Plans for a doctoral program funded by a $17 million donation from JPMorgan Chase at the University of Delaware raised some concerns among the university's faculty, Inside Higher Ed reported. The program would offer a doctorate in "financial services analytics," the report said. The company's donation would finance needed renovations, scholarships and faculty paychecks. Faculty worry, however, that this collaboration with the multinational bank will damage opportunities with other employers for Delaware students. There is also concern that JPMorgan will be able to decide which faculty members oversee the program and may influence students' dissertations, though administrators maintain that the company would not have a decision making role. Despite these concerns, the university is under pressure to compensate for diminishing state support and consider the role of donors in such decisions.
New York University announced Friday that the institution would stop its legal action to prevent an election on a teaching assistant union for graduate students, Inside Higher Ed reported. The university said it would work with the union if graduate students voted for it, but only if the United Auto Workers seeking to organize the students dropped its efforts to organize research assistants. The university reasoned that research assistants' work is part of the educational process and that unionization would undercut a student's education. The UAW rejected the contract with the university in hopes of acquiring the right to elect both teaching and research assistants by leaving the issue in front of the National Labor Relations Board. In July, the Senate approved the Obama administration's nominees for the NLRB, and those appointed are expected to be supportive of graduate students seeking to unionize.
The widespread impression of an antagonistic relationship between college administrations and faculty may not be as realistic as previously thought, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Recent high profile clashes and economic pressure from online and for-profit education providers would seem to support a widening gap between the interests of those who run the universities and those whose job is to teach the students. A recent survey of faculty leaders and chief academic officers conducted by the Houston Chronicle, however, contradicts that notion. An overwhelming majority of respondents described relations between administrators and faculty members as positive and improving. Negative descriptions of relations between faculty and administration were more likely to come from respondents at private institutions than public, the report said.
