POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following data is from the Student Loan Report produced by 24/7 Wall St. This news release provides a summary explanation of that report, highlighting the key findings and aspects of the methodology: “Total student debt in the United States, at approximately $1.26 trillion, is the second largest consumer debt in…
BY HANK REICHMAN In March I am scheduled to participate in a plenary panel on “The Impact of Anti-Intellectualism on the State of Higher Education” at the annual Hunter College Conference on Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions in New York. To prepare I’ve been reading (I’m embarrassed to admit, for the first…
BY HANK REICHMAN Charles Reed, former head of the now-dismantled Florida state university system and for sixteen years (1996-2012) Chancellor of the twenty-three-campus California State University (CSU), died this week at the age of 75. Known to friend and foe alike as just “Charlie,” Reed was a highly controversial leader whose brusque, even bullying style…
BY TIFFANY KRAFT Are you kidding me? University board chairs and college officials justify fat salaries while faculty and students are starving? This is not only unconscionable business practice, it’s intentional economic injustice that’s killing the American dream. Enough is enough: fight exploitation. Here’s a holiday story that is all too familiar for faculty and…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here is a short but telling item from the Hechinger Report: “The number of executive, administrative and managerial employees on university campuses nationwide continued its relentless rise right through the recession, up by a collective 15 percent between 2007 and 2014, federal data show. “”Hear a SpareMin podcast on this topic here with Matt…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH These are the opening paragraphs of a new report by Jesse Eisinger and Justin Elliott for ProPublica: “A serial acquirer, AT&T must persuade the government to allow every major deal. Again and again, the company has relied on economists from America’s top universities to make its case before the Justice Department…
BY HANK REICHMAN For some time now the AAUP and many others have decried the growing privatization of our public colleges and universities and the corporatization of management styles at both public and private institutions. The horrendous costs of these trends have become ever more apparent in the skyrocketing tuition bills and ballooning debt burden…
BY MARTIN KICH If you have been reading the posts in my series “Mismanagement and No Meaningful Oversight” (I have actually gotten several items behind in terms of re-posting those items from our chapter blog to this blog), you are aware of some of the issues that have been reaching critical mass at Wright State…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is adapted from an article published yesterday in Labor Notes by Melanie Barron and Jeffrey Lichtenstein. Over the past 17 years, United Campus Workers (Communications Workers Local 3865) has built a non-majority, wall-to-wall union. Anyone working for a public university in Tennessee can join—and over 1,600 have. Members include…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here are excerpts from two articles written by Becky Johnson for the Smoky Mountain News [http://www.smokymountainnews.com/], passed on to me by Connor Gibson of UnKoch My Campus: WCU Faculty Closely Monitoring $2 Million Koch Gift Faculty members have lauded administration for giving them a seat at the table. That wouldn’t happen…