Quick Takes

Macmillan, a major textbook publisher, is today introducing a new service that will let faculty members customize digital textbooks, adding and subtracting chapters, and to rewrite individual sentences and paragraphs, The New York Times reported. While coursepacks that allow faculty members to build customized digital or print materials for courses are common, this system may go further in allowing professors to overhaul a single existing work.

Cornerstone University, in Michigan, has announced that it will resume a tenure system for new faculty hires, three years after the board voted to stop offering tenure, The Grand Rapids Press reported. Faculty members opposed the shift three years ago and asked the board to reconsider. Dan Wielhouwer, president of the board, said: "Do-overs are great. And we're going to do it right this time."

The locations of academic meetings continue to provide calls for boycotts and much debate. Some new developments:

• Some political scientists have organized a boycott of the American Political Science Association's 2012 meeting because it is in New Orleans and Louisiana voters have approved measures banning not only gay marriage, but many potential benefits for domestic partners. Now another group of political scientists has organized a petition calling on colleagues to go to New Orleans, but to engage in protest while there to draw attention to legal bias against gay people. The petition states: "We ask: why would those of us who wish to protest the discriminatory laws of New Orleans and Louisiana do so by simply staying away? Wouldn't it be better to have the 500+ signatories to this boycott join hundreds if not thousands of others in some type of civil protest action in New Orleans during those 5 days in the summer of 2012? What about joining forces with anti-discrimination groups in New Orleans?.... Or, how about we agree to only visit New Orleans establishments -- restaurants, music venues, hotels, shops, etc. -- that have signed on to some anti-discrimination statement put out by the members of APSA? Economic patronage can have the same consequences as an economic boycott. Imagine the potential for local and national press if there was a list of New Orleans establishments that were considered acceptable to hundreds if not thousands of APSA goers. Such a move would essentially link this effort to the people of New Orleans in a way a boycott never could. We believe that changing the policies of Louisiana could just as legitimately be achieved by OUR PRESENCE as by our ABSENCE."
• The Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association has rejected calls to move its forthcoming meeting out of San Francisco, where unions are calling for boycotts of some hotels that will be used because of ongoing labor disputes. As a result, the University of San Francisco has offered space to presenters seeking to move their sessions out of hotels that are subject to the boycott.
• The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, which are scheduled to hold a joint higher education meeting next month in San Francisco, have announced that they are moving the meeting to San Jose. The hotels that will be used there have good labor relations, and by keeping the meeting close to San Francisco, organizers hope those who have already purchased plane tickets can still use them.

Goshen College announced last week that its board has affirmed a recent decision by the college's president to start playing an instrumental version of the national anthem before some athletic events. The decision has been controversial with some students and alumni, but the statement said that the new policy would stand, and would be reviewed in June 2011. Goshen is a Mennonite institution and while practice has varied at Mennonite institutions, at Goshen some have historically feared that playing the anthem suggests a commitment to nation above God or would align the college with specific policies of the U.S. government that many on the campus don't back or see as consistent with their faith. In a statement last month announcing the resumption of playing the anthem, Jim Brenneman, the president, said "we believe playing the anthem in no way displaces any higher allegiances, including to the expansive understanding of Jesus – the ultimate peacemaker – loving all people of the world." And a statement from the council at Goshen the reviewed the decision said that "playing the anthem opens up new possibilities for members of the Goshen College community to publicly offer prophetic critique – if need be – as citizens in the loyal opposition on issues of deepest moral conviction, such as war, racism and human rights abuses."

Faculty members in the smaller majors in Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education are concerned about a review of such programs, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. System officials say that the review is needed because of the budget cuts the system's universities are facing. But faculty members in some of the smaller programs believe that their disciplines are not being recognized both for their work with non-majors and for their centrality. "From my perspective, it doesn't make sense to call it a university unless it has a philosophy major," said Sherrill Begres, chair of philosophy department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The American Association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the National Coalition Against Censorship filed a brief last week backing the appeal of Ward Churchill, who is seeking in a Colorado appeals court to regain his job as a tenured professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While a district court jury found that Churchill had been fired inappropriately, the judge in the case declined to give Churchill his job back and effectively backed the university's view that he had been dismissed for scholarly misconduct. Aden Fine, a lawyer with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group, said in a statement on the case: "The First Amendment prohibits public officials from suppressing lawful speech or retaliating against those who engage in such speech, no matter how unpopular or offensive the speech may be to some people. That is especially the case in the university setting, where the Supreme Court has made clear that First Amendment freedoms must be vigilantly protected." The brief is available here.

Black students at the University of California at San Diego declared a "racial state of emergency" on Friday following a second racial incident in a week, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. In the first incident, some students held a party mocking Black History Month. Then a student group broadcast a live segment on a closed circuit television network for the university, supporting the party and using a derogatory term for black people. At a meeting with university leaders, black students won pledges to provide more money for ethnic studies programs. On other student demands -- such as adding a "diversity sensitivity requirement" for undergraduates -- the students were told that administrators would study the ideas.

The Library Copyright Alliance has issued a legal analysis of the issues associated with the use of streaming video for educational purposes. The brief focuses on characteristics that could result in such use being considered "fair use" and thus legal. The issue has attracted attention of late because of an industry group's challenge of the use of such video by the University of California at Los Angeles.

Lois DeFleur, president of the State University of New York at Binghamton, and Mary Ann Swain, the provost, sent an e-mail message to the campus Friday in which they admitted mistakes in the wake of the basketball scandal at the institution, but also argued for a continued Division I presence, The Ithaca Journal reported. "Our move to Division I was motivated by a desire to galvanize the university and the surrounding community around the spirit that comes with a successful athletic program," they wrote. "Although it is now obvious that there were missteps in developing this program -- and we intend to address them -- we have also had a glimpse at the enthusiasm, school spirit and community pride that a competitive Division I athletic program can have. We should continue to strive for this goal in a manner consistent with our academic mission."

For several years, some applicants to colleges have been submitting videos, but Tufts University this year started encouraging the practice, and more than 1,000 applicants did so. As The Boston Globe reported, some of the videos -- posted on YouTube -- have attracted strong fan bases, with viewers campaigning for the admission of some of the applicants.

Amid growing public discussion of the colleges should play in promoting healthy weight goals for students, Temple University is starting a controlled experiment on techniques designed to help students lose weight, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Temple officials say that they are designing their program to reflect particular issues -- such as minimal or irregular sleep, unusual work schedules, and so forth -- that are normal for many students but make weight control difficult.

Saint Mary's College has announced that it will no longer allow the annual Keenan Review, a risqué comedy show performed by male students from the nearby University of Notre Dame, WSBT News reported. Saint Mary's, a Roman Catholic women's college, raised questions about whether the show was appropriate. "The [college] cabinet finds the sexual nature of the skits as well as the inappropriate references to women to be incongruent with Saint Mary’s College mission and values," Shari Rodriguez, vice president of college relations, said. Officials said that the decision was based on a pattern, not on any one year's show or skit. This year, one of the skits (available on YouTube) focused on Tiger Woods. First, it showed his wife berating him, and then it featured a barbershop quartet singing to Woods, imagining in song that he can cheer himself up with the refrain "Take a look at my enormous penis."