Santa Cruz Sentinel: Berkeley scientists also targets by animal rights activists
Berkeley police detectives investigating a two-month string of animal rights-related vandalism targeting the homes of UC Berkeley scientists will begin probing possible connections to a spate of similar crimes in Santa Cruz, including last weekend’s attempted home invasion of a local biomedical researcher.
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Posted in Faculty
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 Tenure & Promotion
Fresno Bee: Fresno State files appeal of award in Johnson-Klein case
Fresno State is appealing the multimillion-dollar judgment from the Stacy Johnson-Klein gender-discrimination trial, but it’s far from certain whether both sides will tangle again in a courtroom.
In a one-paragraph notice filed Wednesday with Fresno County Superior Court, the university said it is appealing to the 5th District Court of Appeal a jury’s $19.1 million award to Johnson-Klein in December. Judge Donald S. Black later cut that amount to $6.6 million.
Fresno State also is appealing the reduced award and Black’s ruling on Feb. 8 to order a new trial only if Johnson-Klein chose not to accept it.
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Posted in Legal issues
Newsday: Cuomo widens probe of kickbacks tied to student loans
The state attorney general’s office has widened the scope of its investigation into conflicts of interest in higher education, expanding its probe of kickbacks in the student loan industry to a broad range of companies doing business on college campuses across the nation.
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Posted in Legal issues
Inside Higher Ed: Prisons vs. Colleges
For years now, educators have been warning that U.S. society might soon be spending more on prisons than colleges. In five states, that moment has arrived, according to a report released Thursday by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Those states are (in order of spending the most proportionally on prisons in 2007): Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware. The state spending the least on prisons relative to higher education was Minnesota, where for every dollar spent on higher education only 17 cents was spent on corrections. The average for all states was 60 cents, nearly double the 32 cents spent 20 years earlier. Only three states saw gains in spending on higher education, relative to corrections: Alabama, Nevada and Virginia
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Posted in Economics
The New Anatolian: University presidents call on YOK boss to quit on headscarf issue
The Interuniversity Council has called on the President of the Higher Education Board (YOK) Prof. Yusuf Ziya Ozcan to quit because of his attitude on the lifting of the headscarf ban at universities.
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Posted in International
San Francisco Chronicle: Agency rescinds New College’s accreditation
The accreditation for New College of California has been revoked, leaving the beleaguered San Francisco school with few options and signaling the likely end to the quirky institution.
College officials got official word Tuesday night from the school’s accrediting agency, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
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Posted in Academics
Nature: Lone Star vs Creationism
Editorial
Nature
February 28 200
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7182/full/4511030a.html
The battle against anti-scientific literalism continues.
Next stop Texas.
The creation-evolution debate in the United States is
ever-changing: any given week might bring good news for
science advocates in some states, but bad news in
others. At the moment, the good news is coming from
Florida, which on 19 February voted to adopt new science
standards that significantly strengthen the role of
evolution in the state’s biology curriculum (see page
1041.
But the next round of news will undoubtedly come from
Texas, where a state agency faces a decision whose
ramifications could resonate across the United States
for years to come. The Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board is considering an application by the
Institute for Creation Research (ICR) to grant online
master’s degrees in science education. And an advisory
panel to the board has recommended that Texas should
accept the application.
The ICR accepts the Bible as literal truth on all
topics. According to its website, the palaeoclimatology
class covers “climates before and after the Genesis
Flood”. Anatomy lab includes “limited discussion of
embryology and accompanying histology, specifically in
regards to evolutionary theory and its alternative – the
creation of fully functional major groups of animals”.
For most of its existence the ICR was ensconced in the
San Diego area, but in 2007 it relocated to Dallas, in
an apparent move to expand its national reach.
California may have been glad to see it go; the state
had been battling the ICR over accreditation since 1981,
when, under a sympathetic official, the institute first
got the go-ahead to offer degrees. But in Texas the ICR
must win approval from the state board to continue
setting up its graduate programmes before seeking
permanent accreditation.
The decision falls to the nine-member higher-education
board. It had been expected to vote on the issue in
January, but instead asked the ICR for more information
– about the research done by its faculty members, about
how an online course would teach experimental science,
and about why its curriculum is so different from other
degree-granting institutions in science education. A
vote is expected at the board’s 24 April meeting.
High-powered scientists in Texas are already weighing
in, asking board commissioner Raymund Paredes to deny
accreditation. And there are signs that the board is
listening. In a response to Nobel laureate Steven
Weinberg, Paredes wrote that “our primary criterion will
be how the proposed program will contribute to preparing
high school students to do rigorous science in higher
education”. One can only hope such rational approaches
will outweigh the primary ICR reaction, which has been
to send out a call for prayer.
Scientists in Texas and the rest of the country must
continue to make it clear to Paredes why the board
should deny accreditation to this organization. The ICR
has managed to con its way into the California
educational system for decades. Texas must not succumb
as well.
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Posted in Academics
BBC: Universities arms trade protest
The protesters want universities to ditch shares in arms companies
Students are set to take part in a day of protest against universities’ links to the arms trade on Wednesday.
Campaigners say anger is growing at universities’ investment in arms firms, as well as their research links.
Protesters will attempt to sell fake weapons at the quad at University College London, while at Lancaster there will be an open-air debate.
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Posted in Protests
The Guardian: Academics denounce courses tailored for businesses
Lecturers today condemned reports that the government is planning a major expansion of the role business plays in the delivery of degrees, warning it will lead to graduates being “churned out” of “identikit” institutions.
A leaked document, seen by the Financial Times, suggests that ministers are considering ploughing extra funding into degrees jointly designed and funded by employers.
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Posted in Academics
USA Today: Free college courses feed global hunger for learning
In 2002, when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology started making course content available free online, project organizers had no idea their site would become a favorite destination for science junkies across the globe.
They posted lecture outlines and other materials primarily as a resource for fellow educators. But a whopping 55% of the 750,000 monthly visitors come from the ranks of “independent learners” who simply want the knowledge that once required a student ID.
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Posted in Academics, Open access
The Chronicle: Video of Racial Degradation Roils South African Campus
Cape Town
A historically conservative, white Afrikaans-speaking campus in South Africa is in an uproar this week after a video circulated online of black, female cleaning-staff members being subjected to degrading treatment by four white male students.
The video comes at a time when the University of the Free State, in Bloemfontein, has been grappling with racial integration in student dormitories.
In the video, which appeared Tuesday, the students are shown preparing a concoction of what looks like dog food and garlic, then urinating into the mixture and serving it to the apparently unknowing women, who are kneeling on the ground, as part of an “initiation” rite. The video ends with one of the students commenting, in Afrikaans: “That, at the end of the day, is what we think of integration.”
The video had apparently been produced last year, in response to a new university policy requiring that all campus dormitories be racially mixed by January of this year. Previously, many of the dormitories had been effectively segregated, with white students gravitating to certain residences and black students to others, says Anton Fisher, director of communications at the university.
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Posted in Diversity, International
The Chronicle: Israeli Policies Prevent Gazans From Studying Abroad, Report Says
Palestinian students in Gaza are being denied the right to university study because of Israeli travel restrictions, according to a new report from a human-rights group in the territory.
The eight-page report, “Gaza Students Face Denial of International…
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Posted in International
Reuters: Turk party asks top court to block headscarf reform
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s main opposition party said on Wednesday it had asked the Constitutional Court to quash a government-backed reform aimed at easing a ban on women students wearing the Muslim headscarf at university.
The move by the staunchly secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) comes amid increased tensions between Turkey’s Islamist-rooted government and a powerful secular elite that says the reform will erode the separation of state and religion.
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Posted in International
AP: Teachers’ Strike Closes Schools in PR
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Many teachers in Puerto Rico ignored a call to strike Friday, but public schools across the island canceled classes anyway as students stayed home.
Less than a quarter of the U.S. territory’s 500,000 students reported for classes on the second day of the island-wide strike, according to Education Secretary Rafael Aragunde, who repeated his call for parents to continue sending their children to school.
The union representing Puerto Rico’s 42,000 teachers called the strike after a breakdown in negotiations over demands for higher salaries, smaller classes and more autonomy for individual schools.
But picket lines have faltered, with some teachers accusing union leadership of ordering a walkout prematurely and others expressing fear they could be fired under a Puerto Rican law forbidding the disruption of the public education system.
About 70 percent of the island’s teachers came to work Friday, Aragunde said.
Union chief Rafael Feliciano disputed the government’s count, saying that most teachers did not report for work and that many participated in demonstrations outside school buildings.
Public school teachers have been without a contract for more than two years in Puerto Rico, where the starting yearly base salary is $19,200 — lower than in any U.S. state.
The government has vowed not to resume contract talks until the strike ends.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Forbes.com: Puerto Rico Teachers Declare Strike
Puerto Rico’s teachers’ union said Wednesday it will go on strike after talks failed on new contract.
The strike, which begins Thursday, seeks improved conditions for the 42,000 public school teachers in the U.S. Caribbean territory, union chief Rafael Feliciano said. Contract talks have been stalled for two years over requests for higher pay, smaller classes and school repairs.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Canada’s Budget Includes Need-Based Grants, but No Increase for Student Aid
Canadian students, at long last, will get a federal need-based grant program next year. A new $350-million program, announced on Tuesday in the Conservative minority government’s latest budget, will replace Canada’s Millennium Scholarships program, which ends in 2009.
On the whole, however, the budget left higher-education officials with mixed feelings. While it includes money for some new programs, existing problems — such as more core funds for universities and colleges — were ignored.
Although there had been speculation in recent weeks that the opposition would reject the budget and thus trigger a spring election, that’s not going to happen. The opposition leader Stéphane Dion, although critical of the document, said his party would not vote against it.
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Posted in Economics
The Chronicle: In Rare Move, Professors at Michigan Technological U. Vote to Drop Their Union
Faculty members and administrators at Michigan Technological University are dealing with years’ worth of tension that flashed into public view last week when professors there voted out the union that had represented them for just over three years.
Both supporters and opponents of the union point to the closeness of the vote to decertify the American Association of University Professors as evidence of the rift. The final tally was 143 to 136, with 92 percent of the institution’s 313 tenured and tenure-track faculty members casting votes. The results of the vote must be certified by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission before they are official.
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Posted in Unions
Inside Higher Ed: Reconsidering Open Enrollment
Two historically black colleges that have long been open to any student who graduates high school or passes an equivalency test could be changing their admissions policies if their presidents get their way.
George T. French Jr., president of Miles College, in Alabama, has charged a task force with reviewing the institution’s open enrollment policy with the aim of “creating a more stringent, selective admissions process,” according to a statement from French.
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Posted in Academics
Wanted: Someone Who Knows Nothing About the Job
The New York Times: Wanted: Someone Who Knows Nothing About the Job
By Stanley Fish
In one of those ironies that make life interesting, the University of Colorado, which dismissed controversial professor Ward Churchill because of doubts about his academic qualifications, has appointed a president who doesn’t have any. (The final vote was taken on Feb. 20.)
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Posted in Administration, Commentary