The Chronicle News Blog: Student Hounds a Faculty Member Running for Congress
An assistant professor of political science at Central Michigan University thought he had enough problems running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a challenge that pits him against an eight-term Republican incumbent in a district the Democratic leadership considers vulnerable.
The Guardian: University employers draw up national pay code
he employers’ body that negotiates university staff pay is drawing up two “codes” aimed at making pay negotiations clearer and easier to deal with.
The Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (Ucea) wants members who are part of pay negotiations to sign up to a code, which will spell out what members can expect from employers and the commitments expected in return.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
The Daily Express: OXBRIDGE ‘FAILING ON STATE PUPILS’
Oxford and Cambridge will not meet their targets for the number of state school students they admit in the foreseeable future, a leading academic has said.
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Posted in International
The Chronicle News Blog: Nobel Laureate Follows Apologies for Racial Comments With Resignation From Lab
James D. Watson, who shared a Nobel Prize for helping decipher the structure of DNA, resigned this morning as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and from his position on the New York institution’s board, on which he had served for more than four decades. The resignation followed an uproar stemming from an interview, published last week, in which Mr. Watson declared that Africans were intellectually inferior to Europeans.
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Posted in Faculty
The Chronicle News Blog: Antioch Alumni Present a Plan to Keep the College Alive
A college whose motto used to read “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity” now, for many, reads “Be ashamed to let it die!”
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Posted in Academics
The Chronicle: Chapman U. Whistle-Blower Case Is Dismissed
A closely watched whistle-blower case against Chapman University that could have threatened its accreditation has been dismissed by a federal judge.
The suit, which was made public in 2005, is one of several cases filed against universities under the federal False Claims Act (The Chronicle, August 4, 2006). The plaintiffs alleged that colleges had made false representations on government documents in order to qualify for federal funds.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle: Students at Brigham Young U. get paid to give professors the straight dope on what works — and what doesn’t — in the classroom
Faculty members at Brighman Young say the paid student observers are less threatening than peer evaluators and provide a perspective that education specialists can’t.
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Posted in Faculty
News Advance: Randolph College announces academic cuts
Randolph College sophomore Lucy Hamer was planning to major in Russian studies, but after an announcement Thursday, she’s not sure if she can anymore.
The financially struggling school announced Thursday that it will eliminate five academic departments, which will include nine of the college’s 74 full-time faculty positions by the end of the 2008-09 school year.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Inside Higher Ed: David Horowitz, the conservative activist, and his allies have been giving speeches denouncing radical Islam on campuses all week as part of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” — viewed by many critics as a cover for spreading fear about Muslims. At Emory University, Horowitz was largely unable to give his speech, and police had to escort him from the stage as protesters shouted “Heil Hitler,” among other things, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported (last item). A detailed account and an online discussion of the incident appear in The Emory Wheel. On Horowitz’s Web site, the Emory protesters are being described as “leftist brown shirts.”
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Posted in Protests
Haaretz: University wage: Up to NIS 25,000 a month
For days, 4,500 university teachers have been on strike for better employment terms. They claim to be underpaid and complain of a brain drain. But as happens in the public sector, the first line on their payslip has little to do with their actual pay. Some valuable benefits are omitted.
Here are the figures. Some 4,500 academic staff work at 7 universities: Tel Aviv, Bar-Ilan, Ben-Gurion, Haifa, Hebrew universities, the Weizmann Institute and the Technion. These are divided into four groups: 900 lecturers gross an average of NIS 14,000, 1,300 senior lecturers average NIS 16,000 (gross), 1,000 associate professors earn about NIS 19,000 and 1,300 full professors make a monthly salary of more than NIS 25,000. Since each rank contains elements of seniority which translate into more pay, the wages of two lecturers of the same rank may vary.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tulsa Word: ORU in debt $52.5 million
The regents chairman says the board is working to reduce it.
Oral Roberts University is $52.5 million in debt — an amount on the decline but a burden keeping the college from improving its campus, university representatives said Wednesday.
The debt accumulated from “years and years and years and years of . . . borrowing,” said board of regents Chairman George Pearsons, who still was gathering information on the sources of debt.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: The faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors and Rider University have reached a tentative contract agreement, averting a strike that had been viewed as a possibility. Among the contract provisions: 4 percent raises, followed by raises that match the national average as reported by the AAUP; no “significant increase” in the number of full-time, non-tenure track faculty positions; an assurance that 65 percent of sections will be taught by full-time faculty members.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Inside Higher Ed: Michigan Keeps Link to Controversial Publisher
The University of Michigan Press has faced intense criticism in the last two months for distributing a book — on behalf of a British publisher whose sales the Michigan press handles in the United States — that is highly critical of Israel. And that controversy led to a review of the relationship with the British publisher. But on Wednesday, Michigan announced that it was keeping its ties to Pluto Press and would continue to distribute its books. The case has been closely watched by academic publishers and others concerned with academic freedom, especially on the sensitive topic of criticism of Israel.
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Posted in Academic freedom
The Chronicle: Suspected Arsonist Is Killed Near Cal State-San Bernardino as Campus Closures Continue
Police officers from California State University at San Bernardino and local agencies shot and killed a suspected arsonist near the campus on Tuesday night, law-enforcement officials said on Wednesday.
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Posted in Uncategorized
The Chronicle: State Report Clears Florida Officers in Taser Incident
Campus police officers at the University of Florida were justified in their use of a Taser to subdue a student who resisted arrest after disrupting a speech by Sen. John F. Kerry last month, a state agency has concluded.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: Teacher-Education Accreditor Formally Drops Social-Justice Language
The board of the nation’s largest organization accrediting teacher-education programs has formally voted to drop controversial language about social justice from its standards for evaluating teacher-education programs.
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Posted in Academics
Liberty Tree Foundation: Campus Organizer’s Guide to Democratizing Education
Liberty Tree’s Democratizing Education Program is pleased to release the Campus Organizer’s Guide to Democratizing Education, authored by our Associate, Eric Prindle, a recent graduate of NYU Law. Prindle wrote the guide for students, faculty, staff, and community members interested in promoting democracy in higher education, and a higher education system in service to a democratic, inclusive, society.
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Posted in Organizing
Haaretz: Junior and senior university faculty to unite against Treasury
Junior faculty members in universities are preparing for a joint battle together with senior faculty members from all universities and colleges nationwide. The new move, the first of its kind, was decided upon late Tuesday, and comes in addition to the senior faculty members’ strike.
The current situation, in which separate unions represent junior and senior faculty members, weakens the impact of the strike.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
A Statement from Susan Fuhrman, President of Teachers College
Teachers College is continuing to cooperate fully with Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood and members of the Hate Crime Squad of New York City Police Department, who are working hard at attempting to identify the person(s) responsible for the despicable act of placing a noose on the door of Professor Madonna Constantine.
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Posted in Faculty
The Chronicle: Some Southern California Colleges Cancel Classes for the Week as Wildfires Blaze On
Several universities and colleges in Southern California have canceled classes for the week as wildfires exacerbated by high temperatures and fierce winds continue to scorch the region.
A half-million residents of the region were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday, and President Bush declared a state of emergency in seven counties to help speed up federal emergency relief.
Some colleges in San Diego County, one of the hardest hit areas, had already canceled some classes earlier this week (The Chronicle, October 23), and decided on Tuesday to cancel them for the rest of the week. Most of the colleges were not in immediate danger, and some sheltered people and animals displaced by the fires.
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Posted in Working conditions
