Sculpture sparks controversy at Wellesley College
A lifelike statue of a sleepwalking man in his underwear at Wellesley College caused controversy after being put on display on campus last week, the Boston Globe reported.
The bronze-and-paint artwork, entitled “Sleepwalker,” is part of a larger exhibit at Wellesley by artist Tony Matelli called “New Gravity,” the Globe reported.
More than 900 people have signed a student-led petition on Change.org calling for the sculpture to be removed and questioning the decision to have it installed at a women’s college. The sculpture has become “a source of apprehension, fear and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community,” the petition’s authors wrote.
Lisa Fischman, director of Wellesley’s Davis Museum, posted an online response to the petition last week. Fischman highlighted what she called the importance of interacting with art outside a museum setting, adding that the sculpture is a “passive” structure.
“Art provokes dialogue, and discourse is the core of education,” she wrote.
Many people driving past the statue have stopped in the middle of the road to look at the artwork, and many students have been seen taking pictures with it, the Globe reported.
Georgia frat members charged with hazing
Eleven male students at the University of Georgia were arrested and charged with hazing Thursday, the New York Times reported.
The students, who are members of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, allegedly beat students with their fists as a part of an initiation ritual at a fraternity member’s home Jan. 27, the Times reported.
University of Georgia Chief of Police Jimmy Williamson told the Times that medical care was not necessary for any of the students.
The university has placed the fraternity chapter under suspension while the police conduct an investigation, the Times reported. Hazing is a misdemeanor for which convicted individuals can face up to 12 months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Rutgers prof. suspended
Rutgers University suspended anthropologist and evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers from teaching with pay for allegedly refusing to teach a class, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Monday.
Trivers was slated to teach two courses — “Introduction to Social Evolution” and “Human Agression” — but was replaced after one week of classes, the Chronicle reported.
After complaining to the Rutgers administration that “Human Aggression” was a subject with which he was unfamiliar, Trivers told students in the course that he would “do the best he could” in teaching the class, Trivers told the Chronicle.
Rutgers officials responded by telling Trivers that he was “effectively refusing to teach the course” and wrongly involving students in an administrative dispute, the Chronicle reported. Trivers denied that he refused to teach the course and is meeting with Rutgers administrators to discuss the issue.
IRS dictates adjunct professors’ health benefits eligibility
The Internal Revenue Service released final regulations Monday for how colleges should calculate the workloads of adjunct professors when determining benefit distributions, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
According to the IRS report, one possible workload calculation would add an additonal hour and 15 minutes in time spent preparing and grading outside the classroom to adjunct professors’ official work times for every hour they spend teaching. To account for time spent outside the classroom, the IRS regulations in the report can be used to determine eligibility for relevant faculty members to receive health benefits, the Chronicle reported.
The rules may affect how universities determine how other duties such as attending faculty meetings and holding office hours can be included in workload calculations for benefits, the Chronicle reported.
The report brings attention to the subjective and uncommon work circumstances that many adjunct professors experience, wrote Maria Maisto, president of New Faculty Majority, an advocacy group for adjunct professors, in an email to the Chronicle.
Though many community college leaders expressed apprehension that these regulations would significantly increase expenditures on health care for employees, a recent analysis cast doubt on the likelihood that costs would be greatly affected by the new IRS guidelines, David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges, told the Chronicle.
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