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  • Art as success? That’s genius!

    Art as success? That’s genius!

    The MacArthur Foundation selects a diverse group of people for an award dubbed the “genius grants”. In doing so they help us redefine our measure of success.

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  • CSU Campuses Reel From Blow to HSI Funding

    CSU Campuses Reel From Blow to HSI Funding

    California State University, Fresno, celebrated the launch of a new program this fall called Finish in Five, which allows students to earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree within five years. University leaders were eager to offer students at the Central Valley campus—which serves large populations of first-generation and low-income students, many the children of local farmworkers—a streamlined pathway to high-demand STEM fields in an economically distressed region.

    But less than a month later, the program’s funding, which came from a Hispanic-serving institution grant, abruptly ended. The Education Department stopped awarding grants for HSIs and many other minority-serving institutions last month, claiming the federal programs amounted to “discrimination.” Officials argued the programs are “unconstitutional” because they require institutions to enroll certain percentages of students from specific racial or ethnic backgrounds, among other criteria.

    Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, president of Fresno State, said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the Finish in Five program now that the money is gone. In the past, the campus relied on about $5 million annually in HSI funding, which fueled a wide range of student supports and programs. The university was also expecting to receive $250,000 this fiscal year as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institution.

    “In the grander scheme of things, most of the innovative programs that we have at Fresno State that further student success and graduation rates started with an HSI grant or with an MSI grant,” Jiménez-Sandoval said.

    Similar stories are playing out across the California State University system. Hispanic students account for almost half of the system’s more than 450,000 students. Out of the CSU’s 22 campuses, 21 are Hispanic-serving institutions, meaning they enroll at least 25 percent Hispanic students and at least half low-income students. In addition, 11 are AANAPISIs, which have the same low-income student threshold and enroll at least 10 percent Asian and Pacific Islander students. CSU officials estimate ED’s axing of the grant programs leaves the system $43 million short on funds it expected for the 2025–26 fiscal year.

    CSU chancellor Mildred García called the move “deeply troubling.”

    “This action will have an immediate impact and irreparable harm to our entire community,” García said in a statement. “Without this funding, students will lose the critical support they need to succeed in the classroom, complete their degrees on time, and achieve social mobility for themselves and their families.”

    Potential for ‘Great Devastation’

    The sudden loss of funding caught system and campus leaders off guard.

    Jeff Cullen, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor for federal relations, said he knew the HSI program was at risk when the state of Tennessee and the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions sued the Education Department in June over such programs, questioning their constitutionality. But he expected the case to wind its way through the courts. He said ED’s swift decision to end the grant programs robbed campuses of time to prepare or fight on MSIs’ behalf. Cullen also pointed out that CSU campuses qualify as HSIs because of the demographics of their surrounding communities—not because they rely on affirmative action in admissions, one of the issues raised in the lawsuit; California banned affirmative action in 1996.

    “Canceling grants midcycle and right in the middle of the semester creates unprecedented confusion and chaos,” Cullen said. “Our central goal is student success and getting students across the stage with a degree in hand. And this just continually undermines those efforts to do that.”

    Meanwhile, CSU has no way to make up for the full extent of the funding losses, said Dilcie Perez, the system’s deputy vice chancellor of academic and student affairs. She called the abrupt end of MSI grants a “triple blow” at a time when the system’s campuses are already facing a $144 million cut in state support. The system also has only $760 million in reserves, a meager emergency fund compared to the endowments of wealthier institutions. She expects campus leaders will have to make painful choices, including cutting faculty and staff positions, to make the numbers work.

    “I think the reality is we don’t know the magnitude yet,” Perez said, “but what we know is … we have folks who have lost positions, we have students who have lost support services, and that is not OK. What I know to be true is that no one campus can completely replace any of the funding that they lost.”

    Jiménez-Sandoval, of Fresno State, said because of state-level cuts, he’s had to scrape together funds for “the basics,” leaving the university to rely on HSI funding to afford efforts to boost retention and graduation rates. More than 60 percent of Fresno State’s students are Latino, and about 65 percent qualify for Pell Grants and are the first in their families to attend college; many of them “need an extra little push in order to support them through their college career,” he said.

    Despite some success with fundraising, he doesn’t believe philanthropy will ever make up for the missing funds.

    The HSI program “is systemic and comprehensive in its support, and likewise, it is systemic and comprehensive in the tragic hit that we are taking right now,” he said.

    Ronald S. Rochon, president of California State University, Fullerton, said he’s reaching out to alumni, donors and industry leaders in the hopes of keeping programs previously supported by HSI funding alive.

    The end of HSI grants cost the campus at least $4.2 million, he said, endangering a range of student services. For example, money evaporated for the university’s Establishing Roots to Grow STEMs program, which offers peer mentoring and other supports to math and science majors, as well as the Fullerton ASPIRE program, which aims to improve graduation and retention rates for underserved students, including first-generation and community college transfer students.

    Rochon plans to “fight hard” to preserve such programs. He emphasized that the university’s student success goals aren’t going to change, despite the losses. But he also pleaded with policymakers to “reconsider.”

    While 54 percent of CSUF’s more than 45,000 students are Hispanic, “this is not just impacting students who identify as Hispanic,” Rochon stressed. “This impacts our entire campus community.” Some of these losses risk bringing “great devastation to our student body.”

    Perez worries that the full effects of the funding losses on CSU students won’t be clear for years. She expects the sudden end of MSI funding will get in the way of the system’s long-term goals for students, including increasing graduation rates.

    “More likely than not, there will be students who are not able to hit the finish line in the same time frame as they would have with this support and with this funding,” Perez said. CSU leaders are scrambling to figure out “how do we mitigate that as much as possible, because we’re not OK with students not crossing the finish line.”

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  • IVF and the Leadership Gap for Women (opinion)

    IVF and the Leadership Gap for Women (opinion)

    After a 20-year career in higher education, including roles as a chief academic officer and faculty member, I left to have a child. I was one step away from a presidency on the higher ed career ladder, and in fact I had written my dissertation on what gets in the way of women moving into college presidencies. Yet it was not until I finally met my life partner and had the opportunity, in my 40s, to start a family that I understood how fully the higher ed career deck is still stacked against those seeking to have children, and especially those seeking to have children in nontraditional ways—largely women, LGBTQIA+ folks and anyone facing a difficult pregnancy, in vitro fertilization, adoption or fostering process.

    In the United States, 2.6 percent of all births—95,860 babies in 2023—result from IVF, a time-consuming, costly and physically and emotionally challenging process. The percentage for women academics may be even higher, given their relatively high education levels, socioeconomic status and pressure to delay childbearing for academic careers. According to Pew, 56 percent of people with graduate degrees have gone through or know someone who has undergone IVF or other assisted reproduction.

    The literature has well documented how the academy has been created by men and is designed to fit their needs and their bodies. Women who have sought professorships or academic leadership positions have, historically, needed to conform to rules written for men’s life cycles. Articles such as Carmen Armenti’s classic “May Babies and Posttenure Babies” speak to women’s attempts to give birth at the end of the academic year and after earning tenure. The tenure clock illustrates this issue well—the usual seven years in which a newly hired assistant professor has time to sufficiently publish and obtain tenure largely coincide with women’s most fertile years. Many forward-thinking institutions such as the University of California system have been addressing this issue by stopping the tenure clock for childbirth and related family formation. It is a step in the right direction that all colleges and universities should consider.

    But what happens when the usual challenges of pregnancy and childbirth are compounded by infertility, miscarriage and the sometimes years-long process of IVF?

    I met my husband during the pandemic, and we married the next year. Both of us in our 40s and having always wanted a child but neither having met the right partner, we quickly found ourselves going down the IVF route. At the time, I had completed a one-year executive interim role and was on the job hunt and doing part-time remote teaching, and this situation proved fortuitous.

    I had no idea how grueling the IVF process would be—multiple rounds of more than a month at a time of hormone pills; nightly self-administered injections for weeks on end; weekly doctor visits, blood draws and ultrasounds—and at the end of each round, a day surgery under anesthesia to retrieve eggs. Several iterations of this, followed by more of a similar process to prepare the body for embryo transfer. The journey is physically and emotionally exhausting, time-consuming, and logistically challenging. It can also be incredibly expensive, with the medications and surgeries costing into the tens of thousands for those whose health insurance does not cover it.

    My husband and I had a number of factors helping us on this journey. We had built a supportive network of family and friends. We were fortunate that I was less sick than many women are on these medications. Finally, we were privileged to have insurance (through my husband’s job, which is not in higher ed) that paid for the majority of our treatments. Due to working part-time and remotely, I had the flexibility I needed to take naps, wear comfortable clothes that fit my bloated belly without having to reveal my family-forming status to anyone at work and generally have the privacy I needed during a challenging time.

    Other women who work full-time in-person during this process navigate a daunting gauntlet of frequent doctor appointments, exhaustion and sickness at work, while trying to hide a body that can look pregnant before it is. Not to mention that few people fully understand the process, and telling a little can lead you down an uncomfortable path of revealing a lot. Because everything is timed to the menstrual cycle, seemingly innocent questions inevitably lead to awkward conversations. It’s therefore hard to share what you’re going through or ask for support at work at the time you need it most.

    And then there are the chemical pregnancies and miscarriages that can happen, and did for us. Grieving for both parents is exacerbated by the isolation and privacy of the whole process. Some companies and higher ed institutions, such as Tufts University in Massachusetts, now offer bereavement leave for miscarriage, something that happens in 10 to 20 percent of pregnancies but is still rarely talked about. All institutions throughout higher ed should offer similar leave.

    During this journey, I was also interviewing for full-time jobs, and I was hired into a senior leadership position. My husband and I were taking a break from the exhausting process at that point and the opportunity was once-in-a-lifetime, and so we picked up and moved two states away. My husband’s job had gone remote, giving us the flexibility we needed for my career. We wagered that if I stayed in a part-time role too much longer, it would be increasingly difficult to climb back into a full-time position. The stigma around a résumé gap is alive and well in higher education, with little understanding that this gap often reflects people’s (frequently women’s) time away for family and other care-taking needs, rather than their work experience or abilities. Yet, even when I’ve tried to explain to search committees that I’ve led how discriminatory it can be to overly focus on résumé gaps, faculty and staff often have looked askance at me. This is something else that needs to change.

    My husband and I waited almost a year before doing our next embryo transfer. I settled into the job, we settled into our home, we finally had a post-COVID celebration of our marriage. And then I was pregnant! Sadly, I miscarried again toward the end of my first trimester. I powered through at work, serving as a chief academic officer and supervising 200 people while trying to juggle meds, doctor’s appointments, exhaustion and then loss. I read students’ names at a stadium-sized graduation ceremony soon after a miscarriage.

    It became clear to me over the following months that the stress and lack of flexibility of a senior role would not lend itself to a last chance at a healthy pregnancy. It was a difficult decision to leave, but also one that I had no doubts about once made. Within weeks we were pregnant again, this time successfully so with a beautiful baby girl who is now a year old. It was not an easy pregnancy, and our daughter likely would not be here had I stayed in my role and not been able to rest as much as I did.

    Since her birth, I have launched a higher ed editing and consulting business, resumed teaching part-time, and otherwise adjusted to life as a new mother. For me, leaving higher ed senior leadership was a deliberate choice. I needed more flexibility and control over my own time to be able to care for myself and my child properly. I may or may not return someday to that leadership pathway, and that door may or may not be open to me if I attempt to do so. I’ve learned, however, that to address the question my dissertation asked—Why don’t we have more women in presidencies?—we need to better understand and respond to the many women (and many men and nonbinary folks) who find themselves going through similar family-formation challenges across higher education.

    • First, we need to offer more flexibility—remote work, flexible hours, the option for extended parental leaves for new parents and foster parents.
    • Second, we need to consider not only fully paid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act for childbirth and parental bonding, but also paid medical benefits for IVF as well as similar support for adoption and fostering.
    • Third, we need to formalize bereavement leave for miscarriage.
    • Fourth, we need to destigmatize the career gap, so that those who leave would have the opportunity to return.
    • Fifth, we need to fairly compensate those who assume the work of colleagues who take FMLA for any care-taking reason.
    • Lastly, we need to change the higher ed culture to one that understands and supports family formation in all its iterations, not just traditional pregnancy with traditional medical leaves.

    I recognize my privilege in being able to leave my job—privilege that enabled me to have a child when so many before me without the same economic resources have not been able to. My situation may seem like an outlier to those who are in their 20s or early 30s or who have had relatively easy and healthy pregnancies. But I’m sure that my story rings true for those who have delayed childbearing for their academic careers and then faced the rigors of IVF, or for people of any age who have faced infertility or more difficult pregnancies. For those LGBTQIA+ and other folks who go through the egg/sperm donation process and IVF and surrogacy. For couples and singles who may adopt or foster and face needs for legal meetings and other child-related time off that institutions do not always provide.

    Higher ed has taught me so much about antiracism, feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights and other inclusive practices. However, higher ed writ large doesn’t offer the kinds of paid leave and flexibility needed for all employees to succeed at both parenting and work.

    Higher ed is losing women with executive leadership potential. The majority of undergraduate and graduate students are women. Yet only 37 percent of full-time faculty are women. Only 33 percent of college presidents are women. Women melt away for a host of reasons. But this former chief academic officer, one step away from a presidency on the career ladder, left the executive pathway because it was the only way I could do so and have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy child.

    As long as higher ed makes having a child versus having an academic career a zero-sum choice for many women, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we still have so few women in senior leadership. When the answer becomes “yes, have both” at institutions across the board is when we might start to see the numbers change.

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  • 4 Ways to Better Grade Team Projects (opinion)

    4 Ways to Better Grade Team Projects (opinion)

    Some professors resist using teamwork in their classes because they mistakenly believe that team projects are too difficult to grade. One issue is that, as educators, we often only evaluate the team presentation, project or paper with a grade based on how well the team has met our learning objectives.

    However, a single project evaluation at the end allows some members to potentially free ride on harder-working teammates, or enables one aggressive or dominating member to take over the entire project to ensure the team gets an A. If we simply grade team projects at the end, it is too late for our student teams to adapt or adjust and learn how to be better at working in teams, a key skill that employers look for in our graduates.

    The key to effectively grading teamwork is to set up the grading process systematically at the start of the project. In this article, we offer four ways that you can grade team projects effectively to meet your learning objectives and help students become better team members.

    1. Share your grading rubric at the start of the assignment. Students need to know at the outset of the team project how they will be graded. Many good students tell us they hate team projects because they know they will have to deal with “social loafers” who rely on one or two others to do the work. However, by sharing a rubric that highlights the expectations for each team member and how you will be combining individual and team grading, you can help students make more intentional decisions regarding how they distribute the assignment’s requirements. We not only distribute the rubric at the start of the project, but we post it on our course management system and frequently review it with the class so our expectations are clear.
    2. Include peer evaluation as a part of the evaluation process. Students are sometimes asked to rate their fellow team members, but they are seldom taught how to do it well. As a result, they tend to only give positive feedback to avoid conflict or hurting another student’s feelings. Teaching peer feedback takes only a little class time, as few as 15 minutes. It starts with clarifying your expectations about how you will use peer feedback. You can use or create a form that allows students to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback, and then you should use this same form multiple times during the project. The first time you collect peer feedback should be a low-stakes or practice situation early during the project so that students have a psychologically safe opportunity to learn how to use it. Your students should begin with self-evaluation and then evaluate their peers.
      Next, you need to summarize the peer feedback and give results to individual students so they know how they are doing. Finally, have groups reflect on how well the group is doing without naming or shaming others. There are times when students will have to give feedback to a person who is free riding or loafing. When they do, make sure they know to first ask that person for permission before they give feedback, then praise in public, and finally provide any negative feedback in private. Finally, we have a YouTube video that instructors can show during class to help students learn about how to give and receive feedback.
    1. Incorporate ongoing feedback from the instructor. We know of faculty who give out a team assignment and never mention it again until the week before the project is due. This is setting up the student teams for failure. Faculty need to check in frequently with their teams to be sure they are making progress on their work and any questions or concerns are answered. Taking just five minutes at the end of class for teams to meet can pay great dividends in a better project product. This instructor feedback can include a way to hold individual team members accountable for the work they are doing. For example, we have set up a separate Google folder for each team with instructor access. Each team member needed to post their contributions to the team project weekly. In this way, we could keep an eye on any social loafers, and provide feedback to those who were working independently instead of with the team. Instructors can also schedule a brief time to sit in on team meetings so that they get a more comprehensive update about the project and who is working toward each of the outcomes.
    2. Carefully consider the weight you give to each phase of the project. It is essential to incorporate peer assessments and the instructor evaluation about how well the project met the learning objectives into any final grade; both are important. However, the weight of these different evaluations tells students the importance of each. More weight on the individual peer assessments stresses the individual work, while more weight on the instructor grade of the project shows the team efforts are more important. At a minimum, use the 80/20 rule: At least 20 percent of the student’s grade should be based on each.
      Also, be sure to check the peer evaluations to verify that they result from real behaviors rather than personal biases. We accomplish this by looking for consistency across the times of evaluation, across team members and between peer and self-evaluations. In most cases, we find that the evaluations show consistency in all three areas (though self-evaluations are often inflated). In the rare cases when they don’t align, we always refer to supporting documentation, such as agendas, meeting minutes and information that resulted from our ongoing check-ins to help make sense of the reasons underlying any inconsistencies.

    Grading a team project may seem like a daunting challenge, but grading is by no means a reason to avoid giving students the experience of working with a team. By following these four principles for evaluating teamwork, instructors can account for the team’s achievement of the learning objectives as well as provide students with valuable teamwork experiences that they can take to future classes, internships, co-ops and employment.

    Lauren Vicker is a communications professor emeritus, and Tim Franz is a professor of psychology, both at St. John Fisher University. They are the authors of Making Team Projects Work: A College Instructor’s Guide to Successful Student Groupwork (Taylor & Francis, 2024).

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  • Think Like a Linguist: It’s time for a national conversation about the value of languages 

    Think Like a Linguist: It’s time for a national conversation about the value of languages 

    Author:
    Dr Charlotte Ryland

    Published:

    This guest blog was kindly authored by Dr Charlotte Ryland, Director of the Translation Exchange. 

    ‘Languages are not just a skillset, they’re a mindset.’ 

    I still remember where I was when a teacher friend made this comment, a few years ago, because it highlighted something I’d been worrying at for a long time. I felt that languages education for young learners undervalued the process of language learning itself, by underrating what it means to be a linguist. That value needed to be completely reframed: to move far beyond the notion that language learning gives you a set of useful communicative skills – the ‘utility argument’ – towards a more holistic and ambitious vision of the linguist’s mindset.  

    Fast forward to this summer, and a HEPI report by Megan Bowler highlighted a programme that I co-founded as doing just that: ‘[Think Like a Linguist offers] 12-13 year olds clear demonstrations of the value of a linguistic “mindset” and its real-world applications’.  

    That notion of the ‘real-world application’ is essential to how we think and talk about language learning and needs unpicking. I founded a languages outreach and advocacy centre (based at The Queen’s College, Oxford) because I was frustrated by existing languages outreach mechanisms run by universities. This frustration came in part from what I perceived as an over-emphasis on precisely those ‘real-world applications’: the outreach programmes I encountered tended to rely heavily on imagined futures – Keep learning your vocab and practising your grammar, then you’ll see! A life of travel, international business careers, slightly higher salaries awaits you! Yet this approach did not seem to be working for the year groups whose minds needed to be changed.  

    The cliff-edge for languages – in England and Wales – is now GCSE options, with over 50% of pupils opting out at the age of 13/14, i.e. at their first opportunity to do so. Languages presents university outreach with a special case, then: with a need to engage much younger learners than has traditionally been the case. Ideally, we start at upper primary and focus on lower secondary school learners, before pupils begin to think seriously about their GCSE options. My approach to working with this demographic has been to take a ‘show, not tell’ approach – to involve learners from age 8 in rich, creative, cultural activities that enable them to experience first-hand the pleasure and purpose of being a linguist.  

    That focus on showing is key to how we should treat the real-world applications, too. It is not enough to give pupils a learning experience based solely on communicative skills, while trying to tell them that this education will secure them a good job in our competitive, AI-soaked 21st-century economy. They don’t buy it, and the uptake statistics for formal language learning bear this out. Instead, we need to show those learners how relevant and in-demand the ‘linguistic mindset’ they develop will be, by integrating into the learning experience the broadest conception of what it means to be a linguist.  

    Higher Education institutions can do this. And they’ll do so much more effectively if they work together. They have access to a huge community of language graduates, who have between them generations of experience in the widest range of professions. With this community, the broadest conception of the linguistic mindset becomes tangible. In my experience, it falls into your lap the minute you ask one of these graduates about the impact of their languages education on their career path and life experience. 

    A standard response runs like this: they move quickly through the frontline benefits around communication in other languages – taking them as a given – and light instead on what Bowler refers to as ‘the irreplaceable advantages of the “linguistic mindset”’. For a lawyer, it includes the capacity to cope with frustration, to tolerate and work through uncertainty; for a consultant, it is being able to build trusted relationships and read between the lines. A civil servant might reference their ability to synthesise and analyse a large amount of information, seeking out potential biases and multiple perspectives. The list goes on and is underlined by the striking words of a 13-year-old participant in Think Like a Linguist: ‘I learnt that there is more to languages than speaking and listening. It’s also about thinking in your own way.’  

    If we have access to a form of education that stands to raise a generation of individuals able to think for themselves, and to do so on the global stage, then what are we waiting for? 

    The readiness of languages graduates to share these insights is one of the sector’s greatest assets. We need a national conversation about the value of languages for individuals and for society, fuelled by these stories and taking full account of the challenges currently being set us by AI. Duolingo have set us on an excellent path, with evidence in their user statistics and polling that the UK is a country of languages enthusiasts. As Duolingo’s UK Director Michael Lynas notes in his introduction to Bowler’s report, we need not be dogged by the negativity that often frames conversations about languages: instead, we must build on the tangible positives.  

    For this national conversation to make an impact, collaboration will be key. Shared learning from effective university outreach programmes to date can provide a basis for this conversation. And The Languages Gateway, a new cross-sector initiative dedicated to collating resources and supporting strategic collaboration, can host it. Further backing for this national conversation from higher education institutions and central government will support the Gateway in its work to raise the national profile of languages to where it belongs: delivering ‘irreplaceable’ value to 21st-century global Britain. 

      

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  • The higher education sector needs an honest broker to support structural change

    The higher education sector needs an honest broker to support structural change

    Of all the current headwinds faced by the higher education sector, one of the most challenging is a lack of expertise and experience in the area of structural change.

    In an environment where radical collaboration and merger are increasingly seen – rightly or wrongly – as a solution to the sector’s financial challenges, the expertise needed to broker and execute a successful merger or other collaboration seems to be patchy.

    As, arguably, are the somewhat different competences required to steward the longer term strategic integration of two or more distinct institutions, each with their own teaching and research portfolios and cultures. The answer to the question “who has done this before?” can only be answered in the affirmative by a handful of people.

    This issue was acknowledged in Mills & Reeve’s joint report with Wonkhe Connect More with the following insight from a one of the heads of institution we interviewed:

    We all have a skills matrix for boards and for courts and for councils. I think, increasingly, that needs to reflect people who’ve got some expertise and some background in this space…I don’t think there are many vice chancellors who would necessarily have the skills, the knowledge, and the background. Really, this is new territory, potentially, for us, it’s new turf.

    Of course, it wasn’t always thus. One of the ironies of the current dearth of experience is that large numbers of providers are themselves the product of historic mergers and collaborations. Taking the long view, the history of many providers is a complex genealogy, a narrative of mergers past and more recent.

    In part, the steady decline in institutional experience of these things was the natural result of a relatively benign financial environment. It’s easy to forget in the current climate but the period of low inflation and cheap borrowing meant that, at an institutional level, there was little impetus to challenge the operating model and, of course, the introduction of a marketised funding model meant that competition, rather than collaboration, was very much the order of the day.

    That marketised model was also accompanied by a marked shift in approach from the regulator. While HEFCE adopted a relatively low-key approach to mergers and collaboration – generally leaving the impetus to come together to institutions themselves – it did publish guidance on mergers and had a collaboration and restructuring fund to assist institutions to explore and implement structural change.

    Crucially, HEFCE was widely accepted to be a neutral broker who would help facilitate institutions coming together – and it had the funding to help smooth the path. By contrast, OfS, in its response to a question from the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee, made it clear that it does not consider itself to have “the remit, powers or funding to intervene to prevent closure or to facilitate mergers or acquisitions.”

    Skills gap

    Where, then, does that leave providers? Typically, there is a reliance on the institution’s executive team, in particular, the vice chancellor, to steer the merger. But most higher education executives are not from the business world with experience in mergers and to a significant degree they have a conflict of interest. There is also a need to continue with their day jobs and manage business as usual in case the merger doesn’t happen.

    The next most obvious port of call is to look for expertise among their own governing bodies, and, specifically, their external members. After all, one of the main motivations of having lay external members is to draw upon their expertise and to fill gaps which (understandably enough) exist within the skill sets of senior management teams and the institution more widely.

    The problem, however, is that merger and radical collaboration require a very particular set of skills. It’s very easy for universities to get starry-eyed about a governor just because they happen to be an investment banker, an accountant, or have experience of public sector mergers in the NHS, for example. But the skills required in a university merger or a complex debt restructuring are very specific and even a governing body which is well-stocked with members from across different professional services and backgrounds cannot assume that its trustees have the requisite expertise to drive forward a merger of two institutions.

    Of course, an institution can buy in a certain level of expertise. But what perhaps can’t always be replicated by professional advice are the experience and war stories of those who have lived and breathed mergers and collaborations from the inside – particularly from the education and adjacent sectors. In Mills & Reeve’s joint report with KPMG UK – Radical collaboration: a playbook – we drew out some of those lived experiences in the form of case studies. However, written case studies need to be seasoned with real-life personal experience. What is really needed when scoping a potential merger or other kind of radical collaboration is access to a “hive mind” of critical friends.

    An HE Commissioner model

    Other sectors have taken a strategic approach to developing this expertise. The Further Education Commissioner is the most obvious parallel. Between 2015 and 2019 the FE sector saw 57 mergers, three federations, three joint FE and HE institutions and 23 academy conversions. If most of UK higher education no longer has institutional memory of mergers, FE has it in bucket loads.

    The FE Commissioner and their team offer a range of services to FE colleges – ranging from informal chats and financial health checks, through to more formal invention assessments. Their team – a mix of former leaders and finance professionals from within the sector – have genuinely seen and done it all before. Higher education deserves the same deep pool of knowledge to draw on, especially if the worst case scenario of institutional insolvency and/or disorderly market exit is to be avoided.

    For this to work successfully in HE there would need to be some level of funding and a decision as to whether a commissioner’s role might sit within DfE or OfS. Our sense – particularly given the size and complexity of universities and the involvement of key stakeholders such as banks and private placement bondholders – is that there will still be a large role played by private sector consultants, lawyers, and accountants. However, there is room for a more collegiate level of engagement from DfE and OfS than arguably exists at present.

    As well as pooling expertise on how to collaborate, placing an HE commissioner role on a formal footing might also allow it to broker conversations between providers seeking to work together more closely – something which, in our experience, is done very hesitantly at present, both because of the fear of breaching competition rules and, more generally, because every potential collaboration partner is, in a very real sense, also a competitor.

    What can’t be underestimated is how urgently this function is needed. Providers are capable of doing this alone, as recent examples such as the Anglia Ruskin/Writtle and St George’s/City mergers testify. However, how much better for the long-term future of the sector it would surely be if providers had ready access to some critical friends and some “protected” spaces to have conversations about how best to achieve and implement forms of radical collaboration.

    This article is published in association with Mills & Reeve. 

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  • iSpring Course Creation Contest – Campus Review

    iSpring Course Creation Contest – Campus Review

    Creating online courses that truly engage learners is no small feat. That’s why the iSpring Course Creation Contest has become such an exciting platform for educators, students, and learning professionals in Australia and around the globe. It’s more than a competition, it’s a hands-on, skill-building experience that inspires creativity, encourages collaboration, and gives participants the chance to shine.

    This year, the contest attracted 1,097 applications from 100 countries, culminating in 109 impressive final projects. The contest offered a practical way for newcomers, considering their career in ID design, to explore iSpring Suite, a powerful authoring tool for building slide-based and scrollable courses. Participants went through an intensive onboarding program to learn not only how to use the software, but also how to craft courses that are interactive, visually compelling, and pedagogically sound.

    For students and educators in Australia, especially those enrolled in instructional design programs, this kind of hands-on experience is a real advantage. It helps them build the practical skills and confidence needed to excel in a field that’s rapidly growing and evolving.

    Learning Through Collaboration

    One of the most exciting aspects of the contest was the community. Participants weren’t working in isolation, they received guidance from past winners and expert judges, including industry leaders: Nicole Lugara, Clark Quinn, David Kelly, Holly Owens, Mike Taylor, Robin Sargent, and ten other experts. This feedback helped participants refine their projects and grow their skills.

    The collaborative environment encouraged participants to exchange ideas, discuss challenges, and learn from one another that mirrored the real-world teamwork existing in instructional design.

    Demonstrating Creativity and Skills

    Contestants could create content in two categories: slide-based courses and scrollable courses. They were evaluated on learning objectives, content consistency, design, learner engagement, compliance, and creativity.

    Celebrating the Winners

    Here are the winners in both categories and a glimpse of their outstanding work:

    Winners in the slide-based course category

    Winners in the scrollable course category

    These projects showcase creativity, technical skill, and a deep understanding of instructional design — one of the most in-demand skills in today’s era of digital education. They prove that great ideas, when paired with the right tools, can turn learning into an engaging and impactful experience.

    Winners not only received cash prizes and certificates, but also recognition that strengthens their professional portfolios and encourages others to join and explore the new field of eLearning.

    Learning That Lasts Beyond the Contest

    The iSpring contest isn’t just a one-time event — it’s a launchpad for ongoing professional growth. From live Q&A sessions to structured training and expert feedback, participants gained insights and skills they can apply long after the competition ends. For educators and students alike, this kind of practical experience is invaluable in a world where online learning and instructional technology are constantly evolving.

    Your Turn to Shine

    If you’re ready to explore new tools, strengthen your instructional design skills, and connect with a global eLearning community, start your journey with a free trial of iSpring Suite. Whether it’s building your first course or taking your portfolio to the next level, the next contest is just around the corner, and it’s your chance to shine.

    Create, connect, and inspire, because the future of online learning is waiting for bold ideas like yours.

    Do you have an idea for a story?
    Email [email protected]

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  • Trump Administration Fires Nearly All Staff Overseeing Special Education Programs

    Trump Administration Fires Nearly All Staff Overseeing Special Education Programs

    The U.S. Department of Education has terminated nearly every employee in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in a sweeping wave of layoffs that began Friday, according to the union representing agency staff—a move that advocates say will devastate services for millions of students with disabilities.

    While the agency has not provided official numbers, reports from staff and managers indicate that most employees below the leadership level in the division were eliminated, said Rachel Gittleman, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Employees in the college access program known as TRIO, housed in a different office, were also let go.

    The union has challenged the firings in court, arguing they “double down on the harm to K-12 students and schools across the country,” Gittleman told USA TODAY.

    Education Department spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. However, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously stated that safeguarding students with disabilities and ensuring their access to legally mandated educational resources is a top priority. “I would like to see even more funding go to the states for that,” she told CNN in March.

    In a Friday court filing, the Justice Department confirmed that more than 460 Education Department employees had been laid off, cutting roughly one-fifth of the agency’s workforce. The terminations, which have affected more than half a dozen federal agencies, are part of a broader Trump administration effort to pressure congressional Democrats to end the ongoing government shutdown. Nearly 90% of the Education Department remains furloughed.

    The agency eliminated nearly every employee responsible for administering funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—the primary federal law supporting students with disabilities. The staffer expressed uncertainty about how these programs will continue to function.

    Secretary McMahon has suggested that oversight of IDEA funding might be better positioned within the Department of Health and Human Services rather than at the Education Department, though officially moving it would require congressional action.

    The mass firings have drawn sharp criticism from education equity advocates who warn of dire consequences for vulnerable students.

    “The Trump administration’s attack on public education continued this weekend as students with disabilities are at risk of losing the services, supports, and oversight that protect their civil rights,” said Denise Forte, president and CEO of The Education Trust. 

    “The administration’s unfathomable decision to fire all employees who administer the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) abandons the 7.5 million students with disabilities and their families,” Forte continued. “Roughly 15% of public school students have a disability, and federal enforcement of IDEA is crucial to ensuring that these students receive a free and appropriate public education.”

    Forte said that the layoffs will have particularly significant consequences for students of color with disabilities, who already face greater barriers to accessing services and are subjected to disproportionately harsher discipline.

    “This is a direct assault on all parents of and students with disabilities and all students and families who know that an excellent education system is a diverse and inclusive one,” Forte said. “I call on the Trump administration to reverse these cuts immediately.”

    The firings come amid widespread disruption across the Education Department, which has also experienced problems with financial aid administration following earlier rounds of layoffs.

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  • Why Ireland is becoming the ultimate international higher education hub

    Why Ireland is becoming the ultimate international higher education hub

    Ireland is quickly becoming one of the world’s most attractive destinations for international students. The changing global landscape, coupled with a shift in focus away from the big four, has allowed Ireland to come to the fore as an exciting option for those considering studying overseas.

    With its thriving tech ecosystem, progressive visa policies, and competitive education costs, Ireland is positioning itself as a smart and strategic alternative to traditional study hubs like the US and the UK.

    Leading in tech-focused growth

    Ireland’s reputation as Europe’s Silicon Valley is drawing growing numbers of students seeking cutting-edge degrees in technology, science, and innovation. As digital transformation accelerates, Ireland’s universities have evolved their programmes to meet future job market demands. For students aspiring to work in AI, cybersecurity, or data science, Ireland’s blend of academic excellence and industry access has become a clear competitive advantage.

    Visa and immigration: the competitive edge

    While traditional destinations such as the US and UK experience policy slowdowns and increased visa scrutiny, Ireland is seizing the opportunity to attract globally mobile talent.

    Ireland has the upper hand on the UK, as recent policy shifts, such as restrictions on student dependents, proposed 6% levy being passed onto international students and reduction of the Graduate Visa from two years to 18 months, have cast uncertainty on whether the UK will provide accessible opportunities and pathways into employment after graduation.

    A recent example of this in action came last week, as many international students had been accepted on courses provided by University College London but were left in limbo for nearly a week, having paid thousands of pounds in costs and sought visa and immigration expertise to manage their application as the number of places available had reached capacity.

    While the Home Office granted expedited approval of the visas, caps on international student numbers and additional layers of uncertainty and complication elsewhere could be contributing to Ireland recording the highest ever enrolment level of international students in 2024.

    Ireland has the upper hand on the UK, as recent policy shifts, such as restrictions on student dependents… have cast uncertainty on whether the UK will provide accessible opportunities and pathways into employment after graduation

    Attesting to this, in 2024, the number of international students from India fell in Canada, the US and by approximately 30% in the UK. Conversely, Ireland has gone from strength to strength, with enrolment figures growing by nearly 50% between 2023 and 2024, making it one of the fastest-growing destinations for Indian students to gain a degree overseas.

    As an outlier in the context of the traditional big four study destinations, Ireland offers a streamlined and accessible visa system. Students who complete their degrees can apply for a two-year post-study work visa, allowing them to gain valuable professional experience and explore long-term career opportunities.

    Equally appealing is Ireland’s open approach to international enrolment; there are no restrictive quotas or caps on overseas student numbers, meaning that those with the right qualifications have a genuine opportunity to study and build their future in Ireland.

    Career opportunities and cost-effective education

    According to the 2025 Report on Studying in Ireland, students from mainland China now make up 10.9% of Ireland’s international student body, making China the third-largest source country. The report credited Ireland with being preferential to Chinese students, its university diplomas are globally recognised, while 55% are drawn by strong work visa policies and a thriving job market.

    Adding to its appeal, Ireland offers a more cost-effective pathway to a world-class education. With average tuition and living expenses ranging between €30,000–€40,000 per year, roughly 30-40% lower than in the US or UK, Ireland provides access to prestigious universities and globally recognised qualifications without the financial barriers often associated with other leading destinations.

    What is next for Ireland? Expanding Ireland’s global footprint

    There has been a clear pursuit over the past 18 months from UK universities towards setting up international hubs and campuses across Asia and Middle East to recuperate costs from the fall of international students, a bid to develop new global partnerships and retain prestige.

    While demand from international students is not waning in Ireland, will institutions embrace similar strategic moves to explore ways to strengthen their global? UK universities such as the University of Southampton have opened a campus in Delhi, and earlier in 2025, Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University Belfast was approved by regulators to open a branch campus in India.

    Ireland has begun to make moves in this area, with the Technological University of the Shannon opening student liaison offices in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in 2021 to increase student recruitment.

    As Ireland strengthens its position as a destination for global talent, the natural next step may be for its institutions to expand their presence overseas, ensuring the country’s influence in higher education continues to grow well beyond its borders.

    The PIE Live Ireland is being held on October 14. Secure your tickets now.

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  • 2 U.S. Academics Among Winners of Nobel Prize in Economics

    2 U.S. Academics Among Winners of Nobel Prize in Economics

    Two American academics were among the three winners of this year’s Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. They were given the prestigious award “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday morning.

    Joel Mokyr, the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, will receive half the roughly $1.6 million prize “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress,” according to the announcement.

    Peter Howitt, a professor emeritus of economics at Brown University, will split the other half of the award money with Philippe Aghion of Collège de France and INSEAD and the London School of Economics and Political Science, “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”

    “The laureates’ work shows that economic growth cannot be taken for granted,” said John Hassler, chair of the committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences. “We must uphold the mechanisms that underlie creative destruction, so that we do not fall back into stagnation.”

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