In our last meeting, we began discussing Summer Session. We had come up with a framing question to guide our discussion: How do we compensate faculty during summer session in a way that is equitable, predictable and sustainable while considering student needs? read more >

Bryan Jones is not anti-gun – he keeps two rifles and a handgun at his country home and is a former member of the National Rifle Association. But he does not want weapons in his workplace, and he is not alone. The government professor at the University of Texas is one of about 800 academics there who have signed a petition opposing the campus carry law that is set to go into effect in Texas on 1 August 2016. “There are some places guns don’t belong,” he said. “I think we’ve had enough of this. We’ve been lucky in the sense that we’ve started a little bit of a firestorm because our organization came at about the same time as a shooting on campus in Oregon.” read more >

Portland State University might make a bid for regional tax money with an initiative petition drive for the November 2016 election, President Wim Wiewel revealed this week to the Portland Tribune. The idea, Wiewel says, comes after years of not getting enough out of Salem. “I would much rather have a statewide solution, but I have been fighting for seven years now,” he says, acknowledging that the state boosted funding to Oregon's seven public universities by $30 million this biennium, but it was $55 million short of what they asked for. “It’s still not anywhere near enough for what we need.” read more >

Portland lawyer Jill Gibson has, as she'd promised, filed another initiative petition to make Oregon a "right to work" state, at least for public employees. read more >

Professors and graduate students must navigate all kinds of tricky topics in their relationships. Dissertation deadlines, Ph.D. career paths, and the occasional lapse in research ethics are just a few examples. Now add to that list graduate-student unionization. Or at least that’s what Harvard administrators think. read more >

Ought faculty and academic professionals feel a strong sense of civic responsibility on account of the nature of our work? What is the basis for such a sense of duty? Academic freedom. read more >

The University of Florida on Wednesday announced that it is terminating a huge 11-year deal for Pearson to build and manage the university's online programs. read more >

“The little things are what’s really important” in making transgender students feel welcome on campus. read more >

On August 1, 2016 — exactly 50 years after a student named Charles Whitman climbed into the University of Texas tower and shot 46 people, killing 14 of them — a new law on concealed firearms will take effect here. Already, emotions are exploding. read more >

Good news from yesterday’s bargaining session… read more >

After years of preaching “disruptive innovation” for higher education, one of the most visible proponents of the theory is going to try a little disrupting of his own. read more >

“To them it’s all about minimizing costs and churning out graduates -- they don’t really care what those graduates can or cannot do.” read more >

We completed our bargaining over non-tenure track instructional faculty (NTTF). We have now conceptually agreed upon all of the details of a new system of continuous employment for our instructional NTTF. read more >

Louisiana State University’s Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to censure three top administrators there over their dismissal of a tenured professor accused of creating a hostile environment in the classroom with obscene language and sexually explicit jokes. read more >

Good news! We had a very productive session on Friday October 2nd. We continued to hammer out the details of improving job security for non-tenure track faculty (NTTF) by providing continuous (rather than short-term) appointments. Our union and the administration reached conceptual agreement around many points, including the question of how evaluations will work for non-tenure track instructors in the years after they receive a continuous appointment. read more >

We met for an early and short bargaining session yesterday. Our team went into the session hoping that we could resolve our outstanding issues around the evaluation and transition of non-tenure track faculty members (NTTF) into a continuous appointment system. read more >

A philosophy professor who died earlier this year was making so little money at age 61 he lived in a room in a dilapidated boardinghouse. The story of Dave Heller is focusing attention on the plight of the temp college teacher. read more >

Three years after their nine-day strike that humiliated Emanuel and won national headlines for the idea of teachers fighting for students, the new attack on pay and pensions is angering teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians. Members have been demoralized by Emanuel’s school closings and layoffs that have left schools with bare-bones staff. read more >

For nearly three decades, the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance had counseled Congress and the Education Department on student-aid issues. read more >

State schools with the highest-paid presidents seem to be offsetting their administrative bloat with cheaper labor. read more >