The Chronicle: Teaching Your Way to Tenure
The instructions Michel A. Wattiaux received when he started a faculty job in dairy science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison six years ago were simple yet daunting: Change the way the students learn.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
The Santa Fe New Mexican: Former professor sues over denial of tenure
A former assistant chemistry professor who was denied tenure at New Mexico Highlands University has sued the school, alleging the tenure denial was because he wasn’t Hispanic.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Inside Higher Ed: The New State U.
The University of Illinois is in many ways a classic state university system. Urbana-Champaign is a flagship, with a history of Nobel laureates and competitive admissions. The Chicago campus has been very much on the rise in the last 10 years, expanding research and graduate programs and attracting academic stars. Springfield has more of an undergraduate and liberal arts focus.
All three campuses have some distance education programs, but the university system is now getting ready to launch a whole new campus, creating an online division that could eventually rival the individual campuses in enrollment levels, operating in a very different environment. The University of Illinois Global Campus would be operated as a separate for-profit entity, have almost entirely part-time faculty members (and none with tenure), and focus on a relatively small number of degree programs.
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Posted in Corporate University
Detroit News: Detroit teachers vow to continue strike next week>
City school teachers will take a break from picketing for the rest of the week but vowed to return to the picket lines Tuesday, the first day of school, if they do not reach an agreement with the district.
About 97 percent of Detroit’s teachers did not report to work Wednesday, the third day of a union strike.
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Posted in Uncategorized
In These Times: SDS, New and Improved
Over the first weekend of August, more squirrels were scampering through the Quads at the University of Chicago than students or professors. But from Aug. 4 to 7, students adorned with political pins and T-shirts transformed the drab front hall of Cobb Hall into a scene reminiscent of a political rally. For the first time in 37 years, the newly re-formed Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) exchanged ideas and strategies at a national convention, one that contained both contention and hope for the modern student left.
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Posted in Students
Los Angeles Times: Who’s in Charge in Oaxaca?
A teachers strike has bred chaos: Camped-out protesters have shut down government offices, and a strange flag flies over City Hall.
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Posted in International
The Chronicle: Public-College Officials in Louisiana to Meet With AAUP Investigators After All
A special committee from the American Association of University Professors will meet, after all, with public-college officials in Louisiana this week as part of an investigation into layoffs, program cuts, and other moves at the colleges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
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Posted in Working conditions
Inside Higher Ed: Another Scholar Under Fire for 9/11 Views
The University of New Hampshire is refusing to fire a tenured professor whose views on 9/11 have led many politicians in the state to demand his dismissal.
William Woodward, a professor of psychology, is among those academics who believe that U.S. leaders have lied about what they know about 9/11, and were involved in a conspiracy that led to the massive deaths on that day, setting the stage for the war with Iraq. The Union Leader, a New Hampshire newspaper, reported on Woodward’s views on Sunday, and quoted him (accurately, he says) saying that he includes his views in some class sessions.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Seattle Times: Chancellor taking steps to protect UCLA
UCLA’s acting chancellor said he is taking steps to protect the university and its faculty from extremists in the animal-rights movement, after an attempted firebombing near the home of one UCLA researcher and repeated harassment that pushed another professor to halt his primate research.
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Posted in Working conditions
San Diego Union-Tribune: A bumpy tenure
University of California chief Robert Dynes has had a rough year. Under fire for giving questionable pay and perks to executives, he has hung in there. A look at a leader who seems happier in his physics lab than in a boardroom.
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Posted in Administration
The New York Times: BMW’s Custom-Made University
When Clemson University received $10 million from the German automaker BMW in 2002, the money helped jump-start a $1.5 billion automotive research and educational center. It also led to a partnership that both the automaker and the university acknowledge has grown extraordinarily close.
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Posted in Corporate University
AP: Tentative agreement averts Ferris State faculty strike
Ferris State University and its faculty union agreed on a tentative contract Sunday night, averting a strike one day before fall classes at the 12,000-student school were to begin.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
The Guardian: Iran Releases Dissident After 4 Months
Iran on Wednesday released liberal intellectual Ramin Jahanbegloo, who was accused of working with the U.S. to overthrow the government, a human rights activist said.
Ramin Jahanbegloo was released from Evin prison after four months of confinement, said Kouhyar Goodarzi, a member of the Student Committee of Human Rights Reporters of Iran.
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Posted in Free speech
The Washington Times: The new nutty professors
As state colleges and universities begin the school year, deans and trustees should familiarize themselves with a group called “Scholars for 9/11 Truth.” This group, the new locus for September 11 conspiracy theories, believes that the official history of the terrorist attacks is a hoax. But unlike garden-variety conspiracy clubs, this one happens to count nearly two dozen professors, instructors and other affiliates at state college and universities around the country among its members. Insofar as these people allow their nutty political beliefs to infect their teaching, school officials had better be equipped to make some decisions.
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Posted in Uncategorized
Statline.org: Affirmative action on Michigan ballot
A proposal on Michigan’s ballot to ban racial and gender preferences in public university admissions and government hiring – in effect, to end affirmative action – has led to table-tossing protests, accusations of fraud and deception, and a string of court battles.
This year’s election has reignited the state’s contentious debate over affirmative action, last settled in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court scrutinized the University of Michigan’s admissions processes. The high court threw out the undergraduate school’s system that awarded extra points to minority applicants, but it upheld the law school’s admissions process that took race into consideration but did not award points.
The Michigan ballot measure would end preferences for women and minorities and is modeled after proposals passed by voters in California in 1996 and Washington state in 1998. All three ballot campaigns were spearheaded by African-American businessman Ward Connerly, formerly a University of California regent.
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Posted in Equity
eSchoolNews Online: Colleges eye LMS patent fight
Learning management systems (LMS) provider Blackboard Inc. has sued a smaller business rival over a patent it was issued in January covering its LMS technology. The patent, and subsequent lawsuit, have significant implications for the future of eLearning at colleges and universities nationwide. Critics say Blackboard’s patent is overly broad and could stifle innovation in the eLearning industry.
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Posted in Corporate University
Chicago Tribute: Gary school district warns striking teachers
Gary public schoolteachers said Tuesday that they won’t return to classrooms until they have a new contract, despite warnings from school officials that the teachers could lose their jobs and health benefits if the strike continues.
About 1,200 striking teachers took their stand the same day that officials with the Gary Community School Corporation issued letters saying if the teachers continued their work stoppage, they would have to pay for their own health insurance. And if the teachers don’t return to work by Thursday, they could be fired.
The Boston Globe: Striking teachers in Ind. may lose jobs
School district administrators warned striking teachers they could be fired if they do not return to their classrooms by Thursday.
“The Board of Trustees is prepared to use any and all available remedies to protect the interest of the Gary Community School Corporation and its students,” Superintendent Mary Steele wrote to teachers Tuesday.
More than 800 teachers, who have been without a contract since December 2004, went on strike Aug. 21 in the 16,000-student district.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Detroit Free Press: Detroit teachers remain on picket line
Thousands of Detroit Public Schools teachers continued to picket Tuesday, as the first 24 hours of court-ordered negotiations passed and another was set to begin early this morning.
Negotiators for the school district and the Detroit Federation of Teachers did not speak publicly about the progress of the talks, and state mediator Jim Amar would only say that both sides are complying with Wayne County Circuit Judge Susan Borman’s order. She ruled Monday that bargaining sessions should run around the clock through Thursday.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Washington Post: Numbers to Make Our Colleges Better
Gathering and analyzing information, advancing unfettered inquiry, expanding knowledge — these are surely hallmarks of American higher education. So, when the academy itself is the subject of rigorous study, shouldn’t we expect the leaders of our colleges and universities to support such inquiry on the same principles?
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Posted in Accountability
The Detroit News: Oakland University, professors union reach tentative deal
Leaders from Oakland University and its faculty union reached a tentative labor agreement late Tuesday that will ensure professors will be in class Wednesday for the first day of school, according to the university.
Members of the American Association of University Professors were expected to boycott their classes if the ongoing negotiations with the university had failed to yield a contract. But the three-year agreement means all classes will be held, and all faculty are expected to report to class to teach, according to the university.
Under the tentative contract posted on AAUP’s Web site, professors will receive raises of 3.2 percent, 3.25 percent and 3.3 percent over the next three years and the minimum salaries will increase from $27,041 to $33,000 for this school year. Health insurance co-pays will increase from $10 to $20. Retiree benefits from one Medicare plan will be eliminated and the Medigap program will be phased out.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
