Tag: closes

  • Week in review: Trinity Christian closes as other colleges make cuts

    Week in review: Trinity Christian closes as other colleges make cuts

    Most clicked story of the week: 

    Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $387 million in unrestricted funds to eight historically Black colleges and universities in recent weeks. Each institution described their donation as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in their history. Scott, who is largely out of the public eye, does not announce donation values unless the recipients do.

    Number of the week: 900+

    The number of layoff notices the University of Southern California has issued since July. The private institution’s leadership said last week that it is “on track” to eliminate its longstanding deficit by the end of the fiscal year, following the significant cost-cutting measures.

    Cuts and Closures

    • Trinity Christian College, in Illinois, announced it will shutter at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year, citing ongoing financial issues such as persistent budget deficits and falling enrollment. In addition to establishing teach-out and transfer pathways, the private liberal arts college is allowing students to go over course load maximums with the goal of graduating as many as possible before closing.
    • Another religious college in Illinois, the University of St. Francis, is taking steps to address budgetary issues. The university has laid off 18 staff and administrators following a $9 million deficit in fiscal 2024. It also notified “a number of faculty” that it was not renewing their contracts, which Joliet Patch reported as affecting another 18 employees.
    • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is facing pushback against its chancellor’s proposal to eliminate six academic programs. An internal advisory group voted to oppose ending four of the programs and raised concerns with the methods and pace UNL’s leadership used to decide which degrees should be on the chopping block.

    Guidance for college leaders

    • Colleges undergoing significant restructuring must be prepared to “craft a positive narrative” about it and their involvement, according to the latest edition of the regular opinion series Merger Watch. Throughout mergers, acquisitions and even closures, college leaders need to own these narratives — or others will craft them instead, writes Ricardo Azziz, a consolidation expert who pens the series.
    • A federal judge on Thursday ruled the Trump administration must fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the government shutdown — a decision the government has already appealed. Given the legal back-and-forth, it’s unclear when SNAP recipients will get their benefits, warned The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, a resource and policy center at Temple University. The center is offering administrators and campus leaders a toolkit to help support food-insecure students during this “period of uncertainty.”

    Quote of the Week:

    This is the end of an era. Even if things settle out, the damage has already been done.

    Michael Lubell

    Physics professor at City College of New York

    Under an August presidential order, Trump administration political appointees at federal agencies now have the power to ensure grant awards align with the federal government’s “priorities and the national interest” and don’t promote undefined “anti-American values.”

    Academics and researchers like Lubell are raising alarms that the change — yet another significant departure from scientific funding norms — will erode U.S. research.

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  • Pepperdine Closes Exhibit Featuring “Overtly Political” Art

    Pepperdine Closes Exhibit Featuring “Overtly Political” Art

    Pepperdine officials modified a sculpture to delete the text.

    Henry Adams/Pepperdine Graphic

    Last month Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., opened an art exhibit titled “Hold My Hand In Yours,” which was scheduled to run for six months in the on-campus Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art. But On Oct. 6, the university closed the exhibit after artists learned their work had been removed or altered for being “overtly political.”

    The exhibition, curated by Weisman Museum director Andrea Gyorody, centered on the imagery of hands in paintings, drawings, sculpture and videos, among other media, with a focus on hands as a means of labor and care, according to the museum’s website.

    Last week, one of the artists in the show learned her video had been turned off at the university’s request, and a sculpture had been modified to hide text that said “Save the Children” and “Abolish ICE,” Hyperallergic reported. The creators requested their pieces be removed from the museum, and several other contributors followed suit in solidarity with the affected artists and in opposition to the university.

    Pepperdine administrators alleged the pieces went against the museum’s policy to “avoid overtly political content consistent with the university’s nonprofit status,” Michael Friel, senior director of communication and public relations at Pepperdine, told Inside Higher Ed in an email.

    In addition to removing pieces, the university inquired about posting signage that notifies visitors that “the artwork does not necessarily reflect the views of the university,” Friel noted. “That process has not been successful.” With the addition of the artists pulling their work, the museum decided to close the gallery. All compensation agreements are being honored and inconvenienced artists have received an apology, according to Friel.

    “For the past week, the administration’s rationale for the initial censorship and removal has been murky and opaque, and honestly, still unclear to me. It didn’t have to be this way,” Stephanie Syjuco, an artist who was featured in the show, wrote on Instagram.

    The Weisman Museum is housed under the university’s advancement office. “Our intent is to maintain the highest standards of excellence as we celebrate artistic expression through the visual arts,” Friel said.

    In 2019, Pepperdine censored a senior art student’s gallery because the art featured nude bodies; officials placed the art in a mobile gallery instead of in the Weisman Museum, which featured work by the artist’s peers.  



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  • Education Department issues AI priorities. But what if the agency closes?

    Education Department issues AI priorities. But what if the agency closes?

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter on Tuesday to district and state leaders encouraging and guiding them on how to integrate artificial intelligence in schools through existing federal grants. 
    • The letter signed by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that grantees may use federal funds to use AI to enhance high-quality curriculum tools, high-impact tutoring, and college and career pathway advising.
    • The department briefly also outlined its principles for responsible AI use in schools. Those principles affirmed that AI K-12 initiatives should be educator-led, ethical, accessible for those with disabilities, transparent in the way new tools are rolled out, and in compliance with federal data privacy laws.

    Dive Insight:

    The department’s new AI guidance comes at a time when the future of federal oversight of ed tech and K-12 cybersecurity policies remains unclear, given that the Trump administration shuttered the Education Department’s Office of Educational Technology in March and has continued to move toward its plan to dismantle the agency.

    On Monday, the Education Department also published a proposed rule in the Federal Register regarding its priorities for using discretionary grant programs to support AI use in schools. The public comment period on the regulatory proposal is open until Aug. 20. 

    Under the proposal, those seeking federal grant funding for AI projects in schools would need to include a focus on at least one of the following goals:

    • Embed AI literacy skills into classroom lessons to ultimately improve students’ educational outcomes.
    • Provide educators with professional development in foundational skills for computer science and AI with instruction on how to responsibly use new technologies.
    • Partner with states or school districts to offer high school students dual enrollment credentialing opportunities for postsecondary or industry-recognized credentials in AI. 
    • Support and develop evidence for appropriate ways to integrate AI into education.
    • Use AI to support services for students with disabilities.
    • Tap into AI to improve teacher training and evaluation
    • Use AI tools to reduce time-intensive administrative tasks

    Meanwhile, over 400 school district leaders sent a letter to Congress last week asking for lawmakers to restore federal leadership for K-12 cybersecurity and ed tech.

    The letter, led by the Consortium for School Networking, pointed to funding cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that led to the discontinuation of K-12 cybersecurity programs offered through the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The move, they wrote, consequently took away “critical threat intelligence, incident response, and coordination services that many school systems depend on to protect against ransomware and other attacks.”

    OET’s closure also left a major hole in guidance for states and districts on key issues such as responsible AI use, digital design, digital access and cybersecurity strategy, the letter said. The district leaders also called for Congress to reinstate staffing for the office. 

    CoSN CEO Keith Krueger said district technology leaders are increasingly worried that AI will be used for cyberattacks against schools. He added that the demand for more K-12 resources to protect schools from cybersecurity threats is “incredible.”

    For instance, the Federal Communications Commission in November 2024 received $3.7 billion in requests for federal funds to help protect district networks. The applications were for a $200 million FCC cybersecurity pilot program.

    But the bottom line, Krueger said, is that if the Trump administration fulfills its promise to close the Education Department, “who exactly is going to help school districts with cybersecurity, for instance, or AI?”

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  • Education research centre MCERA closes – Campus Review

    Education research centre MCERA closes – Campus Review

    A not-for-profit research centre that provided media training for academics and disseminated education research to the public will close after eight years of operation.

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  • A Pa. community college campus closes in-person programs

    A Pa. community college campus closes in-person programs

    Butler County Community College is discontinuing credit-bearing, in-person programs at its LindePointe campus in response to enrollment troubles and the looming demographic cliff in Pennsylvania. The programs are scheduled to continue through the spring semester and shut down in August.

    Enrollment at the LindePointe campus has fallen sharply, from 300 students in fall 2014 to 45 in fall 2024, with a particularly steep drop during the pandemic, according to a news release from the college Tuesday.

    “Our numbers simply have not rebounded to a sustainable level,” Joshua Novak, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, said in the release.

    College leaders estimate ending in-person programs will save approximately $450,000 annually.

    Students in Mercer County, where the LindePointe campus is located, will still be able to take online classes and participate in dual-enrollment and workforce training programs, including training in emergency medical and fire services at a local fire department. The college has promised to create degree-completion plans for each student, which may include online courses or classes taught at its five other locations. All the other campuses continue to offer in-person courses for credit. It’s unclear what will happen to LindePointe faculty and staff, though the college plans to “explore opportunities” for them, including potential reassignments, according to the release.

    The move comes after the college previously considered but didn’t ultimately move forward with plans to teach its LindePointe courses and programs at Pennsylvania State University at Shenango as part of a potential partnership between the two institutions.

    “While we looked at potential partnerships and alternative models, we could not identify a solution that was feasible long term,” Megan Coval, the college’s interim president, said in the release.

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