The Boston Globe: Dismissed
Born deaf, Worcester native and former Northeastern professor Jane Fernandes fought her whole life to fit into the hearing world. But after winning appointment as president at all-deaf Gallaudet University, she was rejected by her own community.
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Posted in Administration
LA Daily News: UC pay inequity
HERE’S a quick word problem for students at the University of California to ponder: If university fees go up every year at the same rate as the increased bonus and perks for UC executives do, at what point will California fall into the ocean?
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Posted in Equity
Press-Register: 25-year lawsuit could end in month
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Posted in Diversity
Washington Post: A Conflict on Integrity Surfaces
As Gallaudet searches for its next president, the university is wrestling with divisions that go beyond the recent protests, with faculty and staff charging that some administrators have compromised academic standards and jeopardized the institution’s integrity and performance.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Inside Higher Ed: Michigan Votes Down Affirmative Action
Michigan voters on Tuesday approved a ban on affirmative action at the state’s public colleges and in government contracting. The vote came despite opposition to the ban from most academic and business leaders in the state — and the history in which the University of Michigan played a key role in preserving the right of colleges to consider race as a factor in admissions.
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Posted in Equity
Inside Higher Ed: Controversy Over An Altered Contract
It has been anything but a typical election season for the Board of Trustees at Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, in Southern California.
A trustee is among a group that is calling for the resignation of Omero Suarez, the district chancellor, who has admitted to not following proper procedure when he had his contract altered without board approval.
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Posted in Administration
Inside Higher Ed: Election day showdowns
Three years after the University of Michigan won approval from the U.S. Supreme Court to use affirmative action (in some forms) in college admissions, voters in Michigan could strip the institution of the right to consider race when admitting students.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative would ban the state’s public colleges and universities from giving preferential treatment based on race, ethnicity or gender in admissions, hiring and contracting. The impact on admissions is expected to be greatest on the University of Michigan, but many public colleges in the state have ambitious programs in hiring that could also be called into question. While universities as institutions have not taken stands on the measures, the leaders of higher ed in the state have made clear their opposition to the measure.
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Posted in Government
Inside Higher Ed: Unionizing Postdocs
They’ve been called “the invisible scientists,” and while that’s probably hyperbole, postdoctoral researchers are, on many university campuses, neither fish nor fowl — not yet professors, and yet no longer students, either. Their numbers have risen steadily in recent years with the increase in biomedical and other research spending, to an estimated 50,000 to 60,000, but the length of time that many postdocs spend in this in-between stage has been growing, too. Also on the rise, among some of them, is frustration at low pay, insufficient benefits and the reality that fewer of them may find a full-time faculty or research job at the end of their stint.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
civilrights.org: College Leaders Reach into Their Wallets to Help Defeat Michigan’s Proposed Ban on Preferences
Some national higher-education associations are among the groups and people who have been reaching deeply into their pockets to try to defeat a Michigan ballot measure to limit affirmative action.
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Posted in Diversity
Tallahassee Democrat: Bryant flunks popularity test with FAMU faculty
The next Florida A&M University president, yet to be found but set to be hired in March, will face an alienated, frustrated faculty.
Eighty-three percent of FAMU faculty, responding to a union-conducted survey in October, said interim President Castell Bryant does not understand or appreciate the faculty’s role. And 82 percent of 132 professors responding to the poll flunked Bryant’s ability for consensus-building.
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Posted in Administration
The Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, announced Friday that one top financial officer has resigned and another is on administrative leave as the for-profit higher education company continues to investigate its practices for awarding stock options to employees. The company’s news release reiterated earlier statements that the investigation had uncovered “various deficiencies,” and said that the failings would require the company to restate previous earnings statements “to record additional charges for compensation expenses relating to past stock option grants.” In a conference call Friday, company officials said the findings would have no ill effects on the institutions’ educational operations. Apollo officials said that the chief financial officer and treasurer, Kenda B. Gonzales, had resigned last week, citing personal reasons, and the the company’s chief accountant, Dan Bachus, is on administrative leave.
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Posted in Corporate University
The Boston Globe: Radicalism in the Deaf culture
SINCE LAST MAY, Gallaudet University, the world’s only university designed entirely for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, has been rocked by protests over the selection of a new president.
Jane K. Fernandes was scheduled to take over from I. King Jordan in January. On Oct. 29, after protesters shut down the Washington campus for more than two weeks, the board of trustees revoked Fernandes’s appointment. This fiasco is a striking example of identity politics gone mad.
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Posted in Students
SomaliNet News: Botswana Trade Unions plan strike
Botswana’s Trade Unions have threatened a strike this week unless Botswana’s government restores Japhta Radibe, as head of the Botswana Teachers Union (BTU).
Botswana’s government has been given up to Tuesday to reinstate Radibe. This is after he lost his position as head teacher, a move many owe to his continued criticism against Botswana’s Education sector.
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Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Free Press: Unions more active in N.C.politics
History might suggest that a Southern state such as North Carolina would be less than fertile ground for increased labor union activity, particularly when it comes to politics.
With its right-to-work law and relatively small participation in organized labor, North Carolina hasn’t had the reputation of being particularly union-friendly.
However, policy groups and political observers have noticed a recent upswing in union activity in North Carolina politics.
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Posted in Unions
Detroit Free Press: In Detroit, schools and union dispute money again
Schools and the Detroit Federation of Teachers that was touted by both sides last month as the Detroit teachers strike was settled apparently has fallen apart — over money, again.
This time, the two sides disagree over state funding for Last Chance, a DPS program for students in danger of dropping out that is run by for-profit companies. The district has asked the teachers union for a waiver for the program’s teachers, which so far this year the DFT has not granted.
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Posted in K-12 issues
The Oaxaca teachers union suspended an assembly on Saturday and criticized allied protesters for “generating a tense environment.”
A visibly upset Enrique Rueda Pacheco, the teachers union leader, told reporters the assembly was canceled after Radio Universidad, controlled by the Oaxaca People´s Assembly (APPO), began summoning people to the assembly and using inflammatory language.
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Posted in International, K-12 issues, Protests
Daily Sun: Unity School: No pay for striking teachers –Govt
Minister of Education, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili may have ordered a clampdown on principals of Unity Schools, where the teachers are on strike as some of the school heads were arrested at the weekend for allowing the industrial action.
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Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Nation‘s Michael McCaughan on the state of seige in Oaxaca:
A virtual state of siege prevails in Oaxaca City where thousands of military police have occupied the central square and surrounding streets, clearing barricades and detaining dozens of opposition activists. The city’s emergency services are idle while banks and schools remain closed and the city center, usually bustling with tourists, has the air of a ghost town. The hub of activity has shifted to the Santo Domingo church where thousands of activists gather daily to swap news, make plans and denounce police brutality.
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Posted in International, K-12 issues, Protests
The American Prospect: Affirmative Action Measure on Michigan Ballot
Though it perhaps plays a more positive role than ever before in American popular culture, race has played an unmistakably divisive role this election season. The Republican leadership showed its true colors with the instantly infamous ad it funded in Tennessee playing into the lingering aversion among Southern voters to interracial sex. Americans shouldn’t quickly forget that though the ad attacking black congressman and Senate candidate Harold Ford was pulled by many Tennessee TV stations late last month, it wasn’t pulled everywhere.
NarcoNews: Sixth Megamarch Organized by APPO Underway in Oaxaca
During the night helicopters brought military troops into the city. According to “La Doctora,” impeccably
calm and intelligent as ever on Radio Universidad, the people must remain non-violent. She mentioned Mahatma Ghandi and to avoid the provocations the military and PRI will attempt. The people must remain organized and dignified, she said.
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Posted in International, K-12 issues, Protests
