleged to have grabbed and sucked on a student’s breast and then sent her an e-mail telling her that she had earned an A+.

Miller hasn’t commented on the accusations, although his wife has said he is innocent. Miller is on paid leave, pending a university investigation, but another move by the university raises the question of what sort of educational programs are necessary for a university to prevent harassment. Sally Mason, Iowa’s president, announced on Tuesday that she plans to extend the university’s sexual harassment training — currently required only for those with supervisory roles — to all professors and other employees.

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The Chronicle News Blog: All U. of Iowa Professors Told to Undergo Training to Avoid Sexual Harassment

The University of Iowa ordered all professors and staff members today to undergo training in how to avoid sexual harassment after a political-science professor at the university was charged with asking four female students for sexual favors in return for better grades.

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The Chronicle: Sociologists Ponder the Costs of Overwork

Social scientists should give more scrutiny to “overwork” and “underwork,” several scholars urged on Monday during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association here. In today’s labor market, the scholars said, many people find themselves working significantly more or fewer hours than they would prefer—and those schedules have put new strains on family life.

The papers discussed on Monday and others presented over the weekend were part of the conference’s central theme of labor and the workplace.

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Financial Times: Canada eases work rules for graduates

Anyone studying on a degree programme in Canada will be able to stay in the country for three years after graduation while looking for a job, according to new government regulations.

This liberalisation of the Canadian work visa rules is in stark contrast to policies in the US or UK, where it is becoming increasingly difficult for overseas students to get work visas.

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Ottawa Citizen: Profs fight U of P.E.I. retirement policy

CHARLOTTETOWN – Six employees of the University of Prince Edward Island are waiting for the province’s Human Rights Commission to hearing their complaint alleging the university’s mandatory retirement policy discriminated against them when they were forced to retire at age 65.

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Toronto Star: Universities struggle to keep the faith

There is nowhere for Muslims to pray at McGill; the Montreal university shut the prayer room three years ago, arguing religious space has no place on a secular campus.

But at the University of Toronto, Muslims and anyone else who wants to pray between class can choose from among more than eight prayer rooms, including four at the airy new Multi-Faith Centre, where religion fuels discussions on everything from politics and peace to love potions. A potluck this spring called Faith, Food and Fornication let students sample aphrodisiacs from various traditions, “but we drew the line at Viagra,” quipped campus diversity officer Nouman Ashraf.

RELIGIOUS OPTIONS

How Toronto universities are getting religion:

• Ryerson University offers weekly women-only swims for those whose religion dictates modesty. Curtains are pulled across the windows in the hall so no one can see into the pool.

• The University of Toronto’s law school offers a prayer room at the request of Muslim students that also is sometimes used by nursing mothers. The university also scheduled an alternate corporate recruiting day for Muslim law students who fasted last year for Ramadan and also for Jewish students who were observing Sukkot.

• York University provides a prayer room in its Scott Religious Centre, and runs a kosher cafeteria in Winters College.

• York, U of T and Ryerson cafeterias offer some halal options.
As Canada’s religious diversity grows larger, universities grapple with students’ needs

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The Chronicle: Teaching, Research, and Service by the Numbers at Boise State

A new workload policy for professors aims to give them flexibility in their roles

By AUDREY WILLIAMS JUNE

Almost two years ago, Boise State University instituted a workload policy that worried some faculty members. Its basis is an algebraic-seeming formula with components — “teaching: 6 + x; scholarship: 2 + y; service: 2 + z” — that critics found difficult to believe could provide the flexibility that administrators promised. Some professors thought the policy would just add a layer of administrative bureaucracy.

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The Chronicle: Professors Cry Foul as Kean U. Demands Additional Office Hours

Professors at Kean University must be in their offices at least four days a week starting this fall, and will teach on Fridays and sometimes Saturdays, under a set of plans designed to raise enrollment and make professors on the New Jersey campus more available to students.

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