North Carolina: Faculty job cuts followed retreat at luxury inn

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Charlotte Observer: School job cuts followed retreat at luxury inn
RCCC trustees spent weekend at Biltmore

Before Rowan-Cabarrus Community College cut its faculty to help make up a $600,000 budget shortfall, its trustees spent nearly $16,000 on a retreat at Asheville’s posh Inn on Biltmore Estate.

That was 60 percent more than the much larger Central Piedmont Community College spent on its retreat last year. And it was mostly public money.

The state paid $11,018 toward the RCCC retreat last April. Rowan and Cabarrus counties chipped in $2,803 for meal costs beyond what the state paid, college officials said. The college’s foundation paid the nearly $2,000 tab for spouses’ meals.

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Posted in Contingent labor

Nearly half of PhDs in Canada are immigrants: census

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The Globe and Mail: Nearly half of PhDs in Canada are immigrants: census

Newcomers to Canada are accounting for an increasing proportion of the population with university and advanced degrees, new census numbers show.

The new numbers, released Tuesday by Statistics Canada, show that about one-third of the population born outside Canada hold a university degree, compared with about one-quarter of the general working aged population. The numbers also show a huge jump in qualifications of the newest arrivals with more than half of those who came to Canada between 2001 and 2006 holding a university degree.

Immigrants also account for close to half – 49 per cent – of all those in Canada who hold a PhD and 40 per cent of those who have a masters.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Kentucky: Settlement In University Board Case Announced

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Kentucky Post: Settlement In University Board Case Announced

Gov. Steve Beshear and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway announced Tuesday, a settlement agreement that will resolve litigation filed by former Attorney General Greg Stumbo against former Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

“I am pleased the matter has been resolved without further litigation or detraction from the work of the universities,” said Beshear. “This settlement allows the universities to move forward in such a way that will not be disruptive, while bringing proper balance and perspective to the boards.”

Beshear and Conway have agreed that former Fletcher illegally and improperly appointed a disproportionate number of members of one political party to the boards of the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and five of the state’s six regional universities.

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Posted in Ethics

Spring Forward, Fall Back (and Take a Nap)

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The Chronicle: Spring Forward, Fall Back (and Take a Nap)

As daylight saving time returns next week and robs us of an hour’s sleep, weary academics may be tempted to lie down for a nap.

Those who succumb are likely to snooze on the sly.

Sure, “power napping” enjoyed a brief vogue in the 1990s, but in America’s time-is-money culture naps never really stood a chance against caffeine as a socially acceptable way to recharge. And while academe has its own rhythms, few faculty members are willing to admit to daytime dozing.

“It could feed into certain stereotypes about professors,” says Chon A. Noriega, a professor of cinema and media studies and director of the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California at Los Angeles.

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Posted in Working conditions

Florida Legislature May Dismantle University System’s Governing Board

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The Chronicle: Florida Legislature May Dismantle University System’s Governing Board

A battle in Florida over the financing of public higher education is escalating, as state lawmakers are pushing legislation that would sharply curtail the authority of the university system’s governing board.

In an effort to counter a series of state budget cuts for Florida’s 11 public universities, the Board of Governors recently sought to reduce the system’s enrollment while increasing tuition. But that maneuver irked state lawmakers, who have proposed a constitutional amendment to diminish the board’s size and power.

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Posted in Governance

Berkeley and Stanford Sign Deals With New Saudi University, Despite Some Professors’ Misgivings

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The Chronicle: Berkeley and Stanford Sign Deals With New Saudi University, Despite Some Professors’ Misgivings

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, the ambitious $10-billion research institution that Saudi Arabia plans to open in 2009, announced on Tuesday that it had signed agreements with Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley to help it design an academic curriculum and hire faculty members.

Inside Higher Ed: From Bay Area to Red Sea

Two prominent California universities announced lucrative five-year contracts Tuesday to recruit faculty for and undertake collaborative research with an as-yet unopened Saudi Arabian university.

The University of California at Berkeley is set to receive $28 million and Stanford University $25 million under the five-year agreements with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a graduate research university on the Red Sea expected to open in fall 2009 with a multi-billion dollar endowment.

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Posted in Corporate University

Tennessee Students Left Stranded After For-Profit College Closes Suddenly

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The Tennessean: Career college closes suddenly

Decision made months ago, but students kept in dark

Samara Gidcomb, 27, a single mother in Ashland City, was taking classes to earn her paralegal diploma.

She and other students arrived at Tennessee Career College in Donelson on Monday, the first day after a monthlong break, to find out the school was closed.

“It was a very, very devastating day for all of us,” Gidcomb said.

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Posted in Corporate University

California State University system to amend conduct code

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Mercury News: California State University system to amend conduct code

SAN FRANCISCO—The California State University system has agreed to amend its student conduct code to settle a lawsuit by a conservative Christian legal group that argued that its written expectation that students be “civil” was vague and violated students’ rights.

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Posted in Legal issues

Newly Tenured — at Age 68

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Inside Higher Ed: Newly Tenured — at Age 68

Once while in her 20s, Victoria Lichterman got two job offers within a week. One was full-time assistant professor status at Brooklyn College, where she then taught speech and theater. The other was a principal part in a television soap.

Being young, she turned down Brooklyn’s offer and, for just a matter of months before a change in producers, portrayed Dorothy Royce in Search for Tomorrow. “I’ve done a lot of acting in my life, a lot of acting, so trying to remember what this character did is not right on the top of my head. But I know that she ran a personnel office and, through that office, ruined people’s lives,” says Lichterman — who, of late, and much later in her own life, at last returned to academe.

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Posted in Faculty

Georgia: Sexual harassment allegations don’t hinder professor’s career

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Red and Black: Sexual harassment allegations don’t hinder professor’s career
Former professor at University of Texas San Antonio

A former University professor resigned and obtained a new job in academia before his sexual harassment investigation was completed.

Anthropology professor Benjamin G. Blount left the University in May 2004 and immediately began working as a professor at the University of Texas San Antonio.

Blount continues to teach there today, said James McDonald, the University of Texas San Antonio’s associate vice provost.

Timeline of Events in the Blount case
1991: A graduate student accused Blount of trying to kiss her. The complaint was dropped.

1996: Four students made sexual harassment allegations against Blount. All four students dropped their complaints.

2003: An undergraduate student accused Blount of touching her inappropriately. He was found in violation of the policy. The University issued him a letter of reprimand, told him to take a sexual harassment class and eliminate interactions with undergraduates.

2003: A female professor issued a sexual harassment complaint against Blount.

2004: Blount resigned before the Office of Legal Affairs completed the investigation. All parties involved in the investigation agreed not to
discuss it.

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Posted in Faculty

UK: ‘University challenge’ for 20 new campuses

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The Times: ‘University challenge’ for 20 new campuses

Twenty new university campuses serving 10,000 students are to be built in England over the next six years in a drive to ensure that no region is left without access to higher education.

John Denham, the Universities Secretary, will today invite local authorities and regional development agencies to enter a “university challenge” to bid for funding for a campus or college in their area.

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Posted in Academics

North Carolina: N.C. alone in college hiring secrecy

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Fayetteville Observer: N.C. alone in college hiring secrecy

North Carolina is the only state in the nation that selects the top leaders of all its public universities in secret.

In 49 other states, the names of the finalists for university president or chancellor positions are made public, a Fayetteville Observer study shows. Six states release the names of all applicants.

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Posted in Administration

Protests Heat Up at Michigan Over Tenure Case of Expert in Native American Studies

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The Chronicle News Blog: Protests Heat Up at Michigan Over Tenure Case of Expert in Native American Studies

Students and faculty members at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have started an e-mail campaign to protest negative decisions in the tenure bid of Andrea L. Smith, who is interim director of the campus’s program in Native American studies.

Ms. Smith is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in Michigan’s American-culture program and women’s-studies department. The two programs split on her tenure bid, with American culture voting yes and women’s studies voting no. Then, last week, a panel in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts sided with women’s studies and voted to reject Ms. Smith’s bid. The decision now goes to the provost, Teresa A. Sullivan.

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Posted in Protests, Tenure & Promotion

Cal State U fires Quaker instructor for refusing to sign loyalty oath

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Inside Higher Ed: A Loyalty Oath Firing in 2008

Many people think of loyalty oaths as relics of the McCarthy era, long ago outlawed or abandoned. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has banned only certain kinds of loyalty oaths, permitting others. Last week, a mathematics instructor at California State University East Bay lost her job for refusing to sign one.

Marianne Kearney-Brown, who is also a graduate student at East Bay, tried to add a word to the state’s Oath of Allegiance so that it would conform with her Quaker beliefs. The university offered her the chance to add a statement with her views, but insisted that she sign the oath, unaltered, and said that it had no choice but to fire her when she refused. A statement from the university said that if she changes her mind, East Bay would rehire her.

California’s oath for state employees states: “I, ____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”

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Posted in Free speech

This Course Brought to You By….

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Inside Higher Ed: This Course Brought to You By….

It’s standard practice these days for colleges to depend on corporate philanthropy to see campus buildings or endowed chairs with company names. But are there lines that shouldn’t be crossed? At the University of Iowa last year, professors objected to a plan to name the School of Public Health after a company.

What about a course? Can it be “sponsored”? If so, what should that mean?

At Hunter College of the City University of New York, some professors are asking those questions — and a Faculty Senate committee is considering a formal complaint about violations of academic freedom — over a course sponsored last year by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition (known as the IACC), an organization of companies that are concerned about low-cost knockoffs of their products. The companies involved include some of the biggest names in fashion and consumer goods — Abercrombie & Fitch, Chanel, Coach, Harley-Davidson, Levi Strauss, Reebok and so forth.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Corporate University

U. of California, a Systemic Governance Crisis

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Inside Higher Ed: At U. of California, a Systemic Governance Crisis

For decades, the University of California has been held out as a model of how governance can and should work at a major university, with clearly delineated roles for the systemwide governing board, central administration, campus chancellors and faculty members.

How far the mighty have fallen.

The well-publicized compensation scandal that badly embarrassed the 10-campus California system in 2006 revealed one aspect of the university’s governance dysfunction, but masked a larger and potentially more damaging one. The full extent of UC’s trouble was laid bare last month in two highly critical reports from the university’s accreditors and in interviews with more than a dozen current and former university administrators, faculty members, and others close to the institution.

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Posted in Governance

UK: Plans for 20 new university towns

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The Guardian: Plans for 20 new university towns

Campuses are to be set up over the next six years at a cost of £150m, with many located in areas suffering high levels of unemployment

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Posted in International

Pensylvania: Student group pushes for right to carry concealed weapons on campus

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The Philadelphia Inquirer: Student group pushes for right to carry concealed weapons on campus

Along with books, laptop and cell phone, there is something else that Jeremy Clark thinks is essential to bring to class: his gun.

The Villanova University law student said the sickening spate of campus shootings, from Virginia Tech to Northern Illinois University, left him feeling vulnerable without his Glock 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

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Posted in Campus Life, Crime, Violence

Arizona: Point-counterpoint on guns in schools legislation

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The Arizona Republic: Point-counterpoint on guns in schools legislation
Legislators square off on measure to allow guns on Arizona campuses

Guns in schools. The words alone stoke emotion, conjuring images from a string of recent school shootings, including the most recent on Valentine’s Day that left six students dead – including the assailant – at Northern Illinois University.

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Posted in Campus Life

Vote may end Cambridge’s self-rule

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The Guardian: Vote may end Cambridge’s self-rule

A vote today could end Cambridge University’s centuries-old tradition of academic self-rule, lecturers have warned.

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Posted in International