Kentucky: Cowgill resigns from higher-ed post

Posted on April 30, 2008 by | Comments Off on Kentucky: Cowgill resigns from higher-ed post

Lexington Herald-Leader: Cowgill resigns from higher-ed post

Brad Cowgill announced Tuesday that he is resigning as president of the state Council on Postsecondary Education.

The council hired him as its president on April 14, over the objections of Gov. Steve Beshear, who said the council should obey state law by conducting a national search to fill the post.

Cowgill said he has “no desire to wage a battle with the governor over this battle.”

“I do this for one reason: In the foreseeable future, it would be necessary to devote excessive time and effort to unproductive activities, denying me the satisfaction of fruitful work,” Cowgill said in a statement.

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Posted in Administration

Book review: Pruning the Ivy: The Overdue Reform of Higher Education

Posted on April 30, 2008 by | Comments Off on Book review: Pruning the Ivy: The Overdue Reform of Higher Education

Teachers College Record: Pruning the Ivy: The Overdue Reform of Higher Education

reviewed by Elaine El-Khawas — April 25, 2008

Title: Pruning the Ivy: The Overdue Reform of Higher Education
Author(s): Milton Leontiades
Publisher: Information Age Publishing, Charlotte
ISBN: 159311740X, Pages: 127, Year: 2007

Milton Leontiades tells us that he served as dean of a business school at a prestigious public research university (not named) for 15 years, following a career in business and government. In this book, he describes the numerous ways that universities do not act like businesses, and he urges fundamental reform. In eight chapters, he reviews the problems needing reform, from high costs and low productivity to ineffective governance and threats of increasing competition from foreign universities and for-profit online companies. Despite the sweeping title, he does explain (p. 31) that research universities are the focus of this book.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Law Denying Student Aid to Drug Offenders

Posted on April 29, 2008 by | Comments Off on Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Law Denying Student Aid to Drug Offenders

The Chronicle News Blog: Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Law Denying Student Aid to Drug Offenders

Opponents of a law that prevents students who are convicted of drug offenses from receiving federal financial aid were handed another legal defeat today.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, upholding a 2006 decision by a U.S. District Court, has refused to reinstate a lawsuit that sought to strike down the law.

In its ruling the appeals court rejected arguments by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Foundation, which filed the appeal, that the federal law is unconstitutional.

The group argued, in part, that denial of financial aid by the Education Department to students who have already served a court-imposed sentence violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on double jeopardy, criminally punishing someone twice for the same offense. But the appeals court said that the federal law’s sanctions cannot be considered criminally punitive, especially in the double-jeopardy context. —Sara Hebel

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Posted in Legal issues

At Columbia, Remembering a Revolution

Posted on April 29, 2008 by | Comments Off on At Columbia, Remembering a Revolution

Washington Post: At Columbia, Remembering a Revolution

NEW YORK, April 26 — Forty years ago, they launched a student protest at Columbia University that involved the occupation of five campus buildings, the hostage-taking of a dean, 712 arrests and injuries to scores of students, faculty members and police officers.

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Posted in Protests

California higher ed leaders denounce proposed budget cuts

Posted on April 29, 2008 by | Comments Off on California higher ed leaders denounce proposed budget cuts

San Diego Union Tribune: California higher ed leaders denounce proposed budget cuts

In a rare show of unity, California’s top higher education officials on Monday warned that inadequate state funding is bleeding the quality from one of the world’s most celebrated college and university systems.

The leaders of the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges predicted that a new round of spending cuts would have dire consequences for their 142 campuses, from losing top-notch faculty to making a college degree too expensive for some students.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

Voltaire Wasn’t Cut Out to Be an Iowa State TA

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Inside Higher Ed: Voltaire Wasn’t Cut Out to Be an Iowa State TA

At the best of all possible universities, teaching assistants feel appreciated by their superiors and cherish all of their students, and everyone works in harmony. Not, apparently, at Iowa State University.

There, the English department has been debating two satirical videos by teaching assistants — posted on YouTube and now removed, but available on Facebook — that portray TA duties teaching composition. (The videos may be found here and here.) In a series of faux interviews, TA’s talk about their working conditions, their students and the curriculum. Some of the talk is crude and mocking, although in the era of Harold and Kumar, the videos hardly push the envelope in that category.

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Posted in Students

2 Top Administrators Quit at West Virginia U., but President Retains Support of Board

Posted on April 29, 2008 by | Comments Off on 2 Top Administrators Quit at West Virginia U., but President Retains Support of Board

The Chronicle: 2 Top Administrators Quit at West Virginia U., but President Retains Support of Board

Fallout from a politically charged scandal at West Virginia University now includes resignations, with the announcement on Monday that both the provost and dean of the university’s business school are stepping down. But it appears unlikely that the president, Michael S. Garrison, will resign or be removed by the university’s governing board, despite an increasing number of calls for his ouster by faculty members.

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Posted in Administration

UK: Teacher strike shuts out one million children

Posted on April 28, 2008 by | Comments Off on UK: Teacher strike shuts out one million children

The Guardian: Teacher strike shuts out 1m children

· Teacher strike shuts out one million children
· Guardian survey reveals 8,000 schools hit by walkout over pay offer

At least a million children at 8,000 schools will be barred from lessons today as striking teachers trigger acute shortages across the country.

Headteachers and teaching assistants have been drafted in to take the place of striking colleagues after school authorities failed to avert widespread school closures. A third of schools will be turning some pupils away and one in six will close entirely.

Over 100,000 civil servants – from driving test supervisors to coastguards – and 30,000 college lecturers are also walking out in the biggest strike over pay since Labour came to power.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Wales: 300 teachers ‘facing redundancy’

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BBC: 300 teachers ‘facing redundancy’

Schools in Neath Port Talbot could be worse hit by the redundancies

As many as 300 teachers in Wales are claimed to be facing redundancy, with falling pupil numbers resulting in tighter budgets blamed.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) says some 90 schools intend to cut jobs between now and August.

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Posted in K-12 issues

UK: School pay strikes then and now

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BBC: School pay strikes then and now

It was almost like the old days – I won’t say the “good old days”. More like Life on Mars meets the NUT.

The first national teachers’ strike for over two decades transported us back to the mid-1980s and the long-running battles over pay.

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Posted in Unions

UK: Britain faces industrial unrest as unions threaten strikes

Posted on April 28, 2008 by | Comments Off on UK: Britain faces industrial unrest as unions threaten strikes

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The Times: Britain faces industrial unrest as unions threaten strikes

Britain faces a wave of industrial unrest this summer as unions, emboldened by Gordon Brown’s climbdown after the 10p tax revolt, ballot millions of members on strike action.

Workers in local government, the health service, the Civil Service, the Royal Mail and even the Sellafield nuclear site could join teachers in an escalating confrontation with the Government over pay.

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Posted in Unions

UK: Strike wave another blow to embattled Brown

Posted on April 28, 2008 by | Comments Off on UK: Strike wave another blow to embattled Brown

The Age: Strike wave another blow to embattled Brown

BRITAIN has been hit by the most wide-ranging wave of work stoppages in a decade, with more than 100,000 public-sector employees, from teachers to coastguards, striking against the Labour Government.

It was another blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown after he was forced by party rebels into a humiliating policy reversal over tax and suffered a devastating opinion poll a week before local elections that will be his first major electoral test as leader.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

UK: Support shows strike was right choice, says NUT

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The Guardian: Support shows strike was right choice, says NUT

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) remains ebullient about the impact of the first national strike in 21 years that took place yesterday, amid warnings further action will not go down well with teachers.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New teacher strike looming for NYC-area Catholic schools?

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Newsday: New teacher strike looming for NYC-area Catholic schools?

NEW YORK – Lay teachers at 10 Roman Catholic high schools may strike again after picketing during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to New York City last week.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

New York: Catholic School Teachers Reject Latest Contract Offer

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NY1: Catholic School Teachers Reject Latest Contract Offer

Just days after returning to work, following a union-wide strike, a group of Catholic school teachers in the city is threatening to walk out again.

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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts

Degree Scandal at West Virginia Fells Provost

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Inside Higher Ed: Degree Scandal at West Virginia Fells Provost

The provost of West Virginia University told deans Sunday that he would resign because of his role in the improper awarding of a master’s degree to the governor’s daughter, saying in a letter to the campus that he regretted that “my one action in ratifying a Dean’s decision in a single situation has had a negative impact on the institution.”

The resignation of Gerald Lang, provost and vice president for academic affairs, was reported first by the Associated Press and is expected to be announced on the campus this morning. Lang and the university’s business dean, R. Stephen Sears, came in for the harshest criticism in the report of an independent panel charged with investigating the university’s decision to hastily award a degree to Heather Bresch without clear or sufficient evidence that she had earned it.

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Posted in Administration

Validation for RateMyProfessors.com?

Posted on April 25, 2008 by | Comments Off on Validation for RateMyProfessors.com?

Inside Higher Ed: Validation for RateMyProfessors.com?

You’ve heard the reasons why professors don’t trust RateMyProfessors.com, the Web site to which students flock. Students who don’t do the work have equal say with those who do. The best way to get good ratings is to be relatively easy on grades, good looking or both, and so forth.

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Posted in Faculty

Divorce: Grounds for Dismissal

Posted on April 25, 2008 by | Comments Off on Divorce: Grounds for Dismissal

Inside Higher Ed: Divorce: Grounds for Dismissal

He and his wife are divorcing. And, because he’s choosing not to discuss the terms of that first separation with his employers — to determine whether the divorce falls within what the college considers to be appropriate Scriptural parameters — he’s resigning from Wheaton in what he calls “a mutually agreed-upon separation. And the alternative of it would be to be fired.”

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Posted in Working conditions

Faculty-Union Grievance Spurs Investigation of Retirement Funds at Youngstown State U.

Posted on April 25, 2008 by | Comments Off on Faculty-Union Grievance Spurs Investigation of Retirement Funds at Youngstown State U.

The Chronicle: Faculty-Union Grievance Spurs Investigation of Retirement Funds at Youngstown State U.

The university will look into allegations that money from some professors’ paychecks was not deposited into their retirement accounts in a timely fashion. Any delays were largely the result of the switch to a new administrative software system, a university spokesman said.

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Posted in Unions

Kentucky College Board Said to Have Ignored Law in Hiring New Leader

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The Chronicle News Blog: Kentucky College Board Said to Have Ignored Law in Hiring New Leader

Kentucky’s higher-education coordinating board violated state law when it hired its new president this month, the state’s attorney general ruled in a legal opinion issued on Thursday, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

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Posted in Government