Monthly Archives: March 2010

“Seton Hill to Offer iPads to Full-Time Students”

Posted on March 31, 2010 by sitedad | 7 Comments

This came to me via a mailing list I’m on: from the CHE blog, “Seton Hill to Offer iPads to Full-Time Students.” Here are the opening paragraphs:

Seton Hill University, a liberal-arts institution in Pennsylvania with more than 2,100 students, announced a program on Tuesday that offers an iPad to every full-time student.

Distribution will begin in the fall. Incoming freshmen will also receive a 13-inch MacBook laptop, which Seton Hill will replaced after two years; current sophomores, juniors, and seniors can opt into that program.

The iPad distribution marks the beginning of the university’s Griffin Technology Advantage Program, which will also include a completely wireless campus, quadrupled bandwith, and faculty training in advanced technologies. Students will be charged an additional $500 per semester in fees for the new technology program, and the university says it has absorbed the cost of the iPads.

Now, I don’t think this approach would work at EMU for a variety of reasons. But for a long time now, I’ve personally thought that the best move a place like EMU could make when it comes to dealing with on-campus technology is to require students to have a minimum level of laptop computer. Frankly, we are getting close to the point where laptops are so common that actually “requiring” them would be like requiring students to wear shoes– it’s just kind of a given.

Of course, as a devout Apple fan and as someone who is liable to be waiting in line to touch (and possibly buy) an iPad on Saturday, I like that part of the Seton Hill deal too.

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Posted in Academics, EMU Technology, Faculty Life, In the media..., Student Life

“EMU Lecturers Halt ‘Visits’ as President Martin Shows Sincerity”

Posted on March 30, 2010 by sitedad | 14 Comments

I came across this post via my EMU feed: “EMU Lecturers Halt ‘Visits’ as President Martin Shows Sincerity” is a post on Ken Wachsberger’s Blog, and it’s about some of the tension in the on-going discussions of part-time faculty unionizing. Here’s the opening paragraphs:

Members of Eastern Michigan University’s Adjunct Lecturers’ Organizing Committee (ALOC) and Students for an Ethical and Participatory Education (SEPE) spoke to over 60 campus folks face-to-face in three days last week. Forty of those who were contacted committed to participate in the ALOC/SEPE coalition “office visit” days that were planned Thursday and Friday to get EMU President Sue Martin back to the negotiating table. This new strategy reflects the growing frustration that lecturers have been feeling as their righteous desire to expand EMUFT membership to all lecturers, full-timers and part-timers, have continued to be ignored by an intransigent administration.

But in a late-breaking development, ALOC leadership called a temporary halt to the visits after Michigan AFT President David Hecker’s noon-time phone call with President Martin on Wednesday. EMUFT is a chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). David Hecker is one of the great union presidents of our time. He is rock solid behind the workers he represents but he can talk to leaders of the other side in a way that commands respect, not hostility.

I have to be honest: I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, I have sympathy with the situation part-timers are in with less than adequate pay, a lack of benefits, essentially no job security, etc. They should be treated better. One of the ways that I think EMU has tried to minimize this– at least in my department– is to hire as many full-time (and unionized) lecturers as possible.

On the other hand, part-time instructors are ideally “temps:” they generally aren’t hired with the same rigor we apply to hiring tenure-track faculty or lecturers. It seems to me that the ideal situation would be to change long-standing part-time instructor lines into lecturer lines rather than to institutionalize part-time status. I know that both the faculty and lecturer unions support the part-timers’ efforts, but quite frankly, I wonder if unionizing part-timers might not ultimately lead to a further erosion of faculty and lecturer lines.

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Posted in Academics, Administrator Life, Blogosphere, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life

“No qualified immunity for professors at Eastern Michigan University?”

Posted on March 29, 2010 by sitedad | 3 Comments

Remember that story last year, “University to student: Endorse being ‘gay’ or leave?” Well, via the phi beta cons blog (which is sponsored by the conservative National Review and is a blog that describes itself as “the right take on higher ed”) comes this: “No Qualified Immunity for Professors at Eastern Michigan University?” As I am not a lawyer and I have not been following this case, I don’t entirely understand what the “big deal” is here. It points out that students are protected by the first and fourteenth amendment, but to me, that doesn’t mean that a student is automatically protected from being “wrong” and being dismissed from a program.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Blogosphere, In the media..., Student Life

Governor Appoints Two New Board Members (or, keepin’ it in the family)

Posted on March 27, 2010 by sitedad | 3 Comments

As the EMU press release notes, “Governor Granholm appoints Michael Hawks and Erane Washington-Kendrick to Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents.” Here are the opening paragraphs:

Governor Jennifer Granholm has appointed Michael Hawks and Erane Washington-Kendrick to the Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents. Their terms begin January 1, 2011.

Hawks, a graduate of Eastern who lives in Saugatuck, is the son of current Regent Gary Hawks. He is a director of Governmental Consultant Services, Inc. (GCSI), a legislative consulting firm in Lansing. Washington-Kendrick is the founder of the Law Firm of Erane C. Washington-Kendrick, PLLC, an Ann Arbor-based firm that represents individuals and businesses in a variety of legal areas including estate, business, securities and complex litigation. She also is a partner with the Julington Litigation Center.

Talk about how connections pay off! I only did a brief search, and I think Washington-Kendrick’s tie to EMU is that she was once the “judicial assistant” (is that a clerk? I think so…) to none other than Judge Donald “almost but not quite EMU president” Shelton. And as far as I can tell, she hung out a shingle and is her own law firm.

As for Hawks– well, the connection there is pretty obvious. I will say this though: the Michigan State lobbying firm he works for apparently is effective, so it might not be such a bad thing to have a BoR member who has those kinds of skills.

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Posted in Board of Regents, In the media...

EMU v Miami in Quidditch today

Posted on March 27, 2010 by sitedad | 7 Comments

One of my Facebook “friends” (actually, this person really is a friend) posted this tidbit today: apparently there is a Quidditch match between EMU and Miami of Ohio today at 2 pm someplace on campus (near the soccer fields? I’m not sure).

By the way, the EMU team is known as the “Flying Squirrels.” I’m fine with them not being the Eagles, but duh, shouldn’t that really be the “Flying Emus?”

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Posted in Buildings and Grounds, College Fun, Student Life

“Can Education Dept. Handle Student Loans Solo?”

Posted on March 26, 2010 by sitedad | Leave a comment

One of the things that has come as a result of the whole health care debate is that the federal government is now taking over all student loans. I’m listening to some discussion on talk radio right now, and there was a good story on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, “Can Education Dept. Handle Student Loans Solo?”

Before I went back to earn my PhD, I worked for about three years for a student loan guarantor/service agency in Virginia. This was a long time ago– almost 20 years ago– but as far as I could tell, student loans were way WAY too good of a deal to the private sector, because the loans were “guaranteed” by the federal government. So since the Feds are on the hook for the loans anyway, the government might as well collect a little interest and make things a little more efficient. But like I said, that was a long time ago. Maybe those of you who are more current with financial aid can chime in on this.

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Posted in Administrator Life, In the media..., Student Life

Reacting To The Past, with Prof. Higbee

Posted on March 25, 2010 by glarcom | 2 Comments

Folks, I hope you find time to take a look at this week’s FOCUS. It features a story on the “Reacting To The Past” teaching method, as practiced by Professor Mark Higbee here at Eastern. You will see why this story was great fun to report and how students become immersed in this method of teaching. Here is a link. http://www.emich.edu/focus_emu/032310/

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Posted in Uncategorized

Support the Ypsi Project

Posted on March 24, 2010 by sitedad | 1 Comment

I came across this via Facebook this morning: The Ypsi Project is an effort by Erica Hampton to take photos (portraits and otherwise) of various Ypsilanti things. But she’s trying to raise $2400 to make it all happen. Check out the kickstarter page here (it tells you how you can participate and donate, along with a charming video).

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Posted in Blogosphere, Ypsilanti

“College students rally for student loan legislation on hill”

Posted on March 23, 2010 by sitedad | Leave a comment

This came my way today, a Washington Post article with the headline “College students rally for student loan legislation on hill.” Here are the opening paragraphs:

College students swarmed Capitol Hill on Tuesday to plead for more financial aid as private lenders made a last push to preserve their endangered role in making federal student loans.

The dueling messages sought to influence potential Senate action this week on a proposal to cut funding to lenders that make federally guaranteed loans and channel tens of billions of dollars in savings to scholarships for needy students.

What makes this more interesting is there is a direct EMU connection with this article:

The United States Student Association rallied hundreds of members on Capitol Hill for the bill. They waved signs — “Students NOT Banks!” and “$ Now!” — and chanted slogans that underscored the fiscal straits universities face as they raise tuition. “They say, ‘Cut back!’ ” students yelled. “We say, ‘Fight back!’ ”

“I’m an independent student,” said Sabrina Ford, 19, of Ypsilanti, Mich., a financial aid recipient in her first year at Eastern Michigan University. “If the Pell grants are cut, I have no idea how I would pay for education. Right now, I rely on myself and the government to assist me.”

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Posted in In the media..., Student Life