Many college and university boards of trustees operate in a shockingly inefficient and counterproductive way. They are often an impediment to change and bastions of tradition, old boy networks, outdated practice and alumni parochialism. At other times, they may be testing grounds for new business models, consumer fads, or the will of the dominant trustees.…
I have been a faculty member at Wright State University since 1990. It has generally been a very nice place to work. Our AAUP chapter/bargaining unit has been a strong one almost since its establishment, and although we have not always regarded our administration’s decision-making as enlightened, the truth is that, especially in this corporatized…
The new issue of Academe takes a look at all aspects of governing boards. There are individual perspectives and individual institutions that get examined, but also a broader, quantitative look at how faculty participate on boards. In 2011-2012, researchers at the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI) did a survey of faculty members who serve…
The following item is another one from Futility Closet (http://www.futilitycloset.com/). It is re-posted here with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates delivered to your e-mail each morning. ************************* When PLAFSEP magazine asked its readers to nominate the silliest library subject heading, the hands-down winner was “Buttocks (In…
Recently, the administration of the City University of New York proposed a series of academic changes to the school, grouping these changes together under the name “Pathways.” The system would make it easier for students to transfer between CUNY schools, and it would have looser graduation requirements. This proposal and the faculty opposition to it…
Despite the evolving interpretation offered by state and federal courts, American higher education as a community remains committed in its support to increase diversity among students. At the same time, however, our colleges and universities largely fail to link diversity initiatives to specific workforce needs. This tendency often applies philosophically to all students enrolled, fueled…
Barbara Bowen, President of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty union of the City University of New York (CUNY), sent this message to union members yesterday: Dear Colleague: The results of the referendum of No Confidence in Pathways are in: 92% voted No Confidence in Pathways. The vote is a stunning rebuke to the Pathways…
On May 23, the Century Foundation Task Force on Preventing Community Colleges from Becoming Separate and Unequal released an important new study describing how best to strengthen community colleges to achieve socioeconomic mobility for more Americans. Led by co-chairs Anthony Marx, the president of the New York Public Library and former president of Amherst College,…
Guns on Campus, Discouraging News, Addendum 1 The cable news networks, like the newspapers long before them, have turned “tabloid” coverage of crimes and trials into a staple element of their programming. It may have started with the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, but, if the recent ratings for the coverage of the Jodi…
In an earlier post, “A Rhetoric of Demonization and Exclusion” [https://academeblog.org/2013/05/23/a-rhetoric-of-demonization-and-exclusion/], I discussed the lunatic-fringe rhetoric of the GOP nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Bishop D.W. Jackson. That post included a re-post of a post to Right-Wing Watch, which drew on public pronouncements by Jackson that have been reported in the print media or…