Hiring News Briefs

Miami University, in Ohio, has put a hiring freeze in place and suspended some building projects in response to the national economic troubles, the Dayton Business Journal reports.
Dan Whalen, an alumnus of St. John’s University and a member of its board of regents since 1997, has been named the university’s interim president, the Associated Press reports. Whalen replaces Brother Dietrich Reinhart, who resigned for health reasons.
According to The Boston Globe, faculty members at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst are upset over Chancellor Robert C. Holub’s decision to freeze academic hiring and slash spending by $12-million in response to state budget cuts of more than $1-billion. The university’s main faculty union, The Massachusetts Society of Professors, has called on the university to use funds reserved for future building projects instead of making cuts to academic departments, the newspaper reports.
Teaching assistants and contract faculty members at York University, in Toronto, could walk off the job next month, if current talks don’t produce a new contract by November 2, the Toronto Sun reports.

Meanwhile, two universities down under are cutting hundreds of jobs. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Victoria and La Trobe Universities plan to cut 250 and 150 jobs, respectively.