Tag: Education

Agencies Share Guidance on Foreign Threats at U.S. Colleges

Federal agencies say that research at American universities contributes to the country’s national security and colleges need to guard against foreign threats.

Warning American colleges and universities about increasing foreign threats to research, a group of federal intelligence agencies and the Education Department released new guidance this week outlining how the institutions can better protect themselves.

For example, the 40-page “Safeguarding Academia” bulletin in part encourages colleges and researchers to be transparent about who else is involved in a research project, noting that failing to disclose foreign collaborations could lead to sanctions. The agencies urged researchers to do their due diligence on any potential collaborators and outlined other cybersecurity best practices.

“Protecting the integrity of U.S. research—while fostering international collaboration—is critical to maintaining a robust and secure research ecosystem,” the bulletin states. “Striking this balance is essential to preserving academic freedom, safeguarding researchers’ lifework, and ensuring that innovation continues to thrive in a secure and principled manner.”

James Cangialosi, the acting director at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, added in a statement that while American colleges conduct research key to the country’s global competitiveness and national security, “foreign adversaries are increasingly exploiting the open and collaborative environment of U.S. academic institutions for their own gain.”

“Today’s bulletin highlights this evolving security threat and provides mitigation strategies that academic institutions can implement to better protect their research, their institutions, as well as their staff and students,” Cangialosi said. “With the new school year starting, it’s critical to get these materials in the hands of academic institutions now.”

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August 27, 2025
Financial Aid Advisers Question Trump’s ID Verification Efforts

Many financial aid advisers are worried that the Trump administration’s latest effort to bolster identity verification in the student aid system could have unintended consequences. Instead of simply catching fraudulent grant applicants and borrowers, some fear that the verification process could also prevent real, eligible students from accessing public benefits.

Education Department officials, however, assure aid advisers that one of their top priorities is to distribute aid smoothly to the students who have a right to it, even as they protect the integrity of the taxpayer-funded programs.

In an electronic announcement published Aug. 12, Federal Student Aid officials said they would be checking the identities of an additional 300,000 aid applicants, on top of the 125,000 students already flagged in June. Some college advisers said they were alarmed by the sheer scale of the requests—especially given what they describe as a very tight timeline.

While aid officers generally support the concept of catching identity thieves, they fear that requiring students to complete the verification process so quickly could delay or even block aid access for some legitimate students, putting them in a financial hole. FSA says the program will eventually be automated, limited to first-time students and managed by agency officials. But at the moment, it’s a manual process that can affect students midway through their program; financial aid officers say it is becoming increasingly complicated and burdensome.

“Schools have been asking for help on how to find these people and prevent fraudulent identities from obtaining Title IV aid, so we’re very supportive of the Department of Ed’s attempts to assume responsibility,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “Unfortunately, the timing and how long it took ED to get this off the ground means that it’s August … We are entering, if not already in, the season of really large-scale disbursement. If verification is outstanding, schools may have to hold disbursements for those students.”

The largest unknown seems to be what the consequences of an incomplete or overdue identity verification will be.

The majority of students in the latest wave of verification requests are returning to college and need to verify their identity for the 2024–25 academic year as well as secure their awards for 2025–26. But some were flagged solely for last academic year and in most instances have already graduated or stopped out, making it harder to track them down and complete the process.

Verification results for 2025–26 can be submitted up to 60 days after the data portal opens Aug. 31. At the same time, according to a Federal Register notice, verifications and any other changes to aid applications for 2024–25 must be completed by Sept. 13, making for a busy two weeks for students and aid officers.

Experts have raised a number of questions about whether missing this tight deadline for 2024 could have repercussions. Some fear it could block students from completing future identity verifications or receiving upcoming disbursements; others worry that aid already disbursed in 2024–25 will need to be retracted. Either way, they say, it could have a crippling effect on low-income students.

“There’s going to be a variety of impact,” one financial aid adviser said. “The monetary impact could be anything from a few hundred dollars to 10-, 15- or 20,000.”

However, the Office of Federal Student Aid told Inside Higher Ed that missing that deadline shouldn’t be a problem—except in rare situations.

Verifications for 2024 don’t have to be reported through the portal the same way upcoming 2025 ones do, one agency official said on background. Rather, aid officers just need to verify the student’s identity and determine internally whether a student’s 2024 aid should be awarded; therefore, “there’s no deadline that people are going to hit and fall afoul of,” he added.

And in the “rare” scenario where an institution discovers inaccuracies on a 2024 FAFSA form, the department said, colleges can reach out to FSA to ensure a student’s eligibility is not impacted.

‘We Are Not Blocking Students’

“If anyone has any examples of that Sept. 13 deadline actually being a blocker for students, we can move the deadline back, because we are here to make sure we are not blocking students,” the FSA adviser said. “There is no reason” a 2024 verification delay should affect a student’s ability to complete the 2025 process and have their award disbursed.

Department officials also noted that they have streamlined the process to reduce the administrative burden, cutting steps such as making students provide a statement of purpose or notarizing the verification.

And of the 300,000 aid applicants flagged in the most recent set of verification requests, the external vendor that helped identify them says that at least 50,000 are examples of fraud. The vendor is “very confident” that the other 250,000 are as well, the FSA official said, but the agency is playing it safe and having colleges check each case for good measure before stripping those recipients of aid.

Ellen Keast, the department’s deputy press secretary, said it’s all part of the agency’s “student- and taxpayer-first mentality.”

“We are committed to ensuring that every single dollar is spent on eligible students, not fraudsters,” she said. “This is not about putting a burden on postsecondary institutions; it’s about warning them, before they disburse both taxpayer money and their own, that the ‘student’ in front of them is most likely not a real person.”

But representatives from NASFAA and college financial aid officers are still not clear on how the process will play out.

Caleb Williams, director of enrollment management at Northern Arizona University, said that in addition to the typical verifications that occurred before the Trump administration’s new campaign was announced, selection rates for 2024–25 verification at his institution rose by 54 percent in June and another 13 percent in August. As he understands it, he added, a student “flagged for Identity verification cannot receive aid in any year until the process is completed.”

Meanwhile, Charles Mayfield, the director of financial assistance at Northwest Missouri State University, believes that if an institution misses the September deadline for 2024 verifications, it will not be able to reinstate any of last year’s aid. But it would still be able to complete the 2025 verification and process that year’s aid.

Mayfield hopes that the department will put out clarified guidance to relieve aid advisers’ confusion and explain exactly what the September deadline means, how it will be enforced and what the consequences will be for students. But like the staff at NASFAA, he said his greatest frustration is not the general need for clarification but its timing at the end of an academic year.

“These students have received financial aid for the whole academic year, and now it’s all going to be taken away, and they’re at risk of not being able to enroll for the next academic year,” he said. “In the industry, we all know that students who stop out are much less likely to finish their degree.”

It would be one thing if these concerns and challenges were specific to one college, Mayfair said, but when there are 15 or 20 colleges expressing the same confusion on a Listserv on the same day, the department should be more responsive.

“It feels like when something doesn’t go right, we have to prove to the FSA that it didn’t work the way it was supposed to,” he said. “And until we can outright prove that—using data that’s on their system, that they should already have access to—they won’t acknowledge it.”

McCarthy from NASFAA said that what the department told Inside Higher Ed about 2024 and 2025 verification being handled separately “sounds promising,” but as of Aug. 22 she hadn’t received the same notification from FSA.

Other smaller concerns, such as whether the system for flagging fraud is accurate and if the new portal is functional, also have yet to be addressed, she added.

“It’s an awful lot of work being pushed onto schools,” she explained. “So we want to make sure that it’s useful, beneficial work and that these are actual, really concerning applications, not sloppy work on the Department of Ed which then leads to delays for students.”

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August 27, 2025
Ohio State Restricts Decorations in Public Dorm Spaces

Ohio State University has advised resident advisers to restrict all dorm floor and common room decor—as well as welcome programming for incoming students—to “Ohio State spirit themes” to avoid offending or alienating students. That means motifs like “retro video games and SpongeBob” motifs, which one outraged former RA on Reddit said they decorated with, won’t be allowed.

The move comes partly in response to SB1, a higher ed law Ohio passed in March that prohibits DEI, requires institutions to “demonstrate intellectual diversity” and mandates institutional neutrality on “controversial” subjects such as climate change, electoral politics, foreign policy, immigration, marriage and abortion.

“SB1 was certainly a factor, but our goal is to create an open and welcoming environment for all students … including in our residence halls, as we build community throughout our spaces and programming,” Dave Isaacs, OSU communications and media relations manager, said in a statement shared with Inside Higher Ed. “And this was discussed with RAs during their orientation for the position.”

Move-in activities are also required to be Buckeye-themed, including “necklace making and mug decorating,” the statement said.

Students took to Reddit to pan the new decorating rules, with one commenter posting, “SB1 and university leadership has sucked the life out of literally everything.”

“There were no comments supporting Ohio State’s decision,” the student newspaper, The Lantern, noted. “However, one user called on students to protest the state and national government over these decisions, rather than Ohio State’s administration.”

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August 27, 2025
Free College Admissions Counseling for Cancer Survivors

Anthony Gallonio has spent most of his career working in higher education admissions and financial aid, watching young people select, apply to and enroll in colleges. But when his daughter Grace received a cancer diagnosis 14 years ago, when she was a year old, he realized there was an underserved group of teens who needed support in college exploration: cancer patients.

“I remember looking at these kids coming in [to the hospital] thinking, ‘How are they doing it?’” Gallonio said. “Their lives are still going on, high school is taking place, college is still in the future. We know one missed application or one missed form or one missed deadline could mean the difference between getting into a school or not or getting tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships or not.”

In 2011, Gallonio established the National GRACE Foundation, a nonprofit that offers free information and advice on higher education for families of young people who survived childhood cancer. The group is supported by volunteers across the country who work in higher ed, illuminating the hidden curriculum to encourage student success.

The background: GRACE, named after Gallonio’s daughter and short for Growing, Recovering and Achieving a College Education, is designed to break down barriers to enrollment for childhood cancer survivors and support parents and caregivers navigating college applications and beyond.

“The whole goal has been to take the stress out of the college admissions and financial aid process for families who have a lot of stress going on and try to help them avoid the mistakes that I have seen over the years,” Gallonio said.

A 2019 study of 16,700 childhood cancer survivors found that about half graduated from college; those reporting chronic conditions were even less likely to complete a degree by age 25.

Many pediatric cancer survivors Gallonio works with aspire to careers in helping roles, including in health care, social services or research, he said. Getting into and through college is just the first step in that journey.

How it works: GRACE provides a range of services, including offering advice on financial aid, tracking upcoming deadlines, explaining confusing terminology or jargon, and highlighting various colleges and programs that might be a good fit for the student. A majority of the students and parents come from low- or middle-income families, and they often find the foundation through word of mouth or through partnerships with hospitals.

“I think about our services in the way that a family might hire college consultants, but we do it all for free,” Gallonio said. “That’s the group that we’re seeing—those folks who need help but also don’t have necessarily the resources to pay for [a consultant].”

GRACE volunteers also provide in-person and webinar events for parents and caregivers on topics like college costs and scholarships.

Once students are enrolled, GRACE supports their persistence by working as a liaison between institutions and families. They might appeal for more financial aid, for instance, or advocate for student supports through disability services offices. “We know what [families] are going through, we know what these school are going through, we kind of speak their language,” Gallonio said.

The organization has up to 30 volunteers at any point in the academic year, but “we are always looking for volunteers in the higher ed landscape—anywhere in the country, at any type of institution,” to provide counseling to pediatric cancer survivors, Gallonio said.

Building better: Since launching in 2011, GRACE has assisted over 300 young people in their pursuit of a college degree, and Grace, the foundation’s namesake, is “a happy and healthy 15-year-old,” Gallonio said. Families have also secured over $3 million in scholarships through the foundation’s advocacy work.

Olivia Falzone, a rising first-year student at the College of Charleston and cancer survivor, receives the Isabel Helen Farnum Scholarship from the National Grace Foundation.

Anthony Gallonio/National GRACE Foundation

Over the years, GRACE has expanded services beyond the Northeastern U.S., where Gallonio is located, to support prospective students from coast to coast. As the foundation’s reach has grown, so has its perspective on postsecondary education.

Initially, the focus was to help cancer patients have a good shot at a competitive institution. It has since expanded to highlight the value of higher education in any capacity and offer vocational or alternative pathway support as well.

“A lot of it has to do with breaking down that [college] can be done, that it can be affordable,” Gallonio said. “The stories that we hear about debt, about the $90,000 colleges—that’s not every college, and there are colleges in every state that a family can afford to go to.”

Gallonio is considering changing GRACE’s acronym to “Growing, Recovering and Continuing Education,” to reflect the wider range of pathways available to young people.

This fall, GRACE will launch a mobile application and webpage so prospective students and parents can explore colleges and universities’ disability services, careers and trades, financial aid information, and selectivity rates. The app also includes a personalized scholarship search service, allowing individuals to put in their information and receive tailored suggestions for scholarships to apply for.

“We try to make it a one stop,” Gallonio said. “We’re not charging them for usage or anything like that. Hopefully it saves our volunteers and us time.”

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August 27, 2025
Faculty/Administrative Divides Weaken Higher Ed (opinion)
As U.S. higher education enters one of the most perilous times in its history, an internal threat makes it even more vulnerable—the ever-widening chasm between administrators and faculty. In the last three decades, budget pressures at larger universities have led administrators to shift faculty ranks toward contingent appointments with near-poverty wages, no benefits and little opportunity for advancement.

At research universities, the remaining tenure-track faculty positions have become hypercompetitive, with faculty having to publish far more than they did in the 1980s to obtain tenure and promotion. Pressure on these faculty to obtain large grants continues to mount in a funding environment that is now uncertain and even chaotic. At other universities, faculty ranks in general have shrunk, leading to increased workloads and larger class sizes, alongside shifts to more online offerings to meet student demand.

On the administrative side, the tenure of senior leaders is also shrinking, leading to increased leadership turnover. New leaders come in with change agendas to fix some prior unaddressed issue or manage significant budget deficits or other operational inefficiencies. In this environment, faculty disillusionment is high, as is disengagement. It is all too easy for administrators to treat faculty as expendable resources, forgetting that there is a human component to leadership and fostering distrust between these two critical groups of campus leaders.

But as external threats come to campuses, a divided campus will not be well prepared to fend off attacks aimed at weakening institutional autonomy. Administrators on many campuses find themselves unable to speak openly about their objections to current federal or state policies due to institutional neutrality stances or concerns about political blowback; at the same time, we have seen faculty organizations and unions step out in front to defend academic freedom and institutional autonomy. In this context, how can these two groups come together to restore trust, re-engage all stakeholders and build productive working relationships?

We write this from the perspectives of a longtime faculty leader and faculty champion who has published on the problems of deprofessionalizing the faculty and a longtime administrator who started as a faculty member and moved up the ranks to a chancellor position by working with faculty to solve campus challenges. We have worked together over the years from our respective vantage points, publishing tools and resources that are geared toward fostering clarity, communication and collaboration in the face of a rapidly changing environment. We know that the faculty/administrative divides will not serve the academy in this current crisis. But we have seen examples of ways that both groups can come together.

Here we offer some suggestions for leaders—faculty and administrative—from our experiences working with hundreds of campuses. We call for administrators to take the first step in reaching out, repairing and rebuilding where trust and relationships have been broken. But we also call on faculty to ask what they can do in response or how they might “lead up.” If one group extends an olive branch, and if there is to be hope for a different future, the other must accept it. Both parties must also hold one another accountable as relationships are renewed, trust is rebuilt and bridges across the chasm are constructed.
1. Empower and support faculty leadership. Studies have shown that administrators can help support faculty in having a voice and assuming an active leadership role. Mentoring faculty on how the institution operates, sending faculty to leadership development opportunities, rewarding faculty who step into significant leadership or shared governance roles, providing summer stipends to work on projects, and offering course releases for active faculty leadership can all empower faculty to play a greater leadership role on campus.
2. Strengthen shared governance structures. Over the last three decades, shared governance has been hollowed out on many campuses. Rebuilding it will require examining processes, policies and structures that enable faculty to contribute meaningfully to campus decision and policymaking. A strong shared governance system is a way to ensure that external groups are less able to divide and conquer, to commandeer the curriculum, the student experience and other key areas of campus work. And ensuring that faculty have avenues to exert their leadership with governing boards can help ensure that board members hear from and understand faculty perspectives and concerns.
3. Clearly delineate administrative and faculty roles and responsibilities with respect to decision-making, authority and accountability. Strengthening shared governance means including faculty in more than advisory capacities when budgets, organizational structures or operations that affect them are slated for major changes. Put more decisions back in faculty hands, explain situations and ask for input, and include faculty in more important and strategic decisions on campus. Viewpoints may be at odds, and boards and administrators do have important fiduciary responsibilities, but these do not preclude engaging stakeholders in the decision-making process.
1. Establish and grow your own leadership programs aimed at faculty. One of the best ways to ensure that faculty can play a leadership role on campus and off is to offer an annual leadership program for faculty. Costs can be relatively low for grow-your-own programs that rely on more senior and experienced faculty to serve as facilitators and trainers. Empowering senior faculty to train newer faculty on the campus operations and broader higher education landscape can lead to more proactive succession planning for key campus committees and leadership roles.
2. Consider using a shared leadership approach to clearly involve multiple people and perspectives in decision-making. Beyond leadership development, consider using more formal structures associated with collaborative or shared leadership. This may help campuses create more inclusive and transparent processes for decision-making, especially when a variety of constituents are involved in or impacted by the changes.
3. Have regular sessions for faculty and administrators to interact outside shared governance. Occasional lemonade or iced tea gatherings, Zoom social hours, annual community forums and the like can ensure that faculty and administrators get to know each other as people, not just positions. It may also be helpful to have periodic focused workshops or retreats for faculty and administrators on key change issues. These events can be led by external expert facilitators who can help create space for difficult dialogue.
4. Acknowledge the wrongs and correct the course. When trust is broken, administrators should listen to concerns and be prepared to make adjustments and change course to address those concerns, and faculty should take the opportunity to collaboratively engage. That doesn’t necessarily mean going backward, but going forward in ways that involve a two-way dialogue to address concerns. For example, administrators need to be open about the need to strengthen faculty job security, pay and autonomy, while faculty need to recognize the competing pressures administrators are facing. Ensuring a strong faculty is a key component of a robust system of higher education, which is what is needed to ward off external threats. Somewhere in between lies the solution.
While these may seem like long-term strategies in the midst of a crisis, this crisis is going to last years, so investing in and empowering the faculty will pay off. Faculty have critical voices that can productively shape the change agenda, if given the opportunity to use them.

Adrianna Kezar is the Dean’s Professor of Leadership, Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California.

Susan Elrod is the former chancellor and professor emeritus of Indiana University South Bend. She studies higher education systemic change and is actively engaged in helping campus leaders build capacity to create more strategic, scalable and sustainable change.
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August 26, 2025
12 Steps for Responding to a Tenure Denial (opinion)
I have been denied tenure at my former R-1 institution. Twice. And after being assured yearly, in writing, that I was making appropriate or exceptional progress toward a positive decision based on departmental criteria and standards. Most of you can imagine, and some of you know, how that felt. The inconsistency seemed misleading and a breakdown of the promotion and tenure process, similar to articles in Inside Higher Ed by Colleen Flaherty and in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Michael W. Kraus, Megan Zahneis and Chelsea Long.

I fought the first decision through formal institutional channels and won, and my institution did a re-review of my dossier from the ground up. In April of this year, I was told that I’d been denied a second time, and I was dismissed at the end of May. However, I could contest the decision processes as a nonemployee. I’m fighting the denial decision (again), and the hearings will begin in the fall.

My area of specialization is program evaluation, with a focus on graduate education. That means I have seen the good, bad and ugly as higher education institutions discuss criteria and standards about student and faculty performance, curriculum and policy; I have a professional and personal interest in all university processes being fair and defensible for all their constituents. My experience is that the processes are not always fair, and having gone through this process before, I have some advice on the steps you should take to fight the decision. While my advice is necessarily grounded in the context of my experience and my former institution’s procedures, it can be adapted to your own.
1. Get angry. Talk to your family, friends, colleagues you trust and your dream team of collaborators. Rage about the process and the decision and the decision-makers and the injustice, but get the hot anger out of your system and absolutely do not hurt yourself or anyone else. Let your rage cool so you can use it as energy to fight. You are not powerless, because all university processes and assumptions can be challenged. But know that the odds are heavily stacked against you.
2. Recognize the fundamental assumption of institutional competence. There is an assumption that the university correctly followed its policies and procedures and therefore reached a defensible decision. Without very specific performance criteria for promotion, it likely won’t matter how many dozens of works you’ve published, how many grants you’ve supported, how many students you’ve helped complete their degrees, how much your skills are in demand from other units or how you’ve (over-) satisfied the criteria against which you were supposed to be judged. The standing assumption is that the university did its due diligence.
3. Get help. Your institution has a vested interest in making sure its processes are defensible and that you can fight against decisions corrupted by inappropriate processes. Ask for a grievance hearing by the university’s regulatory body or a hearing panel (in my former institution, this group is housed in the University Senate). They should be able to connect you with a tenured faculty advocate to help you develop your process-based argument. To prevent further corruption in the process and avoid possibilities of retaliation, this advocate must be housed in a different college from the one in which the decisions were made.
You may have the option of using an external lawyer or union representative to argue your case, but if you bring a lawyer, the respondent will bring one, too. Do what you think is best, but know that the standard of evidence in a grievance hearing is different from that in a court of law, and will likely be closer to “likelihood of procedural issues or prejudicial influence” than to “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
1. Be clear about the relief you’re requesting. Even if a grievance panel rules in your favor, they may be limited in the relief they can offer. It’s unlikely that they can simply overturn the provost’s decision, but they may be able to recommend a re-review of your dossier. It may be helpful to think about the worst-case scenario—if your dossier is sent for re-review by the same people who voted against you the first time—and ask for reasonable, specific protections to make the re-review fair and balanced.
Be sure to request that the judgment includes a monitoring and compliance aspect. If the panel rules in your favor, the institution needs to ensure that the recommendations are followed. Don’t let assumptions of institutional competence prevent this from happening, and do not take on that responsibility yourself.
1. Use available templates. The grievance panel likely has a template to help you structure your argument. Use it faithfully, and don’t deviate from the specific information it requests. It will likely start by asking you to form the basis of your argument by quoting verbatim from your institution’s tenure code. Copy and paste this to make it easy for the panel to find information when they hear your case. The panel needs to stay within its institutional authority, and you must convince them immediately that your experience and concerns about the process are within their purview.
2. Read and re-read your institution’s foundational documents. There are at least three essential documents you must use to support your argument that the process was corrupted: the department or college’s faculty handbook, the regents’ or president’s statement on tenure criteria and ways of contesting decisions, and statements on employee conduct inclusive of reporting requirements for policy violations. You must show how procedural violations significantly contributed to an unjust decision. Examples of such violations could include:
- Discrimination against personal beliefs and expression, or factors protected by federal/state law (e.g., equal opportunity violations, Title IX violations)
- Decision-makers’ dismissal of available information about your performance
- Demonstrable prejudicial mistakes of fact
- Other factors that cause substantial prejudice
- Other violations of university policy
After you have articulated the criteria you are using to contest the decision, you must substantiate each claim with evidence that the violation negatively influenced the final decision. The burden of proof will be on you.
1. Organize your evidence. Whatever evidence you present must be organized, accessible and easy for the hearing panel to review. It may be helpful—and therapeutic—to start by making a comprehensive timeline of the pertinent events that led to the decision. Include the dates and written summaries of every annual review, the steps you took to address any human resources issues, the outcomes of those steps, leadership transitions, as well as sociopolitical events that directly influenced the department and institution. Your goal is to share with the panel the entirety of your experience at the institution and make the argument that you did the best you could to address any real or perceived performance issues.
Include the official dossier that was passed through the system as evidence, and use the highlight function of the PDF software to focus on the parts that are most important for your case and that best challenge the assumption of institutional competence. Keep a running list of your documented evidence, which you’ll submit as a set of appendices, and refer to your appendices in the complaint document itself, using quotes cut and pasted directly from your primary sources.

In the document where you set out your complaint, refer to individual appendices by letter, name and page number, so readers can find information and see your evidence in the original context (e.g., “Appendix C: Committee response to factually inaccurate information introduced in faculty discussion, p. 22–24”). Copying and pasting evidence from primary sources will make it easier to reconcile page numbers in the complaint document later. This process is also helpful if you need to argue that the content of the dossier was misrepresented by decision-makers or that one or more particularly vocal individuals are waging a vendetta against you (e.g., “Appendix E: Unsolicited letter from Professor [X] that engages in conspiracy theories about you, p. 100–125”).

It is crucial to make the argument that you were treated unfairly and in violation of university policy, and that your treatment was significantly different from that of your colleagues who were under review at the same time or in the immediate past. If, for example, a decision-maker voted against your promotion because of their individual critiques of your work, and those critiques are not consistent with other levels of review or they attack the credibility of the other reviewers, you have an argument for their idiosyncratic interpretation of the promotion criteria. Put that evidence in an appendix and draw attention to it.

It is also helpful to be able to point to the research of others in your department who used the same scholarly processes but who were not critiqued similarly. This can help you argue differential application of criteria and standards of performance, or that a particular reviewer is applying the standards of research in their discipline to your own, which may be a violation of the tenets of academic freedom (talk to representatives from your institution’s academic freedom committee for more information). This comparison may be essential if you are alleging discrimination or prejudicial treatment that may be based on your personal characteristics.
1. Do not fear a request for summary judgment. This processual request means that the respondent in your case (usually a high-level decision-maker such as the provost or dean) is using the assumption of institutional competence to ask that the case be dismissed without a formal hearing. The respondent will argue that everything was done correctly, that the decision was justified and that you are simply angry about the decision. The request will likely be formal and the words intimidating, but that may be the point. Read every word so you can respond in writing to each argument, and prepare responses on the assumption that the issues will come up during oral arguments at the official hearing. Sometimes the request for summary judgment will be peppered with prejudicial language that helps reinforce the basis of your complaint. Use their words against them.
2. Prepare your witnesses. You will want to identify good witnesses who will substantiate your main points, but not people who will repeat their evidence from the same perspective; you do not want to bore the hearing panel. Let your witnesses know who your other witnesses are and you can give them a sense of the questions you will ask them during the hearing. You cannot, however, coach them on how to respond; witnesses must be able to respond to your questions honestly, and their responses must stand up under cross-examination.
Be sure to list the respondent and decision-makers on your witness list; you don’t want to miss the chance to hold them accountable for the things they’ve written and the decisions they’ve made. Don’t waste time indicting them on their leadership practices. Instead, show how their active and passive behaviors violated policy and prejudiced the review process in violation of the university’s foundational documents.
1. Make the most of the hearing. You may find that the hearing is a very formal process, that an external lawyer will be present for the institution (not the respondent) to ensure the process unfolds correctly and a court transcriptionist will ensure accurate recording of testimony. The witnesses may be sworn in, and you can count on them being asked questions by the complainant, respondent and the hearing panel. If possible, you should lead the questioning for your witnesses and ask your advocate to lead the questioning of the respondent and their powerful witnesses to minimize the power imbalance.
The respondent may not have many questions for you, but remember that you have the burden of proof, and they will not want to provide additional opportunities for you to substantiate your claims. If they do open additional areas of critique, be ready to call out the ones that are inconsistent with policy and processes. Expect to be physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of your hearing.
1. Respond to the decision. When the hearing panel’s decision arrives, expect strong emotions. You may feel vindicated and think that you’ve finally been heard or feel as if you’ve been traumatized again. Even if you win, both are fair responses. If you won on all or some of the issues you raised, you can expect the panel to propose a set of recommendations intended to address those issues, but the process is not yet over.
The panel may be empowered only to make recommendations to the university president, who has the final say on what happens. The president has the right to overrule the panel, just as they have the right to order compliance with its recommendations. You can write a formal letter to the president about the panel’s recommendations, as can the respondent. If you have concerns about the recommendations, especially if new issues came to light during the hearing, this is your one chance to make those issues known to the ultimate decision-maker.

Because the grievance hearing may have shown that the process contained problems that have not likely been institutionally addressed, emphasize monitoring and compliance with hope for reconciliation. Don’t expect the president to grant you additional protections beyond what was recommended by the panel, but if the re-review is corrupted, you have documentation showing that you were concerned about making the process fair and transparent and that you did your due diligence.
1. Go through the promotion and tenure review process again or leave the institution. Going for tenure again means another year of hoping for a positive decision, dreading a negative one and thinking about your next steps. This is a very difficult time, especially if the underlying issues have not been acknowledged or addressed. Do the best you can, and document everything. A counselor will be essential for processing the ongoing experience.
If your complaint exposed evidence of systematic harassment or prejudicial behavior against you, reach out to the equal opportunity or Title IX offices for support. They have the option of opening formal or informal investigations but may not be likely to do this during a tenure review or re-review because they cannot be seen as influencing the process. They may not be able to act until you have been promoted or have officially lost your job (again), at which point you might wonder why you should reach out. The answer is unsatisfying but simple: You connect with them because you need emotional support and with the hope they can eventually help address the underlying factors that corrupted the process.

If you didn’t win on the redo, you’ll need to find another job somewhere else. I hope you’ve used this last year to network and apply for opportunities as you balanced the burden of the grievance process on top of your regular commitments of teaching, research and service.

If you’re looking at going through this process, you have my sympathy, support and encouragement. Going through it has been one of the hardest experiences of my life, but I’m glad I did it, even if I cannot change my former institution; I can only hope that they will not waste my experience by ignoring the issues it exposed. I couldn’t have done it the first time without extraordinary support from people who hate injustice and fear for institutions that do not follow their own rules. As I prepare for the second round, I will continue to look to my former colleagues for support as I try to be strong for myself, my family, my (former) students and others that go through this process.

Regardless of what the future brings, I did my best to challenge prejudicial and harrowing issues in higher education by opening conversation about them and dragging trauma from the shadows into the light. No matter the ultimate decision, I can walk with my head high.

John M. LaVelle is a scholar of program evaluation specializing in the academic preparation of program evaluators. He lives in the United States with his family and is cautiously optimistic about the future.
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August 26, 2025
Law Firm Threatens Brown Climate Researchers

A law firm representing anti–wind energy groups is demanding that Brown University researchers retract findings linking those groups to the fossil fuel industry, The New York Times reported Monday.

The move comes weeks after Brown reached an agreement with the Trump administration. The government restored $510 million in frozen federal research grants after the university agreed to certain demands, including adopting the Trump administration’s definitions of male and female and turning over admissions data.

The Trump administration has halted or canceled thousands of other research grants across the country, including many focused on climate change.

Marzulla Law LLC characterized the research published by Brown’s Climate and Development Lab as “false and injurious” in an Aug. 11 letter to Brown’s general counsel. It threatened to file complaints with Brown’s public and private funders, including the Energy Department, the National Science Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.

A university spokesperson did not comment specifically on the law firm’s demands but told the Times that it’s committed to maintaining academic freedom.

Brown researchers who authored a case study about Marzulla Law have written that the firm has “a history of advancing anti-environmental lawsuits and significant ties with the fossil fuel industry.” Researchers have also published findings accusing one of the firm’s clients—the nonprofit Green Oceans, which is trying to shut down the construction of a nearly complete $4 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island—of being part of “a fossil-fuel-funded disinformation network.”

On Friday, the Trump administration, which opposes the wind energy industry, halted the wind farm project without citing specific reasons.

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August 26, 2025
3 Questions for Senior Learning Designer Heather Hans
On Aug. 12, senior learning designer Heather Hans posted on LinkedIn,

After 7 years of service with a great team, I’ve been laid off from Duke, like many of my colleagues.

I’m taking some time to consider what I want to do next. This includes any of my areas of expertise, from learning design and libraries to visual art and journalism. I’m also keeping my eye out for roles that combine my experience in new ways.

If you have 5 minutes, could you please share this post, connect me with someone you think I should talk to, or share any relevant job openings?

I’m looking for hybrid roles in the Triad and Triangle of NC and remote roles anywhere (willing to travel some, too).

I saw Heather’s post, read all the supportive comments the post generated and had two questions: 1) Which university or organization will be smart and lucky enough to recruit Heather? 2) Would Heather be willing to share her story in this space for this community?

On my second question, Heather graciously agreed to participate in this Q&A.

Q: Tell us about your professional and educational background. What are the projects, initiatives and services that you have contributed to and led? What are your superpowers that potential employers should know about?

A: I’m an art major who worked in journalism for five years after college, doing writing and editing. Then I pursued my master’s in library and information studies and worked for several years as an academic librarian focused on teaching and learning. I moved into instructional design for online learning at UNC Chapel Hill and then worked at Duke University for seven years, most recently as a senior learning experience designer.

My recent accomplishments include:
- Establishing digital education strategies with five professional schools and developing certificate programs in UAS (Drones) Applications and Operations in Environmental Science, Church Administration and Human Resources, and Healthcare Leadership for Climate Science.
- Leading continuous improvement initiatives to develop new or updated workflows, create standard operating procedures and update team roles and responsibilities.
- Mentoring and coaching newer designers in project leadership and advanced learning design skills, like creating assessments and drafting course content.
- Developing team AI guidelines that set expectations for how generative AI is used in course development work.
My superpowers are empathy, strategy and creativity. I excel at building relationships, collaborating and coaching, whether that be to design an online course for the first time or to grow as a professional. I think analytically and strategically about work processes, projects and goals. I generate a lot of ideas, and I enjoy figuring out how to take an idea or vision and implement it successfully.

Q: In thinking about your next role, what is the organizational culture and institutional priorities that you are looking for in determining the fit with your strengths and values?

A: As I look for roles, I keep going back to the idea of work being human-centered. Does the organization value its people and its impact more than its profits? Does it genuinely want to improve educational access for everyone? How has it shown that it keeps humans centered in discussions of technology and AI? Further, is it continuing to prioritize equity and inclusivity, and does it ask, “Who needs a seat at the table?” when embarking on new projects and initiatives?

Like people, organizations are works in progress—ultimately, what I care about is follow-through. Do you set human-centered intentions and see them through? I want a workplace where leaders embrace empathy and difficult conversations while encouraging healthy collaboration and boundaries. Finally, I want a workplace where workers have agency to think deeply and creatively.

Q: From your experience navigating the fallout of the federal attack on higher education, what advice do you have for all of us also dealing with job uncertainty and professional stress?

A: I’ve been asking everyone else this question! What I’ve learned so far is that we are a community of educators that is much bigger than any particular institution or organization. How can we help each other and continue to do the important work we care about?

I wasn’t expecting the outpouring of support I received, and it reminded me that it’s okay to reach out and ask for help. It also strengthened my resolve to help others when I can.

Finally, remember that you are much more than your role and your organization–you can figure it out, and you contain multitudes that may end up surprising you.
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August 26, 2025
How to Make Career Connections for Online College Learners
Assuring positive career outcomes for college students is a growing priority for institutions, policymakers and students themselves as they consider the value of higher education. A July report from the Center for Higher Education Policy and Practice at Southern New Hampshire University identifies opportunities for institutions to enhance career readiness for online learners and nontraditional students, a growing demographic within undergraduate populations.

The report authors urge college leaders to consider the unique needs and circumstances of working and older students and to develop creative solutions to connect classroom and career learning.

What’s the need: Most students attend college to improve their economic circumstances or to secure employment, according to the report.

Risepoint’s Voice of the Online Learner survey for 2025 finds that majorities work full-time while pursuing a degree (75 percent), are enrolled in a program related to their current industry (78 percent) and are parents with children under the age of 18 (53 percent). The greatest share of students pay for college out of their income and savings (48 percent) or federal loans (41 percent).

However, not every student will participate in a work-based learning experience, and nontraditional students often face the biggest barriers to participation.

A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 34 percent of respondents working more than 30 hours a week (n=1,106) said they have had no experience with the career center on their campus. Of that group, students 25 and older (n=501) were far more likely to say they hadn’t engaged with the career center (76 percent).

As a result, the report advocates for flexible, workforce-aligned and embedded strategies to help older students prepare for careers and their lives after college.

Making career connections: CHEPP defines “career connection strategies” as activities, services and experiences that help students select, prepare for and pursue a career path, according to the report. These strategies range from internships to informational interviews and career exploration events.

One opportunity is workforce-aligned curriculum, which focuses on developing students’ skills and competencies in connection to future employment roles. Workforce-aligned curricula can be particularly beneficial for adult and working learners because it makes materials engaging and “keeps them from having to choose between pursuing a degree or work-relevant training,” the report authors wrote.

For example, Calbright College in California, an online public community college, has 10 “durable skills”—such as critical thinking and collaboration—embedded into the curriculum with dedicated modules for each that award students badges upon completion. All academic programs include at least two of these modules in their curriculum.

The authors also advocate for career exploration opportunities that are flexible and tailored to the individual, such as offering career advising alongside credit for prior learning assessments, remote job shadows and employer relations events.

Making career services more accessible on campus should also be a top priority for administrators, because many adult learners do not take advantage of these supports, as highlighted in the Student Voice data.

To accommodate these students, SNHU offers professional communication and career planning courses that focus on career development. Calbright College assigns each student a student success counselor who can address some career readiness and exploration topics and connect them with workshops offered by the career services team.

Key elements: When considering traditional models of career preparation and readiness, the report encourages higher education practitioners and policymakers to determine how best to meet adult and nontraditional students where they are, including by:
- Establishing authentic workforce opportunities that promote real-world professional development, such as having an assignment supervisor or participating in team meetings.
- Respecting and validating learners’ existing skills from previous life experiences, including through credit for prior learning.
- Offering paid opportunities, which allow students to forgo earnings from work in order to pursue new career experiences or development events.
- Pairing advising with comprehensive supports to help students understand options, develop a plan and leverage existing skills.
- Embedding career prep into existing commitments to limit the competing priorities students must balance and the number of hours they spend on career development outside the classroom.
- Identifying clear goals for student learning, including the duties students will perform and outcomes from the experience.
- Instituting good data practices to ensure continuous improvement and gauge employer and student satisfaction at the end of experiences.
Do you have a career-focused intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.
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August 26, 2025
Public Ill. Universities Will Provide Medication Abortions

Public colleges and universities in Illinois will now be required by law to supply contraception and abortion medication in the student health center or pharmacy, according to Illinois Public Media.

Democratic governor JB Pritzker signed HB 3709 into law Friday, requiring colleges to supply birth control and medication abortions starting this academic year. Only three other states—California, Massachusetts and New York—currently have similar laws.

The law was inspired in part by a student referendum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign regarding whether the university health center should offer medication abortions. About three-quarters of the more than 6,000 undergraduates who voted were in favor of the idea, but the university didn’t implement the idea, saying it didn’t have the expertise to provide abortions.

The governor also signed a bill increasing protections for abortion providers on the same day.

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August 26, 2025