Check out the Collaborative Cybersecurity EDUCAUSE Showcase #shorts
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Check out the Collaborative Cybersecurity EDUCAUSE Showcase #shorts
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The Tao of plagiarism: when chi achieves enlightenment without you
by a mildly surprised emeritus professor
Academics are taught many things over the years. How to write grant applications in a tone of sober optimism. How to disagree politely while eviscerating an argument. How to pretend that Reviewer 2’s comments are ‘helpful’. But we are rarely prepared for the moment when our own work achieves enlightenment and returns to the world under a different name.
It began, as these things often do, with Google Scholar. Browsing innocently, I discovered that a paper I had written many years ago, first author with two colleagues, had been reborn. Here it was miraculously renewed: Freeing the chi of change: The Higher Education Academy and enhancing teaching and learning in higher education. Same title. Same argument. Same metaphors. Different authors. Different journal. Different universe.
This was not mere influence. Nor was it scholarly dialogue. This was something more metaphysical. The article had apparently passed through the cycle of samsara, shedding its original authorship like an old skin, and had re-emerged – serene, confident, and wholly unburdened by attribution.
Opening the paper produced a strange sense of déjà vu. Paragraphs unfolded exactly as I remembered writing them. The argument progressed through familiar analytical levels. The meso level was, once again, mysteriously absent. And there it was: the metaphor of chi – blocked, stagnant, yearning to be freed – flowing unimpeded across two decades and several thousand miles.
One could not help but admire the fidelity. This was not slapdash copying. This was careful stewardship. A lightly paraphrased abstract here, a synonym substituted there. “Examines” had matured into “takes a look at”. “Work intensification” had achieved inner peace as “an increase in workload”. The original prose had been gently guided toward a simpler, more mindful state.
The production values added to the sense of cosmic theatre. Running headers attributed the article to someone else entirely, suggesting either deep enlightenment or mild confusion. Words occasionally developed spontaneous internal spacing, or none at all, as if even the typography were observing a vow of non-attachment. Peer review, meanwhile, appeared to have transcended physical form altogether.
At moments like this, one is tempted to ask philosophical questions. What is authorship, really? If an argument is copied perfectly, does it still belong to its original creator? If a journal publishes without editors in the room to hear it, does it still make a sound? If a metaphor about blocked chi appears in the forest of academic publishing, does anyone notice?
And then there is Google Scholar, calmly indexing it all, like a Zen monk sweeping leaves while entire epistemologies collapse around him.
The emotional journey is predictable. Surprise gives way to irritation, which in turn yields to a kind of exhausted amusement. After all, it is not every day one gets to read one’s own work as if it were new – especially when it has been thoughtfully simplified for contemporary consumption.
Correspondence followed. Screenshots were taken. Appendices multiplied. Examples of verbatim overlap were laid out with the careful precision of a tea ceremony. The original article was cited. The reincarnated article was cited. Karma, it seemed, was being documented.
What lingers after the initial absurdity is not just concern about misconduct, but about the ecosystems that allow such reincarnations to flourish. Journals without editors. Publishers without addresses. Ethics policies without enforcement. A publishing landscape in which the appearance of scholarship is often sufficient, and coherence is optional.
Perhaps this is the true lesson of Eastern philosophy for higher education. When systems lose balance, chi stagnates. When oversight weakens, energies flow in unexpected directions. When scholarly publishing detaches from accountability, articles achieve nirvana without the inconvenience of authorship.
The good news is that the chi remains remarkably resilient. Even when blocked, it finds a way. It circulates. It reincarnates. It reappears – sometimes with better spacing, sometimes with worse.
As for me, I have learned a valuable lesson. Should I ever wish to republish my earlier work, there are evidently paths that require no revision, no peer review, and very little effort. I will not be taking them. But it is oddly comforting to know that my chi, at least, is doing well.
SRHE Fellow Paul Trowler is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at Lancaster University. His work focuses on teaching, learning, and organisational change, with a long-standing interest in how academic practices operate in everyday settings. More recently, he has been working on doctoral education and the practical use of AI within learning architectures that support research and learning. He continues to write and develop tools that emphasise dialogic, theory-informed approaches rather than transmission-led models.
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The View from This Year’s Annual ACE Meeting
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Higher education can’t afford to back down and surrender its independence. That’s the message American Council on Education president Ted Mitchell sent at the opening plenary of ACE’s annual meeting Thursday morning, calling on college leaders to resist a “federal takeover” by the Trump administration.
At last year’s meeting, in the early days of the second Trump administration, Mitchell struck a fighting stance in his remarks, telling attendees, “We’re under attack.” Now that the extent of that attack has become clear—if not entirely successful—Mitchell argued that colleges must remain true to their mission, even under fire from a federal government willing to target those who don’t fall in line with their political priorities.
Mitchell offered his thoughts during the first part of a panel titled Truth, Trust, and Leadership: Higher Education’s Inflection Point. That was followed by a conversation between former education secretary Arne Duncan and David Pressman, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 2022 to early 2025, when Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was further consolidating his power—including by targeting higher education.
A Sector Under Fire
Mitchell opened with the obvious: “It’s been a hard year for higher education,” he said. He argued that the sector has been insulted, demeaned and assaulted, which has “disrupted our work” and “threatened our ability to do what we do for students, for communities and for America.”
But he also pointed to bright spots, including advancements on Pell Grants for short-term programs, enhanced conversations around accountability and Congress’s role in protecting federal research funding from the Trump administration’s attacks.
“We’ve defended our institutions’ rights, We’ve defended our faculty’s rights, we’ve defended our students’ rights,” Mitchell said. “We have opposed measures that would cripple our research enterprise, and we have defended the rule of law.”
But higher education’s critics have made some fair points, Mitchell conceded, arguing that the sector must improve, innovate and increase connections with the public amid growing skepticism. Mitchell particularly noted concerns about student success and the need to improve graduation rates, “the scourge of antisemitism” on college campuses and worries about free expression.
“Free speech is under threat,” Mitchell argued. “It’s under threat from the right, and it’s under threat from the left. We need to improve tolerance and viewpoint diversity on our campuses. Let me just say—cancel culture is wrong, whether it comes from the left or the right.”
He also credited institutions that rejected the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which promised signatories preferential treatment from the federal government in exchange for far-reaching institutional changes. While he argued the sector could “improve in some of the areas noted by the compact,” rejecting it was the right move because it represented “a step toward the federal takeover of higher education.”
‘A Lack of Imagination’
Duncan and Pressman took the stage after Mitchell, discussing the parallels between Orbán’s rule in Hungary and the way Trump has wielded power in his second term.
“I’m not saying the United States of America is Hungary, but what I think Hungary offers at this moment is a case study in what institutional and state capture looks like,” Pressman said.
He painted a picture of Hungary as a nation captured by an authoritarian promising to protect it from “marauding outside forces,” only to impose his ideological agenda on universities and rule through a system of severe punishments and lavish rewards.
Orbán launched his attacks on higher education by demonizing university leaders. He then used funding to punish or reward universities, doxed and harassed faculty members, and finally forced structural change, including by transferring assets of public universities to foundations controlled by loyalists. Pressman described similarities between his conversations with Hungarian university personnel about why they conformed and last year’s settlement between Columbia University and the Trump administration, which he saw as an example of capitulation.
(That agreement restored frozen federal research funding and ended investigations into campus antisemitism in exchange for multiple changes at Columbia, including an overhaul of disciplinary processes and a review of academic programs.)
“When I hear the president of Columbia University describe the rationale with respect to why Columbia took the decision it took, for instance … I can hear the rector of [Hungary’s] University of Szeged describing to me exactly why they made the decision that they did,” Pressman said.
He argued that while Szeged’s leaders believed “they needed to save what they could” and assumed “this was a passing blip,” the move amounted to a fundamental surrender of their independence. Like Hungarian universities, U.S. institutions have demonstrated “a lack of imagination about what is happening,” Pressman argued. Alarmingly, they also show a “lack of imagination about where it can lead,” he added.
But he noted a distinct difference between the two situations: speed. While it took Orbán nearly a decade to remake Hungary’s universities, it took mere months “for some of the most powerful, elite institutions to cave to the Trump administration’s effort to undermine” the sector, Pressman said.
While he praised university leaders for rejecting Trump’s compact, he argued there is more work to do. He also urged institutions to be careful not to confuse demands that weaken their independence with a meaningful dialogue.
“I know that there’s some of you who believe that you’re in a dialogue with the federal government about the future of education. I think when you start from that premise you have already lost,” he said. “Because the reality is, it’s not a dialogue that’s focused on solving the problems that are identified; it’s an action focused on trying to undermine your independence.”
Presidents Seek Solutions
As speakers advocated for the sector to push back on government overreach, college presidents and others questioned how they could do so, particularly at red-state institutions constrained by conservative boards and prevailing political realities.
Hofstra University president Susan Poser said during the question-and-answer portion of the session that while private boards may support pushing back on the Trump administration, presidents at public universities face possible termination for speaking up.
“Public boards are highly political, and so there are states now where the president can’t possibly do any activism or they will simply lose their job, and they’ll put somebody in who will then, you know, go with the political views of their board. And so this isn’t a question about lack of imagination, in my view. It’s a question of constraints, and they’re different in every university,” Poser said.
Ultimately, she wanted to know how ACE can help organize the sector.
“Without putting too fine a point on it, that’s one of our hopes today and going forward—that we can stand together, that we understand that people are constrained by different environments, but that we have a set of values that we can speak to,” Mitchell responded. He added that he sees ACE’s role as being able “to say things that presidents can’t, or system heads can’t” and that by bringing people together, he hopes to create an opportunity for further engagement.
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DHS Detains and Releases Columbia University Student
A Columbia University student detained by ICE was released later in the day after New York mayor Zohran Mamdani said he raised the issue with President Donald Trump.
VW Pics/Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security detained a Columbia University student at an off-campus residence hall Thursday morning, according to a message from Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia, to students and staff.
Shipman said Thursday night that the federal agents gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child. The agents didn’t have “any kind of warrant,” she said.
The student, Ellie Aghayeva, a senior from Azerbaijan, was released Thursday afternoon. (That morning, she had posted, “Dhs illegally arrested me. Please help.”)
“I just got out a little while ago,” she wrote on Instagram. “I am safe and ok.” She described feeling “in complete shock over what happened.”
The news of her release came shortly after New York mayor Zohran Mamdani posted on X that he spoke with President Donald Trump about the issue.
“Just got off the phone with President Trump,” Mamdani wrote. “In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elaina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning. He has just informed me that she will be released imminently.”
Earlier in the day, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to The Guardian that Aghayeva’s student visa was terminated in 2016 because she failed to attend class. The statement said the building manager and Aghayeva’s roommate let federal agents into the apartment.
Columbia security cameras captured the agents showing photos of the alleged missing child, Shipman said. Once the agents made it to Aghayeva’s apartment, “it became clear they had misrepresented themselves.”
Shipman added that a public safety officer on the scene asked multiple times for a warrant, which was not produced, as well as more time to call his boss—a request the agents denied.
“The agents took our student,” she said. “This was a frightening and fast-moving situation and utterly unacceptable for our students and staff. We started work immediately to gain her release. We are so grateful for the help and support we got from the mayor and the governor.”
Shipman added that “misrepresenting identity and other facts to gain access to a residential building is a breach of protocol.”
Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said its members are “outraged” by reports DHS agents misrepresented themselves to enter the dorm.
“If these reports are accurate, this is a dangerous abuse of state power that threatens due process, undermines trust and safety on our campuses, and sends a chilling message to international students and scholars across the country,” Wolfson said in a statement. “Universities must not become extensions of immigration enforcement or sites of fear and intimidation.”
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The Case for Centers for Teaching and Learning (opinion)
When the University of Texas at Austin closed its Center for Teaching and Learning earlier this year, it joined a very small group (6 percent) of high-research-activity doctoral universities without one. This is a striking decision at a moment when public confidence in higher education is eroding. It is also puzzling because rigorous research and evaluation have demonstrated, over and over, the value of the work of centers for teaching and learning, including positive impacts on student learning outcomes, institutional effectiveness and faculty development.
I have worked in leadership roles in centers for teaching and learning since the early 2000s in the United States and Australia, and I have served as president of the POD Network, the national association for educational development professionals. In 2023, I published Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press), which examined more than 1,200 CTLs nationwide. More recently, I have been collaborating with Tracie Addy, Bret Eynon and Jaclyn Rivard on a study of educational development over the past two decades, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins Press later this year as Educational Development in an Age of Change. This professional and scholarly work positions me well to comment on the role and impact of CTLs.
Over the past decade, the number of CTLs has grown, and today, the majority of students study at a higher education institution with a center. Why have so many universities strategically chosen to invest in this essential infrastructure?
My research—and that of many others in the field—highlights the important role that CTLs play on college and university campuses. These roles include supporting graduate student teaching, faculty retention, student success and organizational strategy.
First, at research universities, CTLs play important roles helping graduate students learn to teach, often providing mentoring, follow-up and professional development that spans a graduate career. Graduate students, and the students they teach, benefit from preparation before stepping into a teaching role. Other research has shown that these programs have enduring positive outcomes, shaping practice even as graduate students move to other campuses and take faculty roles. Losing these programs will have a tremendous impact on both the undergraduate experience and on future faculty careers.
Second, nearly all CTLs work with faculty, through programs such as new faculty teaching orientations, course design institutes, consultations and learning communities. Teaching is a highly complex skill that requires early and ongoing professional learning. It’s also important to faculty: Other researchers find that engagement in formal professional learning around teaching is related to faculty retention and productivity, as well as use of effective instructional practices in the classroom.
Third, the work of CTLs is central to a core mission of higher education: student learning and progression. Most CTLs orient their programs and strategies around student success and enabling positive outcomes for all students. Indeed, there is strong evidence supporting the positive impact of a CTL on student learning outcomes.
Finally, many centers serve as hubs to connect offices, people and initiatives. This central positioning is not only financially more efficient: It also encourages collaboration across disciplinary silos. Because of this organizational approach, CTLs are well positioned to advance key strategic initiatives. This ability to work across a campus is seen in many CTLs’ agile responses during the COVID-19 pandemic and coordinated responses to generative AI. Their relational approach and ability to create enduring connections and community is also significant: Faculty teaching networks are associated with positive student feedback and a culture of teaching.
Decisions and Their Impact
CTLs have a well-researched and -documented return on investment, and their impact, particularly at large research universities, is felt by students and faculty alike, as well as in the careers of future faculty. The closure of a CTL sends a message to policymakers and to the public that universities are willing to disinvest in classroom improvement at a time when public trust needs to be rebuilt.
In her book Great College Teaching (Harvard Education Press, 2023), Corbin Campbell presents illuminating public polling data. When asked what makes a university “the best,” the top factors were having (1) professors who are excellent teachers and (2) students who learn a great deal. If colleges and universities are going to rebuild the public trust that has eroded over recent decades, the work of centers for teaching and learning will be foundational. One university may have closed its CTL. Other institutions should take note—and recommit to theirs.
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Leading Diversity Officers in Turbulent Times
Emelyn A. dela Peña doesn’t shy away from a challenge.
She’s taking over the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education at a time when its members are under fire. In recent years, many campuses renamed or shut down diversity, equity and inclusion offices; pared down supports for students and faculty of color; and laid off diversity officers in response to rapid-fire state and federal policy shifts.
But dela Peña, NADOHE’s new president and CEO, said she felt called to this role precisely in this precarious moment. She spent three decades doing diversity work in higher ed, most recently as the vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion at Loyola Marymount University. She wants to use that experience to support others like her at a time when they most need it, she said.
Inside Higher Ed spoke with dela Peña about her plans for NADOHE and her thoughts on the future of diversity, equity and inclusion work on campuses. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Congratulations on the new position. What drew you to the job?
A: First and foremost, I was drawn to the role at NADOHE because as someone who’s been in the diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, multiculturalism—whatever you want to call it, the terms have shifted over the last 30 years—I’ve been in it, and I know firsthand how complex and how demanding this work is. Having led diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on campuses, I understand that it’s both a strategic role and that it requires emotional labor on the part of the people who are doing it.
And when I look back over my 30-year career doing this work, there were certainly moments when I wished for even stronger national infrastructure, when I wished for some clear guidance from some kind of umbrella organization, when I had wished that there was more visibility and solidarity for people across the country and internationally who are doing this work. When I think about the times when I was wishing for those things, NADOHE was one of the few places that remained in the public spotlight when it started to get really hard. And I just really wanted to help strengthen the organization at a time when it needs it most and when the field itself really needed it most.
Throughout my career, I’ve always believed that higher ed can be this kind of transformative force when institutions are intentional about who they serve and how they serve them.
[Leading NADOHE] felt like an opportunity to help shape a future where the expertise of the people who are doing this work is understood as an essential component of leadership on college campuses. And I think also it felt like an opportunity to do this work and to support the people on the ground doing it without the politics and constraints of an institution, because sometimes it’s your allies that need to be the one who speak up when it’s not safe for you to speak up.
Q: You touched on this, but you’re taking over NADOHE at this challenging, crucible moment for many higher education diversity officers and people doing related work on campuses. What’s it like for you to step into this role in this particular political moment?
A: I think the way that you put it, “crucible moment,” is so spot on. It really feels like that in this moment. There’s no denying that. It’s really challenging for not just the field but for the people who are in it and for the people who have been doing this work, whether or not they had a title that had diversity, equity or inclusion in it. I think this is such a pivotal moment. It feels like a responsibility to carry on this mantle in this contested time.
And I feel like even though it’s contested in this moment, the underlying work hasn’t disappeared. Students still need environments where they feel a sense of belonging. Faculty and staff still want equitable practices and opportunities for fair representation, and institutions still have a legal and ethical obligation to serve increasingly diverse communities.
I understand what it feels like to carry this portfolio of work when the spotlight is really intense and when the support around it is uneven. But I also understand the quiet, unseen victories, the small policy shifts that happen, the student success stories, the incremental cultural changes that make a real difference. I call that the deep organizing. And that’s the stuff that doesn’t make headlines. You’re not going to win awards for it. You might not even include those kinds of things in reports that you do for boards of trustees. But they make such a difference in small, very tangible ways. It’s that lived experience that grounds how I approach this kind of work.
So, feeling that kind of strong sense of responsibility is always in the back of my mind as I jump in headfirst into this role—a sense of responsibility to not just the professionals who are very visible but also those who are doing the work behind the scenes. The folks who practice equity, who practice fairness, who practice flourishing, even without a title, I feel a sense of responsibility to them. And I feel a sense of responsibility to ensure that NADOHE remains this steady, principled voice that is supporting them in the work that they’re doing.
The last thing about stepping into this role right now is I feel a lot of hope. Sometimes it can feel demoralizing, but the students give me hope, because they hold us accountable to what we promised them when they applied to our institutions. And I have to remember that this isn’t the first time that higher ed has faced backlash when we try to expand opportunities and when we try to expand access. Our field has always evolved in response to external pressures, internal pressures. And so, the question isn’t whether the work continues but how it continues—with clarity, with integrity and with purposeful strategy.
Q: For a recent story, I asked some diversity professionals and scholars how they were thinking about DEI’s future on campuses, whether they felt this was the death of DEI or whether they felt like DEI was changing. You used the word “evolving.” If DEI is changing, in what ways? How do you see the future of this work on campuses right now?
A: What’s different now is that we are moving away from using “DEI” as a noun. We have to get specific about what we’re talking about, because even just the term “DEI” has become such a dog whistle. Part of the work that we have to do and how it’s evolving is to be clear about what are we actually talking about.
For me, diversity can’t die because it’s just a fact. This is the country we live in. You walk onto any college campus and there will be some kind of diversity. Then “equity” is a term that encompasses so much. It encompasses fairness. It encompasses how we think about disparate impact of the policies and programs that we have. It encompasses equal opportunity and antidiscrimination—all of the things that folks who are anti-DEI are saying that they care about. And then inclusion is just the outcome of the things that we’re doing to promote fairness, fair representation, an environment where there isn’t different impact based on identity, where we’re following antidiscrimination.
So, I do believe the field has to evolve under this pressure. And evolution is sometimes uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable, but I’m hoping that it leads us to greater clarity and focus and intentionality about the language that we’re using and the things that we’re actually trying to change and affect.
From my own experience, I know that diversity, equity and inclusion has never been static. Our language has changed over the years. I started in this work when it was “multiculturalism.” I even remember conversations where we moved from “multiculturalism” to “cross-cultural issues” to amplify the coalition building and the fact that “crossing” felt more active as a word. I’ve been in this work when we’ve called it “pluralism.” It’s always required adaptation to the latest scholarship, the legal shifts, the demographic changes across the country, leadership transitions, whether it’s on a college campus or at a system level or in the country.
I have to remember that the essential questions are still there, and they remain unchanged. The essential questions for me are who has access? Who doesn’t? Who feels like they belong at our institutions? Whose voices aren’t included? Who’s not at the table? Who’s succeeding and who is not? We can’t ignore those questions. Those questions have been the ones that we’ve been trying to answer, at least for me.
Q: In that “adaptation” moment, how do you understand NADOHE’s role? What do you hope the organization can offer its members and higher ed more broadly?
A: In a moment that feels hard, in a moment where you feel like your very identity is under attack, when your life’s work is in the spotlight and often in very negative ways, I hope that NADOHE can be a shot in the arm. I hope we can be the place that lifts you up when you are feeling like there’s no hope—not just for our members, but for the field in general. I hope that we can provide a steadiness and an expertise in a climate that feels really uncertain right now. Practitioners in the field are navigating rapid-fire legislative changes, public and private criticism, institutions that are restructuring sometimes overnight, and so they need credible information from us, some practical guidance about how to navigate this.
Even more importantly, they need a trusted peer community and a system of support when they’re feeling isolated in the work that they’re doing. I understand that the folks in these roles [are] asked to wear so many different hats. We’re asked to manage risk. We’re asked to build consensus and build community. We’re asked to support students in crisis. We are advising senior leaders and boards all at the same time, and all while navigating our own identities and the ways we experience the institution ourselves. That is some sophisticated organizational leadership. And so NADOHE has to continue to affirm and strengthen that professional identity for equity practitioners.
And then I think that we also have the responsibility to equip future equity practitioners to confidently navigate all of this complexity. We’re an association that serves the field, not just the CDO, whether that’s a cultural center director trying to make sense of the current legal landscape or whether it’s an HR director trying to create inclusive hiring or inclusive interviewing protocols, or whether it’s academic affairs trying to think about what does equitable tenure standards look like? We have to be an association that serves all of those people.
Q: What are some of your goals for NADOHE over the next few years?
A: One major goal I have is to strengthen professional development. Many of the early-career as well as senior diversity officers are entering these roles that are more politically complex than ever before. We need to upskill the folks who are doing this work. They need skills in change management, in policy navigation, in strategic communications, in crisis communications and in executive leadership.
I also want to expand NADOHE’s research and thought leadership. We need to continue to document the impact of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and to examine how institutional models are shifting, how adaptations are working, because that knowledge helps ground our conversations in evidence rather than in political rhetoric, rather than in frustrations and feelings and in anecdotal data.
I want to create a community of practice, because I think a system of support is so important for folks who are on the ground. Building community is really important, and recognizing that in moments like this isolation can be one of our greatest challenges. I want our members to feel connected and supported and equipped to do this work.
And then, practically speaking, sustainability and long-term strategy are really critical right now. We have to remain financially strong. We have to remain forward-thinking, and we have to be responsive to the evolving needs of the profession, whether that means expanding what our membership base looks like or thinking differently about how we are servicing the field and not just the chief diversity officer.
Ultimately, my goal is that our members feel affirmed in their expertise and that we are serving the broader field of diversity, equity and inclusion. [We want to be] inserting ourselves in conversations about antidiscrimination, about fair representation, about equal opportunity, and then making sure that diversity officers and equity practitioners are positioned as strategic partners within their institutions, because that makes the institution stronger and more innovative. And ultimately, that helps all of us to better serve all students.
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Hang Your Paper on Your Office Door (opinion)
Last year, after finally publishing a paper I had been working on for months, I did something I had never done before: I printed it out, added a QR code linking to the open-access version and taped it to the outside of my office door.
It felt strange at first. Was I showing off? Would anyone care? But within a few days, a student stopped by and said, “Hey, I saw your paper, congrats! I wondered if this could be a theme for my thesis.” That conversation reminded me of why I became a scientist in the first place: to share the joy of discovering new things.
In academia, we often share our achievements online. Social media has become a common place to announce new papers and celebrate milestones. But there’s a difference between digital sharing and physical presence. A tweet can travel far, but it cannot spark a spontaneous conversation in the hallway. Conferences offer in-person engagement, but they are infrequent and often exclusive or too busy. Hanging a paper on your office door? That’s immediate, local and quietly powerful. It is a symbolic gesture that brings your research into the physical space of the university, something rarely done in today’s digital culture.
We also live in an age when our work, mainly publicly funded science, is under increasing scrutiny. While the broader public might not be strolling through university hallways, our colleagues, students and visitors are. Making our research visible to them is a subtle but meaningful act of responsibility. It reminds us that, as scientists, we are not just scholars: We are also stewards of public trust and investment.
Hanging a paper on a door is a small gesture. But it’s a visible one. It says: Here’s what I’ve been working on. This is how your investment in science is paying off. It’s not about boasting; it’s about transparency, accessibility and maybe even a bit of joy.
And yet, this simple gesture can feel surprisingly loaded. Many of us may hesitate. It might come across as self-promotional or draw unwanted judgment. These anxieties run deep in academic culture, where humility is expected and visibility can feel like a risk. But maybe it’s time to challenge that assumption. What if, instead of viewing it as showing off, we saw it as showing up? And if we approach it intentionally, there are ways to make the gesture more inviting than intimidating, ways that could help shift the culture without feeling performative.
Here’s a more innovative way to do it: include a QR code that links to the full text of your paper, a press release or even a short video summary for a general audience. Make it easy for anyone—students, colleagues or visitors—to dive in. Rotate papers quarterly or at least at the end of each semester. Not only does this keep things fresh, but it also turns the ritual into a routine. It becomes just another way to reflect on and share progress. And use the door as a conversation starter. Add a short note beside the paper: “Curious? Let’s talk!”
Science doesn’t need to hide behind paywalls or institutional walls. The more we share, the more we invite engagement, collaboration and understanding. Posting a paper on your door may not change the world, but it might change the hallway. And that’s a start.
So next time you publish, consider skipping the humble silence. Print the paper. Add a QR code. Tape it up. You never know who might stop by.
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Student working lives: the case for student-focused regional employment charters
This blog was kindly authored by Professor Adrian Wright, Martin Lowe, Dr Mark Wilding and Mary Lawler from the University of Lancashire, authors of Student Working Lives (HEPI report 195).
Our Student Working Lives Report paints a stark picture of how paid work has become woven into the student experience. It reveals that work is a necessity, not a choice for students, and that the student workforce has become indispensable to local economies, especially in the retail, hospitality, health, and social care sectors.
Our data highlights widespread lack of job quality within student work, with 38% of student workers reporting to be on zero‑hours or casual contracts; 43% reporting stress, anxiety or depression linked to work; only 32% of students felt supported by managers; and only 38% felt supported by colleagues.
Crucially, we found that it’s not just hours, conditions of employment and job quality that matter: students in flexible, supportive, and more meaningful roles are significantly more likely to achieve good honours degrees, placing student job quality as a determinant of student success.
Against this backdrop, it is notable that the UK still lacks a clear framework for what constitutes fair, meaningful and developmentally positive student employment.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces one of the most significant updates to UK employment law in decades. These changes will be particularly pertinent for the sectors where student work is most heavily concentrated.
Employers will be required to offer guaranteed hours that reflect actual working patterns, addressing the problem of one‑sided flexibility in zero‑ and low‑hours contracts. In addition, new legislation will improve rights such as reasonable notice for cancellations of shifts, statutory sick pay (removing the Lower Earnings Limit and removing the waiting period), and day‑one entitlement to Paternity Leave and Unpaid Parental Leave, enhancing the basic protections available to student workers balancing employment, health, and caregiving responsibilities.
While these changes raise the legal baseline for employment, we join others in recognising the necessity of going beyond sector-based charters, calling for regional student-focused employment charters to provide frameworks for better employment quality and inclusive, place-based regional growth.
Co-designed by universities in partnership with students’ unions, trade unions, employers and regional policymakers, a student-focused charter could create shared expectations for student work, setting out clear commitments to fair pay, job security, and reasonable working hours, while focusing on maximising the skills students can bring to local economies.
Creating shared standards locally would advance regional priorities around inclusive growth and social mobility, strengthen student wellbeing and employability, and provide a coordinated regional response to mounting student labour-market pressures.
As civic institutions, universities have a responsibility and an opportunity to work in partnership with stakeholders to shape fairer local labour markets. Employment charters are not a complete solution to tackling long-term labour market challenges, but they are an effective way to engage employers in improving job quality. Similarly, universities cannot resolve structural labour market problems affecting their students on their own. By adopting an employment charter, universities can be a catalyst in establishing a clear framework that brings employers together to enhance job quality across their region.
Models like the Greater Manchester, Liverpool and London Employment Charters show how clear standards can build employer coalitions behind fair, secure, and well-managed work using accreditation and recognition to promote better employment practices.
Although student jobs are becoming harder to come by in an increasingly competitive and volatile labour market, the need for clear, fair and student-focused employment frameworks is greater than ever, ensuring that the opportunities that remain are stable, lawful and supportive of students’ wellbeing and academic success.
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Immigration policy and higher education staff
Labour’s manifesto attempted to win the argument on immigration policy without either alienating its base or ramping up xenophobic rhetoric. It argued:
Conservative policy is incoherent, with decisions on migration, skills and sectoral pay determined in isolation. Labour will bring joined-up thinking, ensuring that migration to address skills shortages triggers a plan to upskill workers and improve working conditions in the UK.
It attempted to paint net migration figures as symptomatic of the previous government’s mismanagement of the country, rather than as something objectively good or bad in themselves. It’s an approach that Jonathan Portes described earlier this year as a “systems failure” framing – he then goes on to lament how once the party took power the framing “shifted quickly towards numbers management, even in the absence of a formal net migration target.”
The linking of skills and migration is not a new one, as narrated in a recent Migration Observatory report for the Gatsby Foundation. And there were question marks from the beginning about whether the state really had the analytical capacity to shoulder such responsibility, or the (much maligned) “levers” to make any difference. Or even whether the theoretical underpinnings of such a skills-migration relationship were sound.
But in retrospect it feels like that manifesto aspiration was verging on the final throw of the dice for a sensible, depoliticised, technocratic immigration policy, rather than one based on kneejerk reaction or downright hostility to those coming to the UK from elsewhere in the world (whether in Labour’s current approach or that of a subsequent government). And as institutions dependent on both the graft and the skills of staff from all over the world, universities are highly exposed to the vagaries of migration policy and how it ripples through society.
All this is not to say that the technocratic approach that Labour promised is not being implemented – it is, slowly, and there are consequences for higher education within. But it’s happening alongside other shifts which, to be charitable, are more a question of political optics and certainly nothing to do with seeking a coherent skills ecosystem and managed labour market. In both, there is plenty for the sector to keep a careful eye on, as all the current government’s efforts to be seen “taking action” contain the seeds of ways in which the next government could go further, were it so minded, and make life even harder for international staff in higher education – for a start.
Temporary shortages
While the higher education sector’s eyes were largely trained on Labour’s moves on the graduate route and the international student levy, arguably the centrepiece of the legal migration white paper – and the central plank of government visa policy so far – was the move to make only (supposed) graduate-level jobs eligible for work visas.
The new system will see only see those scored at RQF level 6 or above remain eligible, with the exception of an official Temporary Shortage List of occupations at RQF3-5 for which work visas will be available. There’s currently a reasonably permissive interim system in place, and the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has been asked to come up with a final categorisation. Jobs will appear on the list, according to the Home Office commissioning letter,
where the MAC has advised it is justified, where there is a workforce strategy in place, and where employers seeking to recruit from abroad are committed to playing their part in increasing recruitment from the domestic workforce. Sectors must also be key to the industrial strategy or delivering critical infrastructure.
The committee completed the first stage of the process at quite a pace, engaging with Skills England and the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council to come up with 82 occupations which are “potentially crucial to prioritised sectors”. It then set up a (recently concluded) call for evidence, whereby employers and sector organisations could make the case for those occupations that made the cut at the first stage to indeed appear on the finalised list.
While the focus is on those occupations that are purportedly “lower skilled”, the impact on the operations of higher education institutions and potentially the futures of many currently working in the sector are quite notably at stake here. UCEA and UUK submitted joint evidence to the committee, setting out which of the at-risk occupations universities want to ensure continue to be eligible for work visas in the future. It’s worth quoting examples at some length to get a sense of quite how much is in scope.
Laboratory technicians: UUK and UCEA argue that removal from the list would have impacts on “research delivery and externally funded projects, laboratory-based teaching and clinical training, health, safety and regulatory compliance [and] the UK’s life sciences research capacity and competitiveness.”
IT operations technicians: removal from the temporary shortage list “would further limit institutional capacity to maintain secure and reliable digital environments.”
Photographers, audio-visual and broadcasting equipment operators: “removal from the TSL would reduce institutional capacity to deliver high-quality teaching content and public-facing activity.”
Information technology trainers: “exclusion from the TSL would reduce institutional capacity to upskill workforces and adapt to technological change, undermining productivity and service delivery.”
Bookkeepers, payroll managers, and wages clerks: their exclusion would “further constrain recruitment options for roles that are essential but often undervalued in labour market assessments.”
Science, engineering and production technicians: if these roles were no longer eligible for work visas, it would “delay research activity, reduce laboratory capacity and weaken collaboration with industry partners reliant on university-based advanced manufacturing expertise.”
Data analysts: “removal would exacerbate skills shortages, limit analytical capacity and weaken HE’s contribution to digital innovation.”
The consultation also asked representative bodies (and, separately, government departments) to explain what the longer term plan is to address the domestic workforce shortages in each occupational area:
for occupations to be placed onto the TSL, there must be an ambitious workforce strategy (henceforth referred to as a ‘jobs plan’) in place which aims to maximise the use of the UK workforce. It must include a skills strategy, a plan to work with the Department for Work and Pensions on a domestic labour strategy, and steps to manage the risk of exploitation, particularly of migrant workers.
The UCEA/UUK response is able to point to workforce initiatives in some instances – for example, the Technician Commitment for technicians – but emphasises that these are “long-term mitigations and have not been sufficient to address immediate or medium-term gaps.” It’s more for the relevant government department – for each different industrial strategy sector – to come up with a full plan, and it remains to be seen how well they will perform in this complicated task, and to what extent the new Labour Market Evidence Group will buy it.
We should find out by the summer. And it will also be important to chart how this approach lands politically. As we’ve seen, it’s rooted in how Labour’s manifesto sought to defuse migration, from a debate about numbers into something more like a debate about the economy and the education system – but since taking office they have struggled to find ways to speak about these (actually fairly radical) changes. And given that headline migration figures have been falling anyway, it’s arguably remained in the government’s interest to highlight these falls and seek to take credit.
Making visa policy follow the UK’s employment needs, rather than political or cultural preferences (however intuited), would not have been an easy sell even if the government had made a fist of trying to do so. It’s demonstrably a very long-term undertaking – part of that two-term approach to politics which Labour seems to have immediately panicked about on seeing post-election polls and headlines – and it’s not clear that it can really work in any sort of definitive, workforce-wide way, something that the Migration Advisory Committee pointed out back in 2024.
And as the examples above sets out, even if carried out in the most evidence-informed, rhetorically neutral way, it can still have big consequences for the UK higher education workforce due to the kinds of occupational roles it targets. And furthermore: even if a future government set on pursuing lower migration wanted to frame this in these labour market terms, rather than – for example – naked xenophobia, it’s easy to see how the “permissible occupations for visas” approach could be extended further. There’s nothing inherently special about RQF6+ (graduate-level) roles as a whole.
Priced out
A genuine system that considered the interplay between migration and labour market needs – whether through the imprecise proxy of “skills demand” or otherwise – would necessarily have some positive things to say about international recruitment as well. In its most realised form, such a system would be a set of interlocking models generating evidence about the value of international staff to the UK economy in the fields where they are needed.
We can see traces of that in Labour’s approach so far. The global talent visa, increasingly used by universities, is gradually being expanded. The government has even addressed the question of high immigration costs for applicants earlier this year, with Rachel Reeves saying that the government would introduce a mechanism for “reimbursing visa fees for select trailblazers in deep tech sectors and those joining the most promising UK companies in priority sectors.” There’s no detail on this yet though – aside from the above sentence which makes it sound highly limited – nor any promise that it will also cover the (much higher) immigration health surcharge.
But the lack of wider action on visa fees and health charges, despite much lobbying, points to the continued reliance on a much more simplistic approach to “managing” migration and prioritising the domestic workforce – namely, continually ramping up the cost of international recruitment for both employee and employer. The idea we explored in the previous section, that of using sector jobs plans, skills data, and long-term training reform, is a theoretically appealing one. But it has proved much more straightforward for successive governments to simply introduce and raise one financial hurdle after another.
It is pretty well established how the imposition of high visa costs, for applicants but also employer-side charges such as sponsorship licences, serves to plug Home Office shortfalls elsewhere, thus creating a disincentive to reform. The usual line is that the department adheres to the principle that “those who use and benefit from the immigration system should contribute towards the cost of operating it.” This is convenient language to elide the fact that those on work (or, equally, student) visas are greatly subsidising unrelated elements of the system.
There are other mechanisms available to discourage the recruitment of international staff through financial means, which on the surface at least can appear to speak to a technocratic skills-migration link-up. For example, Labour has raised the Immigration Skills Charge by 32 per cent since taking office (admittedly many, though far from all, higher education roles are exempt). This charge for employers has always been theoretically linked to investment in skills – a “rare example of joined-up labour force planning,” as the Social Market Foundation described it. But as the think tank’s report goes on to show, there’s no actual meaningful way in which the proceeds are reinvested in training. Labour’s immigration white paper said there would be “skills funding for priority sectors” specifically paid for out of these funds. But so far at least, the revenues continue to slosh into the Treasury black box.
One reason why this is worth flagging is that both the Conservatives and Reform have indicated that their immigration policies will include some degree of changing the price dynamics for employers around recruiting international staff (you’d also expect the applicant side of the equation, in terms of visa and health charges, to feature).
The Conservatives are putting forward an acronym-friendly Business Rebate for Investment in Training and Skills to encourage the hiring of British apprentices, explicitly in contrast to taking on overseas staff, via a direct £5,000 cash incentive. Reform’s 2024 manifesto was much more direct, containing a proposal to raise the employer national insurance rate to 20 per cent for non-British staff.
In all this we can see a marked blurring of the lines between managing the visa system in the interests of the economy and the development of the workforce versus in making choices for nakedly political reasons around what will “play well”, plus generating revenue as an added bonus that becomes hard to walk back. There’s a clear direction of travel past the next Westminster elections which sees ever more additional cost placed onto overseas recruitment.
For the hiring of international researchers, there will come a point at which the subsidising of immigration costs through research budgets (seemingly the government’s recommended solution), already unsustainable, passes the point of non-viability in many contexts. And more broadly it’s a further barrier thrown up in the paths of international staff, including those currently in the UK looking or needing to find new employment. Unless they have leave to remain, that is, and are not at the whims of the visa and sponsorship system.
Pulling up the routes
But there is an issue there.
Alongside the work visa reforms, the other plank of Labour’s most sweeping changes to immigration policy can be found in A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, the consultation launched last November which proposed a completely new system of “earned settlement” and how one qualifies for indefinite leave to remain.
This approach has nothing to do with the “labour market and skills” framing that has (haltingly, as we’ve seen) motivated changes to work visa arrangements specifically. The government – to the fury of its backbenchers, by and large – is seeking to greatly complicate the process by which immigrants to the UK can obtain permanent residence, moving the default expectation from five years to a smorgasbord approach based on occupational categories and loosely-defined “value” to the UK.
Nothing is settled yet, but the plans would see the default wait for many go up to 10 years, and even longer for refugees, care workers, visa overstayers, and others. This is proposed to apply to “everyone in the country today who has not already received indefinite leave to remain” (it would not affect, for example, EU citizens with settled status).
The retrospective application of the changes – in terms of the system in place when one arrived in the country – is one of the areas where the government is receiving most pushback from what once might have been thought of as its base. So it could be an area where post-consultation there will be some carefully hedged flexibility, though the temptation to maintain a political attack line against the Conservatives regarding post-pandemic migration could prove too much for Labour’s right to let go of.
There are some pretty drastic shifts buried within the consultation, where the finalised detail will be life-changing for many. It’s proposed that those accompanying people on work visas would now need to qualify for indefinite leave to remain in their own right. It’s even suggested as a possibility that those awarded settlement could still be left with no recourse to public funds.
For universities hoping to continue attracting overseas staff, the optics are patently terrible. In terms of recruiting researchers, where global talent visas are being used the qualifying period would be just three years (similar to now) – but as above, it’s not clear what the final situation will be for those accompanying the visa holder. Time spent on student or graduate visas doesn’t count towards settlement either, so for many the overall time spent reliant on the visa system could end up much longer than the figures in the consultation.
Where the standard skilled worker visas is used, the main ways to receive reductions in wait are proposed to be either having had a taxable income of £50,270 for three years immediately prior to applying for settlement, or else that the applicant “has worked in the community (volunteering, etc)”, a proposal that is, let’s say, ill-defined at this point. On the salary test – there’s even a bigger time discount where income has been above £125,140 – it’s immediately apparent that most postdoc, teaching and professional roles within higher education are generally not going to reach the government’s bar for being “valuable” enough.
The consultation closed in early February. A veritable torrent of dissenting submissions will certainly have been received, and the government will now need to work out how much it is willing to bend.
The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee ran a similar call for evidence, which gives a pretty clear indication how higher education organisations and staff will have answered the government’s own consultation. Again, the UCEA/UUK contribution highlights in no uncertain terms the impact on universities themselves:
Lengthened or more complex settlement pathway puts greater strain on resources, including administrative oversight, immigration compliance and financial sponsorship costs. Several institutions noted that further tightening of settlement routes could force them to limit the number of international researchers and academic staff they recruit.
Indeed, there’s clear evidence that the changes of the past few years have already had an impact:
In some cases […] HEIs have unfortunately been unable to provide sponsorship extensions to existing individuals who no longer meet the uplifted salary threshold, resulting in family units losing their right to remain in the UK.
But the employers’ joint submission also highlights the impact on current staff, noting that “existing international staff are very anxious about the proposed changes” and that “HR immigration and global mobility teams have seen a significant increase in queries from staff seeking clarification, reassurance and help.”
Individuals have adhered to their visa terms and conditions, and many have saved money, taken out a mortgage to establish a home in the UK and relocated their family based on knowing they will be able to apply for settlement after five years. HEIs reported that the anxiety within this population of the workforce is more heightened than ever.
Submissions to the committee from both UCU and the University of Cambridge take the sensible step of inviting international staff to put both the uncertainty and unfairness in their own words. Here’s a representative but by no means exhaustive selection:
The proposed ‘earned’ settlement requirements make little sense: many criteria (such as not accessing benefits or paying NI) are already mandatory for migrants. Other possible criteria – volunteering, owning property – are inaccessible to many because of workload, financial constraints, or the difficulty migrants face obtaining credit. These would effectively privilege those with wealth.
It is impossible to convey the anxiety of living without secure status. Even when following every rule, the government can change the requirements overnight, as is happening now. Every trip abroad carries risks; every application could be refused; and my life in the UK – after four years – could be uprooted without warning.
The potential changes of ILR have made me reconsider whether the UK can provide the stability I need for me and my family. The financial burden of a doubled Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and increase in taxation, combined with the uncertainty in our residency status makes my family and I feel unwelcomed, and is making us evaluate other places in which our contributions to society may be valued differently.
Because we are on temporary visas, we cannot purchase a home. We had saved a sufficient deposit and intended to buy a property this summer, but the uncertainty surrounding ILR eligibility has left us in limbo. Without any family support network in the UK and access to government childcare schemes due to our visa status, we pay £1,600 per month (£19,200 annually) for our daughter’s nursery. This is a significant financial burden despite both of us working full-time and contributing to the UK economy.
I am a technician under the skilled worker visa since August 2021 and the proposal to increase settlement qualifying period to 10 years not only for new arrivals but also for people in the UK has had a profound effect on my mental health in the past months. And it will have a devastating financial effect if it does come into effect altering my future plans significantly.
Extending the ILR timeframe to ten years would significantly disrupt my life plans and financial stability. I moved to the UK with the understanding that after five years of continuous residence and substantial visa costs, I would have the right to settle permanently. This change would mean an additional five years of uncertainty and expense, forcing me to continue paying for visas while others in similar circumstances are saving for a home or building long-term security. The financial burden is considerable, and the emotional strain of not being able to settle with my partner in the country we have chosen as our home is even greater.
The full slate of submissions to the committee can be seen here – various other sector-adjacent groups supplied evidence as well. Looking at organisations that employ researchers as a whole, there were calls for exemptions by sector and for PhD holders, for university staff to be counted as public sector workers (and thus qualify for a shorter route to settlement), for dependants to have the same qualifying period as main visa holders, and for the rules to apply for new visa grants rather than those already here.
It’s worth emphasising again that the exact outcome following consultation is not a given, and is probably tied to wider struggles around the future direction of the Labour party taking place right now. But it’s clear that ripping up settlement rules, changing the terms which international staff understood when they came to the country, privileging lone applicants over those with families, and generally making indefinite leave to remain less attainable than it has any right to be, will all contribute to making many working in higher education and research – to say nothing of everyone else affected – less welcome, more precariously employed, and more likely to leave the UK or never come at all.
The future
Reform UK has trumpeted this week how would do away with indefinite leave to remain completely. Labour has come out strongly against it, but its own immigration policy plans are an attempt to occupy similar political ground: less extreme, but still hugely damaging to most groups looking to remain long-term in the UK.
Despite the current government having come to power on a promise to manage the visa system as part of a wider stewardship role connected to industrial strategy, domestic training and labour market evidence, we’re yet to see how this plays out, and there are quite a few reasons to suspect it might not really work. Plus it’s important to note how the operationalising of a means to link skills and migration will inevitably end up baking hierarchies into the system, ones which can easily be used to turn the screw further in future.
But if the government had stuck firm to what we might call the technocratic approach to work visas, then there would remain a clear opportunity to marshall evidence in favour of international recruitment (while at the same time thinking seriously about the role of the higher education system in training the UK’s scientific, social, technical and cultural workforce, which isn’t a bad side-effect). Instead, Labour has continued to gesture at this via increases to the cost of the visa system and employing overseas staff, while in other areas – particularly, but not only, in the routes to settlement consultation – it has given in to populist tendencies that have little to do with what’s best for the UK either as an economy or a society, and everything to do with its political anxieties and factional power struggles.
It’s probably not unfair to say that the higher education sector remains geared up to fight battles about immigration policy which follow a fairly simple paradigm, with an emphasis on “permission to recruit” – more vocally for international students, certainly, but also typically quite effectively setting out the importance of having a suitable visa system in place for higher education staff.
And it’s likely true to say that, both for the rest of this Parliament and for what comes after, the real battles are going to be more complex ones around rights and circumstances for those who are already here – battles that don’t have immediate economic pay-offs but are more important all the same.
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Buzzy UCSD Math Readiness Report Failed to Mention Calculator Ban
The largest spike in precollege math enrollment occurred between fall 2023 and fall 2024—the same time the university changed its calculator policy.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | mbbirdy/E+/Getty Images | Laser1987/iStock/Getty Images
The University of California, San Diego, published a report in November that showed a nearly 30-fold increase in the number of first-year students testing into remedial math courses since 2020. The report caught fire, quickly making national and international headlines and prompting a flurry of op-eds that fueled conversation on math readiness for months.
The report’s authors attributed the uptick in remedial math enrollments to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on education and UC San Diego’s efforts to enroll more students from low-income high schools. But they failed to mention an essential testing policy change: Starting sometime in the spring of 2024, students were no longer able to use calculators on the math placement exam.
Pamela Burdman, founder and executive director of the math education equity nonprofit Just Equations, explained this discovery and the potential impact of the calculator ban in her own report, published Wednesday.
“Evidently, UCSD’s math faculty decided midstream that they wanted to ensure that students could answer math questions without a calculator,” Burdman wrote. “The reasons UCSD made this switch may be perfectly valid. But a decline in students’ performance in the absence of calculators was entirely predictable, assuming that nothing else on the in-person, timed test had changed.”
A still of the math placement exam webpage from May 2024, saved on the Wayback Machine, shows that “No Calculators are allowed on the MPE.” Two months earlier, the webpage states that “Non-programmable calculators are permitted,” suggesting the policy change was implemented sometime in the spring of 2024. None of the work-group members or spokespeople for UC San Diego responded to questions about this policy change or whether the report authors knew about it.
The increase in first-year students placed into precollege math courses rose alongside the number of low-income student enrollment from 2020 until 2022, at which point low-income student enrollment leveled off. The largest spike in precollege math enrollment occurred between fall 2023 and fall 2024, Burdman explained—the same time the university changed its calculator policy.
“It appears possible that about 425 additional students who were assigned to precollege courses in fall 2024 and fall 2025—or 850 students total—could have taken precalculus or calculus had the test conditions not changed. If so, the number of students requiring remedial courses would have stayed below 500, as opposed to 900-some, as it was the prior two years,” Burdman wrote. “That’s still a marked and concerning increase from 2020, one that requires a serious response. But perhaps not enough to yield the hysterical headlines and columns that have popped up in recent months.”
UC San Diego math department chair Michael Holst acknowledged how much attention the initial report received in a January statement but did not mention the calculator policy change.