REOPENING AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION DEBATE

Posted on June 6, 2006 by | Comments Off on REOPENING AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION DEBATE

The Chronicle: REOPENING AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION DEBATE

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up the question of whether race can be a factor in assigning students to public schools. How the court decides the two cases could affect the landmark 2003 decisions involving the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Inside Higher Ed: Another Swing at Affirmative Action

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to hear a pair of cases dealing with the use of affirmative action in the public schools, which higher education legal experts agreed could give a newly configured (and more conservative) court the chance to review its 2003 ruling in two University of Michigan cases that allowed colleges to consider race in admitting students.

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Posted in Equity

Chilean high school students resume strikes

Posted on June 5, 2006 by | Comments Off on Chilean high school students resume strikes

San Diego Union-Tribune: Chilean high school students resume strikes

SANTIAGO, Chile – Small groups of protesters clashed sporadically with police Monday as more than 600,000 Chilean high school students joined an expanding strike pushing for increased education funding.

The strike, the largest such action by Chilean students in decades, is the first domestic crisis of President Michelle Bachelet’s nearly three-month-old government.

The public high school pupils are demanding free bus fare, free college entrance exams, more teachers, and improved secondary school buildings. They rejected Bachelet’s offer last week of $135 million in additional annual funding for school programs, saying it failed to meet their key demands.

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Posted in Students

Plagiarism Mystery

Posted on June 5, 2006 by | Comments Off on Plagiarism Mystery

Inside Higher Ed: Plagiarism Mystery

“An unknown individual” with “an ax to grind” against the college’s president creates plagiarized documents and affixes the president’s name to them. Later, the “ax grinder” posts the articles on the president’s Web page without his knowledge and then waits, patiently, for years to “spring his/her trap.” Only years later — when critics attacking the president in ways that are “unworthy of a Christian, church-centered institution” find the plagiarized documents in an archive of decommissioned Web pages — do they come to light.

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Posted in Administration

Colleges Should Take Action to Combat Academic Stress, Report Says

Posted on June 5, 2006 by | Comments Off on Colleges Should Take Action to Combat Academic Stress, Report Says

The Chronicle: Colleges Should Take Action to Combat Academic Stress, Report Says

Higher-education professionals face rampant stress from their jobs, and colleges and universities could be doing a lot more to prevent and alleviate it, according to a new report by the Universities & Colleges Employers Association, which represents academic institutions in the United Kingdom.

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Posted in Working conditions

Florida: Pay raises a continuing concern at FSU

Posted on June 5, 2006 by | Comments Off on Florida: Pay raises a continuing concern at FSU

Tallahassee Democrat: <a href=”http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060604/BREAKINGNEWS/606040351″

A professor at Florida State University earns $30 a day less – a tank’s worth of gas in a small car – than his counterpart elsewhere.

It adds up. The average FSU faculty paycheck, $73,929 in 2005-06, was $10,818 less the $84,747 earned by professors at 99 similar public universities in the U.S.

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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits

Pennsylvania: ‘Academic freedom’ hearings: The end or the beginning?

Posted on June 3, 2006 by | Comments Off on Pennsylvania: ‘Academic freedom’ hearings: The end or the beginning?

Lancaster online: ‘Academic freedom’ hearings: The end or the beginning?

A state House committee is close to finishing its investigation into whether a liberal bias permeates the classrooms of Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities.

The committee on higher education, chaired by state Rep. Gibson Armstrong, convened its final hearing Thursday in Harrisburg and is expected to issue a report by the end of the month.

The committee, however, also could request a five-month extension.

Following 10 months of hearings during which students, faculty and administrators testified before the committee, it’s uncertain if the group will recommend legislation.

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Posted in Academic freedom

UK: NAS Council Opposes Academic Boycotts

Posted on June 3, 2006 by | Comments Off on UK: NAS Council Opposes Academic Boycotts

photonics.com: NAS Council Opposes Academic Boycotts

The governing council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said in a statement this week that it opposes academic boycotts, “firmly believing that scientists provide a voice for rationality and moderation in political affairs. A boycott of Israeli academics announced yesterday by Britain’s largest faculty union would undermine the crucial long-term goal of building strong bridges of understanding between cultures.” (For a 2005 NAS Council statement, “International Cooperation in Science,” visit: http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20060530.html)

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Posted in Uncategorized

New Mexico: NMSU employees favor union

Posted on June 2, 2006 by | Comments Off on New Mexico: NMSU employees favor union

Free New Mexican: NMSU employees favor union

New Mexico State University employees have voted to join a union.

Unofficial results from a mail-in election that began May 4 showed 559 of the university’s nonexempt employees voted in favor of representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME. Some 302 workers opposed unionization.

The school’s labor relations board did not count 25 challenged ballots; 37 other ballots were ruled invalid because the instructions were not followed.

Some 1,290 nonexempt employees at the main campus, NMSU extension offices and branch campuses were eligible to vote. The results were counted and verified over a seven-hour period Wednesday.

The election will be certified on June 8 to allow five working days for any objections to be filed.

“I am so happy,” said Genevieve Bauer, a library specialist who sat through the vote count with about 60 other union supporters. “It has been a lot of work.”

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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts

North Carolina: Legislature considers bill to fingerprint all public university students

Posted on June 2, 2006 by | Comments Off on North Carolina: Legislature considers bill to fingerprint all public university students

The Chronicle: In the states

FINGERPRINT BILL: A North Carolina senator has introduced legislation to require fingerprinting and criminal-background checks for all students enrolling at the state’s 16 public universities, beginning in the fall of 2007. Prospective students could be charged for the background checks, which, under the legislation, would be conducted by the state’s Bureau of Investigation or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2004 two female students at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington were stalked and killed by fellow students who had concealed their troubled pasts. But a lawyer for the university system questioned whether the background checks would reveal much information because all juvenile records are sealed.

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Posted in Students

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Discuss Curricula in Final Hearing on Bias in Classrooms

Posted on June 2, 2006 by | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Lawmakers Discuss Curricula in Final Hearing on Bias in Classrooms

The Chronicle: Pennsylvania Lawmakers Discuss Curricula in Final Hearing on Bias in Classrooms

In its final hearing on whether Pennsylvania’s public colleges indoctrinate students in left-wing ideology and discriminate against conservatives, a committee of state lawmakers went somewhat off-topic on Thursday to discuss whether more emphasis on the traditions of Western civilization would serve as an antidote to any liberal bias in academe.

David W. Saxe, an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University at University Park, testified that studies of Western intellectual traditions were being crowded out of college curricula. That’s why he wants to create a Center for the Study of Free Institutions and Civic Education at his institution.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Review Confirms Plagiarism by Ohio U. Graduate Students and Recommends Professors’ Dismissals

Posted on June 2, 2006 by | 1 comment

The Chronicle: Review Confirms Plagiarism by Ohio U. Graduate Students and Recommends Professors’ Dismissals

An investigating committee at Ohio University has called for the dismissal of the chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and another unidentified faculty member at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology after finding evidence of “rampant and flagrant plagiarism” by graduate students in the department that took place over more than 20 years.

The committee’s report, released this week, is the latest development in the university’s continuing investigation of allegations brought by a former graduate student, Thomas A. Matrka, who asserted that faculty members had encouraged or ignored widespread cheating and plagiarism within the department.

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

UK: Oxford University to press ahead with controversial reforms

Posted on June 2, 2006 by | Comments Off on UK: Oxford University to press ahead with controversial reforms

The Guardian: Oxford University to press ahead with controversial reforms

Oxford University is to press ahead with controversial reforms of the way it is run, including plans to hand more power to business despite growing opposition among some dons.

In a white paper, the vice-chancellor, John Hood, confirmed that the council, which runs the university, would have a majority of outside members, including those with strong corporate interests, for the first time in Oxford’s 800-year history. The move, part of a drive to modernise Oxford’s governance, will be put before Congregation, the dons’ ancient parliament, in the autumn.

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Posted in Uncategorized

The case for class-based affirmative action

Posted on June 2, 2006 by | Comments Off on The case for class-based affirmative action

Inside Higher Ed: Opening Up the Elites

In recent years, driven in part by the publication of books like William G. Bowen’s Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education and Jerome Karabel’s The Chosen, a small but steadily growing number of elite private and public colleges have embraced the idea that they must do a much better job of opening their doors to students from low-income families. Private institutions such as Princeton University and Amherst College and selective public institutions like the Universities of Virginia and North Carolina at Chapel Hill have altered their financial aid programs and, to a lesser extent, their admissions policies with the goal of expanding the number of underprivileged students they enroll.

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Posted in Equity

Eastern Oregon faculty could be first in Oregon to strike

Posted on June 1, 2006 by | Comments Off on Eastern Oregon faculty could be first in Oregon to strike

Oregonlive.com: Eastern Oregon faculty could be first in Oregon to strike

Faculty and librarians at Eastern Oregon University could stage a precedent-setting strike at the La Grande school this fall, if contract negotiations prove unsuccessful.

This week, the union voted 61-6 to authorize its bargaining team to call a strike if they deem it necessary. It would be the first-ever strike at an Oregon university, though Western Oregon University in Monmouth came close this past year.

“We’ve taken this action as a last resort,” said Greg Monahan, president of the EOU union, Associated Academic Professionals.

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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes

In search of “liberation-oriented” economics: Black labor fights “disorder” of globalization

Posted on June 1, 2006 by | Comments Off on In search of “liberation-oriented” economics: Black labor fights “disorder” of globalization

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The Black Commentator: In search of “liberation-oriented” economics: Black labor fights “disorder” of globalization

When African Americans are once again forced to be the primary upholders of worker solidarity and labor principles, when it is African Americans that bear the brunt of corporate de-industrialization, and when Black labor must fight a multi-front war for racial, social, and economic justice, and world peace, then it is logical and righteous that Blacks appropriate these issues as uniquely their own. As always in America, the most despised and pilloried must ultimately lead those whose vision is damaged by relative racial privilege and delusions of Manifest Destiny.…

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Posted in Equity, Solidarity, Unions

Chile: CHILE STUDENTS CONTINUE CHALLENGING BACHELET GOVERNMENT

Posted on June 1, 2006 by | Comments Off on Chile: CHILE STUDENTS CONTINUE CHALLENGING BACHELET GOVERNMENT

The Santiago Times: CHILE STUDENTS CONTINUE CHALLENGING BACHELET GOVERNMENT

(May 23, 2006) High school students at the Instituto Nacional – one of the nation’s oldest and best known public schools – announced Monday an end to their illegal occupation (or “toma”) of the school, saying they had “changed tactics” and will no longer attend classes until the government responds to their demands. The students said their school “strike” will continue indefinitely and that they will not call for further street demonstrations.

BBC: In Pictures: Chile student protests

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Posted in Students

Tennessee: UT’s Owen runs up huge bills

Posted on June 1, 2006 by | Comments Off on Tennessee: UT’s Owen runs up huge bills

Commerical Appeal: UT’s Owen runs up huge bills

Three years after a spending debacle drove the University of Tennessee’s president from office, the chancellor of UT’s Memphis campus is embroiled in a similar controversy over costs at the chancellor’s residence.

The school owns a $1 million Memphis home that underwent a recent $500,000 renovation.

Yet UT bought a second Memphis home last August — this one for $1.3 million — because of a promise it made to chancellor Bill Owen when he was hired last year.

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Posted in Administration

Ivor van Heerden’s ‘Storm’ Draws Fire at L.S.U.

Posted on May 31, 2006 by | Comments Off on Ivor van Heerden’s ‘Storm’ Draws Fire at L.S.U.

The New York Times: Ivor van Heerden’s ‘Storm’ Draws Fire at L.S.U.

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Ivor van Heerden and his colleagues searched through homes in the city he calls the Cajun Atlantis, looking for battery-powered clocks.

In the face of horrifying destruction, Dr. van Heerden, the deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, knew that small things helped tell the big story. The moment that the clocks’ time stopped could show when the homes filled with water, data “vitally important to any good forensic study,” as he puts it in his new book, “The Storm: What Went Wrong During Hurricane Katrina — The Inside Story From One Louisiana Scientist,” published last week by Viking.

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Posted in Academic freedom, Free speech

The inside story of how blundering, lies, and revenge brought down Harvard’s Larry Summers.

Posted on May 31, 2006 by | Comments Off on The inside story of how blundering, lies, and revenge brought down Harvard’s Larry Summers.

Boston Magazine: The Crimson Coup

Probably the first sign that Larry Summers was in more than his usual trouble was the standing ovation the faculty gave to Bill Kirby, the dean the Harvard president had just forced out.

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Posted in Administration

Justices Punt on Academic Freedom

Posted on May 31, 2006 by | Comments Off on Justices Punt on Academic Freedom

Inside Higher Ed: Justices Punt on Academic Freedom

A divided U.S. Supreme Court severely narrowed the free speech rights of government employees in a ruling Tuesday in a whistle blower case. In doing so, the court touched on but largely sidestepped the question of whether the restrictive standard applies to employees of public colleges, in a way that concerned some proponents of academic freedom but heartened others.

Tuesday’s ruling came in a case, Garcetti v. Ceballos (04-473), in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had largely upheld the longstanding view that when public employees made statements about “matters of public concern” in their official capacities, they were protected by the First Amendment. But the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case of Richard Ceballos, a Los Angeles deputy district attorney who was demoted and transferred after criticizing a local sheriff’s conduct to his supervisors, had led many observers to suggest that the court intended to reconsider that precedent.

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Posted in Academic freedom