Sept. 27, 2007

Quick Takes: RPI Faculty Want Senate Back, Poetry War, Cheating Scandal at Fla. State, Sallie Mae Deal Collapses, Alternative to Google Library, Chapel Hill Chief to Resign, Time for Breast-Feeding, Scrutiny of Foreign Student Recruiter, DREAM Delayed

Looking for a job?

Browse all job listings:

Faculty: 3,481
Administrative: 1,574
Executive: 156
FEATURED EMPLOYERS

Professors at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute voted this week to ask their provost to restore their Faculty Senate and to recognize it as legitimate. The vote was overwhelming: 200 in favor, 21 opposed, and 7 abstentions. (The tenured and tenure-track faculty that voted has 359 members, and with one in seven on sabbatical, faculty organizers said that the vote was not only decisive, but represented strong faculty interest.) Robert E. Palazzo, the provost, announced in August that the university would no longer recognize the Faculty Senate because it had amended its rules to grant voting rights to faculty members who are not on the tenure track. The faculty held elections under those revised rules, rejecting a policy change mandated by the board, which did not want non-tenure track faculty to vote. The move by the provost infuriated many professors, whose relations with RPI’s administration have been rocky for years. Palazzo has said that he would respect faculty rights to come up with a new governance system as long as the board’s directives are followed. But Larry Kagan, a professor of art and president of the Faculty Senate that the provost abolished, said that such limits did not amount to “serious conversation” that professors feel is needed with administrators and the board. Following the faculty vote, William N. Walker, vice president for strategic communications and external relations, issued a statement: “The information from this unofficial faculty referendum will be discussed with the academic leadership of Rensselaer and shared with the Faculty Governance Review Committee. That group will review it along with the many other factors relating to faculty governance it will study as it considers its recommendations. Meanwhile, we are continuing under a Board of Trustees resolution that approved the establishment of the transitional faculty governance structure, including a temporary suspension of the Faculty Senate.”
Board members of the Poetry Society of America — many of them professors — are quitting and fighting over fallout from the society’s decision to give the Frost Medal, one of its highest honors, to John Hollander, The New York Times reported. A major part of the dispute is the question of whether controversial comments made by Hollander, a professor emeritus of English at Yale University, should be considered when evaluating whether he should receive a poetry award. In a book review, the Times noted, Hollander had referred to “cultures without literatures — West African, Mexican and Central American.” While some board members said the comments mattered, others said they were irrelevant and that plenty of great poetry has been produced by deeply flawed writers, such as the notoriously anti-Semitic Ezra Pound.
Florida State University has found that a “learning specialist” and a tutor at the university helped 23 athletes, 21 of them still enrolled, cheat, The Orlando Sentinel reported. In some cases, athletes received answers to test questions, and in other cases, their assignments were typed.
Investors who had pledged to buy Sallie Mae in a $25 billion deal announced Wednesday that they do not plan to go through with the deal, and that recent economic and political changes have decreased the value of the student loan giant, The New York Times reported. Sallie Mae issued a statement indicating that it believed the investors did not have the legal right to pull out, while commentators speculated that the deal might still go through, though at a significantly lower price.
The Boston Library Consortium, a group of 19 research libraries, announced Wednesday that it was working with the Open Content Alliance to digitize the libraries’ public domain holdings, to create high resolution, downloadable files for use. The Boston consortium — which includes libraries at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern, Tufts, and five University of Massachusetts campuses — is designing the project as an alternative to Google’s Library Project and other major corporate efforts, many of which have backing from top university libraries.
James C. Moeser announced Wednesday that he would leave the position of chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the end of the academic year, eight years after he was named to the post. At Chapel Hill, Moeser has been highly regarded as a fund raiser (with unprecedented success for the university) and as an advocate (with mixed success) for Chapel Hill’s unique needs within a large state university system. In 2002, Moeser defended (in court and with politicians) the selection of a book about Islam as a freshman reading assignment. He also was involved in leadership by Chapel Hill on key admissions and financial aid decisions. In 2002, four years before a similar move by Harvard University that attracted nationwide attention, Carolina dropped its early decision admissions program, becoming the first highly competitive university to do so. And with Shirley Ort, his financial aid director, Moeser pushed the Carolina Covenant, a program since copied by a number of flagship universities, to eliminate loans for low-income students.
An appeals court in Massachusetts ruled Wednesday that a breast-feeding mother who is a student at Harvard Medical School is entitled to extra time during a licensing exam so she can pump milk for her child, The Boston Globe reported.
A major issue in the dismissal of Christine Johnson as president of the Community College of Denver was board scrutiny of arrangements she set up with an Iranian mathematics professor to recruit students from the Middle East, The Rocky Mountain News reported. Federal officials are looking into the arrangements and concerns that the students may not have met visa requirements and that the professor may have been paid in inappropriate ways, the newspaper reported. Six other colleges also hired the professor.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that Democrats will not be able to introduce the DREAM Act as an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Act after all. Their plan to do so came under intense attacks from the right in the past week. The DREAM Act, long stalled in Congress without a vote, would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented students who spend two years in college or the military. Reid expressed his support for the measure, however, and his plan is to move the legislation by November 16.

Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.

Comments

Another Academic Scandal

In the past 10 years, we have seen scandals involving academic tutors working for the athletics department at Texas Tech, Minnesota, Tennessee, and, currently, Florida State.

When will college presidents and faculty members put a stop to this nonsense? The enablers (i.e., college presidents and faculty) must not allow the use of academic centers run by athletics departments to continue.

michael, at 7:15 am EDT on September 27, 2007

John Hollander

I’m not a member of the Poetry Society, but I am a writer, teacher, and editor of poetry. Hollander’s remarks about “cultures without literature” were ill-informed & possibly motivated by Hollander’s reactionary poetics. (I don’t know about his politics in the narrow sense.) If it had been my call, I’d have denied him the award not because of his dumb remarks but on the basis of his production a life-time’s worth of mediocre formalist verse.

Joseph Duemer, Professor at Clarkson University, at 7:45 am EDT on September 27, 2007

Only a Harvard student would have the money, time and ambition to go for the appeal AND win. Well, good for her and her baby. Too bad for the rest of us who can’t afford days in court for things like, oh I don’t know. Basic human rights?

kgotthardt, at 8:45 am EDT on September 27, 2007

Here We Go Again

Could things have turned out any differently at Florida State? Of course not! The stakes are simply too high in big-time sports for things to turn out any differently than they apparently have at Florida St and other D-1 programs (see Minnesota, Georgia, Tennesse, etc.). Coaches know their employment is contingent on one thing only: winning. They also know losing their job means a loss in hundreds of thousands (more like millions) of dollars in bowl game appearances, ticket receipts, endorsements, and media deals.

Again, the stakes are simply too high for a coach or athletic department to allow star players not to be eligible. And given the academic (under)preparedness of many of today’s top players, academic “assistance” is as at least as important as the training table, weightroom, and “optional” off-season workouts. While solutions to this conundrum have long escaped reformers, presidents can at least make organizational changes to eliminate conflict of interest situations and restore some academic integrity to the big-time sports entertainment machine. Any function that an athletic department performs that results in conflict of interest (i.e. academic support provided by athletic personnel) ought to be moved to a more appropriate place within the university. All academic advising and support should be under the provost or student affairs division. Not only would combining advising offices eliminate duplication of effort, athletic academic advisors would have some much needed protection from heavy handed and intrusive coaches who are concerned more with eligibility than education.

Presidents and Boards (not to mention most faculty — there is a vocal minority) have to take a sustained interest and engagement in this issue. They have, for far too long, been disinterested or spineless in the face of highly paid coaches as well as ESPN, CBS, ABC, NBC, CSTV, Nike, etc. ad nauseam. Expect this story to garner national media attention and hand-wringing and, like the others before it, disappear until the next scandal breaks.

In the meantime, Go Gators!

Albert, at 9:05 am EDT on September 27, 2007

Recruiting foreign students

With respect to the item above about the recruitment of students from Iran, can someone explain what exactly was improper about the process? Don’t universities actively recruit foreign students from the countries of their choice? Is it illegal to pay someone for such recruitment?

Steve, at 9:20 am EDT on September 27, 2007

From Adjunct Blues to Long Green

Dear adjunct, are you tired of the long hours and low pay? Now we have the model to follow to escape the drudgery of normal hours, little pay and no recognition. Here they are, thanks to the Colorado Community College system, many of which were hires of the new way professor Kourosh Tavatli. Thanks to the problems of now ex-president Christene Johnson, we are shown the way. Oddly enough, the really excessive payouts to Prof. Tavatli are from other units of the Colorado system, and no one has been held accountable for them. So, as long as the system is in place, we should be able to play by the rules, right?

Rule 1: Go to the Top. Department Chair? Dean? No way do you bother to pay attention to the little fish in your community college pond, go right to the President. Make elaborate claims, such as an inflated resume, nonexistent doctorate, and drop lots of names. Don’t worry, these people won’t bother to check anything. Invite the President out for a meal, drop a few bucks and names, and get known.

Rule 2: Use the buzz words of increasing diversity, international students, under represented groups. You will bring in out of district, state and country students along with their higher tuition. Get approval for a program that will supposedly be self funding and bring lots of buzz word benefits. Make sure your program will be outside of the normal budget, routines and checks.

Rule 3: Keep everything under wraps. Bring in your students, if you can, to an off campus site, with no contacts with the campus and its people. Don’t offer normal courses, just make up your own. Don’t bother to have your courses listed in the college catalog, keep everything under your personal control. Make everything look good on paper, with numbers of diverse students. It makes no difference that these students, being off campus, do absolutely nothing to increase campus diversity; it’s all in the numbers. Do you think that a President is interested in anything other than the numbers?

Rule 4: Don’t be shy in demanding pay for your off the record activities. As Kourosh Tavatli demonstrated, people will pay whatever the President approves, no questions asked. Travatli showed charges of $500,000 over a few years were routinely paid. Here’s how it works: for a six week series of 9 intensive courses (at per hour rates) he charged for 102.5 hours a week (14 hours, 38 � minutes a day for 42 days straight), and collected $18,450.

How’s that kind of payout grab you, lowly adjunct? An adjunct teaching half time all year won’t pull in that kind of income. So learn the buzz words, drop names, make connections, and move in high circles. There’s a bigger payoff waiting than plain old work. Get moving!

Another Adjunct, at 9:40 am EDT on September 27, 2007

Hey, Adjunct....

I went to a school like that—except it was running unlicensed sites throughout the country. Let me tell you, as part of the “underserved” population, I certainly wasn’t “served” anything useful from them.

kgotthardt, at 11:40 am EDT on September 27, 2007

Revised IRS Form 990 an Occam’s Razor for College Sports?

In my 2003 essay, “Reclaiming Academic Primacy in Higher Education,” http://thedrakegroup.org/Splitt_Reclaiming_Academic_Primacy.pdf, I said: “The Gordian-knot-like dilemma in college sports may best be cut with Occam’s Razor – a guiding principle that points in the direction of simple solutions that go to the core of the problem, usually with a high likelihood of being correct, more robust, and easier to enforce than (paralyzing) complex ones.”

So what’s the core problem? It’s simply this: Institutions of higher education scheme and cheat to field competitive, professional-level teams, especially in football and men’s basketball.

Andrew Carter’s Orlando Sentinal article, “Nearly 2 dozen Florida State athletes accused of cheating, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sp...,5715683.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout, provides another look at the tip of the iceberg of academic corruption that enables the NCAA’s college sports entertainment business.

The Revised IRS Form 990 can very well serve as Occam’s Razor. See: “Reclaiming Academic Primacy in Higher Education: The Revised IRS Form 990 Can Accelerate the Process,” http://www.thedrakegroup.org/Splitt_Reclaiming_Academic_Primacy_IRS.pdf.

Frank G. Splitt, Member at The Drake Group, at 12:35 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

First of all, the breast-feeding case is far from over. Second of all, non-Harvard students have made similar claims (with varying results) in the past.

Assuming that she has a valid claim (which I actually doubt), when someone is in med school they are going to fight like hell for what they worked for no matter what school they go to.

Larry, at 12:35 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

Harvard Students are people too.

I do not have a problem with this student being from Harvard.

I do have a problem that this student has asserted her right to get additional time for a licensing exam for this “reason".

One would assume, that a highly motivated, high achieving medical student mom knew ahead of time when her licensing exam would be. I only assume that the date and time was not a surprise.

And she couldn’t find any time to pump breast milk prior to the exam? And only during the exam was it possible? And she could not store some in the fridge prior, right? Or use regular milk?

I can only hope there is more to this story then was reported here.

Shocking, at 1:30 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

“Second of all, non-Harvard students have made similar claims (with varying results) in the past.” Curious, Larry—what were some of the results? And on what basis would someone be able to sue over this? Are we talking discrimination for a medical condition or gender bias or what?

kgotthardt, at 1:30 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

RE: Shocking

Hey Shocking...Your ignorance of the issue is quite apparent. First of all, if the mother is breastfeeding, it is likely less of an issue of feeding her baby and more an issue of extreme discomfort that her breasts are engorged. In addition it is in her best interest and the best interest of the baby that she continue to breastfeed until her baby is at least a year old, as breastfed babies are generally healthier and need fewer medical interventions.

Before you start making judgments about this woman, I would suggest you get educated about the issue.

Re: Shocking, at 2:15 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

balancing the interests

kgotthardt, We are talking 14th amendment equal protection, which in many contexts is analagous to state discrimination claims. Going largely from memory, in the constitutional context (rather than discrimination context), the 5th Circuit (which in a case out of Florida, which is now in the 11th) held that “In light of the spectrum of interests that the Supreme Court has held specially protected we conclude that the Constitution protects from excessive state interference a woman’s decision respecting breastfeeding her child.” Dike v. School Bd. of Orange County, Fla., 650 F.2d 783, 787 (1981). It then remanded to fact-finding to balance the various other interests out there. The same court held in 1998 that “Nude infants and women breast feeding in a park are not protected by the First Amendment because they are not engaged in expressing any idea.” J & B Entertainment, Inc. v. City of Jackson, Miss., 152 F.3d 362, 366 (C.A.5 1998). In the prison cases, the 5th Circuit has held that the state’s penal interest outweighs the interests of the child.

Finally, I should note, if my knowledge of MA Civ. Pro. isn’t failing me, that a decision of a single-judge of an appellate court is only preliminary. Looking at the docket, it reads “it is ordered...the petition of the plaintiffs...is allowed..a preliminary injunction is hereby entered against the National Board of Medical Examiners ("NBME") that requires the NBME to afford Sophie C. Currier an additional sixty (60) minutes of break time per test day at Ms. Currier’s sitting for the United States Medical Licensing Examination, now scheduled to occur on October 4 and 5, 2007. The Board is further ordered to ensure that Ms. Currier is provided with a private room with a power outlet at the testing center in order to express breast milk.”

Shocking, While it may be in the best interests of the baby, it does mean that the test will be administered to different people differently. You still need to justify this discrimination against non-breast-feeders in order to make your point.

What I find sort of interesting about this debate is that as a practical matter, many choices are made by individuals before they go to graduate school. You will give stuff up no matter who you are. If you plan on spending your 20s in med school you probably won’t be able to spend your time exercising your right to travel, or your right to work 6 hours a day at Starbucks and spend the rest of the day watching pornography. If you go to law school you are probably giving up your right to get facial tattoos. Why is the personal decision to have a child much more important? Is it just because it is painful not to breast-feed? But it is the pain can be argued to be self-inflicted.

Anyway, as to the underlying issue of breast-feeding, I ain’t touching that with a 10-foot pole.

Larry, at 3:25 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

a legislative solution

Oh, someone reminded me that the 6th Circuit, interpreting Ohio’s public accommodation law said that prohibitions on restroom breast-feeding were legal. Baird v. Walmart, 374 F.3d 428, 440 (6th Cir. 2004). But the Ohio legislature changed the statute to specifically protect breast-feeding. So, a Walmart shopper (i.e. the exact opposite of a Harvard Med student) actually obtained a better and more permanent result. See RC 3781.55 http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3781.55

Larry, at 3:50 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

Shocking, I realize Harvard students are people, too. And they are probably the people who will cut me open on the operating table some day, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so cantankerous. It’s nothing against Harvard or its students in particular. However, I find it interesting that the student took so much money and time, delaying taking her test so she could bring this case to court. One day of discomfort surely would have been easier than all this, no?

Larry, thank you for the interesting reading. While it’s unclear (and irreverent, really) if the birth was planned, breast feeding certainly IS a choice, in spite of pressure from (dare I write it again?) “nursing nazis.” While I try to avoid judging anyone’s decision to have or not to have children, I know I was bouncing a colicky baby in my arms as I completed my Master’s thesis. I was crying right along with her. We both got through it without a lawsuit.

kgotthardt, at 3:55 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

The issue was not breastfeeding...

and I am shocked at your ignorance for assuming as you do.

I am quite aware of the issues.

1. Was she in such discomfort that she could not make it through the test? I doubt it. 2. Pumping before the exam would have solved the problem.3. You really should read more closely; I was not advocating a switch from breast feeding to bottle feeding, I was merely pointing out that if the baby needed milk during the exam time, I think that any reasonable person might substitute cow milk for one feeding.

I applaud breast feeding and the health benefits. I abhor gratuitous and unnecessary exceptions to standards for debatable reasons.

Still shocked, at 4:20 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

Clarification

The first post entitled “Harvard Students are people too” and the third post entitled “still shocked” are mine.

The second post entitled “RE;shocked” and signed “RE:shocked was someone else not clever enough to come up with a different name.

Kgotthardt, I agree with you and meant the first title to be somewhat tongue in cheek.

Shocking, at 4:20 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

breast feeding and pumping

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but while the mother could have pumped before the exam, that would not have been enough. According to published reports, the exam is an all-day event. Most breastfeeding mothers need to feed or pump every couple of hours. Having her choose between pumping to relieve intense pain or getting additional time on her test seems to not really be a choice at all.

anonymous, at 6:10 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

You have a lot to learn, Shocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_feeding

Just saying that cow’s milk can be used shows your ignorance — I don’t know the age of the child, but before one year, no cow’s milk. Infants fed whole cow’s milk receive inadequate amounts of Vitamin E, iron, and essential fatty acids. They also receive excessive amounts of protein, sodium, and potassium. These levels may be too high for the infant’s system to handle. Additionally, whole cow’s milk protein and fat are more difficult for an infant to digest and absorb. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002448.htm)

But the real point is:When one’s breasts fill up with milk, they start to get tight, then painful. Imagine someone taking your blood pressure (uncomfortable pressure) for a long time. After painful comes more pain and then leakage. In my case, lots of leakage. Spraying and dribbling milk.

In any case, I don’t know how old her baby is, but when babies are young, the mother needs to nurse every few hours or pump in order to empty out those puppies. It has nothing to do with substituting food for the baby. It has to do with the mother’s needs.

As a child nears one, the need to nurse and empty the breasts isn’t as...punctual. The baby is recieving other foods and the demand is less and thus production falls.

Anyway, I hope you get yourself some facts before you breed.

C Piper, Worker Bee at FL Institution, at 6:10 pm EDT on September 27, 2007

Follow up

C. Pipper and anon;

You are right, you did miss the point. Cow milk, breast milk, or some other substitute which would have been acceptable is not the issue, and Piper, you are assuming because they did not report the age of the infant.

My relatives, a doctor and four nurses, all of whom are mothers BTW, say each individual is different, but that this mom should have been able to take the test without accomodation, as all nursing mothers who have sat for this exam up to this point have done. That is my breeding. Piper might need an accomodation to respond though.

Shocked, at 8:25 am EDT on September 28, 2007

Belaboring this again...

Shocked, I agree with you. This lady already had accommodations: 45 minutes in which to pump. A private room in which to do so. Permission to get up from the exam if she felt she had to pump again.

We are not talking nutritional deficit of the child (who is four months old, according to the Globe article). She could always freeze some milk. I still think this is a case just to make a case.

BTW, Larry, your link to the Ohio law says no one will INTERFERE with nursing. No one is INTERFERING with this lady’s nursing, either. According to this law, she should feel free to whip out the pump in the testing room while she’s filling in the bubbles. She should do it. That would probably make a stronger statement than the court case, anyway. And she wouldn’t be at a time disadvantage because everyone would lose minutes by taking time out to watch.

kgotthardt, at 11:00 am EDT on September 28, 2007

Jobs Related to Quick Takes: RPI Faculty Want Senate Back, Poetry War, Cheating Scandal at Fla. State, Sallie Mae Deal Collapses, Alternative to Google Library, Chapel Hill Chief to Resign, Time for Breast-Feeding, Scrutiny of Foreign Student Recruiter, DREAM Delayed

or search for jobs directly.

Computer Science (Adjunct) Instructor (Daytime Only)
Hillsborough Community College

Hillsborough Community College is a public, comprehensive multi-campus, state-supported community college located in the ... see job

Dean of the College of Liberal Studies
Fordham University

Fordham University invites inquiries, nominations and applications for the position of Dean of the College of Liberal ... see job

Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
Montana State University

The School of Art at Montana State University seeks a motivated and energetic Assistant Professor of Graphic Design who ... see job

Adjunct Faculty Credit — Mathematics
Harper College

Job Description: Select this posting to apply for future consideration as an Adjunct Faculty for MATHEMATICS ... see job

Surgical Technologist Instructor
Concorde Career Colleges, Inc.

Our work environment is dynamic. Our people are valued. A rewarding career awaits you at Concorde! Concorde Career Colleges, ... see job

Assistant Professor
University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center-Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora

Posting Description: Physical Geographer Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences University of ... see job

Assistant Professor/Associate Professor
Western Carolina University

Assistant or Associate Professor of Organizational Communication. The Department of Communication at Western Carolina ... see job

Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences
College of the Bahamas

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Ideal candidates must have at least a PhD in Pharmacy and professional experience, as a ... see job

Government ASSOCIATE OR FULL PROFESSOR (Tenured)
American University

American University is an independent liberal-arts university located in Washington, DC with 12,000 students. The faculty are ... see job

Clinical Instructor
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Seeking dedicated and motivated Nurse Practitioner or Physician?s Assistant with active license in North Carolina for a ... see job