Tag Archives: Research

Ivor van Heerden, who pointed fingers in Hurricane Katrina levee failures, fired by LSU

Posted on April 13, 2009 by | Comments Off on Ivor van Heerden, who pointed fingers in Hurricane Katrina levee failures, fired by LSU

Times-Picayune: Ivor van Heerden, who pointed fingers in Hurricane Katrina levee failures, fired by LSU

Ivor van Heerden, the outspoken coastal scientist who led the state’s independent Team Louisiana investigation into Hurricane Katrina levee failures, has been notified by Louisiana State University that he will be terminated as a research professor in May 2010.

Van Heerden, who is not a tenured professor, also has been stripped of his title as deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center. Also, engineering professor Marc Levitan has stepped down as the center’s director. University officials say they will reshape the center’s research direction in the wake of the moves.

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Posted in Academic freedom

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CU is to Ward Churchill what Bowdoin is to Jonathan Goldstein?

Posted on April 10, 2009 by | Comments Off on CU is to Ward Churchill what Bowdoin is to Jonathan Goldstein?

Inside Higher Ed: Ward Churchill Redux?

The professor writes something that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. That prompts administrators to look closely at his research methods, and they find errors that lead them to discipline him. No, not that case, where the issues and punishments at stake are admittedly more dramatic. This one is unfolding at Bowdoin College, and like many such situations, it evokes “Rashomon” in the conflicting versions of events recounted by the two sides. (Having some video of the events at issue would help, as will become clear.)

One of the few facts on which both parties agree is that Bowdoin is poised to punish a longtime professor of economics, Jonathan Goldstein, based on an investigative committee’s findings that he engaged in research misconduct (failing to cite sources) and used confidential data in the draft of a paper on his Web site last fall about the relative emphasis on intercollegiate athletics at Bowdoin and 35 other liberal arts colleges. The two sides also agree that the primary bone of contention in the situation is that Goldstein sought to distribute the paper to high school students and families visiting Bowdoin’s admissions office last fall.

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Posted in Academic freedom

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Profs blast lazy first-year students

Posted on April 6, 2009 by | Comments Off on Profs blast lazy first-year students

Toronto Star: Profs blast lazy first-year students

Wikipedia generation is lazy and unprepared for university’s rigours, survey of faculty says

University professors feel their first-year students are less mature, rely too much on Wikipedia and “expect success without the requisite effort,” says a province-wide survey to be released today.

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Posted in Students

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British Columbia: Ogden Case Settled, CAUT Ends Inquiry

Posted on March 27, 2009 by | Comments Off on British Columbia: Ogden Case Settled, CAUT Ends Inquiry

CAUT Bulletin: Ogden Case Settled, CAUT Ends Inquiry

CAUT’s inquiry in the case of criminologist Russel Ogden of Kwantlen Polytechnic University came to an end in January when a mutually agreeable settlement was reached by Ogden, the university and the Kwantlen faculty association.

CAUT set up a special committee of inquiry last June after the university notified Ogden that he was to stop his research on suicide and assisted suicide, even though the re­search had been approved by Kwantlen’s research ethics board. Ogden was told not to engage “in any illegal activity, including attending at an assisted death.” Ogden disputed the claim that his research involved illegal conduct.

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Posted in Academic freedom

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Settlement in Dispute on Academic Freedom and Assisted Suicide

Posted on March 27, 2009 by | 1 comment

Inside Higher Ed: Settlement in Dispute on Academic Freedom and Assisted Suicide

Russel Ogden will be able to resume his research on assisted suicide, according to a settlement announced by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Ogden, a sociologist at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, has written about assisted suicides and observed many of them. An ethics review board at his university had approved the research, but Kwantlen ordered him to stop any studies that involved observing suicides. While suicide is not illegal in Canada, assisting a suicide is illegal, and the university has equated Ogden’s proposal to observe assisted suicides with assisting suicides himself. Many professors in Canada backed him, arguing that observing something is not the same as endorsing or participating in it — and noting that many sociology studies involve observing illegal activities. The Canadian Association of University Teachers set up a committee to study the matter last year. The association’s announcement of a settlement in the case said that Ogden is now permitted to engage in the research approved by the university’s ethics review board.

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Posted in Academic freedom

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Ethics event spawns a tussle at Tufts

Posted on March 26, 2009 by | Comments Off on Ethics event spawns a tussle at Tufts

Boston Globe: Ethics event spawns a tussle at Tufts
Speaker is out; now organizer is, too

Tufts University has withdrawn an invitation for a top aide to US Senator Charles E. Grassley to give the keynote speech at a conference on conflicts of interest in medicine and research, leading one conference organizer to pull out and question the university’s commitment to academic freedom.

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Posted in Ethics

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Ward Churchill Is Defiant in Second Day on Witness Stand

Posted on March 25, 2009 by | Comments Off on Ward Churchill Is Defiant in Second Day on Witness Stand

The New York Times: Fired Colorado Professor Is Cross-Examined in Lawsuit

DENVER — A former University of Colorado professor spent nearly six hours defending his scholarly work on Tuesday during cross-examination in his lawsuit contending that he was fired for an essay he wrote about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Chronicle News Blog: Ward Churchill Is Defiant in Second Day on Witness Stand

Ward Churchill acknowledged some flaws in his scholarship, but strenuously denied that any merited his 2007 dismissal by the University of Colorado, in testimony delivered today in a trial in which he is attempting to prove that his firing violated his First Amendment rights.

The Denver Post: Churchill: Plagiarism occurred: But it wasn’t he who lifted from another prof’s essay, he asserts.

A juror’s question, posed Tuesday after former professor Ward Churchill had been on the witness stand for more than seven hours, gave him the opening to argue — succinctly — that he was the victim of his controversial views, not his scholarship.
The Denver Post: 2nd day on stand for Churchill

The Colorado Daily: Regent testimony closes out the day

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Posted in Legal issues

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MIT Professors Approve Campuswide Policy to Publish Scholarly Articles Free Online

Posted on March 23, 2009 by | Comments Off on MIT Professors Approve Campuswide Policy to Publish Scholarly Articles Free Online

The Chronicle News Blog: MIT Professors Approve Campuswide Policy to Publish Scholarly Articles Free Online

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is known for its ambitious effort to give away its course materials online, but now the university is giving away its research too.

Last week MIT’s professors voted unanimously to adopt a policy stating that all faculty members will deposit their scholarly research papers in a free online university repository (in addition to sending them to scholarly journals), in an effort to expand access to the university’s scholarship.

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Posted in Open access

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Switch to online journals under attack

Posted on March 22, 2009 by | Comments Off on Switch to online journals under attack

World University News: Switch to online journals under attack

A trend to make printed scientific journals available online worldwide, is under fire. Although President Obama has signed a measure to make the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy permanent, some US lawmakers have launched legislation to roll back the effort. While advocates assert moving science journals online is tech-savvy, economical and the only proper use of taxpayer-generated research, problems with costs, archiving, copyright, and support of small professional organisations (centred on their journal identity and research collaboration) are causing second thoughts.

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Posted in Academics

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Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say

Posted on March 20, 2009 by | Comments Off on Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say

The New York Times: Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say

An influential Harvard child psychiatrist told the drug giant Johnson & Johnson that planned studies of its medicines in children would yield results benefiting the company, according to court documents dating over several years that the psychiatrist wants sealed.
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The psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, outlined plans to test Johnson & Johnson’s drugs in presentations to company executives. One slide referred to a proposed trial in preschool children of risperidone, an antipsychotic drug made by the drug company. The trial, the slide stated, “will support the safety and effectiveness of risperidone in this age group.”

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Posted in Ethics

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Art colleges lose research cash as ministers opt to protect science

Posted on March 19, 2009 by | Comments Off on Art colleges lose research cash as ministers opt to protect science

The Independent: Art colleges lose research cash as ministers opt to protect science

Some of London’s top art colleges are seething about cuts that mean that the University of the Arts London is losing £3m and the Royal College of Art £500,000 of research money next year. The cuts have come as a shock because the colleges actually did better in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), but this improvement was not reflected in cash.

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Posted in Budgets & Funding

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Who’s Your Academic Buddy?

Posted on March 19, 2009 by | Comments Off on Who’s Your Academic Buddy?

The Chronicle: Who’s Your Academic Buddy? New Study Suggests How Fields Are Intertwined

University leaders often talk about the need to break down academic silos on campuses, but they don’t necessarily have a good road map for doing it.

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Posted in Faculty

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Faculty Speed Dating

Posted on March 19, 2009 by | Comments Off on Faculty Speed Dating

Inside Higher Ed: Faculty Speed Dating

For all of their big ideas, sometimes faculty are a bit like wallflowers at a high school dance; they need a little push to make the first move. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the University of Southern California is using “speed dating” techniques to encourage professors to work together across disciplines.

Later this month, about 60 Southern California faculty will assemble at a long rectangular table, pitching research ideas to other faculty they may have never even met before. In the style of speed dating, faculty will move across the table in a round-robin fashion, taking just a few minutes to chat before moving on to talk to other faculty. After these brief sessions, organizers hope a special chemistry will develop between some of the participants, prompting the beginnings of a new research relationship.

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Feds probing Emory, professor on research grants

Posted on March 2, 2009 by | Comments Off on Feds probing Emory, professor on research grants

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Feds probing Emory, professor on research grants

Federal officials are investigating Emory University and one of its prominent researchers to determine if either misled government agencies about the psychiatrist’s high-paying work with drug companies, officials said.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, who pressed for the investigation, sent a letter Tuesday to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlining his concerns. He said Dr. Charles Nemeroff, an internationaly prominent psychiatrist, may have violated conflict of interest rules surrounding several grants that Emory received from the National Institutes of Health. Grassley’s letter also noted that Emory is required to report such conflicts to the NIH.

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Posted in Government

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