BY HANK REICHMAN Back in October when Lora Burnett, a history professor at Collin College in Texas, was hounded by internet trolls for a comment she made about Vice-President Mike Pence’s appearance during the vice-presidential debate, her administration buckled under the pressure and publicly denounced her, ignoring their own policy’s written commitment “to uphold vigorously…
BY BRANDON RODRIGUEZ Brandon Rodriguez is a native New Yorker whose family migrated from Puerto Rico. He grew up in the South Bronx and attends Guttman Community College, which is part of City University of New York (CUNY). This essay is reposted with permission from the Activist History Review blog. My world changed in early…
BY CAPRICE LAWLESS What does it look like to have been asking for a raise above poverty wages for seven years? When an AAUP group, on behalf of several thousand faculty, has been engaged in that pursuit, it is crucial to document that work. Our “Milestones: AAUP Chapters of the CCCS” (below) briefly lists the…
BY HANK REICHMAN Calbright College, California’s totally online community college, a target of withering faculty criticism from its inception by former Gov. Jerry Brown, may be just a few steps from a well-deserved demise. Last week the California Legislature agreed on a state budget for 2020-21 that will eliminate all funding for the school. The…
BY HANK REICHMAN No sooner had I posted my COVID-19 and Higher Education annotated reading list, than two pieces appeared that also deserve attention. The first is by Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of sociology and medicine at Temple University. Her book, Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, is…
BY HANK REICHMAN I’ve been posting pieces about California’s ill-conceived all-online community college, Calbright, and faculty resistance to it pretty much since its inception. You can find those posts here. Now that all the state’s community colleges, like pretty much all of higher education nationally, are now offering classes only remotely, using online methods, the…
BY CAPRICE LAWLESS A big part of our success in chapter-building and awareness-raising in the Colorado Community College System is a list of facts we publish biennially in a document we call “The Adjunct Index,” modeled on the “Harper’s Index.” The index is an easy format to send to our press contacts, lawmakers, and to…
BY 36 COMMUNITY COLLEGE SUPPORTERS In December 2017, as the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities (CSCU) system office was preparing its “Students First” consolidation plan, the system’s Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) presented an extended critique of the proposal. It was not supportive, recommended other paths, and contained the following warning: “We believe that there is…
BY STEVE MUMME AND CAPRICE LAWLESS This op-ed appeared originally in the Boulder Daily Camera [openforum@dailycamera.com]. It’s indicative of the dire state in which Colorado’s Community College System adjunct instructors now labor that the American Association of University Professors’ Colorado branch launched a Christmas season GoFundMe campaign to help tide them through the annual…
BY HANK REICHMAN In a sudden and unexpected move, Heather Hiles, president and CEO of Calbright College, California’s new online community college, has resigned after less than a year on the job. The college’s board voted unanimously yesterday to accept a separation agreement with Hiles, who will step down effective March 31 but be on…