Unhappy: Jones bails, Schlafly honored, Cal U students pay, faculty senate squawks

.....From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Top U.S. Higher Ed Official Resigns:

.....Less than a year after being nominated and nine months after being confirmed by the Senate as assistant secretary for postsecondary education, Diane Auer Jones is leaving the Bush administration.
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.....…According to sources within the department, Jones’s announcement that she was resigning drew gasps of surprise from her staff. While it is not uncommon for executive branch officials to leave in the waning months of a presidential administration, that is far less true for officials who, like Jones, came into their positions as part of a second or third wave.
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.....Jones came to the Education Department at a time of significant tension between the department’s top officials and many college leaders over the department’s aggressive efforts to implement the recommendations of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Many college officials viewed her as bringing an informed knowledge of higher education to the position and welcomed her involvement. But she seemed at times not to be fully comfortable with the positions of her superiors on some higher education issues, such as the department’s stance on regulating accreditation….

ALSO:

• .....Washington University on Wednesday issued its third statement this month on the decision to award an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly — an honor that has led to an uproar on the campus, where many students and faculty members believe it makes no sense for a university committed to nondiscrimination and intensely involved in science to praise someone who has opposed equal protection laws for women and who has argued against the teaching of evolution….

• .....Over student objections, the boards of the University of California and the California State University systems on Wednesday approved increases in tuition for next year, 10 percent at Cal State and 7.4 percent at UC, the Los Angeles Times reported. … Sixteen students were arrested in a protest over the increases. University officials said that they had no choice, in light of limited state support.

• .....From the New York Times: Resign, Faculty Tells University President:

.....The West Virginia University faculty demanded on Wednesday that the president of the university, Mike Garrison, quit over the awarding of a degree to Gov. Joe Manchin III’s daughter, the second call for his resignation in 10 days.
.....The nonbinding resolution, was approved, 565 to 39, at a meeting for all faculty members.
.....Last week, the 114-member Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly to demand that Mr. Garrison resign. Mr. Garrison has refused, and Mr. Manchin and the university board of governors, appointed by the governor, have continued to support him….