by CUPA-HR | January 10, 2024
Through December and into the new calendar year, federal government leaders kept busy with Congressional hearings and markups, new legislation, and proposed and final rules focusing on issues that may be of significance to higher education HR professionals. CUPA-HR tracked several actions from both Congress and federal agencies on issues including paid family leave, short-term Pell Grants, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and workforce development.
On December 12, 2023, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a full committee markup on H.R. 6585, the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act, and H.R. 6655, A Stronger Workforce for America Act.
The Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act aims to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, allowing students to use Pell Grants for eight-week or longer educational programs. This bill also establishes quality control measures for Pell initiatives, enabling higher education institutions to participate if they meet specific criteria. The committee voted to move the legislation out of committee with 37 members voting in favor and 8 members voting against the bill.
The next bill, A Stronger Workforce for America Act, seeks to renew and enhance the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Originally established in 2014, WIOA has been extended through yearly appropriations since fiscal year 2021. The bill incorporates multiple measures to modernize WIOA, bolstering the country’s workforce development to better equip and retain workers. The bill passed through the committee with bipartisan support; 44 members voted in favor of and only one member voted against it.
On December 13, the Congressional Bipartisan Paid Family Leave Working Group published a Request for Information (RFI) for diverse stakeholder input to aid in the expansion of access to paid parental, caregiving, and personal medical leave nationwide. The members encouraged interested stakeholders to submit letters that answer these ten questions on the role the federal government can play in creating a national paid leave program.
Responses must be submitted by January 31, 2024, and can be directed to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. CUPA-HR will continue to track developments and intends to collaborate with associate organizations to submit feedback on an as-needed basis.
On December 14, the Department of Labor (DOL) unveiled a proposed rule to modernize the regulations for Registered Apprenticeship programs. The 779-page proposal focuses on provisions to create “safeguards for apprentices to ensure that they have healthy and safe working and learning environments as well as just and equitable opportunities throughout their participation in a registered apprenticeship program,” while also creating baseline requirements for career and technical education apprenticeships, which would target high school and postsecondary students to programs that align more closely with programs found at institutions of higher education.
DOL is providing a 60-day comment period for the proposed rule, which will commence once the regulation is posted in the Federal Register. CUPA-HR is analyzing the rule and will coordinate with other higher education associations as needed to file comments.
On December 20, the Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) proposed a General Directive to address the ongoing national safety risk concerning assaults on transit workers. Transit agencies falling under FTA’s Public Transportation Agency Safety Plans directive would be instructed to conduct safety risk assessments, identify mitigation strategies, and report discoveries to FTA. Per the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, transit agencies operating in urban areas must collaborate with the joint labor-management safety committees to reduce safety hazards.
The deadline for submitting comments in the Federal Register is February 20, 2024, but late submissions may be considered. CUPA-HR is working with members and other higher education associations to determine the impact that this directive may have on transportation and HR services at institutions of higher education.
On December 27, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sent its final rule to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review prior to its publication in the Federal Register. The final rule will likely look very similar to the proposed rule that was issued in August 2023, which provides a framework for how the EEOC plans to enforce protections granted to pregnant workers under the PWFA.
The EEOC was tasked by law with finalizing regulations to implement the PWFA by December 29, 2023. Given the missed deadline, OIRA may move quickly on its review of the regulations, and we could see the final rule published sometime between late January and late February. CUPA-HR is continuing to monitor for any updates and will keep members apprised of any new details that may arise in the final rule.
by CUPA-HR | January 10, 2024
Each month, CUPA-HR General Counsel Ira Shepard provides an overview of several labor and employment law cases and regulatory actions with implications for the higher ed workplace. Here’s the latest from Ira.
A federal trial court jury awarded a medical school surgeon $15 million in damages. The jury concluded that the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital medical school’s sex harassment investigation of the plaintiff, who was accused of harassment and sexually assaulting a female medical school resident, was biased against males (Abraham v. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, et al (Case No. 2:20-cv-02967, E.D. Pa. 12/11/23)). The plaintiff claimed that prior to the incident, he had an “unblemished” reputation. He claimed that due to the medical school’s mishandling of the disciplinary proceeding, he had been labelled a “rapist,” had been ostracized by professional colleagues, and had suffered damages to his livelihood.
The incident, subject to the lawsuit, involved a pool party at the plaintiff’s home in 2018. The plaintiff alleged that the medical resident became sexually aggressive toward him without his consent, and he was too intoxicated to resist. The plaintiff claims to have reported the incident to the hospital and found that the resident had filed a complaint against him, which resulted in the allegedly anti-male biased investigation and proceedings. Prior to the verdict, the medical school filed a motion for mistrial, alleging that the “belligerent” treatment of the court by the plaintiff’s counsel unduly influenced the jury. As of writing, there has been no action on the defendant’s motion.
A federal district court judge granted partial summary judgement dismissing some charges brought against Louisiana State University by a terminated, former associate athletic director, but allowed some allegations of race and sex retaliatory discrimination and hostile work environment to move forward to a jury trial against the university’s board of supervisors (Lewis v. Board of Supervisors, Louisiana State University (2023 BL 437930, M.D. La., No. 3-21-cv-00198, Partial summary judgement, 12/1/23)).
The university argued that the former associate athletic director was fired in a shake-up made by a new university football coach, which had nothing to do with the plaintiff’s race or sex. However, the new coach denied at deposition that he made the decision to fire the associate athletic director, creating a factual dispute that the court ruled should go to a jury. The federal judge concluded that the plaintiff’s allegations of a sexually hostile work environment should proceed to a jury trial as well as the allegations that she was denied a pay raise and ultimately fired because she is a Black woman.
The NCAA proposed a plan in December 2023 to allow some institutions to invest at least $30,000 into an educational trust for at least half of their student-athletes to address the ongoing controversy over payments to student-athletes. Commentators point out that there will be many challenges to the new plan, including possibly running afoul of Title IX. Moreover, the plan will not make the pending Fair Labor Standards Act and National Labor Relations Act student-athlete claims go away.
Commentators also point out that the proposal does not address the pending class action damage claim filed against the NCAA in the name, image and likeness (NIL) litigation, which is scheduled for trial in January 2025. Plaintiffs in that class action are claiming damages of $4.5 billion as a result of the NCAA’s past ban on NIL payments, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in NCAA v. Alston in August 2021 on anti-trust grounds.
A federal district court judge recently granted a motion to dismiss filed by Princeton University in a case brought by a former budget analyst who claims she was fired because of her religious beliefs when she refused to comply with COVID-19 protocols, including wearing a mask (McKinley . Princeton University (Case No. 3:22-cv-05069, D. N.J. 15/5/23)).
The case was initially dismissed because the complaint did not mention any specific religion or set of beliefs. The court gave the plaintiff the opportunity to refile and correct that omission. The plaintiff’s amended complaint contained allegations that “my body is my temple” and “decries… any and all abuse against life.” In dismissing the case, the judge concluded that the plaintiff’s beliefs appear to be a collection of general moral commandments. The court found that the plaintiff’s personal moral code and beliefs do not constitute a comprehensive system of beliefs that could be called a religion.
A Massachusetts state appeals court reversed the dismissal of a former women’s soccer coach’s age discrimination complaint (Matz v. University of Massachusetts–Amherst (Mass App Ct No. 22-P-1162, 12/7/23)). The coach, who was 51 years old, filed the claim alleging that his termination was because the university wanted to hire a younger coach and that the stated reasons for his termination were a pretext.
In dismissing the case, the university claimed the coach was terminated because of “an undisputed poor record” and “student criticism of his coaching abilities.” The appellate court recognized that the coach’s performance review concluded that he needed improvement and that there were student criticisms of his coaching abilities. Nonetheless, the appellate court held that the record contains “numerous positive reviews, inconsistent with the [2015 season] criticisms,” from which a jury could find he was terminated because of his age. The appellate court concluded that the plaintiff raised a claim by a member of a protected class, who was performing his job sufficiently, and his allegations could raise reasonable speculation about discrimination.
A neonatal intensive care nurse who was fired after 30 years of service to her employer was awarded a California jury verdict of $41.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages as a result of her discharge, which she claimed was in retaliation for raising safety issues. The California state court jury awarded the plaintiff $1.3 million in lost wages, $1.2 million in future lost wages, $1.5 million in past mental suffering, $7.5 million in future mental suffering, $15 million in punitive damages against the hospital, and $15 million in punitive damages against the Kaiser Foundation.
According to the hospital, the plaintiff was fired after she was found reclining in the neonatal unit, talking on her personal phone with her feet resting on an isolette that had a neonatal infant inside. The plaintiff claimed that the stated reason for discharge was a pretext and that the real reason for her discharge was that she reported a supervisor who refused to report that the father of a patient was present in the hospital with a knife, creating an unsafe situation in the hospital (Gatchalian v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals et. al. (Case No. 21STCV15300 Ca. Sup Ct. L.A. Cty. Jury Verdict 12/16/23)).
In our recent webinar, Lessons from 2023 for a Bright 2024, panelists reflected on what was top of mind as they wrapped up 2023, including job advertising, the candidate experience during the hiring process, and HigherEd workforce trends. Attendees heard from Andy Boom (JobElephant), Ircka West (PeopleAdmin), and Lucas Del Priore (PeopleAdmin) as they shared their valuable insights—check out some key takeaways below.
Did you know that on average, 40% of job advertising spend is wasted? Andy Boom, Director of Business Development at JobElephant, noted that his team sees this budget waste frequently because customers want to “spread the net as far and wide as possible, adding multiple publications to a campaign, which might make sense—but it all depends on the specific job description.” The reality that not all job boards are created equal, and not all are going to have the right audience for every job description. JobElephant tracks every ad they post for their customers, and has seen that some publications fail to drive traffic and lack optimization. Andy’s team utilizing machine learning and AI to curate the top ten options for specific searches. By analyzing keywords, JobElephant ensures that job descriptions are matched with the boards that promise the best potential return, reducing ad spending waste.
Ircka West, Solution Engineer at PeopleAdmin, spoke about improving the candidate experience as a top trend from 2023. She emphasized the power of presentation in attracting candidates—creating excitement about the workplace begins with focusing on the candidate experience. Reflecting the candidate’s values and interests is crucial, and your team can take advantage of existing information by linking to pages that show off the institutional experience. Ircka recommended re-evaluating the application process by streamlining lengthy forms and implementing two-step application processes can encourage completion. “To get feedback on the application process, there are a few different ways,” said Ircka. “One would be to use your reporting capabilities and seeing what their actions do. What parts of the application process are they stopping at? Where are you losing them in the process? That’s a more passive way to find out some answers. Another way is to remember that everyone who works at your institution went through the application process at some point. You can reach out to your staff and get feedback from what they remember.”
Lucas Del Priore, Product Manager at PeopleAdmin, spoke about the evolving landscape of workforce trends in higher education. One major trend that Lucas thought institutions should focus on is the continued normalization of hybrid and remote work, which presents a number of opportunities for growth. While hybrid work isn’t new in 2023, there are still a lot of improvements to be made with digitization and automation. “The implication is a big cultural shift of engagement, where engagement is becoming problematic for faculty and staff,” said Lucas. “The most concrete example is how to reconfigure every task and event to fit in that digital format. Not everything converts clearly, and we’re continuing to learn and understand how to implement tools that work for hybrid models and continue to encourage engagement.” In 2024, HigherEd teams should focus on institution resilience, purposeful and innovative digitization, and providing meaningful opportunities for faculty development are key strategies to navigate these changes successfully.
The world of HigherEd is becoming increasingly complex, and staying informed about the latest trends and leveraging innovative tools is essential. From optimizing job boards with JobElephant’s data-driven approach to enhancing the candidate experience and adapting to a digital workforce, there is a lot to learn from 2023 as we launch the strategies of 2024. Check out this webinar on-demand for more insights.
As 2023 comes to a close, here at PeopleAdmin, we’re looking back at some of the top resources we shared this year! From onboarding to compliance, from retention to employee development, from recruitment marketing to candidate experience, we covered so many topics. Check out some of our favorite reads below!
HigherEd hiring processes are unique for many reasons, but one key reason is the different types of positions found on campus. Position types can include faculty, staff, student workers, temporary seasonal workers, hourly workers, and more, and often, each of these categories has different requirements, approvals, forms, and hiring steps. Our customers are tackling this challenge thanks to Position Management and Applicant Tracking System, and they have some tips for others to get started. Read more!
The answer is yes! In this competitive hiring market, and with many universities facing retention challenges, onboarding is key, and digitized onboarding is the standard that organizations need to meet today. Read more from HigherEd institutions who are saying “no” to onboarding paperwork and bringing an engaging onboarding process to every new hire.
If you’re wondering what an employer brand is, you’re probably not leveraging recruitment marketing techniques to your advantage! Creating a cohesive employer brand is an important aspect of building a talent pool today. Learn more about employer branding, and check out some of our top tips to get your hiring teams to start thinking like marketers.
Your team has probably dealt with the challenge of creating effective search committees, and you might have struggled to get those committees to adopt new and efficient technology. Well, our customers have tackled that challenge too. Hear from the University of Alabama – Birmingham about how they successfully leveled up their search committee experience.
In a PeopleAdmin poll, HigherEd institutions were asked “How connected are the various systems on your campus?” 30% responded “Not connected—we have to manually enter data in multiple systems; there’s no data flow,” while 36% responded “connected but could be better.” Notably, no one chose the option: “Very connected—there are few issues that impact my team.” With interoperability still a key issue on campus, building seamless data flow and integrating your technology should be a top priority for your team. Check out some key takeaways from a webinar about interoperability, and hear from customers about how they’re leveraging integrations.
44% of HigherEd employees disagreed that they have opportunities for advancement, and 34% disagree that their institution invests in their career development. According to the Harvard Business Review, 86% of professionals would change jobs for more professional development opportunities—clearly, career growth is something today’s workers care about. For more, check out this post about the link between retention and career growth.
These are just a few of the topics that we researched and wrote about here at PeopleAdmin this year! Check out more resources on our website, and dive into our Annual Report on the State of HigherEd for an in-depth look at the challenges of 2023!
As we prepare for an upcoming year, I have to stop and think about the future of higher education. The pandemic changed our students, faculty, staff, and our campus as a whole. The Education Advisory Board (EAB) provides colleges and universities across the country with resources and ideas to help the students of the future.
I confess, I have been a complete fan of EAB and their resources for the past ten years. Their resources are at the forefront of higher education innovation.
🏛 – Dining Halls and Food Spaces
🏛 – Modern Student Housing
🏛 – Hybrid and Flexible Office Spaces
🏛 – Tech-Enabled Classrooms
🏛 – Libraries and Learning Commons
🏛 – Interdisciplinary Research Facilities
Higher education institutions should also focus on the faculty and staff as well. When I ask most of my peers if they are comfortable with the numerous changes happening across their institution, most of them are uncomfortable. We need to prepare our teams for the future of higher education.
Here’s the Millennial Professor’s Call the Action Statements for the Higher Education Industry
🌎 – Higher Education Conferences and Summits Need to Provide Trainings Focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Their Attendees
🌎 – Higher Education Institutions Need to Include Faculty and Staff as Part of Their Planning Process (an Important Part)
🌎 – Higher Education Institutions Provide Wellness and Holistic Support for Faculty and Staff Who are Having Problems With Change (You Need Us and We Need Help)
🌎 – Higher Education Institutions Need to Be Comfortable with Uncommon Spaces (Flexible Office Spaces)
🌎 – Faculty Need to Embrace Collaboration Opportunities with Faculty at Their Institutions and Other Institutions
Here are some additional articles about the future of higher education:
Higher education will continue to transition in an effort to meet the needs of our current and incoming students.
For our particular university, we are striving to modify all of these items simultaneously. It is a challenge, but the changes are well worth the journey.
Here’s the challenge for this post: “In your opinion, which one of the items on the list is MOST important for your institution?”
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Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.
Remember to order copies for your team as well!
Thanks for visiting!
Sincerely,
Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication
Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute
This is always a popular topic, but the subject is misunderstood. I want to talk about discount rate at private colleges.
For those who always ask, no, I don’t do this for public universities. It may be helpful to compare institutions within a state, but beyond that, state funding models and the mix of resident and nonresident tuition rates make comparisons across borders mostly meaningless. And for the more knowledgeable who might wonder, I assume that all institutional aid is unfunded; that is, it’s not coming in as a revenue stream from an external source to provide funding.
Let’s do an exercise to help you understand discount: Suppose you run an ice cream store, and you have more ice cream than you can sell. You might offer a coupon, let’s say for 50% off a cone.
The cone you normally sell for $4, you now sell for $2. You just take less money for it. There is no one there to hand you two extra dollars to make up for the gap. The Department Store store down the street sells a very similar cone in its food court for $8, but offers a 75% off coupon. They decide to take $2 for the cones they sell in order to be competitive with you.
The Gourmet Ice Cream Shop around the corner sells cones for $12, because they think their ice cream is much better, their store nicer, and their location more convenient to the subway station. On occasion, they will tell the kids at the orphanage they’ll give them a free ice cream cone, but everyone else pays. And finally, Mel’s Fair Deal Ice Cream store sells ice cream cones for $2.50, but never offers coupons.
If everyone uses your coupon, your store has a discount rate of 50%, and your net revenue per cone is $2. But of course, some people will pay $4. If everyone uses the coupon at the Department Store, their net revenue per cone is also $2. But their discount rate is 75%.
The Gourmet Store is more generous with the orphans than people realize; about half of their cones are given away. So their discount rate is also 50%, but their net revenue per cone is $6. And finally, Mel’s Fair Deal Ice Cream has a discount rate of 0% and a net revenue of $2.50 per cone.
It’s important to remember that none of these stores cares where the cash comes from. It could be from the customer’s pocket, from a parent or aunt, government food stamps, or a loan they take out from the government. You count the cash, not the source of the cash.
Now, guess what? Almost all college aid is discount, much like those coupons the ice cream stores hand out. It’s simply the college agreeing to take less cash than its published tuition rate. If tuition is $40,000 and you offer a $20,000 discount or scholarship, you simply take $20,000 to educate the student, and write the rest off as an accounting transaction.
The need for higher discounts in higher education are driven by tuition prices that are too high for most people to pay. Colleges have to discount, or they’re going to have costs associated with making too much ice cream to sell that they can’t pay.
(This is the part where someone will want to comment and extend the analogy ad infinitum: Which ice cream is better? Is one really worth six times more? Why don’t you make more flavors to attract more customers instead of discounting the vanilla to bring people in? Does your cost of ice cream production get lower if you produce a lot more? Can’t you do research and optimization to figure out who should get the coupons when to maximize profit? And if so, couldn’t you lower price a lot and drive the others out of business? Couldn’t you offer the coupon to fewer people and hope more pay full price? Please don’t be that person. I’ll do a workshop for you if the price is right.)
So, to easily calculate discount, in case it’s not clear, take the amount you have to discount and divide by the published price. For a college, the discount rate is total institutional (unfunded) grant aid/total gross tuition. For average net revenue, take total gross revenue, subtract institutional (unfunded) grant aid, and divide that number by the number of students.
For instance, if your sticker tuition is $40,000 and enroll ten students, your total gross tuition is 40,000 x 10, or $400,000. If you award $100,000 in unfunded aid to make that enrollment happen, your discount rate is 100,000/400,000, or 25%. After you take the aid away from tuition, your average net revenue is (400,000 – 100,000)/10, or $30,000 per student. That’s how much cash you have to work with to do things like pay faculty, cut the grass, heat the buildings, and run the administration.
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Now, below, you can dive into college discount rates, net revenue, mixes, and the shape of the industry. This data set is very rich, and I may do another angle on this topic later. But for now:
Discount arrayed (the first view using the tabs across the top) arrays about 950 four-year, traditional, private colleges. I’ve removed lots of religious seminaries, some very small institutions, and, frankly, some suspect data from this for the sake of clarity. This is IPEDS data so it’s reliable, but never perfect.
Each college is a dot, colored by region and sized by freshman enrollment relative to the set displayed. The view shows discount rate on the x-axis, and average net revenue on the y-axis.
You can use the filters at right to limit the set further. You can’t break anything, and you can reset the view using the controls at the bottom. Try this: Use the First-year students filter to look at colleges with at least 2,000 freshmen. Then look at those colleges with fewer than 250. Interesting, no?
The reference lines are the unweighted average of all 950 institutions in the set.
Institutional grant policy shows how many colleges and how many students fall into institutional grant aid categories. Some institutions give aid to 100% of all students. The vast majority give aid to 90% or more.
And finally, the Full-pay and Pell shows two variables: The percentage of students who get no aid (full-pay students) and those who get Pell grants at the institution shown. And remember, it doesn’t matter where the cash from full-pay students comes from: That group includes some students whose parents write a check, and some who might get a Pell and whose parents take out an ill-advised PLUS loan for the cost of attendance.
The point? Discount rate is important for similar institutions in the same region, but as thing unto itself, it’s kind of meaningless. Net revenue is more important, for the most part, but at some institutions where undergraduate education can almost be called a sideline business, even net revenue is not important as it might seem.