SooToday.com: University faculty gets new contract
Lake Superior State University’s board of trustees approved a three-year contract with the LSSU Faculty Association during the board’s regular meeting on campus October 12.
The three-year agreement was one of the first orders of business in President Rodney Lowman’s first meeting with the eight-member board, and in board member Barbara Cliff’s first meeting as chair.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Second faculty strike in four years closes Nova Scotia’s Acadia …
The Canadian Press
WOLFVILLE, NS – Classes were cancelled for roughly 3000 students at Nova Scotia’s Acadia University on Monday as professors, instructors and librarians …
Acadia Faculty Strike Begins; University President Leaves for China
Canada NewsWire (press release), Canada
WOLFVILLE, NS, Oct. 15 /CNW Telbec/ – With Acadia University faculty walking the picket line for the second time since she took over as Acadia University …
Acadia profs hit the streets, not the books
ChronicleHerald.ca, Canada
By IAN FAIRCLOUGH Valley Bureau WOLFVILLE — The sidewalks in front of Acadia University are usually crowded with students heading to and from class on …
Acadia strike cancels classes
The Daily News, Canada
Negotiations between the Acadia University Faculty Association and the Acadia University board of governors broke down last night. …
Acadia University Board of Governors Rejects Compromise Offer …
CNW Telbec (Communiqués de presse), Canada
WOLFVILLE, NS, Oct. 15 /CNW Telbec/ – Negotiations between Acadia University’s Faculty Association (AUFA) and Board of Governors broke down this weekend …
Union Dues: Acadia University on strike
Nova Scotia Business Journal, Canada – 11 hours ago
BY STAFF, TRANSCONTINENTAL MEDIA Students at Acadia University in Wolfville have got an indefinitely long weekend thanks to a strike that has taken hold at …
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Amherst Daily: Acadia faculty set to strike today
Last-minute negotiations between Nova Scotia’s Acadia University and its faculty have failed, setting the stage for a strike on Monday.
After several weeks without negotiations, both sides met with a conciliator last week, but no deal was reached.
Talks continued over the weekend to settle the dispute, which has focused on staffing levels and wages, but they broke down again Sunday night.
The 300-member Acadia University Faculty Association, which represents professors, instructors and librarians, voted 84 per cent earlier this month to take job action.
The Daily News:
Acadia faculty walk picket line
Acadia University Students’ Union president Kyle Steele says he isn’t taking sides. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t disappointed. At the end of the first day …
CBC Nova Scotia:
Classes cancelled as strike hits Acadia
Contract talks between the school’s faculty association and the board of governors broke off Sunday night, prompting the university to cancel classes. …
ChronicleHerald.ca:
Acadia, prof talks hit wall
WOLFVILLE — Both sides in the labour dispute at Acadia University walked away from negotiations Friday night without an …
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
CBC: Faculty strike averted at University of Manitoba
A tentative agreement was reached late Sunday night between the University of Manitoba and its faculty association that could avert a strike threatened for Thursday.
Students back strike
Winnipeg Sun, Canada – Oct 13, 2007
By SHANNON VANRAES, SUN MEDIA Striking University of Manitoba maintenance and food service workers have gained the support of the U of M students’ union. …
U of M profs accept pact
Winnipeg Free Press, Canada – 12 hours ago
An early-morning settlement was reached today between negotiators for the faculty association and the U of M administration. U of M spokesman John Danakas …
Picket lines at the University of Manitoba
Macleans.ca, Canada – Oct 14, 2007
Picket lines are on yet another campus this fall as the maintanence and food service workers at the University of Manitoba settle in for what could be a …
Graduates urge resumption of talks
CJOB, Canada – Oct 12, 2007
The U of M Graduate Student’s Association wants the University to return to negotiations with the Canadian Auto Workers. The CAW represents about 480 …
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism arises in response to the troubling practice in the United States of suppressing alternative views on Israel/Palestine and Zionism, which is growing more desperate and severe. A major instance of this is the recent effort to force the University of Michigan Press to suppress the distribution of Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine by Professor Joel Kovel and pressuring it to cancel its contract to distribute Pluto Press in the U.S.
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Posted in Academic freedom, Free speech
Houston Chronicle: Judge declares mistrial in Slade case
The jury ended up split 6 to 6, but stood united Friday and said they cried and prayed while deliberating the fate of ousted TSU President Priscilla Slade before declaring they were hopelessly deadlocked — resulting in a mistrial.
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Posted in Legal issues
Inside Higher Ed: New Harvard prez questions focus on assessment
In her inaugural address as president of Harvard University Friday, Drew Faust questioned the emphasis of many in Washington on assessment — at least as currently being practiced. “We are asked to report graduation rates, graduate school admission statistics, scores on standardized tests intended to assess the ‘value added’ of years in college, research dollars, numbers of faculty publications. But such measures cannot themselves capture the achievements, let alone the aspirations of universities. Many of these metrics are important to know, and they shed light on particular parts of our undertaking. But our purposes are far more ambitious and our accountability thus far more difficult to explain,” Faust said. She added: “A university is not about results in the next quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that molds a lifetime, learning that transmits the heritage of millennia; learning that shapes the future.” Faust also noted the criticism that higher education is slow to change. “In the past half century, American colleges and universities have shared in a revolution, serving as both the emblem and the engine of the expansion of citizenship, equality and opportunity — to blacks, women, Jews, immigrants, and others who would have been subjected to quotas or excluded altogether in an earlier era. My presence here today — and indeed that of many others on this platform — would have been unimaginable even a few short years ago. Those who charge that universities are unable to change should take note of this transformation, of how different we are from universities even of the mid 20th century.”
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Posted in Accountability, Administration
Inside Higher Ed: Schwarzenegger Vetoes DREAM Bill for Immigrant Students
Late Saturday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a series of vetoes on various bills — and in so doing dashed the hopes of student activists who have been pushing to make it easier for undocumented students to obtain financial aid and to pressure publishers and faculty members into changing practices that some believe contribute to the high price of textbooks. At the same time, Governor Schwarzenegger signed another bill on textbooks, favored by publishers and opposed by student groups.
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Posted in Government
Rebel Yell: Regents shoot down gun proposal
In an 8-5 decision, the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents shot down a proposal to enact a program that would create a reserve police force on campus comprised of UNLV instructors.
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Posted in Faculty
Tulsa World: Updated: New claims in ORU lawsuit
It alleges documents were destroyed and a “sexual deviant” had access to campus.
Three former Oral Roberts University professors made public on Friday what their lawsuit against ORU describes as “the exact packet of information” that they allege got two of them fired and resulted in one’s resignation.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: Professors’ Lawsuit Against Oral Roberts U. Gets ‘More Salacious’
A lawsuit filed this month against the president and first lady of Oral Roberts University just got a little broader — and a little more salacious.
In the lawsuit, three former professors at Oral Roberts assert that administrators harassed and intimidated them after they accidentally came into possession of a sensitive document drawn up by a university official. The document purported to detail dozens of instances of ethical and financial misconduct by the president of the university, Richard Roberts, and his wife, Lindsay Roberts.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Houston Chronicle: American Public Education Sets IPO Terms
American Public Education Inc., a provider of online postsecondary education, expects to raise about $68 million after expenses from its planned initial public offering, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday.
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Posted in Corporate University
Fresno Bee: Fresno State, Milutinovich settle lawsuit
Diane Milutinovich and Fresno State have reached a settlement in the former associate athletic director’s sexual discrimination lawsuit against the university, lawyers for Milutinovich announced Thursday afternoon in a news conference at Fresno County Superior Court.
Milutinovich will receive $3.5 million and the university will recognize her as an employee emeritus for her three decades of work at Fresno State.
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Posted in Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: NYU to Open Branch Campus in Persian Gulf Emirate
Cornell in Qatar, Michigan State in Dubai. Now it’s New York University in Abu Dhabi. NYU’s announcement today that it is opening a branch campus in the United Arab Emirates makes it the latest, but probably not the last, American university to plant its flag in the wealthy Persian Gulf region.
“NYU Abu Dhabi,” which was described as a “residential research university,” will open its doors to students in 2010. The university hopes to attract as many as 2,000 of them from around the world, not just the Middle East. NYU says that the emirate is providing land and financing for the campus’s development and operations.
Abu Dhabi has made news lately for its efforts to become a cultural hub, which include establishing branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. —Beth McMurtrie
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Posted in Corporate University
Financial Times: US companies in UK degree plan
Profit-making US education companies are planning to offer degrees in the UK, tempted by the introduction of top-up fees and the continuing attractiveness of Britain to foreign students.
A senior executive at a US education company said last year’s introduction of £3,000 top-up fees payable by undergraduates “levels the playing field” between Britain’s public-sector universities, which used to charge undergraduates nothing, and US fee-charging, for-profit universities.
The Chronicle News Blog: American For-Profit Universities Plan Push Into British Market
The chief executive of Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit business based in San Diego, says his company plans to offer degrees in Britain within the next two years, the Financial Times reported today.
Bridgepoint will join Kaplan Higher Education International, which plans to apply for degree-awarding powers in Britain next year. Beginning last fall, British universities were permitted to raise tuition to as much as £3,000 ($6,115) a year for undergraduates, and Bridgepoint’s CEO, Andrew Clark, says the higher rate “levels the playing field” for American for-profit universities hoping to make inroads into the British market.
Last month a British company, BPP Professional Education, became the first for-profit organization to be awarded degree-granting powers in Britain.
Both Bridgepoint and Kaplan are expected to focus at first on graduate courses, for which British universities also charge higher fees, but plan to expand eventually into the undergraduate market. According to the Financial Times, Bridgepoint expects to be able to do so with tuition rates not much higher than the current British fees. —Aisha Labi
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Posted in Corporate University
AAUP: Rhode Island Part-timers Vote for Union
Part-time faculty at the University of Rhode Island voted by a wide margin this week to be represented in collective bargaining by the campus AAUP chapter. The chapter also represents the full time faculty and graduate employees at URI.
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Posted in Contingent labor, Organizing, Unions
Inside Higher Ed: Southern Illinois President Cleared of Plagiarism
He made citation “errors” and “mistakes” that require immediate correction. But Glenn Poshard, president of Southern Illinois University, did not intentionally plagiarize a doctoral dissertation he completed as a graduate student there more than 20 years ago, according to a faculty panel formed by the institution’s chancellor to look into the charges of academic dishonesty.
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Posted in Academics, Administration
The New York Times: Noose Case Puts Focus on a Scholar of Race
In Madonna G. Constantine’s classroom at Columbia University’s Teachers College, emotions can run high.
“People have cried in class,” said Dr. Constantine, 44, a professor of psychology and education who specializes in the study of how race and racial prejudice can affect clinical and educational interactions. “Uncovering those issues, students often get to a place where it can be painful.”
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Posted in Faculty
The Chronicle: In India, Economic Success Leaves Universities Desperate for Professors
India’s universities are suffering from an acute faculty shortage, with some institutions unable to fill as many as 35 percent of their positions. From the country’s elite Indian Institutes of Technology to regional engineering colleges, the dearth of professors has led to overcrowded classrooms, student discontent, and deep concerns about how India can handle a planned expansion of the higher-education system.
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Posted in Faculty, International
The Chronicle: Ex-President of Eastern Michigan U. Sues Its Board of Regents, Seeking Reinstatement
The former president of Eastern Michigan University sued its Board of Regents on Thursday, arguing that his firing violated a state law that protects whistle-blowers.
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Posted in Administration, Legal issues
