Higher Education Quick Takes

Unions representing more than 60,000 professional staff members and graduate students at the University of California's 10 campuses voted no confidence Thursday in President Mark G. Yudof, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Union officials said that 96 percent of those who voted turned thumbs down on Yudof, many citing unhappiness at how the president and other administrators have handled the university's budget crisis.

WASHINGTON -- Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a gathering of presidents of historically black colleges and universities Wednesday that their institutions are essential to the future of the country's education system -- and that they must do a better job helping students get degrees. That dual message, delivered to the 2009 National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week Conference here, is consistent with the forceful ideas put forward this summer by John Silvanus Wilson Jr., the Obama administration's new head of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Duncan filled his speech with praise for the tradition of historically black colleges' doing more with less, preparing generations of black leaders despite often comparatively "meager resources." Other colleges could have much to learn from HBCUs in these lean times, Duncan said, singling out institutions such as Elizabeth City State University and Philander Smith College. But while black colleges will benefit heavily from the economic recovery package and other federal aid, they, like other institutions, will have to become more cost efficient. Duncan also challenged the institutions' effectiveness, noting that the teachers they produce are less likely than their peers to pass certification tests and that many of the colleges have graduation rates below 20 percent, an "unacceptable outcome for students.... And just like other institutions of higher education, HBCUs cannot explain away big differences in graduation rates simply by reference to the usual suspects. The management practices of those colleges have to be part of the explanation -- and part of the solution."

A final deal to revive Antioch College -- independent of Antioch University -- will be signed Friday. The agreement was announced by the Great Lakes Colleges Association, which has helped promote the negotiations between the alumni leaders who will be managing the revived college and the university's board.

Oakland University's faculty voted late Wednesday to authorize a strike, and the faculty union urged members to skip today's first day of classes. Newspaper accounts of the vote, like this one in the Detroit Free Press, said that the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors had authorized a strike but that the union would call for a boycott early this morning only if they believed talks were at an impasse. A note on the home page of Oakland's AAUP this morning said: "The 2006-09 contract has expired without a tentative agreement. The AAUP team asks the faculty show support for the bargaining process and to not meet classes until further notice." A note on the university's Web site warned students to prepare for a work stoppage but also noted that a strike would violate state law.