Tag: culture

  • Blending Culture and Safety at Fort Lewis

    Blending Culture and Safety at Fort Lewis

    After the death of a student at Fort Lewis College, Kendra Gallegos knew the institution’s response had to do more than make space for grief—it also had to honor the cultural traditions of the college’s largely Native student body.

    Fort Lewis, a public four-year college in Durango, Colo., invited an Indigenous healer to lead a traditional blessing of the residence hall where the student had lived.

    That kind of healing ceremony reflects how campus leaders like Gallegos, the interim vice president of diversity affairs, approach student wellness programs: by grounding efforts in cultural practices that resonate with students.

    “We’re always asking students what they need and recognizing that there are many different tribes, each with its own traditions and ways of responding when someone passes away,” Gallegos said.

    With about 40 percent of its students identifying as Native, Fort Lewis offers a wide range of support services—from counseling rooted in Indigenous cultural identity to vending machines that provide anonymous access to Narcan, fentanyl test strips and emergency contraception—giving students multiple ways to seek help and protect themselves.

    “We’re looking at a lot of different approaches and building partnerships across the state,” Gallegos said. “We want to look beyond our campus and ask, ‘How can we best serve our students’ needs and help them get access to care?’”

    On the ground: Fort Lewis students have access to free, unlimited mental health and counseling services through the campus counseling center, including individual and group therapy, crisis support, and drop-in consultations.

    But Gallegos said counseling alone is not “one-size-fits-all.” Students can also tap into Indigenous ways of knowing and healing, including through connections to traditional healers.

    “We have a diverse group of students coming from all walks of life,” Gallegos said. “We get them connected with counselors who may be Indigenous, who may be from their tribe.”

    Gallegos said traditional counseling is not always the most appropriate way to meet students’ needs.

    “Maybe they need to go home and have a ceremony with their families, with their communities,” she said. “Or maybe they need a medicine man, or it’s herbal, like sage that we’re burning here in the campus community.”

    Beyond clinical and cultural support, Fort Lewis’s peer support office offers confidential, peer-led assistance and help navigating campus resources. 

    “We’re trying to be more specialized, knowing that [peer supporters] aren’t counselors and don’t have advanced degrees,” Gallegos said. “They’re not doing counseling—they’re saying, ‘I have some knowledge in this area or lived experience, and I’m willing to talk with you.’”

    Students rely on peer support for guidance on substance use, Indigenous identity, sexuality and gender, and student-athlete challenges, among other topics, she added.

    In 2024, the college also launched a harm-reduction vending machine that provides free, anonymous access to health and wellness supplies such as Narcan, fentanyl test strips, emergency contraception, menstrual products and condoms.

    So far, the vending machine has dispensed more than 2,600 items—including more than 100 boxes of Narcan and nearly 700 fentanyl test strips, Gallegos said—underscoring student engagement as well as need.

    Gallegos said the goal of the vending machine is to keep students in school by removing barriers to getting help.

    “We don’t actually get to know who they are or what their stories are,” she said. “But we know it’s making a difference.”

    Most recently, Fort Lewis began piloting a substance-free housing option for students in recovery or those who choose to live sober. The plan is to create an eight-resident living community designed to provide a supportive environment for students focused on sobriety.

    The college has hired two recent Fort Lewis graduates to help lead the initiative.

    “They’ll be part-time and really grow the community and the purpose in the sober living community and nurture those who are there,” Gallegos said.

    Signs of progress: For Gallegos, supporting students starts with making clear that conversations about substance use and mental health are welcome at Fort Lewis.

    “We don’t want there to be a wrong door for support,” she said. “We’ve seen that students are ready to talk to us about these things—they’re less willing to brush them under the rug until the last minute.”

    That openness doesn’t mean abandoning boundaries, Gallegos added.

    “We still follow our conduct code and policies,” she said. “But we’ve learned there can be a warmer handoff and an opportunity for growth and education.”

    Ultimately, Gallegos said, she’s proud to have helped build what she calls a “community of care” on campus.

    “Please don’t shut the door on a student who’s struggling,” she said. “Help them get the resources they need.”

    Get more content like this directly to your inbox. Subscribe here.

    Source link

  • Celebrating Faculty Strengths and Differences: A Positive Strategy for Thriving Academia – Faculty Focus

    Celebrating Faculty Strengths and Differences: A Positive Strategy for Thriving Academia – Faculty Focus

    Source link

  • Celebrating Faculty Strengths and Differences: A Positive Strategy for Thriving Academia – Faculty Focus

    Celebrating Faculty Strengths and Differences: A Positive Strategy for Thriving Academia – Faculty Focus

    Source link

  • What College Leaders Learned About Change, Culture, and Strategic Partnerships – Edu Alliance Journal

    What College Leaders Learned About Change, Culture, and Strategic Partnerships – Edu Alliance Journal

    December 29, 2025 – Editor’s Note by Dean Hoke: This fall, Small College America convened two significant webinars bringing together college presidents, merger experts, and strategic advisors to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing small institutions. What emerged were not just conversations, but frameworks, insights, and patterns that deserve close attention. This article synthesizes what seven leaders shared across both sessions.

    Insights from Small College America’s Fall 2025 Webinar Series

    Featuring conversations with seven leaders navigating the most critical decisions facing small colleges today

    When Tarek Sobh arrived at Lawrence Technological University as provost in September 2020, he had a plan. He was going to transform the institution. He had ideas, energy, and expertise from his previous roles.

    And then he did something counterintuitive: he stopped.

    “The tendency of leaders, in any kind of position, to effect changes immediately is, in my opinion, the wrong decision,” Sobh told participants in Small College America’s “Guiding Through Change” webinar this past August. Instead, he spent his first semester meeting with every single colleague on campus—literally hundreds of people. “Learning the culture of the institution was immensely important and crucial.”

    Eighteen months later—not three months, not six, but eighteen—Sobh became president of Lawrence Tech. And because he had listened first, he knew exactly what needed to change and what needed to stay the same.

    This isn’t just one leader’s story. It’s a pattern—and a warning—for every college president, provost, and trustee navigating today’s enrollment pressures, financial constraints, and partnership decisions. The institutions that will survive aren’t the ones making the fastest decisions. They’re the ones making the most informed ones. And that takes time, most colleges think they don’t have.

    That eighteen-month timeline wasn’t just personal wisdom. It’s a pattern that emerged across two webinars hosted by Small College America this fall—one featuring college presidents navigating uncertainty, the other bringing together experts who’ve guided dozens of institutions through mergers and partnerships.

    What they revealed is that small colleges aren’t just facing challenges; they’re facing them in a way that’s unique to them. They’re learning to navigate them with a sophistication and strategic clarity that larger institutions might envy.

    The State of Play: No Surprises Allowed

    “There should be no surprises. Not in this business, there should be no surprises.”

    Dr. Chet Haskell has seen enough college budgets to know when an institution is headed for trouble. As a former two-time president and provost directly involved in three significant mergers or acquisitions, he’s learned to read the warning signs.

    During Small College America’s December webinar on mergers and partnerships, Haskell laid out the early indicators with the precision of a surgeon: enrollment declines, graduation rate declines, multiple years of unbalanced budgets, the need to dip into unrestricted endowments to make budgets work, declining net tuition revenue, and expenses increasing faster than revenue.

    All well-known data points. The problem? Too often, leaders avoid confronting their implications.

    “At the end of the day, no matter what you’re trying to do, the financials do matter,” Haskell explained. “Too often, I would argue, a balanced budget—revenue equals expense—is defined as success.”

    But that’s not success. That’s survival. Barely.

    “You don’t have a margin, you don’t have a mission,” Haskell continued. “You need resources for investment in new initiatives. You need resiliency in the face of external factors like COVID or recessions.”

    He offered a sobering example: two well-regarded Midwest colleges, each with endowments exceeding $1 billion. One has had eight successive years of operating deficits in the order of $8 to $10 million annually. The other has consistently generated surpluses.

    “A billion dollars can last a long time,” Haskell noted. “It’s still a finite number.”

    Which would you rather lead?

    The Composite Score Deception

    Stephanie Gold, head of the higher education practice at Hogan Lovells and a veteran of nearly three decades guiding colleges through transformative transactions, added a critical warning about regulatory metrics.

    The U.S. Department of Education calculates a composite score (between 1.5 and 3.0) that’s supposed to measure financial viability, liquidity, capital resources, borrowing capacity, and profitability.

    “I have seen institutions with passing scores that ultimately are not financially sustainable and are in a place where they will soon be unable to make payroll,” Gold said flatly.

    The real indicator? Cash flow problems. When an institution is struggling to pay its operating expenses, that’s the red flag that matters.

    The lesson is clear: constant vigilance, not wishful thinking. Know your numbers. All of them. And don’t wait for regulatory metrics to tell you there’s a problem.

    The Four R’s: A Framework for Strategic Thinking

    While financial vigilance is essential, it’s not sufficient. The August webinar featuring three college presidents—all of whom started their roles post-COVID—revealed how successful institutions are thinking holistically about their challenges.

    Dr. Andrea Talentino, president of Augustana College in Illinois, described her institution’s strategic planning process as driven by what they call “the Four R’s”: Recruitment, Retention, Revenue, and Results.

    Talentino explained how they use this framework across campus: “We try to kind of preach that around campus to get everybody thinking about the Four R’s and really use them to drive strategic planning and enrollment goals.”

    It’s a deceptively simple framework. But its power lies in integration. Recruitment isn’t just the admissions office’s problem. Retention isn’t just student affairs’ responsibility. Revenue isn’t just the CFO’s concern. Results aren’t just the provost’s metric.

    Everyone owns all four R’s.

    This matters because, as Talentino discovered to her surprise, institutional thinking doesn’t happen naturally.

    “I think I really overestimated the extent to which people have awareness and appreciation for institutional needs,” she admitted. “Focus on self and focus on own department rather than institutional-wide awareness was a little bit of a surprise to me.”

    She’d come from “pretty open departments that were quite supportive.” The reality at many institutions? People are siloed, focused on their immediate concerns rather than the big picture.

    Building that institutional awareness—getting everyone to think about the Four R’s—is leadership work. It doesn’t happen by accident.

    COVID’s Long Tail and the Transfer Opportunity

    The presidents also spoke candidly about enrollment realities that data alone doesn’t fully capture.

    Dr. Anita Gustafson, the first female president in Presbyterian College’s 144-year history, described what she calls “COVID’s long tail.”

    “Our class of 2025 was a very small class,” she explained. “They were seniors in high school when we had a full year of COVID, and hence we never recruited well, or maybe they didn’t even attend college in large numbers.”

    That class just graduated. And Presbyterian is finally seeing enrollment growth—about 8 to 10 percent—as that COVID cohort cycles through.

    But the recovery isn’t automatic. It requires strategic adaptation.

    For Presbyterian, located in growing South Carolina, that’s meant focusing on a population they’d historically neglected: transfer students.

    “That’s a population we have not really targeted in the past,” Gustafson said. “A lot of that is hard with the traditional liberal arts education program, because we have very robust general education requirements.”

    So they’re working with faculty to be “more transfer friendly”—adjusting requirements, smoothing pathways, removing unnecessary barriers.

    It’s the kind of strategic adaptation that requires both data and cultural sensitivity. You can’t just mandate that faculty change requirements. You have to build an understanding of why it matters and bring them along.

    Which brings us back to culture, and to the eighteen-month rule.

    Eighteen Months to Know an Institution

    The December webinar on mergers and partnerships brought together an unusual panel: Chet Haskell, the consultant and former president; Dr. Barry Ryan, an attorney who’s served as president and provost at multiple universities and most recently led Woodbury University through its merger with the University of Redlands; AJ Prager, Managing Director at Hilltop Securities and an investment banker focused on higher education M&A; and Stephanie Gold, the regulatory attorney.

    Together, they’ve seen hundreds of institutions consider partnerships, dozens pursue them, and enough fail to know what separates success from disaster.

    And they kept returning to the same timeline: eighteen months.

    Haskell emphasized that meaningful partnerships require substantial time—typically around eighteen months—to really understand another institution’s culture, operations, and true compatibility.

    Not six months. Not a year. Eighteen months minimum.

    Why so long?

    Because culture can’t be rushed. Because trust takes time. Because what institutions say about themselves and what they actually are can be very different things.

    “Building that trust between the people, the leadership in both institutions—it takes some time to get to know each other,” Barry Ryan explained. “And then you find out, maybe you find out that you have a lot more in common, and this becomes a much easier process to take.”

    Ryan has seen it work both ways. He’s been involved in mergers between faith-based institutions that seemed very different on the surface but discovered deep commonalities. He’s also seen deals fail because “they just couldn’t get over the fact that, I’m sorry, you are different than we are. We have our 39 points, and you have your 16, and it’s just not going to work.”

    The difference? Time spent building relationships and understanding culture before committing to a deal.

    AJ Prager, an investment banker who helps institutions find and evaluate potential partners, emphasized that this isn’t just about mission alignment—it’s about cultural fit.

    “We always look at transactions through the lens of mission and accelerating mission execution,” Prager said. “And so oftentimes there is mission alignment between faith-based institutions and non-faith-based institutions.”

    The real question is how cultures align. And that takes eighteen months of conversations, campus visits, joint meetings, shared meals, and honest dialogue to discover.

    The Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About

    When institutions consider mergers or major partnerships, they typically calculate direct costs, including legal fees, consulting expenses, system integration, and facility modifications.

    What they don’t budget for—and what can sink even well-planned partnerships—are the hidden costs.

    “Management time, in our experience, is the biggest hidden cost of a transaction,” Prager said. “These types of transactions are all-encompassing. They require significant, significant employee time.”

    Management time is the most valuable resource an institution has. And mergers consume it voraciously—pulling presidents, provosts, CFOs, deans, and senior staff into endless meetings, planning sessions, due diligence reviews, and stakeholder communications.

    “Whether to pursue or not to pursue a transaction is a really critical decision,” Prager continued, “because you’re tying up, if you are going to be pursuing, you’re going to be tying up your most valuable resource for a considerable amount of time.”

    And here’s the paradox: passing on opportunities can also be risky. Which is why Prager recommends that institutions prepare before opportunities arise—assessing their position, understanding their options, educating their boards with hypothetical scenarios.

    One liberal arts institution on the West Coast recently conducted an exercise with its board: it presented three hypothetical partner institutions and asked, “Would you merge with these institutions?”

    “It was very fascinating to see how the board responded,” Prager said. “But it was, I would say, an innocuous exercise to help educate the board to say, here’s what’s happening in the sector, and these are the types of transactions that might be coming your way, and how would you respond to it?”

    That kind of preparation —doing strategic thinking before you’re in crisis mode—can make all the difference.

    But there’s another hidden cost that’s even harder to quantify.

    “Despite being the lawyer, I think there’s a lot of emotional cost associated with these matters,” Stephanie Gold said. “These are very stressful situations for students, for faculty.”

    Students worry they won’t graduate from the institution they expected. Faculty wonder about job security. Staff fear restructuring. Alumni mourn the loss of identity.

    “I think I am constantly needing to remind myself as the lawyer who’s just working on the deal documents to get the deal done that there are a lot of humans behind this,” Gold continued. “And it is a cost on them.”

    Managing those emotional costs requires something lawyers and investment bankers can’t provide: exceptional, continuous, transparent communication.

    The Communication Imperative

    Early in the December webinar, the panel addressed a question that haunts every institution considering a partnership: when do you tell people?

    The instinct is often to wait—to avoid creating anxiety until you have something definite to announce.

    That’s wrong.

    Gold emphasized the critical importance of managing stakeholder expectations through clear, consistent communication—distinguishing between exploratory discussions and finalized agreements, and being transparent about timelines and potential outcomes throughout the process.

    Tell people early. Tell them you’re “having discussions.” Tell them the timeline will be long. Tell them nothing is decided. Tell them what you know and what you don’t know.

    And keep telling them, consistently, throughout the process.

    The alternative—trying to keep major strategic discussions secret until announcing a deal—creates exactly the kind of anxiety and distrust that makes the emotional costs unbearable.

    This communication imperative extends beyond potential mergers. It’s central to the daily work of leading change.

    Back at the August webinar, Tarek Sobh—who became president of Lawrence Tech after just eighteen months as provost—spoke about the importance of helping every employee understand their role.

    “What is most important, I think, is having all of our leaders ensure that every employee on campus understands her or his role in how the campus runs and how important what they do is to the well-being of the whole campus and its students and its budget and its reputation, and so on and so forth.”

    This isn’t feel-good rhetoric. It’s strategic communication.

    “The whole concept of somebody coming in at any level to an educational institution to get a paycheck is not what is going to make eminent institutions of higher education thrive or survive,” Sobh said bluntly.

    Every custodian, every admissions counselor, every IT specialist, every faculty member needs to understand how their work connects to institutional success. And leaders at every level—not just the president—need to articulate that connection.

    Proving Value With Data

    Communication isn’t just about process and connection. It’s also about demonstrating value, to prospective students, current students, alumni, donors, legislators, and the community.

    And in 2025, that means data.

    Sobh has learned to articulate Lawrence Tech’s value proposition with precision: “97% of my students continue on and are employed at this level, and they are guaranteed a job, and 85% live locally.”

    That’s not abstract mission language. That’s quantifiable impact.

    “Articulating your student outcomes, articulating your impact on the community from an economic impact point and social impact point of view, keeping all of your channels open and continuing to clearly articulate your value proposition is the balancing argument or statement that is desperately needed for institutions in this time and day to prove their worth,” Sobh said.

    Economic impact. Social impact. Student outcomes. Employment rates. Local retention. These are the metrics that matter to legislators deciding on state funding, to donors considering major gifts, to families evaluating whether tuition is worth it.

    The Partnership Spectrum

    One of the most valuable contributions from the December webinar was Chet Haskell’s articulation of the partnership spectrum.

    Not every collaboration needs to be a merger. In fact, most shouldn’t be.

    Haskell outlined four levels:

    1. Consortium Arrangements: Shared services like libraries, bookstores, and food services. These reduce costs without requiring deep integration. They’re relatively easy to implement and maintain.

    2. Alliances: Academic program sharing, cross-registration, joint research initiatives. These require more coordination but preserve institutional independence.

    3. Affiliations: Closer integration around specific strategic goals. More commitment than alliances, but still stopping short of a merger.

    4. Full Mergers/Acquisitions: Complete integration, with one institution typically absorbing another or creating an entirely new entity.

    The key is matching the level of partnership to institutional needs and readiness.

    Haskell distinguished between crisis-driven partnerships—where institutions wait until they’re running out of money—and strategic partnerships, where institutions proactively explore collaborations that could benefit both parties. The latter, he argued, is far preferable.

    But strategic partnerships require something crisis-driven ones don’t have: resources in reserve. You can’t negotiate from desperation. You need time, financial capacity, and leadership bandwidth to explore options thoughtfully.

    Which means the best time to start building partnership relationships is before you need them.

    Remember the eighteen-month rule? If you wait until a crisis to start talking to potential partners, you won’t have eighteen months. You’ll have eighteen weeks, maybe eighteen days.

    Start the conversations now. Build the relationships. Understand the cultures. Then, when opportunity or necessity arises, you’re ready.

    State Demographics and Local Adaptation

    The August webinar also surfaced an important reality: national enrollment trends matter less than state demographics.

    Presbyterian College, in growing South Carolina, is seeing enrollment growth. Augustana College, in declining Illinois, faces different challenges.

    “South Carolina is a state that’s growing, and so that does help us,” Gustafson noted. About 60% of Presbyterian’s students come from South Carolina. “But we have to be very vigilant because we can’t guarantee that that will happen another year.”

    Meanwhile, Talentino at Augustana is adapting to Illinois realities by adding multilingual enrollment counselors, working with community-based organizations in urban areas, and creating summer bridge programs to support student success.

    Lawrence Tech, in Michigan, focused on developing three new graduate programs in high-demand areas—strategic program development based on market analysis rather than faculty interests.

    Each institution is adapting to its local context. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

    But there are common principles: know your market, track your data, be willing to change, and move before crisis forces your hand.

    The Board Challenge: Governance in Crisis

    Throughout both webinars, a consistent theme emerged that none of the panelists explicitly stated, but all of them circled back to: boards aren’t prepared for the strategic decisions facing small colleges today.

    This surfaced most starkly in the December Q&A session, when one participant observed that “colleges and universities cultivate irrational loyalty to the institution, which runs counter to the thought of mergers and partnerships and alliances.”

    Read that again: irrational loyalty.

    It’s the same emotional attachment that makes alumni generous donors and passionate advocates. But when an institution faces existential decisions—whether to merge, how to restructure, which programs to cut—that loyalty can become a liability.

    Another participant noted that “board members oftentimes don’t know how to act or ask the right questions, given the way that higher education oftentimes designs and recruits their board of trustees.”

    This is the structural problem: most small college boards are composed primarily of alumni who love their institution. They’re selected for their capacity to give and their willingness to advocate. They’re rarely selected for their expertise in finance, operations, technology, strategic restructuring, or M&A.

    Which means that when a president brings forward a partnership proposal or a CFO presents financial projections, the board often lacks the framework to evaluate what they’re hearing.

    They ask questions like, “Will we keep our name?” What about our traditions? How will this affect our identity?

    These are reasonable emotional questions. But they’re not the strategic questions that determine whether a partnership will work: What are the combined revenue projections? How will academic programs integrate? What’s the governance structure? What happens to debt obligations? Where are the synergies and where are the conflicts?

    The panel’s recommendation was consistent: board education before a crisis.

    Run hypothetical merger scenarios when there’s no actual deal on the table. Present three possible partner profiles and ask: Would we consider this? Why or why not? What questions would we need answered?

    Help boards understand financial metrics that matter beyond the composite score. Teach them to ask hard questions about cash flow, operating margins, and strategic positioning.

    And consider diversifying board composition—not to diminish alumni representation, but to complement it with specific expertise the institution needs: finance professionals who can read balance sheets, technology executives who understand digital transformation, healthcare or corporate leaders who’ve navigated mergers.

    Because when crisis arrives—and for many small colleges, it will—you need a board that can think strategically, ask sophisticated questions, and make difficult decisions based on institutional sustainability rather than emotional attachment alone.

    The eighteen-month rule applies here too: you can’t educate a board in six weeks when a partnership opportunity appears. You need to start now.

    The Bottom Line

    When Tarek Sobh arrived at Lawrence Technological University in September 2020, he could have started changing things immediately. He had the expertise. He had the mandate. He had ideas.

    Instead, he spent eighteen months listening.

    And when he finally became president and began implementing changes, he did so from a position of deep cultural understanding. He knew which changes would be embraced and which would face resistance. He knew whose support he needed and how to earn it. He knew what the institution was and what it could become.

    That’s not just one president’s wisdom. It’s the pattern that emerged across both webinars—from college presidents navigating daily challenges to experts guiding institutions through transformative partnerships.

    Know your numbers. Build your relationships. Understand your culture. Communicate transparently. Prove your value with data. Give yourself time.

    And remember: there should be no surprises.

    The challenges facing small colleges are real. The demographic cliff is arriving. Financial pressures are mounting. Political scrutiny is intensifying.

    But the leaders in these webinars aren’t panicking. They’re planning. They’re adapting. They’re building partnerships. They’re preparing their boards. They’re quantifying their value. They’re listening to their cultures before trying to change them.

    They’re giving themselves eighteen months to get it right.

    That’s not paralysis. That’s wisdom.

    And it might be exactly what saves small college America.

    Looking Forward: Proactive, Not Reactive: Three Conversations to Start This Week

    If you’re a president, provost, CFO, or trustee, here are three conversations you can start right now—before crisis forces them:

    1. With your board: Schedule a working session on hypothetical partnerships. Present three different institutional profiles (a larger regional university, a peer liberal arts college, a specialized technical institution) and ask: “If each approached us about a partnership, what questions would we need answered? What would make us say yes? What would be dealbreakers?” Don’t wait for an actual proposal to discover your board can’t evaluate one.

    2. With your leadership team: Review your financial indicators beyond the composite score. Do you know your real cash flow position? What is your operating margin trend over five years? Your net tuition revenue per student? If a crisis emerged in twelve months, what partnerships or changes would you need to have been building toward now? Move before you have to.

    3. With peer institutions: Identify 2-3 colleges (whether potential partners or not) and start building authentic relationships with their leadership. Not transactional networking—genuine understanding of their challenges, culture, and strategic direction. The eighteen-month rule means those relationships need to start today.

    These conversations won’t solve every problem. But they’ll position you to make better decisions when opportunity or necessity arrives.

    And they’ll help you build the institutional muscle memory for strategic thinking—the kind of thinking that distinguishes colleges that thrive from colleges that merely survive.

    —

    Small College America’s webinar series is moderated by Dean Hoke of Edu Alliance Group, Kent Barnds of Augustana College and featured Dr. Anita Gustafson (Presbyterian College), Dr. Andrea Talentino (Augustana College), Dr. Tarek Sobh (Lawrence Technological University), Dr. Chet Haskell (higher education consultant), Dr. Barry Ryan (university leader and attorney), AJ Prager (Hilltop Securities), and Stephanie Gold (Hogan Lovells). For more information about Small College America, visit http://www.smallcollegeamerica.net.

    Source link

  • FIRE’s 2025 impact in court, on campus, and in our culture

    FIRE’s 2025 impact in court, on campus, and in our culture

    Each passing year gets busier and busier for FIRE, and this year was no different. The numbers alone say a lot: With a current caseload of 34 litigation cases and 300 more non-litigation advocacy matters, 50 amicus brief submissions, and 21,500 media mentions (and counting!) under our belt, FIRE is bringing the heat everywhere. 

    Our big — and growing! — community of supporters enabled us to go big and be bold, to stand up to bullies, to stand up for everyday Americans, and to fight for that precious right to free speech that we all love and cherish. We are proud to serve as the nation’s premier free speech watchdog and achieve victories like those highlighted below.

    In Court

    FIRE notched major litigation victories this year, proving our prowess in court as America’s leading First Amendment defender.

    We argued and won a federal appeal for a professor sanctioned for criticizing his college’s lowering of academic standards, and won a settlement for a pharmacy student expelled for posting song lyrics. We also persuaded a court to halt a new Texas law that bars all expressive activity on campus after 10 p.m., and ensured California won’t force community college faculty to endorse DEI principles.

    Her grad school tried to expel her for a tweet about Cardi B. Now they’ll pay a $250K lawsuit settlement

    Kim Diei’s settlement is a warning to colleges around the country: If you police students’ personal online expression, there will be consequences.


    Read More

    We got a high schooler’s record expunged, his school’s “hate speech” policy amended, and a monetary settlement after he was suspended simply for posting a “meme rap” song on personal time away from school; and achieved victory on behalf of town residents when we fought and won a repeal of an ordinance restricting the holiday decorations they could display.

    Our current docket includes a challenge to Immigration and Nationality Act provisions used to deport lawfully present noncitizens simply for speech the government dislikes. We are also defending a retired police officer jailed for 37 days for posting a Facebook meme, and an Iowa pollster, Ann Selzer, against President Trump’s ongoing lawsuit (we already won a dismissal of a separate class action making the same claims). Our docket also includes a return trip to the Supreme Court on behalf of a Texas citizen reporter jailed for newsgathering, and a challenge by an elected school board member barred by New Jersey law from engaging with her constituents. 

    We are currently awaiting appellate decisions in our challenge to Florida’s STOP WOKE Act, our suit for animal rights activists arrested for “offensive” industrial-farming videos, our lawsuit on behalf of students who wore “Let’s Go Brandon” garb to junior high, and our challenges to various state social media restrictions.

    In Briefs

    These are just some of the cases our team of in-house First Amendment attorneys are litigating directly, but we can’t forget the 50 amicus briefs filed to advance the law. 

    Over the year, we participated in multiple cases opposing government efforts to deport lawfully present noncitizen students for expression and viewpoints the administration disfavors; objected (while noting longstanding concerns with the state of free speech at their institutions) to the government’s efforts to withhold funding and interfere in governance and academic freedom at Harvard and Columbia; and opposed government efforts to censor individuals for sharing views on transgender athletes in high school sports.

    FIRE also fought for the right to anonymous speech by challenging actions requiring adults to turn over their government IDs to access online content, and we filed a brief in Garcia v. Character Technologies, a leading-edge case on First Amendment protection for artificial intelligence.

    Out-of-Court Advocacy

    Demonstrating our ability to defend expressive rights without ever setting foot in court, FIRE notched nearly 80 victories defending the First Amendment rights of everyday Americans in 2025. 

    As usual, our cases ran the gamut from defending a student threatened with discipline for wearing a TPUSA hat, to rallying the residents of a New Jersey town to defeat an ordinance requiring a $2 million insurance policy if residents wanted to demonstrate, to fighting for a student journalist who was kicked off campus for publishing criticism of the campus administration. 

    At the Institute of American Indian Arts, criticism of school officials is ‘bullying’

    Administrators kicked the Young Warrior’s editor out of student housing and put him on probation for publishing student work critical of school officials.


    Read More

    Campus Reform 

    In 1999, we started our work on campus because the American university is ground zero for censorship. It’s the place where we see illiberal trends emerge and generations indoctrinated with “free speech for me but not for thee” attitudes. It’s vital we defend and promote the values of free expression on campus so we can secure them for our country and Americans everywhere.

    This year, FIRE met with dozens of campus leaders, resulting in the reform of more than 30 campus policies impacting over 1 million students. We added four new institutions to our list of “green light” schools that maintain no restrictive speech policies, making this the first school year in our history when we tracked more schools that protect speech in their policies than schools that significantly restrict it.

    And, FIRE continues to shape the next generation of free speech leaders. We hosted 22 interns, 14 legal clerks, 100 undergrads at our Student Network Summer Conference, and 200 high schoolers at our second annual week-long summer camp, the Free Speech Forum. Our programs are free to attend and leave young people inspired. Here’s what just one had to say: 

    Before FIRE . . . I could not engage in a civil conversation over controversial topics. After FIRE, I’ve had many civil conversations over the same or different topics. What’s different? I listen, I ask, then I speak.

    Thought Leadership 

    Guiding the national conversation back to nonpartisan free speech principles, FIRE was everywhere this year, warning politicians across the political spectrum that practicing censorship will come back to haunt them, combating the “words are violence” cliche, and explaining that “hate speech” is protected speech. Our staffers placed op-eds in leading publications like The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and Reason; and The New York Times ran a front-page profile of FIRE and featured FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff on an episode of The Daily.

    Greg was on the speaking circuit nonstop this year. The highlight was his TED Talk, which introduced hundreds of thousands to FIRE’s mission. Check it out if you haven’t yet! 


    Thank You!

    As a nonprofit organization, these achievements are only possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters. If you’ve already donated this year, please know that we sincerely appreciate your support. If you haven’t yet, please consider joining our growing movement of principled, nonpartisan free speech defenders by making a donation before the end of the year.

    Source link

  • Higher Education and the Culture of Silence

    Higher Education and the Culture of Silence

    American higher education presents itself as a beacon of truth, courage, and critical inquiry. Yet behind the marketing gloss lies a pervasive culture of silence—one that extends far beyond colleges and universities themselves. The same forces that suppress dissent on campus operate through a larger ecosystem of nonprofits, contractors, ed-tech companies, and “public-private partnerships” that orbit higher ed. Together, they form a network of institutional interests that reward secrecy, punish whistleblowers, and prioritize reputation and revenue over honesty and accountability.

    At the center of this system are nondisclosure agreements. NDAs are now standard tools not only in universities, but in the foundations that support them, the think tanks that shape education policy, and the ed-tech corporations that extract profit from student data and public subsidies. Whether a case involves workplace retaliation, fraudulent recruitment, financial misconduct, algorithmic harm, or student exploitation, NDAs are used to hide patterns of abuse and protect organizations from scrutiny. What gets buried is not just information—it is the possibility of reform.

    The threat of litigation is part of the same architecture. Universities, nonprofits, and ed-tech companies routinely rely on aggressive legal strategies to silence critics. Workers attempting to expose unethical contracts, deceptive marketing, or discrimination face cease-and-desist letters. Researchers who publish unflattering findings are pressured to retract or soften their conclusions. Students raising alarms about data privacy or predatory practices encounter legal intimidation disguised as “professional communication.” These organizations—flush with donor money, investor capital, or public funds—use lawsuits and threats of lawsuits as shields and weapons.

    Leadership across this broader ecosystem is often weak, conflicted, or corrupt. University presidents beholden to trustees are mirrored by nonprofit executives beholden to major donors, and by ed-tech CEOs beholden to venture capital. Many leaders prioritize political favor, philanthropic relationships, and corporate growth over the public interest. They outsource accountability to law firms, PR agencies, and consulting outfits whose job is not to fix problems but to bury them.

    And circulating through this system is the same cast of characters: politicians chasing influence, lawyers crafting airtight silence, consultants selling risk-mitigation strategies, bean counters manipulating data, and conmen repackaging failed ideas as “innovation.” The lines between nonprofit, corporate, and educational interests have blurred to the point of erasure. Trustees who shape campus policy sit on nonprofit boards. Ed-tech companies hire former university officials and then market themselves back to campuses. Donors direct funds through philanthropic intermediaries that simultaneously pressure institutions for access and silence.

    The victims of this system—faculty, staff, gig workers in tech and nonprofit roles, graduate students, undergraduates, and even the communities surrounding campuses—are pressured to comply. They face retaliation in the form of job loss, non-renewal, demotion, academic penalties, professional blacklisting, or immigration vulnerabilities. Whistleblowers are isolated. Critics are surveilled. And when the fallout becomes too public to contain, institutions rely on payouts—quiet settlements, buyouts, and confidential agreements that allow perpetrators to move seamlessly to their next institution or company.

    This culture of silence is not a collection of isolated incidents. It is a structural feature of modern higher education and the industries built around it.

    But it is not unbreakable.

    If you have experienced or witnessed this culture—whether in a university, a higher-ed nonprofit, or the ed-tech world—the Higher Education Inquirer invites you to share your story. You may do so publicly or anonymously. We understand the risks. We know many people cannot speak openly without jeopardizing their jobs, degrees, or health. Anonymous accounts are welcome, valued, and protected.

    Your story, no matter how brief, can help illuminate the patterns that institutions spend billions to obscure. Silence is what sustains the system. Truth—shared safely and collectively—is what can dismantle it.

    Sources

    • Elisabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness

    • Alondra Nelson, Body and Soul

    • Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid

    • Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

    • Reporting from the Higher Education Inquirer on university corruption, NDAs, donor influence, and ed-tech abuses

    • Investigations into nonprofit and ed-tech misconduct published in public records, court filings, and independent journalism

    Source link

  • Transparency, collaboration, and culture, are key to winning public trust in research

    Transparency, collaboration, and culture, are key to winning public trust in research

    The higher education sector is focussing too much on inward-facing debates on research culture and are missing out on a major opportunity to expose our culture to the public as a way to truly connect research with society.

    REF can underpin this outward turn, providing mechanisms not only for incentivising good culture, but for opening up conversations about who we are and how we work to contribute to society.

    This outward turn matters. Research and Development (R&D) delivers enormous economic and societal value, yet universities struggle to earn public trust or support for what they do. Recent nation-wide public opinion research by Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) has shown that while 88 per cent of people say it is important for the Government to invest in R&D, just 18 per cent can immediately think of lots of ways R&D benefits them and their family. When talking about R&D in public focus groups, universities were rarely front of mind and are primarily seen as education institutions where students or lecturers might do R&D as an ancillary activity.

    If the university sector is to sustain legitimacy – and by extension, the political and financial foundations of UK research – we must find new ways to make our work visible, relatable, and trusted. Focusing on the culture that shapes how research is done may be the most powerful way to do this.

    Why culture matters

    Public opinion is not background noise. Public awareness, appetite and trust all shape political choices about funding, regulation, and the role of universities in national life. While CaSE’s work shows that 72 per cent of people trust universities to be honest about how much the UK government should invest in R&D, the lack of awareness about what universities do and how they do it leaves legitimacy fragile.

    This fragility is starkly illustrated by recent polling from More in Common: when asked which government budgets they would most like to see cut, the public didn’t want funding cuts for R&D, yet placed universities third on the list for budgets that they would be happy to be cut (alongside foreign aid and funding for the arts).

    Current approaches to improving public opinions about research in our sector have had limited success. The sector’s instinct has been to showcase outputs – discoveries, patents, and impact case studies – to boost public awareness and build support for research in universities. But CaSE polling evidence suggests that this approach isn’t cutting through: 74 per cent of the public said they knew nothing or hardly anything about R&D in their area. This lack of connection does not indicate a lack of interest: a similar proportion (70 per cent) would like to hear more about local R&D.

    Transparency

    Evidence from other sectors shows that opening up processes builds trust. In healthcare, for example, the NHS has found that when patients are meaningfully involved in decisions about their care and how services are designed, trust and satisfaction increase – not just because of outcomes, but because people can see and influence how decisions are made.

    Research from business and engineering contexts shows that people are more likely to trust companies that are open about how they operate, not just what they deliver. Together, these lessons reinforce that we should not rely on showcasing outputs alone: legitimacy comes from making visible the processes, people and cultures that underpin research.

    Universities don’t just generate knowledge; they develop the individuals who carry skills and values into the wider economy. Researchers, technicians, professional services staff and others who enable research in higher education bring curiosity, collaboration and critical thinking into every sector, both through direct collaboration and when they move beyond academia. These skills fuel innovation and problem-solving across the economy and public services, but they can only develop and thrive in supportive, inclusive research cultures. Without attention to culture, the talent pipeline that government and industry rely on is put at risk.

    Research culture makes these processes and people visible. Culture is about how research is done: the integrity of methods, the openness of data, the inclusivity of teams, the collaborations – including with the public – that make discoveries possible. These are the very things the public are keen to understand better. By opening up the black box of research and showing the culture that underpins it, we can make university research more relatable, trustworthy, and visible in everyday life.

    The role of REF in shifting the conversation

    The expansion of the old Environment element of REF to encompass broader aspects of research culture offers an opportunity to help shift from an inward to a more outward looking narrative and public conversation. The visibility and accountability that REF submissions require matters beyond academia: it gives the sector a platform to showcase the values and processes that underpin research. In doing so, REF can help our sector build trust and legitimacy by making research culture part of the national conversation about R&D.

    Openness, integrity, inclusivity, and collaboration – core components of research culture – are values which the public already recognise and expect. By framing research culture as part of the story we tell – explaining not just what our universities produce but how they produce it – we can build a stronger connection with the public. Culture is the bridge between the abstract notion of investing in R&D and a lived understanding of what universities actually do in society.

    Public support for research is strong, but support for universities is increasingly fragile. Whatever the REF looks like when we unpause, we need to avoid retreating to ‘business as usual’ and closing down this opportunity to open up a more meaningful conversation about the role universities play in UK R&D and in the progress of society.

    Source link

  • Truth vs. risk management: How to move forward

    Truth vs. risk management: How to move forward

    Key points:

    In the world of K-12 education, teachers are constantly making decisions that affect their students and families. In contrast, administrators are tasked with something even bigger: making decisions that also involve adults (parents, staff culture, etc.) and preventing conflicts from spiraling into formal complaints or legal issues. Therefore, decisions and actions often have to balance two competing values: truth and risk management.

    Some individuals, such as teachers, are very truth-oriented. They document interactions, clarify misunderstandings, and push for accuracy, recognizing that a single misrepresentation can erode trust with families, damage credibility in front of students, or most importantly, remove them from the good graces of administrators they respect and admire. Truth is not an abstract concept–it is paramount to professionalism and reputation. If a student states that they are earning a low grade because “the teacher doesn’t like me,” the teacher will go through their grade-book. If a parent claims that a teacher did not address an incident in the classroom, the teacher may respond by clarifying the inaccuracy via summarizing documentation of student statements, anecdotal evidence of student conversations, reflective activities, etc.

    De-escalation and appeasement

    In contrast, administrators are tasked with something even bigger. They have to view scenarios from the lens of risk management. Their role requires them to deescalate and appease. Administrators must protect the school’s reputation and prevent conflicts or disagreements from spiraling into formal complaints or legal issues. Through that lens, the truth sometimes takes a back seat to ostensibly achieve a quick resolution.

    When a house catches on fire, firefighters point the hose, put out the flames, and move on to their next emergency. They don’t care if the kitchen was recently remodeled; they don’t have the time or desire to figure out a plan to put out the fire by aiming at just the living room, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Administrators can be the same way–they just want the proverbial “fire” contained. They do not care about their employees’ feelings; they just care about smooth sailing and usually softly characterize matters as misunderstandings.

    To a classroom teacher who has carefully documented the truth, this injustice can feel like a bow tied around a bag of garbage. Administrators usually err on the side of appeasing the irrational, volatile, and dangerous employee, which risks the calmer employee feeling like they were overlooked because they are “weaker.” In reality, their integrity, professionalism, and level-headedness lead administrators to trust the employee will do right, know better, maintain appropriate decorum, rise above, and not foolishly escalate. This notion aligns to the scripture “To whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48). Those with great abilities are judged at a higher bar.

    In essence, administrators do not care about feelings, because they have a job to do. The employee with higher integrity is not the easier target but is easier to redirect because they are the safer, principled, and ethical employee. This is not a weakness but a strength in the eyes of the administration and that is what they prefer (albeit the employee may be dismissed, confused, and their feelings may be hurt, but that is not the administration’s focus at all).

    Finding common ground

    Neither perspective (truth or risk management) is wrong. Risk management matters. Without it, schools would be replete with endless investigations and finger-pointing. Although, when risk management consistently overrides truth, the system teaches teachers that appearances matter more than accountability, which does not meet the needs of validation and can thus truly hurt on a personal level. However, in the work environment, finding common ground and moving forward is more important than finger-pointing because the priority has to be the children having an optimal learning environment.

    We must balance the two. Perhaps, administrators should communicate openly, privately, and directly to educators who may not always understand the “game.” Support and transparency are beneficial. Explaining the “why” behind a decision can go a long way in building staff trust, morale, and intelligence. Further, when teachers feel supported in their honesty, they are less likely to disengage because transparency, accuracy, and an explanation of risk management can actually prevent fires from igniting in the first place. Additionally, teachers and administrators should explore conflict resolution strategies that honor truth while still mitigating risk. This can assist in modelling for students what it means to live with integrity in complex situations. Kids deserve nothing less.

    Lastly, teachers need to be empathetic to the demands on their administrators. “If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived” (Galatians 6:1-3). This scripture means that teachers should focus less on criticizing or “keeping score” (irrespective of the truth and the facts, and even if false-facts are generated to manage risk), but should work collaboratively while also remembering and recognizing that our colleagues (and even administrators) can benefit from the simple support of our grace and understanding. Newer colleagues and administrators are often in survival mode.

    Latest posts by eSchool Media Contributors (see all)

    Source link

  • Northern Ireland can be a testbed for research culture

    Northern Ireland can be a testbed for research culture

    In higher education, talk of “research culture” can sometimes feel abstract. We know it matters, but what does it actually look like in practice – and how do you change it?

    Today, we’re publishing a new report on research culture in Northern Ireland that tries to answer some of those questions. Produced in partnership with CRAC-Vitae as part of the Research Culture Northern Ireland (RCNI) initiative, and supported by the Wellcome Trust, the report draws insights from across universities, government, industry, and the voluntary sector.

    Our aim was to explore how research is experienced in a small but vibrant ecosystem, and to test whether Northern Ireland might offer a different perspective on research culture – one that could be of interest not only here, but to other regions of the UK and beyond.

    Why Northern Ireland, why now?

    Northern Ireland’s research ecosystem is distinctive. Our higher education sector is small but high-performing, regularly punching above its weight in UK and international rankings. We are separated from the rest of the UK by the Irish Sea, but uniquely, we share a land border with the EU – creating opportunities for cross-border collaboration.

    Yet there are challenges too. Levels of innovation and productivity remain lower than in the UK and Ireland overall. Access to research funding is uneven. Career mobility is limited, partly shaped by geography.

    At the same time, research and innovation are high on the policy agenda. The Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government highlights ambitious R&I plans, including the creation of a regional strategy to support key sectors such as cyber security and software, advanced manufacturing and life and health sciences. The appointment of Northern Ireland’s first Chief Scientific and Technology Adviser signals stronger leadership in this space, and with the CSTA shortly bringing the regional R&I strategy forward for consultation, it highlights the significant developments since the report on research culture was commissioned. The Belfast Region City Deal is creating new innovation centres, while a recently published Collaborative Innovation Plan represents a coordinated commitment by Innovate UK, the Department for the Economy and Invest NI to accelerate inclusive and sustainable innovation across the region.

    To harness these opportunities, we need a research culture that enables collaboration across sectors, supports the talent we already have, and makes the region an attractive place for others to come and do research.

    Finding out

    Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University jointly created RCNI with support from the Wellcome Trust to explore research culture in more depth, and to test interventions that might help address challenges.

    Alongside pilot projects on postdoctoral careers, practice-as-research, and the role of research professionals, we commissioned CRAC-Vitae to examine Northern Ireland’s research ecosystem through survey data (167 responses), interviews (17), and focus groups. The aim was not only to generate evidence specific to our context, but also to explore whether familiar UK-wide challenges looked different – or perhaps more visible – in a small system.

    The findings are grouped into five themes. None of them are unique to Northern Ireland – but they resonate in ways that may feel familiar to colleagues elsewhere:

    Collaboration and coordination. Collaboration is widespread, with 80 per cent of respondents reporting that they had worked with an external organisation. However, qualitative data revealed that collaborations are often informal, relying on personal networks. Smaller organisations can be excluded, and visibility across the system is limited.

    Career pathways and talent development. Career progression is constrained by limited opportunities with 59 per cent of respondents identifying a lack of progression routes. Pathways are often fragmented, and cross-sector mobility remains low, with 52 per cent of respondents reporting difficulty moving between sectors. Talent is underutilised as a result.

    Understanding and communicating the value of research. Research has enormous civic and community benefits, but these are undervalued and misunderstood – limiting recognition and policy impact.

    Reducing administrative burden. Bureaucracy, compliance, and regulatory hurdles disproportionately affect SMEs and non-HE actors, creating inefficiencies and blocking participation.

    Strategic vision and system reform. Stakeholders see a fragmented and opaque system, lacking shared vision and coherence – only 31 per cent of survey respondents agreed there is a shared strategic vision for R&I in NI – a situation compounded by political instability.

    We know this is a small sample and just one piece in a growing evidence base. But it offers useful starting points for further discussion – and perhaps areas where regions could work together.

    Reflections for small regions

    Looking across these findings, a few reflections stand out that may be of interest to other small regions with strong research ecosystems.

    First, proximity can be a strength. The size and concentration of institutions, government, and industry in a defined area creates real opportunities to build effective networks and shared understanding of barriers. In particular, it can help identify and tackle bureaucratic friction more quickly.

    Next, that collaboration is essential – but needs structure. In small systems, personal connections carry weight. That can be a strength, but risks becoming exclusive and unwelcoming to newcomers. Creating formal mechanisms for inclusion is key.

    There’s also work to be done on harnessing existing talent. With only a handful of research-intensive institutions, we need to do more to support and retain the talent we already have. Not every research student or postdoc will have an academic career – but their skills are vital to other sectors and to addressing regional challenges.

    Finally, a joined-up voice matters. A coherent strategic focus and communication plan helps small regions do more with less. Playing to strengths, and presenting a clear message externally, is critical to attracting funding and partnerships. This project, a partnership between Queen’s and Ulster, embodies that.

    These are not answers, but starting points for reflection – and perhaps for collaboration across regions that face similar issues.

    Where could this go?

    We are realistic: these challenges cannot be solved by one project, or even one region. Our next steps will therefore follow a dual approach: influencing system-level reforms through evidence, advocacy, and convening – recognising that changes to policy and funding lie with government and funders – and also testing project-level interventions through pilot projects, generating practical learning that might inform broader reforms.

    The first of these involves a new collaboration with CRAC-Vitae to pilot innovative approaches to tracking the career outcomes of postdoctoral researchers in Northern Ireland. This aligns with our “people first” focus for this project, recognising that our research and innovation ecosystem is nothing without the talent and ideas that populate it.

    If successful, we hope that coordinated career tracking will help identify mobility trends, sectoral destinations, and skill gaps across the R&I workforce – providing the evidence needed to strengthen cross-sector pathways and retain and develop talent within NI’s R&I ecosystem.

    Building on other RCNI work exploring postdoctoral career development, these efforts aim to build a clearer picture of how people move through and beyond the research ecosystem – and how policies and practices can better support their progression.

    Although modest in scale, this pilot will address an area with little existing evidence and may offer a model for others seeking to strengthen mobility and progression across the research ecosystem.

    An invitation to reflect

    So what does this mean for colleagues elsewhere? We don’t claim to have the answers. But we think Northern Ireland’s experience highlights issues that many regions face – and raises questions that might be useful to explore collectively.

    If proximity can be a strength, how do we best harness it? If collaboration relies too heavily on personal networks, how do we make it more inclusive? If we want to value research talent beyond academia, how do we support those careers in practice? And if small regions need a joined-up voice, how do we achieve it without losing diversity?

    Northern Ireland is a small system, but that makes its challenges and opportunities more visible. We hope this report is not only useful here, but a provocation to reflect on how small research ecosystems across the UK – and beyond – might learn together.

    Source link

  • How ‘anti-woke’ laws and cancel culture combine to chill classroom speech

    How ‘anti-woke’ laws and cancel culture combine to chill classroom speech

    Over the past several years, some politicians have tried to ban or limit discussion of controversial ideas in higher education, particularly those related to critical race theory, gender identity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

    FIRE has been on the front lines of this fight, opposing bills that target classroom speech and challenging those that become law. We’ve warned legislators that attempts to ban ideas from the college classroom are unconstitutional. As the Supreme Court explained, the First Amendment “does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.”

    Many legislatures now write their bills to avoid crossing this constitutional line. When they do not, courts often step in. Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act,” for example — part of which FIRE has challenged in court — currently faces a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of its classroom provisions.

    LAWSUIT: FIRE challenges Stop WOKE Act’s limits on how Florida professors can teach about race, sex

    First Amendment doesn’t allow Florida law to declare which concepts are too challenging for students and faculty to discuss in a college classroom.


    Read More

    Perhaps in part because of this roadblock, some actors have taken a more indirect approach to removing disfavored ideas from the classroom: a mix of “anti-woke” laws and cancel culture designed to intimidate schools into doing what the state cannot do directly.

    This process involves some or all of the following steps: a politician passes an “anti-woke” law, someone misinterprets the law and claims a professor violated it, outrage erupts and people demand the school take action, school administrators cave to the pressure and punish the teacher, the school announces reviews of curricula, and then other schools follow suit.

    Here’s how that cycle works in detail — and why it’s chilling classroom speech.

    Step 1: “Anti-woke” laws set the stage

    Texas A&M senior lecturer Melissa McCoul began the summer semester teaching ENGL 360: Literature for Children, a course she had taught 12 times that focused on “representative writers, genres, texts and movements.” During the third week of class, they were reading Jude Saves the World, a novel about a 12-year-old who identifies as nonbinary. As part of their discussion, McCoul displayed an image of the “gender unicorn,” a graphic device used to educate children about gender identity, expression, and sexuality. 

    Whatever one’s personal views, it should not be a surprise that a children’s literature course would focus on how contemporary children’s authors approach the major social issues of the day, such as gender ideology. Faculty at public colleges also have a First Amendment right to share their views, and to invite students who disagree to challenge them. In fact, McCoul acknowledged in the course syllabus that some of the class materials would spark “differing opinions” and that students were “not required to agree.”

    This was a chance for open dialogue, until it wasn’t.

    A student in McCoul’s class raised her hand and asserted that President Trump’s executive order on gender identity somehow made the discussion illegal. The student subsequently reached out to school President Mark Welsh, who defended the inclusion of LGBT content in professional-track courses. He explained to her that students “want to understand the issues” that affect the people they will work with.

    Nevertheless, the school canceled the class for the summer, citing “the emotions” generated by this controversy. That’s no reason to cancel a class, but the school did not punish McCoul or cancel her class for the fall semester. Instead, they agreed that her course would be taken out of the core curriculum and more clearly marked as a special topics class.

    But then, on Sept. 8, Texas State Representative Brian Harrison posted video of the student’s exchange with McCoul on X and wrote a letter to the Trump administration calling for an “investigation into discriminatory DEI practices.” The assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet K. Dhillon, called the incident “deeply concerning” and said her division would “look into this.” Gov. Greg Abbott said McCoul acted “contrary to Texas law” without actually citing any specific laws (though Abbott directed state agencies earlier this year to align their practices and policies to recognize only two sexes).

    Crucially, neither Abbott’s directive nor Trump’s order bans discussion of gender identity in college classrooms. Doing so, after all, would be unconstitutional. Instead, they largely instruct Texas and federal agencies to recognize only two sexes in official government work, not to police classroom speech.

    Step 2: An outrage campaign demands punishment

    Harrison’s Sept. 8 post kicked off a cascade of calls to discipline McCoul. It was also only the first in a long thread of posts that set off a social media firestorm. Before long, other high profile government figures like Abbott and Dhillon were chiming in. Others with large social media followings picked up the story. A routine classroom discussion had been reframed to the public as a legal violation requiring immediate sanction.

    Step 3: The school caves to pressure

    Soon after, Texas A&M fired McCoul. The school also demoted College of Arts and Sciences’ Dean Mark Zoran and the English Department head Emily Johansen. 

    President Welsh justified these moves by alleging McCoul taught “content that was inconsistent with the published course description.” The apparent basis for this assertion was that McCoul’s course was renumbered as ENGL 394, rather than a 400-level number that would supposedly mark it as a special-topics class. But McCoul and Johansen dispute this, noting that 394 places the course outside the core curriculum and qualifies it as a special-topic class. Other faculty agreed that there is little difference between these designations. 

    Whatever the case, the public pressure only continued to build. Harrison demanded that Texas A&M terminate Welsh. Texas’s lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, echoed the call, saying that Welsh’s “ambivalence on the issue and his dismissal of the student’s concerns by immediately taking the side of the professor is unacceptable.” Barely a week later, Welsh announced his resignation, following McCoul out the door.

    Step 4: Administrators announce curricular reviews

    If this story ended only with a professor being fired for her protected speech, that would be bad enough. And driving out a university president is even more alarming, because it shows how these campaigns scare people into silence or submission. But Texas A&M System Chancellor Glenn Hegar then announced that he and the board of regents would audit all courses across all 12 schools in the A&M System. 

    Neither Hegar nor the board explained how it would carry out the course review, leaving faculty members guessing as to what materials would be under their microscope. But in a campaign like this one, a chilling vagueness is part of the point. In the aftermath of seeing a fellow professor fired for her classroom speech, one has to imagine that many will choose to avoid addressing sensitive topics in the future. And this will only serve to rob Texas A&M students of the opportunity to engage with challenging and topical issues.

    Step 5: Other schools get the message

    Although this controversy started with one class taught by one professor at one Texas A&M campus, the ripple effects rapidly reached campuses across the state. According to reporting at the time, multiple school systems launched reviews:

    • Texas Tech told faculty that teaching must comply with “current state and federal law recogniz[ing] only two human sexes.”
    • The University of North Texas system ordered an expedited review of courses and programs, including syllabi, for compliance with “all current applicable state and federal laws, executive orders, and court orders.”
    • A University of Texas system spokesperson said they were reviewing “gender identity” courses for legal compliance.
    • The Texas State University System told each campus to review academic programming “in light of recent inquiries.”
    • Texas Woman’s University System said it was reviewing academic courses and programs for compliance.

    And that, in a nutshell, is how vague laws and online outrage came together in a toxic cocktail that resulted in a fired professor, a removed dean and department head, and a university president’s resignation, not to mention several systemwide university audits of entire course catalogues — all starting with a single student’s complaint that discussing a children’s book was “illegal.”

    A growing problem

    This practice of overreading laws and executive orders in order to target protected speech is, unfortunately, not just limited to Texas. In July, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Oversight Project reportedly filed a records request for syllabi and materials from roughly 70 courses containing terms such as: “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging,” “gender identity,” “intersectionality,” “white privilege,” “cultural humility,” “racial equity,” “implicit bias,” “microaggressions,” “queer,” and “sexuality.” 

    The stated purpose of this request is to evaluate and publicize “compliance with current Executive Orders issued by the President of the United States.” But again, Trump’s executive orders have no bearing on whether these words can be used in class materials. Suggesting otherwise and going on a fishing expedition for controversial class materials only further chills protected speech.

    Sometimes the pressure is quieter, but no less chilling. At the University of Alabama, Dana Patton, director of the Witt Fellows Program, says she was told by university officials that a “very powerful person” in the state capital believed her program violated state law. This person reportedly asserted, among other things, that “divisive concepts (were) embedded” in the program. Patton responded by removing course content, including three documentaries, from one of her classes because they can prompt a “visceral reaction” and “feelings of guilt and anger” in students. This is self-censorship driven by fear of political blowback, not educational judgment.

    How not to reform higher ed

    As government officials increasingly look for ways to reform higher education, they must remember that efforts to ban controversial ideas from academia are not merely unconstitutional, they’re harmful regardless of their legal legitimacy. Such efforts frustrate an essential purpose of university life: young Americans should be able to explore and grapple with a wide variety of ideas, even those that many find offensive.

    Amy Wax is academic freedom’s canary in the coal mine

    Penn’s chilling decision to punish the controversial professor calls tenure protections at private universities into question


    Read More

    The debates in this country around gender and sexuality will not subside because of censorship in Texas. Indeed, classroom debates on this topic have the potential to leave both conservative and liberal students with a richer understanding of the issue. But some young Texans will now be robbed of this opportunity. Many others will be left with impoverished versions of those conversations, stripped of anything controversial that would draw the ire of government officials.

    We should expect college students to be fearless when faced with ideas they dislike, regardless of the partisan valence of those ideas. As FIRE said when critics on the left came after conservative University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Wax, “Any university that would attempt to shield its community from offense would soon see the death of intellectual vitality, and the waning of its influence in society.”

    If lawmakers want to reform higher education or bolster viewpoint diversity, they should do so by passing laws that protect the speech rights of all students and faculty — like FIRE’s model legislation — and they should focus on bringing more ideas onto public campuses, not removing those they dislike through vague assertions of illegality and targeted pressure campaigns.

    Source link