iBerry

Webster U. has long maintained a separate but equal system for faculty who prefer frequent sabbaticals to absolute job security.

Two administrators at Connecticut College describe how they and their faculty colleagues changed the way professors are recruited and hired

A recent book on Depression-era culture is both lively and all too timely. Scott McLemee interviews its author.

College leaders in the U.S. urged to enhance unity of North American higher ed on same day European academics issue study on how unified their institutions have become.

Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, says he hasn't given up on the University of California at Irvine. His appearance at Irvine last month set off a wide debate about civility and protest when his talk was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. Now Oren has published an open letter in the university's student newspaper offering to come back to Irvine. "I came to UCI for the opportunity to exchange ideas — a reasonable intention that was hijacked by a minority of students. The disruptive measures exhibited by these students only underscore the importance for dialogue, especially on the frontline of higher learning," Oren wrote. "I would willingly return to your campus and meet with those individuals whose views may not agree with mine as long as we respect the decorum of dialogue and free speech. Middle East issues are not devoid of emotion or nuance. Only with respect and sensitivity from all sides can we attain the conditions necessary to tackle one of the great issues of our time and realize the vision of peace."

Colleges may be freezing many salaries this year, but a new athletic competition has emerged in the salaries of top assistant football coaches, USA Today reported. Last year, only two assistant coaches earned more than $650,000, but this year, six will be earning at least $700,000. And nearly a dozen universities have signed contracts increasing the compensation for offensive or defensive coordinators by at least 38 percent.

Community colleges in Nebraska have reached a compromise over a funding dispute that led Metropolitan Community College, in Omaha, to sue the state's five other community colleges, The Omaha World-Herald reported. Metro State has argued that the state's funding formulas favor rural institutions unfairly. Under the deal reached to resolved the dispute, the suit will be dropped, Metro will receive $1.8 million this year from the other colleges while keeping the formula in effect for the year, and the six colleges will negotiate a new state formula for use in the future.

Jackson State University's president, Ronald Mason Jr., has received considerable public criticism for his idea of merging the state's three public, historically black universities into one. But a review by The Jackson Clarion-Ledger of e-mail to and from Mason about the idea shows that some in the state who have not spoken in favor of the plan were either supportive in private or at least open to considering the ideas. The e-mail messages also include some tough criticism and some of Mason's frustrations about the difficulty of talking about these issues. "If I can't have private conversations with members of the Black Caucus about the future of HBCUs without them trying to get me fired, then who am I supposed to talk to?" he said in one e-mail.

Making selections for those bracket pools takes time away from everything else, including scholarship, according to a new study by a Duke University professor. Charles Clotfelter, Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, analyzed data on journal article viewing at 78 research libraries. He found that a drop in usage in the week after the pairings are announced for the National Collegiate Athletic Association men's basketball tournament. Further, he found additional drops at colleges and universities that won "toss-up" games, in the days following those games. “This drop in research activity in these libraries is quantitative evidence of the NCAA tournament’s power to influence patterns of work,” Clotfelter said.

Distance ed students seek to replicate social and professional benefits of traditional college experience by forming Web-based extracurricular organizations.

An angry custodial worker at Ohio State University who had received a poor performance review shot two other employees, killing one of them, before killing himself Tuesday, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The university is offering counseling and Gordon Gee, the president, issued a statement offering condolences to the family of the employee who was killed.

Frustrated by the quality of submissions, a journal editor slams a subset of his readers (and the universities that produced them).

• Wendi Born, assistant professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Baker University, in Kansas, has been promoted to associate professor of psychology there.
• David Coppola, assistant vice president for administration at Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut, has been promoted to vice president for strategic planning and administration there.
• Jean-Luc Marion, professor of the philosophy of religions and theology at the University of Chicago, in Ilinois, has been named the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Professor in the Divinity School there.
• Annie Pagura, manager of technology operations at Harford Community College, in Maryland, has been selected as vice president for information technology there.
• Jim Paquette, associate athletics director for development at Boston College, in Massachusetts, has been named assistant vice president and director of athletics at Loyola University Maryland.
• Mary C. Pinard, associate professor of English at Babson College, in Massachusetts, has been promoted to professor of English there.
• Mark Sweezy, a member of the faculty in the department of chemistry and physics at the University of New England, in Maine, has been named assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy at Saint Joseph College, in Connecticut.

Leigh Blackall buzzed about a proposal at Wikiversity for original research. From the proposal:

Wikiversity does not exclude original research, but it does seek to ensure rigour in original research. Wikiversity relies on the expert knowledge of Wikiversity participants (see Review board) to help recognize and exclude poor quality or bogus content.

Yesterday OEN reported on proposed legislation that would give $50 million for OpenCourseWare. David Wiley has posted his reaction:

I am surprised by this announcement – but pleasantly so. As I’ve stated before in discussing open access to federally funded research, I believe that resources produced with taxpayer dollars belong to the taxpayers. Since corporations pay taxes, they deserve both access to research they help fund (e.g., through NIH and NSF funding) and to the OERs whose production they help fund (through AGI funding). And if other taxpayers can reuse, redistribute, revise, and remix OERs, they should be able to as well.

Jon Phillips has issued a press release for OpenClipArt, a website dedicated to open clip art. From the press release:

Open Clip Art Library now has over 26,000 original and remixed high quality scalable vector graphic (SVG) files
that have been produced by over 1,200 creative artists! March 2010 marks both Open Clip Art’s 6th anniversary and 1 year since last spring’s launch of version 0.19.