Radio VOP: Teachers to Boycott Marking Examinations
BULAWAYO, November 2 2008 – The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), has instructed its members to boycott the marking of this year’s controversial examinations, which it alleges were written under unprofessional conditions.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Burlington Post: Teacher strike possible over funding gap
The per-pupil funding gap between elementary and secondary students is a possible province-wide strike issue, said the president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
In a media briefing held at Milton’s Rattlesnake Point Golf Club last week, ETFO President David Clegg told the Post the funding gap, not wages, is the key issue for teachers in the current contract impasse between ETFO and the Ministry of Education.
Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Guardian: Workers reject strike weapon
Workers are much less likely to go on strike than they were in the 1970s and 1980s as the UK goes into a recession, according to union activists and industrial relations experts.
Last month, in a groundbreaking agreement, union members at digger firm JCB voted to take a cut in wages to save 322 jobs. Union leaders there said that workers had no appetite for industrial action to try to prevent all compulsory redundancies.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The National: No end in sight for teachers’ strike in Gaza
GAZA CITY // For students and teachers, it is a question of obligations versus rights. But for Fatah and Hamas, the teachers’ strike, which saw a chaotic start to the Palestinian school year in Gaza and trainee teachers being drafted en masse, is just another battle in their war of attrition.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Zanesville Times Recorder: OU faculty close to unionizing
ZANESVILLE -The faculty of Ohio University is one step closer to becoming a union after a meeting of the Faculty Senate.
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At an October meeting, senate members approved a resolution requesting shared governance between the administration and the faculty.
The resolution cites 21 examples the faculty feels the administration and board of trustees have “steadfastly resisted the implementation of any real shared governance and jeopardized the respect and trust of the faculty.”
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts, Organizing, Unions
Houston Chronicle: Workers press administrators to restore UTMB
Hospital officials say lack of funds means fewer beds
TEXAS CITY — A group of employees is unionizing, circulating petitions and organizing in an effort to pressure elected officials and administrators to rebuild the oldest medical school in Texas.
Hurricane Ike caused about $700 million in damage to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the employees say they want to see it restored to pre-storm condition.
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Posted in Government
mycentralnewjersey.com: Rutgers instructors want union eligibility rules settled
RUTGERS —Members of a newly formed union of summer and winter teaching faculty paid a surprise visit to university President Richard L. McCormick’s office Friday morning in an effort to find common ground on slowed contract negotiations.
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Posted in Unions
BBC: MPs to hold universities inquiry
The degree classification system has been under scrutiny
MPs are to investigate some of the most controversial issues surrounding students and universities in the UK.
The Commons innovation, universities and skills committee will look at a wide range of issues from student support to university admissions.
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Posted in Government
Inside Higher Ed: College Bans Nietzsche Quote on Prof’s Door
“God is dead.” That phrase, from Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, is among the philosopher’s most well known — and most hotly debated.
At Temple College, a community college in Texas, the words in the original German — Gott ist tot — have been barred from a professor’s office door. While the college says that to leave the phrase up would offend others and constitute and endorsement of the phrase, the professor and others see a double standard in place, and a violation of academic freedom.
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Posted in Free speech
Inside Higher Ed: Helping Out With the Short List
What with figuring out the economy and Iraq, drape-measuring and reaching across the aisle, Wednesday could be a full day for whoever is president-elect. In an effort to be of service to the new administration, Inside Higher Ed asked some experts of a variety of political persuasions who should make the short list for education secretary.
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Posted in Government
The Post-Standard: Coffee’s free, not the pastries
On weekday mornings, Sgt. Steve Brody of the Morrisville State College University Police often would stop at the local convenience store to buy a newspaper and pick up a free cup of coffee.
The coffee at the Valero Nice N Easy is free to any police officer in uniform.
What wasn’t free were the Tastykake pastries that state police now say he helped himself to, often concealing them in the paper or his shirt. He usually helped himself to one, but once took as many as four, according to employee statements to police.
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Posted in Legal issues
BBC: Protests over Italy school reform
Some protesters hurled cafe chairs in Rome’s Piazza Navona
School pupils, university students and teachers have staged demonstrations across Italy against a school reform law just passed by parliament.
In Rome’s Piazza Navona, a popular tourist spot, several people were lightly injured in a clash between left- and right-wing students.
The reform package is expected to cut the education budget.
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Posted in Protests
Daily Telegraph: Half of Cambridge students admit cheating
Half of students at Cambridge University have admitted cheating, according to new figures.
A survey shows 49 per cent of undergraduates have plagiarised work whilst studying at the university.
Law students were the worst offenders with 62 per cent of them breaking the university plagiarism rules, according to student newspaper Varsity.
The university is now planning to introduce special plagiarism detection software to tackle the problem.
Toronto Star: York University faces possible strike
York University’s 50,000 students will see classes suspended next week if a threatened strike action occurs.
Temporary faculty and teaching assistants want a 30 per cent salary increase over two years
York University is gearing up to avoid a possible strike next week as administrators enter negotiations today with temporary faculty and teaching assistants.
“We’re telling students to be patient,” Dean Robert Drummond, spokesperson for the university’s negotiating team, said last night, adding talks will continue through the weekend to next Tuesday.
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Posted in Contingent labor, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The New York Times: Professors’ Liberalism Contagious? Maybe Not
April Kelly-Woessner and Matthew Woessner found teachers do not change students’ politics.
An article of faith among conservative critics of American universities has been that liberal professors politically indoctrinate their students. This conviction not only fueled the culture wars but has also led state lawmakers to consider requiring colleges to submit reports to the government detailing their progress in ensuring “intellectual diversity,” prompted universities to establish faculty positions devoted to conservatism and spurred the creation of a network of volunteer watchdogs to monitor “political correctness” on campuses.
Just a few weeks ago Michael Barone, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, warned in The Washington Times against “the liberal thugocracy,” arguing that today’s liberals seem to be taking “marching orders” from “college and university campuses.”
But a handful of new studies have found such worries to be overwrought. Three sets of researchers recently concluded that professors have virtually no impact on the political views and ideology of their students.
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Posted in Faculty
The Globe and Mail: Universities eye ‘painful’ cuts in wake of crisis
STOCK-MARKET MELTDOWN: HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS VANISH FROM POSTSECONDARY COFFERS
With endowment funds taking a beating, student aid, scholarships, hiring and academic programs could all be on the chopping block
Canadian universities could be forced to cut student aid, scholarships and funding for various programs as early as next spring because of multimillion-dollar losses in their investment holdings.
The recent freefall of financial markets, coupled with a wait-and-see attitude of donors, has campus leaders across the country preparing for the worst and hoping for
a quick recovery.
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Posted in Economics
Ottawa Citizen: E-mail attack on professor sparks U of O privacy debate
OTTAWA – An e-mail suggesting that a newly hired part-time professor had worked as a prostitute was widely circulated to University of Ottawa faculty and members of the media last week, creating a controversy that continues to gather momentum today.
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Posted in Faculty
The Muskegon Chronicle: Update: Baker College President Rick Amidon resigns
Rick E. Amidon, president of Muskegon’s Baker College resigned Saturday — just days after he was arrested in Oceana County where he is accused of driving under the influence of a combination of alcohol and a controlled substance.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: The Presidential Perspective on Academic Freedom
NEW YORK CITY — Growing external pressures impinging on the university in a globalized, increasingly interconnected world were common concerns during a conference on threats to academic freedom and free inquiry that concluded Friday at the New School. On that note, what more iconic example of the “global university” is there than the American college branch campus built in the Middle East, at the expense of an oil-rich host? (A “mini” New York University is planned in Abu Dhabi, for instance, and there’s an entire “Education City” featuring multiple American universities in Qatar.)
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Posted in Academic freedom
University World News: ISRAEL: Disaster if universities strike: Minister
Addressing the expected strike at Israel’s universities, Education Minister Yuli Tamir told a Knesset Finance Committee meeting last week that “it will be a disaster if the academic year does not open on schedule,” reports Ynetnews.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
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