BY MARTIN KICH Everyone gives lip-service to the primacy of instruction in institutional missions, but the first place where administrators and boards look for “savings” is almost always instructional budgets and instructional staffing. They almost always say that instruction is where all of the money is, but typically “instruction” accounts for only 30%-40% of a…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This was a very nice surprise for our graduates and a very nice moment in the very uneven recent history of our university. I’m here to say congratulations. Congratulations to you chosen ones. I am calling you the chosen ones because you have been chosen in many ways. First, by the…
BY MARTIN KICH There is no good news in this pandemic—only bad and worse news. An article written by J. Edward Moreno and Justine Coleman for The Hill opens: College graduates are poised to enter one of the most difficult job markets in U.S. history. Nearly 4 million people are expected to graduate with a…
BY MARTIN KICH When Donald Trump began to form his Cabinet, it became clear almost immediately that one of the main criteria for leading a department would be a history of publicly expressed antipathy toward that department. Thus, Rick Perry became the Energy Secretary. Ben Carson was named the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following letter from staff, faculty, and student groups, delivered to University of California President Janet Napolitano, the UC Board of Regents, the campus Chancellors, and the Medical Center CEOs, enumerates concerns and suggestions for dealing with the financial consequences of COVID-19. May 13, 2020 Dear University of California President Napolitano…
POSTED BY THE AAUP Clinical faculty at the AAUP-BHSNJ chapter need your support to win a fair contract after two years of bargaining. These members’ work on the frontlines of the COVID crisis, including work on developing a COVID-19 saliva test, is a real-life example of higher education for the common good. While Rutgers University’s…
BY THE COLORADO AAUP CONFERENCE The Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors endorsed and promulgated the following statement on May 10, 2020. As Colorado’s universities and colleges ponder the risks and rewards of opening their campuses this fall in the midst of the continuing pandemic, the prospect of renewing normal or even…
BY HANK REICHMAN In two remarkable statements issued recently scholars from more than thirty countries, including Germany, Israel and the U.S., have spoken out against efforts by the German government to restrict the academic freedom and free speech rights of artists and scholars suspected of supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian…
BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER AND DONALD MOYNIHAN The following is reposted by permission from Tone Madison, “an independent website, podcast, e-mail newsletter and event series covering music and culture in Madison,” Wisconsin. Chekhov wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”…
