Inside Higher Ed: Faculty Salaries Up 4%
The median increase in salaries for professors at four year colleges is 4 percent for the 2007-8 academic year, up from 38. percent the previous year and 3.4 percent the year before that. Those figures are being released today by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
Last year, the gains were larger at public institutions, but this year they are larger at private colleges and universities.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Toronto Star: Student faces Facebook consequences
Ryerson student Chris Avenir is facing expulsion for taking part in a Facebook study group for one of his engineering courses.
Study groups may be a virtual trademark of the Ivory Tower – but a virtual study group has been slammed as cheating by Ryerson University.
First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark.
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Posted in Students
The Boston Globe: MIT announces need-based financial aid plan
Nearly 30% will not have to pay tuition
Nearly 30 percent of MIT undergraduates will not pay tuition next academic year under a far-reaching financial aid initiative announced yesterday, the latest in a host of expanded need-based programs at elite colleges and universities.
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Posted in Students
San Francisco Chronicle: Pacifist Cal State teacher gets job back
A Cal State East Bay math teacher and practicing Quaker who was fired for refusing to sign a state-required loyalty oath got her job back this week, with an apology from the university and a clarification that the oath does not require employees to take up arms in violation of their religious beliefs.
“It’s the best possible outcome,” said Marianne Kearney-Brown, 50, a graduate student in mathematics who was teaching a remedial class for undergraduates. “My concerns have been addressed.”
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Posted in Employment rights
Clarion-Ledger: MSU president resigns
Foglesong decision abrupt, unexpected
President Doc Foglesong resigned abruptly Friday after less than two years on the job.
A retired four-star U.S. Air Force general, Foglesong came to the school in 2006 and had recently become the target of several passionate students and some faculty and alumni who blamed him for everything from removing daffodils on the campus to architecture students not being allowed to display projects in a window. He also had been questioned about his lack of attendance at faculty senate meetings.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Toronto Star: NO-SWEATSHOP ADVOCACY
York University students planned to camp outside the office of president Mamdouh Shoukri all weekend as they continue to protest the school’s delay in implementing a no-sweatshop policy.
Shoukri was unavailable to meet with the students yesterday, but will do so Monday afternoon, said York spokesperson Alex Bilyk.
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Posted in Protests
Law, Business, and Engineering Professors Are Found to Be Highest-Paid
Highest-Paid Professors Are in Law and Business
The average salary of college faculty members rose 4 percent this year, according to a survey released today by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
The average salary of college faculty members rose 4 percent this year, according to a survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
Law professors had, for the most part, the highest average pay, no matter what their status or where they worked. Full professors of law earned an average of $129,527 in 2007-8; associate professors earned $94,444, on average. Assistant professors of law earned an average of $79,684, a figure that was topped only by business professors at the same level, the survey found.
Law professors were the top earners as instructors, with an average salary of $63,174.
Other disciplines that commanded high salaries were engineering and business. Average salaries for full professors in those disciplines were $107,134 and $102,965, respectively.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Dear Friends and Colleagues –
I am pleased to announce that the How Class Works- 2008 conference program, on-line registration, housing and other information are now available on the conference pages of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
The How Class Works – 2008 conference will be at Stony Brook, Thursday – Saturday, June 5 – 7, 2008
Topics Include The color line in the 21st century and the legacy of Theodore W. Allen – single-payer health care – corporate practices in higher education – teaching class – white working class anger in the UK – lessons of the Charleston 5 – class and the legal system – class and religion – labor law and union strategy – plus many more in 54 sessions.
Speakers Confirmedinclude Sam Anderson, Catherine-Mercedes Brillantes Judge, Pedro Caban, Rose Ann DeMoro, Fuat Ercan, Claudia Fegan, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Tami Gold, Elizabeth Hoffman, Sara Jarayaman, Stathis Kouvelakis, Sherry Linkon, Meizhu Lui, Manning Marable, Jack Metzgar, Nelson Motto, Manny Ness, Bertell Ollman, Jeff Perry, Catherine Pouzoulet, Dave Roediger, Andrew Ross, John Russo, Vinny Tirelli, Michelle Tokarczyk, Richard Trumka, Joe Wilson
Plus over 180 presentations in working class studies from graduate students, faculty, union and community activists — from Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Turkey, UK, and US — plus film, music, photography, and poetry
See the conference program and register on-line. I look forward to welcoming you to Stony Brook in June.
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Posted in Events
The Chronicle News Blog: Venezuelan Government Eliminates Universities’ Entrance Examinations
Bogotá, Colombia — Venezuelan public universities’ individual entrance examinations will be eliminated, the government’s National University Council decided on Thursday night against the wishes of many at the nation’s leading colleges.
University officials and student leaders have said that eliminating the tests will lower academic quality and admit far more students than the universities can handle. For their part, government officials argue that the universities’ entrance exams discriminate against lower-income students, who come from public high schools and generally receive poorer educations than wealthier students who attend private high schools.
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Posted in International
The Chronicle News Blog: Spitzer Pushes $4-Billion Endowment Plan for New York’s Public Universities
The campaign for the creation of a $4-billion endowment for New York’s public-university systems is building steam. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, touted the plan today during a conference call with presidents and trustees from the State University of New York and City University of New York systems.
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Posted in Government
The Chronicle News Blog: No Collective Bargaining This Year for Maryland TA’s and Adjuncts
Graduate teaching assistants and adjunct professors at Maryland’s public universities will have to try again next year to get state lawmakers to back collective-bargaining rights for them.
Legislation that would have allowed the TA’s and adjuncts to negotiate their pay, benefits, and teaching workloads has failed in the Maryland General Assembly, The Washington Post reported today.
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Posted in Organizing
Seattle Times: Woman found guilty of arson in 2001 University of Washington fire
U.S. attorneys say five people participated in the 2001 arson at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture:
Briana Waters: Oakland, Calif., served as a lookout and helped rent a car for the team that set the fire. She was found guilty Thursday of two counts of arson, but jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict for three other counts. She faces at least five years in prison for each arson count.
Lacey Phillabaum: Spokane, pleaded guilty to participating in the arson in exchange for assisting in the prosecution of others involved, including Waters. She faces a prison sentence of three to five years.
Jennifer Kolar: Seattle, admitted she used a knife to cut glass so others could get into an office at the horticulture center. She also assisted the government’s prosecution and faces a sentence of five to seven years in prison.
Bill Rodgers: Considered to be one of the top organizers of the Earth Liberation Front who allegedly help set the firebombs inside the horticulture center. Rodgers, a bookstore operator in Prescott, Ariz., was taken into federal custody in December 2005, but later committed suicide in an Arizona jail.
Justin Solondz: Once lived on the Olympic Peninsula, allegedly helped assemble the fire bombs in an Olympia garage and joined Rodgers in setting the devices inside the horticulture center. Solondz is now a fugitive.
TACOMA — A 32-year-old violin teacher from California was found guilty this morning of two counts of arson for the 2001 fire at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: U. of Texas at Austin to Form Partnership With Saudi University
The University of Texas at Austin is the latest American institution to sign an agreement to help King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the ambitious $10-billion research institution that Saudi Arabia plans to open in 2009, design an academic curriculum and hire faculty members.
The two universities announced today a research-and-educational partnership in computational earth science and engineering.
The Texas agreement followed the Saudi institution’s similar deals, made public on Tuesday, with Stanford University and with the University of California at Berkeley. Under the arrangements, each American university will receive $10-million to conduct joint research projects with Kaust, as the Saudi institution is known, as well as another $10-million to pursue projects of its own choosing.
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Posted in Corporate University
AAUP: North Central State Faculty Elect AAUP Chapter as Collective Bargaining Representative
At the conclusion of two days of balloting (March 4 and 5), the faculty of North Central State College have elected North Central State College Faculty Association (NCSFA-AAUP) as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining. NCSFA-AAUP is a chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), an organization of more than 45,000 members at colleges and universities across the country.
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Posted in Unions
AFT: Illinois Adjuncts Vote to Join Union
Adjunct faculty at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Ill. are the latest educators to slow their treadmill lives, consider what the union could do for them and vote for representation by the Lincoln Land Community College Faculty Association/AFT. The vote, counted on Feb. 22, was 66 to join the pre-existing full-time faculty Illinois Federation of Teachers local, 43 for the Illinois Education Association and 14 for no representation.
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Posted in Unions
Inside Higher Ed: An Expensive Expulsion
The Kentucky Fairness Alliance is a group that focuses on gay rights, and it hasn’t historically been a player in issues of church and state. But when the University of the Cumberlands in 2006 expelled a student for being gay, and the Kentucky General Assembly shortly thereafter appropriated $10 million to the university to create a pharmacy school at the Baptist university, the alliance took note.
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Posted in Government
Inside Higher Ed: Who Gets How Much Money and Where It Goes
Sure, public universities generally make their annual budgets available. But how much did the chemistry department spend on copying at Kinko’s – yesterday?
At Oregon State University, that kind of detailed information on financial transactions is accessible online, albeit only to those connected to computers on the campus. “It’s pretty basic, but it is very transparent. Everybody in the institution can see everything that goes on everywhere,” says Mark McCambridge, vice president for finance and administration at Oregon State.
“There’s always this mystery — ‘The vice president is holding back money,’ or ‘This person got more money than I did’.… There’s always that mystery that surrounds the budget, and in our case it isn’t there.”
On Oregon State’s budget reporting Web site, users can track expenditures, transaction by transaction, by clicking through the various budget lines in an academic department or administrative office, from the president’s on down. As shown in a demonstration of the system, accessible here, users dissecting the biology department’s budget can check out expenditures under “lab supplies” and see, for instance, $49.15 spent at WARD’S Natural Science one day, and $115.47 spent at PETCO three days earlier.
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Posted in Economics
Inside Higher Ed: Pushing for Job Conversions
In the campaign to deal with the shift of faculty positions from full-time to part-time, what counts as a victory? Better wages and benefits for adjuncts? More job security? Collective bargaining? Or the job security that comes with a tenure-track position?
In recent years, adjuncts have won notable successes on a variety of fronts, particularly through unions — although the most notable advances have helped but a small fraction of those off the tenure track. In Washington State, a national union-backed effort may be about to achieve legislation that specifically goes after “conversion” — taking part-time jobs and turning them into full-time positions, with tenure eligibility.
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Posted in Contingent labor
allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Universities Need 60,000 Lecturers for Effectiveness- ASUU
Vanguard (Lagos)
It has been observed that Nigerian universities require no fewer than 60,000 lecturers for effectiveness. Making the observation in Sokoto, National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Dr Abdullahi Sule-Kano said the present number which is less than 16,000 was grossly inadequate and needs government consideration.
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Posted in International
The Arizona Republic: State universities to arm police with assault rifles
Police departments at Arizona’s three universities plan to arm their officers with military-style assault rifles within the next year, officials said Tuesday.
The new rifles would give campus police officers long-range shooting capabilities, allowing them to hit targets at the end of long hallways or atop tall buildings, officials said.
Arizona State University will be the first of the three schools to use the weapons. Officers there will be trained to use the rifles in the next few months, said ASU police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina.
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Posted in Campus Life
