California: Students, UC regents protest proposed cuts

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Los Angeles Times: Students, UC regents protest proposed cuts

The prospect of a sharp reduction in state revenues for higher education triggered protests from students and anxiety among faculty and administrators at Thursday’s meeting of the UC Board of Regents.

The 10-campus UC system, which enrolls about 220,000 students, could face hikes in student fees, limits on enrollment and a salary freeze under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cope with the state’s budget gap. Decisions on such actions will be made in the upcoming months even as educators lobby in Sacramento for extra revenue.

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Posted in Protests

New York: Which Rising Star Will Be ‘Next Randi Weingarten’?

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New York Sun: Which Rising Star Will Be ‘Next Randi Weingarten’?

With the United Federation of Teachers’ president seemingly moving toward leaving New York and becoming a national labor leader, a strange realization is settling over Randi Weingarten’s union: Life after the towering leader may not be so far off, and there is no heir apparent to fill her shoes.

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Posted in Unions

Jury Orders U. of Phoenix Parent to Pay $277 Million

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Inside Higher Ed: Jury Orders U. of Phoenix Parent to Pay $277 Million

With a major lawsuit challenging its admissions practices looming on the horizon, the Apollo Group — parent of the University of Phoenix — took a beating in another legal proceeding Wednesday.

A federal jury in Arizona ordered Apollo to pay an estimated $277.5 million to shareholders who sued the higher education company and two former executives in 2004 for securities fraud. The lawsuit alleged that company officials withheld a harshly critical U.S. Education Department report in February 2004 that accused Apollo of violating a federal prohibition against paying recruiters based on the number of students they enrolled. The company did not disclose the report in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings or in calls with analysts or reporters for months.

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Posted in Corporate University, Legal issues

O’Keefe ends 3-year stint as head of LSU

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Times Picayune: O’Keefe ends 3-year stint as head of LSU

Louisiana State University Chancellor Sean O’Keefe announced his resignation Wednesday, ending his three-year tenure with the suggestion that he no longer had the support of LSU System President John Lombardi and key members of the system’s governing board.

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Posted in Administration

Protests scrap pope’s visit to Rome university

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The Washington Times: Protests scrap pope’s visit to Rome university

Students walked past a banner decrying the planned address by Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican´s positions on scientific issues yesterday at the University of Rome La Sapienza.

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI yesterday abruptly canceled a visit to Rome”s leading university in the face of security fears because of vociferous opposition to the trip from physics professors and undergraduates who accuse the pontiff of opposing free scientific inquiry.

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Posted in Free speech, Protests

Creationists delay bid for master’s degrees

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Express-News: Creationists delay bid for master’s degrees

A creation science group hoping to offer master’s degrees in Texas has postponed its application to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research wants state approval to grant online master’s degrees in science education to prepare teachers to “understand the universe within the integrating framework of biblical creationism,” according to the school’s mission statement.

Last month, a panel of educators recommended its approval to the Coordinating Board, drawing fire from supporters of teaching evolution.

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Posted in Academics

NYU Under the Influence

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NYU Under the Influence

New York Sun Editorial

Let us resist, in respect of the arrest in New Hampshire of one of Senator Clinton’s campaign aides, Sidney Blumenthal, for drunken driving, the urge to attack him the way Democrats attacked George W. Bush for his 1976 DUI, which was disclosed in the final days of the 2000 presidential campaign. No, what struck us about the news was the affiliation some of the press coverage listed for Mr. Blumenthal — New York University. It turns out, according to the NYU Web site, that Mr. Blumenthal is a “research fellow” at the “Center on Law and Security” of NYU law school, a center that describes itself as “committed to promoting an informed understanding of the legal and security issues defining the post 9/11 era.”

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Posted in Commentary

A Growing College Rivalry: The Fight for Faculty Star

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The Washington Post: A Growing College Rivalry: The Fight for Faculty Star

George Mason University officials could not shout loud enough when economist Vernon L. Smith won the Nobel Prize in 2002. Smith’s recruitment a year earlier had shone a welcome light on the school, and the award was a crowning bonus.

Today, GMU is quiet, as Smith has slipped away for a job in California, lured by the same administrator who brought him to GMU.

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Posted in Faculty

Washington: Mars Hill Graduate School to pay $300,000 judgment

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Seattle Post Intelligencer: Mars Hill Graduate School to pay $300,000 judgment

Mars Hill Graduate School of Seattle was ordered as part of a settlement this week to pay a $300,000 judgment to its first female faculty member in a case involving allegations of harassment and discrimination.

The judgment, ordered in Snohomish County Superior Court, was awarded to Heather Parkinson-Webb, who was also one of the seven founders of the Christian-based school. In addition, the court ordered the school to provide her with a letter expressing its sadness at her departure and regret that “a great deal of misunderstanding” surrounded her departure. The school is also required to continue to provide diversity and anti-discrimination training for all its employees for at least three more years.

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Posted in Legal issues

American Council on Education Names Molly Broad as President

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The Chronicle News Blog: American Council on Education Names Molly Broad as President

Molly Corbett Broad, who orchestrated sweeping changes to the tradition-bound University of North Carolina system during her recent nine-year tenure there, was named president of the American Council on Education on Tuesday.

Ms. Broad, who will succeed David Ward on May 1, will be the first woman to lead the nation’s top higher-education group since it was founded in 1918.

An economist by training, Ms. Broad is known as a modernizer who isn’t afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and ruffle some feathers. While serving as the University of North Carolina system president from 1997 to 2006, she touched the third rails of higher-education—affirmative action and tuition pricing—and came out on top.

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Posted in Administration

Sean O’Keefe Steps Down as Louisiana State U. Chancellor

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The Chronicle News Blog: Sean O’Keefe Steps Down as Louisiana State U. Chancellor

Sean O’Keefe, chancellor of Louisiana State University’s flagship campus in Baton Rouge, announced today he would resign, effective February 1, after three years on the job.

Mr. O’Keefe, a former administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was rumored to have clashed with some members of the university system’s Board of Supervisors and with the system’s president, John V. Lombardi, who took office in September. William L. Jenkins, Mr. Lombardi’s predecessor, will serve as interim chancellor until a permanent hire is made.

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Posted in Administration

College of Santa Fe Trying To Solve Financial Woes

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ABQJournal.com: College of Santa Fe Trying To Solve Financial Woes

he College of Santa Fe board plans to discuss a move that would allow more faculty to be fired in an effort to cut costs at the school, which has been struggling with budget deficits for several years.

The board is to meet Jan. 25 to consider filing for financial exigency — the equivalent of bankruptcy, college President Stuart Kirk said. Exigency would allow administrators to take whatever steps are necessary to fix the school’s financial woes.

College administrators have been restructuring curriculum and trimming spending.

The school already offered severance packages to 13 faculty members, and said all but two have accepted the offer. Those two qualify for retirement and are considering their options, said Marcia Sullivan, vice president of administration and communication.

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Posted in Faculty

Pope Cancels University Visit in Wake of Protests

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The Chronicle New Blog: Pope Cancels University Visit in Wake of Protests

Rome — Pope Benedict XVI, who got a firsthand look at sometimes-violent student activism as a German university professor in the late 1960s, evidently has no wish to repeat the experience.

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Posted in Faculty

Good Prospects Don’t Equal Confidence for History Job Seekers

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The Chronicle: Good Prospects Don’t Equal Confidence for History Job Seekers

Babette Faehmel, a graduate student in history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is finishing up her dissertation and trying to find a job at the same time.

So she made her way to the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in Washington this month, where hundreds of people were interviewing for jobs, or wishing they were.

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Posted in Students

College Football Players Spend 44.8 Hours a Week on Their Sport, NCAA Survey Finds

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The Chronicle: College Football Players Spend 44.8 Hours a Week on Their Sport, NCAA Survey Finds

Playing major-college football is a full-time job, according to new research presented here on Saturday during the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s annual convention.

In a 2006 NCAA survey of 21,000 athletes who were then playing in a variety of men’s and women’s sports, football players reported spending 44.8 hours a week practicing, playing, or training for their sport. That’s on top of the time players spend in the classroom.

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Posted in Students

TSU regents pick Rudley as new president

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Houston Chronicle: TSU regents pick Rudley as new president

Texas Southern University all but ended a 19-month search for a new president Friday, turning to a familiar face and known problem solver to rehabilitate the proud but chronically troubled school.

Regents voted 9-0 to name John Rudley, the University of Houston’s interim president, as the sole finalist for the top job at Texas’ largest historically black university. State law requires the governing board to wait 21 days before finalizing the appointment.

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Posted in Administration

352 employees have money coming from Florida A&M

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AP: 352 employees have money coming from Florida A&M

Embattled Florida A&M University will have to pay back wages totaling nearly $273,000 to 352 employees for violating overtime provisions and record-keeping requirements, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday.

Federal investigators found the university failed to accurately calculate the hours when employees worked in different departments or jobs during a work week, which resulted in some not receiving overtime when the number exceeded 40 hours.

It was also found that employees were awarded compensatory time on an hourly basis instead of the required time-and-a-half provision and were allowed to accrue more than the 240-hour compensatory time limit for a single year.

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Posted in Faculty, Salary/Economic Benefits

Avoiding scientists’ protests, pope cancels university speech

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AFP: Avoiding scientists’ protests, pope cancels university speech

ROME (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday cancelled a speech at Rome’s La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit by the head of the Catholic Church to a secular setting.

“Following the well-noted controversy of recent days … it was considered appropriate to postpone the event,” which had been set for Thursday, a Vatican communique said, in the first such cancellation in the face of hostility since the pope’s election in April 2005.

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Posted in Faculty, Free speech, Protests

Democratic Candidates Back Military Recruiters

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Inside Higher Ed: Democratic Candidates Back Military Recruiters

The three major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination all pledged in a debate in Nevada Tuesday night that they would enforce vigorously a law — unpopular on many campuses — that requires institutions receiving federal funds to permit military recruiters on campus. The question was raised by Tim Russert, the journalist, not by the candidates themselves. Hillary Clinton answered “Yes” and then devoted her answer to the need to provide better benefits to people in the military. Asked in a follow-up specifically whether many of the leading universities without ROTC programs should have them, Clinton noted that many of these universities allow students to participate in ROTC through programs in the area, but added that these universities “should certainly not do anything that either undermines or disrespects the young men and women who wish to pursue a military career.” Barack Obama and John Edwards also answered “Yes” to Russert’s question and talked about other things — Obama about how he wants more Americans in national service, including positions requiring foreign language knowledge that could help the military and Edwards about poor medical care veterans are receiving and low pay for reservists. None of the candidates (nor Russert’s questions to them) noted the reason many colleges oppose the law — that the colleges have policies barring recruiters who discriminate against gay people — or the fact that following a Supreme Court ruling upholding the law, colleges have said they will follow the law. In addition, the Democrats didn’t note that they’ve all endorsed changing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that colleges view as a violation of their anti-bias policies. A transcript of the debate may be found on the Web site of The New York Times.

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Posted in Government

Protest ahead of Pope’s lecture at Rome university

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Reuters: Protest ahead of Pope’s lecture at Rome university

VATICAN CITY, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Some professors and students are protesting against plans for Pope Benedict to address Rome’s most prestigious university, saying a speech he made nearly two decades ago showed he had reactionary views on science.

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Posted in Faculty, Protests