Category Archives: working conditions

Common Sense about Guns on Campus, Addendum 1

Posted by martinkich in legislation, working conditions and tagged with ,

This item has appeared on the website of KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas:

“Arkansas State University is yet another institution to opt out of the new state gun law. The board of trustees met Thursday to discuss the proposal that would allow faculty and staff to carry concealed handguns on campus under the law.

“The University of Arkansas Board Of Trustees also voted unanimously Thursday to ban concealed firearms on campus. The bans will apply to UA’s 11 campuses and ASU’s four campuses. Arkansas Tech University’s board was also voting on its policy regarding the gun law.

“Most colleges and universities around the state have opted out of the new law, citing recommendations from campus leaders and security officials. The law requires public colleges and universities to revisit the policy annually if they opt out.

“Under the new law, private colleges and universities can also opt out but don’t have to revisit the policy annually.” Continue reading →

The Simple Logic of Self-Defense

Posted by martinkich in faculty, legislation, students, working conditions and tagged with , , , ,

Guns on Campus, Discouraging News, Addendum 1

The cable news networks, like the newspapers long before them, have turned “tabloid” coverage of crimes and trials into a staple element of their programming. It may have started with the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, but, if the recent ratings for the coverage of the Jodi Arias case is any indication, the public appetite for such stories is either insatiable or very easily whetted.

On the horizon is the trial of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. The issues in this case have become muddied in the broader, vitriolic debates about gun rights, and although the introduction of those issues into this case is unfortunate in terms of its litigation, the case does present an opportunity to define some basic aspects of gun rights. Continue reading →

College Educators from across U.S. Take on Ways Online Classes Can Help or Wreck a Student’s Hopes for a Good Education

Posted by martinkich in contingent faculty appointments, corporate influence, faculty, MOOCs, students, working conditions and tagged with

CFHE

COLUMBUS, OHIO—Faculty and staff members from colleges and universities across the U.S. met in Ohio over the weekend to address the some of the toughest issues facing student success in America’s higher education system.

The rapid drive to move students’ classes from campuses to online and the Gold Rush mentality behind many entrepreneurs pushing the new teaching schemes — especially the latest incarnation known as MOOCs (massive open online classes) — was a hot topic at the 5th national meeting of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE).

“The use of MOOCs as substitutes for classes where students get feedback and guidance from a live teacher undermines our campaign’s key principle—that colleges in this country need to be affordable and give our people a good quality education,” says Eileen Landy, professor of sociology at ­­­­­­State University of New York, Old Westbury and an officer in United University Professions.

Proposals to use MOOCs are popping up across the U.S. through spin-offs from Stanford, Harvard and other big name universities as well as from for-profit vendors.

“Let’s not be confused about this,” says Steve Hicks, President of the Association of Pennsylvania State College & University Faculties. “A Harvard MOOC is not a Harvard education and we need to help parents to understand that.” Continue reading →

Guns on Campus, Discouraging News

Posted by martinkich in faculty, students, working conditions and tagged with

Although guns may not be allowed on Montana campuses (See “Several Indications of Common Sense on Guns on Campus,” http://academeblog.org/2013/05/13/several-indications-of-common-sense-related-to-guns-on-campus/#more-3089), five state universities in Pennsylvania are now allowing guns to be carried on their campuses.

The five universities are Edinboro University, Kutztown University, Millersville  University, Shippensburg University, and Slippery Rock University.

One wonders what statistics the presidents of those universities had been looking at when contemplating this decision. Either those campuses are extraordinarily violent places—in which case, this is not the best way to reassure prospective students about their safety—or the statistics simply do not support the need for such action.

In Fall 2011, there were 19.7 million students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities.

Between 2009 and 2011, the years covered in the 2012 report on campus crime, there were 49 murders on college and university campuses nationwide: 18 in 2009, 15 in 2010, and 16 in 2011. Continue reading →

Right to Work, by the Numbers: Part 5

Posted by martinkich in collective bargaining, legislation, unions, working conditions and tagged with ,

Employment in Manufacturing

Today, only about 8.2% of U.S. workers are employed in manufacturing.

Even before the Great Recession, manufacturing employment in the U.S. had been steadily declining, with a loss of approximately 4,000,000 jobs between 1998 and 2007, the decade preceding the recession. Another 1.6 million jobs in manufacturing were lost between 2008 and 2010. (In the next post in this series, I will discuss more fully the state by state losses of manufacturing jobs during the Great Recession.)

The following chart then ranks the states by the total number of manufacturing jobs in March 2013, with the right-to-work states in bold:

State No of Jobs in 0000s Rank
California 1,242.0 1
Texas     865.8     2
Ohio 663.9 3
Illinois 583.2 4
Pennsylvania 569.0 5
Michigan     548.8     6
Indiana     491.6     7
Wisconsin 463.1 8
New York 447.7 9
North Carolina     443.1     10
Georgia 356.1 11
Tennessee     318.9     12
Florida     314.8     13
Minnesota 306.4 14
Washington 288.0 15
New Jersey 250.4 16
Massachusetts 250.1 17
Missouri 248.1 18
Alabama     246.7     19
Virginia     234.1     20
Kentucky 229.4 21
South Carolina     221.5     22
Iowa     215.4     23
Oregon 174.3 24
Kansas     165.4     25
Connecticut 163.3 26
Arkansas     155.9     27
Arizona     155.4     28
Louisiana     143.1     29
Mississippi     135.9     30
Oklahoma     134.2     31
Colorado 132.4 32
Utah     119.6     33
Maryland 106.4 34
Nebraska     96.7     35
New Hampshire 65.6 36
Idaho     58.8     37
Maine 50.8 38
West Virginia 48.5 39
South Dakota     41.8     40
Rhode Island 40.3 41
Nevada     39.6     42
Vermont 32.5 43
New Mexico 29.1 44
Delaware 25.9 45
North Dakota     24.9     46
Montana 17.7 47
Hawaii 13.1 48
Alaska 11.6 49
Wyoming     9.8     50

Continue reading →

Welcome to Wild West U: Kutztown University Opens Campus to Guns

Posted by Kevin Mahoney in faculty, legislation, students, working conditions and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post originally appeared in Raging Chicken Press earlier today. If you are interested in this issue, I will continue to follow this issue as over the next few weeks – KM

Just over a week before Kutztown University will welcome the families and friends of soon-to-be graduates, the university has decided to revise a long-standing policy in order to welcome guns onto its 289 acre campus. While the massacre of students and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT is still fresh in people’s minds and the families of the victims are still canvassing the nation in support of reasonable gun control policies, KU President Javier Cevallos and his Administrative Council decided that now was the time to make it easier for students, faculty, and staff to carry weapons on campus.

Continue reading →

The Cold Facts about Higher Education and Contingent Faculty Appointments

Posted by martinkich in contingent faculty appointments, corporate influence, ethics, faculty, students, working conditions

This is a re-post from the “On the Issues” blog of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org/on-the-issues/]

Although the details are shameful, it’s good to see the mainstream press publicizing the facts about higher education faculty appointments and compensation.  A recent NBC report highlights these facts from the most recent annual survey on faculty appointments and compensation conducted by the American Association of University Professors: more than 3 out of 4 faculty members in American higher education today work in low-paid, insecure (often part-time) appointments that usually offer no health or other benefits.  The median pay in these positions (often called “adjunct” positions) is $2,700 per course. Continue reading →

The Quest for Shared Governance at Boston College

Posted by martinkich in AAUP, American Association of University Professors, corporate influence, faculty, shared governance, working conditions and tagged with

The following piece is being re-posted from the Catholic Higher Education Advocate [http://cheausa.org/], which reprinted it from The Heights, the Boston College student newspaper.  The Catholic Higher Education Advocate is currently including this op-ed as part of a broader feature story, “Battle Intensifies at Boston College over Shared Governance,” covering the public back and forth between the Boston College faculty and administration on shared governance issues [http://cheausa.org/battle-intensifies-at-boston-college-over-shared-governance/#comment-56].

 

This is the lead provided by the Catholic Higher Education Advocate to the op-ed:

This op-ed by Susan Michalczyk, Boston College AAUP President, details the faculty’s ongoing quest for a university faculty senate and the sad state of faculty governance at a prestigious Jesuit college.  Perhaps the reality of the first Jesuit pope, who is a man committed to social justice, will enliven Boston College’s administration to improve faculty representation in the name of genuine collegiality.

 

Boston College: The Search for Faculty Governance Continues . . .

 

Boston College, founded in 1863 by the Jesuits to serve Catholic immigrants, adopted a typically Catholic hierarchical structure and has never had a university faculty senate, let alone true faculty governance. A model that works for clergy or the Vatican may not be best suited for proper expression of academic freedom and transparent decision-making with faculty participation.

For more than 20 years, faculty of Boston College have worked diligently to take an active part in decision-making at the university, yet the hierarchical structure remains firmly in place. The current administration feels that it allows faculty participation in decisions by appointing faculty to committees, allowing them to be elected to committees that have significant administration membership, or allowing them to be elected to committees that are strictly advisory and often ignored.

In January 2010, in response to the current administration’s hierarchical structure that restricted attempts to create a faculty senate, BC faculty voted to establish an AAUP advocacy chapter with the primary goal of working for real faculty governance and a recognized and independent voice on campus. BCAAUP resolved to address the most pressing concerns of all faculty (non-tenured, tenure track and tenured). Since that time, BCAAUP has worked with our colleagues across the university and across the country, committed to addressing the lack of faculty governance at Boston College and advocating for a recognized faculty role in decision-making, and a less centralized, more democratic decision-making process. Continue reading →

Right to Work, by the Numbers: Part 4

Posted by martinkich in legislation, unions, working conditions and tagged with ,

Historic Highs and Lows in Unemployment

In my previous post in this series, I closed by noting that proponents of “right to work” might very well want to emphasize that eight of the ten states with the lowest current unemployment averages are “right to work” states.

Those states are Virginia, Oklahoma, Iowa, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, and North Dakota.

I have highlighted them in bold in the table that follows, which compares current unemployment rates with historic high and low unemployment rates. Continue reading →

Review of The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities

Posted by martinkich in budget crises, contingent faculty appointments, corporate influence, faculty, for-profit institutions, MOOCs, research, students, tenure, tuition, working conditions and tagged with ,

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 6

Donoghue, Frank. The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities. New York: Fordham U P, 2008.

In this seminal work of the corporatization of American universities, Frank Donoghue offers a much longer historical view than most other authors focusing on the topic. Some have started in the mid-1970s, when economic recession and the “Rust Belt” decline of American manufacturing and working-class economic security, along with post-Baby Boom demographics, created new fiscal pressures on our universities. Others have looked back to the late 1940s, when the G. I. Bill eliminated many previous socio-economic obstacles to a earning a college degree and drove the very rapid expansion of our universities–the public university systems, in particular. But Donoghue starts in the post-Civil War era, when the establishment of most of our land-grant universities marked the beginnings of the modern university in America. He not only historically delineates the tension between the proponents of utilitarian education and the proponents of “liberal arts” education, but he emphasizes that, from the beginnings of the modern American university, this tension has been inherent in our shifting conception of the core mission of our universities. The Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties marked previous high points for the proponents of utilitarian education, and it is hardly surprising that at the turn of this century, as the nation seems to have settled into a second Gilded Age, the proponents of utilitarian education have once more moved into the foreground. Unlike most critics of the increasing corporatization of our universities, Donoghue does not, however, view this as a cyclic phenomenon. Instead, he believes that most colleges and universities have already passed a tipping point and are moving inexorably toward an increasingly corporatized state in which the humanities and social sciences are being reduced from major disciplines within the curriculum to basic skill sets and diversions for dilettantes and subversives. Continue reading →