Florida Bill Targets Community College Tenure

Florida Bill Targets Community College Tenure: "

Surprise legislation -- based on newly adopted measure for K-12 -- would bar institutions from awarding continuing or long-term contracts.

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A Call to Shun

A Call to Shun: "

Philosophers debate whether to isolate sexual harassers by minimizing contact with them and ending the practice of inviting them to appear at conferences.

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Failure of California Budget Talks Is Bad News for State Colleges

Failure of California Budget Talks Is Bad News for State Colleges: "

In an ominous sign for California’s public colleges, negotiations broke down on Tuesday between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican lawmakers without an agreement on how to close the state’s budget gap. Mr. Brown, a Democrat, was seeking a deal that would have put a package of tax extensions on the ballot in June that, if passed, would shield colleges and other state agencies from a new round of budget cuts. Colleges were already cut by $1.4-billion last week; without approval of the tax extensions, officials have warned that those cuts could double in size, possibly resulting in the closures of community colleges, increased cuts in enrollment, and widespread layoffs of faculty and staff members. Democratic lawmakers’ next move is not clear; they have signaled that they may ask voters to approve the tax extensions as part of an initiative on the November ballot.

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Historians’ Group Issues New Standards for Treatment of Adjuncts

Historians’ Group Issues New Standards for Treatment of Adjuncts: "

In an attempt to adapt to changes in the working conditions of faculty members, the Organization of American Historians has revised its standards and best practices covering colleges’ employment of historians who are nontenured or off the tenure track. The revisions, approved this month by the group’s executive board at its annual meeting, include a new call for colleges to incorporate non-tenure-track faculty members into their governance systems and pay them adequately for nonteaching duties. Other updates urge colleges to provide adjuncts with access to unemployment compensation, electronic databases, and financial support for creative activities and scholarship, and include language recognizing that, especially at community colleges, not all faculty members who teach history work in history departments.

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Colleges Should Serve the Job Market, Governors Say

Colleges Should Serve the Job Market, Governors Say: "

Colleges need to do a better job of aligning their programs with the economic needs of their states, says a new report by the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices. The report highlights steps taken in Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington State, and makes recommendations on how lawmakers can persuade to move beyond their traditional emphasis on a broad liberal-arts education to thinking more about skills for specific jobs. It suggests that colleges use “rigorous labor-market data” to set goals and get more input from local businesses on the skills students need.

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Cal State to Cut Enrollment by at Least 10,000

Cal State to Cut Enrollment by at Least 10,000: "

California State University officials announced on Tuesday that the system would enroll 10,000 fewer students next year because of an anticipated state-budget cut of $500-million, or 18 percent. The enrollment cut, which would get more severe if a package of tax extensions is not approved by California voters, would continue to shrink the state’s higher-education system. The system also plans to eliminate more faculty and staff positions and cut $11-million from the system office. A study released on Monday by the University of Southern California’s Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis says California should take steps to sharply increase enrollment at its private institutions to make up for the inability of public colleges to accommodate enough students.

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A Heavier Load in Ohio

A Heavier Load in Ohio: "

Governor’s plan to force faculty to teach one more class every two years sparks more bitterness.

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Regents of the UC give up on public education funding

Why have the regents given up on public education in California?

"a superogatory blast from Regent Chair Russ Gould, who seconded David Crane in saying that all the new dollars were going to go to things other than higher ed. Everybody loves higher ed, no one puts it first, so UC needs to build self-reliance, and that's the end of it. His speech made it clear that, at least in Regents meetings that he chaired, the idea of increased public funding is dead."

http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2011/03/odd-regental-duet-this-morning.html

Something Wrong at the World’s Universities?

What seems clear is that politicians, policy makers, journalists, and indeed many members of the general public seem to believe that there is somehow something wrongwith universities.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/something-wrong-at-the-worlds-universities/27950?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Sortable Table: State Appropriations for Major Public Universities: Which Ones Get the Most and the Least

Sortable Table: State Appropriations for Major Public Universities: Which Ones Get the Most and the Least

UC Berkeley - third-largest change in percentage points over a five-year period: down 7%.

state appropriations down 10% over 5 years.

Tennessee Flagship Finds a Way to Keep Threatened Majors in Italian and Russian

Tennessee Flagship Finds a Way to Keep Threatened Majors in Italian and Russian: "

At a time when foreign-language programs are being proposed for elimination at a number of cash-strapped public universities, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville has come up with a plan that will allow it to keep threatened majors in Russian, Italian, and other low-enrollment languages, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported. The university’s provost approved last week a plan under which the department of modern foreign languages and literatures will combine all eight foreign languages it teaches into one degree and offer concentrations in each language. Foreign-language programs at American universities are seeing increasing enrollments over all, but have also experienced a steady loss in the number of degree programs offered, according to recent reports.

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Bill in Arizona Would Give Millions in Tax Breaks to For-Profit Colleges

Bill in Arizona Would Give Millions in Tax Breaks to For-Profit Colleges: "

Even as they struggle to close a major budget gap, Arizona lawmakers are considering a bill that could give millions of dollars in tax breaks to the parent companies of the University of Phoenix and Grand Canyon University, and to other companies, The Arizona Republic reports. Phoenix’s parent company, the Apollo Group, has been a major contributor to political campaigns of state legislators and, along with other businesses, has lobbied for the bill.

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Arizona - just loving to swim against the progressive tide.

Ending the Late Option

Ending the Late Option: "

A Texas community college decides to risk losing some state funds by forcing students to register on time — with goal of improving completion rates."

Isn't this just improving statistics by leaving at-risk students behind?

Wisconsin Senate Votes to End Collective Bargaining

Wisconsin Senate Votes to End Collective Bargaining: "

Republicans members of the Wisconsin State Senate found a way on Wednesday to pass a bill limiting bargaining rights for most state workers and specifically removing that right for university faculty and staff members. Democratic senators have been absent from the state for three weeks in an attempt to block the bill. But Republicans stripped the elements of the bill that required spending authority so that a vote could take place without a full quorum present, The New York Times reported. The bill now returns to the state Assembly, which is expected to pass it.

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For Deans, Off Campus Is Now the Place to Be

For Deans, Off Campus Is Now the Place to Be: "

No longer mere middle managers, they are increasingly ambassadors, visionaries in chief, and practitioners of the Big Ask.

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query - is they money they are bringing in worth the amount now spent on other administrators who do the work the dean used to do? What kind of oversight are these sub-administrators getting? With more powerful and high-profile deans, what checks can the campus leadership have on them? What about the costs to morale and college culture of an absentee leader? What about misalignment between the goals and values of an ambassadorial dean versus the actual mission of the college: education, research, public service?

Recession Pushed State and Local Higher-Ed Spending to 25-Year Low in 2010

Recession Pushed State and Local Higher-Ed Spending to 25-Year Low in 2010: "

Booming enrollment growth and stagnant state appropriations have eroded the finances of public colleges and universities.

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Manhattanville College Adjuncts Vote to Unionize

Manhattanville College Adjuncts Vote to Unionize: "

Adjunct faculty members and tutors at Manhattanville College have voted overwhelmingly to unionize, the American Federation of Teachers announced on Friday. Of those adjuncts and tutors voting at the private college in Purchase, N.Y., 221 favored and 50 opposed forming a new union affiliated with the AFT and the New York State United Teachers.

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Idaho State U. Faces Added Pressure Over Faculty Senate Suspension

Idaho State U. Faces Added Pressure Over Faculty Senate Suspension: "

The American Association of University Professors has undertaken an investigation of Idaho State University in response to the recent suspension of the institution’s Faculty Senate. The move comes after Idaho State’s president, Arthur C. Vailas, responded to the AAUP’s demand for an explanation of the senate suspension with a letter arguing that the senate had placed him in “a most untenable situation” by refusing to go along with a university-reorganization plan approved by the State Board of Education last year. The Idaho State Journal reported last week that students at the university planned to vote this month on referendums to declare no confidence in Mr. Vailas and demand that the Faculty Senate be reinstated. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a national advocacy group, has jumped into the fray with a letter to Mr. Vailas calling the state board’s suspension of the Faculty Senate a “dire threat to academic freedom and faculty governance.”

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Center Recommends New Approaches to Peer Review and Tenure

Center Recommends New Approaches to Peer Review and Tenure: "

The Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley has released “Peer Review in Academic Promotion and Publishing: Its Meaning, Locus, and Future,” a detailed report that suggests—among other things—that tenure and promotion committees ignore the venue in which an article is published and instead focus on its content, and resist rewarding the thin slicing of research results to achieve more publications.

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U. of Nevada at Reno Proposes More Cuts in Degrees, Programs, and Jobs

U. of Nevada at Reno Proposes More Cuts in Degrees, Programs, and Jobs: "

The University of Nevada at Reno proposed a new round of budget cuts today that would close, reduce, or reorganize programs and services, and eliminate 225 positions, 150 of which are currently filled. Academic areas that would be closed include the School of Social Work and related degrees, the degree major in French, and degrees in theater and dance. Library and information-technology services would be reduced. The cuts would save $26-million, the university said—just under half the $59-million in reductions it expects will be needed by July 2012.

http://newsroom.unr.edu/2011/03/07/university-announces-26-million-in-proposed-budget-cuts-to-campus-today/

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Research-Universities Group Called Texas A&M’s Professor-Tracking Program ‘Ill-Conceived’

Research-Universities Group Called Texas A&M’s Professor-Tracking Program ‘Ill-Conceived’: "

The president of the Association of American Universities warned Texas A&M University officials last fall to resist “ill-conceived calls for ‘reform,’” including those pushed by a conservative think tank supported by Gov. Rick Perry, The Texas Tribune reports. The prestigious association’s president, Robert M. Berdahl, sent the letter after A&M officials created and published a balance sheet that measured how much money professors generated and cost the university. Mr. Berdahl, a former president of the University of Texas at Austin, questioned whether A&M’s approaches remained in line with the mission of the association, a group of 63 top research universities in the United States and Canada. Texas A&M’s flagship campus is classified as a Tier 1 research university, partly on the basis of its membership in the group. The chancellor of the A&M system, Michael D. McKinney, responded in November with a letter that starts, “I find it to be slightly ironic for you to send me a missive about research without first seeking to better understand the efforts and the objectives of the Texas A&M System.”

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Pennsylvania Governor Proposes 50% Budget Cut for State Colleges

Pennsylvania Governor Proposes 50% Budget Cut for State Colleges: "

State-supported colleges and universities in Pennsylvania would take among the biggest hits in a 2011-12 budget proposed today by the state’s new Republican governor, Tom Corbett, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Under the $27.3-billion plan, state spending would be reduced to 2008-9 levels, with funds for the four state-related universities cut in half, compared with current amounts. The State System of Higher Education, which includes 14 universities, as well as the multiple campuses of Pennsylvania State University would fare no better, also absorbing a 50-percent cut in state funds. Governor Corbett said the budget had been put together “with honesty and restraint” in order to create “a more limited but vigorous government.” Penn State today described the budget as “catastrophic” and an “apparent push toward privatization of public higher education.”

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UNLV Outlines Deep Cuts It Would Make if Governor’s Budget Is Passed

UNLV Outlines Deep Cuts It Would Make if Governor’s Budget Is Passed: "

If the Nevada governor’s budget is passed, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas would have to eliminate or reorganize 12 departments and cut 315 faculty and staff positions, the university’s president, Neal J. Smatresk, said in an e-mail to the campus today, according to news reports. The comments come a day after the University of Nevada at Reno presented a similar scenario of proposed cuts in programs and jobs in response to the state’s fiscal crisis. The Las Vegas campus’s plan would save $32.6-million by, among other things, eliminating 50 major degree programs, cutting two sports teams, restricting spending on athletics and facilities, and possibly closing some buildings. “These cuts will significantly reduce our ability to educate our students, maintain our campus, and serve the community,” Mr. Smatresk said. “I believe this is a tragic loss and a giant step backward for Nevada.”

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The Magic of Higher Education

Academic discussions of the corporatization of higher education frame the institution as a corporation and the faculty as the labor oppressed by this structure. But academics need to realize that the corporate model dehumanizes everyone on campus, not just the faculty.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/old-new/the-magic-of-learning/283?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Academic Freedom and the Corporate University

"similar threats led to the formation of the AAUP in 1915. Powerful corporate interests and wealthy donors wielded undue influence over academic institutions. Today we struggle with renewed threats to academic freedom by commercial interests. Should universities pursue truth or profits?"

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/academic-freedom-and-the-corporate-university/32872?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Connecticut Lawmakers Criticize Number of College Administrators

Connecticut Lawmakers Criticize Number of College Administrators: "

Connecticut lawmakers say they’re concerned that administrators and other nonfaculty employees outnumber faculty members at the state’s universities, especially when students are being turned away from full classes, The Hartford Courant reports. The lawmakers were reacting to a legislative report that showed 60 percent of the state’s university employees do not work in the classroom. Connecticut’s governor proposed last week that the state save money on college administrative costs by reviewing all nonfaculty hiring at its public institutions, another example of how newly elected state politicians are seeking more say over how public colleges are run.

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