The New York Times: In a Charge of Plagiarism, an Echo of a Father’s Case
Jacqueline R. Griffith seemed to be flourishing as a tenured assistant professor in economics and finance at Kean University in New Jersey — that is, until another member of her department accused her of having plagiarized sizable portions of her doctoral dissertation.
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Posted in Academics
The Chronicle: More Teams in 2007 Men’s Basketball Tournament Meet Graduation-Rate Goal, but Racial Gap Persists
Colleges with teams playing in this year’s NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship have a better history of graduating student athletes than previous years’ contenders, but the improvement was not consistent across racial lines, according to a new report by the University of Central Florid
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Posted in Students
The Chronicle: Community College of Philadelphia Cancels Classes as Professors and Staff Members Go on Strike
As professors, adjuncts, and staff members took to the picket lines on Tuesday, the Community College of Philadelphia suspended classes for its roughly 37,000 students until further notice.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Rhode Island’s High Court Upholds Damages Awarded to Professor Who Lost Tenure Bid at Brown U.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court has upheld a jury verdict and lower-court rulings that awarded $455,000 in back pay and compensatory damages to a former assistant professor of engineering who sued Brown University after he was denied tenure.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Inside Higher Ed: Kafka at the Border
Everyone agrees that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States was so worried about who it would let into the country that visa problems were widespread — even for many scholars posing no security threat. But the Bush administration has boasted that things are better now — and that the United States wants foreign talent to feel welcome.
Tell that to Karim Meziane. He’s a citizen of Canada and a physicist at the University of New Brunswick, who was turned away at the U.S. border in 2004 when he was trying to attend a research conference to which he had been invited by the University of New Hampshire.
While many have been turned away or denied visas or just had visa applications languish, Meziane’s case is unusual: He got the Department of Homeland Security to tell him, in writing, why he was persona non grata. He was then able to demonstrate — with written government documents — that the department was wrong. But to this day, he can’t get anyone to change the conclusion or even talk about the case. And when the head of Canada’s largest professors’ group asked for a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to talk about the case and the issues it raises, he was turned down without explanation.
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Posted in Government
The Progressive: University of Nebraska Sues Chertoff
You may have heard about Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan being banned from the University of Notre Dame by the Bush Administration. Well, here’s another example of the Bush Administration’s hostility to the First Amendment and xenophobia about foreign scholars.
Waskar Ari is a Bolivian historian who got his doctorate at Georgetown.
A scholar of indigenous people, Ari came to the attention of the University of Nebraska, which has a specialty in this subject. The university decided to hire him as an assistant professor in the departments of history and ethnic studies, and he was supposed to teach there from August 15, 2005, to May 16, 2008.
But he’s never taught a single class because the Department of Homeland Security has sat on the paperwork needed for his visa.
On June 13, 2005, the University of Nebraska filed a petition that Ari would need before he himself could apply for a visa. That petition, called an “H-1B,” is standard for employers who want to hire a foreign professional. The university also applied for expedited processing, and submitted the $1,000 fee, which entitled the university to a response within 15 days.
The university is still waiting, 22 months later.
On March 31, 2006, more than 9 months after filing the petition, the university received a letter from the Nebraska office of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services. The office, it said, “is unable to meet the 15-day requirement,” which was quite obvious by then. Its explanation: “The referenced case is undergoing security checks and is awaiting review and clearance.” (The office returned the $1,000 check.)
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Posted in Government
The Daily Telegraph: Taiwan students form Nazi party
A group of students from Taiwan has caused uproar by founding an avowedly Nazi organisation and boasting that it is inspired by Adolf Hitler.
The National Socialism Association was set up by Lahn Chao, a master’s student from the National Chengchi University in the capital, Taipei, and 19 others.
Its website is a call to arms to rejuvenate the island’s politics, end democracy and retake mainland China for the nationalist cause, and bears a symbol in black, red and white loosely based on the swastika flag.
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Posted in International, Students
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Cost of living exceeds community college salaries
Dolores Mirabella has taught at Seattle Community Colleges for more than two decades.
She enjoys working with her students — many of them adults, some of them recent immigrants — and is heartened by those who overcome personal challenges and turn their lives around. But lately, it hasn’t been enough. Mirabella, who teaches remedial courses in English, reading and study skills, is now thinking of taking a second job, possibly at a sports club on the weekends.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
The Boston Globe: College eliminates merit scholarships
Hamilton College said Thursday it will stop offering merit scholarships to incoming students in 2008 and use the money instead to provide more need-based assistance to low-and middle-income families.
Mumbai Mirror: Annual exams for teachers
All teachers will have to sit for an exam in their own subjects and GK; state govt wants to know if they’re fit to give lessons
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Posted in International, K-12 issues
BBC: Will universities exclude middle classes?
Picture the scene: the crumpets are toasting gently over the fire, the college butler is serving tea from the silver tray, bicycle clips and gowns have been removed, and the admissions tutors are settled in their deep leather armchairs, choosing next year’s student intake.
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Posted in Equity
The Chronicle News Blog: Seams Show as Newly Merged Faculty Union in Britain Elects New Chief
Members of Britain’s recently created main faculty union, the University and College Union, have elected Sally Hunt as their first general secretary. Ms. Hunt had led the Association of University Teachers, which merged last June with the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, known as Natfhe, to form the new union, and she was instrumental in the creation of the new body.
Ms. Hunt won a little more than 52 percent of the vote, just over the 50-percent tally necessary for a victory under the union’s rules. Less than 14 percent of the union’s 116,000 members voted in the election. Roger Kline, a former Natfhe official who is the new union’s head of equality and employment rights, came in second.
Ms. Hunt’s former union represented faculty members at Britain’s older, more established universities, while Natfhe members were drawn largely from the former vocationally oriented polytechnics and further-education colleges. Differences of approach between the two groups became evident last year during a grading boycott related to a pay dispute. Members of the Association of University Teachers refused to administer examinations, while Natfhe members administered them but refused to grade them.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Daily Mining Gazette: Judge rules in favor of union
HOUGHTON — A Lansing judge has ordered Michigan Tech University administration and Tech’s faculty union to head back to the bargaining table. …
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Philadelphia Business Journal: Faculty strike threatened at Community College of Philadelphia
The union representing the Community College of Philadelphia’s faculty and staff said Monday its members may strike Tuesday if it hasn’t made sufficient …
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Daily Egyptian : Faculty union approves contract
Faculty Association Vice President Lenore Langsdorf said 94 percent of union members who voted approved the terms. Trustees could vote to accept or deny the …
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
University professors in Greece have staged a nationwide strike protesting a series of proposed changes to higher education in the country, including a constitutional amendment to allow private and for-profit institutions to be built.
Here is a message from Dionyssios Gouvias a faculty member at the University of the Aegean:
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:56 AM
Subject: nationwide strike protesting a series of proposed changes to higher education in the country
Dear friends/comrades
University professors in Greece have staged a nationwide strike –followed by hundreds of student sit-ins— protesting a series of proposed changes to higher education in the country, including a constitutional amendment to allow private and for-profit institutions to be established.
Unfortunately, a Bill that puts more restraints on university autonomy has just been passed through the Greek Parliament. For more info visit the English version of the web-site of the ‘Hellenic Federation of University Teachers’ Associations’ at the address below:
http://www.ntua.gr/posdep/index_en.htm
I also enclose a text approved by the General Council of the Federation, which vividly sketches the current situation and calls for solidarity against the ‘deregulation’ of (public) Higher Education. [editor: see the text from the GCF below]
For the time being, the proposed constitutional amendment (see earlier message of mine on the topic) did not get the necessary majority vote, so the whole process would have to start all over again during next Parliament’s deliberations (national elections are due to take place this year).
All the best to all of you!
Dionyssios Gouvias
Lecturer in Education Policy
Department of Pre-School Education and Educational Planning,
University of the Aegean
Who can defend public university today?
In the current situation who can resist against the deregulation of the university and who will be able to defend with his / her attitudes its public and academic character? The University Teacher:
who apparently is dedicated in teaching and academic research. who does not consider teaching as a sidework or unavoidable task, but on the contraty as his / her own basic duty who is not chasing big research programs (occasions), exchanging his / her academic position and prestige of the University and who does not convert laboratories and research teams into ‘occasional flags’. who with his /her attitudes, considers as a value and virtue per se: offering time, making effort and providing creativity to serve the public, and who do not treat his / her public position with the only criterion personal benefit of any kind. who believes to the democratic and academic functioning that educates and safeguards institutions and their values. who with his /her work proves that s/he is functioning democratically with transparency under control of the academic bodies and who do not face the operation of these bodies as “ineffective load” and who does not try to find out “effective” techniques to “overcome” them. who does not treat academic order with “professionalism” or “realism”. who his / her research activity basic objective is production of new knowledge and its diffusion in educating and producing new scientists who does not see the university as a territoire to develop enterprise activities, making money from prestige and capabilities of his / her Institution exchange. who believes to (and with his / her behaviour serves it) the academic and public role of the university and that it is the responsibility and obligation of the state to ensure its basic functions in education (undergraduate or postgraduate) and academic research who believes to (and with his / her behaviour defend) the indipendance of University against economic, institutional and administrative arbitrariness. who believes (and with his / her functions supports), that s/he carries out a profession which should be recognized by the state and the society, appropriately rewarded, and who defends this decent function and does not look for alternative solutions “parallel” and actually outside of the Univseristy. who his / her name and behaviour is not connected to any scandals in the community (e.g. arbitrary and / or profiatble management of public resources and possibilities) who does not profit from the opporunities offered by the neoliberal governmental policy interventions in the public operation of the university, to establish private or market type relations, actually outside of institutional regulations and management, excluding important university activities from the direct academic control and responsibility of the academic bodies.
Dear colleagues, our (public) university is in a critical situation as far as its physiognomy and its character is concerned. University future depends on the comprehension of the “reforms” initiated, their consequences, and our dynamic and coordinated action. Our responsibility is high! Let us undertake it!
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Collegians too special for their own good
Fred Rogers saw it coming and knew it could be a problem.
A group of psychologists released a study this week that found today’s college students are more self-centered and narcissistic than those of previous generations. In part, the researchers pointed to overindulgent adults for raising children to believe they are “special” no matter what they do.
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Posted in Students
Akron Beacon Journal: KSU prof defends right to free speech
A Kent State University faculty member accused of authoring an anti-American Web site said Thursday he “absolutely” does not support jihad, even though his photo and writings by him appear on the site.
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Posted in Free speech
The Washington Times: College conservative settles over firing
Anson Rohr is known as an outspoken critic of global terrorism. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be enough to get a person fired.
But Mr. Rohr says that’s what happened after he hung an anti-terrorism poster at his work space, urged a religion professor to present a balanced view of Islam and generally made no secret of his conservative views at Front Range Community College.
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Posted in Free speech
The Telegraph: Academic hits back in migration row
Academic hits back in migration row
By David Coleman, Professor of Demography, Oxford University
By now most readers will be aware of my little local difficulties here in Oxford with a petition organised by Student Action for Refugees.
That petition accuses me of bringing the name of the university into disrepute, demands that the university strips me of my title and, of course, thereby of my reputation and my academic future here or probably anywhere else.
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Posted in International
