Are Museums Academic Units?

Inside Higher Ed: Are Museums Academic Units?

You’d never see an English department chair reporting to the vice president for advancement instead of to deans and provosts. University of Oregon professors want to know why that principle doesn’t apply to the art museum.

This summer, Oregon’s president took the uncommon if not unheard-of step of deciding that the director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, who has historically reported to the provost, would report to the advancement office instead — prompting faculty opposition that took the form of a University Senate resolution Wednesday. More broadly, the shift in structure underscores a question that’s been raised as a number of college leaders have raided their art museums to raise funds in recent years: To what degree is a college art museum considered central to an academic mission, and to what extent is it seen primarily as a financial asset?

Few Policies on Plagiarism

Inside Higher Ed: Few Policies on Plagiarism

In 2003, the American Historical Association got out of the business of adjudicating complaints of plagiarism, saying that the association could best promote good scholarship by issuing standards and promoting education about them. Journals, other publishers and colleges and universities are better suited than an association to consider plagiarism complaints, the AHA said, and they all have various sanctions they can impose.

Ontario: Outspoken academic wins fight with York

Toronto Star: Outspoken academic wins fight with York

Round One goes to the teacher in the ongoing dispute between York University and its rabble-rousing professor David Noble.

A labour arbitrator has ruled York violated Noble’s academic freedom by issuing a 2004 press release criticizing a controversial pamphlet he penned and ordered the university to pay Noble $2,500 in damages. It must also withdraw the press release from its website.

While Noble failed to win an apology from York for the press release and was awarded a mere sliver of the $10 million in damages he was seeking, the history professor calls the ruling “a major victory for academic freedom.”

North Dakota: Troubled history

The Forum: Troubled history

A handful of faculty at North Dakota State University question whether one of their colleagues is truly distinguished.

Four faculty members have protested to administrators about history professor Tom Isern receiving the distinguished professor award, a new NDSU initiative that honors top faculty with a $20,000 raise and prestigious title.

Meeting in Canada, Middle East Scholars’ Group Worries About Academic Freedom

The Chronicle: Meeting in Canada, Middle East Scholars’ Group Worries About Academic Freedom

Concerns over academic freedom loomed large over the scholarly presentations here at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, a group whose members sometimes confess to feeling as besieged as they do blessed by the contemporary preoccupation with their region of study.

Mapping Out the Interrogation of Ghazi Falah

The Chronicle: Mapping Out the Interrogation of Ghazi Falah

One of the few scholars who has experienced firsthand the interviewing techniques used by a modern, sophisticated intelligence agency describes how detainees’ reason is clouded and their wills are broken.:

In the annals of interrogation, one primary source serves again and again to describe the experience of forced sleep deprivation.

“In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep,” the account says. “Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.”

An Arrest on the Border

The Chronicle: An Arrest on the Border

The geographer Ghazi Falah was caught between Israel and the Arab world

Ghazi-Walid Falah was not worried when Israeli security agents stopped his car on a narrow mountain road near the Lebanese border, just before sundown on July 8, 2006.

When they discover who I am, he assured himself, they will…

Call for papers: Theory into Action

Theory in Action, the Journal of the Transformative Studies Institute is soliciting papers for our issue on “Theory, Social Justice, & Direct Action” Submissions are due December 31, 2007.

INAUGURAL VOLUME ON THEORY, SOCIAL JUSTICE, & DIRECT ACTION

While there have been many theoretical analyses of such aspects of social justice as stratification and inequality, and civil rights, there is a need for more research that connects activism with theory. We believe that theory without action and action without theoretical grounding are inherently flawed. To change the world, activists and scholars need to collaborate in order to inform one other’s work. To this end, we especially seek papers in which theoretical analysis fosters societal change or in which practical experience guides theoretical research.

Theory in Action invites U.S. and international submissions of well-researched and thought-provoking papers from various disciplines, including sociology, political science, psychology, art, philosophy, history, and literature. We welcome works by activists, independent scholars, graduate students, and faculty. We accept both theoretical and empirical papers by scholar-activists. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

* Novel Means of Resistance
* Direct Political Action
* Environment, Space, Social Justice, & Direct Action
* Direct Action for Social Justice
* Labor / Civil Rights & Direct Action
* Globalization
* Sex & Gender
* Activism, Academia, & Scholarship
* Activism & Resistance through the Arts
* The Media & its Relationship to Societal Justice and Change
* Non-violence vs. Active Self Defense and its Effectiveness
* Historical Analysis
* The Psychology of Transformative Learning & its Relationship to Action

Theory in Action is an international peer reviewed journal.

Submissions are due December 31, 2007.
Guidelines for submission are online at: http://transformativestudies.org.htm
Submissions should be sent using our on-line form found in the ‘submissions’ menu.

At Risk: BC’s Vital Foreign Student Industry

The Tyee: At Risk: BC’s Vital Foreign Student Industry

They spend $500 million a year here. Will they still?

Most of us don’t realize it, but one of B.C.’s most important exports is knowledge.

We don’t load it onto freighters or trucks. We load it into the heads of about 28,000 foreign students every year, who then take it back home to China or Korea or the U.S. Doing so is making us a fortune.

Our export industries are alarmed by the rise of the Canadian dollar. God knows what’s going to happen to the Vancouver film business, now that its members have to be paid in loonies costing more than U.S. greenbacks. American tourists, already discouraged by the need for a passport if they want to get back into the U.S., are likely to stay south of the border.

The Rouge Forum: CFP and Conference Info

The Rouge Forum 2008 conference will be held March 13-16 at Bellarmine Universitiy in Louisville, KY.

For more information and to submit a proposal or register for the conference visit the conference website.

Strike saved Acadia $1 million in payroll costs, union says

The Chronicle Herald: Strike saved Acadia $1 million in payroll costs, union says

Acadia University faculty lost over $1 million in salary during their three-week strike, and the school may put the money toward a credit for students in the second semester.

The strike cost the 314 professors, instructors and librarians $57,000 a day, or almost $1.2 million, spokesman Andrew Biro of the Acadia University Faculty Association said Friday.

Nova Scotia: Acadia, professors to vote on tentative deal

The Chronicle Herald: Acadia, professors to vote on tentative deal

Acadia University and its faculty union have reached a tentative deal in their contract dispute that has already cost students three weeks of class time.

No details have been released yet pending ratification of the deal by Acadia’s board of governors and the 300 members of the Acadia University Faculty Association. The union will meet today to review the proposal and vote.

Israel: Faculty strike enters fourth week amid mutual recriminations

Haaretz: Faculty strike enters fourth week amid mutual recriminations

Scientific researchers at universities have been bitter for years over the decline in the quality of infrastructure in their field. Last Thursday, they set aside their petri dishes, left their lab mice unaccompanied and set off to protest. They are demanding increased public funding for science, and protesting “the government’s contempt for Israeli research.”

Palestinian teachers hold strike

International Middle East Media Center: Palestinian teachers hold strike

Palestinian public school teachers on Monday held a one-day strike, warning that a further strike would follow in two weeks if the government failed to meet their demands.

The teachers are demanding that owed expenses be released, that salaries be matched with an increase in the cost of living in the Palestinian territories, and that the government explains why it revoked a previous decision by the unity government to grant teachers in the Jerusalem area a 1000 NIS per. month pay-rise, replacing it with a 500 NIS increase.

Baharain: Teachers threaten hunger strike

Gulf Daily News: Teachers threaten hunger strike

THOUSANDS of teachers, who went on a demonstration yesterday for the third time in six months over a 30 per cent pay rise, are pledging to go on a hunger strike soon.

The demonstration, held in front of Al Fateh Mosque, followed two earlier protests in September and June.

Israel: School strike drags on despite progress

Jerusalem Post: School strike drags on despite progress

The secondary school teachers’ strike will continue Sunday after the Secondary School Teachers Union’s administration decided the previous night not to temporarily suspend the shutdown, despite what Treasury officials said were significant concessions they made on Friday.

Israel: Treasury lambasts teachers’ union

Jerusalem Post: Treasury lambasts teachers’ union

As the school strike ended its 32nd day Sunday, the Finance Ministry harshly criticized the Secondary School Teachers Organization and its head, Ran Erez.

“The SSTO’s decision to continue striking and push off the negotiating meeting set for this morning is a slap in the face and like spitting in the face of the National Labor Court,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement after a scheduled 10 a.m. meeting was pushed off until the afternoon. “The SSTO would have acted more properly if it had accepted the court’s suggestion and suspended the strike, which hurts students and teachers, for two weeks and negotiated seriously on the basis of the draft agreement the court proposed.”

College reviews faculty dress code

Indianapolis Star: College reviews faculty dress code

A good college professor can inspire a hungry mind with wit, knowledge and teaching style.

But what if he’s wearing an earring? Or she is wearing a skirt above the knee?
That’s a problem, says Earl D. Brooks, president of Tri-State University in Angola, Ind., which issued a detailed dress code policy for faculty last month only to pull it back for more study after some of the school’s 70 professors complained.
“Our policy was not rescinded, but it is under review,” said Brooks, who has led the private Northern Indiana college for the past seven years.

‘Terrorist Activities’ Cited in Denial of U.S. Visa for South African Scholar

The Chronicle: ‘Terrorist Activities’ Cited in Denial of U.S. Visa for South African Scholar

A prominent South African scholar who was refused entry into the United States last year has received a letter from the U.S. government saying his visa was revoked because of his involvement in unspecified “terrorist activities.” The scholar, Adam Habib, a deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, has strongly denied the charge.

In the letter to Mr. Habib, which was dated October 26 and provided to The Chronicle by the American Civil Liberties Union, the State Department cited a section of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the exclusion of “any alien who has engaged in a terrorist activity,” who is likely to engage in such activities, or who belongs to a group that has endorsed such activities.

U. of Oxford’s Top Official to Step Down in 2009

The Chronicle News Blog: U. of Oxford’s Top Official to Step Down in 2009

John Hood, the chief executive of the University of Oxford whose tenure has been marked by divisive battles over reforming how the ancient institution is governed, announced today that he would not remain at the university beyond the end of his five-year term, in September 2009.