Details of Governor’s Higher Ed and Tax Proposals

Thanks, as always to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, for their quick and concise analysis: Higher Education The Governor’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 proposal for higher education makes steady progress in reversing many of the cuts accumulated over the last thirteen years. State funding for higher education was cut $451.5 million between FY 2001 […]

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Advocacy Day – March 5

Now, this day looms larger than ever in determining the future of public higher education in Massachusetts.  The Governor has made dramatic proposals for reinvesting in our students and our campuses, and he has made a very sensible, progressive proposal how to pay for this investment.  We need to be there to make sure our […]

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PHENOMenal News- Fall 2012

Read the fall-winter issue of the PHENOM newsletter on your screen, and then let us know if you would like a batch to distribute.  It includes interesting material on adjunct faculty, student debt, State House advocacy, the Quebec student uprising, diversity, and more. Please write to us at massphenom@gmail.com  if you would like copies to use in your […]

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Advocacy Day Infects State House with Higher Ed Fervor

Over 500 students, staff and faculty from almost every one of the public campuses came to the State House on March 8,  2012 with a simple powerful message: Public Higher Education is critical to the residents of Massachusetts, to our economy, and to our future, and must be adequately funded. “Costs have risen dramatically,” said […]

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Could this be the year we win progressive taxes?

by Max Page   First, the bad news. Once again, when all the dust settled on the budget, the Governor and Legislature pushed through takeaways from public employees and continued to underfund public services, all the while refusing to ask the wealthiest members of the Commonwealth (who have been getting much wealthier) to contribute a […]

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Adjunct Faculty Victory at UMass Lowell

by Ellen Michaud Martins, UMass Lowell   On May 18, 2012, the Adjunct Faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell overwhelmingly ratified their first-ever union contract–between the University and United Auto Workers Local 1596. In voting to ratify, the adjunct faculty made history at UML and became part a growing trend of unionization in […]

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Students Prevail in Quebec

In February of this year, Quebec students began an unlimited general strike to oppose a tuition increase from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2017 announced by the Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest. In October, following massive demonstrations and the resignation of one education minister and then another, Charest and his government were defeated […]

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Focus on Diversity Updates PHENOM Agenda

by Lisa Field   At the annual Delegate Assembly, held at UMass Boston in June, a group of delegates brought forward a proposal to increase diversity and representativeness in PHENOM. They cited several reasons for focusing the organization on diversity issues. PHENOM’s credibility as the voice of Public Higher Education in Massachusetts depends on being […]

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