The Chronicle: UC Davis Will Pay Coach $725,000 to Settle Title IX Discrimination Case
The University of California has agreed to pay $725,000 to settle an unfair-dismissal lawsuit brought by a former wrestling coach at the university’s Davis campus.
Comments Off on UC Davis Will Pay Coach $725,000 to Settle Title IX Discrimination Case
Posted in Legal issues
The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization has issued a statement, in the wake of the bombings that killed dozens of university students in Baghdad this wake, demanding that the government of Iraq protect higher education. The government must “do its utmost to defend the basic human right of young Iraqis to education,” said Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of Unesco.
Comments Off on Unesco Demands Safety for Iraqi Academics
Posted in International
Dallas Morning News: Baptists at odds over removal of female professor
Conservative Southern Baptists are fighting again, this time over whether women should be able to teach men in seminary theology programs.
They agree that the role of pastor is reserved for men, based on a verse in 1 Timothy in which the Apostle Paul says, “I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man.”
But some conservatives say Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, under president Paige Patterson, wrongly applied the verse to remove from its faculty Sheri Klouda, who until last year had been teaching men Hebrew in the seminary’s school of theology.
Paige Patterson
Comments Off on Baptists at odds over removal of female professor
Posted in Equity
The University of Phoenix has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that the institution must go to trial on allegations that it paid recruiters based on the number of students they enrolled. Paying recruiters solely on such a basis is against the law. A lawsuit, filed in 2003 by two former recruiters, alleges that Phoenix obtained federal funds while certifying that it was in compliance with all Department of Education regulations.
Comments Off on U. of Phoenix Appeals to Supreme Court in Lawsuit Over Alleged Recruiter Payoffs
Posted in Corporate University
Mail Tribune: Southern Oregon U. Will Eliminate 24 Faculty Jobs, Some on Tenure Track
Faced with a gnawing budget crisis, Southern Oregon University has proposed cutting about 24 faculty positions, eliminating three majors, ending its honors program and consolidating three schools into one new College of Arts and Sciences.
Comments Off on Southern Oregon U. Will Eliminate 24 Faculty Jobs, Some on Tenure Track
Posted in Faculty
News-Record: Update: ‘It was the most horrific experience of my life’
Updates on three Guilford College students who were charged in connection with a group assault that occurred on campus. A story appears below the updates:
Comments Off on A judge on Tuesday dismissed two lawsuits filed against Randolph-Macon Woman’s College by opponents of the private school’s decision to admit men.
Posted in Students
Daily Press: Judge throws out lawsuits over college’s coed move
A judge on Tuesday dismissed two lawsuits filed against Randolph-Macon Woman’s College by opponents of the private school’s decision to admit men.
Lynchburg Circuit Judge Leyburn Mosby Jr.’s action was a blow to students and alumnae hoping the lawsuits would reverse the decision by the school’s governing body to begin admitting men this fall.
Comments Off on Virginia: Judge throws out lawsuits over college’s coed move
Posted in Diversity
Centre Daily Times: State eyes PSU probehttp://
A string of discrimination complaints against Penn State may instigate a state investigation into the university.
The state Human Relations Commission is concerned about the volume of complaints, Chairman Stephen Glassman said Tuesday. An official count was not immediately available.
Comments Off on Human Relations Commission May Look Into Bias Complaints Against Penn State U.
Posted in Equity
The Chronicle News Blog
Some 170 professors at Southern Methodist University have signed a petition asking for a full-faculty vote on whether it would be acceptable for the campus to be the site of a partisan Bush Institute, faculty leaders announced on Thursday. The institute would be part of a proposed George W. Bush Presidential Library complex, for which Southern Methodist is the final contender as host institution.
Comments Off on Southern Methodist Professors Seek Full-Faculty Vote on Proposed Bush Institute
Posted in Governance
The Boston Globe: Carter film maker faults Brandeis
Academy-Awarding winning director Jonathan Demme had hoped that filming Jimmy Carter’s speech at Brandeis University next week would become the powerful ending for his documentary on the former president. But Brandeis has refused to allow Demme to film Carter’s speech or his interaction with the university’s students Tuesday.
Comments Off on Carter film maker faults Brandeis
Posted in Administration
New Examiner-Enterprise: OWU auctions 1 year of tuition on eBay
A number of “divine” items have sold on eBay, from a toasted grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary to a pierogi with Jesus Christ’s face on it.
Comments Off on Oklahoma Wesleyan U auctions 1 year of tuition on eBay
Posted in Corporate University
The Chronicle: AAUP Draft Report Criticizes New Orleans Universities for Post-Katrina Layoffs
A special committee of the American Association of University Professors sharply criticizes several New Orleans universities in a draft report of its investigation of layoffs, program cuts, and other steps the institutions took in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Comments Off on AAUP Draft Report Criticizes New Orleans Universities for Post-Katrina Layoffs
Posted in Employment rights
Inside Higher Ed: Students’ Complaints, Professors’ Rights
CUNY administrators have proposed that the university’s board adopt new procedures for handling student complaints that are not related to either academic freedom or covered by other university policies. The proposal — expected to come before CUNY’s board for ratification later this month — sets up investigative responsibilities and creates panels to adjudicate those complaints in which a mutual conclusion can’t be reached. CUNY officials portray the policy as a clarification that will help students who don’t know what to do when they feel they have been mistreated in the classroom. Very few cases are likely to be covered by the policy, CUNY officials say, and it has nothing to do with Horowitz’s cause.
Comments Off on Students’ Complaints, Professors’ Rights
Posted in Academic freedom
Inside Higher Ed: Holding Trustees Accountable
This has been a challenging couple of years for university and other nonprofit governing boards. The Enron-style corporate governance scandals have undoubtedly had a spillover effect into the nonprofit world, even if the Sarbanes-Oxley law designed to clean up those problem doesn’t technically apply to most colleges and universities. Nonprofit groups and colleges in particular have had their own set of governance and conflict-of-interest controversies as well, prompting a Congressional review into American University’s compensation for its former president. And all of this has come at a time when the performance and effectiveness of higher education as a whole is under scrutiny of its own, from governments and the public.
To try to guide trustees in such a turbulent climate — and, its leaders hope, to send a reassuring signal to the public and to policy makers — the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges has released a statement aimed at better defining to whom, and for what, board members are accountable. In broad strokes, the areas on which the “AGB Statement on Board Accountability” seeks to focus trustees’ responsibilities may seem unsurprising: the fiscal integrity of their institutions, how boards conduct their own business, the educational quality of the institutions, and oversight of the president.
Comments Off on Holding Trustees Accountable
Posted in Administration
Michigan Universities File U.S. Supreme Court Brief Over Affirmative-Action Ban
Michigan’s three largest public universities have gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to seek a delay in complying with their state’s new constitutional amendment banning the use of affirmative-action preferences by public colleges and other public agencies.
In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University argue that a U.S. District Court judge acted appropriately in signing off on a deal between the universities and state officials giving the institutions until the summer to change their policies.
The district court’s decision was overturned last month by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, effectively forcing the universities to comply immediately with the ban on policies that grant preferences based on race, ethnicity, or gender. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling is being challenged before the Supreme Court by a Detroit-based group, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, commonly known as BAMN. The universities submitted their brief to the Supreme Court in connection with the BAMN challenge.
Comments Off on Michigan Universities File U.S. Supreme Court Brief Over Affirmative-Action Ban
Posted in Diversity
San Jose Mercury News: Student shocked by stun gun in campus library sues UCLA
A UCLA student who was shocked with a Taser by campus police after refusing to show his identification card sued the university Wednesday, claiming his civil rights were violated.
Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, alleges University of California, Los Angeles campus police officers used excessive force by repeatedly shocking him with the stun gun Nov. 14, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court.
Comments Off on Student shocked by stun gun in campus library sues UCLA
Posted in Legal issues, Students
The Minuteman Project, an organization that opposes illegal immigrants’ presence in the United States, is suing a California community college and its former president, alleging that the institution denied the group’s application to hold a forum on its campus because of the group’s beliefs.
Comments Off on Group Opposed to Illegal Immigrants Sues California College for Refusing Access to Its Campus
Posted in Free speech
Las Vegas Sun: Five days that rocked higher education system
University system Regent James Dean Leavitt says he thought his phone call last Wednesday was innocent enough, putting a few basic questions to Jim Rogers, the businessman-turned-chancellor of Nevada’s system of higher education.
Leavitt, one of 13 regents, wanted to ask Rogers about the person he had just hired to lobby for his pet project, an academic health science system.
Rogers exploded, according to both men. He felt his integrity was being challenged – and a battle was joined.
Comments Off on Nevada: Five days that rocked higher education system
Posted in Administration
The New York Times: As College Grows, a City Is Asking, ‘Who Will Pay?’
For most of the last 40 years, this eclectic seaside city and its University of California campus have lived in relative harmony. With its beaches, bistros and relaxed intellectual vibe, Santa Cruz has long held an allure for those seeking a mellower college experience, a place where hiking trails, yoga mats and surfboards are as common as backpacks filled with books.
Comments Off on Santa Cruz: As College Grows, a City Is Asking, ‘Who Will Pay?’
Posted in Administration
St. Petersburg Times: Consultant: University system is in shambles
A consultant hired to evaluate Florida’s higher education system says it is haphazard and poorly funded, with its core mission of educating undergraduates lost as universities compete with each other for national status.
Comments Off on Consultant: Florida’s university system is in shambles
Posted in Administration
