Lawmakers in Idaho accused Boise State University officials of skirting a statewide ban on diversity, equity and inclusion during a House education committee meeting Tuesday, according to reporting from Idaho Education News.
Republican legislators questioned Boise State president Marlene Tromp about a sociology certificate program in DEI advertised on the university’s website as well as its Institute for Advancing American Values, the latter of which is described as encouraging “respectful dialogue” about “the issues and values that have shaped America and Americans from all walks of life.”
One representative remarked that the institute “sounds like a continuation of DEI under different labels.”
Tromp said the university had “absolutely not moved something under another name” but added that she’d have to investigate the certificate program more closely.
In December, the Idaho State Board of Education passed a resolution prohibiting “central offices, policies, procedures, or initiatives … dedicated to DEI ideology” at public higher ed institutions. Boise State shuttered two of its student equity centers a week before the vote.
Students will be able to choose from dozens of different courses across various disciplines—including STEM, English, ethnic studies and history—to satisfy the requirement, which is set to take effect as early as fall 2026.
“Climate change is an all-hands-on-deck crisis that requires understanding and solutions from all different disciplines and sectors of society,” Autumn Thoyre, co-director of the university’s Climate HQ, which supports climate-related work on campus, told KQED. “Our students’ lives are already being impacted by climate change, and so we think it’s part of our responsibility as a university to prepare students for that.”
Although numerous other colleges and universities across the nation require climate change–focused coursework, SF State officials said in a news release that its focus on climate justice, or “the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalized and underserved populations,” is novel.
“We are responding to the understanding that all jobs in the future will be climate jobs in some way. Our students, no matter their major and no matter their career, need to understand climate change because it is already impacting their lives,” Thoyre said in the release. “If you come to SFSU, you will learn about climate change and be ready for it in your career and civic life, you’ll be an informed voter and you’ll be ready for discussions with your family and friends.”
A college within Michigan State University canceled a lunch celebrating the Lunar New Year in part because of President Trump’s recent executive orders cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal government and elsewhere, the news site Bridge Michigan reported Thursday.
The order, signed last week, doesn’t define DEI but calls on federal agencies to “combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” Colleges with endowments valued at $1 billion or more could be investigated for potentially violating the order, under the White House directive. Michigan State has a $4.4 billion endowment.
A handful of colleges have taken down or reworked websites related to DEI since the order, while others have called off events. For instance, a conference at Rutgers University about registered apprenticeships and historically Black colleges and universities was canceled last week following the order. (Rutgers officials say calling off the conference wasn’t a university decision. Rather, it was canceled because the organizers, a group outside the university, received a stop work order from the Department of Labor.)
Michigan State administrators told Bridge Michigan they canceled the lunch, which was scheduled for Jan. 29 and has been held four times before, after Chinese students “expressed concern about an event tied to one racial group.”
The College of Communications Arts and Science was set to host the event. Lauren Gaines, the college’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion director, wrote in an email obtained by Bridge Michigan and the State News student paper that the cancellation was in response to concerns related to Trump’s immigration and DEI executive orders.
“These actions have prompted feelings of uncertainty and hesitation about gathering for events that highlight cultural traditions and communities,” Gaines wrote. “We feel it is important to honor those concerns with sensitivity and care.”
Heidi Hennink-Kaminski, the college’s dean, wrote in a follow-up email obtained by the news outlets that the decision was not “a statement of policy, but rather as an appropriate on-the-ground response given a very short decision window.”
Michigan State officials did not respond to a request for comment by press time but confirmed after publication that staff at the college canceled the event, adding that other Lunar New Year events continue.
Student visa issuances reached record levels in Australia late last year, suggesting that 12 months of policy upheaval have failed to suppress international education flows ahead of a federal election likely to be fought on migration.
Visa grants to would-be university students applying from overseas reached an all-time high of almost 17,000 in November, the latest month for which Department of Home Affairs statistics are available.
Monthly issuances have been at or near record levels since mid-2024, well exceeding pre-pandemic tallies and driving a surge in overall foreign student numbers. Higher education typically accounts for two-thirds or more of student visa recipients.
The opposition Liberal Party, which is due to contest a general election by mid-May, has repeatedly berated the Labor government over student volumes since Australia’s post-pandemic reopening of its borders. The surge in student numbers, initially spurred by policies enacted by the opposition when it was in government, has been blamed for housing shortages.
Liberal leader Peter Dutton promised “stricter caps on foreign students to relieve stress on city rental markets” during an election campaign rally on Jan. 12.
While treasurer Jim Chalmers has attributed Australia’s lofty migrant tally to low departures rather than high arrivals, the latest statistics suggest both are contributing. And the figures do not include record numbers of applicants fighting to have their visa rejections overturned.
The Sydney Morning Heraldreported that the backlog of international students contesting their visa refusals in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal had doubled in five months to exceed 20,000 for the first time, and that two-thirds of visa rejections were being overturned by the tribunal.
Meanwhile, overseas students are pursuing strategies to extend their time in Australia, including starting new courses or applying for asylum. Immigration expert Abul Rizvi said the tally of onshore student visa applicants had blown out to more than 100,000.
Home Affairs data provided to a Senate inquiry in October showed that a long-term monthly average of about 300 asylum applications from overseas students had increased to about 450 since mid-2024, reaching 516 by August—the highest figure in at least five years, and probably since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Student visa grants could also increase following the late-December replacement of the controversial ministerial direction 107, which slowed down the processing of many visa applications, with ministerial direction 111.
International education consultant Dirk Mulder said opinion on the new arrangements was divided, with some operators saying visa processing had sped up while others complained that it was slower than a year ago.
Both camps expressed concern about the likelihood of further policy changes and the fate of institutions that had reached their “thresholds”—80 percent of the formerly announced international student caps, the trigger point for slower visa processing.
One worry was that agents might stop referring students to universities and colleges in this position. “There is a large amount of angst as to how recruitment partners will work amongst institutions when they hit their 80 percent threshold,” Mulder wrote on his Koala news site.
Most American college students attend broad-access institutions, or public colleges and universities that admit at least 80 percent of applicants. Yet millions of people live in communities without one of these institutions nearby—and millions more live in areas with only one option, according to a new report from the Institute for College Access and Success.
The report, released today, shows stark disparities in higher ed access based on students’ geography and how some broad-access institutions are single-handedly serving whole regions. It also highlights communities with nearby colleges located across state lines, an understudied college-access issue, higher ed leaders say.
Researchers analyzed different “commuting zones,” or clusters of counties workers commute between, to see which communities have broad-access institutions within a reasonable commuting distance.
Nicholas Hillman, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of the report, believes it’s critical to understand students’ geographical contexts.
He said conversations about higher ed access often revolve around “informational problems”—whether students know about different college options and understand the college admissions process. But his previous research shows most students, even if well-informed, choose to stay close to home for college. That’s why he wanted to take a deeper look at where residents do or don’t have broad-access institutions within reach.
“Maybe some of the problems in college access and opportunity are that there aren’t colleges nearby, or that there are not appropriate transportation infrastructures in place for students to access colleges … or that there are cost-prohibitive options nearby,” said Hillman, who also directs the university’s Student Success Through Applied Research Lab. When studying college access through a geographic lens, “you see problems differently. You might come up with a very different set of policy solutions.”
He also sees the report as a “love letter” to broad-access institutions, especially those that are the only ones in their communities.
“They’re doing the lion’s share of the work,” Hillman said. “They’re the blue-collar colleges out there, doing the heavy lifting in higher education, serving the most students and doing so oftentimes with the least amount of financial resources and under some of the most pressure.”
The Findings
To identify broad-access institutions, the report drew on data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, with the caveat that IPEDS doesn’t account for all branch campuses.
And then researchers used data from Pennsylvania State University’s Labor-sheds for Regional Analysis tool to measure commuting zones around the colleges. Finally, the report looked at how nearby these institutions were in “large-population commuting zones,” like urban or metropolitan areas, and “small-population commuting zones,” less populous areas, like rural communities.
The report found that more than 831,000 people living in more populous commuting zones don’t have a local broad-access institution, and another 9.7 million had only one of these colleges nearby. That means about one in 16 people don’t have a broad-access institution nearby or just one, even in the country’s largest local labor markets.
The issue was even more stark in less populous or rural local labor economies, where 2.8 million people don’t have a single broad-access institution in their area. Another 5.9 million live in areas with only one such institution. Meanwhile, among students who go to college in these less populous areas, 70 percent attend broad-access institutions, meaning these colleges “play an outsized role in creating opportunities and meeting local educational needs” in these communities, the report says.
Riley Acton, an assistant professor of economics at Miami University in Ohio, said it’s important to differentiate between college access issues in the two types of regions, as the report did, because “what it means to have access, to have something nearby, can be really different in rural and urban environments.” In a rural area, a college might be miles away but easy to travel to by car, while in an urban area, a college could be close by but hard to reach via public transportation, she said, so the report opens up a conversation about those distinctions.
Hillman added that a granular look at the data might surprise people. For example, some large metropolitan areas, like Chicago, are known for prominent private universities but have relatively few broad-access institutions for residents.
“Local markets are just very different, depending on where you live, and I think that it’s important to put that out there, just to help remind ourselves that there’s no typical place or experience or market that every student experiences,” Hillman said.
The report also highlights that some regions have broad-access institutions nearby but they’re across state borders, meaning they may not provide in-state tuition or could be harder to reach. There are 63 small-population commuting zones that cross state borders, which collectively have 77 broad-access institutions and serve about 190,000 students. The report also found 65 large-population zones that cross state lines with a total of 249 broad-access institutions enrolling roughly 1.3 million students.
Acton said broad-access institutions that draw students from multiple states are an “understudied angle” in understanding students’ geographical contexts and what barriers could be getting in the way of their going to college.
The Policy Implications
To expand students’ access to these colleges, the report recommends that states offer nearby out-of-state students tuition discounts and that local leaders explore ways to improve transportation infrastructure, among other policy suggestions.
Hillman emphasized that it’s also important to ensure broad-access institutions that are the only ones in their communities are well resourced. He suggested these colleges have a special federal or state designation that comes with extra financial support.
“Sometimes a college is … serving a great need and is really an anchor for that community,” he said.
Particularly in rural areas, broad-access institutions often do so much more for their communities than confer degrees, said Cecilia Orphan, associate professor of higher education at the University of Denver and founding co-director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. In some cases, these campuses provide local internet access and serve as major employers, among other services. Western Carolina University, for example, is home to its community’s power plant and has police officers that serve its surrounding area.
“It’s very tempting for policymakers to simply look at enrollment numbers … and to ask themselves whether or not that institution is needed,” Orphan said. “But if you think about the broader services that institution likely provides a local community, closing it could be catastrophic.”
Acton noted that limited access to broad-access institutions can especially hurt some of the most vulnerable students.
She previously conducted research with a team of economists focused on how community college proximity affected Texas high school students’ college-going decisions. They found that Black, Hispanic and lower-income students without a community college nearby were less likely to pursue higher ed, while white, Asian and upper-income students were more likely to travel to go to college.
She agrees higher ed decision-makers need to think carefully about what a college means to particular communities when they make policy choices.
“Where do we open new colleges? Where do we close colleges? Where do we merge colleges?” she said. If an institution closes, “what are the other options for the people in this area? Are the people who are in this area ones who would be able to travel and go to something further away? … Those are conversations for state policymakers and institutional leaders to be having.”
During his first 10 days in office, President Trump signed a plethora of executive orders to combat so-called woke ideology, reversed a long-standing immigration policy that barred ICE officers from raiding college campuses and sought to freeze federal grants that don’t align with his agenda—a move blocked by a federal court.
So far, his actions have had few immediate consequences for higher ed, and policy experts say more guidance is necessary to understand their implications. But the president has certainly created chaos and confusion, raising concern among university administrators across the country and inciting pre-emptive responses from some.
Throughout the past two weeks, higher ed experts have told Inside Higher Ed they are trying to walk the thin line between necessary caution and undue alarm.
Many of Trump’s initial actions will take time to enforce and may face intervention from the courts. And while the president has nominated former wrestling mogul Linda McMahon as secretary of education and former University of Florida vice president Penny Schwinn as deputy, neither has a confirmation hearing scheduled. Trump has yet to nominate an under secretary—the highest-ranking official overseeing colleges and universities. So it will likely be at least a few weeks, if not more, until the department reaches full capacity.
Until then, it will be run by acting secretary Denise Carter, who was already working in the department as head of the Office of Federal Student Aid, and a collection of 10 appointees who do not require confirmation. Of the 10, four have previously worked with the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank that McMahon formed in 2021.
Though the department is not yet fully staffed, the small landing team has leaped into action. In a Jan. 23 new release, department officials said they had removed or archived hundreds of documents, dissolved councils and canceled service contracts that go against the president’s “ongoing commitment to end illegal discrimination and wasteful spending.”
✔ Empower Parents and Students Through School Choice ✔ Put an End to Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools ✔ Combat Antisemitism on College Campuses ✔ Make Education Great Again
The president signed a record number of executive orders on his first day in office and has added to the tally nearly every day since. But the three that hold the most weight for colleges and universities concern DEI, “gender ideology” and antisemitism. Higher ed, free speech and civil rights advocates predict all three will create a significant chilling effects on campuses.
“Gender Ideology”
Signed on Inauguration Day, the first order declares that there are only two sexes, which the White House defines as “male” and “female.” The order also mandates that federal agencies use those definitions when “interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications” and bans the federal funding of any program that goes against those definitions or defends transgender and nonbinary students.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
The executive order Trump signed the following day, Jan. 21, tackled all things DEI, though unlike the first order, it never defined the term. Instead, it broadly ordered agencies—including the Education Department—to “enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”
The document instructs the department to provide guidance for colleges and universities on how to comply with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. It also designates all institutions that receive federal financial aid as subcontractors and says that as such, they “shall not consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin” in their programs or hiring decisions. Finally, it commissions the department to conduct an investigation of up to nine colleges with endowments worth more than $1 billion to scrutinize compliance.
Antisemitism
The most recent order, signed Wednesday, piggybacks on the tensions over recent campus protests and vows “forceful” measures to combat antisemitism. Its four main components define antisemitism, direct the Office for Civil Rights to reconsider closed investigations on ethnic and religious discrimination, encourage the Department of Justice to take action, and allow immigration officers to deport international student “sympathizers” who support antisemitic groups.
“Sympathizers” — so, in practice, anyone even perceived to be pro-Palestine. I cannot overstate how chilling this is for students and faculty: sweeping orders to report and suss these speakers out, opaque investigatory reviews, tethered to overbroad definitions of anti-Semitism. https://t.co/tBSWdj0ueb
DEI, LGBTQ+ and pro-Palestinian advocates, along with free speech and academic freedom groups, are pushing back against the order, and some are even encouraging colleges and universities not to comply unless pressured to do so.
But several colleges have already taken pre-emptive actions in an attempt to avoid financial penalties. For example a conference at Rutgers University about registered apprenticeships and historically Black colleges and universities was canceled last week, and Michigan State University canceled a Lunar New Year event this week. Rutgers officials, however, say calling off the conference wasn’t a university decision. Rather, it was canceled because the organizers, a group outside the university, received a stop work order from the Department of Labor.
Immigration Actions
Although less directly targeted at institutions of higher ed, the president has also taken executive actions related to immigration. He attempted (and failed) to strip the children of undocumented immigrants of birthright citizenship; rescinded guidance that prevented immigration arrests at schools, churches and colleges; and signed the Laken Riley Act into law, potentially putting the approval of some U.S. visas into the hands of state attorneys general.
The first executive action might have impacted some students’ access to in-state tuition or financial aid but would have had no direct implication on the colleges themselves. But the latter two could force university administrators to decide whether they will assist in deportation efforts and may impact the enrollment and hiring of international students and scholars.
Funding Freeze
Perhaps the most direct cause of chaos and concern among colleges, however, was the product of an internal Office of Management and Budget memo leaked Monday, which directed all federal agencies to pause thousands of grants and loans in order to conduct a “comprehensive analysis” and ensure they align with the president’s priorities.
The unprecedented guidance specifically exempted Social Security, Medicare and other programs that provide direct financial assistance to individuals. But initially many institutions feared the mandate would strip students of access to the Pell Grant and federal loans. The White House clarified that was not the case in a press conference and in follow-up memos, but colleges, universities and higher education nonprofit groups were still concerned.
ACE President Ted Mitchell: This is bad public policy, and it will have a direct impact on the funds that support students and research. The longer this goes on, the greater the damage will be. Full statement: https://t.co/Eee0IChlJo
Policy experts warned that even if temporary, lack of access to grants could impact minority-serving institutions, college preparation programs, childcare for student parents, food banks, student retention and graduation initiatives, campus hospital systems, and more. Multiple legal challenges quickly followed, and on Tuesday afternoon a federal judge in Washington blocked the freeze, just hours before it was scheduled to take effect.
Since then, the Trump administration has rescinded the original memo, although it has criticized news organizations for saying the freeze was reversed entirely. Instead, officials argued in a news release—titled “Another Day, More Lies”—that the analysis of all programs is ongoing and Trump’s order remains “in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented as the administration works to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.”
This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.
It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.
Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction.
The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.
Pauses on research grant applications through the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation that started prior to the OMB memo remain in place. The agencies are responsible for billions of dollars in research funding at universities across the country, and faculty members are still largely concerned that the stoppage will interfere with critical STEM research projects, including those that have advanced treatments for common diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Harvard University last week laid off the staff of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, who were tasked with identifying the direct descendants of those enslaved by Harvard-affiliated administrators, faculty and staff, The Boston Globe reported.
The work, which was part of the university’s $100 million Legacy of Slavery initiative, will now fall entirely to American Ancestors, a national genealogical nonprofit that Harvard was already partnering with, according to a news release.
A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs to the Globe.
The Harvard Crimsonfirst reported the news, noting that the HSRP staff were terminated without warning Jan. 23.
Protesting the move, Harvard history professor Vincent Brown resigned from the Legacy of Slavery Memorial Project Committee, which was assigned the task of designing a memorial to those enslaved by members of the Harvard community.
Brown wrote in his resignation letter, which he shared with Inside Higher Ed, that he had recently returned from a productive research trip to Antigua and Barbuda when he “learned that the entire [HSRP] team had been laid off in sudden telephone calls with an officer in Harvard’s human resources department.” He called the terminations “vindictive as well as wasteful.”
“I hope and expect that the H&LS initiative will weather this latest controversy,” Brown wrote. “I only regret that I cannot formally be a part of that effort.”
Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Initiative has repeatedly come under fire since it was announced in 2022. Critics assailed its lack of progress last year. The two professors who co-chaired the memorial committee resigned last May, citing frustration with administrators; the executive director of the initiative, Roeshana Moore-Evans, followed them out the door. Then HSRP founding director Richard Cellini told the Crimson last fall that vice provost Sara Bleich had instructed him “‘not to find too many descendants.’”
A university spokesperson denied that charge, telling the Crimson, “There is no directive to limit the number of direct descendants to be identified through this work.”
Cellini was among those fired from the HSRP last week.
An editor or reviewer can have an outsize impact on the career of a scholar, particularly in the early stages. The stakes can be high for an author. A negative review or edit can set back a research plan by months and harm a scholar’s chances for tenure or promotion. This reality creates a power imbalance between an editor or reviewer and an author that can be abused.
Graduate schools offer few pointers on how to navigate editor and reviewer relationships. Our goal in this essay is to debunk the process and offer suggestions and observations for editors/reviewers and authors on how to approach the task in a more thoughtful and efficient way.
Understanding the Reviewer and Editor Roles
First, it is important to note that while reviewers and editors take part in a similar process—assessing the work of an author—the tasks are different. The editor is rarely an expert in the specific subject of an article and necessarily needs to rely on impartial reviewers to place the work in context. Nevertheless, the editor—and, at times, an editorial board—is the decision-maker in this equation. Having a clear and transparent line of communication between the author and the editor is critical.
The task of the reviewer is to place the work in its scholarly context and to weigh its merit. Is the work breaking new ground? Is it challenging a long-held interpretation within the academy? Are the sources contemporary and the most relevant? Does the work fit the subject area of the journal or press? Can it be revised to make it suitable for publication?
It is our strong belief that reviewers need to meet the authors where they are—that is, to understand the goal of the author, determine whether the work is suitable for the journal or press in question and, if so, help them reach the promised land of publication. Simply put: The reviewer should weigh the author’s case against the author’s intent.
Unfortunately, this does not always happen: It is sometimes the case that reviewers stray from this path and insert suggestions that they would like to see addressed but that are not central to the submitted work. The dreaded “reviewer number 2” has become the bane of many an author’s existence. In this sort of review, the reviewer raises so many questions and objections that an author is left to ponder whether the two are reading the same text. And, it must be said, just as on social media, anonymity can at times lead to incivility. Instead of being helpful, sometimes a reviewer is unkind and cruel.
The role of the editor is to referee between the goals of the author and the desires of the reviewer. Egos and politics often come into play in this process because reviewers in many cases are colleagues of the editor and contributors to the publication in question. Our experience suggests there are two major types of editors. Authors will need to adjust their approach based on which of these two types best describes their editor:
Sympathetic editor: This is the ideal. This editor will work with an author to publish a submission if the research is strong and will allow them to keep their own voice. They do not seek to impose their vision on the book or article. They do not allow their personal politics to influence the decision-making process. They are driven by one central question: Does the author accomplish what they set out to do? This type of editor tries to determine whether a reviewer is acting out of hubris by suggesting tangential and substantial changes or whether they are addressing core issues. On the opposite end of the spectrum, they are alert to the two-paragraph, lackadaisical reviewer who read the work over lunch while answering emails.
Visionary editor: It may sound counterintuitive, but an editor with their own vision for someone else’s work can mean frustration and ultimately rejection for an author. This type of editor sees someone else’s work as an opportunity to explore an aspect of a topic that interests them. They impose their own vision on someone else’s work rather than determining whether the author has achieved the goal they set for themselves. This typically takes the form of a lengthy response asking an author to fundamentally rethink their piece. The response contains so many critiques that to adhere to the suggestions would amount to writing a completely different piece of scholarship. This editor also tends to extend and even impede the process almost endlessly.
As an example, upon the death of Fidel Castro in November 2016, the Latin American historian of this writing duo (Argote-Freyre) was asked by a journal editorial board member to author an article comparing the career of Castro with that of the prior dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista. The resulting piece concluded that the two political figures shared more similarities than differences. The editor, although agreeing to the concept, was unhappy with the conclusions reached by the essay. The editor struck out paragraph after paragraph; a lecture on tone and thesis ensued.
The editor suggested a piece analyzing the revisionist historiography on Batista—a subject outside the contours of the original assignment and one that would take many months to complete. The author made a rookie mistake in assuming that a member of the editorial board was vested with the authority to make assignments. In retrospect, it seems as if the assignment was foisted upon the working editor, who then wanted to steer the piece in a completely different direction. The author withdrew the piece; the only positive was that only a few months were lost in the process.
The visionary editor is the type who is never satisfied. They forget that the piece is the author’s, not theirs. Yes, the editor is a gatekeeper for the journal or press, but if it is not a good fit, they should say so and move on. This picky editor sends a revision back to a new third (or fourth) reviewer, who is likely to ask for another, different round of revisions. This is nothing other than moving the goalposts. One of us had this occur with an editor who said, “As you know, we often send articles to several rounds of reviewers.” Well, we did not know, because the journal’s website did not say that. Such a process could go on forever and, to our eyes, makes no sense. The editor should decide on his or her own whether the author has revised sufficiently: It is clear from the reader reports what needed to be done, so just check and see. The editor needs to be decisive.
At the point a work is about to be sent to an additional set of reviewers, an author needs to withdraw the article or book from consideration. Run as fast as you can in search of another editor and publication. Do not let someone waste your time, especially if your clock is ticking for tenure and promotion.
How to Make Relationships Work— and When to Walk Away
The author-editor relationship should be a dance, not a duel. An author is not at the mercy of the process; you are a partner. If you are not clicking with the editor, walk away. A bad first date rarely turns into a good second date. This is particularly true when working on a book project, given the many steps and long timeline involved.
For a revise-and-resubmit, we suggest strongly that you be professionally assertive. Ask about the review of the resubmission before you do it. If the editor says it will go to new readers, withdraw the piece. This never goes well. Editors should be transparent about the steps involved. It is our experience that some editors are hesitant to divulge their process. If that is the case, the author needs to reassess the integrity of that process.
Being fully transparent allows you to ask for transparency in return, whether you are an editor or an author. If, as we have experienced, two peer reviews come in that are quite opposed, the editor should get a third before returning to the author. If there are two or three reviews, the editor should synthesize them with a memo attached to the reports. The summary should go something like: “All reviewers agree chapter four needs to be revised with this material, but there is disagreement about chapter six.” There is also nothing wrong with asking the author to make the tough call on a contested point of interpretation. Once again, it is the author’s scholarship, not the editor’s, the journal’s or the press’s.
For authors: Have a conversation with the editor. If it’s a call, follow up with a written summary. When responding to reader reports, especially when they disagree, say what you will and will not do. Do not say you will revise when you disagree—but don’t be stubborn. Give a little to get what you won’t compromise. If you disagree with a reviewer’s suggestion, say why, and ask the editor for approval not to make a specific change suggested in one of the reader reports. Get that approval. If the editor says the revision will go back to one or both original readers instead of making the final call himself, politely insist that the written exchange between the author and editor be sent along, too.
It may not always work. Recently, one of us did just what we described and the editor said the plan sounded good, only to have the journal reject the revision. The editorial board said a specific change was not made even though the editor agreed that change would not be necessary. Poor communication and coordination between an editor and an editorial board should not penalize an author.
Finally, we’d like to briefly weigh in on the argument that professors should reject peer reviewing because it is an unpaid task. If you do not want to do it, don’t—but there are compelling reasons to write responsible peer reviews. First, unpaid labor is not without merit. Even if your tenure and promotion committees might not value the task, that does not mean it is not worthwhile. You’re not paid to volunteer at your local food pantry, but you still do it. Second, people do this for you; it is time to be generous in return. Third, reviewing provides insights into the process for your own work. Peer reviewing keeps you current on trends in the field. Editing and peer reviewing make you a better writer and produce better scholarship. Isn’t that what we all want?
Frank Argote-Freyre and Christopher M. Bellitto are professors of history at Kean University in Union, N.J., with extensive experience with peer review on both sides of the process. Argote-Freyre, a scholar of Latin American history, serves as a frequent peer reviewer and content editor on various book and article projects. Bellitto, a medievalist, is the series editor of Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition and academic editor at large of Paulist Press.
Institutional neutrality at universities is having its moment in the aftermath of a year of nationwide campus protests over the Israel-Gaza war. The list of universities that have adopted neutrality has grown over the course of the past 12 months. The concept necessarily is expanding to include conversations around university investments. Yet, academic unions have slipped under the radar as purveyors of positions on political issues. They should not be neglected in the push for neutral stances except for those that directly pertain to an institutional mission. In the case of the union, this should be to promote labor interests. Professors from a range of ideologies should be able to find common cause for collective bargaining purposes without being forced into supporting other political positions.
The lack of neutrality of professors’ unions on non-labor-related issues is a pernicious problem. Federal law and some state laws that pertain to unions work to compel professors’ speech. Under the federal National Labor Relations Act, if a majority of private sector workers voting in a union election choose to unionize, all workers in that bargaining unit must be exclusively represented by that union. New York’s Taylor Law requires the same for public employees. And, if workers want the benefits of membership, like voting for union leadership and contracts, they must pay dues.
While public employees could choose not to be union members before the Supreme Court’s 2017 Janus v. AFSCME ruling, that case now guarantees their right to not pay agency fees. But even if workers wish to eschew membership and not pay fees,they cannot dissociate entirely. They are required to be represented by a union that speaks via statements at the local, state and national level on many non-labor-related subjects. Therefore, with their veneer of solidarity, unions quash viewpoint diversity and suppress First Amendment rights. They tie one of the only forms of dissent possible (withdrawing dues) to disenfranchisement from the union, the organization that negotiates their wages and labor conditions.
Professors who do stop paying their dues are often derided as “free riders.” They risk offending union leadership, who have a say in university processes that can impact their employment, like grievances and denial of reappointment. The union is formally required to provide equal advocacy as their exclusive representative. However, even if one believes biases will never prevail against “free riders,” there is still the suppressive impact of professors’ perception that paying dues and keeping quiet is best for their careers.
And so, professors are forced into a kind of protection racket, paying unions that may endorse positions with which they may disagree. The National Education Association has opined on everything from ending private prisons to climate change, from promoting women-led businesses to helmets for motorcyclists. They have issued statements on the Israel-Gaza conflict, advocated for codifying Roe v. Wade into law and called for Donald Trump’s ouster. They have adopted progressive ideological lenses throughout such statements, arguing for instance that “white supremacy culture” is prevalent in the current U.S., and that “intersectionality must be … addressed … in order to advance the [NEA’s] social justice work.”
To be clear, I am not arguing that these positions taken by unions are bad. I am not reflecting my own political preferences. I am not highlighting progressive examples to critique only progressive examples: I could find none that can be considered conservative. I am not saying that it’s not possible that a majority of members agree with the statements. I am also not arguing that workers do not have the right to form associations to advocate for political causes.
What I am arguing is that due to laws making exclusive representation compulsory, unions should adopt neutrality on political issues that do not impact the primary purpose of academic unions: advocating for professors’ interests as workers. This lets ideological diversity exist and prevents coerced speech and dues payments. This neutrality is of paramount importance with public sector unions, where union leadership activities may receive taxpayer-subsidized administrative benefits.
This neutrality should extend to political endorsements of individual candidates. While there may be some argument to be made that endorsing a pro-union or pro–higher education candidate over their opponent directly pertains to professors’ interests as workers, this carries with it implicit endorsement of a wide slate of other policies. A better approach would be for unions to support (or critique) candidates’ specific policy proposals or voting records. It would also reduce antagonism between unions and candidates they did not endorse, should those be elected.
Recent examples show the perils of academic unions not having a neutrality standard. In 2018, a University of Maine professor sued his union, noting his opposition to its stances, like endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. More recently, in 2022, six City University of New York professors filed suit against the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which passed a pro-Palestinian resolution they viewed as antisemitic. They resigned their memberships, along with approximately 263 other professors. But because of the Taylor Law, they are required to be represented by the PSC, which did not give evidence it could be fair in representing them. The PSC called them free riders, claiming their lawsuit was “meritless … funded by the notoriously right-wing National Right to Work Legal Foundation,” and described the “‘Right to Work’ agenda” as “rooted in white supremacy.”
After lower courts ruled to dismiss their suit, the CUNY professors appealed to the Supreme Court, which just this month declined to hear their case. Yet, while this case could have been a victory for viewpoint diversity and free speech and an impetus for unions to get on the institutional neutrality bandwagon, future such suits will doubtless arise and reach a court favorable to their claims. Academic unions should get ahead of such a court ruling and make union membership attractive to all who may want to participate based on advocacy for improved working conditions, but not for particular solutions to international wars—or for wearing motorcycle helmets.
Colleen P. Eren is a professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University and a research fellow at the Segal Center for Academic Pluralism. Her commentaries on higher ed and other topics can be found across a range of publications, including The New York Times, Discourse, Reason, and the Foundation for Economic Education.
As an undergraduate student, Lisa MacLeod wasn’t sure where her career path would take her. She majored in English literature and international relations with the aspirations of being a journalist or a State Department staffer and found herself back in academia not long after.
Lisa MacLeod, assistant dean of student success at Soka University of America
Lisa MacLeod/Soka University of America
Now, as the inaugural assistant dean of student success at Soka University of America since last fall, MacLeod is charged with breaking institutional silos at the California institution to improve student outcomes after graduation, working collaboratively across campus.
MacLeod spoke with Inside Higher Ed about her time thus far at the institution, a private liberal arts college, and her aspirations in the long-term.
Inside Higher Ed: What is your new role at Soka and how does it fit into institutional goals for student success?
MacLeod: One of the most important things [about my role] is that I am housed under the dean of faculty, so I’m not under the dean of students, which is very different from how a lot of schools have done this.
My top priority, luckily, isn’t getting students to graduate—because we already are doing that very well as an institution … I’m not just new in the job, the position is new at the university—so there’s some room for me to define what the position is.
I was asked to look specifically at advising. Right now, our program is all faculty individually advising students for academic advising. Career services and internships is the other side of the house, and historically, the two sides of the house don’t talk to each other very well. So looking at how we advise, but also thinking about, are there ways that we can integrate better, because we have lots of good things happening by different people. But do faculty know about that? Do they know enough about it to recommend it to students? Not so much.
The other thing is starting to integrate career readiness skills into the curriculum. This year, we are rolling out RATE (Reflect, Articulate, Translate, Evaluate), which was developed by the University of Minnesota for their liberal arts students.
We’re having our first cohort this coming semester—so beginning in February—of faculty fellows who have pledged to develop the RATE system into their existing course, and we’re supporting them with some training and other kinds of activities so that we’re very specific in the application. We’re not asking you to change your course. What we’re asking is that you make it more evident to students how they are developing career readiness skills in addition to academic and subject area knowledge.
Inside Higher Ed: You were a double major in college. While interdisciplinary learning can be an asset to students, sometimes academic departments can be more focused on helping students on a specific path within their discipline. Do you have any insights based on your experience as a dual major and helping students find their own path?
MacLeod: At Soka, we don’t have majors—everyone graduates with a major in liberal arts, and then within that, we have concentrations. Students here do have the opportunity to double concentrate, so they’re not taking as many courses as you would for a major, but there’s still some degree of specialty.
I encourage them to look at the whole course catalog and say, “Take the classes that really attract you, that are interesting, and you’ll figure out how they connect to each other if you look for it,” and to not worry about double concentrations. Or, you know, force yourself to take courses you wouldn’t otherwise.
Certainly, I encourage students, depending on what their interests are, if you’re going to go to graduate school, yes, take statistics, take a research methodology course. Do these kinds of courses that are skill building [so] you’ll have that [for] the next level of your education; they will have expected you to have that background.
But beyond that, I’m really focused on having students maybe try something they wouldn’t otherwise. I wish as an undergraduate I had taken an anthropology class, but it never occurred to me; it just wasn’t on my radar. Explore, because you don’t know what you don’t know, and to really find something that drives them, that they’re really excited about doing the coursework and learning more about that area. Because they’ll put more into it, and as they put more into it, they’re going to develop the liberal arts skills in the process. Whereas, if they’re forcing themselves to take a course because they feel they should take this course, they’re not going to have the same level of motivation. They’re not going to get the same out of it.
Inside Higher Ed: As you said, one of your priorities is advising, which is so important to the student journey. What does quality advising look like to you?
MacLeod: I think that quality advising really requires time and listening.
I always ask students to come in with kind of a worksheet: Where are you [in your progress] toward graduation? Where are you in terms of taking required courses? But I also ask them things like, “OK, this is a required course, but you have a selection of five different faculty members that might be teaching that course, and of course, they bring their skills and expertise and kind of personality in each course. Why did you choose that faculty member? If you’re interested in this, maybe this other faculty member—even though it’s the same requirement—might teach that course in a way that you would find appealing?” And directing them to resources, encouraging them to talk to faculty before they enrolled in the course if they have questions or concerns or if they’re not certain about something.
Then also asking them very blatant questions that I wish someone had asked me when I was an undergraduate. What are your plans after you graduate? What are you doing to achieve that goal? What information do you need to know, and how are you going to get it moving forward?
I took time off [after graduating] because I’d never had those conversations. Maybe people at the university thought I was having it with my family. My family may have thought I was having it with people at the university. I’m not sure where I lost the memo, but it just didn’t happen. Before, someone had always come along and said, “Apply for this,” and it was a very structured thing. That’s not how life after graduation works at all. So I ask those questions I wish someone had asked me.
Inside Higher Ed: What is student success to you?
MacLeod: It’s not for me to define for someone else what success looks like. I have my own ideas, but I think it’s wrong to impose that on other people, because success can look like so many different things.
In general, I feel that student success is they graduate from the program, and they feel good about that. That there’s not regret that they should have gone someplace else, but also that we’ve equipped them with the skills in their personal and in their professional life to face the challenges that will inevitably come and to be able to surmount them.
The first couple years after graduation for everyone is hard—that’s just kind of the nature of the beast—but that they are prepared for, that they can get through it, and know that there’s something on the other side. that they are confident in their skills, that they will figure it out and then end up on the other side in a career that they find fulfilling in some manner, being able to contribute to the community, if that’s their goal, in a way that is meaningful to them. And hopefully happy alumni that are talking to our current students that and sharing their experiences.
Inside Higher Ed: What are your long-term goals in this new role?
MacLeod: It feels like so much of academic life is keeping your head above water for now.
I think that in the long term, I’d really like to see a more collaborative campus culture, where faculty members are supporting each other in their endeavors, maybe a bit more. It’s not that my colleagues are unsupportive, but we don’t always ask each other or are aware of the ways in which our research overlaps and we could actually be doing more—whether it’s with our teaching or where we could be drawing more on each other’s skills and knowledge base.
I’m still really new at this … so I think right now my priority is still listening, rather than planning for the future.
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