U. of Louisiana Weakens Tenure Rights

U. of Louisiana Weakens Tenure Rights: "

System wants flexibility to eliminate jobs -- even if institutions do not declare 'financial exigency.'

"

Adjunct Alternative or Union Busting?

Adjunct Alternative or Union Busting?: "

A community college's solution for reliance on adjuncts? Posts with job security for a year, a 7-7 course load, and no chance at tenure. Faculty unions split on the idea.

"

Virginia Governor's Proposed Covenant With Colleges Defies Other States' Cuts

Virginia Governor's Proposed Covenant With Colleges Defies Other States' Cuts: "

As deep cuts in higher education are being made in many states, Robert F. McDonnell plans to guarantee colleges a fair share of state money from now on.

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Hands Off Higher Ed in the Statehouse? Hardly.

Hands Off Higher Ed in the Statehouse? Hardly.: "

Bills on the table in some states include limits on salaries, sabbaticals, and collective bargaining.

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Report Suggests Ways Colleges Can Share Information About Learning Outcomes

Report Suggests Ways Colleges Can Share Information About Learning Outcomes: "

Colleges can take simple steps to tell the public about how they measure student learning. That’s the message of a Transparency Framework that has just been unveiled by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. A document describing the framework highlights institutions (St. Olaf College is one example) that have made assessment data reasonably easy to find on their Web sites. Openness about learning outcomes was also the subject of a panel discussion at last month’s meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

"

AAUP Threatens to Investigate Idaho State U.

AAUP Threatens to Investigate Idaho State U.: "

The American Association of University Professors is threatening to investigate Idaho State University over the recent suspension of the institution’s Faculty Senate. The warning comes just days after the Idaho Board of Education suspended the senate at the recommendation of Arthur C. Vailas, Idaho State’s president, in whom the faculty had just voted no confidence. In a letter sent to Mr. Vailas on Tuesday, Gregory F. Scholtz, associate secretary of the AAUP, said the state board’s unilateral action “contravenes widely observed principles of shared governance.” The letter told Mr. Vailas that the AAUP’s general secretary intends to authorize a formal investigation of Idaho State “unless you can apprise us of truly extraordinary factors currently unknown to us that would justify the action taken.”

"

From the Chronicle:

Unconventional Wisdom on U.S. Higher-Ed Attainment

"There’s an “inherent tension,” he adds, between widening access to postsecondary education and trying to improve completion rates."

http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/unconventional-wisdom-on-u-s-higher-ed-attainment/27896?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

State Board of Education Suspends Faculty Senate at Idaho State U.

http://chronicle.com/article/State-Board-of-Education/126437/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Cast Out in Chicago

Cast Out in Chicago: "

Adjuncts at Columbia College Chicago say that administration's replacement of 100 long-serving instructors, without explanation, is an act of 'war' on their union.

"

Kean U. Requires Faculty Members to Fill Out Time Sheets

Kean U. Requires Faculty Members to Fill Out Time Sheets: "

Administrators at Kean University, a state institution in New Jersey, have asked faculty members to fill out daily time sheets to ensure that they are putting in at least a 35-hour workweek. The time sheets have become another source of friction in the already-tense relationship between the faculty and the administration at Kean.

"

South Carolina Lawmakers Want Professors to Teach More

South Carolina Lawmakers Want Professors to Teach More: "

College professors in South Carolina should skip sabbaticals and research and, instead, teach at least nine credit hours each semester, a member of the state’s House of Representatives has told the Associated Press. A House budget-writing panel agreed to such a measure, among others that are part of the state’s $5.2-billion budget. The full Ways and Means Committee will vote next week.

"

UNLV President Warns of ‘Fiscal Collapse’

UNLV President Warns of ‘Fiscal Collapse’: "

For the first time in its 54-year history, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas may have to declare financial exigency, its provost, Michael W. Bowers, wrote in a memorandum to faculty and staff members on Tuesday. And according to the Las Vegas Sun, the university’s president, Neal Smatresk, repeated that point to the Faculty Senate, outlining a plan to cut nearly $48-million from the university’s budget if a budget proposed by Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, is adopted by the Legislature, a situation Mr. Smatresk characterized as “approaching a state of fiscal collapse.” A declaration of financial exigency would precede a university decision to close programs, lay off tenured faculty members, and take other emergency steps.

"

AAUP to Investigate Decision to Close Programs at SUNY-Albany

AAUP to Investigate Decision to Close Programs at SUNY-Albany: "

The American Association of University Professors announced today that it was appointing a committee to investigate the decision by administrators at the State University of New York at Albany to suspend admissions to five degree programs—in classics, French, Italian, Russian, and theater—as the campus deals with budget cuts. The AAUP said the decision to close the programs, and to notify 14 tenured faculty members that their appointments would be terminated within two years, raised concerns about academic freedom, tenure, and governance.

"

Punching In at Kean U.

Punching In at Kean U.: "

University with a history of tensions with its faculty has started requiring professors to file time sheets.

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Tenure Changes Coming to Brown U.

Tenure Changes Coming to Brown U.: "

Once named the most tenure-heavy institution among elite privates, Brown moves to new rules to tighten the process, following faculty sign-off.

"

Reversals in Wisconsin

Reversals in Wisconsin: "

Governor seeks major benefit cuts for all U. of Wisconsin employees -- and elimination of the newly won right of faculty and academic employees to unionize.

"

Why social scientists should be more like engineers

Editorial from the Chronicle: Social scientists should consider identifying not with the harder sciences or the humanities but with engineering

Social scientists should consider identifying not with the harder sciences or the humanities but with engineering

In Texas, Public Officials Offer More Ideas for Cutting College Costs

In Texas, Public Officials Offer More Ideas for Cutting College Costs: "

Unwelcome surprises continue to come for public-college professors and administrators in Texas. In his state-of-the-state address this week, Gov. Rick Perry called on colleges to set up undergraduate programs in which students could earn bachelors’ degrees for a total of no more than $10,000, textbooks included. But the state’s higher-education officials said they had “no idea” how such a cheap program could be created. In the meantime, community-college leaders—already in shock after a draft budget in the state Senate proposed shutting down four of the state’s two-year colleges—got their calculators out and started guesstimating how they would deal with another of the draft’s suggestions: that the state cut its support for health benefits for community-college employees from 83 percent to 50 percent.

"

Missouri Colleges Will Cut More Than 100 Degree Programs

Missouri Colleges Will Cut More Than 100 Degree Programs: "

Missouri’s public colleges and universities will eliminate more than 100 academic programs with low enrollments as part of a review ordered by the state’s governor last year, the Springfield News-Leader reported, quoting a report from the state’s department of higher education. The newspaper said four-year colleges would terminate 73 degree programs, while two-year institutions would end 46, for a total of 119. The Associated Press put the total slightly lower, at 116. Affected majors will be phased out over time so students already enrolled can complete their degrees. The report is scheduled for discussion on Thursday by the state’s coordinating board for higher education, with a final document due to the governor by the end of the month.

"

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: part-time vs. full-time faculty again.

Faculty Union Secretary Who Criticized Pay-Raise Bill Is Asked to Step Down

http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/126305/

UC Berkeley asked to absorb $80M of Brown's $500M cut | California Watch

UC Berkeley asked to absorb $80M of Brown's $500M cut | California Watch

The budget targets – which university officials emphasize are provisional – are exposing a long-simmering issue in the UC system, which is just how equally the 10 campuses should be treated. On an even more fundamental level, it raises the question of how, or even whether, the state can afford to support 10 world-class research universities, including the opening of a new one in the Central Valley.

Shared governance is a myth

Shared Governance Is a Myth - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Business Metaphor Still Ascendant

Business Metaphor Still Ascendant: "

Historians lament 'crisis' in higher education -- and many blame a corporate-minded ethos.

"The university has become a training institute for corporations and a means to get a good job, said Zahavi. Nowhere is this more evident than in the description of students as customers, many noted."

...

"Others noted that the real enemy was a larger question about the economic viability of higher education. Timothy J. Gilfoyle, who teaches American and urban history at Loyola University Chicago and led the department during a college effort to quantify faculty productivity, described an “elephant in the room": the underlying economic model for undergraduate education in many institutions, which recognizes faculty members for their research and rewards them as they move up the ladder by giving them less and less contact with students. “How long can we sustain this economic model?” Gilfoyle asked."

Documenting Adjuncts' Pay Gap

Documenting Adjuncts' Pay Gap: "

Analysis of compensation levels for those off the tenure track at Pennsylvania's public colleges suggests the difficulties of making a living wage.

"

Turning on the Faculty

Turning on the Faculty: "

Professors at public universities worry that a combination of economic anxiety, anti-union sentiment and frustration over rising college costs will make them and their institutions targets for populist anger.

"Much of the prevailing national dialogue in recent months has cast public employees as overpaid elites. Republican governors from Chris Christie of New Jersey to Mitch Daniels of Indiana have fixed blame for their states' budget woes on purportedly handsomely paid public employees and their unions. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota (whose term just ended) described unionized public employees as overpaid "exploiters" who engineered a "silent coup" that has allowed them to feast on state-supported salary and benefits packages, all while enjoying job security far surpassing what exists in the private sector.

In fact, public sector employees are likely to be underpaid, argued Jeffrey Keefe, associate professor at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations, in his paper, "Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee." The pay disparity is particularly large among those who hold a Ph.D. When controlling for levels of education, years of experience, size of organization and other factors, public sector employees with doctorates earn over $31,000 less in total annual wages and benefits as compared to their private sector counterparts (the gap for those with professional degrees was even larger)."

Not So Fast

Not So Fast: "

Michigan provost wants to extend pre-tenure period to 10 years -- and faculty senate resoundingly rejects the idea.

"

How RPI's Faculty Voice Was Quieted

How RPI's Faculty Voice Was Quieted: "

Rensselaer's suspension of Faculty Senate because of its vote to include adjuncts violated basic principles of shared governance, AAUP investigators find.

"They warned that what happened to shared governance at RPI represented, potentially, "an early casualty of larger structural changes in higher education," as the institute became more centralized and corporate."

Republicans Hope to Halt Unionization Plan at U. of Wisconsin

Republicans Hope to Halt Unionization Plan at U. of Wisconsin: "

Academic staff members who work for the University of Wisconsin have asked Republican state lawmakers to do something to keep them from being assigned to labor unions without their approval, reports The Capital Times, in Madison. Four lawmakers plan to introduce legislation to halt the state employment-relations commission’s plan, which would affect about 500 people who work as doctors, student-services coordinators, and computer technicians, among other occupations.

"

States Can Reap Rewards by Supporting Research

States Can Reap Rewards by Supporting Research: "

Other states can learn from North Carolina: Investment in colleges brings jobs, a strong economy, and acclaim.

"They chose instead to invest heavily in educational infrastructure to strengthen the state's competitiveness and attract new industry. They started by significantly increasing scientific-equipment budgets in engineering, chemistry, physics, materials science, electrical engineering, and computer science, as well as in the basic medical and health sciences. Investments were directed toward campuses with strong science and technology programs and distinguished records of research, particularly those in the Research Triangle."

House Republicans Set Deep Targets for Budget Cuts, Alarming Universities

House Republicans Set Deep Targets for Budget Cuts, Alarming Universities: "

The proposed spending levels fall well below the amounts recommended by President Obama, who has promised to protect research dollars.

"