BY HANK REICHMAN In his essential and devastating critique of the privatization of public higher education, The Great Mistake, Christopher Newfield concludes a chapter on the student debt problem with the observation that “the current financial aid system is structured to translate either flat tuition or higher tuition into higher debt.” Here’s how this works:…
BY CAPRICE LAWLESS By their decree, every word on every wall at our community college system is controlled by the administration. It seems even the formerly full-time First Amendment has itself been replaced by adjunct amendments, and is now as scattered and as difficult to organize as are we. Adjunct faculty comprise 80% of the…
BY DAVID KOCIEMBA The 13th Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor international conference this year was about organizing solutions to the international problem of faculty contingency. Held in San Jose this year August 3-5, COCAL presenters and attendees came from Mexico, the United States, Quebec, and English-speaking Canada. As this blog’s readers well know, contingent faculty…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH 1. The Board of Trustees appointed a Special, Independent Working Group (“Working Group”) to oversee an independent investigation of allegations that Coach Urban Meyer failed to act appropriately regarding alleged abuse by Zach Smith of his former wife and related allegations that he misrepresented his knowledge of the alleged events at the…
BY HANK REICHMAN Non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements are much in the news these days. Most notably, the “aggressive and unconventional” use of such agreements by the Trump White House has attracted attention because, as the Washington Post pointed out, “most legal experts believe such agreements are not legally enforceable for public employees.” In this context…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Many college leaders readily agree that the liberal arts have been under attack politically, socially, and culturally for well over a generation. They earnestly argue that a liberal arts education creates productive citizens to ensure a robust democracy. These officials point to the heightened polarization within American society and a growing…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT According to Moody’s Investors Service, about 25% of private colleges are experiencing budget deficits. It also is estimated that traditional high school graduates will decline by 9% between 2026 and 2031, reducing by almost 300,000 the number of four-year college students. Moody’s also predicts more campus mergers and closings. Finally, it…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this week I posted an item about how contract negotiators for the University of California have refused to acknowledge the faculty status and academic freedom of the system’s librarians. Yesterday, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and the California Conference of the AAUP (CA-AAUP) issued the following…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Reuters reports that the University of North Florida in Jacksonville has announced that “it had determined after ‘careful consideration’ that the Confucius Institute, which opened a branch there in 2014 to promote language and culture, did not meet the university’s mission”: “‘After reviewing the classes, activities and events sponsored over the…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is a follow-up to Hank Reichman’s post on the news coverage of the most recent debacle at the University of Akron. John McNay, the President of the Ohio Conference, wrote a letter to the Akron administration that found its way into an article by Amanda Garrett published in the Beacon-Journal.…