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NEA Affiliates in Action
Enrollment in the institution's online degree programs grew as well, by 44.7 percent to 13,779. Online, the University of Phoenix offers the associate, bachelor, and masters degree in business and information technology, as well as masters degrees in business, organizational development. The university's Web site is: http://online.uophx.edu/. Journalists, authors, and writers from more than 30 countries have launched a global campaign—Authors' Rights For All: Campaign 2000—to ensure creators receive fair compensation in the exploitation of new digital technologies. Participants have agreed to work together to confront publishers and media owners who demand that writers sign away their right to be paid when their material is used in databanks, on-line services, or in CD ROM formats. The campaign will establish a databank for writers and creators groups, organize joint lobbying action for political action, share information on collective bargaining tactics, and strengthen coalitions in support of the campaign at the national, regional, and international level. More information at: www.authorsrights.org. The Educational Testing Service reports that college campuses will become increasingly diverse over the next 15 years. Enrollment at American colleges will increase by 19 percent, to 16 million, ETS notes, and minority students will account for 80 percent of that growth. The report projects that the proportion of students who are Hispanic will increase from 10 to about 15 percent, the proportion who are Black from 12.8 to 13.2 percent, and the proportion who are Asian from 5.4 to 8.4 percent. The percentage of students who are white will decline to about 62 percent, even though the total number of white students will rise modestly.
The issue is moot for Manhattan's faculty, which voted against collective bargaining last December, but gives hope to faculty at other private colleges seeking unionization. An Illinois appeals court has given the 6,000 graduate assistants at the University of Illinois another chance at unionizing. The court's decision overturned a 1998 decision by the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board denying bargaining rights to the Graduate Employees' Organization. That decision held that the grad assistants were students, not employees. The court sent the case back to the board for additional review.
Notes the Court: "The [Supreme] Court has never recognized that professors possess a First Amendment right of academic freedom to determine for themselves the content of their courses and scholarship." The decision involved a Virginia law that prohibits state employees from looking at sexually explicit material on government-owned computers at work. Six professors at public colleges in the state challenged the law, arguing that it infringed on their academic freedom and would impede their ability to conduct legitimate research on topics including art and literature. "This turns the clock back to pre-Revolutionary times on academic freedom," notes Kent Willis of the American Civil Liberties Union. Read the full decision at: www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/june2000/981481.p.html. Faculty Generally Volunteer For Distance Learning Courses
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