Zimbabwe: Teacher’s Union President Fired Over ‘Academic Terrorism’

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allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Teacher’s Union President Fired Over ‘Academic Terrorism’

SW Radio Africa (London)

Takavafira Zhou, the President of the militant Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, has been fired from his job as a history lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University.

The university labelled him an ‘academic terrorist’ whose services were unsatisfactory. According to the Financial Gazette, Zhou has already instituted a legal action to challenge the dismissal. The paper says it obtained court documents relating to the matter and these show that Zhou had a stormy relationship with the university Vice Chancellor Obert Maravanyika, over the 4 years he worked there. Contained in the documents are allegations that Zhou spearheaded a strike at the university in 2006.

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Posted in International, Unions

UK: Teachers threaten strike action over class sizes

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The Guardian: Teachers threaten strike action over class sizes

· NUT wants a limit of 20 pupils per class by 2020
· Union’s relationship with government at new low

Teachers in England and Wales are threatening a nationwide strike unless the government promises to reduce class sizes to no more than 20 pupils by 2020. The National Union of Teachers will vote tomorrow on industrial action to force the government into making a commitment to reduce class sizes, which they say are putting some schools under intolerable pressures.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

Michigan: U-M grad instructors to walk out over contract dispute

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Ann Arbor News: U-M grad instructors to walk out over contract dispute

Graduate student instructors at the University of Michigan voted to hold a two-day walkout on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Graduate Employees Organization announced Saturday that its members voted 727 to 177 in favor of the job action. The union, which represents 1,700 instructors and staff assistants who teach part-time, is in a dispute with the university over wages and benefits in a new three-year contract.

U-M is offering annual pay increases of 3 percent a year, or the average pay increase given to faculty at the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, whichever is greater. The union is seeking a 9 percent hike in the first year of the contract, 3 percent hikes in the subsequent years, and stipends paid during the summer when graduate instructors are not teaching, according to the university.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

California: UC panel seeks to drop extra SAT tests from admission requirements

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Los Angeles Times: UC panel seeks to drop extra SAT tests from admission requirements

The exams add little useful information on applicants, critics say.

The University of California may offer some relief to test-weary applicants by shedding part of a 40-year-old requirement for freshman admission. And many high school students are saying amen to that.

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Posted in Academics

Student Power

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Wall Street Journal: Student Power

At the tender age of 23 years, Yon Goicoechea is arguably President Hugo Chávez’s worst nightmare.

Mr. Goicoechea is the retiring secretary general of the university students’ movement in Venezuela. Under his leadership, hundreds of thousands of young people have come together to confront the strongman’s unchecked power. It is the first time in a decade of Chávez rule that a countervailing force, legitimate in the eyes of society, has successfully managed to challenge the president’s authority.

The students’ first master stroke came in the spring of last year, when they launched protests against the government’s decision to strip a television station of its license. The license was not restored but the group was energized. In June it began six months of demonstrations — one with as many as 200,000 people — to build opposition to a referendum on a constitutional rewrite that would have given Mr. Chávez dictatorial powers. When Mr. Chávez was defeated in the referendum, many observers attributed it to those marches and to student oversight at the polls, which reduced voter fraud.

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Posted in International, Students

Arizona: Religious freedom measure advances

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The Arizona Republic: Religious freedom measure advances

Arizona students would be protected from discrimination based on their religion and free to express their views on campus to the same degree as secular students under a bill given tentative approval by legislators Monday.

Supporters say the measure, House Bill 2713, would merely codify in state law the freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. They argue the measure would help religious students fight back against public-school teachers and administrators who recoil at the mention of God in the classroom.

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Posted in Government

The Professor as Open Book

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The New York Times: The Professor as Open Book

IT is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor on the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.
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THE BIG PAYBACK The mtvU series “Professors Strike Back” gives instructors a chance to refute criticism by students who gripe about them on RateMyProfessors.com.

Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.

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Posted in Faculty

British Columbia: Funding cut shocks universities

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Vancouver Sun: Funding cut shocks universities

The B.C. government has delivered a nasty surprise to the province’s universities: Their funding for the coming year will be millions of dollars short of what they were told to expect.

The shortfall – nearly $16 million provincewide – is due to a decision by Victoria to shift money away from universities and into programs at B.C.’s colleges and trade schools.

Last spring, the B.C. government sent letters to all public post-secondary institutions outlining how much funding it expected to provide them over the next three years.

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Posted in Government

Nevada: UNLV wants to open campus in Middle East

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Las Vegas Sun: UNLV wants to open campus in Middle East
Region’s tourism hot spot a good fit, dean says

Tucked between Saudi Arabia and Oman, with beaches kissed by the Persian Gulf, the United Arab Emirates might seem alien to Nevadans. But the oil-rich Middle Eastern federation with a population of more than 4 million has close ties to Las Vegas.

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Posted in Corporate University

Egypt: Historic strike by university staff sees huge support

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Daily News (Egypt): Historic strike by university staff sees huge support

University professors staged simultaneous protests and refrained from teaching all over Egypt.

CAIRO: Professors throughout Egypt went on strike Sunday to renew demands for better pay and working conditions.

Simultaneous protests were held at 1 pm outside university administrative buildings. Some 200 university professors attended the protest at Cairo University.

According to Dr Mohamed Abul Ghar, a member of the University Autonomy Group (popularly known as the March 9 Movement, a group of Cairo University professors who came together in March 2003 to protest the US invasion of Iraq and who now press for university autonomy and academic freedom) there was a high strike turnout in three of Cairo University’s faculties.

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Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes

Wisconsin: Group wants guns at colleges

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Group wants guns at colleges
Green Bay dealer, students lobby for concealed-carry laws across country

If Green Bay gun dealer Eric Thompson had his way, college students would carry more than just books.

In his vision, the next college shooter is thwarted by a student armed with one of Thompson’s guns – averting a massacre, saving lives.

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Posted in Campus Life

Ayn Rand and $1 million with strings

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Charlotte Observer: Donor gave, and UNCC winced
$1 million with strings

BB&T CEO John Allison speaks before a large crowd during a forum, a prelude to the dedication of UNCC’s Ayn Rand Reading Room. The room was paid for with a grant from the BB&T Foundation.

As a college student in Chapel Hill, John Allison stumbled across a collection of essays by Ayn Rand and was hooked by her philosophy of self-interest and limited government. As he rose over the decades to chief executive of BB&T, one of the country’s leading regional banks, Rand remained his muse.

He’s trying to replicate that encounter through the charitable arm of his Winston-Salem-based company, which since 1999 has awarded more than $28 million to 27 colleges to support the study of capitalism from a moral perspective.

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Posted in Academic freedom

University Television Ads Depict White Dominance, Study Finds

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The Chronicle: University Television Ads Depict White Dominance, Study Finds

New York — The television advertisements produced by most major universities depict their campuses as overwhelmingly white, privileged environments, likely deterring many minority students from applying, according to a paper being presented here this week as part of the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association.

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Posted in Diversity

Ryerson won’t expel student over study group

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Globe and Mail: Ryerson won’t expel student over study group
Members collaborated on Facebook

Chris Avenir, the Ryerson University student whose involvement in a Facebook study group set off an international debate about the difference between online collaboration and old-fashion cheating, will not be expelled.

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Posted in Students

A South African Campus Wrestles With the Legacy of Apartheid

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The Chronicle: A South African Campus Wrestles With the Legacy of Apartheid

Over the past two decades, the University of the Free State has transformed itself from a conservative bastion of Afrikaans culture into an institute whose student population is 60 percent black. But incidents of racial intolerance have shown that the campus is far from integrated.

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Posted in Diversity

Audit Shows U. of Central Florida Lent Millions to Athletics Association

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The Chronicle News Blog: Audit Shows U. of Central Florida Lent Millions to Athletics Association

A routine review by a state auditor has found that the University of Central Florida may have inappropriately lent its independent intercollegiate-athletics association more than $7.4-million, a practice the university has discontinued, and provided more than $49-million in student fees to the athletics association without proper oversight.

The operational audit, prepared last month by David W. Martin, Florida’s auditor general, took special interest in the lending of public funds to a “direct-support organization” like the athletics association, which is independent of the university. On July 1, 2003, the university’s athletics department became the UCF Athletics Association Inc.

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Posted in Administration

New Mexico State U. Investigates Pornography Charges in Couple’s Tenure Case

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Lac Cruces Sun News: NMSU associate dean, department temporarily step down in wake of accusations

LAS CRUCES — Following allegations that he e-mailed pornography to one of the recently dismissed junior faculty members in that college, Larry Olsen, associate dean of the College of Health and Social Services at New Mexico State University, has resigned.

James Robinson, department head, has temporarily stepped down amid an investigation into allegations surrounding the dismissal of two junior faculty members. The married couple, Drs. John Moraros and Yelena Bird, say they are being racially discriminated against — Bird, a native of England, is black; her husband is of Greek and Hispanic descent.

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Posted in Faculty, Tenure & Promotion

Ohio: University Timed Firing of 2 Professors to Avoid Affecting Accreditation, Recording Suggests

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The Chronicle: University Timed Firing of 2 Professors to Avoid Affecting Accreditation, Recording Suggests

A conversation between a student and a senior administrator at Cedarville University, which the student secretly recorded, suggests that the university’s termination of two tenured professors was timed to avoid marring the Ohio Baptist institution’s accreditation process last year.

In the recording, Robert W. Milliman, Cedarville’s academic vice president, says that last spring’s review by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools’ Higher Learning Commission was a factor in the university’s decision to issue contracts to David Hoffeditz and David Mappes, two tenured professors in the biblical-studies department, for the 2007-8 academic year. The professors were subsequently given notice of termination by the university in early July, after the accreditation was completed.

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Posted in Administration

Capella University Overcharged Student Lenders $588,000, Audit Finds

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The Chronicle: Capella University Overcharged Student Lenders $588,000, Audit Finds

Washington — Capella University, an online, for-profit institution based in Minneapolis, could be asked by the U.S. Education Department to repay more than a half-million dollars in student-aid money.

The department’s inspector general has issued an audit in which it contends that the university overcharged lenders participating in the federal guaranteed-student-loan program, and the department itself, by a total of $588,000.

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Posted in Corporate University

Nevada: UNR professor’s conduct faulted

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Reno Gazette-Journal: UNR professor’s conduct faulted

A special hearing officer said Friday that University of Nevada, Reno professor Hussein S. Hussein did not plagiarize his students’ work, but that his conduct in dealing with research funds was negligent, unprofessional and dishonest.

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Posted in Faculty