Category: Featured

  • Rosemont College in Pennsylvania to combine with Villanova University

    Rosemont College in Pennsylvania to combine with Villanova University

    Dive Brief:

    • Villanova University plans to absorb Rosemont College, which will take on the former’s name after a multiyear transition period set to begin in 2027, the two Catholic institutions in Pennsylvania said Monday.
    • After the merger is complete, Rosemont — less than a mile away from Villanova — will become “Villanova University, Rosemont Campus,” according to a press release. The deal requires approval from their accreditor — they have the same one — and from state and federal regulators.
    • Following the transition period, Villanova will take on Rosemont’s assets and liabilities and bring on three members of Rosemont’s governing board, according to Rosemont. Tenured and tenure-track faculty will be offered contracts at Villanova and can apply for tenured status via the university’s guidelines.

    Dive Insight:

    Villanova University President Peter Donohue described the merger with Rosemont as a “unique and powerful opportunity for our two institutions given our shared commitment to advancing Catholic higher education, our close physical proximity and deep alumni connections.”

    In a community message, Donohue also noted that Villanova and Rosemont students for years have taken classes and participated in programs at each others’ campuses.

    With 777 students in fall 2023, Rosemont is dwarfed by Villanova, which enrolled 10,111 students for that period. 

    Student bodies have shrunk at both colleges, though Rosemont’s has done so at a faster clip. Between 2018 to 2023, fall enrollment plunged 17.8% at Rosemont compared to a 8.3% drop at Villanova.  

    Rosemont, founded in 1921 by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, is also the weaker of the two financially. It racked up a total operating deficit of $914,220 in fiscal 2023, more than triple the previous year’s budget gap, according to its latest financials. Villanova, meanwhile, has posted surpluses in recent years.

    Rosemont’s fiscal 2023 audit also contained a going-concern warning, indicating there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to keep operating. The audit cited the college’s failure to meet the U.S. Department of Education’s benchmarks to be considered financially responsible.

    However, in response to the financial issues flagged by auditors, Rosemont made several moves, including cutting executive-level positions, nixing a handful of vacant positions to reduce overall staffing and consolidating its student housing, moving to sell one of its residence halls. 

    The college also borrowed $7 million from its endowment to support operations and pay down a credit line. 

    College leaders said they believed those efforts, as well as marketing initiatives and enrollment partnerships — such as one with the Fraternal Order of Police — alleviated the going-concern doubt, auditors noted. 

    But merging with Villonova is meant to add to both institutions’ strengths. 

    “We are committed to securing the best possible options for our students, faculty and staff and believe this merger with Villanova offers the best opportunity to ensure that the Rosemont College history and legacy endures,” Rosemont President Jim Cawley said Monday in a statement.

    Rosemont will continue operating as a separate entity through the transition period and maintain its academic programming during that time. According to the institutions, Rosemont students who haven’t completed their degrees by 2028 will have multiple options to do so, including transferring to Villanova’s professional studies college.

    Student athletes on Rosemont’s NCAA Division III teams can move to club sports after the spring 2026 semester — given that Villanova is a Division I university. The college is looking for other D-III institutions that could provide quick and easy transfer pathways for student athletes from Rosemont, according to the institution. 

    The merger agreement also calls for the preservation of Rosemont’s chapel as “a place of gathering and inspiration.” To maintain Rosemont’s legacy, the institutions said an endowed scholarship will be created after the transition “supporting the mission” of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.

    This isn’t Villanova’s only recent expansion. In 2024, the university bought the 112-acre Pennsylvania campus of Cabrini University following the Catholic institution’s decision to close. Per the agreement, they renamed the site Villanova University Cabrini Campus. 

    Several Catholic liberal arts colleges have struggled in recent years along with their secular peers. Facing enrollment and financial challenges, some have sought mergers. 

    This year, Gannon University and Ursuline College, for example, announced a formal merger agreement. And Iowa’s St. Ambrose University is working to acquire Mount Mercy University as part of a plan announced last year.

    Source link

  • Trump administration suspends dozens of Princeton University’s research grants

    Trump administration suspends dozens of Princeton University’s research grants

    Federal agencies have suspended “several dozen” federal research grants to Princeton University, the Ivy League institution announced Tuesday. The move comes as the Trump administration attacks high-profile colleges over campus antisemitism allegations.

    Multiple agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA, notified the university of the freezes on Monday and Tuesday, Princeton President Chris Eisgruber said in a community message. 

    He noted that “the full rationale” for the agencies’ cancellation wasn’t clear yet but stated the university will comply with the law and is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism.”

    He added that Princeton would at the same time “vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights.”

    A reporter for The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet, reported late Monday that the Trump administration was pausing $210 million in funding to Princeton amid an ongoing campus antisemitism investigation. 

    The Education Department on Tuesday did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the pause.

    Like many college campuses, Princeton saw significant protest activity last spring, including a hunger strike, an encampment lasting three weeks and over a dozen arrests. During that time, the Biden administration opened an investigation into the university after a complaint was filed by a conservative activist, who filed more than 30 similar complaints at U.S. educational institutions.

    In March, the U.S. Department of Education under President Donald Trump named Princeton as one of 60 institutions that could face enforcement action over unaddressed antisemitism, though the agency didn’t specify any specific civil rights law violations. 

    The suspension of Princeton’s research grants is just the most recent of the Trump administration’s escalating financial attacks on colleges and the higher education sector. 

    On Monday, the administration announced it was reviewing billions of dollars in federal grants and contracts at Harvard University, another well-known institution mentioned on the Education Department’s March list. 

    Those moves come less than a month after the Trump administration canceled $400 million in research funding to Columbia University. 

    The Ivy League institution ceded to many of the government’s demands — including by adding three dozen security officers and appointing a senior vice provost to review its regional studies program. Late last month, the Trump administration called it “a positive first step in the university maintaining a financial relationship with the United States government.”

    Following the weeks of turmoil at the university, Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong stepped down late last week after less than eight months.

    Source link

  • Trump Dismantles US Institute of Museum and Library Services (YT Daily News)

    Trump Dismantles US Institute of Museum and Library Services (YT Daily News)

    The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has put its entire staff on administrative leave following President Trump’s executive order to eliminate seven federal agencies, including IMLS. 
     
    Keith E. Sonderling has been appointed as the acting director during this transition. Staff were notified via email about their 90-day paid leave, which included instructions to return government property and had their email accounts disabled. 
     
    IMLS is a small federal agency, with about 70 employees,
    that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United
    States. Last year it granted $266 million to support essential cultural institutions.


    Source link

  • New Food Security Threats 5 Years After COVID-Era Effort to Feed All Kids – The 74

    New Food Security Threats 5 Years After COVID-Era Effort to Feed All Kids – The 74

    A multi-pronged attack on food aid by Republican lawmakers could mean more of the nation’s children will go hungry — both at home and at school.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently cut two federal programs that provided roughly $1 billion in funding for the purchase of food by schools and food banks. 

    And the Community Eligibility Provision, which reimburses tens of thousands of schools that provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, may tighten its requirements, potentially pushing some 12 million kids out of the program.

    These moves come at the same time the House Republican budget plan calls for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The program fed more than 42 million low-income people per month nationwide in 2023. In 2022, 40% were younger than 18.  

    This recent shift reflects a stark reversal of earlier, nationwide efforts to keep families fed during the pandemic. Many districts, such as Baltimore, organized grab-and-go meals sites days after schools were shuttered in March 2020 with no identification or personal information required. Those initiatives led to the nation’s food insecurity rate dropping to a 20-year low when it reached 10.2% in 2021, down from a 14.9% high a decade earlier, according to the USDA.

    It has since crept back up to 13.5% and now, five years after schools utilized USDA waivers to deliver meals in innovative ways, they are bracing for what could be massive cuts from the federal government.

    Latoya Roberson, manager at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore (Baltimore City Public Schools) 

    Elizabeth A. Marchetta, executive director of food and nutrition services for Baltimore City Public Schools, said 31 campuses — serving 19,000 children — would lose out on free breakfast and lunch if the Community Eligibility Provision changes go through. They are among 393 schools and 251,318 children statewide who would be shut out. 

    “It would be devastating,” Marchetta said. “These are critical funds. If we are not being reimbursed for all of the meals we’re serving … the money has to come from somewhere else in the school district, so that is really not great.”

    Map: Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74, Data:Food Research & Action Cen

    Nearly 48,000 schools in more than 7,700 districts benefited from the Community Eligibility Provision in the 2023-24 school year. The program reimburses schools that provide universal free meals based on the percentage of their students who automatically qualify for free and reduced-price lunch because their families receive other types of assistance, like SNAP. 

    In 2023, after the COVID-era policy ended where any student could receive a free school meal regardless of income, President Biden lowered the percentage of high-need students required for a school to qualify from 40% to 25%, greatly expanding participation. 

    House GOP Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington now seeks to raise the rate to 60%. The budget proposal would also require all students applying for free and reduced-price meals to submit documentation verifying their family income.

    School meal debt, a barometer of food insecurity among students, is already on the rise. It will almost certainly increase if universal school meals disappear for students whose families make too much to qualify for free and reduced-price lunch but too little to afford to buy meals at school. At the same time, kids who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals could lose that benefit if the required paperwork becomes harder. 

    In the fall of 2023, across 808 school districts, the median amount of school meal debt was $5,495. By the fall of 2024, that amount reached $6,900 across 766 districts, a 25% increase, according to the School Nutrition Association.

    It was just $2,000 a decade earlier. A trio of Democratic senators is pushing to erase the $262 million annual debt total, with Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman saying in 2023, “‘School lunch debt’ is a term so absurd that it shouldn’t even exist. That’s why I’m proud to introduce this bill to cancel the nation’s student meal debt and stop humiliating kids and penalizing hunger.”

    Research shows students benefit mightily from free meals: those who attend schools that adopted the Community Eligibility Provision saw lower rates of obesity compared to those who did not. Free in-school meals are also credited for boosting attendance among low-income children, improving classroom behavior and lowering suspensions.

    Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America. 

    Joel Berg, the CEO of Hunger Free America, said further cuts will greatly harm the poorest students. 

    “Over the last few years, things have gone from bad to worse,” he said. “We were all raised seeing Frank Capra movies, where, in the end everything works out. But that’s not how the real world works. In the real world, when the economy gets a cold, poor people get cancer.”

    Hunger Free America found the number of Americans who didn’t have enough to eat over two one-week periods increased by 55.2% between August-September 2021 and August-September 2024. The states with the highest rates of food insecure children were Texas at 23.8%, Oklahoma at 23.2% and Nebraska at 22.6%. Georgia and Arkansas both came in at 22.4%. 

    The USDA slashed the $660 million Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program for 2025 — it allowed states to purchase local foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, for distribution to schools and child care institutions — and $500 million from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which supported food banks nationwide. 

    Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association, said that as families struggle with the high cost of groceries, the government should be doing more — not less — to bolster school meals and other food aid programs. 

    “We’re urging Congress not only to protect the federal Community Eligibility Provision, but to expand it,” Pratt-Heavner said. “Ideally, all students should have access to free school breakfast and lunch as part of their education.” 

    SNAP benefits stood at $4.80 per person per day through 2020 before jumping to more than $6 per person per day after they were adjusted for rising food and other costs. Even then, the higher amount was not enough to cover the cost of a moderately priced meal in most locations. 

    Republicans in Congress seek to cut the program by $230 billion over the next nine years, possibly by returning to the pre-pandemic allotment of $4.80 and/or expanding work-related requirements, said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center. 

    Another possibility, he said, is that SNAP costs could be pushed onto states — including those that can’t afford them. 

    “This would be an unfunded mandate,” Bhatti said. “States would have to take away from their discretionary spending to offset the cost and if it is not a mandate, then states in rural America and in the South that don’t have the budgets just won’t do it.” 

    Food-related funding decreases come as the child tax credit, created to help parents offset the cost of raising children, is also facing uncertainty, said Megan Curran, the director of policy at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.

    The American Rescue Plan increased the amount of the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 for qualifying children under age 6, and $3,000 for those under age 18. Many taxpayers received monthly advance payments in the second half of 2021, instead of waiting until tax filing season to receive the full benefits. The move cut child poverty nearly in half. The expanded child tax credit was allowed to lapse post-pandemic and now even the $2,000 credit could revert back to just $1,000. 

    All food-related and tax benefit cuts — plus the unknowns of Trump-era tariffs — will leave some Americans particularly vulnerable, Curran said. 

    “It’s shaping up to be a very precarious time for families,” she said, “especially families with children.”


    Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter



    Source link

  • Almost 2,000 Schools and Districts Choose Lexia® English Language Development™ to Support Emergent Bilingual Students’ English Language Acquisition

    Almost 2,000 Schools and Districts Choose Lexia® English Language Development™ to Support Emergent Bilingual Students’ English Language Acquisition

    BOSTON (March 31, 2025) – In recent months, almost 2,000 schools and districts have purchased or renewed licenses for Lexia English Language Development (Lexia English) from Lexia, a Cambium Learning Group brand. Using powerful speech recognition technology, the program supports students in grades K-6 to build their linguistic confidence in academic English.

    “More than 162,000 students and 77,000 educators at 7,400 schools used the program during the 2024 school year. In addition, those students practiced academic conversations 4.3 million times in the program,” said Lexia President, Nick Gaehde. “The numbers show just how much students and educators have needed access to a culturally responsive language learning solution.”

    One of those educators who used the program is Lynmara Colón, the director of Student Opportunity and Multilingual Services at Prince William County Schools in Virginia. After a pilot, the district has allowed individual middle and elementary schools to purchase Lexia English during the 2024-2025 school year. Prince William County Schools serves more than 20,000 English learners who speak 140 languages. “We are the 10th most diverse district in the nation,” Colón said. “But when I try to find tools for diverse students, there’s not a lot that meets the specific needs of the student population we serve.”

    Colón noted that the program had boosted student growth to the point of reducing her worries about providing staff with a high-quality tool focused on helping Emergent Bilingual students. She expressed appreciation for the way the program helps her forecast and make sense of language acquisition data. “With Lexia, I can have visibility into how they’re doing with language comprehension,” she said. “I always know to expect the best from our Lexia partners. I have high expectations, and they never disappoint.”

    Lexia English’s approach to English language learning is to empower emergent bilinguals by honoring their heritage languages and offering culturally responsive, adaptive learning pathways to foster academic and linguistic growth. Seventeen characters with diverse backgrounds help students practice speaking skills by engaging with content in academic subjects such as math, science, social studies, and general knowledge.

    Gaehde concluded, “With Lexia English, educators can celebrate multilingualism in the classroom, providing students with the tools to succeed in both English language development and overall academic achievement.”

    About Lexia

    Lexia®, a Cambium Learning® Group brand, is transforming literacy education, driving change in 1 of every 3 school districts across the United States. For more than 40 years, Lexia has been a thought leader in literacy education, delivering award-winning, research-based solutions grounded in the science of reading. With a full spectrum of offerings, including professional learning, curriculum, and embedded assessment tools, Lexia provides educators with Structured Literacy solutions that are proven effective and designed to drive meaningful literacy outcomes. By empowering educators with unparalleled ease of use and the knowledge and tools they need, Lexia helps more students unlock their potential to read, write, and speak with confidence. For more information, visit lexialearning.com.

    About Cambium Learning Group

    Cambium Learning Group is the education essentials company, providing award-winning education technology and services for K-12 educators and students. With an intentional collection of respected global brands, Cambium serves as a leader, helping millions of educators and students feel more seen, valued, and supported every day. In everything it does, the company focuses on the elements that are most essential to the success of education, delivering simpler, more certain solutions that make a meaningful difference right now.

    To learn more, visit www.cambiumlearning.com or follow Cambium on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X. The Cambium family of brands includes: Cambium Assessment®, Lexia®, Learning A-Z®, ExploreLearning®, and Time4Learning®.

    eSchool News Staff
    Latest posts by eSchool News Staff (see all)



    Source link

  • Community Colleges Expand Four-Year Degree Options as Illinois Joins National Trend

    Community Colleges Expand Four-Year Degree Options as Illinois Joins National Trend

    In a significant shift for higher education access, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced his support for new legislation that would allow the state’s community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees in high-demand fields. The move aligns Illinois with a growing national trend that has seen dramatic expansion in community college baccalaureate (CCB) programs across the country.

    “By allowing our community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees for in-demand career paths, we are making it easier and more affordable for students to advance their careers while strengthening our state’s economy,” Pritzker said in his February announcement.

    The proposed bills, SB2482 and HB3717, would make Illinois the 25th state to implement such programs, joining states like California, Washington, and Florida that have already embraced community college bachelor’s degrees as a way to meet workforce demands and increase educational access. The measure appears to be stalled in the state legislature. 

    The Illinois initiative addresses practical challenges faced by many community college students. According to State Representative Tracy Katz Muhl, 78% of community college students work while in school, making relocation to four-year institutions impractical.

    “Community college students are deeply rooted in their local communities—they work here, raise families here, and contribute to the local economy,” says Dr. Keith Cornille, President of Heartland Community College. “By expanding community college baccalaureate programs, we’re meeting students where they are.”

    The proposal has gained support from education leaders including Illinois Community College Board Executive Director Brian Durham, who highlighted the potential to increase access to affordable higher education without burdening students with excessive debt.

    A recent survey revealed that 75% of Illinois community college students would pursue a bachelor’s degree if they could complete it at their current institution—a statistic that demonstrates significant untapped potential in the state’s third-largest community college system, which serves 600,000 residents annually.

    Illinois’ move follows a remarkable expansion in community college baccalaureate programs nationwide. According to a recent report from The Community College Baccalaureate Association (CCBA) and higher education consulting firm Bragg & Associates Inc., 187 community colleges across the country were offering or authorized to offer bachelor’s degrees as of last year.

    This represents a 32% increase from Fall 2021, when only 132 institutions had such authorization. Today, approximately one-fifth of the nation’s 932 community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees, with the number of CCB degree programs rising from 583 to 678—a 17% increase in just two years.

    “It’s a big jump over the last two years,” says report author Dr. Debra Bragg, president of Bragg & Associates Inc. Bragg anticipates “tremendous growth” in coming years as more states recognize the potential of these programs.

    The movement began in 1989 when West Virginia became the first state to authorize a community college to confer bachelor’s degrees. By 2010, several more states—including California, Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Georgia—had followed suit. Some states have embraced the model completely, with Florida, Delaware, and Nevada authorizing all their community colleges to confer bachelor’s degrees.

    Geographic and demographic patterns
    Community colleges offering bachelor’s degrees are not distributed evenly across the country. According to the CCBA report, 62% of CCB colleges are located on the West Coast, where there is “less density” of higher education institutions and longer commutes to traditional four-year schools.

    “Geographic access to college, measured through proximal distance from a student’s home to college, correlates with students deciding whether they will ever participate in higher education,” the report notes. “Research on ‘education deserts’ shows most students choose to attend college within 50 miles of their home.”
    Washington (32), California (29), and Florida (28) lead the nation in the number of community colleges offering bachelor’s degrees. These institutions tend to be concentrated in large city and suburban areas (36%) or rural and town settings (27%) rather than in small cities or midsize urban areas.

    Perhaps most significantly, CCB programs appear to be effectively serving traditionally underrepresented student populations. Approximately half of all community colleges offering bachelor’s degrees qualify as minority-serving institutions (MSIs), with Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) comprising 71% of these MSIs.

    Data from the 2021-22 academic year shows that about half of all CCB graduates come from racially minoritized groups. Hispanic or Latinx students made up the slight majority (52%) of these graduates, followed by those identifying as Black or African American (29%) or Asian (9%).

    Women are also well-represented among CCB graduates, accounting for 64% of degree recipients. This aligns with broader trends in higher education, where women generally attain degrees at higher rates than men.

    The gender distribution varies by field of study. While business programs attract the largest portion of both male and female students (around 40% for each), men are more likely to pursue STEM fields (34%), while women gravitate toward nursing programs (26%).

    The CCBA report highlights that CCB degrees are primarily focused on workforce preparation. Business programs dominate the offerings, followed by health professions, education, and nursing—all areas that align with significant workforce needs.

    This workforce alignment is a key selling point for Illinois’ proposed legislation. The initiative comes as Illinois employers report growing demand for workers with bachelor’s degrees in specialized fields, mirroring workforce gaps seen in other states with successful CCB programs.

    CCBA President Dr. Angela Kersenbrock sees these workforce-focused degrees as central to the community college mission. “To me, this is the community college really embracing its missions,” says Kersenbrock. “I know some folks say this is community colleges stepping over their mission. But I think it’s a full embracing of what they should be doing… closing equity gaps, being the people’s college, setting people up for economic success and mobility, and being very responsive to what a community needs in terms of workers and employees.”

    Despite the growth and apparent success of community college baccalaureate programs, they are not without controversy. Some traditional four-year institutions view them as mission creep or unwelcome competition.

    Illinois’ proposal faces similar scrutiny. Critics question whether community colleges have the resources, faculty expertise, and infrastructure necessary to deliver quality bachelor’s degree programs. Others worry about potential duplication of existing programs at four-year institutions.

    Supporters counter that CCB programs typically focus on applied fields with clear workforce connections rather than traditional academic disciplines. They also emphasize that these programs often serve students who would otherwise not pursue bachelor’s degrees at all, rather than pulling students away from existing institutions.

    Looking Ahead
    If Illinois passes the proposed legislation, it will join a diverse group of states finding success with community college baccalaureate programs. States like Washington, California, and Florida report positive outcomes in terms of both degree attainment and workforce preparation.

    For Illinois’ sprawling community college system—the third largest in the nation—the change could significantly reshape higher education access. Community colleges often serve as entry points to higher education for first-generation college students, working adults, and others who face barriers to traditional four-year institutions.

    “This initiative isn’t about competing with our university partners,” notes one Illinois community college president. “It’s about creating additional pathways for students who might otherwise never earn a bachelor’s degree.”

    As more states consider similar legislation, the community college bachelor’s degree appears poised to become an increasingly common feature of American higher education. With workforce demands continuing to evolve and traditional college enrollment patterns shifting, these programs offer a flexible approach to meeting both student and employer needs.

    For Bragg, the trend represents a natural evolution of community colleges’ historical mission.

    “Community colleges have always adapted to meet changing educational and workforce needs,” she observes. “Bachelor’s degrees are just the latest example of this responsiveness.”

    As Illinois moves forward with its proposal and other states watch closely, the coming years will likely see further expansion of bachelor’s degree options at community colleges nationwide—continuing a transformation that is making higher education more accessible to students who need it most.

    Source link

  • Wake up from the dream…

    Wake up from the dream…

    It’s April 1, 2025. And this is no joke. Under Donald Trump and his Republican government, the US is quickly headed down the wrong path, politically, economically, and socially, with little resistance. After three months of government disruption, there are still tens of millions of Americans that do not get what’s happening, and many more that do get it but are unwilling to act. 

    In history, we have seen moments very similar to this. This time, politicians, corporate CEOs, and higher education elites, who should know better, have largely stood on the sidelines. At their worst, these elites have systematically punished those who did have the courage to speak out, making others fearful of even nonviolent resistance. 

    This is nothing new: of nations and societies becoming less democratic, less responsive to the People. This move to the right has developed in a number of countries, and students of history know about the rise of authoritarian leaders in ancient Rome, medieval France and England, and modern Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia.    

    Can we wake up from the dream before it’s too late? 

    Related links:

    Source link

  • Why some viruses are so difficult to stamp out

    Why some viruses are so difficult to stamp out

    The United States is fighting an unexpectedly big measles outbreak, with hundreds of cases in the state of Texas alone. Health experts expect it will last for a year or longer, because the virus has a long incubation period — people can be infected for days before they begin to show symptoms. That, in turn, means it can spread silently.

    Another virus that’s spreading silently right now is polio. Tests of wastewater around the world have turned up alarming levels of the virus, notorious for paralyzing children, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but also in Europe, in Spain, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Finland.

    These two viruses should not still be around. They only infect human beings, and mass vaccination campaigns have been ongoing for decades to try to wipe them out. And the medical profession keeps coming so close to success. 

    And where do these viruses come from that keep returning despite our attempts to wipe them out? The answer is from us — from other people.

    Smallpox is the only human disease to have been completely eradicated. That was done with a dedicated global vaccination effort in 1972. Because the smallpox virus doesn’t infect any other animal, there wasn’t another place for it to survive and come back to reinfect people. 

    The same should be true for measles and polio, but war, disruption, poverty and a mistrust of vaccines make it difficult.

    Where viruses hide

    So even as vaccine campaigns come close to succeeding, the viruses can still hide out in unvaccinated and undervaccinated people. Travel and human contact do the rest to keep both measles and polio circulating. When an infected traveler hits a community of unvaccinated people — say a neighborhood of ultra-Orthodox Jews in London or a rural West Texas county full of vaccine skeptics — a contagious virus such as measles or polio can take off. 

    With both measles and polio, it takes immunization rates of more than 90% to protect a population. When rates drop below that, a community becomes vulnerable to outbreaks. A virus can take hold and spread among people, picking up steam.

    That’s happened in Pakistan and Afghanistan with polio, where efforts to reach remote populations fall short because of geography, conflict and mistrust. And in Gaza, where continuous Israeli attacks have destroyed virtually all healthcare facilities, United Nations agencies have struggled to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio outbreaks. 

    Polio is also complicated because of the different vaccine types. One of the vaccines is given orally, and it’s made using a live, but weakened, form of the virus. This gives good immunity but in rare cases the virus can mutate in someone’s body and return to infectious strength — becoming what’s called vaccine-derived virus. 

    A follow-up vaccination with a second type of vaccine made using a fully killed virus will protect against this, but when vaccine campaigns can’t be completed, vaccine-derived viruses can emerge.

    How viruses spread

    In Europe, no cases of polio have been seen, but wastewater evidence suggests the virus is surviving in people’s bodies, and could burst out to cause sickness if it gets to someone unvaccinated. Polio spreads via the fecal-oral route — in contaminated water, via poorly washed hands, on surfaces and also via sneezes and coughs.

    Fully vaccinated communities are safe but in 2022, an unvaccinated man in New York State became paralyzed after he caught polio. Investigation showed a vaccine-derived strain had been spreading quietly in the state.

    Measles is the most infectious disease known and that makes it particularly hard to eradicate. In a podcast interview I did for for One World, One Health, Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and vaccine scientist at the Baylor College of Medicine, explained just how infectious it is. 

    “If someone has measles, and especially before they get the virus and stop feeling very sick, they’re releasing the virus into the atmosphere,” Hotez said. 

    Even if they leave the room, that virus will linger in the atmosphere for a couple of hours.

    “So you can walk into an empty room that has the measles virus from someone who was there a couple of hours before and become infected,” he said, noting that one measles patient will infect up to 18 other people.

    A virus reemerges.

    Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people who are exposed to the measles virus will become infected. What is disappointing to public health experts in the latest U.S. outbreak is that so many people have become infected when measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000 and in all of the Americas in 2016.

    But pockets of people who are not vaccinated against measles can act like tinder. The spark is usually a traveler who goes to a country where measles is still common because vaccination rates are low — usually due to poverty. 

    In a November 2024 report the WHO said that measles is still common in many places, particularly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

    “The overwhelming majority of measles deaths occur in countries with low per capita incomes or weak health infrastructures that struggle to reach all children with immunization,” the report said. Measles kills more than 100,000 people a year, mostly children. But before the vaccine was introduced in the early 1960s, it killed 2.6 million a year.

    The COVID-19 pandemic badly hurt all childhood immunization efforts, WHO and other global health authorities say. Routine childhood vaccines have not caught back up to where they were before the pandemic, leaving children and adults susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases including measles and polio but also meningitis, hepatitis, tetanus, cervical cancer and rotavirus — a disease that causes diarrhea and vomiting in babies and young children. 

    The retreat of the United States from global health efforts — the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, its plan to cut $1 billion in funding to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and its withdrawal from the World Health Organization — will further weaken global vaccination, experts say.

    And that means many more children will likely die who might otherwise live healthy lives. 

     

    Three questions to consider:

    1. How can vaccines help prevent the spread of diseases?

    2. What role should personal choice play in being vaccinated against deadly diseases?

    3. How can global cooperation help in fighting the spread of disease?

     

    Source link

  • With higher education under siege, college presidents cannot afford to stay silent 

    With higher education under siege, college presidents cannot afford to stay silent 

    Higher education is under siege from the Trump administration. Those opposing this siege and the administration’s attacks on democracy would do well to heed the wise advice of Benjamin Franklin given just prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776: “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” 

    This is particularly true right now for college and university presidents.

    College presidents come from a tradition based on the importance of ideas, of fairness, of speaking the truth as they understand it, whatever the consequences. If they don’t speak out, what will later generations say when they look back at this dark, dark time?

    The idea that Trump’s attacks on higher education are necessary to combat antisemitism is the thinnest of covers, and yet only a very few college presidents have been brave enough to call this what it is. 

    The president and those around him don’t care about antisemitism. Trump said people who chanted “Jews will not replace us” were “very fine people”; he dined with avowed antisemites like Nick Fuentes and Ye (Kanye West). 

    Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed the California wildfires of 2018 on space lasers paid for by Jewish bankers. Robert Kennedy claimed that Covid “targeted” white and Black people but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. The Proud Boys pardoned by Trump for their part in the January 6 insurrection have routinely proclaimed their antisemitism; they include at least one member who has openly declared admiration for Adolf Hitler.

    Fighting antisemitism? That was never the motive for the Trump administration’s attacks on colleges and universities. The motive was — and continues to be — to discipline and tame institutions of higher learning, to bring them to heel, to turn them into mouthpieces of a single ideology, to put an end to the free flow of ideas under the alleged need to combat “wokeism.”

    Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweeklyHigher Education newsletter.

    Columbia University has been a prime target of the Trump administration’s financial threats. I’ve been a university provost. I’m not naïve about the tremendous damage the withholding of federal support can have on a school. But the fate of Columbia should be a cautionary tale for those who think keeping their heads down will help them survive. (The Hechinger Report is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based at Teachers College, Columbia University.) 

    Columbia was more than conciliatory in responding to concerns of antisemitism. The administration suspended two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, for holding rallies that allegedly included “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.” 

    They suspended four students in connection with an event featuring speakers who “support terrorism and promote violence.” 

    They called in police to dismantle the encampment created to protest the War in Gaza. Over 100 protesters were arrested. 

    They created a Task Force on Antisemitism, and accepted its recommendations. They dismissed three deans for exchanging text messages that seemed to minimize Jewish students’ concerns and referenced antisemitic tropes. 

    President Minouche Shafik resigned after little more than a year in office. (Last week, the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, also resigned.) In September 2024, the ADL reports, the university went so far as to introduce “new policies prohibiting the use of terms like ‘Zionist’ when employed to target Jews or Israelis.” 

    None of this prevented the Trump administration from cancelling $400 million worth of grants and contracts to Columbia — because responding to antisemitism was never the real impetus for the attack. 

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more

    Was Marjorie Taylor Greene asked to renounce antisemitism as a condition for her leadership in Congress? 

    Was Robert Kennedy asked to renounce antisemitism in order to be nominated for a Cabinet position?

    Were the Proud Boys asked to renounce antisemitism as a condition for their pardoning? 

    This is an attack on higher education as a whole, and it requires a collective defense. Columbia yesterday. Harvard today, your school tomorrow. College presidents cannot be silent as individual schools are attacked. They need to speak out as a group against each and every incursion. 

    They need to pledge to share resources, including financial resources, to resist these attacks; they should mount a joint legal resistance and a joint public response to an attack on any single institution. 

    These days, as many have observed, are much like the dark days of McCarthyism in the 1950s. In retrospect, we wonder why it took so long for so many to speak up. 

    Today we celebrate those who had the moral strength to stand up right then and say, “No. This isn’t right, and I won’t be part of it.” 

    The politicians of the Republican Party have made it clear they won’t do that, though most of them understand that Trumpism is attacking the very values — freedom, democracy, fairness — that they celebrate as “American.” 

    They have earned the low opinion most people have of politicians. But college and university presidents should — and must — take a stand. 

    Rob Rosenthal is John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about higher education and the Trump administration was produced byThe Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’sweekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Source link

  • Wellesley Non-Tenure-Track Strike May Impact Class Credits

    Wellesley Non-Tenure-Track Strike May Impact Class Credits

    Hours after Wellesley College’s non-tenure-track faculty went on strike last Thursday, students received word that they might receive only half credit for courses taught by the professors on strike.

    The college attributed the decision to federal regulations on how much instruction students must receive per credit hour, noting that if the strike ends quickly, students will be able to return to their classes and get full credit. In the meantime, they were told they could sign up for other classes, taught by tenure-track faculty, for the last four weeks of the semester. That would allow them to continue to earn full credit hours, which is especially important for students who need to maintain full-time status for financial aid, athletics or visa-related reasons.

    According to college spokesperson Stacey Schmeidel, only about a third of non-tenure-track faculty members’ classes could be affected by this change; the remaining two-thirds met frequently enough during the first 10 weeks of the semester that they had already reached the required minimum number of instructional hours. Over all, she said, about 30 students out of the 2,350 enrolled at the women’s college are currently at risk of dropping below full-time status, though hundreds opted to switch into new classes to ensure they receive the number of credits they planned on for this semester.

    But students and faculty union members have questioned the college’s solution, noting that students may struggle to find replacement courses that fit their schedule or that they have the necessary prerequisites for.

    “Imagine being a student entering into a class that only has four weeks left,” said Jacquelin Woodford, a chemistry lecturer and organizing committee member for the faculty union, Wellesley Organized Academic Workers. “It’s such a weird plan that could all be avoided if the college just bargained with us and settled the contract.” Woodford also noted that striking faculty members had not been informed before Thursday about this plan and still haven’t received formal communication from the institution about what is happening with their classes.

    Non-tenure-track faculty at Wellesley began unionizing almost a year ago in an attempt to obtain higher wages and better job security. Union organizers say the institution has come back with only bare-bones offers.

    On March 25, administrators offered non-tenure-track faculty 2.75 percent annual raises for the duration of the contract and proposed adding an additional course to their teaching loads, for which they would be paid an additional $10,000. But union members argue that $10,000 is equivalent to what they are already paid for teaching an extra course.

    “The College’s proposal makes working overtime the new, required norm,” wrote Erin Battat, senior lecturer in the writing program and a member of the bargaining committee, in an email to The Wellesley News, the college’s student paper. “We had hoped that Wellesley was serious about their claims to care about averting a strike, but their actions at the bargaining prove otherwise.”

    WOAW’s latest proposal, meanwhile, includes a revised salary scale that would see some NTT faculty with more than 18 years at Wellesley earn over $170,000 a year—25 percent more than full professors with the same amount of experience. Wellesley has countered that the proposed pay scale, which would afford faculty raises of 54 percent in the contract’s first year, is untenable.

    The union voted in February to authorize a strike.

    “We called for a strike authorization vote to encourage Wellesley to make substantial progress towards our key priorities. Our goal is to negotiate a fair contract that will be ratified by our members,” said one bargaining committee member, Christa Skow, senior instructor in biological sciences, in an update on WOAW’s website at the time.

    Pizza and Ponchos

    Students have been supportive of the strike despite its impact on their courses, said Woodford, noting that they have joined the picket lines at the motor and pedestrian entrances to campus over the past several days.

    “They’ll come and go between their courses. They’re so kind; they’ve been sending us food and pizza and they brought us ponchos today for the rain,” she said, noting that tenured colleagues, alumnae and Massachusetts state politicians have also come out to support them.

    The next bargaining session will take place on Tuesday, and union organizers questioned why the institution was unwilling to bargain any earlier than five days into the strike. In an email, Schmeidel said the college and the union had, prior to the strike, mutually agreed to a session on April 3; after the strike began, Wellesley offered to move the session to today, April 1.

    She also said that the union had rejected the college’s proposal to work with a mediator.

    “The College feels that the union’s refusal to go to mediation and to instead call for a strike is arbitrary and premature,” she wrote.

    For some students, it’s unclear what the next few weeks will bring. Jeanne, a freshman who asked to have her last name withheld, is currently taking a writing course impacted by the strike. She said she received an email from the dean of first-year students saying that those in the course would receive full credit, but students should nevertheless attempt to keep up with the syllabus as much as possible. She doubts she’ll be able to, though, as the materials she needs for the next paper haven’t been posted for students to access online yet.

    Still, she said she is in favor of the strike, noting that WOAW has been transparent with the students about what the stoppage will entail since much earlier in the semester.

    “[WOAW] had been speaking about negotiations with the college since I arrived on the campus last semester,” she said. “They’ve been very clear with the students that they believe their treatment is unfair and they’ve been working with the college for a while now to get the situation fixed.”

    In an FAQ about how Wellesley will handle the strike, the institution said it is still figuring out how grading will be impacted by the half-credit courses and noted that it may be necessary to include a transcript note for anyone impacted. It said the same about making up any content students may lose out on as a result of the strike.

    “Department chairs and faculty are thinking seriously about any course content that may not have been covered and how to make up for this in a future semester,” the FAQ says.

    Source link