The Chronicle: Scorching the Grass Roots?
A Columbia University sociologist who once canvassed for progressive causes now says her research shows the method is unhealthy for liberals and democracy. Her new book, Activism, Inc., which describes operations at a pseudonymous canvassing network, is drawing scholarly praise and scorn — and she and the group she studied are trading accusations of intimidation and bad faith.
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Posted in Advocacy
Washington Square News: GSOC ends strike
Returning Graduate Student Organizing Committee members resumed teaching assistantships with the first day of classes yesterday, officially ending their six-month-long strike for union recognition.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Inside Higher Ed: NYU strike ends without a contract
Graduate students who spent the last semester on strike at New York University have returned to their classes, with a quiet end to what was once seen as a landmark labor action.
The students, affiliated with the United Auto Workers, had been fighting for the university to recognize them as a union. NYU previously had done so, and had been the only private institution to ever do so for its graduate students. But following a National Labor Relations Board ruling that the university didn’t have to recognize the union, NYU stopped doing so when the students’ sole contract expired.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Full Professor, What’s That?
By Jonathan G. Katz
Sixteen years after receiving my Ph.D., I am, at long last, a “professor.” I don’t dare tell my mother.
“You mean, you weren’t a real professor all this time?” I can hear her say.
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Posted in Academics
A jury that awarded $850,000 to an employee of St. Louis Community College over her bosses’ handling of a sexual harassment complaint will end up punishing the public, a lawyer for the school warned Tuesday.
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Posted in Employment rights
The Chronicle News Blog: Revised Paper From State-College Groups Proposes New Accountability System
Two state-college associations have released a revised version of a paper calling for a voluntary accountability system that would allow prospective students, their parents, and policy makers to compare similar institutions.
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Posted in Accountability
Boston Globe: Boston University dean to resign over embellished vita
The dean of the Boston University College of Communication has agreed to resign his post even though a committee investigating whether he embellished on his resume found that he had done nothing wrong, officials said Wednesday.
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Posted in Administration
The Chronicle: Emory U. Settles Gender-Discrimination Complaint by Rehiring Coach
Emory University has settled a federal gender-discrimination lawsuit by rehiring its former head women’s soccer coach in a less prominent position.
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Posted in Equity
The Chronicle: Eastern Michigan U. Begins Fall Semester With Faculty on Strike
Students at Eastern Michigan University returned from summer break on Wednesday to find their professors on strike and many of their classes unstaffed.
The professors, who are represented by a local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, went on strike just after midnight on September 1, after their contract with the university expired. With no classes in session, faculty members spent the last six days of the summer break on picket lines. Then on Wednesday, after a collapse in negotiations with the university late on Tuesday night, the strike carried into the school year.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
<the Chronicle: Medical Schools Still Work Residents More Than 80 Hours a Week, a Disputed Study Says
Despite regulations, training programs frequently work medical residents more than 80 hours a week, according to a study described in the September 6 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. But officials with an accrediting board say compliance is much greater than the report suggests.
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Posted in Working conditions
The Guardian: Women scientists face pay discrimination, finds survey
Discrimination plays a significant role in the pay gap between men and women scientists working in UK universities, according to new research carried out at the University of East Anglia.
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Posted in Equity
Inside Higher Ed: You May Have Been YouTubed
f you don’t like what RateMyProfessors.com has done for the image of professors, get ready for the YouTube effect. YouTube is the immensely popular Web site where people post videos of themselves and their friends hanging out, doing mock television shows, watching television, or just about anything you can imagine in front of a video camera of some sort.
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Posted in Students
Inside Higher Ed: U. of Phoenix Loses in U.S. Court
Appeals panel clears way for lawsuit charging for-profit university with defrauding government of billions
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Posted in Corporate University
International Herald Tribune: Iran’s Ahmadinejad calls for purge of liberal university teachers
Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged students Tuesday to push for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from universities, in another sign of his determination to stamp a strong Islamic fundamentalist revival on the country.
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Posted in Academic freedom, International
The Chronicle News Blog: Labor Talks Collapse at Eastern Michigan U.; Classes to Be Taught by Substitutes
Students at Eastern Michigan University have returned from summer break to find their professors on strike and their classes, which are scheduled to begin this morning, taught by substitutes.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Chronicle: Hundreds Protest Chinese University’s Crackdown on Certificate Courses
Angry students and parents demonstrated in front of Shanghai’s Fudan University over the weekend after the university withdrew support for a series of courses in a certificate program offered by one of its departments and expelled 700 to 800 students who had enrolled in them. The protest was at least the second in recent months as Chinese universities have tightened control over academic credentials issued under their names.
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Posted in International, Students
Inside Higher Ed: Strike at Eastern Michigan
Faculty members who are part of Eastern Michigan University’s American Association of University Professors union chapter are hoping that 666 will prove to be a lucky number in their ongoing strike at the institution, which began on Thursday. It’s the number of professors that Howard Bunsis, president of the chapter, says are members of the union.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Palm Beach Post: FAMU inspector fired over role in probe
Florida A&M University’s interim inspector general was fired Thursday after a review from an outside auditor found he mishandled an investigation involving top-level administrators.
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Posted in Administration
Ann Arbor News: EMU sets deadline for end of strike
Eastern Michigan University has drawn a line in the sand in negotiations with its striking faculty union. In a statement issued Sunday night, university officials demanded EMU’s American Association of University Professors union discontinue the strike by 10 p.m. Tuesday, or the administration will suspend all further negotiations until the strike is terminated.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Jerusalem Post: Teachers’ union cancels school strike
he school year will open on schedule Sunday, after the teachers’ union reached an agreement Friday with Education Minister Yuli Tamir and the Finance Ministries on layoff benefits and teacher rehiring.
On Thursday, the Education and Internal Security Ministries reached an agreement on school security, under which the ministries would jointly finance the balance of the sum needed for providing security at some 700 schools. The amount in question was about NIS 30 million. Following the agreements, teachers decided to drop the strike, union representatives said.
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Posted in International, Strikes & Labor Disputes
