Business Insider has published a map that graphically illustrates the reality that 50% of the U.S. GDP is generated in just 22 urban areas—Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Miami:
The title of this post is another one of those entrenched but hackneyed questions that obscures the real issues in higher education. The often-heard claim that federal mandates have necessitated the proliferation of administrators makes little sense on several levels. First, and most basically, why should keeping data, etc., on what are essentially secondary, if…
When I was entering graduate school in 1978, there were 29 new Ph.D.’s for every tenure-track job opening in English. It was the period in which anecdotes about Ph.D.’s driving taxi cabs became commonplace. I didn’t know that information at the time, but it became very apparent as I made my way through the Masters…
At the end of December, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Steve Herbert titled “Colleges Trim Staffing Bloat.” So, if you did not read any further than the title, you might think that all of the attention to administrative bloat as a cost-driver in American higher education was finally producing some results. Think…
I’ve enjoyed this video in support of legislation for equal compensation for all faculty in Colorado’s community colleges and asked colleague Don Eron to write about it. Don is a faculty member at UC Boulder, a member of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and a leader in the Colorado AAUP conference.…
In a recent op-ed piece on the Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Worldwide blog, Dzulkifli Abdul Razak responded to an article written by Nigel Thrift, vice chancellor of the University of Warwick. Thrift had argued for the creation of an international association of colleges and universities, suggesting that it would not only facilitate efforts to meet…
This is a more detailed version of the invitation to file amicus briefs with the NLRB prior to its consideration of Pacific Lutheran University’s filing to prevent SEIU from organizing the university’s faculty. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Case 19-RC-102521 PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY Employer and SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL Union, LOCAL…
Here’s a brief note to add to Martin Kich’s interesting post on the salaries of Division I college football coaches. Not on the list of the 25 most highly paid college football coaches provided by Marty is Sonny Dykes, who just completed his first year of coaching the University of California, Berkeley Bears. Dykes’s contract…
In yesterday’s post, I highlighted the disproportion between the revenues being generated by major college football programs and the value of the scholarships provided to the 85 players per team permitted to receive scholarships. If the compensation being received by the players seems disproportionately low, that being received by the coaches heading major programs seems…
In a recent post, I detailed the “golden goodbyes,” the no longer extraordinary, very generous retirement packages, being negotiated by university presidents across the United States. I described this trend as salient evidence of the corporatization of our universities, but I don’t think that one can truly understand what is occurring with pensions without knowing…