Seattle Times: WWU drama professor provocative, or an abusive bully?
Over the years, Western Washington University professor Perry Mills has referred to an overweight student as a “400-pound canary who warbles nothingness”; slapped the nickname “Precious” on a male colleague he believed to be gay; and called a female colleague a “bimbo” and “slut” to her face.
Those remarks were just for starters, according to university records.
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Posted in Faculty
Tagged abusive language, bullying, faculty discipline, Legal issues, Western Washington U
The Spokesman-Review: Faculty question expert’s earnings
‘Inspiration officer’ paid $112,500 over nine months at UI
MOSCOW, Idaho – The University of Idaho is paying a Minnesota consultant who spends less than two weeks a month on the Moscow campus $112,500 to serve as its “chief inspiration officer,” according to public records.
The Moscow-Pullman Daily News reports the university signed a contract with Magaly Rodriguez last year, paying her $12,500 a month as part of a nine-month contract that expires in June.
The workshops conducted by Rodriguez have helped save programs, school administrators said, but some faculty are criticizing the contract signed during the same budget year the school was forced to cut about $3.8 million.
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Posted in Administration
CAUT Bulletin: Arbitrator Dismisses Google Grievance
Lakehead University Faculty Association contested the switch to Google’s e-mail in 2007, alleging violations of collective agreement rights to privacy and academic freedom.
In his decision, arbitrator Joseph Carrier acknowledged the university exposed its academic staff to greater danger because “…the likelihood of such incursions by U.S. authority into a private e-mail system (Lakehead’s own former system) was marginal compared to what might occur in the presence of the Google system.”
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Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Academic freedom, Canada, G-mail, Google, Lakehead U, Legal issues, Ontario, privacy
The Chronicle: Mary Easley Is Out at N.C. State, and So Is the Chancellor
Shock waves from a politically charged hiring scandal at North Carolina State University continued to expand Monday with the resignation of James L. Oblinger, the university’s chancellor, and the firing of Mary P. Easley, the former governor’s wife whose $170,000-a-year job is at the center of the controversy.
The high-profile departures followed the university’s release on Monday of a large number of documents it had provided to a federal grand jury that is investigating dealings involving the former governor, Michael F. Easley.
Inside Higher Ed: Survival Tactics
It’s looking like a hot, sticky and scandalous summer is in store for higher education. In recent weeks, controversies of varied size have embroiled college chiefs at the University of Illinois, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and North Carolina State University, where Chancellor James L. Oblinger resigned Monday.
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Posted in Ethics
Tagged Ethics, Government, Mary Easley, N.C. State U, Scandal, University presidents
The Chronicle News Blog: Cuts at U. of California at Riverside Reflect Harsh Realities for All of the System’s Campuses
San Francisco — In a memorandum that offers a look into the harsh decisions that leaders throughout the University of California system are making as they cope with further cuts in state support, the chancellor of the University of California at Riverside has announced that his campus will cut faculty and staff positions by 15 percent over the next couple of years and enroll fewer students in the fall of 2010.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, furloughs, Hiring Freeze, job attrition, Job cuts, job security, Layoffs, U of California, UC Riverside
ZNet: Academic Freedom at the U of C
Remarks for Seventh Annual International Al-Awda Convention, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Garden grove, California
Academic freedom is under attack at the University of California. I am under investigation by the university – and I face possible sanctions – because of my vocal condemnation of the nearly one-month long Israeli invasion of Gaza that began last December.
This campaign against academic freedom is not just an attempt to punish me. Much more importantly, it aims to create an environment of fear and intimidation in which any criticism on Israeli policy is subject to sanctions and censorship.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestine, U of California, William Robinson
Toward Freedom: Pacifism and The Military-Industrial-University Complex: Interviewing Mark Rudd
Mark Rudd was the chairman of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] at the time of the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt; and Rudd’s autobiography, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen was finally published in March 2009.
In a recent email interview with Toward Freedom, Rudd responded to some questions about how U.S. pacifists might consider responding to the role U.S. universities play in the current historical era of “permanent war abroad and economic depression
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Posted in Politics
Tagged Bob Feldman, Mark Rudd, pacifism, SDS, Weatherman
Inside Higher Ed: Tenure’s Value … to Society
A judge ruled last week in Colorado that not only is tenure a good thing for the professors who enjoy it, it is valuable to the public. Further, the court ruled that the value (to the public) of tenure outweighed the value of giving colleges flexibility in hiring and dismissing. That is a principle that faculty members say is very important and makes this case about much more than the specific issues at play.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Tagged Academic freedom, Colorado, Legal issues, tenure
The Chronicle: Keeping an Eye on Earmarks: the Education Department’s Role in Oversight
The University of Louisville’s former dean of education, Robert D. Felner, faces a criminal trial on charges that he and an associate diverted most of a $694,000 earmarked federal grant into their own bank accounts. Louisville officials have announced an administrative overhaul that will, they say, help prevent any future misbehavior with grants.
But what about the U.S. Department of Education, which was responsible for overseeing the grant on taxpayers’ behalf? Should it, too, be doing some soul-searching in the aftermath of Mr. Felner’s indictment?
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Posted in Government, Legal issues
Tagged earmarks, Fraud, Legal issues, research fraud, Robert Felner, Scandal, U of Louisville
The Chronicle: In Researcher’s Background, Some Warning Signs
When Robert D. Felner applied to become dean of education at the University of Louisville in 2003, he carried a genuinely impressive vita. But two of the most recent large grants listed on that vita could not have survived close scrutiny — and it isn’t clear that Louisville’s search committee scrutinized them at all.
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Posted in Administration, Legal issues
Tagged Legal issues, research fraud, Robert Felner, Scandal, U of Louisville
The Chronicle: Education Dean’s Fraud Case Teaches U. of Louisville a Hard Lesson
The former official now awaits trial. Some colleagues say the university should have caught him earlier.
Related materials
At the end of 2005, Robert D. Felner was riding high. A well-paid dean at the University of Louisville, he had just secured a $694,000 earmarked grant from the U.S. Department of Education to create an elaborate research center to help Kentucky’s public schools.
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Posted in Administration, Ethics
Tagged Fraud, Robert Felner, Scandal, U of Louisville
News & Observer: Records: Mike Easley involved in hiring
New documents show that the Mary Easley job at N.C. State University was orchestrated at the highest levels of state government, and included the direct involvement of then-Gov. Mike Easley.
E-mail messages show the creation of the job for Mary Easley was orchestrated in April and May of 2005 by the governor and that her job formation also included his wife, Mary; the chancellor at N.C. State, James Oblinger; a key trustee, McQueen Campbell; a senior adviser to Easley who now heads the Golden Leaf Foundation, Dan Gerlach; and an NCSU lobbyist at the time, Andy Willis.
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Posted in Ethics
Tagged Government, jobs, Mary Easley, N.C. State U, Scandal
Scotland On Sunday: Teachers to vote on strike over class sizes
SCOTLAND’S teachers yesterday voted for a ballot on industrial action as they stepped up their efforts to reduce class sizes.
Members of Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, took the step in response to the profession’s mounting frustration over the number of pupils teachers have to teach.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged class size, K-12 issues, Scotland, Strikes
Latin American Herald-Tribune: Chilean Teachers, Government Strike Tentative Deal
SANTIAGO – Represents of the 80,000 Chilean teachers who have been on strike for three weeks reached an accord with authorities Friday on a mechanism for the educators to receive two years’ worth of promised bonuses, but a firm deal still depends on approval by the union rank and file.
Union members are due to meet Saturday in regional assemblies to consider the proposal.
The strike is affecting nearly 1 million students nationwide.
The educators, who are owed around $2,000 each, had demanded an immediate payment of $877 with the balance to come by October at the latest, a proposal accepted by municipalities, which administer Chile’s public schools, but not by the Education Ministry.
Municipal governments acknowledge that they owe teachers as much as $142 million in bonuses for 2007 and 2008. EFE
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Tagged Chile, Contracts, K-12 issues, Strikes & Labor Disputes
World University News: MEXICO: Academic censored and threatened
Florencio Posadas Segura, a professor at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in Mexico, has been censured after speaking on the university radio station, Radio UAS. On 13 and 15 May, he commented on the topic of new university regulations, including the issue of succession of the rector, saying that they had not passed democratic and academic tests. Segura was then severely reprimanded by the university authorities.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Free speech, Mexico
PageOneKentucky.com: Some Robert Felner Scandal Tidbits
The motion to suppress statements made by Robert Felner has been denied by U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Simpson III. Click here (Warning: PDF Link) for that.
And click here (Warning: PDF Link) for the judge’s memorandum opinion of whether or not he was subject to custodial interrogation.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Legal issues, Robert Felner, Scandal, U of Louisville
Times of India: Nepal govt’s baptism by fire begins
The Institutional School Teachers’ Union Sunday called a strike in around 6,000 schools in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur, demanding better pay and working conditions. The strike is to be followed by a Kathmandu Valley strike Monday called by the Maoist-affiliated Newa Mukti Morcha, that is demanding an autonomous state for the Newar community, the original residents of the valley.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Nepal, Strikes & Labor Disputes
Concordia University and the Concordia University Faculty Association are pleased to announce that they have signed a new collective agreement.
The collective agreement will cover the period from June 1, 2007 through May 31, 2012.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Tagged Concordia U, Contracts
Palm Beach Post: 30 workers, 45 majors to be cut at FAU as school tries to trim almost $17 million
Florida Atlantic University plans to lay off 30 employees and eliminate 45 majors in its effort to gouge $16.7 million from a budget already ravaged by two years of statewide cuts.
The proposal was released late Friday with an online video presentation by FAU President Frank Brogan.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Budgets & Funding, Florida Atlantic U
Burlington Free Press: UVM part-time faculty contract negotiations at impasse
Seemingly evergreen issues of job security, salary and health insurance have led to an impasse in contract negotiations between the University of Vermont’s part-time faculty and administration.
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The university and United Academics – UVM’s faculty union – agreed Thursday to declare an impasse after five months of failed negotiation, according to David Shiman, president of UVM’s faculty union.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts
Tagged Campaigns & Contracts, Contingent labor, impasse, negotiations, UVM
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