New York: List of Finalists Submitted for New SUNY Chancellor

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The New York Times: List of Finalists Submitted for New SUNY Chancellor

After more than a yearlong search for a new chancellor to lead the State University of New York, a panel has submitted a list of finalists to Gov. David A. Paterson, who is expected to meet with the candidates during the next two weeks before selecting one, according to education and state officials.

The search for a chancellor comes as SUNY, the nation’s largest public university system, is facing the biggest budget cuts in its history and trying to address the “grave concerns” expressed by a high-level state commission this summer about the quality of many of its schools.

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Posted in Administration

Connecticut: A Professor Without Her Claimed Degrees

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Inside Higher Ed: A Professor Without Her Claimed Degrees

Lan-Lan Wang has had a distinguished career in academic dance. She’s founded dance companies. She was one of the first American modern dancers to perform in China after the Cultural Revolution, and she promoted numerous exchanges with China. She won grants from top foundations. She taught at the University of Iowa and the University of California at Los Angeles and, since 1994, at Connecticut College, serving for much of that time as department chair. She may never have earned a degree — although she claimed two.

And what’s certain is that she did not earn either of the two degrees she claimed — a bachelor’s and master’s from the University of Iowa. As a result, she quit her position as professor and interim chair, Connecticut College announced Monday.

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Posted in Faculty

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

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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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Posted in Working conditions

Strikes by Professors and Students Paralyze Palestinian Universities

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The Chronicle News Blog: Strikes by Professors and Students Paralyze Palestinian Universities

Jerusalem — Dual strikes by Palestinian faculty members and students have effectively paralyzed the Palestinian higher-education system in the West Bank and Gaza.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Texas: Some BU faculty questioning what role they will have in choosing a new president

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Waco Tribune: Some BU faculty questioning what role they will have in choosing a new president

A statement Thursday from Baylor University’s regent chairman has left some faculty wondering how valued they will be in the selection of a permanent president.

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Posted in Governance

Michigan: CMU faculty walk picket line in contract talks

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Morning Sun: CMU faculty walk picket line in contract talks

Central Michigan University faculty are continuing to picket on campus grounds in an effort to negotiate a better contract.

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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts

The Worst Academic Careers — Worldwide

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Inside Higher Ed: The Worst Academic Careers — Worldwide

By Philip G. Altbach and Christine Musselin

Successful universities and academic systems require career structures for the academic profession that permit a stable academic career, encourage the “best and brightest” to join the profession, reward the most productive for their work, and weed out those who are unsuited for academic work. We have been struck by the dysfunctional nature of career structures in many countries — with disturbing negative trends — and would, only with a small sense of irony, suggest a ranking for career structures that guarantee to fail to build a productive academic profession. Our serious point is this: Without a career structure that attracts quality, rewards productivity, and permits stability, universities will fail in their mission of high-quality teaching, innovative research, and building a “world-class” reputation.

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Posted in Commentary

New Test for Bias in Peer Review

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Inside Higher Ed: New Test for Bias in Peer Review

Peer review is supposed to assure fair consideration of scholars’ work for placement in journals, the awarding of grants and so forth. But many have their doubts and believe that fairness is much more theory than practice. Many scientists say in fact that incompetence and bias hinder the peer review process.

Andrew J. Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick, has proposed a new way to test for bias. His system and some tests of it are outlined in a paper he wrote for the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. While the system proposed is primarily a tool for looking at how journals rank articles, and he did the testing with his own field, economics, Oswald argues that it could be applied to other disciplines and avoids some of the pitfalls of other systems for detecting possible bias.

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Posted in Academics

Seeking Nobel Winners, Canada Begins Global Hunt for Top Researchers

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The Chronicle: Seeking Nobel Winners, Canada Begins Global Hunt for Top Researchers

Canada has set up a new program to attract 20 of the world’s brightest researchers by next fall. The program, known as the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, will endow each chair with 10 million Canadian dollars, or about $9.3-million, over seven years to set up what a government news release called “ambitious research programs” at Canadian universities.

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Posted in Academics, Job market

The myth of the digital generation gap

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The Chronicle Review: Generational Myth

Not all young people are tech-savvy

By SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN

Consider all the pundits, professors, and pop critics who have wrung their hands over the inadequacies of the so-called digital generation of young people filling our colleges and jobs. Then consider those commentators who celebrate the creative brilliance of digitally adept youth. To them all, I want to ask: Whom are you talking about? There is no such thing as a “digital generation.”

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Posted in Commentary

Washington: Bellevue teachers, district reach tentative deal

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Seattle Times: Bellevue teachers, district reach tentative deal

Striking teachers and the Bellevue School District reached a tentative contract agreement Friday evening. Teachers are expected to vote on the offer Sunday.

The district’s 1,200 teachers went on strike Sept. 2, on what was supposed to be the first day of school.

Striking teachers and the Bellevue School District reached a tentative contract agreement Friday evening. If teachers approve the offer in a vote Sunday, they will be back in school Monday morning, union and district officials said.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Kenya: Teachers say they will go on strike in two weeks

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Daily Nation: Teachers say they will go on strike in two weeks

Teachers across the country on Saturday issued a new strike threat and gave the Government two weeks to finalise salary negotiations.

Officials of teachers unions in Machakos, Nakuru, Kakamega, Bureti, Nyeri and Kiambu said that a new salary deal must be sealed before the end of the month.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Michigan: WMU professors: Mixed feelings over contract

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Kalamazoo Gazette: WMU professors: Mixed feelings over contract

KALAMAZOO — When professor Allen Webb arrived Thursday at the Western Michigan University faculty union meeting, he detected “disappointed resignation” among his hundreds of colleagues.

But he also felt relief that a strike isn’t looming.

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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts

Why labor unions are good for labor

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People’s Weekly World: why labor unions are good for labor

People’s Weekly World Newspaper, 09/12/08 15:29

Workers’ Correspondence

I arrived at the University of North Florida (UNF) in the fall of 1979 as an untenured faculty member with two contractual guarantees. The first was the bargaining agreement between the faculty union and the state Board of Regents, in effect a due process document that offered collective protection and a route for protest that could end in the final court of appeal for labor agreements — binding arbitration. The second was a four-year “letter of appointment,” in effect a separate employment contract. It was issued to protect me against the uncertainties of the special pot of money dedicated to supporting my new faculty line.

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Posted in Unions

Cultural Logic: Tenth Anniversary Issue

Posted on September 13, 2008 by | Comments Off on Cultural Logic: Tenth Anniversary Issue

The Tenth Anniversary Issue of Cultural Logic is now online.

Contributions include:

Articles:

Roland Boer
“Socialism, Christianity, and Rosa Luxemborg”

Philip Bounds
“George Orwell and the Dialogue with English Marxism”

Paula Cerni
“The Age of Consumer Capitalism”

Stephen C. Ferguson II
“Social Contract as Bourgeois Ideology”

Grover Furr and Vladimir Bobrov
“Nicolai Bukharin’s First Statement of Confession in the Lubianka”

Catherine Gouge
“‘Amibivalent Technologies’ of American Citizenship”

Bruno Gulli
“Early Plenitude: An Essay on Sovereignty and Labor”

Katerina Kolozova
“The Project of Non-Marxism:
Arguing for ‘Monstrously’ Radical Concepts”

John Maerhofer
“Aimé Césaire and the Crisis of Aesthetic and Political Vangardism ”

Michael Mikulak
“Cross-pollinating Marxism and Deep Ecology:
Towards a Post-humanist Eco-humanism”

Terence Patrick Murphy
“From Alignment to Commitment:
The Early Work of James Kelman”

Ronald Paul
“”To turn the whole world upside-down’:
Women and Revolution in The Non-Stop Connolly Show ”

Philip Tonner
“Freud, Bentham: Panopticism and the Super-Ego”

Hristos Verikukis
“Popper’s Double Standard of Scientificity in Criticizing Marxism ”

Reviews

Ivan Cañadas
Christos Tsiolkas, Dead Europe

David Hursh
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
and
Peter McLaren and Nathalia Jaramillo, Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire

Howard Pflanzer
Robert Roth, Health Proxy

Louis Proyect
Amazing Grace

Charlie Samuya Veric, Tamara Powell, and John Streamas
E. San Juan, Jr., Balikbayang Mahal

Poetry

Christopher Barnes
Poems

Dave Bruzina
“Boom” and “The Committee Dissolves”

Iftekhar Sayeed
Poems

George Snedeker
“The History Lesson” and Other Poems

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Posted in Uncategorized

Maryland/Kentucy: University Probes Awarding of PhD to School Superintendent

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ABC 7 News: University Probes Awarding of PhD to School Superintendent

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Posted in Academics, Administration, Legal issues

Kentucky: Felner Speaks, Ramsey Has Foot-in-Mouth Disease

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PageOneKentucky.com: Felner Speaks, Ramsey Has Foot-in-Mouth Disease

Two days ago University of Louisville president Jim Ramsey didn’t know anything about a potentially fraudulent Ph.D. awarded to Robert Felner crony John Deasy. But now he knows everything and is able to say that UofL broke no rules?

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Posted in Academics, Administration, Corruption, Legal issues

Kentucky: U of L trustees approve review of ‘collegial governance’ in wake of hostile work environment and failed greivance process

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Courier-Journal: U of L trustees approve review of ‘collegial governance’

Prompted by allegations of improper hirings and management at its education college, the University of Louisville’s board of trustees voted yesterday to review the governance practices of all of U of L’s schools and colleges.
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The review was requested by the faculty senate in the wake of the ongoing federal investigation of former education dean Robert Felner, who is accused of misappropriating grant money. …

The board’s action yesterday brings the number of reviews and audits being conducted as a result of the Felner investigation to five. The others are:

A faculty senate review of the university’s grievance policies, which is expected to be completed in late November.

An audit of the College of Education and Human Development’s financial records.

An independent audit by the accounting firm Cotton and Allen of U of L’s business practices as they relate to research administration.

A blue-ribbon committee to review alleged improprieties in the awarding of an education doctorate to John Deasey in 2004.

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Posted in Governance, Working conditions

Kentucky: Ramsey says U of L broke no rules on disputed doctorate because “rare exception” policy was created in 2007; Doctorate in question awarded in 2004

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Courier-Journal: Ramsey says U of L broke no rules on disputed doctorate

Spokesmen: He was only addressing part of inquiry

In a letter to the University of Louisville’s accrediting agency, President James Ramsey said yesterday that “we do not believe any violations have occurred” in awarding a doctoral degree to a student who was enrolled at the university for only one semester.

But in interviews, spokesmen for the university said Ramsey was referring only to possible violations of the accrediting agency’s residency requirement for doctoral candidates.

But in interviews, spokesmen for the university said Ramsey was referring only to possible violations of the accrediting agency’s residency requirement for doctoral candidates.

They said the committee Ramsey appointed Wednesday still will investigate other aspects of the degree — including whether then-dean Robert Felner had a conflict of interest in supervising the doctoral candidate, who had given his research center a $375,000 contract.

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Posted in Academics, Accountability

Priest Charged With Dealing Drugs Out of U. of Illinois Student Center

Posted on September 12, 2008 by | Comments Off on Priest Charged With Dealing Drugs Out of U. of Illinois Student Center

The Chronicle News Blog: Priest Charged With Dealing Drugs Out of U. of Illinois Student Center

A Roman Catholic priest has pleaded not guilty to charges that he sold cocaine out of the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The Pantagraph, a local newspaper, reported today.

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Posted in Legal issues