On the University of California, I: The Funding Challenge

BY HANK REICHMAN This is the first in a series examining issues in the University of California system, the nation’s premier public research university. As if the University of California system did not have enough problems with embarrassing sexual harassment scandals at Berkeley and a growing movement to fire Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi for alleged…

Video Summarizes Faculty Compensation Survey Findings

BY KELLY HAND The AAUP released its Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession on April 11. This year’s report, “Higher Education at a Crossroads,” puts into perspective data that demonstrate a modest increase in compensation for full-time faculty even as the percentages of tenured and tenure-track faculty have decreased over the past four…

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…