Advocate Online
Higher Education News
World & Nation
In fall 2003, at least 250,000 prospective
students were shut out of higher education due to rising tuition
or cutbacks in admissions and course offerings, the National Center for
Public Policy in Higher Education estimates.
Mid-year restrictions on enrollments and
transfers could make this number even higher, notes the Center. In addition,
many more students are accumulating substantially larger debt as a way
to pay for the unpredictable and steep hikes in tuition.
“The highest priority for state
budgets in 2004 should be to protect college access and affordability
for students and families,” says Center director Patrick M. Callan.
Advocacy groups
and shareholders are pushing TIAA-CREF, the nation’s largest
pension fund for educators and researchers, to adhere to corporate governance
standards.
Among other demands, shareholder-activists
are urging the fund to: require that different people hold the positions
of CEO and Chair of the Board; re-establish the independent committee
that nominates some trustees; and adopt the governance recommendations
of the Conference Board’s “blue ribbon” commission.
TIAA-CREF routinely invests the teachers’
pension funds in corporations such as Nike, BP, Costco, and Philip Morris/Altria.
The activists want TIAA-CREF to invest instead in institutions they regard
as making positive differences in people’s lives.
Spring 2004
college graduates should have an easier time finding a job than
those who graduated in 2003, according to a recent survey from Michigan
State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute.
The majority of new job opportunities
will come from large companies in the retail, finance, and hospitality
services, the report notes, and students majoring in business, the physical
sciences, and hotel management will see the most job openings.
On the downside, students studying computer
science and engineering, as well as master’s and doctoral graduates,
will find their job markets much tighter.
Faculty & Staff
Tens of thousands of union activists and their
allies took part in events in 72 cities
across the nation on International Human Rights Day, promising to take
the union movement’s campaign to restore every worker’s right
to a voice on the job to a new level.
Through town hall meetings, rallies,
and candlelight vigils, union supporters pledged to educate and mobilize
union members, fight employer interference on local organizing campaigns,
and lobby members of Congress to support improvements to labor law and
keep workers’ rights at the center of the 2004 election efforts.
For the 2003-04 academic year,
according to the College Board's annual
Trends in College Pricing, the average tuition and fees for in-state students
at four-year, public colleges and universities is $4,694, up 14.1 percent
from 2002-03. Tuition and fees at public two-year colleges average $1,905,
a 13.8 percent increase.
Professional News
The American Association of University Professors
has chosen a former university president
known for his defense of academic freedom to serve as its next general
secretary.
In June, Roger W. Bowen, the former
president of the State University of New York at New Paltz, will take
over the position held by Mary Burgan, a former English professor at Indiana
University at Bloomington who has served as general secretary since 1994.
Bowen resigned as SUNY New Paltz
president in 2001, after about five years in the position, amidst clashes
with SUNY trustees and administrators. He criticized the board for increasingly
sacrificing academic freedom to pursue political agendas and achieve corporate
goals.
Bowen said the greatest issues facing
the profession are colleges’ increased reliance on adjunct and contingent
faculty members, threats to international study after the September 11
attacks, and regular assaults on academic freedom.
Source: Public Agenda 12/01
|
