Our Dignity and Our Rights Have No Price On August 13, 2013 the employees of the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) received an email notifying them that beginning in the fall all would have to submit to a daily biometric scanning system to verify their attendance. Some of us were able to verify at our…
In late July, the New Jersey Department of Health provided a detailed news release on Meningitis B and the outbreak of cases at Princeton University. The news release included this summary of the first five cases, which had been reported between March 13 and July 24, 2013: “As of July 24, there have been a…
To Graça Machel and the Mandela family; to President Zuma and members of the government; to heads of states and government, past and present; distinguished guests — it is a singular honor to be with you today, to celebrate a life like no other. To the people of South Africa — people of every race…
Here’s a brief note to add to Martin Kich’s interesting post on the salaries of Division I college football coaches. Not on the list of the 25 most highly paid college football coaches provided by Marty is Sonny Dykes, who just completed his first year of coaching the University of California, Berkeley Bears. Dykes’s contract…
This is another item that I am re-posting from Futility Closet (www.futilitycloset.com). It is re-posted with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates from the site delivered to your e-mail each morning. ______________ In Mathematical Applications of Political Science, University of Minnesota political scientist William Riker describes a worrisome…
In yesterday’s post, I highlighted the disproportion between the revenues being generated by major college football programs and the value of the scholarships provided to the 85 players per team permitted to receive scholarships. If the compensation being received by the players seems disproportionately low, that being received by the coaches heading major programs seems…
For many candidates seeking presidencies at American colleges and universities, one of the first questions asked is often what percentage of students participates in Greek life? It goes beyond the lasting impressions – overwhelmingly negative — created by Animal House. These candidates see Greek life as an impediment to leadership. Schools with high concentrations of…
Over the course of this college football season, there has been much talk about whether college athletes, especially those playing for major universities whose athletic programs generate millions of dollars in revenue, ought to be paid some sort of modest stipend. Writing for Business Insider, Cork Gaines has offered a radically different perspective on this…
Yesterday’s Columbus Dispatch included a report that Gordon Gee, President Emeritus of Ohio State University, has agreed to become Interim President at West Virginia University. There is a news conference scheduled at West Virginia University this morning of this afternoon, but I am assuming that the Dispatch would not have printed the story without feeling…
In a recent post, I detailed the “golden goodbyes,” the no longer extraordinary, very generous retirement packages, being negotiated by university presidents across the United States. I described this trend as salient evidence of the corporatization of our universities, but I don’t think that one can truly understand what is occurring with pensions without knowing…