Higher Education Quick Takes

Adjunct professors, who teach almost one-third of courses at Weber State University, can expect a 7 percent cut in their pay next year, The Ogden Standard reported. University officials announced the plan, and said that adjunct pay would be rolled back to its 2004-5 rates, or about $2,700 per course. Adjuncts at the Utah university do not receive benefits. The state is considering large cuts to higher education budgets, and Weber State officials cited those reductions as requiring the pay cuts. Tenure-track and tenured faculty members will not have their pay cut under the plan, although the reduction would apply to the extra pay those professors receive when they teach extra courses.

Southwestern College, in California, is under fire for a deal in which some of its police academy students are being trained at a facility run by the company previously known as Blackwater, the controversial company known for its security work in Iraq, The Union-Tribune reported. While critics say that the college shouldn't be associated with Xe, as the company is now known, college officials said that their own instructors are doing the training, and that they are just using a facility owned by the company.

When Bill Ayers visits a local campus these days, it's become common for a local politician or two to denounce the appearance. But Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are pushing particularly hard at Millersville University, demanding that a lecture later this month be called off. The Intelligencer Journal reported that Republican legislators have issued repeated statements and called for meetings with state higher education officials about the matter. Millersville has defended the appearance by Ayers, noting that he is coming to the campus in his role as a noted education expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and that there are no plans to use tax dollars for the visit. But Republicans keep talking about the Weather Underground, of which Ayers was once a leader, and suggesting that there could be economic penalties for the university if it lets Ayers appear. One legislator told the newspaper: "I mean, this guy probably committed treason, and why Millersville would want to give him a forum is really beyond my understanding." Another said: "At the end of the day, the institution does utilize tax dollars. ... So there has to be a measure of accountability."

Safety inspectors found more than a dozen deficiencies in a University of California at Los Angeles laboratory in which a lab assistant was engulfed in flames in a December accident that resulted in burns that killed her, the Los Angeles Times reported. The article quotes one expert as saying that the death was "totally preventable." UCLA has ordered a series of lab safety improvements and is cooperating with ongoing investigations, while not commenting on the specific points outlined in the article. The safety inspection that found the deficiencies was conducted two months before the accident, and the Times reported that the requested changes were not made.