After failing to negotiate a new three-year contract with the University of Michigan, teaching assistants staged a walkout, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported yesterday. Michigan's graduate student teaching assistants are represented by the Graduate Employees Organization, a union which comprises 1,700 students, according to the Chronicle. Their primary concerns are salary increases and mental health care provisions. The teachers assistants are demanding a nine percent salary increase for the first year of the contract followed by a raise of at least three percent for the following two years, as well as an allowance for more visits to mental health professionals. The walkout disrupted Tuesday's classes and interrupted construction at Michigan Stadium. Undergraduate students' reactions were varied -- some said they were pleased with the free time the strike created, while others expressed frustration at missing classes for which they had already paid. Some also feared that a nine percent raise for teaching assistants could precipitate a tuition hike, according to the Detroit News. The strike is scheduled to continue through Wednesday.
Professors are increasingly turning to blogs and social networking web sites to make themselves more accessible to students, the New York Times reported last Thursday. By creating personal web pages or profiles on MySpaces and Facebook, some professors hope to appear more "human," Nate Ackerman, a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Times. William Irwin, an associate professor of philosophy at King's College in Pennsylvania, told the Times that he had approximately 10,000 friends on MySpace. Professors who aim to make their lives more public said they hope that if students find hobbies or interests in common with a particular teacher, they may be more likely to attend his or her office hours, the Times reported. Critics, however, say professors should not have to cater to students' demands that professors be entertaining.
The U.S. Department of Education published the "Digest of Education Statistics: 2007" yesterday, the Chronicle of Higher Education announced. The study reported that the nation's overall college enrollment reached a record 18 million students in fall 2007, and enrollment is projected to continue increasing through the fall of 2016. Women have outpaced men in the rise in postsecondary enrollment. Between 1995 and 2005, women's college enrollment grew 27 percent, while men's increased 18 percent, according to the Digest. The publication also released statistics on student performance, faculty sizes, primary and secondary school enrollment.
