Peter Schmidt, Chronicle

Peter Schmidt

Chronicle

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Past articles by Peter:

How Higher Ed Can Stop Affirmative Action for Rich White People

Fixing academe’s race and class inequality must be at the top of the list. → Read More

Professors’ Growing Risk: Harassment for Things They Never Really Said

College faculty members are facing not just online backlash, but threats of violence, as a result of how conservative media outlets characterize their views. → Read More

A Divided AAUP Lifts Censure on U. of Illinois

Professors’ group does the same for Phillips Community College, but it rebukes Spalding University and the Community College of Aurora for firing dissenting faculty. → Read More

Consultant Controversy Drives Out President of Northern Illinois U.

The university’s chief, Douglas D. Baker, resigned in response to an uproar over his circumvention of state bidding rules to pay top advisers handsomely. → Read More

Northern Illinois U. Used Adjunct-Hiring Policies to Give Consultants Sweetheart Deals – The Ticker

Northern Illinois University administrators used hiring policies intended for part-time instructors to circumvent state bidding requirements and make sweetheart job offers to consultants, a state investigation has found. As discussed in depth on Wednesday in the DeKalb Daily Chronicle, the state inspector general’s office determined that administrators strayed beyond regular employment policies… → Read More

Does It Pay to Be Published in ‘Predatory’ Journals?

A study of one business school’s faculty members found that they appear to reap rewards from having articles in the sorts of journals they’re told to avoid. → Read More

Nashville State Is Accused of Spying on Investigation of Its Oppressive Climate – The Ticker

Nashville State Community College maintains such an oppressive climate for its faculty members that it sought to monitor and interfere with efforts to ask them about it, according to a report commissioned by the Tennessee Board of Regents. Nashville State’s executives sought to surreptitiously identify which faculty members were being confidentially interviewed by investigators from Middle… → Read More

A State’s Effort to Head Off Campus-Speech Fights Gets Mixed Reviews

Some faculty leaders fear that academic freedom will be curtailed under a sweeping new Tennessee law that was passed in response to the nation’s college speech controversies. → Read More

AAUP Rebukes College for Firing Professor Who Called Armed Student a Threat

Spalding University, in Kentucky, asserts that a faculty member behaved inappropriately in complaining about a student who brought a gun to the campus. The university stands accused of violating the professor’s workplace rights. → Read More

Tennessee Law Is Hailed as Offering Unprecedented Protection of Campus Speech – The Ticker

A new Tennessee law prohibits public colleges from disinviting speakers based on their controversial viewpoints or from charging student groups higher security fees to host speakers expected to trigger unrest. Among its other provisions, the measure, signed on Tuesday by Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, requires colleges to adopt broad protections of free expression consistent with a landmark… → Read More

Duke Professor Resigns After Facing Discipline for Challenging Diversity Training – The Ticker

Paul Griffiths, a professor of Catholic theology at Duke University, has resigned after facing discipline for his barbed criticisms of diversity training, a fellow faculty member confirmed. Mr. Griffiths, who did not respond to emails seeking comment, has abruptly announced his decision to resign, effective in the spring of 2018, according to Thomas Pfau, a professor of English and fellow member… → Read More

Judge Rules Against Marquette Professor Over Public Rebuke of TA – The Ticker

Marquette University was justified in disciplining a professor who had publicly rebuked a graduate teaching assistant over her handling of classroom discussions of homosexuality, a state judge ruled on Thursday. The judge rejected the argument by John McAdams, a tenured associate professor of political science, that academic freedom had given him the right to attack the graduate teaching… → Read More

NLRB Extends ‘Microunit’ Concept to Efforts to Organize Faculty Members – The Ticker

The National Labor Relations Board has declared non-tenure-track faculty at Vanderbilt University eligible to form separate collective-bargaining units for their respective schools, marking the first time that faculty members will be eligible to gain union representation in such a piecemeal manner. In a ruling issued on Wednesday, Lisa Y. Henderson, acting director of the NLRB’s regional office… → Read More

Organizers Put Off Union Vote by George Washington U.’s Resident Advisers – The Ticker

Updated (5/3/2017, 3:19 p.m.) with word that union organizers on the campus did not agree with the decision by the Service Employees International Union to cancel the election. The National Labor Relations Board has canceled a Wednesday vote on unionization by resident advisers at George Washington University at the request of the effort’s organizers at the Service Employees International Union.… → Read More

Want Happier Professors? Try Being Nice

A study of newly tenured professors finds their job satisfaction hinges much more on day-to-day interactions than on organizational efforts to change the workplace. → Read More

Is Tuition Discounting Leading Some Colleges Off a Cliff?

Small private colleges stand to lose both money and student diversity in continually seeking to outbid each other for students, a new study warns. → Read More

The Unheralded Mettle of For-Profit College Students

A study of people who recently attended for-profit colleges finds them to be much more capable and confident than stereotypes suggest. → Read More

Resident Advisers Gain the Right to Unionize

A regional officer of the National Labor Relations Board ruled in a George Washington University case that the undergraduate advisers are employees with collective-bargaining rights. → Read More

NLRB Clears the Way for Resident Advisers to Unionize – The Ticker

In an unprecedented decision, the National Labor Relations Board has held that undergraduate resident advisers are eligible to unionize, in a case involving George Washington University. In a decision handed down on Friday, Sean R. Marshall, acting regional director at the NLRB’s Baltimore office, accepted the labor organizers’ argument that the resident advisers are technically university… → Read More

In Renting Out Space, Do Colleges Invite Trouble?

Both Auburn and Texas A&M Universities got unwelcome visits from a prominent white supremacist as a result of policies that let outsiders stage events on campus. → Read More