BY MARTIN KICH On Thursday, February 4, the Faculty Senate at the University of Akron voted no confidence in President Scott Scarborough’s administration—by a vote of 50-2. Before the vote was taken, Scarborough had spoken at some length about his plans for the coming year and had answered several questions. He was not, however, present for…
BY MARTIN KICH In a post to this blog in December, I reported on the decision by the Board of Trustees of Eastern Michigan University (EMU) to continue the university’s involvement in the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) that Governor Snyder’s administration created ostensibly to “save” Detroit’s “failing” public school system. That decision was made in…
BY HENRY REICHMAN Over the weekend Phil Matier and Andrew Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle broke a story [behind a paywall] that revealed growing concerns among UC Berkeley faculty about a previously secret decision by University of California President Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security, to install new computer hardware capable of monitoring computer…
BY AARON BARLOW On January 20, the University of California Board of Regents took the incredibly rare step of dismissing a tenured professor for cause, a sanction that has occurred only a handful of times in the University’s history. Rob Latham, Professor of English at UC Riverside, was dismissed, over the recommendation of the UCR…
Years ago, before I even thought about teaching as a full-time and permanent career, I spent a few semesters working for an online “university.” I won’t call what I did “teaching.” After all, the institution didn’t. I was a “facilitator” responsible for a section or two of the required Composition course. It had been designed…
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), a conservative group that has advocated increased activism by college and university trustees and a “return” to “traditional” curricula in Western Civilization and American military, constitutional, and diplomatic history (let’s put aside for now that, given the recent behavior of most trustee boards, these two goals may…
Among the most controversial and widely publicized controversies during the recent autumn of student unrest was that surrounding the incident at Yale University, where a residence hall adviser’s email about Halloween costumes prompted a national debate over the allegedly competing values of free speech and racial justice. I previously commented at some length on the…
Chicago Tribune sportswriter Shannon Ryan has an important column today attacking the efforts of Missouri legislators to punish activist student athletes who boycott games (and fine coaches who support them): “This is another attempt to control athletes, silence them and pigeonhole them as solely money-makers for the university.” Even if I don’t think football players should…
On December 10, the Academic Senate at California State University, Chico adopted a Resolution of No Confidence in university President Paul Zingg, Interim Provost Susan Elrod, and Vice President for Business and Finance Lorraine (Lori) Hoffman. After nearly three and a half hours of statements, comments from faculty, staff, and students, and discourse among the…
Last week the AAUP issued a blistering report criticizing the Iowa Board of Regents for its conduct of a presidential search that led to the hiring of businessman J. Bruce Harreld as President of the University of Iowa. The report acknowledged, however, that Harreld had pledged to respect shared governance and faculty rights and had…