Tag: academic

  • Black Women’s Leadership in Higher Education: The Remaking of Academic Power

    Black Women’s Leadership in Higher Education: The Remaking of Academic Power

    I
    Dr. Tina M. King     n the storied halls of higher education, Black women who ascend to the presidency do so while carrying the weight of history, community, and the unspoken expectation that we will be both miracle workers and scapegoats. Black women in higher education leadership navigate a complex matrix of anti-Blackness and misogynoir —a reality where their expertise is simultaneously appropriated and undermined. Research reveals that more than most Black women executives in predominantly white institutions (PWIs) experience racelighting (racialized gaslighting), characterized by dehumanizing scrutiny. We endure identity taxation, where we are expected to carry the unsustainable burden of single-handedly solving institutional race problems, often where we are the target of the attack while comforting white fragility. Simultaneously, we experience racelighting where people of color receive racialized messages and question their thoughts and experiences. This racelighting is perpetuated by the institution’s willingness to tokenize Black women’s identities for diversity optics while suppressing our agenda for transformative anti-racist praxis. The narrative of Black women’s leadership in PWIs is not simply a tale of individual achievement but also reflects the deep, persistent anti-Blackness embedded in the academy’s very structure.

    The attacks, swift and severe, are often cloaked in the familiar rhetoric of “governance, academic integrity, or collegial concern,” but the subtext is unmistakably racial. They are orchestrated not as a response to policy but as a rebuke of Black authority daring to reshape the institution’s priorities. In such attacks, we are called incompetent, corrupt, and unwilling to do the hard work (lazy), echoing tropes that have long been used to undermine Black people in general and Black women in leadership specifically. The most insidious move, however, is often the elevation of a single Black or Brown person to be the messenger or carrier of the attack, serving as a shield to deflect accusations of racism and to lend legitimacy to the movement or campaign t o disparage and discredit Black women’s leadership.Dr. Regina Stanback StroudDr. Regina Stanback Stroud

    This dynamic is not new. Dr. Patricia Hill Collins (2000), in her foundational work on Black Feminist Thought, describes how Black women in leadership are subjected to controlling images— stereotypes that are deployed to police the boundaries of acceptable Blackness. In the academy, these images manifest as relentless questioning of competence, insinuations of aggression, and the expectation that Black women will perform emotional labor to maintain white comfort. The token messenger, perhaps unwittingly, becomes complicit in this system, their proximity to whiteness granting her temporary power even as it reinforces the very structures that marginalize leaders of color—in other words, they become complicit in using the academic tools of white supremacy to join in the assault on Black women’s leadership.

    What begins to emerge is a spectator sport where people at all levels of influence remain silent in the face of orchestrated attacks. Please make no mistake: silence does not represent neutrality; it represents complicity. By refusing to address the racialized nature of the attacks, the institution is signaling that Black women leaders are ultimately expendable, their contributions contingent upon their willingness to placate white interests and prioritize white comfort. This is the reality of what Breonna Collins (2022) calls “epistemic violence” –the systematic invalidation of Black knowledge and leadership under the guise of procedural fairness.

    Yet Black women leaders have always found ways to resist and reimagine the academy. Drawing on the tradition of Black feminist resistance, we create counterspaces within hostile institutions, mentoring the next generation and insisting on the legitimacy of their vision. We redefine “institutional fit” not as assimilation into white norms but as the capacity to transform the institution in service of justice.

    Despite these acts of resistance and reimagination, the very presence and leadership of Black women in academic spaces often disrupts entrenched power structures and exposes the discomfort many have with authentic Black excellence. A threat to many, Black excellence in leadership prioritizes the needs of marginalized students and communities over the preservation of the status quo.

    While some may wish to uphold privilege and power for themselves, others may be well-intentioned but unable to recognize Black excellence. They may interpret Black leadership as arrogance or see Black Leaders simply as flaunting their positions or being opinionated. Still others may believe they are doing good but fail to recognize their own deep biases. Those who consider themselves allies may suffer fatigue along with Black leaders, but that mutual suffering does not, an ally make. It must be accompanied by one’s willingness to use their white privilege and capital to actively combat anti-Blackness and misogynoir at play.

    Studies of HBCU leadership reveal how Black women executives subvert PWI pathologies through radical self-definition, where we reject white-normed leadership frameworks to implement culturally grounded approaches and ethical care (prioritizing community needs over respectability politics). We create counter-spaces that center Black epistemologies, such as mentorship programs that affirm Black women’s intellectual sovereignty. Black women leaders engage in institutional truth-telling where we document systemic racelighting through critical race methodology.

    True transformation requires more than performative allyship. It demands redistribution of resources, independent accountability structures, and a commitment to centering Black epistemologies in institutional decision-making. There is a growing recognition that Black leadership is not incidental— it is essential to the future of higher education. The time has come for institutions to choose: will they cling to the master’s tools, or will they finally make room for the radical imagination and power of Black women’s leadership?

    Until higher education is willing to confront its foundational anti-Blackness, it will continue to sacrifice its most visionary leaders on the altar of white comfort. The question is not whether another attack will come but who will have the courage to stand in solidarity and say, “Enough.” The future of academia depends on this shift. Ultimately, we must move beyond the white gaze and demand for our pain, and instead, embrace the Black radical imagination and the remaking of power in the academy.

    Dr. Tina M. King is president of San Diego College of Continuing Education 

    Dr. Regina Stanback Stroud is the chief executive officer of RSSC Consulting

    Dr. Jennifer Taylor Mendoza serves as the 13th president of West Valley College.

     

     

     

     

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  • How to offer academic asylum to scholars at risk

    How to offer academic asylum to scholars at risk

    Since President Trump rolled out executive orders to eliminate DEI programmes and began to unpick the funding infrastructure of American research, a number of countries have offered safe haven to academics currently working in the USA.

    As rector of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Jan Danckaert, noted:

    American universities and their researchers are the biggest victims of this political and ideological interference. They’re seeing millions in research funding disappear for ideological reasons.

    From Singapore and Australia to Norway and Belgium, governments and individual universities around the globe are seizing the opportunity to attract the top American minds. For scholars fearful of their government’s policy direction on academic freedom, such as those working in gender studies, on vaccine research or climate change, the situation is urgent.

    At risk academics

    Yet this is nothing new. The Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) has helped researchers escape persecution and conflict for almost a century, bringing the likes of Nikolaus Pevsner, Max Born and Albie Sachs to safety in Britain. Conceived in response to the Nazi assault on universities, CARA drove Britain’s scholarly rescue mission in the 1930s. At the same time, a parallel movement began in the USA. The Institute for Advanced Study was created at Princeton, with Albert Einstein appointed as the first Fellow in 1932. Other European academics such as Paul Dirac and Emmy Noether soon followed.

    Just as German scientists sought academic freedom in the USA and UK in the 1930s, now American scholars are beginning to cross the Atlantic in the other direction. In France, Aix-Marseille University received around 300 applications for its Safe Place for Science initiative, which aims to offer 15 million Euro to support research across the next three years. The first eight researchers arrived in France in June, with up to 20 expected by the beginning of the new academic year.

    The UK’s universities meanwhile seem mired in a funding crisis due to financial models all too dependent on precarious markets of international students, leading to shrinking budgets, staff layoffs and even the looming possibility of full-blown bankruptcy. Offering cash and “academic asylum” to any foreign academics in these straitened circumstances is unlikely to be seen as a priority. And yet Institutes for Advanced Study, or IASs, already provide the necessary infrastructure and perhaps the fastest means of response.

    What is an Institute for Advanced Study?

    Princeton’s Institute remains remarkable: since its inception, visitors have been selected solely on the basis of academic ability, regardless of gender, race or religion; its mission of Advanced Study centres the “curiosity-driven pursuit of knowledge” as a good in itself, with no view to practical application or the expectation of meeting predetermined goals. This approach, and the inherent interdisciplinarity of bringing together researchers across the sciences, arts and humanities, inspired counterparts around the world, including the UK’s first IAS at the University of Edinburgh in 1969. Other UK universities with an IAS now include Warwick, Loughborough, Durham, Stirling, UCL and Birmingham.

    These Institutes vary in size and scope but all share Princeton’s founding mission of untrammelled academic freedom for blue-sky thinking. Interdisciplinarity is the scholarly keystone of Advanced Study. Researchers from diverse disciplines and career stages form a community of practice, which may also encompass artists, journalists, community activists and others who likewise benefit from a reflective, supportive, non-hierarchical environment in which to work. Conversations and serendipitous encounters in such an environment can be the “source from which undreamed-of utility is derived” in the words of Abraham Flexner, founder of Princeton’s IAS.

    What can these institutes offer?

    Amid difficult economic times, approaches to knowledge production have become ever more instrumental, with research increasingly valorised for its capacity to be commercialised or to have some form of impact beyond the academy. However, an overemphasis on applied research risks circumscribing the conceptual imagination that underscores so many scientific advances. The curiosity-driven IAS approach can be a necessary corrective to instrumentalism, bolstering a healthy research culture.

    From their inception in the 1930s, IASs have also always had a moral mission to support colleagues around the world when threatened by conflict, displacement or, in the case of the new wave of populist governments, by illiberalism. For those escaping war and trauma, such institutes form quiet places of refuge, rehabilitation and recovery. A small institute can be agile enough to respond to urgent need when research is threatened, where a whole department is less able to pivot. It is worth noting that recent programmes for Ukrainian scholars and their families have tended to emerge from IASs, along with bespoke schemes for researchers from Palestine, Syria, Hungary or Türkiye – and now perhaps America.

    Lastly, opportunities for career advancement have reduced across the whole university sector, nationally and internationally. Early-career scholars in particular face an impossibly precarious work environment, and staff development programmes are often the first casualty of cuts to expenditure. Whilst contracted research – as PDRA on a senior scholar’s project – can be an important stepping stone in the early stages of an academic career, there is a need for more funded opportunities to support independent research at postdoctoral level. IASs are one of very few means by which such research can flourish. Each year, hundreds of global scholars are appointed to IAS Fellowships at postdoctoral and more senior levels.

    Given the polycrises facing the sector, turning us inward, perhaps it is necessary to reconsider higher education as a global commons. In doing so, universities must embrace their particular responsibilities as places of sanctuary, of fundamental knowledge production and as incubators for the next generation of scholarship. The concept of Advanced Study was created to foster innovation across all these areas in a time of persecution.

    Now more than ever, Institutes devoted to that transformative potential could be the vehicle for promoting the highest standards of international collaboration, extending a hand to academics at risk in the global south and north, including our American counterparts.

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  • Academic Entrepreneurship with Toyin Alli, PhD

    Academic Entrepreneurship with Toyin Alli, PhD

    Dr. Toyin Alli returns to The Social Academic podcast to talk about showing up online for yourself and your business as an academic. As an entrepreneur herself, Toyin has balanced full time academic life with her business. Now, she helps academics like you create a semester-proof business that works for your full time academic life.

    In this episode: finding community, video for YouTube, and running a business in 5 hours a week or less.

    Bio

    Dr. Toyin Alli is a math professor, business strategist, and the founder of The Academic Society, where she helps grad students with time management, productivity, self-care and grad school success strategies.

    After building her own six-figure business while teaching full-time, Toyin now mentors other professors through her signature program Six Figure Professor and her community, The Secret Society of Academic Entrepreneurs.

    She’s been featured on various academic podcasts and has spoken at universities across the country.

    Whether she’s teaching in the classroom, facilitating a virtual workshop, or coaching behind the scenes, Dr. Toyin Alli is on a mission to help academics reclaim their time, expand their influence, and redefine success on their own terms.

    Watch our past interview with Dr. Toyin Alli about grad school.

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  • Post-pandemic, student academic recovery remains elusive

    Post-pandemic, student academic recovery remains elusive

    Key points:

    Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic recovery has stalled nationwide, and achievement gaps have widened, according to the State of Student Learning 2025 report from from Curriculum Associates.

    The report offers one of the most comprehensive looks at Grades K–8 student performance in reading and mathematics, based on data from close to 14 million students who took the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment in the 2024–2025 school year.

    The report shows that most students have not yet reached pre-pandemic achievement levels, and some are falling even further behind. The report does find some bright spots: Some historically underserved schools, especially majority-Black schools, are seeing modest, positive gains in both reading and mathematics. However, those gains have not yet translated into closing longstanding disparities.

    “This report shows that disrupted schooling due to the pandemic continues to impact student learning, particularly for students who are in early grades, are lower performing, or are from historically underserved communities,” said Kristen Huff, head of measurement at Curriculum Associates. “Academic recovery has never been one-size-fits-all, and these results reaffirm the importance of nuanced, data-informed approaches. Above all, they underscore the vital work educators are doing every day to meet students where they are and help them move forward.”

    Key findings

    • Academic progress has plateaued. Since spring 2023, national achievement has remained flat. While many students are growing at pre-pandemic rates, that growth isn’t closing the gap caused by pandemic disruptions.
    • The achievement gap has grown in many cases. Students who were already behind, particularly those scoring in the bottom 10th percentile, continue to fall behind, while top-performing students have often recovered or surpassed their pre-pandemic levels.
    • Younger students experienced greater learning losses. Even though they were not yet in school during the pandemic, elementary students, especially in Grades K and 1, saw the largest drops in achievement after the pandemic. 
    • Vulnerable populations are experiencing uneven recovery. The report shows widening gaps between the nation’s highest and lowest performers. Across most grades, the differences between higher and lower percentiles have increased over time.

    A data-driven, nationwide look

    The 2025 report examines data through the critical years pre- and post-pandemic, from spring 2019 to spring 2025. Using a nationally representative sample of more than 11.7 million reading and 13.4 million mathematics assessments, the research examines:

    • Grade-level placement: how many students are performing at or below grade level
    • Scale scores by percentile: how learning differs across performance groups
    • Annual growth: whether students are making enough academic progress during the school year to recover lost ground

    The findings reinforce that targeted support is needed to ensure every student can thrive academically, especially younger students, lower-performing students, and historically underserved communities.

    This press release originally appeared online.

    eSchool News Staff
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  • Academic bullied to “near suicide,” inquiry hears – Campus Review

    Academic bullied to “near suicide,” inquiry hears – Campus Review

    This article contains information related to suicide some may find distressing.

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  • Equity Gaps in Academic Advising

    Equity Gaps in Academic Advising

    Recently published research has found equity gaps in the impact of academic advising support on various student groups. While students from racial minorities are more likely to meet with an adviser compared to their white peers, they’re less likely to see improvements in their GPA or graduate on time.

    The research points to a need for improved advising processes, not just in increasing access to and knowledge of academic advising, but in developing holistic student support programs, said lead author Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, vice dean for research and equity at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

    The background: Academic advising is a critical part of student retention and progression, but not every student receives the support. A 2023 survey by Tyton Partners found one-third of student respondents were not aware of academic advising on campus, despite 98 percent of college employees saying the resource was available to their students.

    Similarly, a spring 2023 survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found, when asked what types of assistance students had received during academic advising, 8 percent of students said they had received no assistance since starting college. Additionally, 5 percent of respondents said they had never met with an academic adviser. Twenty-three percent of respondents said they have to set up meetings with an academic adviser if they’d like to meet, and 10 percent of all respondents said it was difficult to get an appointment with their academic adviser.

    The study: Hua-Yu’s study evaluated data from a large public research institution (total enrollment of 80,000) between 2017 and 2021, considering students’ grades, graduation rates, demographics and the number of appointments made with advisers.

    To ensure relevant comparisons, researchers matched students in the same school or academic program because advising requirements and processes varied by school, Hua-Yu said.

    Across the university, nonwhite and international student groups met with advisers more frequently than white domestic students, disrupting commonly held notions about who is aware of and using services on college campuses, Hua-Yu said.

    But the impact of advising was not affected by the frequency of appointments. Rather, despite meeting with advisers less frequently than minoritized students, white students were more likely to have higher GPAs compared to their white peers who didn’t meet with an adviser. White students’ frequency of meeting with an adviser also correlated with their graduation rates, the only racial or ethnic group that saw benefits in this way.

    “This is really damning evidence that advising is not doing what it’s supposed to be doing,” Hua-Yu said.

    Even among students with undeclared majors, where this institution felt it had a gold standard of advising supports and resources, data showed similar patterns: White students had better outcomes after meeting with advisers, despite their nonwhite peers having more meetings.

    Continuing-generation students were more likely to see benefits from advising appointments, compared to their first-generation peers, and low-income students who met with an adviser had slightly higher graduation rates compared to their higher-income classmates.

    The why: Hua-Yu theorizes that institutional messaging encouraging students to take advantage of advising could have been effective, resulting in more students having appointments with their advisers. But if marginalized students have complex concerns or are looking for advice on which path to choose, they are more likely to walk away from appointments without all the information they need or feeling like they don’t belong.

    A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found 75 percent of students said they had at least some trust in academic advisers on campus; 20 percent said they didn’t have much trust in them.

    First-generation students were 7 percent less likely to meet with an adviser and less likely to graduate, compared to their continuing generation peers, the IHE survey found.

    According to Hua-Yu, continuing-generation students are less likely to seek advice on changing their major when talking to staff, compared to their first-generation peers, because they have other support systems that can offer that insight. Instead, they’re using advising appointments to address logistical and bureaucratic impediments to reaching their goals, he noted.

    Building better: The findings, Hua-Yu emphasized, do not fault advisers but rather underline concerns with academic advising structures and staffing issues at colleges and universities across the country. A 2024 report by Tyton Partners found high caseloads and adviser burnout and turnover are some of the top challenges for the field.

    Advisers have caseloads as high as 400 students, which can limit their ability to engage with students intentionally and address their concerns at a deeper level, Hua-Yu said. Instead, leaders at institutions should recognize that quality advising can make a substantial difference in student outcomes and, in turn, advocate for resources and support to improve advising experiences.

    Hua-Yu called for more training for advisers on how to work with students in a specific program of study, as well as with a variety of student identities. Academic advisers cannot become social workers or mental health professionals, but improving how advisers are onboarded and supported can make substantial differences, Hua-Yu said.

    Advisers can also be given a set of questions to encourage more meaningful relationships with students during advising appointments, such as asking about students’ lives, their goals and their support systems.

    What’s next: Using the same data set, Hua-Yu and his team plan to investigate the use of flags or kudos within the advising system to see how early intervention could affect student success.

    The researchers are also exploring the role of gender on advising supports; initial results show white male students are less likely to engage in advising compared to other student groups.

    Incidentally, the data set covers a period of remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, so Hua-Yu and his team are exploring shocks to advising processes and supports after spring 2020. So far, researchers noted there were more advising meetings taking place, just remotely, and these advising appointment levels remained higher than pre-pandemic.

    Seeking stories from campus leaders, faculty members and staff for our Student Success focus. Share here.

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  • University of Utah board moves to cut 81 academic programs

    University of Utah board moves to cut 81 academic programs

    Dive Brief: 

    • The University of Utah’s trustee board approved plans Tuesday to discontinue 81 courses and degree programs in response to a new state law ordering public colleges to cut funding for certain academic offerings and administrative functions and invest in high-demand fields. 
    • The programs up for elimination range from a bachelor’s in chemistry teaching to a Ph.D. in theater. Most of them are graduate programs, and about one-quarter are in the university’s humanities college. The programs can be discontinued once the Utah System of Higher Education and state lawmakers sign off on the plan, according to a Tuesday announcement from the university. 
    • Each of the programs graduated at most one student over the past eight years, Richard Preiss, president of the university’s Academic Senate, said in a July 22 letter to the board. Students in affected programs will either be given pathways to complete their studies or referred to “academically appropriate alternatives,” the university said. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Earlier this year, Utah lawmakers cut 10% from the instruction budgets for each of the state’s eight public colleges, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The cuts amounted to $60.5 million, with University of Utah facing the largest budget reduction of $19.6 million. 

    To reclaim the funding, the legislation orders colleges to craft three-year plans for cutting certain academic programs and administrative expenses and redirecting the money to high-demand programs. 

    In guidance released earlier this year, the Utah System of Higher Education said the funds could be reinvested in programs that meet the state’s workforce needs, lead to high-wage careers, teach students “durable skills” such as critical thinking and problem-solving, or focus on services to increase student retention. 

    The law came on the heels of a 2024 legislative audit that said the state’s public universities were losing students to “private non-traditional” colleges, such as Western Governors University, a large online institution. The audit also found that university leaders largely weren’t able to calculate program-level data about costs, enrollment and completion rates. 

    “Because institutions currently lack metrics required to calculate program-level efficiencies — including returns on investment — presidents are unable to fully understand the degree to which programs maximize their use of student and taxpayer resources,” the audit stated. 

    The University of Utah submitted a draft of its three-year plan to the state’s higher education board in May. 

    Under the plan, the university said it would cut $7.5 million from its fiscal 2026 budget— including reductions in academic support services and administrative costs — and reallocate that money to instruction aligned with the state’s workforce needs. 

    The university said it plans to devote more money to instruction in engineering, artificial intelligence, nursing, biotechnology and behavioral health, as well as to provide more support for general education about civic engagement. 

    Utah lawmakers aren’t the only ones ordering public colleges to shed certain programs. Six of Indiana’s public institutions are moving to either cut or consolidate over 400 programs to comply with a new state law aiming to end academic offerings that award low numbers of degrees. 

    The impacted programs account for 19% of all degree offerings at Indiana’s public colleges.

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  • New Survey Measures Student Academic Flourishing in College

    New Survey Measures Student Academic Flourishing in College

    A new survey will collect data on academic flourishing among students enrolled in colleges and universities.

    Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images

    For prospective students looking to enroll in higher education, there are a variety of institutional factors to consider, among them location, course of study, cost of tuition and campus culture. Various sets of rankings provide additional information that might matter to students, such as spending on research or socioeconomic mobility for graduates.

    But one key outcome of higher education remains underappraised, according to Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Harvard University and director of the Human Flourishing Program: a student’s personal growth.

    Many institutions publish lofty mission statements that connect the learning experience to students’ personal growth, leadership skills, vocation and sense of purpose upon graduation. But beyond anecdotal testimony, there are few measures to understand the influence of colleges and universities on student flourishing.

    Next spring, Harvard University and Wanderweele are launching a new assessment tool as part of the Human Flourishing Program. The Flourishing Data Collaborative survey asks students to reflect on their college experience and provide their home institution with feedback as to what’s working and what needs additional intervention to affect student thriving.

    What’s the need: Researchers created the survey in part to encourage colleges and universities to consider flourishing and student development a core function of the institution.

    “I really do believe that what we measure shapes what we discuss, what we aim for, what policies are put in place to achieve those aims,” VanderWeele said. “So the very act of measurement, in some sense, itself constitutes an intervention and might help colleges and universities better pursue this.”

    The assessment is not designed as a replacement for other measures of student success, including job placement or retention rates, Wanderweele noted. But sometimes a focus on ranking metrics can shift institutional priorities in a way that neglects the human-centered mission of postsecondary education, he said.

    “For example, U.S. News & World Report rankings [have] very much shaped higher education, and people pay a lot of attention to this, but I think it’s also reoriented colleges and universities to specific metrics and ends that will help them go up in those rankings,” VanderWeele said. “Is it really the most important thing how much money has been spent on new student center facilities?”

    The program also wants to better understand the role of higher education in promoting student well-being. Large numbers of young people report feeling on edge, lonely, unmoored or directionless, according to a study from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. To get at this question, the survey asks about a learner’s sense of happiness and meaning and their financial security.

    How it works: After promising results from pilot surveys conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Harvard and Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome last year, the annual survey will launch in spring 2026, allowing first-year students to have at least one semester of undergraduate experience under their belts. Learners will respond to 24 questions ranging from “to what extent has university life helped you pursue truth?” to “to what extent has university life helped you to better lead a moral life?”

    VanderWeele hopes the survey will serve as a reflection tool for students to consider how education has contributed to their development, but also where they can be self-motivated to improve their well-being.

    After data collection is complete, each institution will receive a 50-page report and a dashboard with their survey results, allowing them to filter by specific data points.

    What’s next: Presently, the program is recruiting member institutions to participate in the survey and engage in a community of practice, Wanderweele said. The goal is for institutions to gain insight about their current practices, or even assess interventions across several surveys, but also to learn from their peers.

    “Our goal with this is not to differentially rank institutions, but to help each of these institutions come together, reflect on their strengths [and] areas for growth and to learn from one another in these different ways,” VanderWeele said.

    Institutions will pay an annual $10,000 membership fee to participate, which VanderWeele said is a similar rate to other survey offerings of this kind.

    Approximately 20 colleges have indicated interest in membership and another 100 have signed up for an upcoming webinar on Aug. 20 for additional information. VanderWeele said he is hoping a few dozen colleges and universities join the initiative this year.

    In addition to providing institution-specific insights and policy recommendations, VanderWeele and his team hope to use survey results to conduct research on human flourishing in higher education in general.

    Get more content like this directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Student Success newsletter here.

    This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Tyler VanderWeele’s last name.

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  • The rise of the ghost academic

    The rise of the ghost academic

    The conference circuit, once lively with questioning and dialogue, now contends with a new problem: the “ghost academic”.

    These are scholars whose names appear in conference programmes and proceedings, whose abstracts are listed, yet who never turn up to deliver their presentations.

    They accrue the CV line, but never share the substance.

    At first glance, this may seem a minor oddity, a logistical blip among myriad research meetings. But look closer and the phenomenon hints at deeper problems within higher education; changes driven by the mounting pressures of the marketised university.

    These invisible delegates are not simply absent individuals, they are symptoms of a system that increasingly privileges the performance of productivity over the practice of scholarship, with worrying consequences for academic life and the exchange of knowledge.

    The academic CV arms race

    The last two decades have seen universities across the UK, and elsewhere, adopt an increasingly commercial approach to governance and funding. Driven by competition for students, research income, and global rankings, institutions have shifted towards a marketised logic in which outputs, metrics, and performative achievements are central. Performance is tracked through an ever-more elaborate system of audits, league tables, and key performance indicators.

    For academics, this means living under the constant scrutiny, whether at a national level as in the REF (Research Excellence Framework), or internally through job criteria and annual reviews. The message is clear: career progression is tied to visible productivity. For early career researchers and established scholars alike, the need to have CVs brimming with publications, conference papers and other outputs has become existential.

    The ghost academic emerges

    It is within this climate that the ghost academic thrives. The defining feature is simple: the submission and acceptance of a conference abstract, sometimes even the appearance of a full paper in published proceedings, without any intention (or ability) to actually present at the conference. For academics faced with the paradox of decreased funding paired with ever-increasing demands of evidence of impact, having a conference paper publicly available from a conference which was never attended is one way to satisfy the metrics.

    By simply having a paper accepted and your name in the programme, you can pad your achievements in your CV and cite the research as being delivered at an international or national event, regardless of whether you gave the talk, fielded questions, or participated in the event itself.

    Sometimes, this “ghosting” is genuine. Travel plans change, funding falls through, or illness intervenes. Nobody begrudges a legitimate absence. But conference organisers increasingly report a more deliberate pattern: a growing number of accepted speakers who register for an event in order to secure their place, who don’t respond to follow-up communication and fail to turn up, without explanation. The paper often remains in the official record, granting the appearance of participation with none of the substance.

    This is an escalation from another known practice: academics who attend conferences only to deliver their own paper, then promptly depart without engaging in the rest of the event. Ghost academics take it one step further, they do not bother to show up at all.

    More than just an empty chair

    It might be tempting to dismiss the rise of the ghost academic as an organisational nuisance, an inconvenience for conference planners and session chairs. But the long-term consequences are more profound. Conferences are not just mechanisms to present findings, they are vital spaces for academic exchange, where ideas evolve, collaborations form, and feedback improves research. When “ghosting” becomes common, it devalues these functions, turning conferences into mere career-filling rituals rather than platforms for genuine engagement.

    The damage is most acute for those who stand to gain the most from conferences—early career researchers, postgraduate students, and scholars from underrepresented backgrounds. For them, conferences offer spaces to connect with mentors, get feedback on work in progress, and gain visibility in their fields. When speakers don’t show, or when panels are left half-empty, these opportunities diminish.

    There is also a subtler, cultural cost: the erosion of academic citizenship. At its best, the academic conference represents a collective endeavour to advance knowledge through dialogue, questioning, and debate. The ghost academic is a warning sign that the culture is shifting from collegiality to calculation, from dialogue to box-ticking.

    Rethinking academic incentives

    If the rise of the ghost academic is the result of systemic pressures, it follows that only systemic change will address it. First, universities and research funders must reconsider how conference contributions are evaluated. Rather than relying solely on the number of acceptances or proceedings entries, hiring panels and promotion committees should reward substantive forms of participation, such as evidence of engagement in discussion, collaboration with other attendees, or contributions to follow-up outputs.

    Some conference organisers are experimenting with stricter attendance and participation requirements: only registered attendees are permitted in the final programme; attendance is tracked; non-attending speakers are required to submit a video or withdraw altogether. Others are moving towards smaller, more genuinely interactive models, which foster engagement over mass participation.

    Hybrid and virtual conferences, while easier to ghost, can be designed to promote accountability and inclusion. Live question sessions, post-event fora, and real-time engagement metrics offer ways to ensure that participants are more than names on a slide.

    Ultimately, though, the solution must lie in a recalibration of values. As long as academic cultures reward the appearance of productivity over its substance, and as long as institutional structures idolise the performance of output, the ghost academic will remain. We must begin to value intellectual engagement—sharing, questioning, and collaboration, as much as, if not more than, abstract lines on a CV.

    The spectre of the ghost academic serves as a potent warning for higher education. At stake is more than just the orderliness of conference schedules or the hassle faced by organisers. What is imperilled is the tradition of lively, open intellectual exchange that has long been the hallmark of scholarly life.

    Addressing the rise of the ghost academic will not be easy. It will require courage from individuals to resist box-ticking, from institutions to rethink how they view publication and dissemination, and from the sector to restore the culture of engagement which gives academia its enduring value. Only by doing so can conferences reclaim their status as genuine meeting grounds—where knowledge is truly shared, tested, and brought to life.

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  • Preparing Grad Students to Defend Academic Freedom (opinion)

    Preparing Grad Students to Defend Academic Freedom (opinion)

    Defending academic freedom is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. From the current administration’s scrutiny of (and executive orders related to) higher education, to state legislative overreach and on-campus bad actors, threats to academic freedom are myriad and dire.

    As leader of a program focused on free expression and academic freedom, I see faculty and campus leaders who are flummoxed about how to respond: Where to begin? What can be done to make a difference in defending academic freedom?

    I have an answer, at least if you’re graduate faculty, a dean or director of graduate studies, or a provost: Make a plan to prepare graduate students—tomorrow’s professors—to defend academic freedom.

    Graduate students often feel too pressed to focus on anything other than their coursework or dissertation and so are unlikely to study academic freedom on their own, even if they know where to find solid information. It is incumbent on faculty to put academic freedom in front of graduate students as a serious and approachable topic. If their professors and directors of graduate study do not teach them about academic freedom, they will be ill prepared to confront academic freedom issues when they arise, as they surely will, especially in today’s climate.

    An example: When I met with advanced graduate students at an R-1 university, one student recounted an experience as a junior team member reviewing submissions for a journal. He reported that another team member argued for rejecting a manuscript because its findings could be used to advance a public policy position favored by some politicians that this colleague opposed. The student was rightly troubled about political factors being weighed along with methodology and scholarship but reported he didn’t have the knowledge or confidence to respond effectively. Bottom line: His graduate school preparation had incompletely prepared him to understand and act on academic freedom principles.

    Here is a summer action plan for graduate faculty, deans and provosts to ensure we don’t leave the next generation of scholars uncertain about academic freedom principles and how they apply in teaching, scholarship and extracurricular settings.

    Add an academic freedom session to orientation. Orientation for matriculating graduate students is a can’t-miss chance to begin education about academic freedom.

    Patrick Kain, associate professor of philosophy at Purdue University, provides a primer on graduate students’ academic freedom rights and responsibilities during his department’s graduate student orientation. His session covers the First Amendment, state law and campus policies. He provides written guidance about what to do, especially in their roles as teaching assistants (“pay attention to the effects of your expression on others”); what not to do (“don’t compel speech”); and what they should expect (“students’ experiences and sensitivity to others’ expression will vary”).

    Reflecting on his experiences leading these orientation sessions, Kain said, “Graduate students, especially those joining us from quite different cultures and institutions, really appreciate a clear explanation of the ground rules of academic freedom and free expression on campus.” He added, “It puts them at ease to be able to imagine how they can pursue their own work with integrity in these trying times, and what they can expect from others when disagreements arise.”

    However, orientation cannot be a “one and done” for a topic as complex as academic freedom. Additional steps to take this summer include:

    Revisit the professional development seminar. Most graduate students take a professional development seminar before preliminary exams. When I took that seminar three decades ago, academic freedom wasn’t a topic—and my inquiries suggest academic freedom hasn’t been added to many professional development seminars since. This must change. In addition to sessions on writing a publishable article and giving a job talk, include sessions on the history and norms of academic freedom and free inquiry. Assign foundational academic freedom documents, such as the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement on the Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure and the 1967 Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students, alongside a text offering an overview of academic freedom principles, such as Henry Reichman’s Understanding Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins Press, 2025).

    Schedule an academic freedom workshop. Graduate students at all stages—and your faculty colleagues, too!—can benefit from stand-alone workshops. Include tabletop exercises that allow students to appreciate nuances of academic freedom principles. For example, tabletop exercises let students test possible responses to a peer who is putting a thumb on the scale against publishing a manuscript submission on nonacademic grounds, to department colleagues who are exerting pressure on them to sign a joint statement with which they disagree or to administrators bowing inappropriately to donor wishes or political pressures. The reports of the Council of Independent Colleges’ Academic Leaders Task Force on Campus Free Expression include ready-for-use tabletop exercises.

    Bolster classroom training for teaching assistants. Professors with teaching assistants can provide an insider’s look into their process for designing a course and planning class meetings, with a focus on how they build trust and incorporate divergent viewpoints, and their approach to teaching potentially controversial topics. In weekly TA meetings, professors and TAs can debrief about what worked to foster robust discussion and what didn’t. Centers for teaching and learning can equip graduate students with strategies that build their confidence for leading discussions, including strategies to uphold free expression and inclusive values when a student speaks in ways that others think is objectionable or violates inclusion norms. The University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching offers programs tailored to graduate students and postdocs, including a teaching orientation program.

    Look for opportunities to provide mentorship. An academic career isn’t only about teaching and scholarship but also entails serving on department and university committees, providing—and being subject to—peer review, and planning conferences. Academic freedom questions come up with regularity during these activities. Graduate faculty serve as mentors and should be alert to opportunities to discuss these questions. One idea: Take a “ripped from the headlines” controversy about journal retractions, viral faculty social media posts or how universities are responding to Trump administration pressures and plan a brown-bag lunch discussion with graduate students.

    Take the next step in rethinking graduate student preparation. While the steps above can be taken this summer, with a longer planning horizon, it is possible to rethink graduate preparation for a changed higher education landscape. Morgan State University, a public HBCU in Maryland, offers Morgan’s Structured Teaching Assistant Program (MSTAP), an award-winning course series to prepare graduate students as teachers. Mark Garrison, who as dean of the School of Graduate Studies led the development of MSTAP, explained, “In our required coursework for teaching assistants, we are intensely focused on establishing ground rules for TAs” around how to guide “student engagement that is accepting and encouraging without the intrusion of the TA’s personal views.”

    Garrison added, “This makes free expression a component of instruction that must be cherished and nourished. We cannot assume that the novice instructor will come to this view naturally, and we do our best to embrace a reflective teaching model.”

    Academic freedom is under threat. As Mary Clark, provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of Denver, observed, “Graduate students are developing identities as scholars, learning what academic freedom means in their research and in the classroom—and how their scholarly identity intersects with their extracurricular speech as citizens and community members. It is critical that we support them in developing these understandings.” This summer is the time to plan to do exactly that.

    Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill is senior director of the Civic Learning and Free Expression Projects at the Council of Independent Colleges.

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