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  • Tennessee State University could run out of cash this spring without help

    Tennessee State University could run out of cash this spring without help

    Dive Brief:

    • Tennessee State University is looking for help from state lawmakers as it tries both to stay afloat and to revamp its operations and finances for the long term.
    • The public historically Black institution is on pace to run out of cash by April or May, Interim President Dwayne Tucker said Tuesday at a meeting hosted by Black Caucus members in the state Legislature. 
    • TSU intends to present a five-year turnaround plan to the Legislature. Operations through the first year of the plan could be financed by removing restrictions on roughly $150 million out of $250 million the state previously set aside for university infrastructure, Tucker noted.

    Dive Insight:

    TSU’s financial troubles are steep and immediate. An FAQ page on the university’s website acknowledges that the financial condition has reached crisis levels stemming from missed enrollment targets and operating deficits. This fall, the university posted a projected deficit of $46 million by the end of the fiscal year. 

    The university identified inefficient processes in financial aid, advising and enrollment systems, that contributed to its woes. It also said those problems were exacerbated by 2024’s messy federal rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. 

    Additionally, and perhaps most damaging, the university launched a full scholarship program for some students without a plan to fund it throughout students’ journey to graduation. It paid $37 million toward the scholarship in fiscal 2022 using federal pandemic emergency funds. When that money ran dry, TSU had to issue tens of millions of dollars in institutional financial aid, causing it to heavily discount its tuition. 

    The scholarship helped attract students, with fall enrollment hitting 8,198 students in 2023, compared to 7,774 in 2018. But the university couldn’t ultimately afford to maintain those aid levels.

    Taking aim at the university’s management, Tennessee lawmakers last March passed a Republican-led bill to replace all of the university’s trustees and restructure its board, over the objection of Democrats. 

    Emergency state funding last fall kept the institution operating, but Tucker said TSU will need more to not just turn around — but to stay open. 

    “It’s a fact that we can’t pay our bills,” Tucker said, noting also that the university would likely not be open today without state help. 

    But Tennessee also owes TSU money, according to a federal assessment. 

    In a letter to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in 2023, then-U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the institution had been hurt by “longstanding and ongoing underinvestment” as a public land-grant HBCU. By their estimate, inequitable funding gaps led Tennessee State to miss out on $2.1 billion over 30 years. 

    Tucker dismissed the idea of suing the state for the $2.1 billion, arguing that the legal process could take years — while the university’s financial needs are immediate. Legal action could also potentially anger the legislators whose support TSU needs to help provide funding. Moreover, the institution could lose a legal challenge, he added. 

    Tucker — the university’s second interim president in less than a year — argued for focusing instead on the state funding gap identified by the Legislature in 2021. That gap amounts to over $540 million

    Since identifying the amount, Tennessee lawmakers lined up a one-time $250 million sum for the university to invest in infrastructure. Tucker said the university could use a portion of those funds to keep it afloat through the first year of a five-year plan. 

    Along with state help, TSU and its board are considering financial exigency, a restructuring process that allows an institution experiencing budgetary distress to lay off tenured faculty and shut down academic programs. 

    In a special meeting of TSU’s board on Jan. 31, a consultant with the National Association of College and University Business Officers presented a detailed workshop on how exigency works.

    Tucker said Tuesday that officials were considering exigency but that it wasn’t in the university’s immediate plans. 

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  • Education Department’s doors blocked to House Democrats

    Education Department’s doors blocked to House Democrats

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    WASHINGTON — Democratic members of the House were blocked from entering the U.S. Department of Education’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Friday after requesting a meeting with Acting Education Secretary Denise Carter to discuss their opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to limit department programming.

    About 18 members of Congress walked up to the visitor’s entrance asking to enter after holding a press conference about their concerns. A person who was not wearing a security uniform came outside and told the group they were not allowed to enter. For the next 30 minutes, lawmakers pleaded to be let in the building, with some holding up their congressional business cards and arguing they had a right to enter the federal building as legislators who oversee federal agencies.

    U.S. Department of Homeland Security uniformed officers could be seen inside the glass doors. 

    “Each and everyone one of us have been through these doors,” said Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, standing near a sign reading “All Access Entrance.” “But, of course, as soon as we get word that Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to shut down the Department of Education, suddenly, they don’t want to let members of Congress in that ask questions.”

    On Wednesday, 96 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Carter requesting an “urgent” meeting to discuss the Trump administration’s plans for what they say is to “illegally dismantle or drastically reduce” the Education Department. The department has received the letter, but no meeting has been scheduled as of Friday afternoon, according to the office of Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif. 

    An Education Department spokesperson said in an email after the lawmakers’ visit that “The protest was organized by members of Congress who were exercising their First Amendment rights, which they are at liberty to do. They did not have any scheduled appointments, and the protest has since ended.”

    A group of people are standing in front of glass doors entering a building.

    Democratic members of the U.S. House are denied entry to the Education Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 7, 2025. They were there to voice concerns about attempts to reduce or eliminate department programs.

    Kara Arundel/K-12 Dive

     

    Carter, who is an Education Department senior official overseeing federal student aid, is in the acting role as education secretary pending Senate approval of Trump’s choice for education secretary — Linda McMahon. McMahon’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for Feb. 13.

    Trump is expected to issue an executive order limiting the Education Department’s activities, although the timing of that order is unknown. Since being inaugurated Jan. 20, Trump has issued a series of executive orders geared toward education. They include restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, an expansion of school choice, and halting federal support for “​​gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”

    Most recently, he ordered K-12 schools and colleges to prevent transgender girls and women from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Those that don’t comply could lose their federal funding.

    Trump has said his goal is to close the Education Department. However, that would require approval from at least 60 members of the Senate. Supporters of shrinking or eliminating the Education Department say there is too much federal bureaucracy. They also say states and districts should have more control over how to spend federal funds for schools. 

    During the Friday press conference in front of the Education Department, Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., a former national teacher of the year, asked what would happen to the civil rights of 49 million students, including 7 million students with disabilities, if the Education Department shuts down. She also asked about the $1.6 trillion in student financial aid the department manages.

    “If you want to have some true oversight of the department, I’m here for it, but what you will not do is shut down this department and deny access to all of those children who need it while we’re in Congress,” Hayes said. 

    Another former educator turned lawmaker, Rep. John Mannion, D-N.Y., said, “When we’re talking about dismantling the Department of Education, what we’re talking about is larger class sizes, those kids not getting those individualized services, the removal of athletics, art, science, music.” 

    “These people and I will not stand here silently as they steal taxpayer dollars from special education students,” Mannion said.

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  • VICTORY: District court blocks Texas social media law after FIRE lawsuit

    VICTORY: District court blocks Texas social media law after FIRE lawsuit

    AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 7, 2025 — After a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Davis Wright Tremaine, a district court today stopped enforcement of a Texas law that would have blocked access to broad categories of protected speech for minors and forced websites to collect adults’ IDs or biometric data before they can access social media sites.

    Northern District of Texas Judge Robert Pitman granted FIRE’s motion for a preliminary injunction against provisions of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (SCOPE Act) requiring content monitoring and filtering, targeted advertising bans, and age-verification requirements, ruling that these measures were unconstitutionally overbroad, vague, and not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

    “The court determined that Texas’s law was likely unconstitutional because its provisions restricted protected speech and were so vague that it made it hard to know what was prohibited,” said FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere. “States can’t block adults from engaging with legal speech in the name of protecting children, nor can they keep minors from ideas that the government deems unsuitable.”

    The SCOPE Act would have required social media platforms to register the age of every new user. Platforms would have been forced to track how much of their content is “harmful” to minors and, once a certain percentage is reached, force users to prove that they are 18 or older. In other words, the law would have burdened adults who wanted to view content that is fully legal for adults, serving as an effective ban for those who understandably don’t trust a third-party website with their driver’s license or fingerprints.

    The law also required websites to prevent minors from being exposed to “harmful material” that “promotes, glorifies, or facilitates” behaviors like drug use, suicide, or bullying. That definition was far too vague to pass constitutional muster: whether speech “promotes” or “glorifies” an activity is inherently subjective, and platforms had testified that they would be forced to react by censoring all discussions of those topics.

    Today’s ruling should serve as yet another warning to states tempted to jump on the unconstitutional bandwagon of social media age verification bills.

    “At what point… does alcohol use become ‘substance abuse?’” asked Judge Pitman in his ruling. “When does an extreme diet cross the line into an ‘eating disorder?’ What defines ‘grooming’ and ‘harassment?’ Under these indefinite meanings, it is easy to see how an attorney general could arbitrarily discriminate in his enforcement of the law.”

    FIRE sued on August 16 on behalf of three plaintiffs who use the Internet to communicate with young Texans and keep them informed on issues that affect them. A fourth plaintiff, M.F.,  is a 16-year-old rising high school junior from El Paso who is concerned that Texas is blocking his access to important content.

    Lead plaintiff Students Engaged in Advancing Texas represents a coalition of Texas students who seek to increase youth visibility and participation in policymaking.

    Nope to SCOPE: FIRE sues to block Texas’ unconstitutional internet age verification law

    Press Release

    Texans browsing your favorite websites, beware. If the state has its way, starting next month, the eyes of Texas may be upon you.


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    “Young people have free speech rights, too,” said SEAT Executive Director Cameron Samuels. “They’re also the future voters and leaders of Texas and America. The SCOPE Act would make youth less informed, less active, and less engaged on some of the most important issues facing the nation.”

    Earlier, Judge Pitman enjoined the content moderation requirements while ruling on a separate lawsuit from the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Netchoice. Judge Pitman ruled in August that Texas “cannot pick and choose which categories of protected speech it wishes to block teenagers from discussing online.”

    “This is a tremendous victory against government censorship, especially for our clients—ordinary citizens—who stood up to the State of Texas,” said Adam Sieff, partner at Davis Wright Tremaine. “The Court enjoined every substantive provision of the SCOPE Act we challenged, granting even broader relief than its first preliminary injunction. We hope this decision will give other states pause before broadly restricting free expression online.”

    Texas lawmakers perhaps could have predicted today’s ruling. Age verification laws have been enjoined by courts across the country in states like CaliforniaArkansasMississippiOhio, and even initially in Texas, in another law currently before the Supreme Court for review.

    “Today’s ruling should serve as yet another warning to states tempted to jump on the unconstitutional bandwagon of social media age verification bills,” said Corn-Revere. “What these laws have in common is that they seek to impose simplistic one-size-fits-all solutions to address complicated problems.” 


    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

     

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  • A decade of debate: Celebrating 10 years of the Chicago principles

    A decade of debate: Celebrating 10 years of the Chicago principles

    In 2014, American colleges faced an existential crisis — campuses erupted over controversial speakers as the heckler’s veto increasingly replaced debate. In response, the University of Chicago drafted a landmark statement reaffirming the school’s commitment to free speech.

    Since then, more than 110 colleges and universities have adopted the “Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression,” commonly known as the Chicago Statement or the Chicago principles, transforming the landscape of higher education in the country.

    In a star-studded, all-day symposium last month, the University of Chicago celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the iconic Statement and its famous assertion, “It is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”


    Watch “The Chicago Canon,” episode 234 of “So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast” with host Nico Perrino.

    The mood was celebratory, reflective, and at times foreboding as panelists shared insights into the drafting and implementation of the principles, debated the future of free speech in academia, and explored the impact of artificial intelligence on expression.

    In his opening remarks, university President Paul Alivisatos reflected on the “crisis” in higher education regarding academic freedom, and that it is nearly “impossible” to have a serious discussion about the topic without mentioning the Chicago Statement. While the causes of this crisis are varied, Alivisatos pointed to the principles as a tonic to cure the ills of higher education. Reflecting on the cultural moment in which the principles were drafted, he reminded the audience of a widely cited line from the statement:

    “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think.”

    He concluded by inviting other universities to join UChicago in its “compelling vision” for the preservation of free expression.

    longtime leader in the fight for free speech, the university welcomed several members of the original drafting committee to discuss the legacy of the principles. The drafters expressed surprise by how quickly the principles spread to other campuses, but were proud of the impact they’ve had. The real focus of the committee, though, was to codify what Alivisatos described as the institution’s unique “culture built on the wellspring of free expression,” rather than something entirely new.

    The challenge to universities is much greater today than it was 10 years ago.

    Geoffrey Stone, the First Amendment scholar and chair of the committee, spoke of the “fundamental challenge” universities face in encouraging students and faculty to speak their minds. Kenneth Warren, professor of English, echoed this by speaking of faculty members “who are taking on the deep responsibility of exploring difficult questions.”

    The conversation was engaging and frank — all faculty members acknowledged challenges and remained open to the possibility that mistakes may be made along the way — sentiments true to the ethos of the principles themselves.

    Adopting the Chicago Statement

    Statements & Policies

    Since 2015, nearly 100 colleges and universities have adopted some version of the Chicago Statement on the principles of free expression.


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    Columbia University Provost Angela Olinto, another member of the original committee, highlighted the practical value of an institution adhering to a free speech statement and embracing institutional neutrality. She explained how these principles help administrators defend speech by giving them guidelines to reference in response to censorious mobs — a benefit that FIRE has long championed. She then explained that once an institution defends an individual’s right to speak freely, it is important that the speaker in turn seize the opportunity to do so.

    As the panel noted, FIRE has endorsed the Chicago Statement since the very beginning and has maintained the widely referenced list of adoptions nationwide. At a time when free speech and academic freedom face constant threats, we hope to see more institutions join the ever-growing list of those committed to fostering the free exchange of ideas.

    “The challenge to universities is much greater today than it was 10 years ago,” Stone told FIRE in an interview following the panel. “Put simply, speech that one finds offensive and even hurtful in public discourse must be protected, and those who disagree must be given reasonable opportunities to respond.”

    He added, “This can be challenging, but it is essential if we are to preserve the most fundamental values of higher education at this very challenging time.”


    Want to learn more about the Chicago Statement? View FIRE’s resources, including the list of institutions that have adopted the statement, fast factsand more. If you’d like to work with our team to encourage adoption on your campus, reach out to FIRE’s Policy Reform team at [email protected].

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  • US Congress urged to crack down on student overstays

    US Congress urged to crack down on student overstays

    Over 7,000 of these student and exchange visitors that overstayed their visas came from India, house representatives heard in a committee hearing on immigration enforcement in the US on January 22.  

    “Thirty-two countries have student/exchange visitor overstay rates of higher than 20%,” Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the anti-immigration think-tank, the Center for Immigration Studies, told the committee.  

    However, sector leaders have argued that Vaughan’s testimony contained “some serious and inaccurate generalisations” and relied on “faulty statistics for her claim about the student visa overstay rate,” according to NAFSA‘s director of immigration policy, Heather Stewart.  

    “International students are the most tracked non-immigrants in the US and a clear and comprehensive understanding of student visa misuse is needed if the field is to arrive at effective and appropriate solutions,” said Stewart.  

    After India, Vaughan highlighted China, Colombia and Brazil as each having more than 2,000 of their citizens overstay student/exchange visas in 2023, urging Congress to eliminate OPT and impose penalties for institutional sponsors, among a host of regulations.  

    “The F and M visa categories have [the] highest overstay rates of any of the broad categories of temporary admission,” Vaughan told committee members, with F visas used for academic study and M visas for vocational study.  

    According to recent DHS figures, the total overstay rate for student and exchange visitors in 2023 was 3.67% with a suspected in-country overstay rate of 2.86%, dropping slightly to 2.69% solely for F-1 students, with all metrics excluding Mexico and Canada.  

    Countries with highest student/exchange overstay rates by numbers (2023): 

    Country  Suspected in-country overstays  Total overstays  Total overstay rate 
    India   5,818 7,081 4.67%
    China 3,012 5,255 2.1%
    Colombia 2,792 3,223 8.29%
    Brazil 1,692 2,198 4.6%
    Source: US Homeland Security Entry/Exit Overstay Report FY 2023 

    While India, China, Colombia and Brazil recorded the largest numbers of student overstays in 2023, their overstay rate as a percentage of overall student populations in the US were relatively low.  

    It is perhaps unsurprising that India and China, whose combined student populations made up 54% of total international enrolments at US institutions in 2023/24, also saw the highest levels of visa overstays. 

    Country Total overstay rate
    Equatorial Guinea  70.18% 
    Chad   55.64%
    Eritrea  55.43% 
    Congo (Kinshasa)  50.06%
    Djibouti 43.75% 
    Burma 42.17% 
    Yemen  40.92% 
    Sierra Leone 35.83%
    Congo (Brazzaville)  35.14% 
    Togo  35.05% 
    Global (excl. Mexico + Canada) 3.67% 
    Source: US Homeland Security Entry/Exit Overstay Report FY 2023 

    Notably, the ‘in-country overstay rate’ refers to the percentage of individuals suspected to still be physically present in the US after their visa expired, while the ‘total overstay rate’ includes both those still in the country and those who may have eventually left after overstaying their visa, but were not recorded as departing. 

    Sector members have raised concerns about the “troubling” scale of the problem uncovered by the report, ranging from benign violations of legitimate students to “cases of wilful fraud”, said Eddie West and Anna Esaki-Smith, two leading US educators.  

    NAFSA, however, has disputed the figures as “unreliable”, claiming that the report “overstates” the issue and urged stakeholders to take caution when taking the figures out of context.  

    Indeed, DHS concedes that “infrastructural, operational and logistical challenges” in the exit environment make it difficult to identify students who do not depart via air or who transition from F-1 status to H-1B, legal permanent residency and other statuses.  

    What’s more, DHS data revealed a 42% decline in the suspected overstay rate for student and exchange visitors across a 15-month period ending in January 2024, indicating a lag time for the system to register students’ changing situations. 

    “Not only do visa issuance policies need to be adjusted and interior enforcement boosted, in addition Congress should amend the law in several important ways,” Vaughan told the hearing.  

    In a statement raising some concern about Vaughan’s testimony, she recommended that “the concept of dual intent should not apply to student visa applicants”. 

    Under current law, it does not.  

    While the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program has been widely proven to benefit American workers as well as international graduates, Vaughan blamed the initiative for spawning “an industry of diploma mills and fake schools”, calling for it to be eliminated or “much, much more closely regulated”.  

    Vaughan also recommended stricter regulations on H1-B specialty occupation visas, a move which Stewart warned would “immediately” make the US look less attractive to international students who “strongly consider” post-study employment opportunities when deciding where to study abroad.  

    During Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, he surprised some of the sector.

    The second-time US president spoke out in support of the H1-B visa during his presidential campaign amid a row about the work pathway among prominent Republicans.

    The US is the only one out of the ‘Big Four’ study destinations – US, UK, Australia and Canada – to publish data on international student overstay rates.

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  • A plea for institutional modesty

    A plea for institutional modesty

    This article originally appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review on Feb. 6, 2025.


    “When someone tells you where they stand on free speech, they’ve told you just about everything you need to know about their position on government power.” — X post by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, September 1, 2024

    Dear Chairman Carr,

    As a First Amendment advocate and former chief counsel to a Federal Communications Commission chairman, I respectfully offer some thoughts for your consideration as you head the agency tasked with regulating broadcast stations and certain other electronic media in the United States: be modest in your assertion of power.

    With all due respect, it is not enough to hear what a government official may say about his or her commitment to freedom of expression. What matters is how that person acts once entrusted with the power of the office. 

    That is especially true for those who serve at the FCC, an agency that “works in the shadow of the First Amendment,” as former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer put it. Both by statutory and constitutional command, the FCC is prohibited from engaging in “censorship” or “interfering with the right of free speech.” 

    To be sure, the FCC has not always been consistent in living up to these principles in its eighty-nine-year history. So it is always refreshing to hear commissioners praise our nation’s foundational values, which necessarily implies accepting limits to their own authority. In that regard, your history of speaking out to restrict government power and in support of the First Amendment has, at times, been encouraging.

    Free Speech Warrior

    You have been called a “free speech warrior,” and some of your past statements support that label. In 2021, when two Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to media outlets castigating them for spreading misinformation about the 2020 election and the COVID epidemic and demanding answers to a list of questions, you properly denounced it as “a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys.” As you observed at the time, “[a] newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them.” 

    Or when members of Congress urged the commission to reject a Miami radio station transfer based on the political viewpoints of the proposed new owner, you rejected this effort “to inject partisan politics into our licensing process,” correctly calling it “a deeply troubling transgression of free speech and the FCC’s status as an independent agency.” 

    Commissioner, regulate thyself: The incoming FCC chair is threatening to censor views he doesn’t like

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    President-elect Donald Trump announced he would appoint FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to chair the agency, calling him a “warrior for Free Speech.”


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    You have warned against extending FCC authority and common-carrier type regulation to online media, observing that the “American people want more freedom on the internet — not freewheeling micromanagement by government bureaucrats.” And you urged the commission to exercise caution before extending its jurisdiction to regulate artificial intelligence used in political advertising. The United States does not need “the FCC to operate as the nation’s speech police,” you explained, adding that “if there ever were a time for a federal agency to show restraint when it comes to the regulation of political speech and to ensure that it is operating within the statutorily defined bounds of its authority, now would be that time.” 

    So in light of your earlier statements about the essential importance of free expression in our society and your repeated claims about the need to tightly cabin regulatory control over media, some of your first pronouncements after being elevated to FCC chair have been quite jarring.

    Promise Versus Performance

    Two days after assuming your new position, you set aside agency orders from the previous week dismissing complaints against television stations for their news and political programming decisions. One complaint claimed WCBS engaged in “news distortion” because of the way “60 Minutes” edited its interview with Kamala Harris. Another charged an ABC network affiliate with “news distortion” based on how the network handled fact-checking during a presidential debate. And a third involved an alleged “equal opportunities” violation when Harris appeared on “Saturday Night Live” shortly before the November election. 

    These complaints, in which avowedly politically motivated organizations asked the federal government to punish broadcasters for news judgments they disliked, are precisely the kind of efforts you have condemned in the past. When the FCC dismissed those complaints a few days before President Trump’s inauguration, then-chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the FCC “should not be the president’s speech police” and cannot act as “journalism’s censor-in-chief.” Her comments sounded a lot like you when, in earlier cases, you warned against political interference with the broadcast press.

    The Constitution bars government officials from using indirect means to do what they cannot do directly, and that includes both threats to impose sanctions if the target doesn’t give in and promises of leniency if it does. 

    But in walking back the three dismissals, the commission’s media bureau only said, cryptically, that the orders “were issued prematurely based on an insufficient investigatory record.” Of course, embarking on a federal “investigation” into editorial decision-making only magnifies the incursion into the freedom of the press, as you have noted in the past. Nevertheless, the commission has since demanded — and CBS has agreed to provide — a full transcript of the “60 Minutes” interview.

    The commission staff dismissed a fourth complaint right before the inauguration as well, this one opposing the license renewal of Fox network affiliate WTXF-TV in Philadelphia for its news reporting on the 2020 presidential election. In doing so, it stressed that the FCC cannot “act as a self-appointed, free-roving arbiter of truth in journalism.” This dismissal you let ride — which was obviously correct — but the more favorable treatment of Fox, compared with CBS, NBC, and ABC, could lead some cynics to wonder whether the decision might have something to do with the perceived political alignments of the particular broadcasters. Any partisan application of the law would make the First Amendment problem even worse, as you well know.

    Ominous Foreshadowing

    Even before your elevation to the top spot at the FCC, some of your public statements were quite concerning from a free speech perspective. For example, you told an interviewer on Fox News that the news distortion complaint against “60 Minutes” should be considered when the FCC rules on Skydance Media’s proposed $8 billion merger with Paramount (which includes transfer of twenty-eight local CBS stations). And you suggested in another interview that the FCC should investigate Harris’s appearance on SNL, with station licenses potentially revoked, even though NBC promptly provided response time to the Trump campaign. You have posted on X that “broadcast licenses are not sacred cows,” and that media companies “are going to be held accountable” under the FCC’s public interest standard. And you wrote to the head of ABC, complaining about the state of network news (and ABC’s coverage of Donald Trump in particular), and used that concern to leverage negotiations between the network and its affiliates over their compensation arrangements, adding, “I will be monitoring the outcome of your ongoing discussions with local broadcast TV stations.”

    Beyond the area of broadcast regulation, where the FCC at least has jurisdiction to act, you wrote to the heads of Alphabet Inc. (Google), Meta (Facebook), Apple, and Microsoft to complain about a Big Tech “censorship cartel” and to demand that it be “completely dismantled.” Oddly, not all these companies operate online platforms that make moderation decisions that have raised political hackles, and they are not under the FCC’s jurisdiction. Yet you demanded that the companies provide information “that can inform the FCC’s work to promote free speech and a diversity of viewpoints” and made vague threats about Section 230 of the Communications Act, which you called “Big Tech’s prized liability shield.” Much of your ire was directed at NewsGuard, a private business (over which the FCC has zero authority) that rates the credibility of news sources based on transparent journalistic criteria. Although your demands were framed as a kind of appeal to free speech, it is impossible to miss the irony that a high government official was demanding that private business make changes in their speech policies. And it is difficult to reconcile the demands you make in this letter with your previous statements opposing bureaucratic micromanagement of the internet.

    Meta’s content moderation changes closely align with FIRE recommendations

    News

    Mark Zuckerberg announces sweeping changes to bolster free expression on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads that track FIRE’s 2024 Social Media Report.


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    The Supreme Court addressed this irony head-on last term when it reviewed Texas and Florida laws that were predicated on the notion that Big Tech was engaging in “censorship” and that government regulation of moderation practices was the “cure.” While the court didn’t issue an ultimate ruling on the constitutionality of the laws, it dispensed with the notion that the government has any legitimate authority to “balance” the marketplace of ideas. The First Amendment limits government action; it does not empower the FCC or any other government body to impose on private businesses what it thinks is fair. As the court observed, “[o]n the spectrum of dangers to free expression, there are few greater than allowing the government to change the speech of private actors in order to achieve its own conception of speech nirvana.”

    It is well known you were appointed to your position by a president who routinely calls for investigations and license revocations when late-night TV hosts mock him or reporters aggressively question him. And perhaps it is too much to ask that you tell your political benefactor this isn’t how any of this works. But you did swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, and you know very well how these things work. You might at least consider not actively reinforcing uninformed social media rants.

    Of course, you are not the first chairman to use the FCC as a pulpit — nor, I suspect, will you be the last. But there is one thing you should keep in mind: you don’t have as much power as you may think.

    Regulating in the Public Interest

    It is true that broadcasters are licensed to operate in the “public interest” by the federal government because of their use of the electromagnetic spectrum that the FCC regulates. And it is also true that, historically, this has allowed the government to engage in some control over content that is impermissible for other, unlicensed media. But this authority has always been in tension with the First Amendment, and the FCC’s ability to regulate broadcast content is probably at its lowest point since the commission was created, in 1934. Any effort to punish a broadcaster over its political coverage or its news judgment (not to mention jokes on late-night TV) would quickly be thrown out in court.

    Even in the heyday of the public interest standard, the Supreme Court made clear that “the First Amendment must inform and give shape to the manner in which Congress exercises its regulatory power in this area” and the FCC must accord broadcasters “the widest journalistic freedom consistent with their public [duties].” The court has stressed that the FCC must “walk a ‘tightrope’” to preserve the First Amendment values written into the Communications Act and described this as “a task of great delicacy and difficulty.” These concerns existed even when the FCC’s authority under the public interest standard was at its zenith, and even at that time, the court cautioned that it would not hesitate to intervene if the commission went too far.

    Since then, both Congress and the commission itself have recognized that the “scarcity rationale” that was used to justify broadcast regulation in the past is no longer valid, and the Supreme Court has observed that to whatever extent the rationale retains any force at all, it provides only “minimal” authority for the FCC to influence broadcast programming. It has flatly stated that “the FCC’s oversight responsibilities do not grant it the power to ordain any particular type of programming that must be offered by broadcast stations.”

    In 2025, any aggressive action by the FCC to regulate broadcast programming would provide an opportunity to challenge whatever remains of the public interest standard as a reason to treat broadcasters differently from other media. And FCC meddling in editorial decisions regarding political coverage and news judgment would provide an easy case for limiting the FCC’s authority. That is especially true if the commission’s actions are perceived as politically motivated.

    Regulatory Mission Creep

    Your foray into regulating what you call “Big Tech” is even more tenuous. The FCC only has the jurisdiction Congress has delegated to it, and it has never been vested with authority to regulate social media platforms, much less computer companies. The FCC during the first Trump administration floated the theory that the commission could influence online media because it has a role in interpreting Section 230, claiming that courts must defer to the agency’s “reasonable interpretations of all ambiguous terms in the Communications Act.” Your November 2024 letter to the tech companies suggested the same thing, when you asserted that the FCC administers Section 230.

    I read the law differently and see no role for the FCC here. But no matter, the Supreme Court spoke to this broader question of federal agency jurisdiction just last term, making clear it is the job of federal courts — not administrative agencies — to interpret the meaning and scope of federal laws. As the court made clear, “even when an ambiguity happens to implicate a technical matter, it does not follow that Congress has taken the power to authoritatively interpret the statute from the courts and given it to [an administrative] agency.” This rule does not change because of “individual policy preferences.” Put bluntly, interpreting Section 230 isn’t in the FCC’s job description.

    Lower courts have already applied the Supreme Court’s ruling to curtail the FCC’s ability to interpret the law to impose so-called “network neutrality” rules and to treat online information service providers as common carriers. In limiting the FCC’s authority in this area, the Sixth Circuit cited Section 230 as setting forth the congressional policy to leave the internet and other interactive computer services “unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” It would be paradoxical indeed to try to use Section 230 as the “hook” by which to impose greater federal control over online businesses.

    Even if congressional policy were unclear on this point, the First Amendment limits any role for the FCC, as the Supreme Court also made clear last term. While you have framed your position as a desire to prevent Big Tech “censorship” and to smash what you have called the “censorship-industrial complex,” the court explained that using government power in this way rests on “a serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle.” Leveraging state authority to prevent private “censorship” is not even a valid governmental purpose, and efforts to use such power would fail under any level of constitutional scrutiny. As the court observed, the First Amendment bars “the government from tilting public debate in a preferred direction.”

    Regulation by Raised Eyebrow

    To be sure, FCC commissioners and chairmen have not always been entirely fastidious in respecting the statutory and constitutional limits of their office. The practice of making threats (veiled or otherwise), demanding answers or documents from licensees, or otherwise exerting informal pressure has been sufficiently common that the courts have given it a name: regulation by raised eyebrow. It is also generally called “jawboning.” Some officials believe they can avoid judicial scrutiny if they only act informally, confining their actions to bullying through unofficial actions. But they are wrong. 

    The DC Circuit is keenly aware that the FCC can abuse its authority in this way and has limited “raised eyebrow” tactics in past cases. And the Supreme Court again last term reaffirmed that government officials violate the First Amendment if they use coercive threats to restrict speech. That case involved a New York State financial services regulator that put pressure on insurance companies to cut their ties with the National Rifle Association because of the state’s disagreement with the NRA’s pro-gun advocacy. The court observed that public officials may denounce disfavored speech all they like, but they cannot flex their regulatory muscles in order to silence the speaker.

    In reaching this conclusion, it unanimously reaffirmed that the Constitution bars government officials from using indirect means to do what they cannot do directly, and that includes both threats to impose sanctions if the target doesn’t give in and promises of leniency if it does. Such jawboning is a particular concern when officials seek to “expand their regulatory jurisdiction to suppress the speech of organizations they have no direct control over.” While this rule covers all government officials, it applies with special force to the FCC because your agency regulates communications media and is bound by law to respect constitutional limits. Bottom line, given your position, writing threatening letters may be enough to get you into constitutional hot water.

    Political Reality 101

    Ultimately, if the president is happy with the public positions you have been taking, why should you care if the rest of the world describes your rhetoric about free speech as empty and your conflicting positions hypocritical? You must be doing something right if your statements helped get you the appointment as chair, and you have the political winds at your back. Fair enough, but I respectfully suggest this represents short-term thinking.

    Sooner or later, you (or someone at the FCC) will be required to defend the various inconsistent positions in court, and in that forum, notions of “political reality” tend to fall short. Former FCC general counsel Jack Smith learned this lesson the hard way when he was directed by the Court of Appeals to explain why the FCC was continuing to enforce the fairness doctrine after the commission had concluded that the scarcity rationale could no longer support it. The answer, of course, was that key members of Congress liked having an FCC rule they could hold over broadcasters’ heads, and they pressured the commission not to end it. So when Smith had to explain the FCC’s inconsistent positions in court, he said “we are not talking law school enforcement, legal textbook arguments; we’re talking political reality here.”

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    The judges, less than impressed, reminded Smith and the agency that “federal officials are not only bound by the Constitution, they must also take a specific oath to support and defend it.” The court compelled the commission to discharge its constitutional obligations regardless of whether “the resolution would be politically awkward,” a ruling that set the fairness doctrine on the road to oblivion. Think of it as a cautionary tale if you really want to be known as a free speech warrior.

    It also is worth keeping your longer-term legacy in mind. Officials who have tried to use their power to muzzle the press for short-term political gain have not been treated well by history. The Nixon administration was particularly antagonistic to the press and used a variety of tools to intimidate and punish disfavored reporters and critical news organizations. The White House tapes recorded Nixon threatening to act against broadcast stations owned by The Washington Post in retaliation for its coverage of the Watergate scandal, and he arranged for political allies to challenge license renewals of “unfriendly” stations. Nixon failed, the rule of law held, and his abusive tactics have been remembered as a black mark on the presidency and a cautionary tale.

    If I were your adviser, this is not how I would want history to remember you.

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  • Q&A With Authors of Chemistry First Edition for GOB Courses

    Q&A With Authors of Chemistry First Edition for GOB Courses

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background (current title, professional milestones, professional history, education, research works, hobbies, etc.)

    Tiffiny D. Rye-McCurdy: I am a lecturer in chemistry and the Administrative Manager of the Academic Success Center at The Ohio State University at Marion, where I assist students in learning concepts of chemistry and biology both inside and outside the classroom. I currently teach GOB chemistry, general chemistry, organic chemistry and biochemistry. Prior to this position, I taught general chemistry as well as introductory biology courses. I received a B.A. in biochemistry from Ohio Wesleyan University and received my Ph.D. from The Ohio State University Biochemistry program. I am involved in community outreach as the co-coordinator of Ohio State Marion’s science and engineering camps for high school and middle school students. I enjoy visiting local parks with my family and gardening in my free time.

    Ryan J. Yoder: I am an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University, serving the regional campus in Marion, OH. I previously taught GOB chemistry at Marion before joining the full-time faculty in 2013. I currently teach organic chemistry lecture and laboratory courses in addition to serving the campus and university community. I received my B.A. in chemistry from Ohio Wesleyan University and received my Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. I mentor undergraduate research students at Marion and Columbus. I am also currently pursuing chemical education research. I live in central Ohio with my wife and two children where I enjoy family time, travel, cooking, golfing and following sports from around the world.

    Tell us about the GOB course at OSU Marion. What are the most rewarding aspects of teaching the class and the biggest challenges?

    Tiffiny: The most rewarding aspect of teaching the GOB course is getting to show brand-new college students how basic chemistry relates to their health and physiology. In other general chemistry courses, we never get to emphasize the connection between chemicals and their extensive roles in the human body, and I think that delays student interest in chemistry until much later in their academic careers.

    The biggest challenge is that, in covering general chemistry, organic chemistry and biochemistry in one semester, the breadth of knowledge you must communicate is vast. To complicate things, the majority of my class consists of first-year students who may not have developed college-level study habits yet.

    How has the GOB course changed over the past few years? How have you adapted your teaching to reflect those changes?

    Tiffiny: When I taught this course in 2015, it was a scaled down general chemistry course with an introduction to functional groups and a side of biochemistry at the very end. Now the course gives students a foundation in the core concepts of general chemistry, an extensive dive into not only functional groups, but their physical properties and chemical reactions, as well as an extensive coverage of biomolecules and how they all tie into human nutrition and metabolism. It’s very different from the course it used to be!

    Ryan: These developments are influential to the way we wrote the book itself. Since it’s an integrated text, students learn about concepts early on that show up again and again in different contexts in later chapters, which helps reinforce core concepts. For example, the textbook teaches students about molecular shapes, polarity and intermolecular forces in the first third of the book. Then we talk about those intermolecular forces and how they affect the physical properties of organic molecules, learning about them again when we discuss how attractive forces are responsible for the 3-D structures of biomolecules like DNA and proteins.  We believe this approach is the most appropriate to balance the tremendous breadth of the course while going into enough depth for faculty to be able to teach students these fundamentals of chemistry properly.

    How has your work at OSU Marion influenced your work on Fundamentals of Chemistry for Today: General, Organic, Biological Chemistry? What is distinctive about the text? Do you have any suggestions for instructors getting started with the text?

     Tiffiny: Despite our differences, Ryan and I are both very methodical in our teaching approaches. We incorporated our teaching pedagogy into this text by presenting a cluster of related concepts, followed by an example problem which is solved step-by-step to show students a logical way to break down more complex problems, and show them the thought process. We follow these in-chapter worked examples immediately with a Learning Check to reinforce what the students learned, allowing them the opportunity to build those critical problem-solving skills.

    Ryan: This text not only breaks down complex problems with a step-by-step approach, but the importance of the chemistry is constantly being shown with real-life examples of how it relates to the world around us. Not only is this evident in the way we introduce the concepts themselves, but we also provide extra features throughout each chapter to highlight connections between the chemistry we’re learning and the larger world. We begin each chapter with a Career Focus feature, to show our students that not everyone in health care is a doctor or nurse.  And, in fact, many of the topics we cover in each chapter are directly related to a variety of careers in health-related fields. Also, throughout each chapter, we have several Health Connections and Environmental Connections to make the material come even more to life.

     How does WebAssign connect to your text? How do you use it in your course? Do you have any suggestions for professors getting started with WebAssign?

     Tiffiny: WebAssign for Chemistry, Cengage’s online learning platform, serves as an excellent tool for instructors to create graded assignments using a mixture of end-of-chapter and learning check exercises. I currently use it to assign homework to help students understand the concepts taught during lecture, and next semester I will use it to create extra review assignments (outside the hard-copy review packets I provide now).

    Students love the Practice Another feature, which allows them to do a similar problem to those assigned. In fact, sometimes my students do those first to ensure they understand the concept before getting graded on their assignment. They also like the Ask Your Teacher feature, which allows them to ask me a question on specific problems and helps me see where students are struggling to understand when they are on their own. Lastly, WebAssign will soon include videos of Ryan and I working through specific exercises, showing how to approach each problem in a stepwise manner. These will be a great resource that students can watch in addition to the lecture with their own instructor.

    How do you see this text deepening students’ engagement with chemistry and fostering more active engagement with core concepts? What is the most significant takeaway students will carry with them after using this textbook?

    Tiffiny: I think tying general chemistry to our physiology really helps students connect to the material, when they might otherwise “zone out.” I really think students will have a basic, introductory understanding of chemistry in the body that they can build on when going into a science education or health and medicine field.  Examples include conversion in the context of medical dosages, pH in the context of blood buffers, dilutions in the context of medication, REDOX reactions and the role of electron carriers in cellular respiration, how glycolipid antigens determine our blood types, the central dogma and chemicals that serve as micro and macronutrients.

    Ryan: I think, in general, students who use this text will see how all of chemistry is connected to itself and how chemistry is connected to their broader world. On that latter point, I believe it’s critical that we included such cutting-edge technologies as COVID vaccines and CRISPR, which are sure to be a part of the health care landscape well into the future. Seeing chemistry in action through such relevant advancements and challenges will allow for more active engagement with the rest of the material. I think the way we scaffold the later organic and biochemistry material also gives students the best opportunity to carry that relevant knowledge further into their academic and professional journey.

     

    Tiffiny D. Rye-McCurdy is the Administrative Manager of the Academic Success Center and a lecturer in chemistry at The Ohio State University at Marion. Dr. Rye-McCurdy currently has a rotational schedule teaching GOB chemistry, general chemistry and organic chemistry. Prior to this position, she taught biochemistry and introductory biology and physiology courses. She received her B.A. in ACS-certified biochemistry from Ohio Wesleyan University and her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University Biochemistry program.

    Ryan YoderRyan J. Yoder is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University, serving the regional campus in Marion, OH. Dr. Yoder previously taught GOB chemistry at Marion before joining the full-time faculty in 2013. He currently teaches organic chemistry lecture and laboratory courses in addition to serving the campus and university community. He received his B.A. in chemistry from Ohio Wesleyan University and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Dr. Yoder mentors undergraduate research students at Marion and Columbus, examining protein-ligand interactions toward therapeutics against threats from chemical weapons and cancer.

     

    Interested in “Fundamentals of Chemistry for Today: General, Organic, and Biochemistry,” 1e by Tiffiny D. Rye-McCurdy and Ryan J. Yoder for your chemistry course? Check out this title now.

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  • The Fifteen: February 7, 2025

    The Fifteen: February 7, 2025

    Today is the tenth edition of The Fifteen. Higher Education is in flux around the world, and we are taking a look at reforms in the EU, India and Indonesia, with stops in Australia and Hong Kong. We’re also looking at some contrasting approaches to managing AI, keeping track of the ongoing political confrontation between students and the government in Serbia, as well as—inevitably—keeping tabs on whatever it is Trump is doing to American Higher Ed.

    1. As more colleges announce program cuts (now over 200 in total), the Ontario Public Service Employee’s Union is calling for the government to step in as colleges continue to announce program cuts. Advocates call for more provincial funding for Ontario colleges to stop program cuts. (CBC News)
    2. Trump has shown that he’s willing to do just about anything, and his talk of shutting down the Education Department may be more than just bark. Trump Planning EO Directing Education Department to ‘Diminish Itself,’ Reports Say. (Inside Higher Ed)
    3. American Higher Ed has already had a rough couple of weeks as the slew of executive orders continues: OMB FUNDING PAUSE, MORE EOS MARK HECTIC WEEK FOR HIGHER ED. (ACE)
    4. Financially troubled Saint Augustine University in North Carolina refuses a loan from a local lender because it might mean naming a more serious set of Board members. Saint Augustine’s University Rejected Lower-Interest Loan Contingent on Board Chair’s Resignation (Indy Week)
    5. India continues to send millions of students abroad each year as its higher education sector struggles to keep up with growing demand. The government is putting more money into battling this brain drain by investing in universities at home. UNION BUDGET 2025: Targeted reforms and investments expected to strengthen higher education system (EducationTIMES)
    6. The European Commission has been working on developing EU-recognized degrees, but the project is hitting roadblocks. National differences hinder development of European degrees. (Science Business)
    7. Another new year, another purge in North Korean universities. N. Korean university’s year-end purge: From foreign songs to USB drives. (Daily NK)
    8. Despite not really moving all that quickly to implement the vaunted “universities accord,” Australia’s Labour government is on to a new public inquiry, this one on governance. It’s not receiving rave reviews from the sector. ‘Lawless’ Australian universities face new Senate inquiry. (Times Higher Education)
    9. The political situation in Serbia continues to evolve; the president has invited talks with university leaders in response to widespread student protests. Student protests in Serbia, Vucic summons university leaders. (Nova Europa)
    10. The American higher education system became rich in part through government land-grants. Now, in Indonesia, the government is trying to give universities the opportunity to make money via mining rights. Bill granting mining rights to universities splits opinion. (University World News)
    11. The question of who is a “local” student continues to vex Hong Kong. In response to parents fuming about their children losing places at prestigious universities to students from the mainland, the territorial government is reviewing the regulations. Hong Kong to review ‘local’ student definition over loopholes. (Times Higher Education)
    12. Buyer’s remorse in Argentina; the Milei government, one year later. Students are turning on Milei after helping him win power. (Buenos Aires Times)
    13. International student numbers are recovering in the UK (slowly). Early data indicates international enrolment growth for UK higher education’s January 2025 intake. (ICEF)
    14. The release of Chinese LLM Deepseek may mark a momentary lead over the US in the development of large Language Models, but at Chinese Universities, the emphasis is still on limiting the use of AI: Universities seek to restrict AI use by students. (People’s Daily Online)
    15. In the United States, meanwhile, California State University is dropping a huge amount of money onto a new AI skills initiative for its half million students. CSU unveils massive venture to provide free AI tools and training across all 23 campuses. (Los Angeles Times)

    HESA’s AI-CADEMY: Canada Summit for Post-Secondary Education is nearly sold-out! Join us in Calgary on March 6&7 to discuss the future of technology in the higher education sector.

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  • Journalism is a calling. Is a story calling you?

    Journalism is a calling. Is a story calling you?

    Marcy Burstiner is the educational news director for News Decoder. She is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication at the California Polytechnic University, Humboldt in California. She is the author of the book Investigative Reporting: From premise to publication.

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  • ‘It’s different when they’re in their office’: the disconnect in student perceptions of academic meetings

    ‘It’s different when they’re in their office’: the disconnect in student perceptions of academic meetings

    by Stacey Mottershaw and Anna Viragos

    As we approach the five-year anniversary of the closure of UK university campuses for the Covid-19 pandemic, we thought it might be interesting and timely to reflect on the way that the sector adapted to educational delivery, and which innovations remain as part of our new normal.

    One key aspect of educational delivery which has remained to varying extents across the sector is the move to online student meetings. This includes meetings for academic personal tutorials, dissertation supervisions and other one-to-one meetings between students and staff. The Covid-19 lockdowns necessitated the use of online meetings as the only available option during this time. However, even post-lockdown, students and staff have continued to request online meetings, for reasons such as flexibility, privacy and sustainability.

    To explore this further, we conducted a small mixed-methods study with students from Leeds University Business School to consider their preferences for online or in-person meetings, utilising a faculty-wide survey for breadth and short semi-structured interviews for depth.

    We designed a questionnaire including questions on demographic (eg gender, home/international, whether they have caring responsibilities) and situational questions regarding their preference for face-to-face only, hybrid, or online meetings. We also included some questions around the ‘Big Five’ personality traits, to better understand factors that influence preferences.  We then distributed this online questionnaire, using the Qualtrics questionnaire software.

    Based on our findings, 15% of respondents preferred face-to-face only, 31% online only, with the remaining 54% preferring to have the option of either face-to-face or online.

    We also found that international students had a stronger preference for online meetings compared to non-international students. Whilst we had a relatively small sample of students on the Plus Programme (our institutional programme targeted to under-represented students); they had a stronger preference for in-person meetings. In terms of the Big Five traits, this student sample was highest on agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lowest on extroversion.

    In addition to the questionnaire, we ran seven one-to-one interviews with students from a mix of second year, the year in industry and final year, who had all experienced a mix of both online and face-to-face meetings throughout their studies.

    In reviewing the data, we identified five core themes of student preferences around meeting modes:

    • Connection and communication: Participants felt that the type of meeting affected connection and communication, with in-person meetings feeling more authentic.
    • Privacy/space: Participants felt that the type of meeting was influenced by factors including their access to private space, either at home or on campus.
    • Confidence: Some participants felt that the type of meeting could affect how confident they would feel in interactions with staff, with online meetings in their own environment feeling more comfortable than in spaces on campus.
    • Time: Participants discussed the amount of time that they had for each type of meeting, with online meetings deemed to be more efficient, due to the absence of travel time.
    • Flexibility: Participants demonstrated a strong preference for flexibility, in that they value having a choice over how to meet, rather than a meeting mode being imposed upon them.

    Through cross-examination of the core themes, we also identified something akin to a meta-theme, that is a ‘theme which acquire[s] meaning through the systematic co-occurrence of two or more other themes’ (Armborst, 2017 p1). We termed this meta-theme ‘The Disconnect’, as across each of the core themes there seemed to be a disconnect between student expectations of APT and what is typically provided, which ties in with existing literature (Calabrese et al, 2022).

    For example, one participant suggested that:

    It’s different when they’re in their office like popping there and asking a question for the lecture or even like the tutorials rather than having to e-mail or like go on a call [which] feels more formal.

    Whilst this comment seems to lean more towards other types of academic teaching (eg module leadership, lecture delivery or seminar facilitation), it can also translate to availability of staff more broadly. The comment suggests that students might expect staff to be available to them, on site, as and when they are needed. Yet in reality, it is unlikely that outside of set office hours academic staff will be available to answer ad hoc questions given their other commitments and particularly given the increased proportion of staff regularly working from home since the pandemic. This perspective also seems to contradict the perception that staff are much more available now than ever before, due to the prevalence of communications administered via email and online chat and meeting tools such as MS Teams. Staff may feel that they are more available as online communication methods increase in availability and use, but if students do not want ‘formal’ online options or prefer ad hoc on-site provision, then there may be a disconnect between student expectations and delivery, with all stakeholders feeling short-changed by the reality.

    Another disconnect between expectations and reality became apparent when another participant commented:

    […] online it was more rushed because you have the 30 minutes and you see the time going down and in the Zoom you will see like you have 4 minutes left to talk and then you’re rushing it over to finish it.

    Whilst this clearly relates to the core theme of time, it also seemed to be correlated with participant understanding of staff roles. It is difficult to understand how the time limitation for online and in-person meetings is different when the meetings are of the same duration, except that in the case of in-person meetings the student may be less aware of timings, due to not having the time physically visible on the screen in front of them. This might be reflected in the student-staff dynamic, where managing online meetings might be seen to be a joint and equal endeavour, with the responsibility for managing in-person meetings being skewed towards the staff member. Whilst it can be argued that staff should take responsibility for managing the meeting, in a time of increased narratives around student-led tutoring, it may be worth exploring the possible knock-on effects of students passively allowing the meeting to happen, rather than actively owning the meeting.

    Final thoughts

    A limitation of this study was the low response rate. At the point of dissemination, there were approximately 2,000 students in our faculty. However, we received just 198 survey responses (9.9%), and only seven people took part in the interviews, despite repeated calls for participants and generous incentives. Although this was a smaller sample than we had hoped for, we are confident that our study makes a timely and relevant contribution to discussions around delivery of APT, both within our faculty and beyond.

    As a starting point, future research could seek to generate responses from a broader pool of participants, through both a quantitative survey and qualitative methods. Based on our findings, there may also be scope for further research exploring student expectations of staff roles, and how these match to institutional offerings across the sector. Ultimately, universities need to do more to investigate and understand student preferences for educational delivery, balancing this alongside pedagogical justifications and staff circumstances.

    Stacey Mottershaw is an Associate Professor (Teaching and Scholarship) at Leeds University Business School and an EdD candidate at the University of Sheffield. Her research predominantly seeks to understand the needs of marginalised groups in higher education, with a particular focus on equitable and socially just career development. 

    Dr Anna Viragos is an Associate Professor in Organizational Psychology at Leeds University Business School, and a Chartered Psychologist of the BPS. Her research focuses on a variety of topics such as stress and wellbeing, creativity, and job design.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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