Kalamazoo Gazette: Western Michigan University professors approve new union contract
KALAMAZOO — By a wide margin, Western Michigan University faculty members ratified a new three-year contract with the university Friday.
The pact was approved by 82 percent of the faculty members who voted. However, only about 40 percent of those eligible to cast a ballot did so.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
WBZtv.com: Faculty at Mass. state college protest impasse
WESTFIELD, Mass. (AP) Professors and staff at Westfield State College say they’ve had enough of stalled contract talks with the state Board of Higher Education.
The faculty planned to set up a picket line on the campus Monday to protest the impasse.
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Posted in Protests
Inside Higher Ed: Trustee Romances Raise Tensions
Oh, the things we do for love.
After 28 years as a board member at Greenville Technical College, George Bomar resigned from his post last week, accepting that his 2005 marriage to a high-level administrator violated the college’s nepotism policy. But a committee of Bomar’s fellow board members deliberated on the issue for nearly a year before they signaled him to bow out, highlighting the sensitivity – and perhaps reluctance – they felt while exploring the implications of their colleagues’ campus romance.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: New Questions on Women, Academe and Careers
In field after field, women either outperform or equal men — only to lag in key positions in academe (or in other careers that attract the highly educated). Identifying the causes for these gender gaps has become increasingly urgent as colleges find their enrollments increasingly female and some formerly male dominated fields struggle to attract enough talent.
Inside Higher Ed: Dramatic Challenge to SAT and ACT
Calling on colleges to “take back the conversation,” a special panel convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling will this week encourage colleges to consider dropping the SAT or ACT as admissions requirements.
The panel, in a report to be formally released this week, calls on all colleges to consider more systematically whether they really need testing to admit their students. If there is not clear evidence of the need for testing, the commission urges the colleges to drop the requirement and it expresses the view that there are likely more colleges and universities that could make such a change.
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Posted in Academics
The Chronicle: Admissions Group Urges Colleges to ‘Assume Control’ of Debate on Testing
NACAC gave The Chronicle an early look at the long-awaited “Report of the Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission,” which stops well short of condemning admissions tests. Nonetheless, it delivers the association’s strongest statement to date on one of higher education’s most controversial issues. It affirms that colleges and other interested parties have overinflated both the real and the perceived importance of the exams—and proposes how to let some of that air out.
The report urges colleges to regularly scrutinize their testing requirements, to stop using minimum scores for scholarships, and to ensure that admissions policies account for inequities among applicants, including access to test preparation. Moreover, it anticipates a future when admissions tests better reflect what students learn in high school.
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Posted in Academics
Daily Nation: Teachers split over strike
In Summary
* Knut has dismissed a strike call by Kuppet and asked its members to ignore it.
* The Government is said to have agreed to harmonise salaries to match those of civil servants in similar job groups.
* Kuppet said that members were defecting from Knut as a lot of money was being deducted from their salaries.
Teachers unions are on a collision course over a planned strike for better salaries.
The strike call has pitted the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) against the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) in a battle for control of the teaching fraternity.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Sunday Territorian: Late bid to stop strike by teachers
THE Industrial Relations Commission will be called in to try to resolve the long-running dispute between teachers and the Territory Government.
The teachers’ union is considering strike action next week unless “significant progress” is made in its negotiations with the Government over a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
ABC News: NT Govt uses WorkChoices to stop teacher strike
The Australian Education Union says it is dismayed that the Northern Territory’s Labor Government has used the courts to force the end of planned industrial action.
Yesterday the NT Government won its case before the Industrial Relations Commission to stop teachers going on strike over an ongoing pay dispute next week.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle News Blog: Dismissed Professors at New Mexico State U. File Discrimination Lawsuit
John Moraros and Yelena Bird, the former health-science professors who have raised allegations of racial discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against New Mexico State University in a highly contentious case, have now filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the university and various administrators. The professors, a married couple who were fired from the university’s public-health department in February, are joined in the suit by two professors who support them, Satya Rao and Robert Buckingham, and by Freedom Cheteni, a graduate student.
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Posted in Legal issues
Reuters: Zagreb police gets new chief, raids universities
ZAGREB, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Croatia has appointed a new police chief in Zagreb after a third mob-style assault in four months prompted fears of deteriorating security in the capital.
The European Union has told the country it must step up the fight against organised crime and corruption if it wants to complete EU accession talks in late 2009, but concrete actions have been slow in coming.
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Posted in Corruption
The Gazette: Deasy earned his doctorate, says lawyer for former dean
Attorney claims superintendent is victim of ‘negative publicity’ surrounding ex-university official
An attorney for a former University of Louisville dean is coming to the defense of Prince George’s County Schools Superintendent John E. Deasy, stating the school leader earned the doctorate he received from the university.
Deasy came under scrutiny last week when Kentucky media questioned how he was able to receive a doctorate of philosophy in education in 2004 after taking only nine credits at the school.
Questions were also raised about Deasy’s prior relationship with Robert Felner, the dean of the school of education who signed off on Deasy’s dissertation. Felner was previously a dean at the University of Rhode Island at the same time Deasy was a student there. Also, while Deasy was superintendent at Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the school district reportedly awarded a $125,000 annual contract to an organization led by Felner to conduct surveys.
Felner resigned from the University of Louisville in June and is currently under investigation for allegedly misappropriating a $649,000 grant, according to Kentucky media reports. Felner has not been charged with a crime.
Scott C. Cox, who is representing Felner, said his client was not involved in granting Deasy’s doctorate degree.
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Posted in Academics
St Louis Post-Dispatch: Truman State U. president says she is resigning
Barbara Dixon, who led Truman State University as president for five years, said Tuesday she has decided to resign because of a difference in opinion with the Board of Governors over the duties and priorities in her role as president.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: AFT and AAUP Announce Joint Organizing Campaign
Two of the three national unions that organize faculty members announced Wednesday that they plan a joint campaign to organize more faculty members and other employees at public research universities.
The announcement by the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers follows months of negotiations on the deal. Jointly run local chapters are not new in and of themselves — the AAUP and AFT have seven joint locals (and other locals are jointly run with the National Education Association). But a national joint organizing campaign will be new.
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Posted in Organizing, Unions
Inside Higher Ed: Will Professors Delay Retirements?
At TIAA-CREF this week, the volume of calls from clients is up 30 percent from the same point a year ago.
Given the dramatic drops on Wall Street, it’s not surprising that many in academe are wondering about the status of their retirement funds. But a big question for academe may be whether those funds are shrinking substantially enough to prompt professors to delay retirement. Many think that the drops this week — coming in a year in which funds were already going down — may in fact be that significant.
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Posted in Economics
The Canadian Press: Union, administration call for quick end to University of Windsor strike
WINDSOR, Ont. — More than 16,000 students are out of classes after faculty at the University of Windsor went on strike early Wednesday morning.
Last-ditch efforts to reach an agreement by 12:01 a.m. Wednesday failed, though parties stayed at the negotiation table until about 2 a.m. Faculty and librarians at the southwestern Ontario university have been without a contract since June 30.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Louisville Cardinal: don’t say the f word
On June 20, 2008, federal investigators marched into the College of Education and Human Development, emerging hours later with boxes of information pertaining to the activities of former CEHD Dean Robert Felner. Felner is now under federal investigation for allegedly misappropriating approximately $694,000 of the college’s federal grant money.
This was just the first of many dark days the University of Louisville would see. Nearly four months later, the charges haven’t stopped.
This past week, it was discovered through university records that John Deasy, then a California school superintendent, was awarded a doctorate in philosophy from U of L in 2004 after having only studied there for nine credit hours. This violates a university policy that says all doctoral candidates must study at U of L for at least two years, including one in full residency. Felner was the advisor on Deasy’s dissertation committee and had received a $375,000 contract from Deasy in 2002 for a research center that he was running.
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Posted in Administration, Legal issues
Courier-Journal: University of Rhode Island says feds focusing on Felner
University of Rhode Island officials said today that an internal review and a federal investigation have not uncovered any criminal activity by current university employees connected with former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner.
Federal investigators have “indicated to us that their focus is on Mr. Felner,” said Robert Weygand, vice president for administration at the University of Rhode Island. “… They have indicated that as of this date and as of this time no one here at this university is currently the focus of any criminal investigation.”
Felner — who is the focus of a federal investigation into the alleged misappropriation of grant money — worked at the Rhode Island university from 1996 until 2003, when he became the dean of U of L’s College of Education and Human Development.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle: Former U. of Louisville Dean Faces Fresh Allegations
From the issue dated September 19, 2008
A school superintendent earned a Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in only one semester after awarding a $375,000 grant to a university center run by Robert Felner, Louisville’s former education dean, Louisville’s Courier-Journal reported last week.
The explosive news came amid a federal investigation of Mr. Felner over allegations that he misused a $694,000 grant. Among other reviews, the university is auditing finances at its education school, while the University of Rhode Island is inspecting a research center Mr. Felner founded while serving as that institution’s dean of education.
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Posted in Academics
Kenosha News: Felner scrutiny widens; Former Parkside pick may have conferred tainted doctorate degree
Sept. 15, 2008
A federal investigation of Robert Felner for allegedly mishandling a grant will end soon, but now his former school is trying to determine if he gave a doctorate degree to a friend who steered $375,000 in contracts toward Felner.
Felner, former dean of the College of Education at the University of Louisville, was chosen to become the University of Wisconsin-Parkside’s next chancellor after a nationwide search but he resigned at the end of June – a week before he was to start work here – amid a federal criminal fraud investigation looking into the mishandling of millions of dollars in grant money. The investigation is also looking into the purchase of illegal goods.
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Posted in Academics, Legal issues
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