Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors voted 10 to 6 on Friday against a contract extension for Major General Cedric Wins, a VMI graduate and the first Black leader in the college’s history.
All 10 votes against the extension came from members appointed by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, though four Youngkin appointees voted to renew the contract, joining two holdovers named to the board by Democratic governors, The Richmond-Times Dispatch reported.
Wins’s contract expires June 30.
The vote will end a contentious tenure for Wins, who joined VMI in 2021. He replaced General J. H. Binford Peay III, who led the college from 2003 to 2020, when he stepped down after an investigation determined systemic racism and sexism went unchecked under his watch.
Wins’s tenure at VMI, where he was tasked with righting the ship amid the fallout from the investigation, has been marked by controversy. He has faced off with alumni, whom he accused of spreading mistruths about VMI’s curricular offerings; clashed with student journalists over alumni involvement in the campus newspaper; and faced accusations that he went too far with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at VMI, which didn’t accept Black students until 1968 and women until 1997.
Students at Florida State University can cheer on the Seminoles across multiple sports, but they can no longer learn about the namesake tribe of Indigenous Americans as part of FSU’s general education offerings after the Florida Board of Governors approved sweeping curriculum changes Thursday.
Florida colleges have spent months rethinking their general education requirements following a change in state law. Thursday’s vote marked the final step in a contentious and controversial process that brought significant changes to all 12 state universities. Critics accuse the board and system officials of taking a heavy-handed approach and targeting specific topics or courses, while state officials have argued revisions were necessary both to simplify the curriculum and to strip it of “indoctrination.”
Now, American History 583: The Seminoles and the Southeastern Indians is one of hundreds of courses across Florida’s public universities that will no longer count toward general education credit as part of the extensive overhaul. Neither will Black Women in America or LGBTQ History, both of which were previously included as general education offerings at FSU. Those are just three of numerous courses touching in some way on race, gender or sexuality that institutional boards voted in recent months to drop from general education. All 12 Boards of Trustees then submitted a pared-down list of classes to FLBOG for approval. Three Bible courses remain eligible for general education credit at FSU.
(An FSU spokesperson noted in an email to Inside Higher Ed that American History 583, which currently has about 150 students enrolled this semester, will now be offered as an elective. Pressed on the rationale for why the course was dropped from gen eds, FSU did not respond.)
Florida State University’s Board of Trustees dropped a course on Seminole history from the list of general education offerings, but fans can still cheer on the Seminoles.
Chris Leduc/Icon Sportswire/Getty Image
State lawmakers required colleges in 2023 to review general education classes in an effort to cut “courses with curriculum based on unproven, speculative or exploratory content,” according to materials shared with the Board of Governors in a presentation for Thursday’s vote.
The Florida Board of Governors unanimously approved the new suite of gen ed classes Thursday, though some members tried to downplay the notion that the state was trying to limit knowledge.
“We are not prohibiting universities from offering courses,” Timothy Cerio, chair of the Academic and Student Affairs committee, said at the meeting. Instead, he emphasized that those courses are just being removed from general education curriculum and will remain available as electives.
State University System of Florida chancellor Ray Rodrigues depicted the vote on general education as stripping indoctrination from curricular offerings. Rodrigues argued that the American public has lost faith in higher education, citing a recent Gallup poll that noted shrinking public confidence in the sector. Among the reasons for that diminished confidence, particularly among Republican respondents, is the belief that colleges push liberal agendas.
“The general education curriculum that was approved today makes Florida the only state in the nation to address the No. 1 reason why the American people have lost confidence in higher education,” Rodrigues said during the meeting. “We can confidently say that our general education courses that students have to take in order to graduate will not contain indoctrinating concepts.”
‘Political Overreach’
But critics allege administrators have overstepped, as curriculum has traditionally been the faculty’s purview. They also worry that removing courses from general education will cause enrollment in such classes to plummet, limiting the number of students who will be introduced to certain majors like sociology—a discipline state officials have taken aim at for an allegedly liberal tilt—which will subsequently weaken academic departments and potentially decrease staffing levels.
United Faculty of Florida, a union representing 25,000-plus professors, denounced the move toward scaled-back general education offerings.
“Florida is at the forefront of an assault against public education, restricting the subjects students can study from K-12 to the colleges and universities,” UFF declared in a news release ahead of Thursday’s vote, casting FLBOG’s actions as “bureaucratic and political overreach.”
“General education courses are the foundation of critical thinking and informed citizenship, and censoring them limits not only what students can learn but also what they can become. These proposed cuts are an insult to our students and to the world-class faculty that instruct and guide them,” UFF president Teresa M. Hodge said in a Monday webinar ahead of the meeting.
Hodge argued that the courses being targeted were just “words and numbers on a spreadsheet” to the Florida Board of Governors, but “for the rest of us, they are the future of our students, our jobs, and our democracy” and the “foundation of critical thinking” and “informed citizenship.” She also accused Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who pushed for the legislation that led to the changes, of prioritizing “his personal political ambition” over students.
Robert Cassanello, a history professor at the University of Central Florida, argued on the call that it was lawmakers—not professors—who were attempting to indoctrinate students.
“They tell us that classes have to be removed from the curriculum that focus on race, gender and sexuality, but at the same time, they want courses and lessons on the centrality of Western civilization, free-market libertarianism and patriotic histories of this country infused into the general curriculum and life on our campuses,” Cassanello said.
Students on the call also noted that general education courses set them on career pathways.
Tessa Barber, a graduate student at the University of South Florida, began college as a biology major but is now working toward a doctorate in politics and international relations. She attributed that change to general education courses in anthropology and political science that pushed her in a different direction. She expressed concern about “political interference” in the education of undergraduates.
Some speakers at Thursday’s meeting also pushed back on the gen ed overhaul.
Jono Miller, president of NCF Freedom, a group that has been critical of the state’s conservative takeover of New College of Florida, alleged that the overhaul of its core curriculum was “rushed and chaotic” with “minimal faculty input” and a “lack of transparency.” Miller argued that “telling faculty what to teach translates directly to telling students what to think.”
Thursday’s vote followed prior action on general education courses from the State Board of Education, which oversees the 28 institutions in the Florida College System. Earlier this month that board removed 57 percent of FCS general education courses, according to state officials.
Albuquerque Public schools board President Danielle Gonzales has been appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the Nation’s Report Card.
Gonzales is one of two new members appointed Oct. 1 by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. She has represented District 3 in Albuquerque’s North Valley since 2022.
Gonzales is a senior fellow at One Generation Fund and has previously worked at New Mexico First, the Aspen Institute, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She previously was a fourth-grade teacher.
“I am deeply honored to be selected to serve on the National Assessment Governing Board,” Gonzales said in a news release. “I look forward to contributing to the board, based on my background, experiences, and expertise, the ability to translate complex research into practical and relevant decisions. I have lived experience, as a bilingual person, Hispanic woman, parent, and product of the very public school system I now serve.”
Expected to be released in early 2025, the 2024 Nation’s Report Card will provide critical information about how education systems are helping students make up lost ground since 2022 and meet the standards and expectations necessary to succeed in school and beyond.
The nonpartisan 26-member Governing Board was established by Congress to set policy for the Nation’s Report Card. The board decides what grades and subjects to assess, content to include, and sets the NAEP achievement levels. It works with the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP, to release and disseminate results.
