The growing trend toward secret presidential searches and the emerging tendency of governing boards to appoint corporate executives or politicians with no experience in higher education has gained considerable attention on this blog (see for examples the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri, the latter with well-known disastrous consequences). One recent example is…
Bruce Joshua Miller and Ned Stuckey-French have written a splendid piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education that provides further perspective on the recent events at the University of Missouri, most specifically their connection with broader disturbing trends in higher education. The entire piece deserves a reading, but here are some pertinent excerpts: Timothy Wolfe…
“For the life of me, I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.” That was Sen. Marco Rubio at last night’s Republican presidential debate. Let’s ignore that Rubio apparently doesn’t know when to use “less” and when to use “fewer.” (I’m…
Anyone who thought that minority student complaints about racism at the University of Missouri, which led to the resignations on Monday of system President Timothy Wolfe and Columbia campus Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, were exaggerated should check out this account of developments over the past two days from the campus newspaper, The Maneater. “Many students…
Yesterday’s stunning events at the University of Missouri must be viewed in the context of a much broader movement, led by minority students, to confront persistent racism at many college and university campuses. Even as the movement at Missouri was gathering steam, a similar conflict was brewing at one of the nation’s oldest and most…
R. Bowen Loftin, the chancellor of the University of Missouri’s flagship campus at Columbia, will resign, the University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators announced just hours after the system’s president stepped down amid intense student and other protests over racial tensions. Loftin will become the system’s director for research facility development. Although most of…
Amid growing outrage among faculty about secretive presidential searches (see here and, for an AAUP statement, here), the College of Charleston in South Carolina recently appointed a new provost over complaints from faculty who say they were not consulted in the decision-making process, the Charleston Post and Courier reports. The position of provost, the institution’s…
For nearly a decade under Conservative rule, the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office exercised tight control over the release of information. Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s swearing-in on Wednesday, however, things seem to be changing. One Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) producer requested an interview with Navdeep Bains, the new minister of innovation, science and economic development. She heard…
The following is excerpted from a column by Albor Ruiz published today in the New York Daily News: If you thought only fast food workers, home attendants and the like were abused and exploited by their employers and were willing to protest and risk arrest for demanding their rights, think again. College professors — an…
The following are excerpts from an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, published online two days ago: Public colleges should not assume that a generous salary will buy them a president who is adept at raising money, a new study concludes. After accounting for factors like institution size, the researchers, all at Florida State…