Although the universities in the state’s flagship system have not yet been impacted as severely as other institutions by the ongoing state budget impasse, some significant issues are clearly surfacing. The following is from an article by Charles Thomas and Ben Bradley on the WLS-TV website: “On the University of Illinois-Chicago campus, the state promised…
The following paragraphs are taken from an article by Leah Nicolini written for the Northern Star, the student-produced newspaper at Northern Illinois University: “Due to a lack of state appropriated funds, NIU plans to cut $30 million from its budget, by the end of the semester, to keep the school out of deficit for the…
These are the opening paragraphs of the news story “Illinois Risks Brain Drain as University Students Look Elsewhere” written by Elizabeth Campbell for Bloomberg News: “As a May 1 deadline looms for high school seniors deciding where to attend college, students are thinking twice about universities in Illinois, where the worst budget crisis in state…
One of the more detailed overviews of the immediate impact of the budget mess in Illinois on the state’s college and university campuses has been provided by George Gallanis in a March 29 article for the World Socialist Web Site: “Earlier this month Southern Illinois University, located in Carbondale, announced the potential layoffs of 180…
These are the opening paragraphs of a news story by Mike Riopell in the Chicago Daily Record: “A suburban Republican lawmaker wants to send Illinois universities four months’ worth of state funding to try to ensure they open their doors for the next school year. “The ‘stopgap’ proposal from state Rep. Mike Fortner, a West…
BY JOHN T. MCNAY John T. McNay is president of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors and a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash. This op-ed appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer and is available here. Professors at Ohio’s public universities and community colleges acknowledge the determination of state…
In the midst of his presidential campaigning, Governor Kasich came back to Ohio to deliver his annual state of the state address. What follows are the parts of the speech related to higher education: For some, it means that professional certification or training in specialized vocational skills that I mentioned, but for others it…
In ruling on a lawsuit brought by three labor unions, Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust has ruled that Wisconsin’s “right to work” statute is unconstitutional because it “amounts to an unconstitutional governmental taking of union funds without compensation since under the law unions must represent people who don’t pay dues” and “that presents an…
Huffington Post has published an article by Tyler Kingkade with the headline: “Tennessee Lawmakers Consider Bill That Could Chill Free Speech.” It is not an especially shocking headline because we have now become very used to the reality that the Far Right sees no hypocrisy in defining unlimited corporate political contributions as the exercise of…