In each edition, the University Times will be spotlighting articles from around the Internet about the unique issues confronting higher education and how they affect faculty and staff.
Here are some of the top headlines from over the summer:
Brandeis grad students move ahead with union
Graduate students at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., have reached a tentative labor deal with the university. It’s the first such contract at a private school following a ruling two years ago by the National Labor Relations Board to extend union rights to teaching and research assistants at private universities. The graduate student union is scheduled to vote on the plan next month
— WGBH, Aug. 29
Student loan watchdog quits over Trump administration policies
Seth Frotman, the top career official overseeing student loans at the Consumer Financial Protection Board, resigned Aug. 27 over Trump Administration policies that he said were harming students and families. In a letter to Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, Frotman said that political leadership had undermined efforts to take action against abuses by student loan companies and for-profit colleges.
— Politico, Aug. 27
Former SUNY chancellor nominated for federal higher ed post
Robert L. King, who led the State University of New York from 2000 to 2005, was nominated by President Trump on Aug. 22 to be assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the Department of Education.
King is currently president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. Although his stay at SUNY was rocky, King has received praise from higher education officials he’s dealt with in Kentucky.
— Inside Higher Education, Aug. 22
False reporting to U.S. News & World Report rankings
Eight schools have notified U.S. News & World Report that they misreported data used to calculate their rankings for the 2018 edition of Best Colleges. This follows the news earlier this year that Temple University’s business school had falsified data about the school’s online MBA program, which led to the ouster of longtime dean Moshe Porat in July.
The newly named schools, which all self-reported the inaccuracies, are Austin Peay State University, Dakota Wesleyan University, Drury University, Hampton University, Oklahoma City University, Randolph College, Saint Martin's University and St. Louis University.
The schools have been moved to the "unranked" category, until the next report comes out Sept. 10 and the schools confirm the accuracy of their next data submission.
— U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 22
AAUP calls out Purdue Global nondisclosure agreement
In August, the American Association of University Professors released a copy of a four-page non-disclosure agreement that appears to be a condition of employment for Purdue University Global employees.
Purdue Global is the rebranded named for the previously for-profit online institution Kaplan University, which was purchased by Purdue University in Indiana in early 2017.
The NDA says that any work product, including all course materials, created during employment at Purdue Global, “is commissioned and owned by Purdue Global as a work-for-hire and may not be used, duplicated or distributed outside of Purdue Global.” The agreement also places a gag order on employees about just about any information learned during their employment.
In a news release, Greg Scholtz, director of the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance calls Purdue Global’s NDA "breathtakingly inappropriate in higher education," adding, "I’ve never seen anything like it."
— AAUP, Aug. 22
CMU starts task force after resignation of two top professors
Following the resignation of Lenore Blum — a longtime computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the Project Olympus business accelerator —and her husband, Manuel Blum, also a professor in the School of Computer Science. CMU President Farnam Jahanian is creating a new task force to oversee campus culture.
Lenore Blum cited “professional harassment” and “sexist management” on the school’s Oakland campus over the past three years as reasons for their departure.
The task force will study how to make the university a “diverse, inclusive, equitable, respectful and understanding” environment.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 22
Free medical school tuition at NYU
The New York University School of Medicine announced on Aug. 16 that it would cover the tuition of all its students, regardless of merit or need, citing concerns about the “overwhelming financial debt” facing graduates.
— New York Times, Aug. 16
RateMyProfessor.com gets less hot
RateMyProfessor.com has decided to eliminate its “hotness” rating, as indicted by chili pepper icons.
The move comes on the heels of a Tweet by BethAnn McLaughlin, an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University, in June: Life is hard enough for female professors. Your 'chili pepper' rating of our 'hotness' is obnoxious and utterly irrelevant to our teaching. Please remove it because #TimesUP and you need to do better."
— Inside Higher Education, July 2