Tag: Education

  • What legacy does Yale-NUS College leave in Singapore?

    What legacy does Yale-NUS College leave in Singapore?

    When Wee Yang Soh was considering his degree options, he felt his choices were limited. The Singaporean had been offered a place to study chemistry at the National University of Singapore (NUS), but he was wary of accepting.

    In his experience, school had felt like he was simply being “trained” to pass exams. “I didn’t want my university education to be like that,” he said. Soh liked the idea of liberal arts education but couldn’t afford the hefty tuition fees charged by the U.S. colleges offering those programs.

    So when, in 2011, NUS announced it would be opening a liberal arts college—the first of its kind in Singapore—in partnership with Yale University, Soh jumped at the chance to apply. He was part of the inaugural cohort of students enrolled at the college, graduating in 2017.

    Four years later, NUS suddenly declared that it would no longer be continuing the partnership, with plans to close the college once all existing students had graduated.

    While Yale-NUS College is not the only international partnership in Singapore that has come to an abrupt halt—having helped develop Singapore University of Technology and Design’s curriculum, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was shown the door in 2017—it is among the most talked about. This unexpected announcement drew just as much attention, if not more, as the opening of the college had, with rumors swirling about the reasons for the decision.

    Today, as the college enters its final semester before shutting its doors for good, can liberal arts live on in Singapore? And are international partnerships off the table in a country increasingly embroiled in debates about national identity?

    Singapore’s government first began discussing the prospect of a liberal arts college in 2008. Policymakers saw the establishment of one as having multiple benefits—reducing the number of local students going abroad, diversifying pathways within the country’s higher education system and contributing to Singapore’s ambition to become an international education hub.

    So when Yale-NUS College opened in 2013, it seemed like the perfect fit. Unfortunately, this synergy didn’t last.

    “The context changed,” said Jason Tan, associate professor at Nanyang Technological University’s National Institute of Education. “For one thing, there’s no longer any official talk about establishing Singapore as an international education hub.”

    Although Singapore launched the Global Schoolhouse Project in 2002, an initiative that aimed to recruit 150,000 international students by 2015, by the mid-2010s, the numbers remained far below targets and talk of the scheme quieted as public debates around immigration heated up.

    Writing in the academic journal Daedalus in 2024, Pericles Lewis, the founding president of the college, suggested that things had gone a step further: “Singapore has not been immune to the forces of populism and nationalism that have affected most parts of the world,” he wrote.

    For a college in which international students represented about 40 percent of the student population, this was a problem.

    Throughout the college’s life, the governing party “showed itself to be highly sensitive to complaints about benefits reaped by foreigners, and to concerns of middle-class Singaporeans about the accessibility of higher education,” Lewis wrote.

    The institution also became central to debates about academic freedom in Singapore, with the last-minute cancellation of a course focused on protest generating backlash. To some, the college was a site of rare political activism and freedom in Singapore, which was both welcomed and feared, depending on your point of view.

    However, Linda Lim, professor emerita at the University of Michigan, argued that the college had little impact on the state of academic freedom in Singapore more widely.

    “From the beginning it was understood and even explicitly acknowledged that Yale-NUS College would practice and experience academic freedom only within the college walls and premises,” she said.

    “Yale may have flattered itself, or argued to mollify dubious faculty in New Haven, that Yale-NUS College would help advance academic freedom in Singapore—a naïve and neo-colonialist attitude.”

    Moreover, Soh believed claims of heightened student activism at the college were exaggerated, with intense media attention fueling public ire towards the institution.

    “From the first year, the Singaporean public and the government were already pretty afraid that politically motivated actions on campus would pose a problem for Singapore,” he said. “And they kept a very close eye on the college activities, to the point where it felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

    At times, small incidents on campus, such as disagreements over new course curricula, made national news, he said. This “reinforced the idea that the students were political or dangerous and all of that stuff, when, really, everything that happened in college felt, at least to me, incredibly mundane and incredibly small and silly.”

    NUS College, a U.S.-style undergraduate honors college for NUS students, was established in 2022 in place of Yale-NUS College. While this new institution offers a residential experience, small class sizes and some shared curricula, it is a far cry from a traditional liberal arts college.

    Today in Singapore, “there’s more focus on interdisciplinary learning,” said Tan. “Across all of our universities, in one form or another, there’s this concern about future economic needs.

    “The future problems will require all those buzzwords—critical thinkers and flexible, adaptable people and people who possess this interdisciplinary pool of knowledge and so on.

    “That trend has pretty much superseded the excitement over having a liberal arts education for our undergrads.”

    For Lim, the closure of Yale-NUS College was a “cautionary tale” for international higher education institutions “who think they can be a beacon of light in authoritarian countries by collaborating with autocratic governments.”

    The college’s chief legacy, she continued, “is the quality of the students it educated and graduated.”

    Soh is currently undertaking a Ph.D. in the U.S. and credited the college and his professors for inspiring him to do so.

    “I hope to teach in the future as a professor,” he said. “I want my students to be able to treat education as not a stepping-stone to grades or to credentials, but as a way to reformulate how we think about and relate to this crazy world that we live in today.

    “I think the legacy lives on in me, but I can’t say that it lives on in Singapore or in NUS for sure. But I hope it does.”

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  • Few students protest Trump’s executive orders on campus

    Few students protest Trump’s executive orders on campus

    As President Donald Trump churned out more than 80 executive orders over the past three weeks, sending the higher education community into a panic, some students were surprised to see a lack of campus protests—even at institutions traditionally rife with activism.

    “I haven’t seen a whole lot, which is kind of uncharacteristic of our campus,” said Alana Parker, a student at American University in Washington, D.C. Though she’s heard of certain student political groups protesting on Capitol Hill, things have been quiet on campus.

    “I don’t really know why that is, because, in my opinion, there should be more of an outcry. But from my perspective, I think people feel really disenfranchised and like there’s nothing we can do,” she said.

    It’s a stark contrast from two semesters ago, when AU was one of dozens of campuses that made national news after pro-Palestinian students set up encampments in opposition to their universities’ investments in companies with ties to Israel.

    Students and faculty at AU—and on campuses across the nation—also protested in 2017 after Trump prohibited individuals from seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the United States, according to a news report from the time.

    Angus Johnston, a historian of student protest movements and a professor at Hostos Community College, said that he’s not entirely surprised that campuses seem relatively calm. Over the past 20 years, institutions have grown less and less permissive of student protests, culminating in a harsh crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests in spring 2024—in some cases involving police arrests. Since then, many campuses have introduced new—or enforced existing—rules restricting when, where and how students can demonstrate.

    Aron Ali-McClory, a national co-chair of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, said that universities’ restrictions on free speech are “100 percent a factor” in why there aren’t many protests happening on campuses right now.

    But they noted that the YDSA is mobilizing, just in different ways. Many campus chapters are currently focused on campaigning for their institutions to become “sanctuary campuses,” in the vein of sanctuary cities, municipalities that do not comply with federal immigration laws. Ali-McClory said the chapters involved in that movement are currently distributing petitions, informing their peers about the movement and handing out “know your rights” materials that aim to inform immigrants of how to handle conversations and interactions with immigration officers.

    “Looking at what our YDSA chapters are doing across the country, we’re seeing people pivoting to meet the moment on their campus. A lot of that looks less like, ‘Let’s go out and do a protest’ and more, ‘How do we make material gains when the cards are stacked against us?’” they said.

    Parker, the AU student, has also chosen to make her voice heard in a different way. An editor of the student newspaper, The Eagle, she and her colleagues penned a staff editorial calling on the university to speak out against Trump’s executive orders, particularly those targeting immigrants and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. She said the article seemed to be effective: A few days after its publication, the institution sent an email to the campus community, signed by President Jonathan Alger, outlining resources available for immigrant students and employees.

    Alger also addressed DEI, writing, “As we continue fostering an inclusive and welcoming community, we are working with teams across campus to determine the impacts on our inclusive excellence strategy and programs.”

    ‘A Powerful Force’

    A handful of campuses have seen protests, primarily in response to their institutions taking steps to comply with Trump’s executive orders by shuttering DEI offices or removing DEI-related language and resources from webpages, for example.

    At Missouri State University, students staged a protest after administrators announced they would close the Office of Inclusive Engagement and end other DEI programs “in response to changes nationwide and anticipated actions regarding DEI at the state level.”

    According to the student newspaper, The Standard, 50 students gathered outside the main administrative building on Jan. 31 to call for the removal of the university’s president and to advocate for the passage of two bills that would require Missouri schools to teach about Black history and “the dehumanization of marginalized groups.”

    At Stanford University, a group of about 15 students participated in a chalking event, writing messages of dissent, like “DEI makes Stanford Stanford,” on bike paths around White Plaza, a central outdoor area on campus.

    “Here at Stanford, the important thing to me was that my leaders at my school knew that there would be people who would resist anything that they did to cave to Trump,” said freshman Turner Van Slyke, who organized the demonstration. “I think those leaders just knowing that there’s going to be resistance can be a powerful force for maintaining decency against Trump.”

    Various other student news sources have reported that students at their institutions have joined outside groups in protesting at their state capitols, hoping to register their objections to Trump’s orders with governors and state representatives.

    Johnston noted that more protests may erupt elsewhere as students begin to see the ways that the executive orders are impacting their campuses more directly.

    “There’s a lot of stuff that is happening now that is essentially a hand grenade or a time bomb that’s going to explode in days or weeks or months,” he said. “To a large extent, I think this stuff is not having direct impact on a lot of [students] as of yet. Some stuff may be beginning to percolate down to the campus level. But a lot of this is real stuff that is happening, but the effects of it are not being felt directly by students just yet.”

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  • A California community college begins to heal: The Key

    A California community college begins to heal: The Key

    The No. 1 lesson about disaster relief Ryan Cornner would give college presidents is: do scenario training. 

    The president of Glendale Community College said he and his team were working on emergency preparedness training with new managers when the L.A. wildfires started. 

    “We were actually planning a tabletop exercise for spring, and boy, did we get a tabletop exercise. It was just real,” Cornner said in the latest episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast. 

    GCC serves 24,000 students from its campus about five miles from where the Eaton fire burned. Dozens of the college’s students and employees lost their homes, and many more were displaced for more than a week. GCC has expanded its efforts to provide access to basic needs for its students and has recognized that its part-time adjunct faculty need the most support. 

    While providing food and housing support or giving students laptops has been a general principle of the community college system, Cornner says a new need in this emergency is coming from employees. 

    “As an employer, we think that the real focus is making sure that the workplace has what it needs and making sure people feel supported in their work. But when someone has just lost their home, it brings an added element of ‘what should we do as a community?’”

    Inside Higher Ed reported on GCC’s immediate emergency response in January and wanted to reach out to the institution again to check in on its recovery. 

    Cornner said institutions can support their communities by investing in the future workforce of first responders and by providing a safe campus for secondary school students whose schools were destroyed in the fires.

    Listen to this episode of The Key here, and click here to find out more about The Key.

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  • Higher education postcard: Churchill College, Cambridge

    Higher education postcard: Churchill College, Cambridge

    It’s 31 March 1949, and Winston Churchill, now Leader of the Opposition, was visiting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    He was impressed by what he saw, and thought that the UK should have its own version, a postgraduate university focusing on science and technology. Fast forward six years, and Churchill had retired after his second spell as Prime Minister. His private secretary, John Colville, sought to progress the idea, but could not make as much progress as he had hoped.

    Parallel with, and unconnected to, Churchill’s idea, Shell Petroleum had since the early 1950s been hosting meetings at which leading British industrialists identified a need for a specialist institute to train people for the science and engineering industries. Again, this came to nothing.

    But then in 1957 the two schemes were revivified and brought together. Alexander Todd, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, worked with Carl Gilbert, chairman of Gillette and sometime US trade representative, to make the case for a Cambridge college which would focus on science and technology. And one which would stand as a memorial to Churchill. And so in 1958 an appeal for funds was made (as can be seen from the Scotsman of 21 May 1958, no public funds would be available at first), with some £3.5 million being raised to finance the college and its initial activities.

    The money was raised, with contributions from industry and also from the Transport and General Workers Union (which all confirms L P Hartley’s motto in The Go-Between: “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”). And it was a period of industrial largesse to higher education: in researching this piece I came across a wonderful article – in the Brechin Advertiser (29 July 1958) but no doubt syndicated more generally – by Richard Martin, on the donations to Churchill College, St Catherine’s Oxford, and for new buildings fore engineering at UCL. “The universities have been given the financial tools, and they will not fail to finish the job.”

    Very deliberately, although the college was intended to focus on science and technology, it would not exclude the humanities. This was the period of C P Snow versus F R Leavis, two cultures versus one. Snow – scientist, civil servant, novelist – argued in The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution that the problems of society were exacerbated by the failure of many who would be considered well educated (ie in the humanities and classics) to know anything about science:

    A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: ‘Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?’

    (To avoid embarrassment at this point, I will remind you that the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy or disorder of a closed system is always increasing. Which you already knew.)

    Snow’s view was attacked (there is no better word) by critic F R Leavis in 1962: Snow was a philistine; his vision soulless technocratic utilitarianism. Viewed as an attack which played the man not the ball (but note here a defence of Leavis from 2013), the row did not do much to damage Snow’s view.

    The founders of Churchill College clearly thought there was merit in Snow’s views; hence the requirement that only 70 per cent of the entry be for students of science and technology.

    The college was given a Royal Charter in 1960, and admitted a few postgraduate students in that year. The first undergraduates arrived the following year. By 1966 Churchill had been admitted as a full college of the university and by 1968 all of the original buildings had been completed and opened.

    Churchill College was amongst the first of Cambridge’s all-male colleges to admit women (in 1972). Its senior tutor – Dick Tizard – sought to broaden admissions to focus on grammar school and comprehensive school students, not focusing on the public schools. He also worked to achieve the admission of students to membership of the college governing body, in 1969.

    In 1970 the Churchill College JCR, along with the University of Bristol Students’ Union, persuaded the NUS to take up an appeal by two students – Julian Fox of Bristol, and Hugh Nelson Ricketts of Churchill – against decisions of the local returning officers to disbar them from the electoral register because they were not permanently resident at their term time addresses. The Court of Appeal – with Lords Denning, Widgery and Karminski – on 12 May 1970 granted the students appeal. The OfS now requires universities to assist students in registering to vote: quite some distance has been travelled in this matter!

    Winston Churchill is not without controversy. In 2020 the college announced a working party which would organise a year-long programme – on Churchill, race and empire. The university archives hold some recordings from this. Not, perhaps, surprisingly, this attracted a considerable amount of media attention and criticism: Churchill is a revered figure for some in Britain. The college cancelled the series of events in June 2021.

    There’s a very readable history of the college on its website (click on “the college’s first decade” in the fuchsia box), by the way, from which I’ve drawn fairly heavily in this account.

    And here’s your jigsaw of this week’s card – enjoy!

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  • McMahon confirms Trump’s plans to dismantle Department of Ed

    McMahon confirms Trump’s plans to dismantle Department of Ed

    Linda McMahon told senators Thursday that she won’t shut down the Education Department without their approval, quelling any doubt that the majority Republicans may have had about whether she deserved to be appointed to President Donald Trump’s cabinet.

    But that doesn’t mean that McMahon and the Trump administration aren’t still looking to make considerable changes to the agency’s programs and potentially dismantle it from the inside out. She said at her confirmation hearing that the department has to go, or at the very least is in need of a major makeover, because it’s rife with bureaucracy that fails to serve students well.

    The goal, the former wrestling CEO told the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, is to “reorient” the federal agency and ensure it “operate[s] more efficiently”—not defund education, as some critics have suggested.

    “We’d like to do this right,” she said. “We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with, and our Congress to get on board with.”

    Questions about the department’s future and whether McMahon would stand up to President Trump if he tries to break the law dominated the nearly three-hour hearing. McMahon, a Trump loyalist and veteran of the first administration, weathered the hearing just fine and will likely be confirmed by the Senate. The committee will vote Feb. 20 on her nomination.

    McMahon largely stuck by Trump and defended his actions so far. She also pledged to comply with and uphold the law, respecting Congress’s power over the purse strings by disbursing funds as lawmakers order. “The president will not ask me to do anything that’s against the law,” she later added.

    McMahon’s comments break slightly from the president’s record so far. In the first three weeks alone, Trump and Elon Musk have entirely shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, cut countless contracts and attempted to freeze all federal grants. The president has said he wants to get rid of the Education Department entirely, suggesting he didn’t need congressional action to do so.

    During and after the hearing, the majority of Republicans praised McMahon as the right person for the job.

    “It is clear that our current education system isn’t working. We have the status quo and that’s actually failing our kids,” Senator Katie Britt of Alabama said in her opening remarks. “Linda McMahon is someone who knows how to reform our education system.”

    But for Democrats and Senator Susan Collins, a more centrist Republican from Maine, McMahon’s comments left quite a few questions still lingering and seemed to be, at times, self-contradictory.

    “The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me,” said Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire. “It’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very eloquent gaslighting here.”

    While many of the senators’ questions focused on special education, K-12, the separation of powers and getting rid of the Education Department, colleges and universities did come up a few times, offering some insight into McMahon’s plans as secretary.

    Here are five key higher ed takeaways from the hearing:

    Commitments but Few Specifics

    Prior to the hearing, Trump’s comments suggested his Education Department would prioritize cutting red tape, returning education to the states, cracking down on campus antisemitism and banning what he calls “gender ideology,” among other things. But speculation swirled about what McMahon would put at the top of her agenda.

    On Thursday she made it clear that she’s in lockstep with the president, saying in her opening remarks that “Trump has shared his vision and I’m ready to enact it.” She failed to provide much detail beyond that.

    The business mogul, who has limited experience in education, indicated she’ll have some studying to do if she gets confirmed. When asked about topics like diversity, equity and inclusion programs or accreditation, she said, “I’ll have to learn more” or “I’d like to look into it further and get back to you on that.”

    For example, when it came to addressing civil rights complaints filed by Jewish students, McMahon was quick to assure Republican lawmakers that colleges will “face defunding” if they don’t comply with the law. She also said that international students who participate in protests Trump deems antisemitic should have their visas revoked. But she didn’t provide further detail on how exactly either repercussion would be enforced.

    Additionally, when asked about how she would address a backlog of cases at the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination, she said, “I would like to be confirmed and get into the department and understand that backlog.”

    ‘Pretty Chilling’ Approach to DEI

    McMahon declined to say what specific programs or classes might violate Trump’s recent executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion during a tense exchange with Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

    Policy experts said Trump’s executive order should have had little immediate impact on higher ed, as most of its provisions require agency action, but several colleges and universities moved quickly to comply after the order was signed Jan. 21, canceling events and scrubbing websites of DEI mentions.

    Murphy highlighted one of those examples, telling McMahon that the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., had shut down a number of its student affinity groups and clubs like the Society of Black Engineers.

    He then went on to ask her, “Would public schools be in violation of this order, would they risk funding if they had clubs that students could belong to based on their racial or ethnic identity?” To which McMahon responded, “Well, I certainly today don’t want to address hypothetical situations.”

    Murphy said that should be “a pretty easy question,” adding that her lack of response was “pretty chilling.”

    “I think you’re going to have a lot of teachers and administrators scrambling right now,” he said.

    McMahon did note, however, that all schools can and should celebrate Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She suggested that in saying individuals should be judged by “content of their character,” King was supporting a colorblind approach to policy and looking at all populations as the same, rather than addressing systemic inequities.

    Dems Take Issue With DOGE

    Several lawmakers had questions for McMahon about Trump’s efforts to cut spending via the Elon Musk–led Department of Government Efficiency, but she didn’t have many answers.

    Democrats, in particular, took issue with recent reports that DOGE staffers have access to sensitive student data and recently canceled $881 million in contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences. The Education Department is just one of several agencies under DOGE’s microscope. The Trump administration is also laying off employees at the agency or putting them on administrative leave as part of a broader plan to shrink the federal workforce.

    McMahon said she didn’t know “about all the administrative people who have been put on leave,” adding she would look into that. She also didn’t have more information about the IES cuts. But she defended DOGE’s work as an audit.

    “I do think it’s worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door,” she said.

    But Democrats countered that Congress, not the executive branch, has the authority to direct where federal funds should go.

    “When Congress appropriates money, it is the administration’s responsibility to put that out as directed by Congress, who has the power of the purse,” said Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat. “If you have input, if you have programs you have looked at that you believe are not effective, then it is your job to come to us, explain why and get the support for that.”

    Brief Mention of Accreditation

    Despite Trump’s promise to fire accreditors, the accreditation system and the federal policies that govern it received little attention during the hearing—aside from one round of questions.

    Senator Ashley Moody, a Florida Republican, said she thinks the current system is unconstitutional, echoing claims that she made as Florida attorney general. The state argued in a 2023 lawsuit that Congress ceded power to private accrediting agencies, violating the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge rejected those claims and threw out the lawsuit in October.

    Currently, federal law requires that colleges and universities be accredited by an Education Department–recognized accreditor in order to receive federal student aid such as Pell Grants. But in recent years, Republican-led states—most notably Florida—have bristled at what they see as undue interference from the accreditors and their power to potentially take away federal aid. State lawmakers in Florida now require public colleges to change accreditors regularly. But that process has been sluggish, and officials blame the Education Department.

    Moody asked McMahon to commit to review regulations and guidance related to colleges changing accreditors.

    “I look forward to working with you on that,” McMahon said. “And there’s been a lot of issues raised about these five to seven accreditors … I think that needs to have a broad overview and review.” (McMahon didn’t specify, but she seemed to refer to the seven institutional accreditors.)

    Support for Short-Term Pell

    Throughout the hearing, McMahon also reiterated her support for expanding the Pell Grant to short-term workforce training programs that run between eight and 15 weeks, and bolstering other nontraditional means of higher education like apprenticeships.

    The nominee noted multiple times that though “college isn’t for everyone,” there should be opportunities for socioeconomic mobility and career development for all. She believes promoting programs like short-term Pell “could stimulate our economy” by providing new routes to pursue skills-based learning and promote trade careers. This mindset could likely lead to less restriction on for-profit technical institutions like cosmetology schools.

    One thing neither McMahon nor the Senate panel spent much time on, however, was the Office of Federal Student Aid, its botched rollout of a new application portal or how she would manage the government’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio. One of the few mentions of the student debt crisis came up in committee chair Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana’s opening remarks.

    “Too many students leave college woefully unprepared for the workforce while being saddled with overwhelming debt that they cannot pay off,” he said. “Your previous experience overseeing [Small Business Administration] loans will be a great asset as the department looks to reform its student loan program.”

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  • Education nominee McMahon says she supports calls to dismantle the agency but that funding wouldn’t be affected

    Education nominee McMahon says she supports calls to dismantle the agency but that funding wouldn’t be affected

    Linda McMahon said she stands firmly behind President Donald Trump’s calls to gut the U.S. Department of Education at her confirmation hearing to lead the department.

    But she promised to work with Congress to do so — acknowledging some limits on the president’s authority as Trump seeks to remake the government through executive orders. And she tried to reassure teachers and parents that any changes would not jeopardize billions in federal funding that flows to high-poverty schools, special education services, and low-income college students.

    “We’d like to do this right,” McMahon said. “It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs, it is only to have it operate more efficiently.”

    Trump has called the Education Department a “con job” and said that McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive and billionaire Republican donor, should work to put herself out of a job. McMahon called this rhetoric “fervor” for change.

    The Trump administration’s chaotic approach to spending cuts so far raise questions about whether McMahon’s statements — an effort to neutralize the most significant criticism of plans to get rid of the Education Department — will prove true over time.

    Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, punctuated by occasional protests, served as a referendum of sorts on the value of the Education Department. Republicans said it had saddled schools with red tape without improving student outcomes. Democrats said the department protects students’ civil rights and funds essential services.

    Democrats also pressed McMahon on Trump’s threats to withhold federal funding from schools that violate his executive orders and on the details of a potential reorganization — questions that McMahon largely deflected as ones she could better answer after she takes office.

    “It’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very elegant gaslighting here,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    Even as Trump has called for the Education Department to be eliminated and schooling to be “returned to the states,” he’s also sought to expand its mission with executive orders threatening the funding of schools that employ diversity, equity, and inclusion practices or teach that racism and discrimination were part of America’s founding. The federal government is barred by law from setting local curriculum, as Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska pointed out during the hearing.

    In a tense exchange, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who’s championed school desegregation and diversity efforts in education, asked McMahon how schools would know if they were running a program that violates Trump’s executive order seeking to root out “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schools. Many schools have no idea what’s allowed, Murphy said, because the order doesn’t clearly define what’s prohibited.

    McMahon said in her view, celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month should be permitted, after Murphy noted that U.S. Department of Defense schools would no longer celebrate Black History Month in response to Trump’s order.

    But McMahon would not say that running affinity groups for students from certain racial or ethnic backgrounds, such as a Black engineers club or an after-school club for Vietnamese American students, was permitted. She also would not say whether schools might put their federal funding at risk by teaching an African American history class or other ethnic studies program.

    “That’s pretty chilling,” Murphy said. “You’re going to have a lot of educators and a lot of principals and administrators scrambling right now.”

    Later in the confirmation hearing, McMahon agreed schools should teach “the good, the bad, and the ugly” parts of U.S. history, and that it’s up to states, not the Department of Education, to establish curriculum.

    McMahon’s record on DEI has sometimes been at odds with the Trump administration. She backed diversity issues when she served on the Connecticut State Board of Education, the Washington Post reported.

    During her hearing, McMahon said DEI programs are “tough,” because while they’re put in place to promote diversity and inclusion, they can have the opposite effect. She pointed to examples of Black and Hispanic students attending separate graduation ceremonies — though those are typically held to celebrate the achievements of students of color, not to isolate them.

    Related: What might happen if the Education Department were closed?

    McMahon told the committee that many Americans are experiencing an educational system in decline — she pointed to sobering national test scores, crime on college campuses, and high youth suicide rates — and said it was time for a renewed focus on teaching reading, math, and “true history.”

    “In many cases, our wounds are caused by the excessive consolidation of power in our federal education establishment,” she said. “So what’s the remedy? Fund education freedom, not government-run systems. Listen to parents, not politicians. Build up careers, not college debt. Empower states, not special interests. Invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats.”

    Republican Senators reiterated these themes, arguing that bureaucrats in Washington had had their chance and that it was time for a new approach.

    They asked McMahon about Trump administration priorities such as expanding school choice, including private school vouchers, and interpreting Title IX to bar transgender students from restrooms and sports teams aligned with their gender identities.

    McMahon said she was “happy” to see the Biden administration’s rules on Title IX vacated, and she supported withholding federal funds from colleges that did not comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law.

    Related: Trump wants to shake up education. What that could mean for a charter school started by a GOP senator’s wife

    Teachers unions and other critics of McMahon have said she lacks the proper experience to lead the Education Department, though McMahon and others have pointed to her time serving on the Connecticut State Board of Education, as a trustee of Sacred Heart University, and her role as chair of the America First Policy Institute, where she advocated for private school choice, apprenticeships, and career education.

    McMahon also ran the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first administration. Her understanding of the federal bureaucracy is an asset, supporters say.

    Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, said McMahon’s background made her uniquely suited to tackle the pressing challenges facing the American education system today.

    Related: What education could look like under Trump and Vance 

    McMahon said multiple times that parents of children with disabilities should not worry about federal funding being cut for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, though she said it was possible that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would administer the money instead of the Education Department.

    But it appeared that McMahon had limited knowledge of the rights outlined in IDEA, the landmark civil rights law that protects students with disabilities. And she said it was possible that civil rights enforcement — a large portion of which is related to complaints about children with disabilities not getting the services to which they’re entitled — would move to the U.S. Department of Justice.

    Dismantling the education department by moving key functions to other departments is a tenet of Project 2025, the playbook the conservative Heritage Foundation developed for a second Trump administration. Most of these functions are mandated in federal law, and moving them would require congressional approval.

    McMahon struggled to articulate the goals of IDEA beyond saying students would be taken care of and get the assistance and technology they need.

    “There is a reason that the Department of Education and IDEA exist, and it is because educating kids with disabilities can be really hard and it takes the national commitment to get it done,” Hassan, the New Hampshire senator, said. “That’s why so many people are so concerned about this proposal to eliminate the department. Because they think kids will once again be shoved aside, and especially kids with disabilities.”

    McMahon also could not name any requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind. ESSA requires states to identify low-performing schools and intervene to improve student learning, but it gives states more flexibility in how they do so than the previous law.

    McMahon seemed open to reversing some of the cuts enacted by the U.S. DOGE Service, the cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk.

    She said, if confirmed, she would look into whether staff who’d been placed on administrative leave — including some who investigate civil rights complaints — should return. She also said she’d assess the programs that were cut when DOGE terminated 89 contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences and 29 training grants.

    Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said her office had heard from a former teacher who developed an intensive tutoring strategy that was used in a dozen schools in the state. The teacher had a pending grant application to evaluate the program and its effect on student outcomes, and the teacher worried it would be in jeopardy. Collins asked if the department should keep collecting that kind of data so it could help states determine what’s working for kids.

    “I’m not sure yet what the impact of all of those programs are,” McMahon said. “There are many worthwhile programs that we should keep, but I’m not yet apprised of them.”

    The Senate education committee is scheduled to vote on McMahon’s confirmation on Feb. 20.

    This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reprinted with permission. 

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Effect of Institutional Autonomy on Academic Freedom in Higher Education Institutions in Ghana

    Effect of Institutional Autonomy on Academic Freedom in Higher Education Institutions in Ghana

    By Mohammed Bashiru and Professor Cai Yonghong

    Introduction

    The idea of institutional autonomy in higher education institutions (HEIs) naturally comes up when discussing academic freedom. These two ideas are connected, and the simplest way to define how they relate to one another is that they are intertwined through several procedures and agreements that link people, institutions, the state, and civil society. Academic freedom and institutional autonomy cannot be compared, but they also cannot be separated and the loss of one diminishes the other. Protecting academic freedom and institutional autonomy is viewed by academics as a crucial requirement for a successful HEI. For instance, institutional autonomy and academic freedom are widely acknowledged as essential for the optimization of university operations in most African nations.

    How does institutional autonomy influence academic freedom in higher education institutions in Ghana?

    In some countries, universities have been subject to government control, with appointments and administrative positions influenced by political interests, leading to violations of academic autonomy and freedom. Autonomy is a crucial element in safeguarding academic freedom, which requires universities to uphold the academic freedom of their community and for the state to respect the right to science of the broader community. Universities offer the necessary space for the exercise of academic freedom, and thus, institutional autonomy is necessary for its preservation. The violation of institutional autonomy undermines not only academic freedom but also the pillars of self-governance, tenure, and individual rights and freedoms of academics and students. Universities should be self-governed by an academic community to uphold academic freedom, which allows for unrestricted advancement of scientific knowledge through critical thinking, without external limitations.

    How does corporate governance affect the relationship between institutional autonomy and academic freedom?

    Corporate governance mechanisms, such as board diversity, board independence, transparency, and accountability, can ensure that the interests of various stakeholders, including students, faculty, and the government, are represented and balanced. The incorporation of corporate governance into academia introduces a set of values and priorities that can restrict the traditional autonomy and academic freedom that define a self-governing profession. This growing tension has led to concerns about the erosion of academia’s self-governance, with calls for policies that safeguard academic independence and uphold the values of intellectual freedom and collaboration that are foundational to higher education institutions. Nonetheless, promoting efficient corporate governance, higher education institutions can help safeguard academic freedom and institutional autonomy, despite external pressures.

    Is there a significant difference between the perceptions of males and females regarding institutional autonomy, academic freedom, and their relationship?

    The appointment process for university staff varies across countries, but it is essential that non-academic factors such as gender, ethnicity, or interests do not influence the selection of qualified individuals who are necessary for the institution’s quality. Unfortunately, studies indicate that women are often underrepresented in leadership positions and decision-making processes related to academic freedom and institutional autonomy. This underrepresentation can perpetuate biases and lead to a lack of diversity in decision-making. One solution to address these disparities is to examine gender as a factor of difference to identify areas for improvement and promote gender equality in decision-making processes. By promoting diversity and inclusivity, academic institutions can create a more equitable environment that protects institutional autonomy and promotes academic freedom for everyone, regardless of their gender.

    Methodology and Conceptual framework

    The quantitative and predictive nature of the investigation necessitated the use of an explanatory research design. Because it enabled the us to establish a clear causal relationship between the exogenous and endogenous latent variables, the explanatory study design was chosen. The simple random sample technique was utilised to collect data from an online survey administered to 128 academicians from chosen Ghanaian universities.

    The conceptual framework, explaining the interrelationships among the constructs in the context of the study is presented. The formulation of the conceptual model was influenced by the nature of proposed research questions backed by the supporting theories purported in the context of the study.

    Conclusions and Implications

    Institutional autonomy significantly predicts academic freedom at a strong level within higher education institutions in Ghana. Corporate governance can restrict academic freedom when its directed to yield immediate financial or marketable benefits but in this study it plays a key role in transmitting the effect of institutional autonomy. Additionally, there is a significant difference in perception between females and males concerning the institutional autonomy – academic freedom predictive relationship. Practically, higher education institutions, particularly in Ghana, should strive to maintain a level of autonomy while also ensuring that academic freedom is respected and protected. This can be achieved through decentralized governance structures that allow for greater participation of academics in decision-making processes. Institutions should actively engage stakeholders, including academics, in discussions and decisions related to institutional autonomy and academic freedom. This will ensure that diverse perspectives are considered in policy development.

    This blog is based on an article published in Policy Reviews in Higher Education (online 02 January 2025) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23322969.2024.2444609

    Bashiru Mohammed is a final year PhD student at the faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. He also holds Masters in Higher education and students’ affairs from the same university. His research interest includes School management and administration, TVET education and skills development.

    Professor Cai Yonghong is a professor at Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. She has published many articles and presided over several domestic and international educational projects and written several government consultant reports. Her research interest includes teacher innovation, teacher expertise, teacher’s salary, and school management.

    References

    AAU, (2001). ‘Declaration on the African University in the Third Millennium’.

    Akpan, K. P., & Amadi, G. (2017). University autonomy and academic freedom in Nigeria: A theoretical overview. International Journal of Academic Research and Development,

    Altbach, P. G. (2001). Academic freedom: International realities and challenges. Higher Education,

    Aslam, S., & Joshith, V. (2019). Higher Education Commission of India Act 2018: A Critical Analysis of the Policy in the Context of Institutional Autonomy.

    Becker, J. M., Cheah, J. H., Gholamzade, R., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2023). PLS-SEM’s most wanted guidance.

    Hair, J., Hollingsworth, C. L., Randolph, A. B., & Chong, A. Y. L. (2017). An updated and expanded
    assessment of PLS-SEM in information systems research. Industrial management & data
    systems,

    Lippa, R. A. (2005). Gender, nature, and nurture. Routledge.

    Lock, I., & Seele, P. (2016). CSR governance and departmental organization: A typology of best practices. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society.

    Neave, G. (2005). The supermarketed university: Reform, vision and ambiguity in British higher education. Perspectives:.

    Nicol, D. (1972) Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility: The Tasks of Universities in a Changing World, Stephen Kertesz (Ed), Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press.

    Nokkala, T., & Bacevic, J. (2014). University autonomy, agenda setting and the construction of agency: The case of the European university association in the European higher education area..

    Olsen, J. P. (2007). The institutional dynamics of the European university Springer Netherlands.

    Tricker, R. I. (2015). Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and practices. Oxford University Press, USA.

    Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. & Griffin, M. (2012). Business Research Methods. Boston: Cengage Learning.

    Zulu, C (2016) ‘Gender equity and equality in higher education leadership: What’s social justice and substantive equality got to do with it?’ A paper presented at the inaugural lecture, North West University, South Africa

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Why the NIH cuts are so wrong (opinion)

    Why the NIH cuts are so wrong (opinion)

    Indirect cost recovery (ICR) seems like a boring, technical budget subject. In reality, it is a major source of the long-running budget crises at public research universities. Misinformation about ICR has also confused everyone about the university’s public benefits.

    These paired problems—concealed budget shortfalls and misinformation—didn’t cause the ICR cuts being implemented by the NIH acting director, one Matthew J. Memoli, M.D. But they are the basis of Memoli’s rationale.

    Trump’s people will sustain these cuts unless academics can create an honest counternarrative that inspires wider opposition. I’ll sketch a counternarrative below.

    The sudden policy change is that the NIH is to cap indirect cost recovery at 15 percent of the direct costs of a grant, regardless of the existing negotiated rate. Multiple lawsuits have been filed challenging the legality of the change, and courts have temporarily blocked it from going into effect.

    Memoli’s notice of the cap, issued Friday, has a narrative that is wrong but internally coherent and plausible.

    It starts with three claims about the $9 billion of the overall $35 billion research funding budget that goes to indirect costs:

    • Indirect cost allocations are in zero-sum competition with direct costs, therefore reducing the total amount of research.
    • Indirect costs are “difficult for NIH to oversee” because they aren’t entirely entailed by a specific grant.
    • “Private foundations” cap overhead charges at 10 to 15 percent of direct costs and all but a handful of universities accept those grants.

    Memoli offers a solution: Define a “market rate” for indirect costs as that allowed by private foundations (Gates, Chan Zuckerberg, some others). The implication is the foundations’ rate captures real indirect costs rather than inflated or wishful costs that universities skim to pad out bloated administrations. On this analytical basis, currently wasted indirect costs will be reallocated to useful direct costs, thus increasing rather than decreasing scientific research.

    There’s a false logic here that needs to be confronted.

    The strategy so far to resist these cuts seems to focus on outcomes rather than on the actual claims or the underlying budgetary reality of STEM research in the United States. Scientific groups have called the ICR rate cap an attack on U.S. scientific leadership and on public benefits to U.S. taxpayers (childhood cancer treatments that will save lives, etc.). This is all important to talk about. And yet these claims don’t refute the NIH logic. Nor do they get at the hidden budget reality of academic science.

    On the logic: Indirect costs aren’t in competition with direct costs because direct and indirect costs pay for different categories of research ingredients.

    Direct costs apply to the individual grant: costs for chemicals, graduate student labor, equipment, etc., that are only consumed by that particular grant.

    Indirect costs, also called facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, support infrastructure used by everybody in a department, discipline, division, school or university. Infrastructure is the library that spends tens of thousands of dollars a year to subscribe to just one important journal that is consulted by hundreds or thousands of members of that campus community annually. Infrastructure is the accounting staff that writes budgets for dozens and dozens of grant applications across departments or schools. Infrastructure is the building, new or old, that houses multiple laboratories: If it’s new, the campus is still paying it off; if it’s old, the campus is spending lots of money keeping it running. These things are the tip of the iceberg of the indirect costs of contemporary STEM research.

    In response to the NIH’s social media announcement of its indirect costs rate cut, Bertha Madras had a good starter list of what indirects involve.

    Screenshot via Christopher Newfield

    And there are also people who track all these materials, reorder them, run the daily accounting, etc.—honestly, people who aren’t directly involved in STEM research have a very hard time grasping its size and complexity, and therefore its cost.

    As part of refuting the claim that NIH can just not pay for all this and therefore pay for more research, the black box of research needs to be opened up, Bertha Madras–style, and properly narrated as a collaborative (and exciting) activity.

    This matter of human activity gets us to the second NIH-Memoli claim, which involves toting up the processes, structures, systems and people that make up research infrastructure and adding up their costs. The alleged problem is that it is “difficult to oversee.”

    Very true, but difficult things can and often must be done, and that is what happens with indirect costs. Every university compiles indirect costs as a condition of receiving research grants. Specialized staff (more indirect costs!) use a large amount of accounting data to sum up these costs, and they use expensive information technology to do this to the correct standard. University staff then negotiate with federal agencies for a rate that addresses their particular university’s actual indirect costs. These rates are set for a time, then renegotiated at regular intervals to reflect changing costs or infrastructural needs.

    The fact that this process is “difficult” doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with it. This claim shouldn’t stand—unless and until NIH convincingly identifies specific flaws.

    As stated, the NIH-Memoli claim that decreasing funding for overhead cuts will increase science is easily falsifiable. (And we can say this while still advocating for reducing overhead costs, including ever-rising compliance costs imposed by federal research agencies. But we would do this by reducing the mandated costs, not the cap.)

    The third statement—that private foundations allow only 10 to 15 percent rates of indirect cost recovery—doesn’t mean anything in itself. Perhaps Gates et al. have the definitive analysis of true indirect costs that they have yet to share with humanity. Perhaps Gates et al. believe that the federal taxpayer should fund the university infrastructure that they are entitled to use at a massive discount. Perhaps Gates et al. use their wealth and prestige to leverage a better deal for themselves at the expense of the university just because they can. Which of these interpretations is correct? NIH-Memoli assume the first but don’t actually show that the private foundation rate is the true rate. (In reality, the second explanation is the best.)

    This kind of critique is worth doing, and it can be expanded. The NIH view reflects right-wing public-choice economics that treat teachers, scientists et al. as simple gain maximizers producing private, not public goods. This means that their negotiations with federal agencies will reflect their self-interest, while in contrast the “market rate” is objectively valid. We do need to address these false premises and bad conclusions again and again, whenever they arise.

    However, this critique is only half the story. The other half is the budget reality of large losses on sponsored research, all incurred as a public service to knowledge and society.

    Take that NIH image above. It makes no logical sense to put the endowments of three very untypical universities next to their ICR rates: They aren’t connected. It makes political narrative sense, however: The narrative is that fat-cat universities are making a profit on research at regular taxpayers’ expense, and getting even fatter.

    The only way to deal with this very effective, very entrenched Republican story is to come clean on the losses that universities incur. The reality is that existing rates of indirect cost recovery do not cover actual indirect costs, but require subsidy from the university that performs the research. ICR is not icing on the budget cake that universities can do without. ICR buys only a portion of the indirect costs cake, and the rest is purchased by each university’s own institutional funds.

    For example, here are the top 16 university recipients of federal research funds. One of the largest in terms of NIH funding (through the Department of Health and Human Services) is the University of California, San Francisco, winning $795.6 million in grants in fiscal year 2023. (The National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey tables for fiscal year 2023 are here.)

    table visualization

    UCSF’s negotiated indirect cost recovery rate is 64 percent. This means that it has shown HHS and other agencies detailed evidence that it has real indirect costs in something like this amount (more on “something like” in a minute). It means that HHS et al. have accepted UCSF’s evidence of their real indirect costs as valid.

    If the total of UCSF’s HHS $795.6 million is received with a 64 percent ICR rate, this means that every $1.64 of grant funds has $0.64 in indirect funds and one dollar in direct. The math estimates that UCSF receives about $310 million of its HHS funds in the form of ICR.

    Now, the new NIH directive cuts UCSF from 64 percent to 15 percent. That’s a reduction of about 77 percent. Reduce $310 million by that proportion and you have UCSF losing about $238 million in one fell swoop. There’s no mechanism in the directive for shifting that into the direct costs of UCSF grants, so let’s assume a full loss of $238 million.

    In Memoli’s narrative, this $238 million is the Reaganite’s “waste, fraud and abuse.” The remaining approximately $71 million is legitimate overhead as measured (wrongly) by what Gates et al. have managed to force universities to accept in exchange for the funding of their researchers’ direct costs.

    But the actual situation is even worse than this. It’s not that UCSF now will lose $238 million on their NIH research. In reality, even at (allegedly fat-cat) 64 percent ICR rates, they were already losing tons of money. Here’s another table from the HERD survey.

    table visualization

    There’s UCSF in the No. 2 national position, a major research powerhouse. It spends more than $2 billion a year on research. However, moving across the columns from left to right, you see federal government, state and local government, and then this category, “Institution Funds.” As with most of these big research universities, this is a huge number. UCSF reports to the NSF that it spends more than $500 million a year of its own internal funds on research.

    The reason? Extramurally sponsored research, almost all in science and engineering, loses massive amounts of money even at current recovery rates, day after day, year in, year out. This is not because anyone is doing anything wrong. It is because the infrastructure of contemporary science is very expensive.

    Here’s where we need to build a full counternarrative to the existing one. The existing one, shared by university administrators and Trumpers alike, posits the fiction that universities break even on research. UCSF states, “The University requires full F&A cost recovery.” This is actually a regulative ideal that has never been achieved.

    The reality is this:

    UCSF spends half a billion dollars of its own funding to support its $2 billion total in research. That money comes from the state, from tuition, from clinical revenues and some—less than you’d think—from private donors and corporate sponsors. If NIH’s cuts go through, UCSF’s internal losses on research—the money it has to make up—suddenly jump from an already-high $505 million to $743 million in the current year. This is a complete disaster for the UCSF budget. It will massively hit research, students, the campuses’ state employees, everything.

    The current strategy of chronicling the damage from cuts is good. But it isn’t enough. I’m pleased to see the Association of American Universities, a group of high-end research universities, stating plainly that “colleges and universities pay for 25 percent of total academic R&D expenditures from their own funds. This university contribution amounted to $27.7 billion in FY23, including $6.8 billion in unreimbursed F&A costs.” All university administrations need to shift to this kind of candor.

    Unless the new NIH cuts are put in the context of continuous and severe losses on university research, the public, politicians, journalists, et al. cannot possibly understand the severity of the new crisis. And it will get lost in the blizzard of a thousand Trump-created crises, one of which is affecting pretty much every single person in the country.

    Finally, our full counternarrative needs a third element: showing that systemic fiscal losses on research are in fact good, marvelous, a true public service. A loss on a public good is not a bad and embarrassing fact. Research is supposed to lose money: The university loses money on science so that society gets long-term gains from it. Science has a negative return on investment for the university that conducts it so that there is a massively positive ROI for society, of both the monetary and nonmonetary kind. Add up the education, the discoveries, the health, social, political and cultural benefits: The university courts its own endless fiscal precarity so that society benefits.

    We should also remind everyone that the only people who make money on science are in business. And even there, ROI can take years or decades. Commercial R&D, with a focus on product development and sales, also runs losses. Think of “AI”: Microsoft alone is spending $80 billion on it in 2025, on top of $50 billion in 2024, with no obviously strong revenues yet in sight. This is a huge amount of risky investment—it compares to $60 billion for federal 2023 R&D expenditures on all topics in all disciplines. I’m an AI skeptic but appreciate Microsoft’s reminder that new knowledge means taking losses and plenty of them.

    These up-front losses generate much greater future value of nonmonetary as well as monetary kinds. Look at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Harvard University, et al. in Table 22 above. The sector spent nearly $28 billion of its own money generously subsidizing sponsors’ research, including by subsidizing the federal government itself.

    There’s much more to say about the long-term social compact behind this—how the actual “private sector” gets 100 percent ICR or significantly more, how state cuts factor into this, how student tuition now subsidizes more of STEM research than is fair, how research losses have been a denied driver of tuition increases. There’s more to say about the long-term decline of public universities as research centers that, when properly funded, allow knowledge creation to be distributed widely in the society.

    But my point here is that opening the books on large everyday research losses, especially biomedical research losses of the kind NIH creates, is the only way that journalists, politicians and the wider public will see through the Trumpian lie about these ICR “efficiencies.” It’s also the only way to move toward the full cost recovery that universities deserve and that research needs.

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  • How colleges engage faculty in student career development

    How colleges engage faculty in student career development

    It’s spring semester and a junior-level student just knocked on a professor’s office door. The student has dropped by to talk about summer internships; they’re considering a career in the faculty member’s discipline, but they feel nervous and a little unsure about navigating the internship hunt. They’ve come to the faculty member for insight, advice and a dash of encouragement that they’re on the right track.

    A fall 2023 survey by the National Association for Colleges and Employers found 92 percent of faculty members have experienced this in the past year—a student in their disciplinary area asking for career advice. But only about half of instructors say they’re very comfortable advising students on careers in their discipline, showing a gap between lived experiences and preparation for navigating these interactions.

    Career readiness is a growing undercurrent in higher education—driven in part by outside pressure from families and students to provide a return on investment for the high costs of tuition—but also pushed by an evolving job market and employers who attribute less weight to a college major or degree for early talent hiring.

    With a fraction of students engaging with the career center on campus, delivering career development and professional skills to all students can seem like an impossible task.

    Enter the career champion.

    The career champion is a trained, often full-time, faculty member who has completed professional development that equipped them to guide students through higher education to their first (or even second) role.

    The career champion identifies the enduring skills students will develop in their syllabus and provides opportunities for learners to articulate career readiness in the context of class projects, presentations or experiential learning.

    The career champion also shepherds their peers along the career integration path, creating a discipleship of industry-cognizant professors who freely give internship advice, make networking connections and argue for the role of higher education in student development.

    Over the past decade, college and university leaders have anointed and empowered champions among their faculty, and some institutions have even built layered models of train-the-trainer roles and responsibilities. The work creates a culture of academics who are engaged and responding to workforce demands, no longer shuffling students to career services for support but creating a through line of careers in the classroom.

    The Recipe for Success

    Career champion initiatives serve a three-pronged approach for institutional goals for career readiness.

    First, such efforts provide much-needed professional development for the faculty member. NACE’s survey of faculty members found 38 percent of respondents said they need professional development in careers and career preparation to improve how they counsel students.

    “Historically, faculty are not incentivized to do this work, nor are they trained to do anything really career readiness–related,” says Punita Bhansali, associate professor at Queensborough Community College and a CUNY Career Success Leadership Fellow. “This program was born out of the idea, let’s create a structured model where faculty get rewarded … they get recognized and they receive support for doing this work.”

    Growing attention has been placed on the underpreparation of faculty to talk socio-emotional health with learners. In the same way, faculty are lacking the tools to talk about jobs and life after college. “As they’re thinking about careers in their own work, [faculty] are used to being experts in the field, and being an expert in careers feels daunting,” explains Brenna Gomez, director of career integration at Oregon State University.

    Second, these programs get ahead of student questions about the value of liberal arts or their general education courses by identifying career skills in class early and often. This works in tandem with shifting general education requirements at some institutions, such as the University of Montana, which require faculty members to establish career as a learning outcome for courses.

    “We knew we weren’t going to move [the] career-readiness needle by being the boutique program that you sometimes go to,” says Brian Reed, associate vice provost for student success at Montana. “If we really want to have an inescapable impact, we’ve gotta get into the classroom.”

    A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found 92 percent of college students believe professors are at least partly responsible for some form of career development—such as sharing how careers in their field are evolving or helping students find internships—in the classroom. Just 8 percent of respondents selected “none of the above” in the list of career development–related tasks that faculty may be responsible for.

    “It’s getting faculty on board with [and] being very clear about the skills that a student is developing that do have applicability beyond that one class and for their career and their life,” says Richard Hardy, associate dean for undergraduate education of the college of arts and sciences at Indiana University Bloomington. IU Bloomington’s College of Arts and Sciences also requires competencies in the curriculum.

    Third, career champions are exceptionally valuable at changing the culture among their peers. “Champion” becomes a literal title when faculty interact with and influence colleagues.

    “That’s a general best practice if you’re looking to develop faculty in any way: to figure out who your champions are to start, and then let faculty talk to faculty,” says Niesha Taylor, director of career readiness at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. “They have the same interests in hand, they speak the same language and they can really help each other get on board in a more authentic way than sometimes an administrator could,” adds Taylor, a former career champion for the City University of New York system.

    Becoming an Expert

    Each institution takes a slightly different approach to how they mint their faculty champions.

    Oregon State University launched its Career Champion program in 2020 as part of a University Innovation Alliance project to better connect learners with career information in the classroom, explains Gomez.

    The six-week program is led by the Career Development Center and runs every academic term, engaging a cohort of five to 15 faculty members and instructors who belong to various colleges and campuses at OSU. During one session and a few hours of work independently, program participants complete collaborative course redesign projects and education around inequities in career development.

    By the end of the quarter, faculty have built three deliverables for their course: a NACE competency career map, a syllabus statement that includes at least one competency and a new or revamped lecture activity or assignment that highlights career skills.

    After completing the program, professors can join a community of practice and receive a monthly newsletter from the career center to continuously engage in career education through research, events or resources for students.

    IU Bloomington and Virginia Commonwealth University are among institutions that have created workshop series for faculty to identify or embed competencies in their courses, as well.

    Training the Trainer

    Creating change on the academic side of a college is a historically difficult task for an administrator, because it can be like leading a horse to water. Getting faculty engaged across campus is the goal, but starting with the existing cheerleaders is the first step, campus leaders say.

    3 Tips for Launching Faculty Development

    For institutions looking to create a champion program, or something similar, NACE’s Taylor encourages administrators to:

    • Get leadership on board
    • Make the professional development process meaningful through incentives or compensation
    • Provide ways for professors to share their stories after completing the work.

    To launch career champions at the University of Montana, Reed relied on the expertise and support of instructors who had previously demonstrated enthusiasm.

    “We found our biggest champions who always come to the programs that we do, who traditionally invited us into the classroom. When we said, ‘Hey, you’ve been a fantastic partner. Would you want to be part of this inaugural cohort?’ they said, ‘Absolutely.’ And so that’s who we went with,” Reed says.

    Montana’s faculty development in careers has expanded to have three tiers of involvement: a community of practice, career champions and Faculty Career Fellows, who Reed jokes are the Green Beret unit of careers. Fellows collaborate with a curriculum coach to research and implement additional events, training and other projects for instructors.

    After completing the championship program, some returned to continue education and involvement, Reed says. “We had [faculty] that wanted to come back and do it again. They wanted to stay part of the community.”

    The City University of New York selects a handful of Career Success Leadership Fellows annually who drive integration, innovation and research around careers across the system. In addition to training other faculty members, each fellow is charged taking the model to present and share with other campuses, as with their own projects for advancing career development growth.

    With added time and energy comes an added institutional financial investment in career fellows. Montana’s fellows receive a $1,000 stipend for their work, drawn from funds donated by the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, and CUNY’s fellows receive $2,000 for the academic year.

    The Heart Behind It All

    For some of these engaged professors, their involvement is tied to their experiences as learners. That junior knocking on their office door asking about internships? That was them once upon a time, and they wished their professor had the answers.

    “All of us have gone through undergrad. We know that we’ve taken some courses where it’s like, ‘Why did I take that?’ and the professor is just in their heads,” says Jason Hendrickson, professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, part of the CUNY system, and a Career Success Leadership Fellow.

    “[Career champions] are the people who, when you talk to them, they all say, ‘I wish I had had this in my undergrad experience … I didn’t know this stuff existed, the depth of the programs and services that we offer,’” Reed says.

    Faculty are also starting to feel the heat, particularly those belonging to disciplines under attack in mainstream media or that have historically less strong occupational outcomes for learners.

    “I think over time, what’s happened is faculty have seen how this is actually beneficial … from the point of view of our disciplines and allowing students to see why engaging with the liberal arts is actually hugely beneficial for career and life,” IU Bloomington’s Hardy says.

    “The question that keeps me up at night is how to retain college students,” says Bhansali of CUNY’s Queensborough Community College. “The data is bleak in terms of college retention, and each faculty needs to show how the content and skills covered in their classroom are going to help students in the future, regardless of the job they choose.”

    Sometimes instructors can feel overwhelmed by the programs, trying to incorporate eight competencies into their courses, for example, or feeling as if they have to be an expert in all things career related.

    “They can feel like, ‘How can I do all of this?’ And it’s really not any one faculty [member]’s job or any one class’s job. It has to be systemic in the college,” NACE’s Taylor says.

    The best part of the job is seeing students successfully land that job in their field. Sebastian Alvarado, a biology faculty member at Queens College and CUNY Career Success Leadership Fellow, ran into former students from his genetics class at a specialist’s appointment he had.

    “It feels really rewarding—they were really there as a result of their bio major training,” Alvarado says. “When we see students getting placements in their jobs, it feels like we’re doing what we’re supposed to do.”

    Looking Ahead

    There remain some faculty members who push back against careerism in higher education—and some who remain undersupported or -resourced to take on this work, Alvarado points out—but programs have been growing slowly but surely, driven in part by champions.

    Since launching, IU Bloomington has had over 300 faculty complete the program in the College of Arts and Sciences, Hardy says.

    Montana interacted with 235 faculty members in workshops and events in the past year, which Reed expects to only increase as more faculty members rework curriculum for general education requirements.

    OSU has had 105 participants since 2020, and the College of Liberal Arts established a commitment to train at least two faculty members in each school to be Career Champions in their strategic plan for 2023–2028, Gomez says. Campus leaders are also creating professional development for academic advisers and student-employee supervisors to train other student-facing practitioners in career integration.

    Furthering this work requires additional partnerships and collaboration between faculty members and career services staff, Taylor says, where traditionally there are not relationships due to institutional silos.

    “I’m always—and my career success team, they’re always—scanning for these partnerships, and we use our network of existing people to sort of make referrals,” Reed says. “It’s a benevolent Ponzi scheme.”

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  • Academic freedom doesn’t require college neutrality

    Academic freedom doesn’t require college neutrality

    Amid public campaigns urging universities to commit to “institutional neutrality,” the American Association of University Professors released a lengthy statement Wednesday saying that the term “conceals more than it reveals.”

    The statement, approved by the AAUP’s elected national council last month, says it continues the national scholarly group’s long commitment to emphasizing “the complexity of the issues involved” in the neutrality debate. “Institutional neutrality is neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it,” it says.

    The push for universities to adopt institutional neutrality policies ramped up as administrators struggled over what, if anything, to say about Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelis and Israel’s swift retaliation in the Gaza Strip.

    The AAUP statement notes that “institutional neutrality” has varied meanings and that actions—not just words—convey a point of view. For instance, some argue that to be neutral, institutions shouldn’t adjust their financial investments for anything other than maximizing returns. But the AAUP says that “no decision concerning a university’s investment strategy counts as neutral.”

    The AAUP asserts that by taking any position on divestment—which many campus protesters have asked for—a university “makes a substantive decision little different from its decision to issue a statement that reflects its values.”

    “A university’s decision to speak, or not; to limit its departments or other units from speaking; to divest from investments that conflict with its mission; or to limit protest in order to promote other forms of speech are all choices that might either promote or inhibit academic freedom and thus must be made with an eye to those practical results, not to some empty conception of neutrality,” the AAUP statement says. “The defense of academic freedom has never been a neutral act.”

    Steven McGuire, Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni, called the statement “another unhelpful document from the AAUP.”

    “Institutional neutrality is a long-standing principle that can both protect academic freedom and help colleges and universities to stick to their academic missions,” McGuire told Inside Higher Ed. “It’s critical that institutional neutrality be enforced not only to protect individual faculty members on campus, but also to help to depoliticize American colleges and universities at a time when they have become overpoliticized” and are viewed as biased.

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