PBS NewsHour Series on “Rethinking College”

Lil Taiz, President of the California Faculty Association, has shared the following information which should be of broad interest. The PBS NewsHour contacted the CFHE leadership about CFHE’s take on MOOCs and online higher education. The producers had seen CFHE’s video on the topic on the CFHE website and wanted to have “another perspective” about…

Bill Ayers: The University of Illinois Attacks Free Speech

By Bill Ayers In mid-August the University of Illinois withdrew its appointment of Steven Salaita, formerly an English professor at Virginia Tech, as a tenured associate professorship at UIUC. Having cut his ties in Virginia (resignation from a tenured job, his spouse quitting her job, and the couple renting a house) Salaita was informed that…

Fiftieth Anniversary of Berkeley Free Speech Movement

This fall will mark a half-century since the Free Speech Movement (FSM) erupted on the University of California, Berkeley campus.  “After decades of ambivalence, UC Berkeley is finally embracing this important part of its history,” writes longtime Bay Area newspaper columnist Martin Snapp in the summer issue of California, Berkeley’s alumni magazine. The FSM began…

The Dismissal of Ned Balbo

The Maryland AAUP conference sent us this piece by Ned Balbo, who taught for twenty-four years in the writing department at Loyola University Maryland. In it, Balbo recounts  how he lost his position because of new enforcement of a Loyola rule barring full-time non-tenure-track faculty members from reappointment to their existing position after six consecutive…

Did Donors Influence the Salaita Firing?

Inside Higher Ed has a lengthy story about the University of Illinois administration’s justifications for firing Steven Salaita. What’s really important about today’s story is this revelation that the top fundraising official at the University of Illinois Foundation had emailed Chancellor Phyllis Wise and other top U of I fundraisers, telling her “Dan, Molly, and…

California Reverses Ruling on Abortion Rights at Catholic Universities

In a major victory for faculty and staff and for reproductive rights more generally, the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has reversed a previous decision to allow two Catholic universities to eliminate coverage of most abortions for employees, declaring that state law requires health insurance plans to cover all abortions.  The state had previously…

Is “Google Science” about to Transform the Publication of Scientific Papers, or Is It All an Elaborate Hoax?

Someone has disseminated what purports to be a portion of a presentation on Google’s progress in developing “Google Science,” an open-source platform for the publication of scientific papers that might radically transform not just the way in which the results of scientific research are disseminated but also the ways in which scientific research is conducted.…

State Legislation on Online Postsecondary Education Passed from January to July 2014

Colorado CO S 114 2014 State University Global Campus Student Access Status: Enacted – Act No. 144 Date of Last Action:*  05/02/2014 – Enacted Author: Todd (D) Topics: Postsecondary, Postsecondary-Community and Junior Colleges, Distance/online/virtual learning Summary: Amends the role and mission of Colorado State University global – campus on-line university to permit baccalaureate degree programs instead of upper-division baccalaureate completion…