As faculty who engage South Asia in our research and teaching, we write to express our concerns about the uncritical fanfare being generated over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley to promote “Digital India” on September 27, 2015. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley highlights the role of a country that…
James Barrett, an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign, wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the local News-Gazette, “2 Faculty Members Have Weakened UI.” The two are Nick Burbules and Joyce Tolliver, both of whom were involved in the ‘off-server’ email conversations of ex-Chancellor Phyllis Wise. Barrett writes: administrators relied upon this ad hoc consultation…
In its daily “Sentences” newsletter, Vox has provided the following list of items on today’s NLRB ruling: –The National Labor Relations Board ruled today that a business that uses a contractor to provide workers — but has control over hiring, firing and other HR decisions — can be considered a “joint employer” even if it…
The Yes Men — whose slogan is “impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them, and otherwise giving journalists excuses to cover important issues” — delivered a satirical speech yesterday at the Iowa City Public Library wherein they posed as representatives of the Iowa Regents, as well as the private consulting firm that is doing the…
The following is an excerpt from breaking news report from The Hill written by by Tim Devaney: “The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday handed down one of the biggest decisions of the Obama presidency, ruling that companies can be held equally responsible for labor violations committed by their contractors. “At issue is whether waste management firm…
Chuck Rybak posted “UW Struggle: Scrap the Tenure File Edition” yesterday on his blog. It’s worth reading, especially since what is happening in Wisconsin could easily happen elsewhere–and probably will, soon. He writes: Tenure no longer exists in Wisconsin. We have entered the era of pretendure. The only moral thing to do, right now, is…
This is a photo of a fraternity on move-in day at Old Dominion University: _________________________ In case this one photo does not seem emblematic to you, this morning the Huffington Post included this item in its daily HuffPost College newsletter: It’s Not Just ODU Students Putting Up Offensive Signs About Freshman Girls While a fraternity at Virginia’s Old Dominion…
The progressive blog Daily Kos has distributed this photo in their daily e-mail of “Recommended” stories. It is a photo of a man thanking firefighters for saving his home from the massive wildfires in Washington State, and they titled the item that includes the photo “This One Weird Pic Destroys Ayn Rand.” _________________________ …
Last month, AcademeBlog reported on the controversy involving Northwestern professor Alice Dreger and reprinted Dreger’s own blog about censorship of sexual content at Northwestern. Yesterday, Dreger resigned from Northwestern in protest. Here is the full text of her resignation letter: Monday, August 24, 2015 Provost Daniel Linzer Northwestern University 633 Clark Street Evanston, IL 60208-1101 Dear…