In his state-of-the-state address, Gov. Rick Snyder referenced a timeline of the Flint water crisis prepared by his office. Here is that timeline: The progressive blog The Daily Kos has provided the following list of significant dates missing from Gov. Snyder’s timeline: April 2011: Reports of partially treated sewage leaking into the Flint River. This is one…
This past fall, I somehow failed to post this notice on the most recent working paper published by the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE). The CFHE website is located at http://futureofhighered.org/ _________________________ Executive Summary Although 50 years of research has shown that faculty/student interaction is crucial to student success, recent trends and…
What is occurring in Maine is the opposite of what has occurred in places where the “charter” university concept has taken hold–most notably Virginia. In those places, elite public universities have accepted lower state subsidies for more institutional “flexibility”–which has meant more aggressive efforts to attract out-of-state and international students who pay higher tuition.…
Writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution [1 Jan. 2016: A,1], Chris Joyner and Aaron Gould Sheinin have reported on the unusual aspects of how Georgia universities lobby state legislators. Their article, “AJC at the Gold Dome: University Lobbyists Spend Big on State Lawmakers,” details not only the practices of the lobbyists but the reasons why those…
Writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution [31 Dec. 2015: A,1], Nedra Rhone reports on the rise in organized student activism nationwide but especially in greater Atlanta. In the article “Today’s Student Activists: On Fire against a Gumbo of Issues,” she emphasizes that this new wave of student activism is targeting more than racism, addressing issues “from…
December 10, 2015 Colleagues, The BGSU Administration and the BGSU Faculty Association are aware that several faculty members have been mentioned in communications by external groups regarding recent Ohio legislative measures. In addition, we are also aware of allegations that several faculty may have violated University policy regarding use of the BGSU email system. We…
I recently did a post on an Ohio gun group’s criticism of BGSU faculty and staff who contacted their legislators to oppose campus-carry legislation that has passed the Ohio House and is now being considered by the Ohio Senate: https://academeblog.org/2015/12/01/ohio-gun-group-castigates-bgsu-faculty-for-expressing-opposition-to-campus-carry-legislation/ In a very related story, the editor of the local newspaper, the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune,…
On December 4, this announcement was sent out from Arne Duncan at the Department of Education: “If you’re like me, you probably dread an overdue notice, whether it’s for registering your car or returning a library book. For nearly a decade, our national K-12 education law has been overdue for revision, and parents, teachers and…
The “right-to-work” states are indicated in red, and the pro-labor states in white: Compare that map with this map indicating the state unemployment rates reported on December 18, 2015: In the Ohio House, legislation has been introduced to impose “right-to-work” restrictions on private-sector unions, with the primary argument for the measure being the…
Writing for Bold Progressives, Marissa Barrow has highlighted the attention being given to legislative proposals to allow students to graduate from colleges and universities without debt: “Legislators in 10 states nationwide will be introducing debt-free college legislation, making debt-free college a central 2016 campaign issue from the top to bottom of the ticket. “This state-level…