BY MARTIN KICH The current situation at the University of Akron is extreme but nonetheless illustrative of the situations developing at many of our college and university campuses across the state of Ohio and the nation. At Akron, the administration and Board are attempting to use a force majeure clause in the faculty contract to…
BY THE WAYNE COLLEGE REDUCTION IN FORCE (RIF) FACULTY HIT LIST On July 15, 2020, the Board of Trustees, in consultation with the administration, at the University of Akron (UA) chose to eliminate ninety-six bargaining unit faculty. Those of us on that list of cut faculty call ourselves the Hit List. Although there are satellite…
BY EVONN WELTON In 2011, The University of Akron received an award from the American Psychological Association for being a healthy workplace environment. What a profound and sad irony that in less than ten years, it has become a place of financial hardship, possible injustices, fear, anxiety, and pitting faculty against faculty. It has become…
POSTED BY MARTY KICH On July 15, the University of Akron Board of Trustees, at the recommendation of President Gary Miller, terminated the employment of ninety-seven full-time faculty members. When factoring in retirements, this results in the loss of over one hundred faculty. The Board and President must rescind this decision or resign their positions.…
BY MARTIN KICH Empty Exercises in Planning without Much Meaningful Preparation Francois Furstenberg, a Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, has written an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education that is one of the most lucid and impassioned dissections of what’s wrong with American higher education that I have ever read—and I have…