On Tuesday the Wisconsin State Journal published an op-ed piece by John Wiley, who was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 2001 to 2008. Wiley pointed out that “In 1900, Wisconsin was one of only 14 research universities that came together to form the now prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU is now…
In a post yesterday entitled “The End of Tenure in Wisconsin?” I discussed proposals approved last week by the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee that would remove tenure protections from statute, weaken shared governance, and modify layoff policies and procedures for faculty. While the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will remain empowered to restore…
Last Friday afternoon the Wisconsin Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee declared war on the University of Wisconsin’s faculty. By a vote of 12-4 the Committee approved an omnibus spending bill that would impose drastic budget cuts and, most important, eliminate tenure from state statute. The committee also approved adding new limits to the faculty role in…
Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the controversy surrounding the decision last November by the Board of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies to reject a proposed fellowship program named for the prominent scholar Stephen F. Cohen and his late mentor and friend Robert C. Tucker, apparently because of…
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced The College for All Act, legislation that would eliminate undergraduate tuition at public colleges and expand work-study programs to help students at private universities. The bill also calls for a reduction in interest rates on federal student loans to stop the government from profiting off of lending to young…
This week the Board of Trustees of the California State University (CSU) met in Long Beach and, as is the custom, they were addressed by, among others, the Chair of the CSU system Academic Senate, Steven Filling, an accounting professor at CSU, Stanislaus and a member of AAUP and the California Faculty Association. Earlier the…
The following is the Executive Summary of a report issued by the California Faculty Association, which represents all faculty in the 23-campus California State University system. The report is the fourth and final one in a series. To see the entire series go to http://www.calfac.org/race-to-the-bottom Over the last decade, the administration of the California State…
In a column last week Los Angeles Times op-ed writer Michael Hiltzik (whose work is almost always a must-read) exposed the fraud behind the latest assault on the political activity of teacher unions. It involves a lawsuit, Bain v. California Teachers Association et. al, which purports to defend the “free speech” rights of its plaintiffs,…