Poughkeepsie Journal: Lay faculty union to vote on contract Tuesday
Some teachers at Our Lady of Lourdes High School may be preparing for a strike.
New York Lay Faculty Association, the union representing 435 non-religious teachers, guidance counselors and other faculty in Catholic schools in New York, will vote Tuesday whether to accept a contract proposal from the Archdiocese of New York.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts, K-12 issues
The Winnipeg Free Press: U of M appeals labour board decision
The University of Manitoba has asked the Manitoba Labour Board to review its decision in a case between the university, its faculty union and six coaches of university sports teams.
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Posted in Unions
Times of India: Med faculty strike hits routine work
Post-graduate teaching at the B.J. Medical College (BJMC) suffered on Monday after medical teachers resorted to a day-long mass casual leave in protest against non-fulfilment of their demands.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Rider News:Union, administrators make last-minute deal
Representatives of the administration and the Rider faculty union reached a tentative four-year agreement after a last-ditch negotiating session on Monday afternoon.
Although union officials said that many of the changes to the contract were small and technical, among the more notable results were a lack of significant changes to academic governance and a salary increase of 4 percent for the first year.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Yakima Herald Republic: Faculty at CWU say they’re underpaid
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Faculty members at Central Washington University argue that they’re underpaid compared with their peers at other schools, and have asked their union bargaining team to continue pushing the school administration for better pay
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Star Phoenix: Union delays walkout
The union that gave strike notice for its 2,400 university workers in the province says there will not be a walkout today.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1975 gave legal notice Friday that workers at both the University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina would be in a strike position as early as this afternoon.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
New York Sun: Governor To Bet Billions on SUNY
Colleges Eyed for Role in High Schools
Envisioning a dramatically greater role for universities and colleges in the remedial education of secondary students, the Spitzer administration is planning to pump billions of additional dollars into the State University of New York and the rest of New York’s higher education system, sources said.
A higher education commission appointed by Governor Spitzer in May is discussing a concept called “education empowerment zones,” which would provide financial incentives for colleges and universities to collaborate with public high schools and middle schools.
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Posted in Uncategorized
The Chronicle: Animal-Rights Militants Vandalize UCLA Researcher’s House
A house owned by a researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles was vandalized last week by the Animal Liberation Front, in yet another militant act against a UCLA faculty member who performs research on primates and other animals.
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Posted in Protests
Inside Higher Ed: A Haven for Minority Scholars
The number of black, Hispanic and American Indian recipients of Ph.D.’s has been edging higher in recent years, but members of those groups are still significantly underrepresented in the proportion of all doctorates earned.
So it’s hardly surprising that at most of the academic meetings that a black graduate student like La Tonya M. Green goes to, such as those in her discipline of urban studies and planning, she feels like “a speck in a room,” as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student put it at the Compact for Faculty Diversity’s Institute on Teaching and Mentoring in Washington last weekend.
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Posted in Diversity
The Chronicle News Blog: American University in Turkey Says It Will Not Enforce Head-Scarf Ban
An American university is courting controversy in Turkey by allowing female students at its newly opened Istanbul campus to wear head scarves, a public expression of their Islamic faith that is forbidden at universities and government offices throughout the country.
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Posted in International
Union Leader: UNH professor not guilty of stalking
A University of New Hampshire professor accused of going on an angry, expletive-filled diatribe against a colleague in June has been acquitted of all criminal charges stemming from the incident.
John Collins, 57, of Lee, was found not guilty of stalking, a misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct, a violation, at a trial Tuesday in Durham District Court.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: Report Assails Canadian Program Aimed at Drawing Foreign Students
International students in Canada are so disillusioned by the nation’s after-graduation job program that many move to the United States or other countries to work after they obtain their degrees. A report, commissioned by the Canadian Bureau for International Education and scheduled to be released on Tuesday, will recommend that the
government create a national strategy on international students and take a hard look at how other countries, such as Australia, handle the issue.
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Posted in Students
The Chronicle: A Labor Union Plants a Flag for Academic Freedom in an Era of Fewer Tenured Positions
One of academe’s largest labor unions, the American Federation of Teachers, released today its first comprehensive statement on academic freedom— a fresh indication that the worries of today’s academics run deeper than salaries and benefits.
The statement, called “Academic Freedom in the 21st-Century College and University,” is an attempt to frame the issues of academic freedom for an era when the system of tenure— once the bedrock principle of scholarly free exchange— is breaking down. According to the union, 70 percent of university instructors work off the tenure track.
Hence, the statement’s rhetoric aims to shore up the standing of all university instructors, tenured or not, by emphasizing their status as professionals.
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Posted in Academic freedom
FSUNews.com: Students protest for second amendment rights
This week Florida State University students are taking part in a protest of state laws that prohibit students from carrying guns on campus as a part of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). Students participating in the rally are wearing empty holsters on their belts all week.
AP: Smoking Ban Linked to Bathroom Vandalism
Vandals suspected of stealing toilet paper and trashing men’s bathrooms at Frederick Community College have given school administrators an ultimatum: lift the campus smoking ban and the vandalism will stop.
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Posted in Protests
The Guardian: Donovan aims to put students on higher plane
· Meditation to underpin university’s curriculum
· David Lynch backs singer’s proposal for institution
Many undergraduates already spend their days listening to psychedelic tunes, watching strange films and trying to reach a transcendental plane. But now, thanks to an unlikely alliance between folk singer Donovan and film director David Lynch, all of the above will be on the curriculum.
The Invincible Donovan University will provide the traditional university subjects, but students will also undergo training in transcendental meditation – the technique practised by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and popularised by the Beatles. Donovan, whose hits include Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow, said he would open the university in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, bringing the hippy dream of world peace to his home country of Scotland.
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Posted in Academics, International
Inside Higher Ed: Furor Over Anti-Islam Speaker
The president of Iran isn’t the only Holocaust denier to win a platform on an American college campus.
At Michigan State University Friday, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party who was convicted in 1998 for incitement of racial hatred over material denying the Holocaust, was brought to campus for a speech denouncing Islam. Griffin acknowledges having been a Holocaust denier, but says he no longer is one. His party is on record opposing black-white marriages, believing that black people are less intelligent than white people, and saying that ethnic minorities should be limited to 2-3 percent of the population of any given area in Britain.
Griffin was invited to Michigan State by the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. He was supposed to give a one-hour talk about Islam and then answer questions for an hour, but audience members started shouting at him shortly after he started his talk and he shifted to Q&A format so he could answer what was being shouted at him.
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Posted in Free speech
Inside Higher Ed: Defining Academic Freedom for 2007
In 1940, the American Association of University Professors adopted a “Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” a document that ever since has been cited in disputes about the rights of professors to freedom of expression and job security. While plenty of colleges over the years have ignored parts of the document, the statement has come to be seen as a definitive statement on such issues as professors’ right to research and teach controversial ideas, the tenure process and more. The 1940 statement has enough history and support behind it that even critics of the AAUP like to cite the statement.
Today, the American Federation of Teachers — which has about 165,000 members in higher education — is issuing its own statement on academic freedom. On most issues, the substance of the statements (as well as an earlier one from the National Education Association) is similar. All the statements assert that professors do their jobs best with full freedom of thought and expression, and with job security (largely in the form of tenure). All of the statements also say that colleges should be run with shared governance in which professors have a meaningful say in the way institutions are run.
The AFT statement differs from the AAUP’s, however, on a point of policy and in its themes. The AAUP’s 1940 statements defines seven years as the standard amount of time beyond which a faculty member should not work without tenure. The AFT statement has no such limit specified for non-tenured work, and AFT officials said that many of their members who are adjuncts view such a limit as a constraint on their employment, not a protection.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Sofia News Agency: Scandal Disrupts Bulgaria Teachers Talks, No Let Up in Strike
After another day of rallying in downtown Sofia, representatives of the striking teachers furiously walked out of talks with the cabinet, aimed at breaking the deadlock over their demands for higher wages.
Unionist leader Yanka Takeva said she was shocked by the development of the talks and accused the cabinet of backing out on an offer that had inspired hopes the gap between the two warring sides may be narrowing.
The first indication of a breakthrough was given on Wednesday, when the two parties agreed on 20% increase in the education workers’ wages as of November.
“That means the rise is set up at BGN 88,80 for all people, who work in the education system,” syndicate representative explained.
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Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle News Blog: Campaign Seeks to Turn Today’s College Students Into Tomorrow’s Feds
Uncle Sam wants a few good college graduates to go to work for the federal government. Actually, more than a few. And so the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, has announced a campaign to help turn college students into feds.
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Posted in Government
