BY JUDITH GRANT This article continues from Part 1, available here. Market Irrationalities But there are other places to cut costs that could conceivably result in a balanced budget. One is administrative bloat, especially at the executive level. Another is intercollegiate athletics. Recent data shows that in 40 states, sports coaches are the highest paid…
BY JUDITH GRANT With thanks and solidarity to the many faculty who gave me comments on drafts of this paper. Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, is in the midst of the latest iteration of a decades-long series of budget cuts which, faculty fear, will result in the “non-renewal” (i.e., the firing) of dozens if not…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following letter from staff, faculty, and student groups, delivered to University of California President Janet Napolitano, the UC Board of Regents, the campus Chancellors, and the Medical Center CEOs, enumerates concerns and suggestions for dealing with the financial consequences of COVID-19. May 13, 2020 Dear University of California President Napolitano…
BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER AND DONALD MOYNIHAN The following is reposted by permission from Tone Madison, “an independent website, podcast, e-mail newsletter and event series covering music and culture in Madison,” Wisconsin. Chekhov wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In one of the most widely read posts that I have made to this blog, I collected videos and images that have attempted to provide visualizations of the enormous differences between a million, a billion, and a trillion dollars. These kinds of almost inconceivable numbers have already become a concern as…
POSTED BY JOAN W. SCOTT A group of academics is calling for a comprehensive policy for public higher education in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They are, rightly I think, suggesting that the various federal stimulus packages have not made higher education a central concern, nor have these packages addressed fundamental issues facing us. They…
BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD The following is reposted from Remaking the University, where it appeared as the third in a series, Our Converging Crises. For the first two installments in the series go here and here. Christopher Newfield is Professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, co-editor of Remaking the University, and…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The Department of Education just distributed this press release. It appears to be a formal announcement of the monies that we have all been discussing for several weeks. It seems to suggest that those monies are just now being released–now that the initial $6.2 billion in direct aid to students has…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On February 24, the following item was posted to the blog of the Ohio Conference of AAUP: OSU Athletics No Longer the Exception to the Rule In October of last year, we published a blog post about how much Ohio universities were subsidizing their athletic programs during the 2017-18 academic year. We indicated…
BY JOHN K. WILSON MacMurray College in southern Illinois, which announced yesterday that it will be closing its doors in May after operating for 174 years, was the first college I ever attended. Well, sort of. It was a summer math camp for high school students, with the lure of receiving college credit for attendance.…