The Size of the Slice of the Pie Does Matter

A recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer by Kate Murphy examines the current state of faculty salaries in the region’s universities and beyond. John McNay, the president of the Ohio Conference of AAUP, is quoted at some length—and memorably—in the article: “Full-time professors at Ohio and Kentucky colleges, including three Greater Cincinnati universities, are making…

College Business Officers on the Future of Higher Education

BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Earlier this month Inside Higher Education and Gallup cooperated to produce the third annual survey of college and university business officers on a range of “hot button” higher education topics. A total of 457 campus and system chief business and financial officers participated. The response from the for-profit community was weak…

Notable Nonfiction Written by Women

BY MARTIN KICH Writing for New York magazine, Ann Friedman has provided the following list of “The Queens of Nonfiction: 56 Female Journalists Everyone Should Read.” The list is organized chronologically by the illustrative selections from the authors’ work and includes links to those selections which seem to have been chosen at least partly because…

Student Activism on Behalf of Campus Workers

Students at elite institutions sometimes recognize economic inequality ahead of the universities’ administrations, especially when the universities themselves are exploiting their own workers. Here are the opening paragraphs from a news report from WRAL.com about such a situation at Duke University: “Students who have been occupying a building on the Duke University campus since April…

Kasich’s State of the State Remarks on Higher Ed

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…

U of Phoenix Eliminating 8% of Its Employees

The University of Phoenix has announced that it is eliminating the positions of 470 of its 6,000 employees as part of its “five-year transition plan.” What follows is the letter sent by University of Phoenix president Timothy P. Slottow to the “company leaders”:   Dear Colleagues, As ever, I want to thank you for your enthusiasm around and belief in…

How to Misuse State Funding When There Is None

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…