Inside Higher Ed: On the Road to Jena — and Activism
For many students at historically black colleges, this week featured some additions to the syllabus. At Prairie View A&M University, students were turning in an extra essay. At Philander Smith College, students attended a lawyer’s lecture on the “Jena 6″ case as well as lectures on non-violence.
The Chronicle: When Research Criticizes an Industry
A professor says Idaho State U. gave too much deference to mining interests, at his expense; the administration says it did nothing wrong
When Robert W. Van Kirk released a study in January about selenium contamination in trout streams in southeastern Idaho, he expected some flak from the influential phosphate-mining industry. He didn’t expect to feel pressured by the administration of his own institution, Idaho State University, where he is an associate professor of mathematics.
His research, paid for by a local environmental group, indeed raised the hackles of mining interests. Executives of one major mine operator, the J.R. Simplot Company, called the university’s leaders about the study just days after it came out.
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Posted in Academics
The Chronicle News Blog: Petitioners Urge Anthropologists to Stop Working With Pentagon in Iraq War
“Anthropologists should not engage in research and other activities that contribute to counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or in related theaters in the ‘war on terror.’” That is one of the central declarations of a Pledge of Non-Participation in Counterinsurgency that was circulated today by a loosely defined group that refers to itself as the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.
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Posted in Academics
The Boston Globe: Judge: No extra break for lactating exam taker
A Harvard medical student and new mother will not be permitted to take extra break time to pump breast milk during her licensing exam to become a doctor, a judge ruled yesterday.
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Posted in Ethics
Inside Higher Ed: Adding Hunger to the Strike
Two weeks into a workers’ strike at the University of Minnesota, a group of students has jumped on board with a strike of its own — a hunger strike.
On Monday, 13 students, a professor and another supporter of the protest began starving themselves (drinking only water and juice) in solidarity with the strikers, a demonstration which they said they would continue until a settlement is reached between the university and the labor union representing the university’s clerical, technical and health care workers. They were joined on Wednesday by a planned 30 or more students who pledged to fast for a 24-hour period.
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Posted in Protests, Strikes & Labor Disputes
Inside Higher Ed: Shock Heard Round the World
The video is a YouTube sensation, and the latest argument capturing the public’s fancy is whether the student being filmed wanted it just that way. But the lasting questions to come from the Taser incident that followed Sen. John Kerry’s speech Monday at the University of Florida will most likely be about the conduct of campus police.
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Posted in Students
The Chronicle: Colleges, Pressed by Spellings and Cuomo, Step Up Scrutiny of Possible Conflicts in Their Business Relationships
Higher-education leaders, under pressure from the secretary of education, are planning a stepped-up examination of all possible conflicts of interest in American colleges’ operations, in light of the continuing student-loan scandal.
Representatives of several college associations and a number of college presidents have been invited to meet with officials of the American Council on Education on Thursday in Washington to review potential areas of legal and ethical vulnerability and possible steps that colleges could take to avoid them.
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Posted in Corporate University
Education is worth more to UK exports than financial services or the automotive industry, according to a report published by the British Council today.
A total of £28bn in 2003-04 was earned from overseas students by a sector ranging from world famous universities to small English language colleges, from independent schools to publishers and broadcasters.
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Posted in Economics
Inside Higher Ed: Appeals Court Upholds Military Recruiting
The Solomon Amendment has won another round in court, and the only remaining push against it may have suffered a fatal blow this week when a federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the controversial measure.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Solomon Amendment did not infringe on the First Amendment rights of law schools that objected to it. The law threatens to withhold federal funds from institutions that limit military recruiters’ access to campuses, which many law schools historically have done to protest the Defense Department’s discriminatory policies toward gay people.
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Posted in Government
Inside Higher Ed: A Worldwide Test for Higher Education?
For much of the last year or two, debate has raged among American higher education officials and state and federal policy makers about the wisdom and practicality of creating a system that would allow for public comparison of how successfully individual colleges and/or programs are educating their students. Many college leaders have rejected the push, which has emanated primarily from the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the U.S. Education Department, on the grounds that the nation’s colleges and universities — two-year and four-year, public and private, exclusive and open enrollment — and their students are far too varied to be responsibly and intelligently measured by any single, standardized measure (or even a suite of them).
But the thirst among politicians and others seeking to hold colleges and universities more accountable for their performance is powerful, and it is not merely an American phenomenon. Proof of that can be found in the fact that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has convened a small group of testing experts and higher education policy makers who have met quietly in recent months to discuss the possibility of creating a common international system to measure the learning outcomes of individual colleges and university systems, along the lines of the well-regarded test that OECD countries now administer to 15-year-olds, the Program for International Student Assessment.
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Posted in Accountability
The Chronicle News Blog: Outside Audit Urges Swift Steps to Overhaul Management of U. of California
The University of California must act quickly to restore credibility to its president’s office and to improve governance of the 10-campus system if it is to preserve excellence in teaching and research, according to an external audit that the university commissioned and made public on Friday.
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Posted in Administration, Governance
The Chronicle: Young Professors at Private Institutions Report Greater Overall Level of Job Satisfaction
Young professors at private institutions rated themselves as more satisfied with their jobs than did their counterparts at public colleges, but the path to tenure seemed clearer to those at public institutions, a report released on Monday by researchers at Harvard University says.
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Posted in Working conditions
The Gainesville Sun: Student Tasered at Kerry speech
U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s speech at the University of Florida came to a dramatic close Monday, shortly after a vocal audience member was hauled off by police and shot with a Taser gun.
The audience member was preliminarily identified by UF officials as Andrew Meyer, a UF student in the College of Journalism and Communications.
Toward the conclusion of Kerry’s UF forum, Meyer approached an open microphone at the University Auditorium and demanded Kerry answer his questions. The student claimed that University Police Department officers had already threatened to arrest him, and then proceeded to question Kerry about why he didn’t contest the 2004 presidential election and why there had been no moves to impeach President Bush.
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Posted in Students
Dallas Morning News: Judge denies Baptist seminary’s request to dismiss woman’s suit
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Posted in Equity, Legal issues
AP: Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Event
Video of police Tasering a persistent questioner of Sen. John Kerry became an Internet and TV sensation Tuesday, generating fierce debate about free speech and the motives of the college student involved a known prankster who often posts practical jokes online.
University of Florida President Bernie Machen said Monday’s takedown, in which the student loudly yelled, “Don’t Tase me, bro!” was “regretful.” He asked for a state probe of campus police actions and placed two officers on leave.
The student in the middle of it all, 21-year-old Andrew Meyer, had no comment after he was released on his recognizance on various charges following a night in jail.
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Posted in Students
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Posted in Students
The Florida Alligator: Shocked
We are in utter disbelief about the events at Sen. John Kerry’s speech Monday afternoon. It doesn’t matter if we agree with Andrew Meyer’s opinions, if he should have been led away from a microphone at the speech or even if he should have been arrested.
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Posted in Students
Inside Higher Ed: Chemerinsky Gets Irvine Deanship
Erwin Chemerinsky, who was offered the job as the first law school dean at the University of California at Irvine and then saw the offer rescinded, has the offer back. Chemerinsky and Michael V. Drake, Irvine’s chancellor, issued a joint announcement Monday — after days of intense criticism of Drake for taking back the earlier offer. The second offer came after Drake flew to North Carolina (Chemerinsky teaches law at Duke) for a lengthy meeting over the weekend. Chererinsky said last week that the offer had been revoked because his liberal writing about legal issues apparently worried Drake and some conservative supporters of Irvine. Professors at Irvine and elsewhere were outraged that the job offer had been rescinded for political reasons, and some pushed for Drake’s ouster. In their joint statement, Chemerinsky and Drake said: “Our new law school will be founded on the bedrock principle of academic freedom. The chancellor reiterated his lifelong, unqualified commitment to academic freedom, which extends to every faculty member, including deans and other senior administrators.” During a telephone press conference Monday, Chemerinsky said that he would never have agreed to any position that made him feel “muzzled” and that he would continue to write op-eds (the apparent source of conservative opposition to his appointment) although he also was mindful of the role he would have as dean. In several comments during the press conference, Drake suggested that the main problem in the last week was publicity. He talked about how the revoked job led to “more noise” than he expected, and said that the “public nature” of the discussions has been difficult.
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Posted in Academics
Inside Higher Ed: The Public (Non-Salary) Advantage
When it comes to faculty salaries, there’s little doubt that public higher education is at a real disadvantage these days. Private institutions pay more. According to the most recent salary data from the American Association of University Professors, private pay is more in all sectors of higher education. At doctoral universities, the average for assistant professors at privates is more than the average for associate professors at publics. Full professors at doctoral institutions that are private earn, on average, $30,000 more than those at publics. At baccalaureate institutions, the gap is about $14,000.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
What about Larry?: Compare Chemerinsky’s tale with academia’s bashing of ex-Harvard chief Summers.
Los Angeles Times: Compare Chemerinsky’s tale with academia’s bashing of ex-Harvard chief Summers.
The saga of controversial liberal law professor Erwin Chemerinsky’s on-again, off-again deanship at the new UC Irvine law school was highly unusual in two ways. First, the pressure to enforce political orthodoxy at Chemerinsky’s expense came from the right, not the left, and second, academic freedom and 1st Amendment values won a resounding victory when Chemerinsky was ultimately rehired. A more typicalexample of how academic freedom remains in jeopardy across the country is the UC Board of Regents’ treatment of Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University.
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Posted in Commentary, Free speech