There is considerable concern and unease about personnel practices related to part-time and adjunct faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate teaching assistants, but little evidence of an underlying problem, or that its nature is understood, or that academe knows what to do about it. It is suggested that traditional faculty should regard this…

At a recent conference of academics, union organizers, and workers at Yale University (Connecticut) activity and rhetoric focused on reinforcing the ties that bind academe and labor, and particularly on the question, currently before the National Labor Relations Board, of whether Yale graduate students qualify as employees or students. Leaders of…

In 1911, West Virginia teacher Hallie James was fired because she married. In 1914, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that marriage was not grounds for her contract revocation. Nevertheless, school boards continued to enforce policies discriminating against married women until 1943, and similar policies concerning pregnancy were enforced well…

Two years after California's ban on racial and gender preferences became law, supporters and opponents of affirmative action are debating the impact on college faculty diversity. Some institutions have maintained slow but steady growth in minority faculty; diversity at others has declined. Some say that not all effects of the change, including…

For half a century, merit pay for teachers has been intensely debated in school systems of various sizes and in virtually every state in the nation. Yet current data on the extent to which merit pay and incentives are actually used in education have not been available. To help fill this void, Educational Research Service conducted the most…

This article provides an overview of the development of disability employment policy and rehabilitation services in Australia. In particular, it focuses on recent legislative and policy changes that attempt to address the high rates of welfare dependency, low employment rates and workplace discrimination experienced by people with disabilities. An…

These 12 papers are part of the study materials for the one-semester distance education unit, Project Development Plan 2, in the Open Campus Program at Deakin University (Australia). They examine the breadth and depth of the actions and debates around the social construction of skill and the critical role played by the concept of skill in the…

As chair of the National Governors' Association Committee on Human Resources, Governor John R. McKernan, Jr., launched the initiative "From Classrooms to Workrooms: Meeting the Needs of the Changing American Family" in the summer of 1991 to examine the evolving role of the American family in society. This publication details programs…

This document provides a rationale for a company to install a workplace skills program and suggestions for finding help in implementing such a program. Topics covered include the following: (1) changing literacy standards; (2) the changing work force and high performance workplaces; (3) cost of hiring new employees versus training current…

A comparative analysis of 12 case studies examined the work performance and employment costs and benefits of older employees relative to younger workers at 12 companies spanning a diversity of industries, locations, and sizes. Each company provided quantitative information on a written questionnaire on work force demographics and direct and…

These five papers are from a symposium on high involvement work teams that was facilitated by Catherine M. Sleezer at the 1995 Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD) conference. "An Empirical Study of Employee Involvement in Designing and Managing Reward Systems" (William M. Kahnweiler) reports on a study of 300 organizations that…

In 1991, a study was conducted at Broome Community College in New York to determine the differences between those faculty members and administrators that supported affirmative action/equal access and those who did not. The study was undertaken to determine whether policies and procedures needed to be refined to ensure equal access and promotional…

Practical guidelines are presented for training and development professionals dealing with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the workplace. The following topics are covered: AIDS in the workplace; AIDS basics, including information on the required corporate commitment and transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); employment…

A survey of 40 senior personnel directors of medium-sized and large employers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area identified characteristics of unskilled applicants most highly valued by employers. These personnel directors estimated the probability that 16 hypothetical unskilled individuals would be hired at their firm. Each hypothetical…

In Germany as elsewhere, enterprises are becoming increasingly convinced that the initial costs of increasing attention to promoting the employment of women are offset by the medium- and long-term benefits to the enterprise because of a larger pool of qualified female employees. This attitude change is partly due to the fact that, in western…