The Christian Science Monitor ranks the top 25 college football teams according to their expenditures per athlete. UO tops the list at $61,972 per player. The closer contender is Florida at $48,092 per player. How can this be when faculty salaries rank dead last among all AAU institutions? Read the article here.

The AAUP recently released a report entitled Conversion of Appointments to Tenure Track (2009). The report was prepared by a subcommittee of the Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession and has been approved by the parent committee for publication for comment. The report make recommendations for hot to convert appointments to tenure track positions and summarizes the efforts that a number of universities have made in this regard. Read the report here.

Former UO President Dave Frohnmayer has become affiliated with the law firm of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick. Dave just finished up a 6 week project for OUS that paid him $4725 a week, which equals the state portion of his salary as UO president. He will continue to receive sabbatical pay of $4725 a week until March 31, 2010 and then $4252 a week while on "study leave." Supplemental pay from Harrang Long should help Dave make ends meet.

The Rutgers University faculty union approved an agreement with school officials Friday, September 4, 2009, that staves off layoffs and other deep cuts by delaying two previously negotiated raises. Read about the details here. An alternate summary of the Rutgers contract can be found in this article, which discusses the creative solution that the union found to deal with the budget crisis.

Temple Association of University Professionals voted 447 to 22 yesterday (9/14/09) to ratify a contract that has something for everyone, but notably, significant gains for the university's ever-increasing number of nontenure-track faculty who constitute 39% of the full-time faculty unit. A summary of contract improvements and other details can be found in this article.

Members of the Oakland University chapter of the American Association of University Professors authorized their representatives to call a strike if they deem it necessary, after months of negotiations failed to yield satisfactory contract terms. It is not clear if classes will begin as scheduled on 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2009. Read more here.

The postdocs on the 3 campuses of Rutgers University joined the Rutgers Council of the AAUP-AFT Chapters, the collective bargaining unit that represents faculty and GTFs at Rutgers. They received official recognition of their union on July 20, 2009. Read more here.

An internal audit has found John Moseley, the former second-in-command at the University of Oregon, broke tax rules on thousands of dollars in travel expenses from Eugene to Bend in the past year. Read the complete Oregonian story by Suzanne Pardington below.

Nontenured faculty at Michigan State University voted by a 2 - 1 margin to unionize on Friday, May 31, 2009. You can read more about it here.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are encouraged by the decision of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) Board of Regents to restore tenure as part of the system’s hiring policy. This decision is a first step in restoring a full-time faculty corps with academic freedom and appropriate due process.

On Thursday, September 24, an unprecedented coalition of UC faculty, undergraduates, grad students, postdocs, lecturers, and staff will engage in a system-wide walkout.

Negotiators for more than 4,000 classified workers on seven campuses in the Oregon University System -- represented by SEIU Local 503 -- have reached a tentative agreement with university officials for a new two-year contract. Read more here.

Negotiations between the Chancellor's office and the OUS classified staff (SEIU Local 503) are deadlocked. The Chancellor is asking the OUS classified staff to make far greater sacrifices than the staff in other state agencies have been asked to make. The next negotiating session is scheduled for September 4th and will take place at WOU.

You can help our classified co-workers by sending a fax to Chancellor's Pernsteiner at 541-346-5764 or signing the SEIU petition that is in the Additional Resources section of the full article. Read more in this article or visit the SEIU website for up-to-date information.

Call it "Arne Duncan Unplugged," an unscripted Monday afternoon exchange at QuEST between the U.S. education secretary and AFT members on the issues that matter most to education's frontline. The July 13 session began with a drum roll: AFT members' handwritten questions for the education secretary were collected in advance and placed inside an onstage sweepstakes drum. After a few turns, AFT president Randi Weingarten reached in and selected a handful at random, and Duncan took the stage to provide some answers.

Highlights from the recently concluded 2009 AFT QuEST conference in Washington, D.C., included AFT president Randi Weingarten's keynote address, a town hall meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a panel on community schools and remarks from U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Daily updates from the conference, as well as video highlights, can be found on the AFT's QuEST 2009 Web site.

An analysis of the most recent 10 years of national data presents a troubling picture of disinvestment in the higher education teaching profession-notably, a reduction in the proportion of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty, and an increased reliance on employing "contingent" faculty and instructors such as part-time faculty, full-time nontenure track faculty and graduate employees.