Friday, April 10, 1998
Community Briefs
UC announces partners for Internet2 project
The UC system has announced its corporate partners that will
develop its part of the new Internet2, a national project that will
hopefully make data transmission online 100 times faster.
Qwest and Pacific Bell will supply the network connections, and
Cisco Systems will supply the routing and switching equipment for
the new CalREN-2, California’s segment of the next-generation
Internet.
The Internet2 promises new educational and research functions
that cannot currently be conducted on the Internet. For example,
researchers will be able to conduct simulation experiments in
real-time, doctors will be able to send detailed images to other
medical centers for diagnosis and students from all California
colleges will retrieve material from the California Digital
Library.
The UCs are working in conjunction with the California Institute
of Technology, the CSUs, Stanford and USC on this project. It will
be operational in pilot mode in spring 1998.
Election board appointments made
The much awaited Election Board was filled Tuesday night, four
weeks prior to the beginning of campaigning. Nicole Lynch, Lisa
Nguyen, Mariam Sattar and Christian Duncan filled the Chair of
Investigations, Logistics, Publicity and Vice-Chair positions,
respectively.
Anthony Brockington, Chair of the Election Board chose the
candidates during winter quarter. Each chair will hold
responsibilities for different aspects of the election.
Two quarters late of the fall quarter deadline for an Election
Board, members of the Election Board expressed confidence over
their ability to adequately prepare for the elections.
"We work very efficiently as a whole," said Lynch, the
Investigations Chair.
"Anthony is a really good leader. He’s really structured and
organized," she continued.
Faculty prefers non-tenure track
As colleges and universities nationwide face growing concerns
about a rising number of students coupled with a decreasing supply
of tenured faculty, some faculty members are questioning the
importance of tenure.
Last week, University of Virginia Education School Professor Jay
L. Chronister and William and Mary Education Professor Roger G.
Baldwin completed a two-year project, collecting data and examining
the increasing nationwide trend of non-tenure track faculty.
According to the study, a non-tenure track is becoming more
popular as faculty express a desire to teach as opposed to spending
a large portion of their time doing research.
"With all of the flack tenure is getting, a lot of faculty
members are questioning, why tenure?" Chronister said. "This is a
change in higher education."
He said tenure is an appointment with an unlimited term. A
non-tenured teaching position usually is held by a contract
denoting the length of the term – "an end that has to be
renewed."
The number of faculty nationwide on the non-tenure track has
increased from 18.5 percent in 1975 to 27 percent in 1993,
Chronister said. Many in non-tenure track programs start with the
hope of breaking into tenure-level positions. But others are there
because they prefer teaching rather than doing research, Chronister
said.
Some faculty members "really wanted to go on the tenure track
but didn’t want the hassle of tenure, (such as) research, and
wanted to teach," he said.
Chronister surveyed faculty and administrators in focus groups,
four to five person discussions, at four research universities, two
urban doctoral institutions, three master’s level programs and
three liberal arts colleges across the country. Of those schools,
he examined one public and one private school in Virginia but
declined to release the names of the schools.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.