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  • ‘Everything, everywhere, all at once’: How Trump has upended higher ed finance in 2025

    ‘Everything, everywhere, all at once’: How Trump has upended higher ed finance in 2025

    NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Liz Clark would have lost a bet on the massive Republican tax and spending bill passed and signed into law earlier this month. 

    Clark, the vice president for policy and research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, said she didn’t expect the bill to be finalized until early fall. While only off by a few months, Clark’s missed guess illustrates just one of many unexpected developments for higher education — and the world — since President Donald Trump retook office in January. 

    Speaking at NACUBO’s annual conference near Washington, D.C., on Sunday, Clark pointed to more than a decade of divided governments, intraparty policy squabbles and political gridlock as Democrats and Republicans have traded thin majorities in Congress. 

    Based on that history, it might have seemed improbable that Republicans could swiftly move a massive policy package through two houses of Congress where they held razor-thin leads. But Republicans did, and Congress got a bill to Trump’s desk by the date he demanded. 

    “This is a quintessential moment in seeing that past performance is no indication of future results,” Clark said. 

    The bill has plenty of implications for college finance departments, not to mention students and all other stakeholders in higher education. And it’s just one of many policy sea changes the sector has seen since Trump and a Republican-led Congress came to office six short months ago. 

    From new taxes to new legal liabilities, below is a look at how politics and policy are impacting college finance offices. 

    A blitz of executive orders

    So far in his roughly six months in office, Trump has already issued more executive orders than Joe Biden did during his entire four-year term. According to data from the American Presidency Project, Trump is on pace to issue more orders per year than any other president in history, except potentially Franklin Roosevelt in his first term at the height of the Great Depression. 

    And several of those orders have cut to the heart of higher ed in the U.S., including orders targeting college diversity initiatives and seeking to revamp accreditation. 

    “Every president has tested the limits of executive power. This is not new,” Clark said. “What is new, at least for us, especially when it comes to issues impacting higher education, is the scope, the number of executive orders, the number of changes in law that are impacting your campuses.” She added, “We have, this year, been dealing with everything, everywhere, all at once.”

    Trump’s order on diversity, equity and inclusion programs has drawn rebukes, including through litigation, for being vague and potentially stifling to free speech and intellectual activity. 

    “DEI is not illegal,” Clark said, pointing specifically to the administration’s executive order on the topic. 

    College researchers, meanwhile, are being asked to certify their compliance with executive orders, including those related to DEI, when applying for grants. That can present a dicey situation when directives are vaguely worded. 

    In some cases, federal agencies have even asked researchers to certify compliance with all future executive orders that may be issued someday, noted Jen Gartner, deputy general counsel for University of Maryland, College Park, at a NACUBO conference panel Monday.

    “Obviously, we don’t know what we would be certifying compliance with,” Gartner said.

    Certification requirements for grants can vary by agency, but Gartner noted the one commonality is that they “now all mention that our certification is material for the False Claims Act.”

    The False Claims Act bars fraud in government contracting. Trump’s Department of Justice in May launched an initiative that threatens universities with investigations under the law over their DEI programs and policies for transgender students and athletes.    

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  • Northwestern University Announces Major Staff Cuts Amid Federal Funding Crisis

    Northwestern University Announces Major Staff Cuts Amid Federal Funding Crisis

    Northwestern University is moving forward with plans to eliminate more than 400 staff positions as it confronts significant financial challenges stemming from a $790 million federal funding freeze implemented by the Trump administration, according to multiple sources familiar with internal discussions.

    The cuts will affect staff across multiple schools within the university system, including the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and the McCormick School of Engineering. Administrators have begun notifying affected departments of the impending workforce reductions.

    In a university-wide communication released earlier this week, Northwestern leadership confirmed the elimination of approximately 425 positions throughout the institution. Half of these positions are currently vacant, while the remainder will result in actual job losses. The reductions are expected to decrease the university’s staff-related budget by roughly 5 percent.

    The administration characterized the decision as necessary to address what they termed a “significant budget gap” that cannot be resolved without reducing personnel expenses, which represent 56 percent of Northwestern’s total annual operating costs.

    Prior to implementing the staff reductions, university leadership directed schools and administrative units to approach the cuts strategically, with instructions to “think strategically about how to minimize the impacts to their units, our workforce, students, and the University.”

     

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  • Grant Applications for Campus Childcare Put on Hold

    Grant Applications for Campus Childcare Put on Hold

    Eveline McPhee, a 39-year-old mother of two, has been a dental assistant in northern Massachusetts for nearly 15 years. And while she’s long aspired to upgrade that title to dental hygienist, for most of her career that goal seemed unattainable.

    With a full-time job, managing classes seemed arduous, and without a job she and her husband wouldn’t be able to afford day care and after-school programs.

    But that all changed last year when an admissions officer at Mount Wachusett Community College told McPhee about Child Care Access Means Parents in School, or CCAMPIS—a $75 million federal grant program designed to help low-income parents in college pay for childcare both on and off campus. McPhee enrolled last fall and is on track to graduate in 2026.

    “I have a 9-year-old son, and they paid for him to go to camp this summer so that I can take an intensive course in the dental hygiene program,” McPhee said. “I definitely would not have been able to go back to school without CCAMPIS.”

    Now the future of the program is cloudy.

    Applications for this year’s CCAMPIS grants—which typically open in May and close by the end of July—have yet to be announced, leaving thousands of student parents in limbo.

    Multiple think tank fellows and student advocacy representatives said they’ve been reaching out to the Trump Department of Education for more information since the spring, but the response is always “We’ll open it soon.” Similar circumstances have been reported for other basic needs programs included under FIPSE, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.

    Neither the Department of Education nor Republican committee chairs in the House and the Senate responded to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.

    With the new academic year quickly approaching, the lack of funds leaves many colleges and universities with major budget gaps.

    Until last month, Mount Wachusett’s childcare finances looked grim; CCAMPIS funding was set to run out on Sept. 30. But Ann Reynolds, the student support adviser who runs the program, had seen all the headlines about the Trump administration’s funding freezes and anticipated the delay. (Last year, the Biden administration chose not to open the grant to new applicants, but it sent out a clear notice in advance and allowed existing awardees to reapply.) She reached out to a local philanthropy and secured $94,000 to carry McPhee and about a dozen other student parents through graduation.

    “We could see the writing on the wall, so to speak,” Reynolds said. “And it’s lifted a great weight from my student parents’ shoulders.”

    Not all colleges were so forward-thinking. Many students, including future enrollees at Mount Wachusett, will have to take out additional loans—or drop out and try to repay the loans they already have without a college degree.

    “We’re seeing a lot of students raising children coming to school now, so our need is greater,” Reynolds said. “But we can’t take in new students.”

    Without the grants, which have had bipartisan support in Congress for years, historically underfunded institutions, including community colleges and minority-serving institutions, will be cash-strapped. Some may be forced to cut staffing or eliminate services entirely.

    “Given all the other funds from the U.S. Department of Education that have been frozen or subject to political games in the last few months, the community is right to worry,” said Bryce McKibben, senior director of policy and advocacy at Temple University’s Hope Center for Student Basic Needs. “This doesn’t serve anyone—certainly not taxpayers. The administration should announce a competition or award continuation grants immediately.”

    ‘A Vicious Cycle’

    Most experts speculate the delay is occurring for one of two reasons: Either the department lacks the capacity to meet this statutory requirement since it laid off half its staff in March, or it is intentionally withholding the dollars as part of a broader effort to claw back education funding through a process known as rescission.

    The latter option would require congressional approval. But the president already won enough votes to pass one rescission package earlier this month, and policy analysts say it’s likely he’ll try to do it again. (Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 axes CCAMPIS and FIPSE completely.)

    Either way, Theresa Anderson, a senior education and labor fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the delay symbolizes a larger restriction on college access.

    This is a “well-documented agenda pattern and strategy” of the Trump administration, she explained. “It represents further disinvestment and disinterest in helping people access the necessary training, education and credentialing programs that states recognize are necessary to development of the workforce.”

    Tanya Ang, executive director of the Today’s Student Coalition, an adult learner advocacy group, described the situation as putting the leaders of critical student support services “up against a brick wall.”

    “If students are going to school, we want them to finish, because that’s going to ensure they can get a job and start a long-term career that will provide a strong return on investment,” Ang explained. Cutting off access to childcare “creates a vicious cycle that will hurt not just them and their children as individuals but, honestly, our economy.”

    Critics have long argued that CCAMPIS is a duplicate program, suggesting that the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which is run by the Department of Health and Human Services, fulfills a similar purpose. But higher education experts say that’s simply not the case.

    CCDBG, they say, supports broad, state-level childcare subsidies, predominantly allocated to parents who work full-time. CCAMPIS, on the other hand, is more targeted and serves student parents, many of whom can’t meet the work requirements attached to the block grant.

    “CCAMPIS was really important to not only be able to fill childcare needs in a way that was very flexible for colleges, but also to allow for additional wraparound supports that are incredibly important to support persistence,” Anderson said. It helps student parents “build meaningful community connections, not only with staff of the college, but also with each other.”

    At Mount Wachusett, Reynolds said student parents who participate in the CCAMPIS program have one of the highest completion rates among any demographic, at 73 percent. So she hopes that even a sliver of the current operation will survive past its current end date in 2027.

    When asked what she would tell the Trump administration if she had the chance, McPhee said she was worried people were losing the opportunity to get ahead.

    “I wanted to do better for my family, and this allowed me to do that,” she said. “To not be able to provide that for people moving forward, it’s just not what this country is about. It’s wrong, and I don’t really understand why they would do it.”

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  • HACU Seeks to Fight Lawsuit Targeting HSIs

    HACU Seeks to Fight Lawsuit Targeting HSIs

    The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, represented by the civil rights organization LatinoJustice PRLDEF, recently filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that takes aim at Hispanic-serving institutions.

    The lawsuit was brought against the U.S. Department of Education by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the advocacy group whose lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in college admissions. The lawsuit claims the federal designation for HSIs, which requires 25 percent Latino enrollment, is discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.

    HACU, an association representing HSIs, argued in its motion that it should become a party to the lawsuit to stand up for the constitutionality of the HSI program. The organization suggested the Education Department is unlikely to vigorously defend the federal designation while it’s in the process of dismantling itself.

    Antonio R. Flores, president and CEO of HACU, said the lawsuit “directly undermines years of advocacy by our founding members that led the federal government to formally recognize HSIs in 1992.”

    “The HSI program is a vital engine of educational excellence, workforce readiness and opportunity for all students attending these exemplary learning communities,” Flores said in a statement. “HACU joins in defending the policies and resources HSIs need to educate and serve 5.6 million students from all backgrounds nationwide.”

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  • DOJ Says UCLA Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights

    DOJ Says UCLA Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights

    The U.S. Department of Justice issued a notice to the University of California, Los Angeles, on Tuesday alleging that it violated civil rights law. The move came just hours after the university announced a $6.45 million settlement to end a lawsuit brought by Jewish students over allegations of antisemitism last year.  

    “The Department has concluded that UCLA’s response to the protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024 was deliberately indifferent to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI,” the notice read. It also said an investigation into the University of California system is ongoing.

    The message made no mention of the settlement; UCLA divided the funds between the plaintiffs and Jewish advocacy and community organizations. The settlement also said the university cannot exclude Jewish students or staff from educational facilities and opportunities “based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.” (Jewish student plaintiffs argued they were barred by pro-Palestinian protesters from entering certain areas of campus.)

    According to the federal notice, UCLA now has until Aug. 5 to contact the DOJ to seek a voluntary resolution agreement “to ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence.” DOJ officials said they’re prepared to file a complaint in federal district court by Sept. 2 “unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement in this matter.”

    “Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.”

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  • Pay Attention to “The Manhattan Statement” (opinion)

    Pay Attention to “The Manhattan Statement” (opinion)

    Earlier this month, the Manhattan Institute released a statement with a proposed “new contract” for higher education and called on President Trump to write the terms of that contract into “every grant, payment, loan, eligibility, and accreditation” and then revoke federal funding for colleges and universities if they aren’t following them. To maintain public funding, universities would, for example, have to “advance truth over ideology,” “cease their direct participation in social and political activism,” and “adhere to the principle of colorblind equality, by abolishing DEI bureaucracies, disbanding racially segregated programs, and terminating race-based discrimination in admissions, hiring, promotions, and contracting.”

    Another term of the proposed contract would require universities to enact “swift and significant penalties, including suspension and expulsion, for anyone who would disrupt speakers, vandalize property, occupy buildings, call for violence, or interrupt the operations of the university.”

    You may be thinking: Well, think tanks and political actors publish things like this all the time. What’s the big deal?

    This proposed list of reforms was led by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo, who has been the architect of many of the attacks on higher ed that we have seen come out of the White House and the Department of Education over the last six months.

    But what is more concerning is it was signed by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx—former chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee who oversaw the first subpoena sent to a higher education institution under the pretext of fighting antisemitism on campus. It was also endorsed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who posted on X to congratulate the Manhattan Institute for “envisioning a compelling roadmap to restore integrity and rigor to the American academy!”

    All this brings to mind Project 2025—an initiative led by another conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, which Democrats warned the American people about before the election and that has since been largely followed as a policy agenda for the Trump administration. You may remember that the education chapter of this conservative platform was written by the director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, Lindsey Burke—the same person now serving as the deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the U.S. Department of Education.

    As predicted, the policy proposals in Project 2025 mirror those being pursued by the current leadership at the Department of Education. Providing universities more flexibility on accreditation; rescinding the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations; eliminating the disparate impact standard in civil rights cases; phasing out existing income-driven repayment plans; eliminating GEAR UP; transferring programs from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education to the Department of Labor; and capping indirect cost rates for federal science grants are just a few of the policies in Project 2025 that have started to come to fruition in the Trump administration.

    We now have another road map that college leadership and policymakers need to be ready to push back on. As noted above, the Manhattan Institute’s agenda is comprised of pledges for colleges and universities that include ending participation in social and political activism; abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion programs; ending race-based decisions in hiring, promotions and contracting; and enacting restrictions on free speech. In other words, it is a road map for a new level of federal interference into the administration of colleges and universities. It is not a road map for reforms that will help students. Rather, it is an attempt to undermine the independence of our higher ed institutions by dictating policies—those based on a specific political ideology—in exchange for federal funding.

    What’s next? Just like the proposals in Project 2025, Christopher Rufo’s proposals have had a pretty good track record of being implemented by the Trump administration. If the past is prologue, we can expect to see new language in program participation agreements that ties Title IV funds to restrictions on academic freedom; new accreditation rules that prohibit standards around diversity, equity and inclusion; and certifications sneaked into grant terms and conditions that threaten strict penalties for activities that do not align with this administration’s ideology.

    Higher education institutions have been far from perfect, and some may even have drifted from their missions of serving all students in the best way possible. But what students deserve is a reform agenda that leads to student success, college completion and strong postsecondary outcomes. That is the agenda that should be endorsed by our nation’s leading education official. What the Manhattan Institute is proposing is not an agenda that is in our country’s best interest.

    We need an agenda that makes access to a college degree or credential of value affordable and accessible. We need an agenda that allows a range of viewpoints to thrive across college campuses and fosters intellectual diversity. We need an agenda that ensures college campuses are inclusive communities and that they serve all students, and we should have a contract between the federal government and colleges and universities that protects investments in our nation’s future and success—not one that threatens disinvestment and opens the door for political interference and federal intrusion.

    Amanda Fuchs Miller served as the deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs at the U.S. Department of Education in the Biden-Harris administration. She is the president of Seventh Street Strategies, which advises higher ed institutions, nonprofit organizations and foundations on policy and advocacy strategies.

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  • Abrupt Pause, Unpause of Grants Doesn’t End NIH Funding Woe

    Abrupt Pause, Unpause of Grants Doesn’t End NIH Funding Woe

    The Tuesday night news quickly sowed alarm among researchers: Media outlets reported that the Trump administration had stopped the National Institutes of Health from funding any new grants. The Wall Street Journal wrote that “certain grants that are up for renewal” were also cut off, and STAT, along with other outlets, later confirmed that reporting.

    The newspaper reported that the Office of Management and Budget was blocking these billions of dollars in research funding for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. After that, the dollars would return, unspent, to the Treasury. This nationwide halt to grants stemmed from an OMB footnote in a budget document, the Journal reported, adding that “the fourth quarter of the fiscal year is typically the busiest for grant-giving institutes at the NIH.”

    Inside Higher Ed reviewed screenshots of an email from an NIH employee saying, “Research grant, R&D contract, or training awards cannot be issued during this pause.” The funding halt would’ve meant an end to new research to help find and improve cures and treatments for diseases as well as stanched the flow of federal dollars to already financially beleaguered universities and labs nationwide.

    “This is undeniably an unforced error, since this will not only harm current and future American patients, but the disruptive and chilling effect of this sudden holding back of promised funds will further jeopardize the future of the American medical research enterprise,” Association of American Universities president Barbara R. Snyder said a statement Tuesday.

    But before the night was over, the Trump administration appeared to reverse course. In an updated article citing unnamed sources, the Journal reported that unnamed “senior White House officials intervened.” (OMB is part of the executive branch.) The Journal said officials at the Health and Human Services Department, which includes NIH, fought the pause for days, but OMB only relented after the newspaper published its initial story Tuesday.

    In response to Inside Higher Ed’s written questions and interview requests about the situation Wednesday, the White House and HHS both sent the same statement from an HHS spokesperson: “The programmatic review is over. The funds are out.”

    One OMB spokesperson posted on X that OMB had been “waiting for more information from NIH” before releasing the funds.

    The NIH is one of the largest sources of funding for research at colleges and universities, and it touts itself as the “largest single public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world.” Tuesday night’s controversy wasn’t the first—and likely won’t be the last—upheaval that this crucial agency has faced under the Trump administration.

    From grant cancellations to the White House proposal to slash the agency’s budget by 40 percent for the next fiscal year, institutions and researchers have seen the flow of NIH grant money stymied. Atop all this, the reportedly now-abandoned move by OMB to stop grant awards highlights continuing concerns about the fate of the grant dollars that the NIH still hasn’t given out this current fiscal year.

    Since Trump took office, the NIH has awarded fewer grants compared to previous years, multiple analyses have found. A former NIH official estimated to Science that at least $6 billion of the agency’s $48 billion budget could be sent back. In a higher estimate, Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that what OMB reportedly tried to do before reversing course Tuesday “would choke off approximately $15 billion in funding that would otherwise go to institutions across the country.”

    A nongovernment official familiar with the NIH appropriations process told Inside Higher Ed that, within a sample of major universities surveyed, institutions are down 20 to 48 percent in NIH award and renewal funds compared to the same time last year.

    The official, who requested anonymity to maintain relationships with people within the administration, said Wednesday that there’s been “a very, very slow spend at NIH, even prior to last night’s fire drill.” The official said they don’t think NIH has ever had to push out so much remaining money in such a short time, and there’s “a very small amount of NIH staff left to allocate those funds.”

    Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, told Inside Higher Ed that Tuesday’s news “caused a real concern across the research enterprise very quickly. This is a community that has seen not just threats but actual damaging changes to the typically stable federally funded research grants take place overnight, or even faster.

    “By any measure, the pace of grant funding is a fraction of what it has been in any other year, and that includes grant renewals, that includes new funding opportunities,“ Pierce added. “And the pace with which grant applications are reviewed and awarded is far below what we’ve seen in the past, and that includes applications that were submitted a long time ago that have already been scored and gotten very competitive scores that would be expected to be funded.”

    Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the reported freeze “just reinforced the current mood among researchers that the future of scientific research at NIH is still in question and could change at a moment’s notice, but also that this isn’t just about NIH. This cloud of uncertainty hovers over other agencies as well, such as the National Science Foundation.”

    Carney added that “the head of the Office of Management and Budget has made public his interest in reducing spending and reducing the size of government and using what tools that he is able to use to do that.”

    Russell Vought, head of OMB, hasn’t sworn off using rescission legislation, which can be passed with a simple majority in both chambers of Congress, to take back already appropriated funds during a fiscal year. NPR also reported that he’s called Congress’s spending bills “a ceiling … not a floor.”

    Murray, who represents Washington State, previously warned that the Trump administration’s use of such legislation to claw back funds already appropriated for this fiscal year—like it recently did for public broadcasting money—could scuttle consensus on the budget for next fiscal year.

    Carney attributed the slowdown in NIH grants to multiple factors, including the regular change in presidential administrations, Congress adopting a continuing resolution instead of a budget for this fiscal year and the Trump administration’s executive orders and other actions.

    “It’s like throwing sand into the machine,” Carney said. She said her association is pleased “that the funding will continue to flow, but it’s still unknown whether that flow of funds will be in drips or will be full stream, and we only have two months left until the end of the fiscal year.”

    Some Senate Republicans recently called on NIH and OMB to send more money out the door, as directed in the continuing resolution Congress passed in March.

    “We are concerned by the slow disbursement rate of [fiscal year 2025] NIH funds, as it risks undermining critical research and the thousands of American jobs it supports,” the senators wrote in a letter to OMB. “Suspension of these appropriated funds—whether formally withheld or functionally delayed—could threaten Americans’ ability to access better treatments and limit our nation’s leadership in biomedical science. It also risks inadvertently severing ongoing NIH-funded research prior to actionable results.”

    Tuesday night’s controversy came as some Republican members of Congress have joined Democrats in opposing the president’s proposal to gut the NIH’s funding for fiscal 2026. The Senate Appropriations Committee is meeting today, and it’s set to unveil how much it plans to send NIH next fiscal year.

    Carney said, “The U.S. is considered a global leader in biomedical research and medical discoveries, and we can’t afford to lose opportunities for advancing new discoveries and therapies and treatments for diseases that affect millions all over the world.

    “So when it comes to Alzheimer’s or cancer or infectious diseases, this is about hope,” she said. “It shouldn’t be about politics.”

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  • Psychology Course Encourages College Students to Make Friends

    Psychology Course Encourages College Students to Make Friends

    Starting college can be an exciting time for students to learn new things, make friends and live away from home for the first time. But not every student takes advantage of the opportunity.

    Emmanuel College psychology professor Linda Lin said she’s seen students reluctant to engage with peers in public spaces, including on their own dorm floor, out of fear of being perceived as odd or intrusive.

    “At the beginning of the semester, I always offer students extra credit points if they come see me for a 10-minute meeting and I just check in with them,” Lin said. Typically, a significant share of those students will say they have yet to make friends and get connected on campus.

    “It’s become almost half or maybe a majority of the students are really struggling to find their people on campus and find their way,” Lin said.

    Nationally, college students express high levels of social anxiety. One study, by the College Student Wellness Advocacy Coalition and the Hi, How Are You Project, found that 65 percent of students said they feel stress often or all the time, and 57 percent reported feeling anxious, worried or overwhelmed frequently.

    Lin thinks this could be due in part to the pandemic’s role in hindering social skill development as well as changing social norms among adults in the U.S., who now prioritize relationships built online or via phone-enabled connections, rather than in shared physical spaces.

    In response, Lin designed a course on positive psychology and happiness to demonstrate the evidence-based practices that can improve student well-being and push them out of their comfort zones.

    How it works: The course covers topics in positive psychology and the research behind those principles. Content includes stress management, connection to nature, exercise and mental health, gratitude, spirituality, optimism, self-compassion, mindfulness, and generosity.

    The class is an upper-level psychology elective, so the majority of students enrolled are junior or seniors majoring in psychology, though about 20 percent are nonmajors, Lin said.

    Throughout the semester, students receive assignments to practice various techniques to boost their own well-being, ranging from taking a nature walk to writing a letter expressing thankfulness or performing a random act of kindness.

    Lin’s most controversial assignment is asking students to talk to three people they don’t know over two or three days. “It can be a stranger you’re making small talk with, or someone that you see in your regular day that you’ve never introduced yourself to,” she said.

    Students have said they’d rather drop her class than do the assignment, Lin said. “The social anxiety is so high, they anticipate it being super awkward, super anxiety-provoking, that people are gonna think they’re weird.”

    But so far, none of her students has reported a bad experience; instead they’ve come back pleasantly surprised by the interactions. Some have even made lasting friends.

    The impact: The class has received an overwhelmingly positive review from students who have taken it, Lin said, with some graduating seniors telling her it had a huge impact on them or that the course changed their life.

    “A lot of students, generally, by the end of the course, are shocked that these little things make them feel better,” Lin said. “A lot of them were saying, ‘I technically know I should be doing these things, but this course gave me an opportunity to actually do them.’”

    Some students shared her lecture recordings (PowerPoints with audio overlaid) and assignments with their families and friends, in the hopes that the content could benefit their health and well-being, as well.

    Lin also conducts pre- and postassessments of student happiness and well-being throughout the term. She found that from the first class in September to the final one in December, students report a 20 percent jump in their scores. And that’s on top of seasonal blues and stressful final exam season feelings, Lin said.

    The practices helped all students boost their happiness and well-being, but the greatest gains were among students who were already struggling, especially those receiving clinical mental health support.

    “One student was like, ‘My therapist wants to talk to you—this made such a big difference in my life,’” Lin said.

    Lin is collecting data from the course for future research and has also taken her curriculum out of the classroom, training resident advisers and other campus community members on how to make friends.

    “I think everybody’s a little bit concerned about this, and I’m just trying to go out and take the science everywhere, because I think this should not be behind a paywall,” Lin said.

    Are you noticing and responding to a lack of peer engagement and community on your campus? Tell us more about it.

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  • VP Online Enrollment, Integrated Marketing Solutions, Carnegie

    VP Online Enrollment, Integrated Marketing Solutions, Carnegie

    The last time we caught up with Shankar Prasad, he was telling us about his new role as chief strategy officer at Carnegie. Shankar reached out, saying that he is recruiting for the key role of Carnegie’s VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions. As I’m on the lookout to share information with our community about roles at the intersection of learning, technology and higher education change, this job seemed perfect. Shankar graciously agreed to answer my questions about the role.

    Q: What is the mandate behind this role? How does it help align with and advance the company’s strategic priorities?

    A: Carnegie’s Online Program Experience (OPX) business line is an important growth area. The company aims to be the premier provider of integrated marketing and enrollment solutions for online programs. The mandate of the VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions is to build and own the sales plan for this OPX business, drive revenue growth, and ensure that Carnegie’s full suite of services (research, strategy, digital marketing, lead generation, creative and website development) are successfully cross‑sold to new and existing clients.

    The job description states that the VP will “lead our sales strategy and execution to achieve our revenue targets,” shape the OPX growth strategy, and establish Carnegie as the premier provider of online program solutions in higher education. To do this, the VP must create the OPX sales plan, drive sales, meet goals and targets, and deliver growth through new clients and client‑expansion opportunities across Carnegie’s entire suite of services.

    This work aligns closely with Carnegie’s strategic priorities. The company positions itself as a leader in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy and emphasizes human‑centered, data‑driven solutions. By spearheading integrated marketing and enrollment solutions for online programs, the VP advances this mission—ensuring that Carnegie’s OPX offerings evolve with market trends, deliver measurable results and reinforce the organization’s leadership position. The role also requires thought leadership, cross‑team collaboration and partnerships, which support Carnegie’s focus on innovation and authentic human connections

    Q: Where does the role sit within the company’s structure? How will the person in this role engage with other units and leaders across the company?

    A: The VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions is Carnegie’s leader of integrated sales for OPX. The position sits within the company’s growth and revenue organization and is accountable for the sales plan, revenue forecasting and team performance. The description notes that the VP “owns the development of all sales pursuits related to OPX” and partners closely with the SVP of marketing and the chief growth officer to develop messaging, positioning and proposals. This indicates that the role reports into or collaborates with senior leadership on growth strategy and marketing alignment.

    The role is highly cross‑functional. It requires partnering with marketing and business development to support inbound and new business pursuits and providing training and support to sales representatives in those divisions. The VP must collaborate with leaders of all business units to share feedback and optimize the OPX solution for clients.

    Day to day, the person will work with colleagues in sales, account management, production, senior strategists, client success, executive sales and enrollment strategy. They will also work with growth team members to craft proposals and coordinate with the marketing leader on business development materials and events. Additionally, the VP manages OPX revenue forecasting and ensures visibility across all accountable parties. This matrixed engagement means the VP acts as a connector between sales, marketing, product and leadership, ensuring that OPX solutions are delivered seamlessly and that market feedback informs strategic decisions.

    Q: What would success look like in one year? Three years? Beyond?

    A: In the first 12 months, success would involve laying the groundwork for a high-performing OPX sales organization. The VP should build and execute a sales plan, recruit or train a team, and cultivate strong relationships with marketing, business development and other unit leaders. Key milestones would include securing new OPX clients and expanding revenue from existing accounts, delivering on initial sales goals, instituting accurate revenue forecasting and establishing Carnegie as a respected thought leader at conferences and webinars.

    Three years: By year three, the VP should have turned OPX into a mature, scalable business line. The sales plan would be continuously optimized based on market feedback and the team would be driving sustained revenue growth across Carnegie’s services. Market penetration should be evident through a diversified client base, with high renewal and upsell rates. The VP should have built a strong network of external relationships and should be contributing to product evolution by monitoring industry trends and competitor activity. Measurable outcomes might include year‑over‑year revenue growth outpacing the market, higher average contract values and expanded partnerships or acquisitions that enhance the OPX offering.

    Beyond (five-plus years): Over a longer horizon, success would mean that the OPX division is a significant growth engine for Carnegie and a well‑recognized market leader. The VP will have built a resilient, data‑driven sales organization capable of adapting to changes in the higher education landscape. They may spearhead new offerings or strategic acquisitions and could play a central role in broader company leadership. The division’s revenue contribution might warrant further expansion into related services or international markets, ensuring Carnegie remains at the forefront of online program marketing and enrollment strategy.

    Q: What kinds of future roles would someone who took this position be prepared for?

    A: The VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions oversees sales strategy, team leadership, revenue forecasting and cross‑functional collaboration. With 10-plus years of experience required in higher education enrollment and marketing for online programs, the role prepares someone for broader executive positions. Potential future roles could include:

    • Chief growth officer or chief revenue officer, because the VP manages revenue planning, sales execution and cross‑unit coordination.
    • General manager or president of a business unit, given the experience in developing a business line, building teams and driving profitability.
    • Chief marketing officer or chief commercial officer: The position demands collaboration with marketing leadership and deep knowledge of enrollment strategy.
    • Consulting or strategic advisory roles in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy, leveraging expertise in market trends, client relationships and integrated solutions.
    • Entrepreneurial leadership roles within the higher ed technology and services space, capitalizing on the growth mindset, executive presence and strategic thinking emphasized in the qualifications.

    By leading a high‑growth, cross‑disciplinary sales organization, the VP will develop a skill set that translates to senior leadership roles not only within Carnegie but across the broader higher education services sector.

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  • Service Portfolios Make Service Visible (opinion)

    Service Portfolios Make Service Visible (opinion)

    Another academic year is fast approaching, and with it another promotion and tenure cycle in which faculty members will prepare dossiers for promotion. Some, but not all, universities have detailed instructions on what and what not to include in the dossier. At many research institutions, the service section consists of a list of committees on which the faculty member has served with little information about the nature of their participation. Having managed promotion and tenure at multiple institutions, I know that faculty members are often told to check the service boxes and move on.

    Yet, the pandemic and its aftermath threw into high relief what most faculty members already knew: Faculty service is a mission-critical portion of workloads and highly undervalued by our institutions. We also know that mission-critical workload is unevenly allocated to and carried out by some faculty members while others either refuse to participate, focus their service outside the institution for the profession or participate as free riders while others pull their load. This leads to conversations about “service slacking” and “service shaming.” Articles abound with useful suggestions on how to address the uneven distribution of service, including advice on how to say no. And the Faculty Workload Equity project, part of an NSF ADVANCE award to the University of Maryland, provides important tools to better understand the contours of differential workloads and ways to create transparency around them.

    This conversation is not new; Joya Misra and colleagues suggested in 2011 that changing the culture around service is essential in order to find ways to distribute the workload more evenly and to develop reward mechanisms for doing critical service in mission-central areas like curricular reform or student outcomes assessment. More than 10 years later, this conversation seems to have stalled. Properly recognizing the value of service would be a good way to restart it.

    Articulating the Value of Service

    Let me start with a story. About 15 years ago, I co-chaired my institution’s reaccreditation bid with the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. We were tasked, among other things, with collecting information about how our faculty engaged in outreach to our community. Our campus survey about community engagement came back with pitifully little data. We realized that we needed to excavate the information. After visits to lots of faculty meetings, we had an amazingly rich list of ways our faculty were engaging with schools, nonprofits and local governments in our area. To my question about why these activities didn’t appear in any university document, faculty members universally replied that they didn’t think anyone cared.

    As Cullen C. Merrit recently argued, service and engagement activities are ways that the academy provides value to society at large. I agree. Yet we cannot value or demonstrate the impact of what we don’t document.

    To that end, colleges can launch a service portfolio that faculty can submit as part of promotion and performance-review processes. The service portfolio documents the range of service activities for each faculty member, as well as success metrics that demonstrate their impact on students, other faculty and the institutional mission. Identifying impact is a first step in increasing the value our institutions place on service activities and establishing fairer systems of allocation and rewards.

    The Service Portfolio

    Before you stop reading because no one wants to do more service work, a service portfolio can help bring attention to the value of work by demonstrating the impacts and outcomes. Indeed, some universities and colleges already have faculty members provide such information about service; others make suggestions about how to craft a promotion and tenure service and engagement dossier.

    As with a teaching portfolio, a service portfolio is a structured assemblage of contributions to mission-critical activities around student and faculty success (e.g., mentoring, curriculum development, professional development) and engagement with local and regional communities (e.g., support for K–12 education, support for local governmental and nongovernmental agencies).

    Service portfolio guidelines could begin by listing elements of the stated mission or the strategic planning goals at the department, college/school and institution levels. In consultation with department chairs or deans, faculty members would then select those elements to which they contribute through their service activities. In addition to describing their contributions, faculty could describe outcomes and impacts either in terms of future goals or what can already be measured.

    For example, a faculty member might want to prioritize curriculum development or faculty mentoring. In that case, we might expect them to serve locally or institutionally in those areas, to engage in professional development opportunities, or to develop community engagement activities related to their specializations. A focus on value requires that the service portfolio identify the impacts or expected outcomes of each activity. For example, participation in a curriculum revision might result in higher learning outcomes or lower DFW rates. Faculty mentoring can result in improved teaching outcomes, enhanced research productivity and an improved work environment.

    There are numerous advantages of a service portfolio over the current way of counting the number of committees on which we serve. First, faculty members can gain agency in the way that they shape and narrate their own contributions to the institutional mission through service. Agency is a motivating factor that might encourage yet more engagement. Faculty members will have a harder time free riding on a committee when they must articulate their contributions and when those contributions are then reviewed by departmental peers. Equity-minded faculty members and chairs/heads will be better able to track individual contributions and ensure that service is equitably allocated. And chairs and departmental colleagues who are impressed with a particular faculty member’s service contributions will be better positioned to suggest that recognition or reward for those contributions may be in order.

    To be sure, putting together a service portfolio will require extra time, something that faculty members do not have lots of. But the relatively small time commitment can result in significant benefits to faculty and to the institution. Intentional and agentic shaping of service and engagement workloads can ensure that mission-critical work is accomplished in a visible way and can be assessed for impact. Perhaps most importantly, a service portfolio gives information and tools to our colleagues to amplify impactful and valuable activities.

    Beth Mitchneck is professor emerita in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona.

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