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NEVADA FACULTY ALLIANCE


ESTABLISHED 1983


NFA News & Opinion

  • 09 Jan 2013 2:05 PM | Deleted user
    The Board of Regents will hold a special meeting this Friday, January 11 from 9:00 am in UNLV's Student Union. Click the link below to access this meeting's agenda.

    http://system.nevada.edu/Nshe/index.cfm/administration/board-of-regents/meeting-agendas11111/
  • 07 Jan 2013 11:10 AM | Deleted user
    A new study from researchers at the Educational Testing Service (one of the major providers of assessment tests) demonstrated the importance of student motivation in assessing what a student has learned throughout their college career.

    This study showed that students, who were told their assessment test would be shared with university professors, scored significantly higher than those who believed that only the research team would view their scores.

    This study raises important questions not only for assessment but also for other standardized low-stakes tests.

    Read the full article...
  • 31 Dec 2012 11:14 AM | Deleted user
    2012 saw many changes in the politics of ed-tech. The year began with regular Internet users and the titans of Internet technology defeating SOPA and PIPA. As the year progressed, we saw a marked upsurge in lobbying dollars spent by such companies as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. At the state level, ALEC has taken aim at education including advocating the penalization of students who take more than four years to complete college.

    Examining these and other happenings in ed and ed-tech, this article from Inside Higher Ed reviews what we've seen in 2012.

    Read the full article...
  • 24 Dec 2012 11:41 AM | Deleted user

    As of January 1, 2013 the AAUP will be restructured into three entities: the AAUP Foundation, The AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress, and the AAUP.

    The AAUP Foundation, a 502(c)(3), will conduct fundraising for education and support programs. The AAUP-CBC will function as a labor union advocating for unionization and collective bargaining, while the AAUP, a 501(c)(6) professional organization, will support "advocacy" chapters.

    State conferences will remain unchanged with this transition.

    Read full announcement...

     

  • 18 Dec 2012 8:56 AM | Deleted user
    The AAUP released a new policy that argues against the appropriateness of blanket confidentiality agreements for faculty serving on committees engaged in shared governance.

    While there has been a trend recently toward requiring faculty to sign confidentiality statements when serving on these committees, the AAUP contends that such blanket agreements hinder faculty's ability to represent the concerns and interests of the colleagues on behalf of whom they are to act.

    Read the full article...

  • 31 Oct 2012 4:02 PM | ANGELA BROMMEL

    The Nevada Faculty Alliance wishes to remind our members and community supporters that the complete NFA PAC endorsements can be found in the fall issue of The Alliance and in the online edition found on our website. 

    The following candidates for the U.S.  Senate and Congress have a proven record of excellence when advocating for higher education in Nevada. Each has exhibited a proven commitment to seeking out input from faculty as key stakeholders in quality, public higher education. 

    Shelley Berkeley for Senate

    Former regent an and longtime support of the NSHE and NFA, Congresswoman Shelley Berkeley has a record of working to keep college affordable – and to support, in particular, veterans seeking to return to college – and merits our endorsement.

    Dina Titus for Congress (1)

    During her prior term in congress longtime UNLV faculty member and NFA member Dina Titus showed her commitment not only to our issues but to us as constituents, and we enthusiastically back her campaign to return to congress.

    John Ocegura for Congress (3)

    The former Nevada State Assembly Speaker and former student of no fewer than four NSHE campuses, Ocegura has taken positions in support of the president’s agenda for college affordability and degree completion.

    Steven Horsford for Congress (4)

    As Nevada Senate Majority Leader, Horsford showed himself to be a passionate and deeply intelligent advocate for students and quality public education.  In 2011 he led the successful campaign to reduce the deep cuts proposed to NSHE. 

    Horsford has a proven record of commitment and achievement in keeping higher education more affordable for Nevada families. Not only has he long been a strong voice for keeping costs to students down but he also took the lead in the legislature and accomplished what others tried for years but could not -- he passed a bill to study the system of financing higher education which had remained unchanged for decades. Then he took the lead as chair of the study committee to make higher education in Nevada more efficient and more productive.

    This year, he brought clear thinking, careful management and a shrewd eye for detail as chair of the most important state level discussion of higher education policy in a generation, the interim legislative funding formula study committee. Throughout the process, he sought input from faculty across the state, and in his campaign he has made a priority of advocating for college access and affordability.  Even if his opponent had not called for the extreme position of calling for the abolition of the federal Department for Education – and with it all of federal financial aid (which is the case) – Horsford would be the clear choice for Nevada’s new fourth congressional seat.

    There has been no legislator more committed to making college more affordable in Nevada and no candidate in this year's election better prepared to take this fight for access and affordability to Washington.

  • 24 Sep 2012 4:58 PM | Deleted user
    The Maxine S. Jacobs Foundation, the Nevada Department of Employment, Rehabilitation, and Training (DETR), and Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) will be announcing a public-private collaboration that will provide scholarships to qualified unemployed Nevadans. Funds will come from the Maxine S. Jacobs Foundation, recipient recruitment will be provided by DETR, and screening and instruction will be supplied by TMCC.

    Details on this scholarship program will be presented on October 2 at 10:00am at the V. James Eardley Student Services Center, Red Mountain Building on the TMCC Dandini Campus. Questions may also be directed to Kate Kirkpatrick at 775-673-7206 or kirkpatrick@tmcc.edu.
  • 14 Sep 2012 7:11 AM | Anonymous
    The NFA Political Action Committee is a state entity, but it can and regularly does make endorsements in federal races when there is a clear choice on higher education issues. This year, the NFA endorses the following candidates.

    Barack Obama for President. The Obama administration has made college affordability and national investment in higher education a priority since it entered office. The American Recovery and Revitalization Act of 2009 included hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for public higher education in Nevada, which helped cushion the blow of the Great Recession on our students and institutions. Then, in March 2010, the president supported and signed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which redirected about $6 billion per year from subsidies to commercial banks to subsidize student loans into direct lending and into Pell Grants, which put students ahead of banks. This bill also included important reforms of student loans, limiting repayment in any given year to 10 percent of personal income, and forgiveness of debt remaining after 20 years of ontime payments (10 years in the case of public service workers). The administration has also been strongly supportive of community college students, with tax credits to offset tuition for retraining.

    Perhaps even more importantly, the Obama administration has stressed educational quality by imposing rules that require institutions eligible for student loans and federal aid to document that they prepare their students for "gainful employment" and that a sufficient share of their students are able to repay their student loans – thereby cutting down on the predatory practices of for-profit colleges which have become notorious for recruiting under-qualified students to receive federal loans, but providing no valuable education or job training.

    The Obama Department of Education also has strongly supported the college completion agenda, which has guided the System in the development of its new funding formula.

    In a second term, President Obama has proposed a new fund to support innovation in higher education, while also proposing to tie federal financial aid to limits on tuition increases. As an organization committed to quality public higher education and the faculty who deliver it, NFA is proud to endorse Barack Obama for re-election.

    Shelley Berkeley for Senate. Former regent and longtime supporter of the Nevada System of Higher Education and NFA, Congresswoman Shelley Berkeley has a record of working to keep college affordable and to support, in particular, veterans seeking to return to college merits our endorsement.

    CD-1: Dina Titus for Congress. During her prior term in congress, longtime University of Nevada, Las Vegas, faculty member and NFA member Dina Titus showed her commitment not only to our issues but to us as constituents, and we enthusiastically back her campaign to return to congress.

    CD-3: John Oceguera for Congress. The former Nevada State Assembly Speaker and a former student of no fewer than four NSHE campuses, Oceguera has taken positions in support of the president's agenda for college affordability and degree completion.

    CD-4: Steven Horsford for Congress. As Nevada Senate Majority Leader, Horsford showed himself to be a passionate, articulate and deeply intelligent advocate for students and for quality public higher education. He took the lead in 2011 in the successful campaign to reduce the deep cuts to NSHE that had been proposed by Governor Brian Sandoval. This year, he brought clear thinking, careful management and a shrewd eye for detail as chair of the most important state level discussion of higher education policy in a generation, the interim legislative funding formula study committee. Throughout that process, he repeatedly sought out input from faculty across the state, and in his campaign he has made a priority of advocating for college access and affordability. Even if his opponent had not taken the extreme position of calling for the abolition of the federal Department of Education – and with it all federal financial aid (which is the case) – Steven Horsford would still be the clear choice for Nevada's new fourth congressional seat.
  • 05 Sep 2012 3:28 PM | Anonymous
    Our Political Action Committee has endorsed candidates in each of the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents' races currently on the ballot. With so many important issues facing NSHE and its faculty, this year more than ever we undertook our considerations with great care, research and consultation with board officers and members. We urge all who support quality, affordable public higher education in Nevada -- and the faculty and staff who deliver it -- to support the following candidates:

    District 1: Cedric Crear. Regent Crear earned our endorsement in his first campaign for the board in 2006, and we are pleased and honored to extend our continuing endorsement for his re-election this year. Crear has been a leader on issues important to faculty such as diversity, equal opportunity and transparency, and he has been a consistent voice on the board for the System to pursue vigorously restoring competitive compensation and adequate health benefits for NSHE faculty and staff. He has always been accessible to the NFA and to faculty generally, and we expect he will become an even more significant voice for our concerns in his second term.

    District 4: Stavan Corbett. We are pleased to endorse Corbett, currently the president of the state school board and a career advocate for education, particularly for higher ed outreach to the Las Vegas community. He has worked at both the College of Southern Nevada and the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and during the campaign, he has been diligent in his effort to prepare to address the issues currently facing the board, attending board meetings regularly as well as meetings of the legislative funding formula study committee. He has emphasized to us, in his written questionnaire and in his interview, that he would work to support all NSHE institutions and help each institution take on and achieve its specific mission. This is an open seat, the first in NSHE's history to have a majority Latino electorate, and Corbett's election would make the board more representative of the Nevada population.

    District 12: Andrea Anderson. We endorsed longtime NFA member Andrea Anderson, who served as an administrator at CSN for many years, in her first campaign in 2010, and we are pleased to extend a continuing endorsement this year, as she campaigns for a full 6-year term. She is very familiar with many of the concerns faculty face, especially issues of compensation and health coverage, and she has been very accessible to faculty leaders and the NFA on a wide range of issues.

    District 8: Michon Mackedon. Mackedon is a recently retired faculty member from Western Nevada College and a well-known and widely admired community leader in Carson City and the surrounding region. She would bring a fresh voice to the board, combining a career's worth of commitment to quality, affordable higher education in northern Nevada with an appreciation for our crucial principles of academic freedom and shared governance
  • 29 Aug 2012 1:11 PM | Julia Hammett
    The Collective Bargaining Team of  the Truckee Meadows Community College chapter of NFA spent  several weeks in the spring of 2012  in contract negotiations with the TMCC administration. Negotiations with TMCC’s administration were forthright and productive throughout the process. The NFA negotiating team included Scott Huber (former chapter and state NFA president), Bill Newhall (former chapter president), Jim Richardson (NFA state lobbyist) and me.

    The main features of the contract were a number of clarifications regarding the roles of department chairs, the composition of faculty search committees, ensuring equitable treatment of faculty teaching “fast-track courses” and a consolidation of all “additional assignments” under one set of guidelines. All of the items negotiated were based on the desire to increase equity, transparency and accountability in the contract on behalf of all faculty at TMCC. At the beginning of July TMCC and NFA signed their newly revised 2012 contract.

    One outstanding issue remains to be negotiated in the coming year regarding occupational program coordinators so that their compensation is consistent and more equitably reflects workload. Program coordinators are currently developing a formula proposal that will be comparable to the one that exists in the contract for department chairs. TMCC President Sheehan has agreed to revisit this issue in one year’s time and give it more careful consideration when the Program Coordinators’ proposal is complete.

    In May 2012, TMCC elected new officers for two-year terms. Besides me (president), they are Bill Newhall (vice president), Julie Muhle (secretary) and Jamie Campbell (treasurer). In the coming year, our chapter will focus on growing membership numbers, reestablishing several key committees (membership, bylaws, and communications) and working with our colleagues throughout TMCC to rebuild our sense of community at the college.

    Like other institutions in the NSHE system, TMCC has suffered losses of faculty and staff over the last several years, with very few new or replacement hires. Such losses have been challenging, not only from the standpoint of teaching effectiveness and increasing workloads, but also as a psychological hardship on the rank and file.

    We began our Fall 2012 year with a reception on Aug. 20th  in honor of three recently tenured faculty and eleven newly hired tenure-track faculty. That was followed by a “Teach-in” on the newly revised contract.

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