Tag: Career

Data stories from Achieving the Dream’s latest award winners
Each year, Achieving the Dream lifts up at least one community college in its network for adopting practices and strategies leading to a student-focused culture, notable increases in student outcomes and a reduction of equity gaps.

To be eligible for the Leah Meyer Austin Award, an institution must demonstrate four-year improvement of at least three percentage points in the IPEDS on-time completion for the level of associated credential awarded, or have been selected as one of the top 150 colleges in the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. The achievements of this year’s honorees—Chattanooga State Community College in Tennessee and Southwestern Oregon Community College—show how a holistic approach to student success that exists through the institution can result in whole-college transformation.

Setting the bar: In evaluating applicants, ATD considers gateway metrics, including leading indicators (early momentum metrics) and lagging indicators (completion or transfer), with substantial improvement of three percentage points or more over three years.

Equity metrics may highlight data such as the equity gap improvement between part-time and full-time student outcomes or between Pell-eligible and non-Pell-eligible students. Substantial improvement means closing or narrowing equity gaps over three years by at least two percentage points.

The following data demonstrate not just what Chattanooga State Community College and Southwestern Oregon Community College did to earn their honor, but also ways that other institutions can tell their own data stories.

Chattanooga State Community College actions and results: The Vision 2027 strategic plan has inspired a shift from 15-week to seven-week terms, more personalized academic advising, strengthened commitments to basic needs assistance and wraparound support services, and implementation of an affordable course materials program.
- Fall-to-fall persistence rate from the fall 2019 cohort to the fall 2022 cohort saw a 7.1-percentage-point gain.
- The credit completion rate jumped from 54.6 percent among the 2020 fall cohort to 66.4 percent among the fall 2023 cohort.
- Articulation agreements and course road maps related to Tennessee Transfer Pathways resulted in an 8.2-percentage-point climb in the rate of students who transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree within six years of matriculating between the fall 2015 cohort and the fall 2018 cohort.
- The adoption of a co-requisite model, with embedded tutors, for gateway English and math courses led to a rise in gateway math completion from 38.5 percent for the fall 2020 cohort to 49.5 percent for the fall 2023 cohort. Completion rates for gateway English courses, meanwhile, grew from 49.3 percent to 66.6 percent in that time frame. Approximately 45 to 48 percent of the college’s student population is still developing essential college-level academic skills.
Southwestern Oregon Community College actions and results: This rural institution’s recent efforts have included engaging and supporting its community’s adult and part-time learner populations, such as by creating targeted student orientations, evaluating community practices and its portfolio of academic and workforce programs, meeting the special financial needs of first-generation adult learners, and improving online services (40 percent of Southwestern’s overall student body are online learners).
- In comparing the 2017 cohort to the 2020 cohort, the four-year completion rate among part-time learners improved by 8.7 percentage points, narrowing the equity gap between adult learners and traditional-aged learners by 3.2 percentage points. Between adult learners and traditional-aged learners, the gap narrowed by 6.7 percentage points, as the rate of completion among the former rose 12.3 percentage points.
- The equity gap between first-generation and continuing-generation learners in fall-to-fall persistence narrowed by three percentage points, from 8.2 percent in the fall 2019 cohort to 5.2 percent in the fall 2022 cohort.
- From the fall 2017 cohort to the fall 2020 cohort, the overall four-year completion rate grew 6.6 percentage points, and the rate at which students transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree (despite severe geographical hardships) rose 3.7 percentage points from the fall 2015 cohort to the fall 2018 cohort.
More information on both winners can be found here. In a March 31 webinar, Achieving the Dream will feature both winners.

Is your institution or department tracking new KPIs related to student success, or using data in a new way? Tell us about it.
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February 25, 2025
Facing NIH cuts, colleges restrict grad student admissions

Several colleges and universities are pausing admissions to some graduate programs, reducing class sizes or rescinding offers to students in an effort to cut costs amid uncertainty in federal funding.

The disruption to graduate school admissions is the latest cost-cutting move for colleges. After the National Institutes of Health proposed cutting reimbursements for costs related to research, several colleges and universities said they would pause hiring and cut spending, Inside Higher Ed previously reported. (A federal judge has blocked the NIH plan from taking effect for now.)

In recent days, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Pennsylvania and several other institutions have stopped doctoral admissions, at least temporarily. Some colleges are pausing admissions to some programs such as in the biomedical sciences, Stat News reported. At others, the pause is universitywide. The University of Southern California and Vanderbilt University temporarily paused graduate student admissions, though both universities later said that they’d ended the pause.

A University of Pittsburgh spokesperson told WESA, a local NPR station, that the university “temporarily paused additional Ph.D. offers of admission until the impacts of that [NIH] cap were better understood … the University is in the process of completing that analysis and expects to be in a position to resume offers soon.”

Meanwhile, the University of Pennsylvania is planning to cut graduate admissions rates, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported, citing an email from the interim dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Jeffrey Kallberg, who wrote that the cuts were a “necessary cost-saving measure” to adjust to the NIH proposal.

“This is not a step any of us wanted to take,” Kallberg wrote, according to the Daily Penn. “We recognize that graduate students are central to the intellectual life of our school—as researchers, teachers, collaborators, and future scholars. However, we must ensure that we can continue to provide strong support for those students currently in our programs and sustain the school’s core teaching and research activities.”

Tom Kimbis, executive director of the National Postdoctoral Association, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that academic institutions reliant on federal funding “are being forced to make tough decisions to support these researchers in a difficult environment.”

“The decisions in Washington to pause or cease funding for science and research is impacting early-career researchers across a wide range of disciplines,” Kimbis added. “Slowing or stopping their work, on topics from cancer and Alzheimer’s research to social science issues, hurts Americans in all 50 states.”

In the last week, some faculty began tracking the reductions in the biomedical sciences via a shared spreadsheet that includes verified cuts and unverified decisions based on word of mouth and internal emails. Faculty on social media said the cuts will have long-term ramifications for sciences as fewer students enter the field. On TikTok, several students who had applied to grad school shared their dismay at how the funding cuts meant they might have to say goodbye to their career plans and research.

Accepting graduate students, particularly for Ph.D. programs and in the biomedical sciences, requires universities to make a long-term financial commitment, which is more difficult now that the NIH has stopped making new grant awards and is aiming to cut funds. Colleges receive billions from the NIH to support research. If the proposed rate cuts move forward, institutions say they would have to shut down some labs and lay off employees.

“University research and scholarship operate on a time scale of years and decades,” the Rutgers AAUP-AFT chapter wrote in a letter to New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim. “Higher education would become impossible in the face of capricious and arbitrary withholding of funding, elimination of entire areas of grant support for critical scientific research, and cancellation of long-held contracts.”

They went on to warn that the threat to funding would diminish the country’s strength as a research superpower. “The best scientists, the best scholars, and the best students will make the rational decision to take their talents elsewhere. Once lost, the historic excellence of United States universities, including world-leading institutions in New Jersey, both public and private, will not be easily regained.”

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February 25, 2025
6 steps to a future-focused blueprint: Supporting students in making career decisions

The OECD’s (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) study on teenage career uncertainty underscores a growing concern: 40% of 15-year-olds lack clear career plans, a figure that has risen by over 50% since 2018. This uncertainty is linked to poorer employment outcomes in adulthood, particularly for students with lower academic performance. The study emphasizes career development programs can significantly reduce this uncertainty by helping students explore interests and align education with potential career paths. However, data from PISA 2022 shows that too few students participate in such initiatives, suggesting a need for broader access and promotion of these programs.

The issue that frequently comes to the forefront is the potential disconnect between and among CTE programs, counseling, and academic standards-based classrooms. In conversations, all appear to believe in the interconnectedness of these three areas, yet they are often separate and distinct for a variety of reasons. Helping students prepare for their lives after school and for potential careers needs to be an integral part of all school’s educational vision. This is often demonstrated in graphics and words through a school’s mission, vision, and Portrait of a Graduate.

How can educators bring CTE, counseling, and standards-based classrooms together? Let’s look at six strategies through the lens of a curricular-focused learning environment:

Facilitating Career Exploration, Awareness, & Application

Counselors play a vital role in the success of all students, helping students identify their strengths, interests, and values through a variety of tools including interest assessments and career inventories. They provide one-on-one or group sessions to help students explore specific careers tied to their interests. These activities can guide students toward careers featured in classrooms, courses, and programs.

Interdisciplinary Career Units

Career exploration and application opportunities can be easily woven into all subjects. What students are learning in the classroom and the passions they are discovering can be connected to potential careers they may want to consider. For example, math classes could include performance tasks around topics such as financial literacy or architecture, requiring teamwork and communication to solve problems. Language Arts related careers could include a grant writer, social media marketer, public relations specialist, or a journalist with projects and lessons easily connected with essential content related to reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Partnerships between CTE programs and general education teachers can help align these activities with broader learning goals and within and across career clusters and pathways.

Project-Based Learning (PBL)

Incorporating an instructional strategy such as PBL is something that is common for CTE teachers. Using this pedagogy and incorporating future-ready skills can involve students working on complex, real-world problems over an extended period, requiring them to think critically, collaborate, and communicate effectively. Defined utilizes career-themed projects that can be integrated across subjects, such as developing a marketing plan in business classes or designing solutions for community issues in science. These experiences make skills relevant to future careers while aligning with academic standards.

Embedded Communication Training

Incorporating oral presentations, team discussions, research, and report writing into assignments across all subjects ensures consistent practice. Weaving active communication strategies into learning activities helps students practice collaboration and interpersonal skills. Projects that require students to do presentations and/or build communication documents that are informative or persuasive promote formative and summative assessments of communication skills.

Assessment & Reflection

Self-reflections and teacher feedback through the lens of reflecting on the real-world connected processes and content applications to careers through their learning can be powerful “a-ha” moments for students. The use of rubrics for evaluating skills such as problem-solving can help teachers guide students as they practice skills throughout their learning experience. Evidence of practice and growth over time can also be part of an evidenced-based portfolio for the student. Bringing these ideas together can help students understand the interconnectedness between careers, content, skills, and projects.

Collaboration with Employers & Community Partners

Schools can establish partnerships with local businesses to provide interactive career days, mentorship programs, and soft skills training. Exposing students to the workplace through job shadowing, internships, or part-time work enables them to understand real-world career dynamics. When possible, incorporating on-site visits through field trips can help introduce students to different work environments and let them see first-hand the connections between school-based learning and future opportunities.

Bringing professionals into classrooms for workshops or mentorship allows students to practice skills in real-world contexts. Additionally, business and industry experts can work collaboratively with a curriculum team to create performance tasks, projects, and virtual internships to help students bridge the world of work, academic standards, and skill development and practice.

To learn more about how you can support and engage your students in career-connected deeper learning, please click here.

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February 24, 2025
Why grad students should prioritize friendships (opinion)
How important is friendship to you? According to a Pew Research Center study in 2023, 61 percent of U.S. adults said having close friends is extremely or very important for people to live a fulfilling life, which is much higher than the share who said the same about being married (23 percent), having children (26 percent) or having a lot of money (24 percent). Meanwhile, almost one in three Americans feel lonely every week.

In this context, perceptions of workplace friendships are evolving as the world of work transforms. Working professionals consider having a best friend at work to be even more important since the start of the pandemic and the dramatic increase in remote and hybrid work. Younger generations, such as millennials and Gen Zers, want to curate authenticity and set boundaries. They may prioritize job satisfaction and mental health over other traditional factors. How do those new priorities relate to friendship?

In addition to well-being benefits, having friends at work can contribute to an individual’s professional development and workplace performance. Working in an environment that fosters vulnerability, as friendships often do, enables individuals to challenge themselves in ways they may otherwise avoid.

The topic of friendship at work often focuses on the postgraduate workforce. We argue for the importance of applying the same principles to the graduate student and postdoctoral experience. We discuss ways in which graduate students and postdoctoral scholars can benefit from prioritizing friendships and essential interpersonal skills, which can lead to a more robust academic experience and support network.

Navigating Challenges and Life After Graduate School

Studies show that strong relationships at work are linked to a lower risk of burnout, better mental health and fewer traumatic experiences. Having peer friendships helps graduate students and postdoctoral scholars cope with the rigorous nature of their academic training. Although the demands of this training can make it difficult to prioritize one’s social life, intense work environments in group settings also provide many opportunities for like-minded individuals to get to know each other beyond the immediate tasks at hand.

Cultivating such relationships helps students and scholars to navigate the challenges of graduate school and/or their postdoctoral training and work with the benefit of a support system. Sometimes people struggle to comprehend the unique and specific nature of graduate training. Having peers in the same environment allows one to work through challenges and problems with someone who knows firsthand the context of what they are experiencing.

As graduate students and postdoctoral scholars face points of transition, either at the beginning or end of their training, many will leave their current support network and find themselves in need of building new connections. Yet, fulfilling friendships can take time and effort to build. Friendships formed in graduate school can provide an incredible form of support for any moment in life and can have lifelong implications for personal and professional careers. In fact, many of us in the workplace still talk to friends we made during our graduate school years and cherish the memories we built based on understanding and trust.

Strengthening Academic Research and Performance

A significant portion of the research on workplace friendships highlights the increase in performance and productivity that results from the presence of such relationships. Happiness leads to increased performance across the board. Developing friendships among peers can result in an increase in potential collaborators for opportunities such as co-authorships, conference presentations or interdisciplinary research. It can also happen the other way around—connections that begin as professional collaborations may turn into friendships.

The two of us writing this article are real examples of how developing friendships within the workplace can provide benefits to one’s career growth. We met as colleagues and quickly found commonalities in our personal interests and professional goals. While our jobs took us to different institutions, a robust co-writing dynamic emerged from the foundations of our friendship. Our story is similar to that of many scholars who write with their friends.

Developing Transferable Skills

Creating meaningful connections also helps graduate students and postdoctoral scholars strengthen key transferable skills that are relevant in preparing for diverse career paths. Consider three that come to mind:
- Communication: For many friendships, there is a sense of comfort that develops over time. This bond encourages an ease in conversations lacking in other types of interactions. Friends can be a sounding board when you are attempting to process your thoughts and put them into words for an external audience.
- Collaboration: Some graduate students and postdoctoral scholars may conduct solitary research with little opportunity to work within a team or group setting, especially in the humanities. Identifying opportunities to collaborate with friends helps to develop the ability to contextualize one’s responsibilities within a broader project. This cultivates a skill that employers often prioritize in the hiring process: collaboration or teamwork.
- Cultural competency: Another benefit to fostering workplace friendships is becoming more aware of different lived experiences from your own. While it is possible to do this through less personal interactions, friendships allow you to share life stories and perspectives and build deeper connections. Expanding your perspective will allow you to become a stronger scholar (during your time in graduate school or postdoctoral training) and professional (whatever your postgraduation plans may be) in an increasingly diverse world.
Implications for Career Development

Of course, there are some challenges to keep in mind with workplace friendships. These may include: trusting someone too soon and oversharing, participating in gossip and rumors, and in-group pressure to fit in, which ultimately leads to exclusion of some through group homogeneity and barriers to opportunities. Other challenges exist for individuals with marginalized backgrounds. The lack of diversity or representation in certain disciplines can further feelings of isolation and take a greater toll on one’s well-being.

Those of us working with this unique population can make an intentional effort to facilitate meaningful relationship-building and address the challenges above through educational programming. Professional development events for marginalized populations often provide a “third space” for individuals to connect in a critical mass, breathe and celebrate, and identify role models and peer collaborators. The University of Maryland system’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate is a great example of community-building.

Another viable option for educators and institutions to consider is to leverage the power of peer or near-peer mentoring. Research highlights the importance of mentoring constellations, which acknowledge the varying needs of a mentee and how mentoring relationships differ in structure or intensity. While a “vertical mentor” may be more senior in an organization and offer guidance to mentees based on career progression or life stages, a “horizontal mentor” refers to a peer at a similar career level who shares the mentee’s experiences and challenges. At the University of Maryland, College Park, the Graduate School has created a near-peer mentoring program that focuses on interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing between a doctoral student and a postdoctoral scholar over a year. This program promotes a culture of mentoring where both parties can develop self-awareness and build skills critical to their respective careers.

Finally, how can graduate students and postdoctoral scholars go about making friends at work? Begin by prioritizing relationships in the spaces you occupy, especially during moments of uncertainty. Then, attend and leverage university programming around well-being, professional development and mentoring, to meet people with similar interests and values. Next, look carefully within your high-touch professional relationships, and consider how proximity, similarity, and reciprocity can help you facilitate the initiation and development of a friendship.

Yi Hao is the program director of career and professional development at the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, and a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

Mallory Neil is the director of industry partnerships for the College of Science at Clemson University.
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February 24, 2025
Education Dept. allows some civil rights inquiries to restart

After pausing most civil rights investigations, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is resuming some inquiries, but only those related to disability-based discrimination, according to a memo obtained by ProPublica.

Those involving race or gender will remain on hold, the nonprofit news organization reported.

The investigation freeze, which had been in place for a month, forbade OCR staffers from pursuing discrimination complaints that had been submitted by thousands of students at schools and colleges across the country. In fiscal year 2024, the office received 22,687 complaints—37 percent of which alleged discrimination based on disability.

“I am lifting the pause on the processing of complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of disability. Effective immediately, please process complaints that allege only disability-based discrimination,” Craig Trainor, the office’s acting director, wrote the internal memo that was sent to employees, most of whom are attorneys.

A spokesperson for the department declined to respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.

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February 24, 2025
ABA suspends DEI standards for accreditation

The American Bar Association is suspending diversity, equity, and inclusion standards for the law schools it accredits amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on DEI efforts, Reuters reported.

An ABA council reportedly voted on the change Friday, suspending DEI standards through August as the organization—which accredits nearly 200 law schools—considers permanent changes.

ABA officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

The change comes as the ABA has clashed with the Trump administration in recent weeks, accusing the president of “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself” in issuing rapid-fire executive orders that have targeted DEI and birthright citizenship, and sought to shrink the federal government through mass firings and other actions that some legal scholars have deemed unlawful.

In the aftermath, the Trump administration barred political appointees to the Federal Trade Commission from holding ABA leadership posts, participating in ABA events, or renewing their memberships. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused the ABA of a “long history of leftist advocacy” and said “recent attacks” on the administration made the relationship “untenable.”

State officials have also pressured ABA to drop its DEI standards. In January a group of 21 attorneys general, all from red states, sent a letter to the ABA urging it to drop DEI standards.

The ABA has reportedly been reviewing its standards on DEI since 2023, when the U.S. Supreme Court upended affirmative action with its ruling in favor of Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Some Republican officials have celebrated the ABA’s move. “This is a victory for common sense! We are bringing meritocracy back to the legal system,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X.

ABA’s suspension of DEI standards comes after the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology dropped diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility from its accreditation criteria.

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February 22, 2025
Judge extends block on controversial NIH cuts

A federal judge Friday extended a temporary block on the National Institutes of Health’s plan to slash funding for universities’ indirect research costs amid a legal battle over the policy change.

The nationwide block, which U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley put in place Feb. 10 soon after a coalition of state attorneys general, research advocates and individual universities sued the agency, was set to expire Monday. But it will now remain in place until Kelley has time to consider the arguments the plaintiffs and NIH presented at a hearing Friday morning.

It’s unclear when Kelley will rule. But after the two-hour hearing, she said she certainly “has a lot of work to do” to before making a decision.

“This case is not about whether as a policy matter the administration can target waste, fraud and abuse,” Katherine Dirks, an attorney for the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, told the judge during the hearing. “It’s contrary to the regulations which govern how these costs are determined and how these payments are disbursed. If there were an intention on the administration’s part to change the mechanism by which those occur, there’s a process for it—a statutory process and a regulatory process. Neither of those were followed here.”

But the NIH’s legal team said the agency has the right to unilaterally cap reimbursements for costs related to research—such as hazardous waste removal, facilities costs and patient safety—at 15 percent.

“This is not cutting down on grant funding,” said Brian Lea, a lawyer for the NIH, said at Friday’s hearing. “This is about changing the slices of the pie, which falls squarely within the executive’s discretion.”

Counsel for the plaintiffs, however, argued that the policy is unlawful and, if it’s allowed to move forward during a protracted litigation process, will cause “irreparable harm” to university budgets, medical breakthroughs and the patients who may not be able to enroll in clinical trials as a result.

“A clinical trial is for a lot of people a last hope when there’s not an FDA–approved medicine that will treat their condition. Any minute that they’re not enrolled in that trial brings the risk of irreparable harm,” said Adam Unikowsky, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Part of these institutions’ mission is serving these patients, and this cut will irreparably harm their ability to fulfill that mission.”

Since 1965, institutions have been able to periodically negotiate their reimbursement rates directly with the federal government; university rates average about 28 percent. However, rates can vary widely depending on factors such as geographic cost differences and the type of research, and some institutions receive indirect reimbursement rates of more than 50 percent of their direct grants.

Although the NIH argued in court that indirect costs are “difficult to oversee” as a justification for cutting them, the plaintiffs refuted that claim, pointing to a complex negotiation process and regular audit schedule that’s long been in place to ensure the funds are being used to support NIH research.

In fiscal year 2024, the NIH sent about $26 billion to more than 500 grant recipients connected to colleges—$7 billion of which went to indirect costs.

Saving or Reallocating $4B?

This isn’t Trump’s first attempt to cap indirect costs, which Elon Musk—the unelected billionaire bureaucrat overseeing the newly created Department of Government Efficiency—recently characterized as a “rip-off” on X, the social media site he owns.

In 2017, Congress rebuked President Trump’s attempt to cap indirect costs, and it has written language into every appropriations bill since specifically prohibiting “deviations” from negotiated rates. Given that, Kelley asked the Trump Administration’s legal team, how in his second term, Trump “can unilaterally slash these previously negotiated indirect cost rates which Congress prevented him from doing previously?”

“The money that is saved—it’s not being saved, it’s being reallocated—will be taken from indirect costs and filed into new grants that will be using the same funding formula,” said Lea, who told the judge he was using air quotes around the word saved. “The money is not being pocketed or being shipped somewhere else. It’s being applied back into other research in a way that best fits NIH and what will best serve the public’s health.”

But Lea’s claims that the money will simply be reallocated contradicted the NIH’s own social media post from Feb. 7, which said the plan “will save more than $4B a year effective immediately,” and Kelley asked for an explanation.

In response, Lea said the NIH’s “tweet was at best sort of a misunderstanding of what the guidance does.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, did not immediately respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment on whether it plans to issue a widespread public correction on social media and its other platforms to clarify its policy and inform taxpayers that their plan to cap indirect costs is not intended to save them any money. As of Friday afternoon, the post was still up on X.

Layoffs, Canceled Clinical Trials

But Unikowsky, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that funneling money away from indirect costs would still harm the nation’s esteemed scientific enterprise, which is grounded in university research.

“Indirect costs are real costs associated with doing research,” said Unikowsky, pointing to the California Institute of Technology as an example. The institute spent $200 million to build a state-of-the-art laboratory and is counting on indirect cost reimbursements from the NIH to help pay off the debt it incurred to construct it.

“There’s going to be a hole in Cal Tech’s research budget” and the “money is going to have to come from somewhere else,” Unikowsky added.

Unikowsky also listed nine different institutions, including the Universities of Florida, Kansas and Oregon, that have said they will have to lay off skilled workers who support medical research, including nurses and technicians, if the cap goes into effect.

Lea, the lawyer for the Trump Administration, countered that destabilizing university budgets doesn’t amount to immediate and permanent harm warranting injunctive relief on the rate caps.

“That’s not an irreparable thing, or else every business that’s in a money pinch could just come in and get an injunction,” he said. “I understand that many institutions would prefer to use endowments and tuition for other purposes, but unless they’re barred from doing so—and the inability to do so would cause some non-monetary harm—that’s not irreparable harm.”

Although Kelley gave no indication on when or how she plans to rule, some university leaders who listened to the hearing came away optimistic that she’ll favor the plaintiff’s arguments.

“We look forward to the judge’s ruling,” said Katherine Newman, provost at the University of California which is one of the universities suing the NIH. “[We] maintain our position that the Administration’s misguided attempt to cut vital NIH funding is not only arbitrary and capricious but will stifle lifesaving biomedical research, hobble U.S. economic competitiveness and ultimately jeopardize the health of Americans who depend on cutting-edge medical science and innovation.”

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February 22, 2025
A ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter in Defense of DEI, by Shaun Harper
Dear Colleague:

The U.S. Department of Education’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights issued a “Dear Colleague” letter last week that overflowed with misrepresentations of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in our nation’s educational institutions. The threat of losing federal funding has understandably spooked many of you. It is clear to others and me that inciting such fear, as opposed to actually holding institutions accountable for doing right by students and employees whom racial discrimination most persistently harm, was the aim of the Department’s letter.

I am writing to publicly furnish guidance that I have privately offered to principals, superintendents, college and university presidents, education governing board members, and journalists over the past seven days. But before doing so, I start with a question that I posed in this Forbes article more than a year ago: “What sense does it make to know something is a lie and to have examples of what’s actually true, yet deliberately hide those truths for fear of what liars might do?” Much of what was conveyed in the Department’s letter was largely untrue—at best based on anecdotes, not on credible evidence systematically collected from surveys of students and employees, or from rigorous analyses of discrimination reports disaggregated by race.

To be sure, persons (no matter how small in number) who experience discrimination, harassment, abuse, and other forms of injustice deserve protections and remedies from their educational institutions and the federal government. But the Department’s letter insists that it is white and Asian students who are most on the receiving end of these experiences. A corpus of evidence published over five decades makes irrefutably clear that Asian American, Black, Indigenous, Latino, and multiracial students and employees most often experience racism on campuses. Paradoxically, the Department’s letter calls for the elimination of policies, offices, programs, and activities that aim to address those historical and contemporary norms. This is guaranteed to result in more discrimination, harassment and abuse. In addition, racialized opportunity and outcomes disparities that disadvantage people of color will widen and new racial inequities will emerge.

Here are 11 actions I recommend for higher education institutions that are truly committed to anti-discrimination and anti-racism:
1. Maintain mission fidelity: Many college and university mission statements have long included language about fostering inclusive learning environments, preparing students for citizenship and work in a diverse democracy, and other values that qualify as DEI. If and when the Department probes an institution, you must be prepared to show how and why various DEI efforts are essential for mission actualization.
2. Show your work: The Department’s letter will compel many of you to hide, rename, or altogether discontinue DEI initiatives. I insist on doing the opposite. Now is the time to showcase DEI activities to confirm that they are not the racist, divisive, discriminatory, and anti-American activities that obstructionists erroneously claim.
3. Show your racial equity data: Transparency about racial disparities in student outcomes and various employee trends should be used to justify the existence of DEI policies and programs. Black undergraduate men, for instance, are often at the bottom of most statistical measures of educational progress and performance; my and other scholars’ research confirms that it is not because those students were undeserving of admission or are academically less capable. Data like these could help justify the need for Black male student success initiatives.
4. Show racial discrimination data trends: Educational institutions are required to have reporting and investigation processes for claims of racial discrimination. As previously noted, the Department’s letter makes is seem as if white and Asian students are being most routinely discriminated against. It might just be that your campus data shows something different. It is important to present year-over-year trends, as opposed to a one-time snapshot. These data could be used to justify the existence of various DEI policies and programs.
5. Assess the campus racial climate: The National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates (NACCC) is a suite of peer-reviewed, expert-validated quantitative surveys that are administered to every student or employee at a participating institution, including white people. Whether you use the NACCC or some other data tool, now is the time to formally assess the climate to determine if and how persons from different racial groups are experiencing the institution. The NACCC has been administered on hundreds of campuses over the past six years—very few white respondents have reported what the Department’s letter alleges. It is important for institutions to provide climate survey data about which groups most frequently encounter discrimination, harassment, abuse, and exclusion.
6. Rely on evidence: A dozen highly respected researchers contributed to Truths About DEI on College Campuses: Evidence-Based Expert Responses to Politicized Misinformation, a report published last March. This document is just one of several hundred research-based resources (including peer-reviewed studies published in top academic journals) that confirm the educational and democratic value of DEI in higher education. You should use these evidence-based resources to justify the continuation of your institution’s policies and programs.
7. Insist on evidence: DEI attackers make numerous untrue and exaggerated claims about what is occurring on campuses. Educational leaders have the right to insist that outside accusers furnish evidence of widespread discrimination, harassment, and abuse. Data sources must be rigorous, trustworthy, and verifiable. One-off examples and small numbers of anecdotes ought not be accepted as evidence of pervasive wrongdoing. Imagine if someone told lies about you as an individual person—you would demand proof. Institutions that have committed themselves to DEI deserve this, too.
8. Articulate consequences: As the federal government, state legislators, and others scrutinize campus DEI efforts, it behooves leaders and employees not only to amplify the value of these policies and programs, but also to forecast what would occur in their absence. For example, how the discontinuation of a first-year transition program for Indigenous students would widen first-to-second-year persistence rate disparities between them and peers from other racial groups. Or how financially devastating lawsuits would be to institutions if less attention was paid to improving the workplace climate for the groups of employees whom years of investigations data confirms experience the highest levels of discrimination and harassment on campus.
9. Ensure reporting equity: The Department’s letter includes a link to this webpage where “anyone who believes that a covered entity has unlawfully discriminated may file a complaint with OCR.” It is important for white and Asian American, as well as for Black, Indigenous, Latino, and multiracial people to know this reporting site exists. If it is distributed through only a limited number of cable news and social media channels, then there is a chance that those who experience discrimination most often will not be aware of its existence. It is similarly important to remind students and employees of how to access campus-level reporting resources.
10. Humanize DEI professionals: As many DEI professionals were being fired from their federal jobs last month, I recognized their humanity in this TIME article. I specifically noted the following consequences for them: “Some of these workers now won’t be able to afford daycare for their kids or elder care for their aging parents. Others have children in college whose tuition payments are suddenly in limbo because of politics. Some will lose their healthcare benefits. Too many of these workers will struggle to find other jobs because of the false narratives that are being told about DEI.” Professionals who do DEI work everywhere, including in higher education, deserve greater protections from their employers. These innocent people deserve colleagues like you who use your platforms to communicate threats to their lives and careers.
11. Form coalitions: The tone of the Department’s letter is serious. It has many people scrambling on their individual campuses. We need institutions to come together to collectively strategize, defend their DEI commitments, push back and sue. Attempting to do this in isolation will not yield the macro-level outcomes that our democracy and its educational institutions deserve. Last fall, I launched the National DEI Defense Coalition. So far, hundreds of scholars, leaders, and DEI professionals have contributed. In the next few weeks, I will publicly announce ways for others to participate. But meanwhile, please leverage existing networks (professional associations, athletic conference memberships, and so on).
These are not the only ways institutions can defend DEI policies and programs, but my hope is that they provide some helpful guidance in response to the Department’s letter as well as to other politicized misinformation, disinformation and anecdotal exaggerations about who is being most frequently discriminated against on campuses.

For Democracy,

Shaun Harper

Shaun Harper is university professor and provost professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership.
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February 21, 2025
Voodoo doll study explores why scientists get harassed

What can voodoo dolls tell us about the public’s distrust of, and aggression toward, scientists? A new paper has attempted to find out.

Despite a growing fear that global attitudes have hardened toward scientific research, including instances of violence, “virtually nothing is known” about those likely to attack scientists, according to the study, published in Scientific Reports.

The paper, which examined about 750 responses across two different studies, claims to be the first to identify factors associated with an increased likelihood of harassing scientists.

Researchers tested their theories by offering participants a bonus payment of 1 pound ($1.27), which they could gift to themselves or donate to the Union of Concerned Scientists, and by asking them to sign a petition against the harassment of scientists.

Out of the total of £359 ($455) offered, participants opted to donate £69.79 ($88). The study found that political ideology was the best predictor for who would donate, with right-wing individuals contributing less.

The paper also asked those taking part to express their aggression by sticking pins in a digital voodoo doll of a stereotypical scientist—an “old-age male with a lab coat and equipment.”

Participants were asked to “release negative energy” by clicking their mouse, with a higher number of “pins” indicative of more aggressive behavior. It found significant positive correlations with five variables—conspiracy mentality, science cynicism, relative deprivation, threat and attitudes toward harassment.

Lead author Vukašin Gligorić, a Ph.D. researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, said across the two studies, distrusting worldviews, political ideology and perception of threat were associated with more approving attitudes toward harassment of scientists.

Notably, the paper found that science cynicism—the belief that scientists are incompetent and corrupt—also drives approval of scientists’ harassment.

In addition, perceiving scientists as threatening, as well as dark personality traits, such as psychopathy and narcissism, contributed to approving harm.

The paper concluded that highlighting reasons why people should trust scientists and not be threatened by them is the most promising way to counter such behavior.

The antiscience movement is a growing trend in some countries, Gligorić told Times Higher Education.

And he said that changing these attitudes will be challenging, because scientists are viewed as part of the “establishment,” which many people around the world are dissatisfied with.

“To address this, I believe scientists should engage more directly with the public … rather than for private or corporate interests, which erode trust.

“Ultimately, people are cynical about the political and economic systems we live in, and they sometimes blame scientists as part of that system. Therefore, scientists should also be critical of and work to improve the system itself.”

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February 21, 2025
STEM accreditor drops DEIA from its standards

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology has dropped diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility from its accreditation criteria and supporting documents, a move made in response to federal pushback on DEIA, according to an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed.

“Recognizing the heightened scrutiny of higher education and accreditation—including recent directives and legislation in the United States—the ABET Board of Directors recently approved the removal of all references to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) from our accreditation criteria and supporting documents,” officials wrote in the email.

ABET did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

The move comes as President Donald Trump has turned campaign trail rhetoric against DEI into policy, issuing an executive order early in his term that took aim at what the administration called “illegal” DEI initiatives without specifying what would violate federal civil rights laws.

“These changes were made in response to the significant challenges many institutions, academic programs, and industry partners face in implementing and sustaining DEIA initiatives,” ABET officials wrote in the email announcing changes to their accreditation criteria.

The accrediting body also appeared to delete the DEIA page on its website that was active until at least last week, according to an archived copy that is accessible via the Wayback Machine.

ABET currently accredits programs at 930 colleges, according to its website.

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February 21, 2025