Tag: Events

Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

If Columbia University wants a financial relationship with the federal government, the Ivy League institution will need to overhaul its discipline process, ban masks, expel some students, put an academic department under review, give its campus security “full law enforcement authority” and reform its admissions practices.

Those are just some of the sweeping and unprecedented demands the Trump administration made Thursday in a letter to the Manhattan-based institution. They come less than a week after the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts at the university. Columbia has until March 20 to respond.

“We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,” three Trump officials wrote. “After which we hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”

The demands escalate an already precarious situation for Columbia as it simultaneously faces pressure from the White House to comply and pressure from students and faculty to fight back.

“We are in a state of shock and disbelief, and we are working with our administration to … reaffirm free speech and shared governance on campus, and to resist all Trump efforts to take academic decisions out of the hands of academics,” said Jean Howard, a member of the executive committee of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “Our administration has been cautious in dealing with Trump up to now. We’re hoping they will take a more aggressive posture in the future.”

A Columbia spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that officials are reviewing the letter but didn’t say Friday whether the university will comply with the demands. Several free speech and higher ed policy experts say the letter amounts to an unprecedented assault on higher education that could threaten foundational principles such as academic freedom. The demands, which don’t appear rooted in any specific legal authority, also offer yet another hint at how President Trump could reshape higher education.

“The subjugation of universities to official power is a hallmark of autocracy,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, said in a statement. “No one should be under any illusions about what’s going on here.”

But the Trump administration says canceling the grants and contracts is necessary due to Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” In the letter, officials said that the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence.”

Building Tensions

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, criticized the letter as an “outrageous” example of “extreme federal overreach,” adding that institutional autonomy is a critical part of American higher education.

“It’s perfectly reasonable for the federal government to hold all of those institutions accountable to civil rights laws, and we expect that,” he said. “But for the government to prescribe changes in academic structure, changes essentially in curriculum and to curtail research, that’s beyond the pale.”

One of the letter’s 12 demands is for Columbia to put its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under academic receivership for at least five years. This would mean that faculty lose control of the department and the university puts an outside chair in charge. The letter didn’t specify why officials focused on this particular department. But it’s worth noting the academic division is home to Joseph Massad, a controversial tenured professor whom lawmakers have accused of making anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements over the years.

Federal scrutiny of colleges and universities, especially by Republicans, ratcheted up after the wave of pro-Palestinian protests in fall 2023 and spring 2024. But the Trump administration has only added to the pressure on colleges since it took office in January, quickly moving to cut funding to programs and institutions seemingly at odds with the president’s priorities.

Columbia has been at the epicenter of the scrutiny, particularly after an encampment popped up on the small Manhattan campus’s central lawn last April. The protests culminated in early May, when students occupied a campus building and New York City police officers eventually stormed the hall, arresting those inside.

Although other colleges faced protests and were accused of mishandling reports of antisemitic harassment and discrimination, Columbia took a hard line with protesters and was one of the few to bring in law enforcement. But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from targeting the university, nor has it led Columbia to draw a line and start fighting back.

On Thursday, the same day the letter was sent, Columbia handed down student sanctions related to the building occupation. The sentences ranged from multiyear suspensions and expulsions to temporary degree revocations for graduates.

Professors and other experts have warned that federal scrutiny—including high-profile grillings and subpoenas from Capitol Hill—could have damaging consequences for colleges. But alarm escalated significantly last week when the Trump administration bypassed the typical investigation process for civil rights violations and slashed Columbia’s access to grants and contracts.

The cuts, made by Trump’s novel multidepartment antisemitism task force, are the first but likely not the last.

The task force has already said at least 10 other universities are under review, including Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights is investigating allegations related to antisemitism at at least 60 colleges.

Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, said Columbia needs to reject the demands and other universities need to speak up now in defense of higher education. If left on its own, Columbia could fail to defend itself, he said.

“Other universities have an imperative to come to the defense of Columbia, because this is not just about Columbia,” Enos said. “The Trump administration is trying to attack all of higher education, and Columbia cannot try to mount a defense on its own.”

Frustrations Abound

Outside policy analysts and scholars on both sides of the political spectrum are frustrated with the situation—but for different reasons.

Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, described Columbia’s handling of antisemitism on campus over the course of the past year as “egregious” and a “clear violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity or national origin. But at the same time, he said the Trump administration’s unclear process for determining a remedy is problematic.

“Some of the things on the list I find pretty facially plausible. Others require a much higher standard of justification,” he said. “But because they have not been transparent and … there has not been any back-and-forth, there has not been a proper demonstration of the misconduct, which would be necessary to convince me that these specific remedies are called for.”

Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies American politics and Jewish history, sees the situation as one of “competing truths.”

“The Columbia administration has needed for a long time to act against antisemitic demonstrators and vandals on the campus,” Ginsberg said, noting that arrests without indictments or suspensions are not enough. But at the same time, “the Trump administration has overreached by threatening Columbia with dire consequences,” he added.

He noted that the situation presents Columbia administrators with an opportunity.

“Sure, the [Trump] administration has overstepped. It’s threatening to fire a cannon, drop a nuclear bomb,” Ginsberg said. “But as I say, that threat gives the Columbia administration an opportunity to do things that it has needed to do and probably wanted to do for some time.”

He added that though he’s certainly hesitant when the government tries to dictate what departments are valid, in this instance, higher education has failed in its responsibility to its students. He also trusts that the Trump administration will be satisfied so long as Columbia carries out disciplinary action against students who disrupt academic life and threaten others’ safety.

“Anytime the federal government tells the university how to organize its admissions processes, or which, if any, academic departments are valid and legitimate, of course I’m concerned,” Ginsberg said. “But my guess is that nothing will come of those particular demands. I mean, I hope the university won’t cave in.”

On the other hand, Eddy Conroy, a senior education policy manager at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said all the Trump administration’s recent actions should be “deeply troubling.”

Columbia has already demonstrated an aggressive response to student protests, which should be protected by the First Amendment, Conroy said, and it’s not up to the federal government to determine whether those disciplinary procedures were adequate.

“We have an important history of peaceful protest in the United States, and sit-ins are part of that. Columbia can choose if it wants to deal with those things through its own disciplinary procedure or by pursuing trespassing charges,” he said. But to Trump, this “is a test case of how far we can push things when it comes to suppressing speech.”

Conroy believes that the president is trying to make an example of Columbia in the hops that other institutions will then capitulate without fight, and the university’s response as a test dummy isn’t helping.

“The [Trump] administration hits Columbia, and Columbia cowers and says, ‘Please hit us harder,’” he said.

To Howard, the Columbia AAUP representative, Trump’s actions are a threat to the gemstone that is American higher education.

We’ve become “the greatest university system in the world. But that requires independence. It requires the free expression of differing viewpoints,” she said. Trump’s demands are “so undemocratic, so against the norms and conventions of university life, that to comply would just destroy the heart of the institution.”

Source link

March 14, 2025
Columbia Sanctions Students Who Occupied Campus Building

Columbia University handed down sanction decisions for student protesters who occupied Hamilton Hall in April of last year, the university announced in a statement Thursday.

The sanctions come as the university faces crippling attacks from the Trump administration over its handling of the protests last year, including the loss of $400 million in federal funding, which could lead to mass layoffs and program cuts.

The university has not released the names of affected students, nor more details about how many will be expelled or suspended.

The punishments, determined by the university judiciary board, are unusually harsh, ranging from multiyear suspensions and expulsions to temporary degree revocations for graduates, according to the email. While occupying the building—which students renamed Hind Hall in honor of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers—students damaged property and broke windows.

Last year, only a few of the students who occupied the building were punished, and most remained in good standing with the university, according to documents the university gave to Congress last year. Of the 22 students who occupied the hall, only three received sanctions, the most severe being short-term suspension. At the time, Columbia said the disciplinary process was “ongoing for many students.”

University spokespeople told Inside Higher Ed that the decisions were the culmination of a months-long investigation. For all other student protests last spring, the judiciary board “recognized previously imposed disciplinary action,” according to the email.

Last weekend, Columbia graduate and legal U.S. permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and threatened with deportation for his role in the pro-Palestine protests. Yesterday, Khalil sued the university, along with Barnard College, for allegedly sharing private student disciplinary records with members of Congress and other third-party groups.

Source link

March 14, 2025
Layoffs Gut Federal Education Research Agency

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic first forced schools and colleges into remote learning, researchers, policymakers and higher education leaders may no longer have access to the federal data they need to gather a complete picture of how those disruptions have affected a generation of students long term—or hold states and colleges accountable for the interventions they deployed to address the fallout.

That’s because the National Center for Education Statistics, the Education Department’s data-collection arm that’s administered surveys and studies about the state of K-12, higher education and the workforce since 1867, is suddenly a shell of itself.

As of this week, the NCES is down to five employees after the department fired nearly half its staff earlier this week. The broader Institute of Education Sciences, which houses NCES, also lost more than 100 employees as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to eliminate alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” in federal funding.

The mass firings come about a month after federal education data collection data took another big blow: In February, the department cut nearly $900 million in contracts at IES, which ended what some experts say was critical research into schools and fueled layoffs at some of the research firms that held those contracts, including MDRC, Mathematica, NORC and Westat.

Although Trump and his allies have long blamed COVID-related learning loss on President Joe Biden’s approval of prolonged remote learning, numerous experts told Inside Higher Ed that without some of the federal data the NCES was collecting, it will be hard to draw definitive conclusions about those or any other claims about national education trends.

‘Backbone of Accountability’

“The backbone of accountability for our school systems begins with simply collecting data on how well they’re doing. The fact that our capacity to do that is being undermined is really indefensible,” said Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “One could conceive this as part of an agenda to undermine the very idea of truth and evidence in public education.”

But the Education Department says its decision to nearly eliminate the NCES and so many IES contracts is rooted in what it claims are the agency’s own failures.

“Despite spending hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds annually, IES has failed to effectively fulfill its mandate to identify best practices and new approaches that improve educational outcomes and close achievement gaps for students,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the department, said in an email to Inside Higher Ed Thursday.

Biedermann said the department plans to restructure IES in the coming months in order to provide “states with more useful data to improve student outcomes while maintaining rigorous scientific integrity and cost effectiveness.”

But many education researchers disagree with that characterization of IES and instead view it as an unmatched resource for informing higher education policy decisions.

“Some of these surveys allow us to know if people are being successful in college. It tells us where those students are enrolled in college and where they came from. For example, COVID impacted everyone, but it had a disproportionate impact on specific regions in the U.S. and specific social and socioeconomic groups in the U.S.,” said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

“Post-COVID, states and regions have implemented a lot of interventions to help mitigate learning loss and accelerate learning for specific individuals. We’ll be able to know by comparing region to region or school to school whether or not those gaps increased or reduced in certain areas.”

Without uniform federal data to ground comparisons of pandemic-related and other student success interventions, it will be harder to hold education policymakers accountable, Odle and others told Inside Higher Ed this week. However, Odle believes that may be the point of the Trump administration’s assault on the Education Department’s research arm.

“It’s in essence a tacit statement that what they are doing may potentially be harmful to students and schools, and they don’t want the American public or researchers to be able to clearly show that,” he said. “By eliminating these surveys and data collection, and reducing staff at the Department of Education who collect, synthesize and report the data, every decision-maker—regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum—is going to be limited in the data and information they have access to.”

Scope of Data Loss Unclear

It’s not clear how many of the department’s dozens of data-collection programs—including those related to early childhood education, college student outcomes and workforce readiness—will be downsized or ended as a result of the cuts. The department did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for clarity on exactly which contracts were canceled. (It did confirm, however, that it still maintains contracts for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the College Scorecard and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.)

A now-fired longtime NCES employee who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation said they and others who worked on those data-collection programs for years are still in the dark on the future of many of the other studies IES administers.

“We’ve been out of the loop on all these conversations about the state of these studies. That’s been taking place at a higher level—or outside of NCES entirely,” said the terminated employee. “What these federal sources do is synthesize all the different other data sources that already exist to provide a more comprehensive national picture in a way that saves researchers a lot of the trouble of having to combine these different sources themselves and match them up. It provides consistent methodologies.”

Even if some of the data-collection programs continue, there will be hardly any NCES staff to help researchers and policymakers accurately navigate new or existing data, which was the primary function of most workers there.

“We are a nonpartisan agency, so we’ve always shied away from interpreting or making value judgments about what the data say,” the fired NCES worker said. “We are basically a help desk and support resource for people who are trying to use this data in their own studies and their own projects.”

‘Jeopardizing’ Strong Workforce

One widely used data set with an uncertain future is the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study—a detailed survey that has followed cohorts of first-time college students over a period of six to eight years since 1989. The latest iteration of the BPS survey has been underway since 2019, and it included questions meant to illuminate the long-term effects of pandemic-related learning loss. But like many other NCES studies, data collection for BPS has been on pause since last month, when the department pulled the survey’s contract with the Research Triangle Institute.

In a blog post the Institute for Higher Education Policy published Wednesday, the organization noted that BPS is intertwined with the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, which is a comprehensive nationwide study designed to determine how students and their families pay for college and demographic characteristics of those enrolled.

The two studies “are the only federal data sources that provide comprehensive insights into how students manage college affordability, stay enrolled and engaged with campus resources, persist to completion, and transition to the workforce,” Taylor Myers, assistant director of research and policy, wrote. “Losing these critical data hinders policy improvements and limits our understanding of the realities students face.”

That post came one day after IHEP sent members of Congress a letter signed by a coalition of 87 higher education organizations and individual researchers urging lawmakers to demand transparency about why the department slashed funding for postsecondary data collection.

“These actions weaken our capacity to assess and improve educational and economic outcomes for students—directly jeopardizing our ability to build a globally competitive workforce,” the letter said. “Without these insights, policymakers will soon be forced to make decisions in the dark, unable to steward taxpayer dollars efficiently.”

Picking Up the Slack

But not every education researcher believes federal data is as vital to shaping education policy and evaluating interventions as IHEP’s letter claims.

“It’s unclear that researchers analyzing those data have done anything to alter outcomes for students,” said Jay Greene, a senior research fellow in the Center for Education Policy at the right-wing Heritage Foundation. “Me being able to publish articles is not the same thing as students benefiting. We have this assumption that research should prove things, but in the world of education, we have very little evidence of that.”

Greene, who previously worked as a professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas, said he never used federal data in his assessments of educational interventions and instead used state-level data or collected his own. “Because states and localities actually run schools, they’re in a position to do things that might make it better or worse,” he said. “Federal data is just sampling … It’s not particularly useful for causal research designs to develop practices and interventions that improve education outcomes.”

Other researchers have a more measured view of what needs to change in federal education data collection.

Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, has previously called for reforms at IES, arguing that some of the studies are too expensive without enough focus on educators’ evolving priorities, which as of late include literacy, mathematics and how to handle the rise of artificial intelligence.

But taking a sledgehammer to NCES isn’t the reform she had in mind. Moreover, she said blaming federal education data collections and researchers for poor education outcomes is “completely ridiculous.”

“There’s a breakdown between knowledge and practice in the education world,” Lake said. “We don’t adopt things that work at the scale we need to, but that’s not on researchers or the quality of research that’s being produced.”

But just because federal education data collection may not focus on specific interventions, “that doesn’t mean those data sets aren’t useful,” said Christina Whitfield, senior vice president and chief of staff for the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

“A lot of states have really robust data systems, and in a lot of cases they provide more detail than the federal data systems do,” she said. “However, one of the things the federal data provides is a shared language and common set of definitions … If we move toward every state defining these key elements individually or separately, we lose a lot of comparability.”

If many of the federal data collection projects aren’t revived, Whitfield said other entities, including nonprofits and corporations, will likely step in to fill the void. But that likely won’t be a seamless transition without consequence.

“At least in the short term, there’s going to be a real issue of how to vet those different solutions and determine which is the highest-quality, efficient and most useful response to the information vacuum we’re going to experience,” Whitfield said. And even if there’s just a pause on some of the data collections and federal contracts are able to resume eventually, “there’s going to be a gap and a real loss in the continuity of that data and how well you can look back longitudinally.”

Source link

March 14, 2025
Residential Communities Centered on Race, LGBTQ Closed for 2025

In the wake of federal and state bans on diversity, equity and inclusion, several colleges and universities are eliminating the option for students to live in culture-based housing starting next fall—a trend that could signal increased attacks on certain student resources that went largely untouched under previous state-level DEI bans.

The University of Iowa confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that it will be ceasing operations of three of its living-learning communities: All In, for LGBTQ students; Unidos, for Latino students; and Young, Gifted and Black, for Black students. North Carolina State University will also shut down two culture-based dorms—called Living and Learning Villages at NCSU—dedicated to Native American and Black students, as first reported in The Nubian Message, the college’s Black student-led newspaper.

In both cases, the institutions will no longer offer the residential communities starting next semester. Both NCSU and Iowa are retaining other learning communities focused on academic majors and other interests.

The cancellations come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s crusade against all things even tangentially related to diversity, equity and inclusion. A Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education stated that federal law prohibits the use of race in relation to a variety of campus programs and activities, including housing, going beyond the restrictions set by most statewide anti-DEI legislation.

In the aftermath of that letter, many universities—including some private institutions and institutions in solidly blue states—began scrubbing words related to DEI from their websites and shuttering DEI offices. But only a handful of institutions have gotten rid of the housing communities, which have often been lauded for strengthening students’ sense of belonging on campus. (Belonging is associated with higher rates of retention and mental well-being, multiple studies have found.)

A spokesman for the University of Iowa did not say what led to the decision to close the three living-learning communities. Iowa passed legislation last year banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices on college campuses. The university also announced Thursday that it would be permanently shuttering its DEI office, which it had rearranged and renamed to the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity as a result of last year’s legislation.

NCSU did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment but told The Nubian Message that the changes were “part of the university’s ongoing review of compliance with executive actions issued by the federal government and UNC System policy.”

Another institution, the University of Florida, has removed the option to sign up for any of its nonacademic learning communities for next semester, including those dedicated to Black, first-generation, international, LGBTQ+ and out-of-state students, plus one for students in the arts. According to The Alligator, the university’s student paper, the university also changed language on its housing website from describing the learning communities as “interest-based communities” to “academic-based communities.”

In an email to the campus community, the institution said the change was related to the university’s housing master plan.

“The University of Florida’s Housing & Residence Life is unwavering in our commitment to providing community-orientated facilities where residents are empowered to learn, innovate and succeed. As we enter a 10-year Housing Master Planning process, all programmatic offerings are being evaluated to ensure we continue to provide a premiere on-campus living experience,” the message read. “As a result, we are pausing all activities associated with non-academic Living Learning Communities.”

But some students have expressed concern that the elimination of the communities focused on identity may actually be related to Trump’s anti-DEI push or existing Florida anti-DEI legislation.

“Cancelling the activities of marginalized LLCs follows a long history of UF stripping protections from vulnerable students,” reads a petition calling on the university to reverse its decision. “It is clear that this latest attack on safe housing is only part of a larger plan to transform the UF campus into a space that is no longer safe for marginalized groups. LLCs will not be the last protection to be targeted.”

A Best Practice to Support Students

The Young, Gifted and Black learning community debuted in 2016 in response to a proposal by a group of students, The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, reported at the time.

The university’s housing website says that students living in YGB “will be challenged to understand the various experiences among the African/Black diaspora, encouraged to learn and develop critical thinking skills outside the classroom, relate your passions to your academics and better Iowa’s Black Community through campus involvement.” Students who live on the floor are also required to take a course on African American culture.

Sandrah Nasimiyu, an Iowa alumna, lived in the community in the 2019–20 academic year—though, of course, her time there was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her happiest memories in college took place in the residence hall, she told Inside Higher Ed, from debriefing with her floor mates after a long day of classes to a memorable game night when her friends tried, unsuccessfully, to teach her to play spades.

“I was already at a [predominantly white institution]. We live in Iowa—I had grown up in the suburbs and really wanted to have some form of community,” she said. “Where you put your head at night, where you’re going to spend the most time, you have to feel comfortable … when I stepped off that floor, I was in an environment I see all the time that wasn’t made for me.”

Nasimiyu is still friends with several people she met in the brief time she lived there. Sometimes, she recalled, Black students who didn’t live on YGB would tell her that they struggled to make Black friends on campus; Black people make up just 2.8 percent of the student body at Iowa.

LGBTQ+ and culture-based residence halls have come under fire from conservatives before; in 2023, the conservative campus group Young Americans for Freedom criticized Lavender Living Learning Community, the LGBTQ+ dorm at UF, for “segregating” students and “bombarding” them with leftism because its residents were encouraged to take a course on social justice. Right-wing news sources like Campus Reform and The Daily Caller, too, have discredited affinity housing as segregation.

But advocates for these spaces have long countered that residents of learning communities are rarely, if ever, required to be a certain race or identity. Jason Lynch, a professor of higher education at Appalachian State University and an expert in housing and residential life, said he saw firsthand that a number of non-Black students lived in the Black residential community when he worked in residential life at a previous institution.

Beyond that, though, he noted that the communities “are seen as a best practice, a high-impact practice … LLCs are a direct way to combat loneliness and isolation. We’re going to see a rise in mental health [concerns], especially for these minority communities” if these communities vanish.

Restricting LGBTQ+ Housing

At the same time that some campuses are doing away with LGBTQ+ affinity housing, others are overhauling inclusive housing in other ways. Florida State University recently came under fire for removing an option on its housing application that allows students to indicate that they would like to live in LGBTQ-friendly housing.

Unlike the learning communities, this option doesn’t place students in a particular dorm, but rather attempts to pair the student with someone who would be accepting and welcoming of an LGBTQ+ roommate, Marco Lofaso, an FSU student and member of the campus’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter, told Inside Higher Ed. LGBTQ+ housing has been available at FSU since 2021.

But the option was soon reinstated after student backlash—though the university never directly answered why it had been removed, telling the student newspaper, “Florida State University routinely reviews and refreshes campus information and messaging on a regular basis to ensure information is up to date and accurate. During this review, a previously used question was omitted from the returning student housing application for the 2025–26 academic year. A revised version of the question will be included in the new student housing application when it is released Feb. 27.”

FSU did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.

The state of Utah also recently passed a law targeting trans students that requires any students who live in gender-segregated housing to live in the housing that aligns with their “biological sex.” However, the law doesn’t prevent institutions from offering gender-neutral housing.

At least one institution has updated its housing policies to comply with the law, which passed in February. In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Utah State University said that the institution “strives to create a welcoming environment where all students who live on campus are comfortable so they can focus on succeeding in their studies. Consistent with the new law, USU’s sex-segregated housing will be assigned based on an individual’s biological sex at birth.”

The spokesman added that the university will continue to provide gender-inclusive housing “that meet the needs of all residents and in a manner that treats everyone with dignity and respect.” He did not respond to a question about how the university will determine residents’ biological sexes.

Source link

March 14, 2025
Promoting Student Engagement, Health Innovation With Grants

This past fall, Elon University in North Carolina offered students an opportunity to positively impact the campus community’s well-being through grant-funded projects.

The Andrew G. Bennett ’08 Student Wellness Innovation Grants recognized four student-led projects this winter, which will be implemented over the next year and beyond. The initiative supports student leadership in well-being work and also helps university leadership glean insight into what could impact student health and wellness.

How it works: Funds for the grant were previously endowed to support a safe ride program at the university, but the rise of ride-hailing apps has reduced the need for funding in that area, explains Anu Räisänen, director of HealthEU initiatives. University leaders worked with the donor to realign funds to spur innovation among students.

To be considered, the project had to align with HealthEU goals and address at least one of six dimensions of wellness—community, emotional, financial, physical, purpose and social.

The grant committee—chaired by Räisänen and supported by two graduate apprentices, a counselor and a professor of education—reviewed seven proposals this cycle. Each proposal was submitted by a student as an individual or as part of a group. Students were encouraged to find a department or student organization to co-sign the proposal to promote sustainability and continuation of efforts beyond the individual’s time at the university, Räisänen says.

Prior to submitting an application, students could opt to meet with Räisänen for a consultation to flesh out their idea, including brainstorming campus partners to support the effort after the individual graduates.

Applicants also provided a summary of how funding will be used and the intended impact on the community’s well-being.

The committee accepted and reviewed applications within Qualtrics, grading each proposal with a rubric that weighed feasibility, innovation and impact.

What’s next: Four proposals received $500 each in funding, the maximum amount available, including a puppy yoga event, an arts and crafts service initiative, a peer support program for nursing students, and renovation of the philosophy suite in the Spence Pavilion, an academic building on campus.

There was no one ideal project, and each grantee differed in terms of length of project and target population, Räisänen says.

This spring, students will submit an impact report describing the project status and the effects so far. Grant recipients will also present at HealthEU Day, which celebrates ongoing efforts to promote integrated wellness through fun events and education.

Students still enrolled will be asked to attend, and those who have graduated may provide a video discussing their project and the innovation fund.

“The goal is that students come and share their experience, like they would do with undergraduate research as well, and then we build that momentum” for student interest and engagement, Räisänen says. “The best way to get a message to students is word of mouth; you just need to find the right students to spread the word.”

In the future, Räisänen and her team are considering ways to provide larger grant awards to encourage students to think bigger about ways they could impact well-being on campus.

Seeking stories from campus leaders, faculty members and staff for our Student Success focus. Share here.

Source link

March 14, 2025
More Colleges Freeze Hiring Amid Federal Funding Uncertainty

As the higher education sector grapples with federal funding cuts and other disruptions, a growing number of colleges across the country—from public flagships to Ivy League institutions—are freezing hiring and spending and pausing graduate student admissions.

This week, Brown University, Duke University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington and others joined the list of more than a dozen colleges that have temporarily paused hiring and vowed to hold off on some discretionary spending.

“It is meant to preserve our financial flexibility until we better understand how changes in federal policy will take shape and can assess the scale of their impact,” Harvard president Alan Garber wrote this week in a message to the campus community. “We plan to leave the pause in effect for the current semester but will revisit that decision as circumstances warrant.”

Garber added that Harvard will continue to advocate for higher education in Washington, D.C.

“Expanding access to higher education for all, preserving academic freedom, and supporting our community’s research, teaching, and learning will always be our highest priorities,” he wrote.

Colleges and universities started to curb costs last month after the National Institutes of Health said it plans to cap reimbursements for costs indirectly related to research—a move expected to cost colleges at least $4 billion. A federal judge has since blocked that proposal from moving forward, but the Trump administration has essentially stopped awarding new NIH grants, creating financial uncertainty for many colleges.

The latest wave of freezes comes after the Trump administration announced it was pulling $400 million in federal grants and contracts from Columbia University, warning that other universities could see a similar penalty as part of the government’s crackdown on alleged campus antisemitism. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was essentially shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has provided billions to colleges over the years. And the Education Department laid off nearly half its staff, which could cause disruptions for colleges, though the financial impact is not clear.

Congress is also considering proposals to put some colleges on the hook for unpaid student loans and to raise the endowment tax on wealthy institutions, among other ideas that could affect universities’ bottom lines.

Penn officials said this week that while the final impact of the federal changes and cuts isn’t yet clear, the university is already “experiencing reduced funding.” In addition to a hiring freeze, Penn is reducing noncompensation expenses by 5 percent and reviewing all spending on capital projects.

“The scope and pace of the possible disruptions we face may make them more severe than those of previous challenges, such as the 2008 financial crisis or the COVID pandemic,” Penn officials wrote in a letter. “With careful financial management, however, Penn is well-positioned to navigate them.”

At the University of Washington, officials are facing not only the federal policy changes but also potential state funding cuts. Officials have noted that the university is in a good financial position over all but said they need to take proactive measures—such as stopping all nonessential hiring, travel and training—to prepare for any losses.

“These risks together have the potential to jeopardize the full scope of our work, including existing and new research projects, patient care, instruction and basic operations,” university provost Tricia Serio wrote in a blog post.

Other colleges that have paused hiring or instituted other cost-cutting measures this month include Emory University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Vermont.

Beyond hiring freezes, some colleges continue to re-evaluate graduate student admissions, particularly for Ph.D. students who are typically supported by federal grants.

On Wednesday, the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester rescinded provisional offers of acceptance to students who planned to pursue a doctorate, a spokesperson confirmed to Inside Higher Ed.

“With uncertainties related to the funding of biomedical research in this country, this difficult decision was made to ensure that our current students’ progress is not disrupted by the funding cuts and that we avoid matriculating students who may not have robust opportunities for dissertation research,” the spokesperson said. “All impacted applicants are being offered the opportunity to receive priority consideration without the requirement to reapply, should they wish to join our Ph.D. program in a future admissions cycle.”

Neither current students nor those at the medical school’s other graduate schools are affected.

Iowa State University also rescinded some acceptance offers, The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported, joining other colleges that made similar decisions in the last month.

As the list grows, academics worry about the long-term consequences of the cost-cutting measures. The hiring freezes and disruptions to graduate student admissions have thrown a wrench into the plans of early-career researchers, who are now looking to Europe and the private sector for job opportunities.

Puskar Mondal, a lecturer on math at Harvard and a research fellow, wrote in an opinion piece for The Harvard Crimson that the hiring freeze is “troubling.”

“The hiring freeze isn’t just a financial or administrative issue—it’s something that could have a ripple effect across all disciplines at Harvard,” Mondal wrote. “It could lead to fewer opportunities for students, more pressure on faculty, and a slowdown in research that could take years to recover from. And that’s not just bad for Harvard—it’s bad for all of us.”

Source link

March 14, 2025
Sam Altman’s AI Hype Is Familiar

I think Sam Altman is too young to have been influenced by Rolling Stone magazine, but I feel like he’s learned something about retconning previously expressed hype in order to make room for fresh amazement from how Rolling Stone treated the new albums of the 1980s and 1990s by the Rolling Stones.

By that time, the Stones had established themselves as permanent rock royalty, but their music was undeniably less vital than their late-’60s, early-’70s heyday that produced all-time great work. Music tastes had changed, Mick and Keith were less interested in and less capable of breaking new ground, and so the work understandably suffered next to albums like Exile on Main Street or Sticky Fingers.

Not according to Rolling Stone, which could be relied on to wax rhapsodically about whatever the boys had produced upon the album’s release, declaring it a return to greatness after a previous fallow period. Unfortunately, you can only return to greatness once, so when the next album would arrive, they had to retroactively downgrade the previous album that had been dubbed a near masterpiece.

In 1983, Kurt Loder declared that Undercover “reassembles, in the manner of mature masters of every art, familiar elements into exciting new forms,” giving the album four and a half stars.

Undercover had one minor hit, “Undercover of the Night,” which sounds like second-rate Duran Duran, and has Charlie Watts playing electronic drums, an absolute offense against all that is good and holy. The idea that it is a near-perfect album is, literally, insane.

We move forward to 1989 and the Steel Wheels album, also given four and a half stars, this time by Anthony DeCurtis. The review opens with “Nothing reinvigorates Sixties icons like having something to prove. In the past few years the reverence typically shown both the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan has worn perilously thin. The Stones’ last two albums, Undercover and Dirty Work—not to mention Mick Jagger’s solo recordings—ranged from bad to ordinary” (emphasis mine).

It gets better. In 1994, Barbara O’Dair declared in her review of Voodoo Lounge, “Gone are the smooth moves, trend nods and lackluster songcraft of Dirty Work and Steel Wheels, the Rolling Stones’ last two studio discs. The band’s new album, Voodoo Lounge, is ragged and glorious, reveling in the quintessential rock & roll the Stones marked as their own some 30 years ago.”

But this time it’s true, the Rolling Stones really are back!

The popular explanation for all these rave reviews upon a new album’s release is that Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and Stones lead singer Mick Jagger were close friends. But even that friendship could not stand up against the fact that over time, it became clear that these albums were duds, and so each review had to retroactively throw the previous effort under the bus.

Recently, on the platform I will only ever call Twitter, Sam Altman declared, “We trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). This is the first time I have been really struck by something written by AI.”

This is a strange statement, given that Altman has been relentlessly hyping this technology since its first public appearance in 2022, expressing personal marvel at its smarts, its empathy and now its creativity. One would think he’s been struck repeatedly by what his models produce, but apparently not—this is the first time.

Note that this model is not yet available for public consumption, so we cannot judge for ourselves if it is “good” at creative writing, except I am totally going to judge whether or not it is good at creative writing and say it isn’t.

Despite being well established in the skeptic camp about this technology, I think anyone who reads More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI would come away seeing that I am quite open to experimentation and exploration of this technology where it has the potential to enhance, as opposed to substitute for, human capacities.

But “creative writing” is clearly not an area in which large language models will excel, because I will go to my grave believing that the whole point of writing creatively is to attempt to capture the artistic intention of a single unique intelligence and then to share that intention with other unique intelligences. This challenge, which I have wrestled with over many, many hours of my life, is difficult, fascinating and very much worth doing even if the product of that wrestling never sees the light of day beyond the audience of the original author, which is something I’ve experienced rather often in my career.

Large language models are not unique intelligences. They are highly sophisticated, technologically amazing pattern-matching machines that generate syntax as their outputs. There is no intention behind this generation, therefore there is no creativity at work. It is not writing, not as I understand it, and not as I value it.

I know lots of people who are willing to argue about these things who will say that we’re in the midst of a “new” intelligence, blah blah blah. I’m happy for other people to wrestle with these thought experiments, but I know for a fact that the human experiences of reading and writing the creative work of other unique human intelligences is worth doing no matter what this technology—that cannot and never will work from an intentional place—is capable of.

Look, I imagine some of my frustration is starting to leak through, and I do not wish to outright dismiss those with other perspectives, though I wonder about folks who are not capable of seeing past Altman’s relentless hucksterism by now.

The thing is, thanks to More Than Words being in the world and having the opportunity to talk to lots of different people in lots of different contexts about what I have to say about writing in a world where large language models exist, it’s increasingly clear to me that in many cases, no one is asking for this stuff.

If no one is asking for it, we certainly have no responsibility to give it the time of day when it does arrive just because it’s shiny, new or amazing at the surface level.

The future is ours, not AI’s.

Source link

March 14, 2025
States File Lawsuit Challenging Education Department Cuts

Twenty Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Trump administration for its massive job cuts at the Education Department, seeking to block what they say is “an effective dismantling” of the department.

The suit argues that by eliminating half the staff, the department is essentially abdicating its responsibility to deliver statutorily mandated programs, like federal student aid and civil rights investigations—many of which also affect state programs.

“This massive reduction in force is equivalent to incapacitating key, statutorily-mandated functions of the Department, causing immense damage to Plaintiff States and their educational systems,” the suit reads.

The plaintiffs include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

The lawsuit is at least the eighth to be filed against the Trump administration over its education policies in the past month. Follow Inside Higher Ed’s Trump Lawsuit Tracker for updates on the case.

Source link

March 14, 2025
College Applications Rise, Especially From Minority Students

The number of students applying to college rose 4 percent this admission cycle, and applicants submitted 6 percent more applications over all, according to a new report from the Common App.

The increase was fueled by an especially large spike in the number of underrepresented minority applicants, which rose by 12 percent compared to non-URM applicants’ 2 percent increase. In addition, applicants from families below the median income level rose 8 percent, compared to 3 percent from above the median.

The increase could reflect the Common App’s addition of more community colleges and open-access institutions to its platform, expanding to include more institutions that primarily serve low-income students.

One striking finding in the report: Domestic applicant growth exceeded that of international students for the first time since 2019. Domestic applicants increased by 5 percent while the number of international applicants declined by 1 percent.

In addition, the number of applicants submitting test scores in 2024–25 grew by 11 percent, outpacing nonreporters for the first time since 2021. Some schools began returning to mandatory test requirements this application cycle, abandoning test-optional policies adopted during the pandemic.

Source link

March 14, 2025
Record Number of U.S. Students Apply for U.K. Undergraduate Degrees

A record number of U.S. students have applied to study for undergraduate degrees in the U.K. next year, figures reveal.

Experts had previously suggested that U.K. institutions might benefit from international students being put off by Donald Trump’s new administration.

And analysis suggests campuses are already seeing an influx of applicants from the U.S. itself. Figures from the University and College Admissions Service, UCAS, show that 6,680 U.S. students applied to U.K. courses for 2025–26 by the main deadline at the end of January.

This was a 12 percent increase on the year before and the most since comparable records began in 2006. It surpasses the previous record of 6,670 set in 2021–22 and is more than double the demand in 2017.

Maddalaine Ansell, director of education at the British Council, said she was “delighted” by the 20-year high.

“It’s a testament to the quality of U.K. universities that so many people want to study here. Three-year degrees, lower tuition costs and poststudy work opportunities all increase the attractiveness of the U.K. offer,” she said.

“As well as adding to the vibrancy of their courses, we hope that these students will also take a lasting affection for the U.K. forward into their future careers and stay connected with us for years to come.”

Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of the applicants from the U.S. were 18 years old, and 61 percent were women.

The UCAS data covers undergraduate applicants, but separate figures show an uptick in demand at all levels—even before Trump’s second term began.

Recent Home Office statistics reveal that 15,274 U.S. main applicants were issued sponsored study visas in 2024.

This was a 5 percent increase on 2023 and also the highest level since at least 2009—despite total visa numbers from around the world falling.

Recent research by the British Council found that more international students would choose the U.K. over the U.S. as a result of Trump’s return to the White House.

Although he managed to generate a large swing toward the Republican Party among young voters, those aged 18 to 29 still largely backed Kamala Harris in November.

In the 78-year-old’s first six weeks in the Oval Office, he has pledged to shut down the Department of Education, block federal funding for institutions that allow “illegal” protests and launched a crackdown on spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Universities UK said the increase in demand to study in the U.K. is positive, following a turbulent period for international student recruitment.

“But it is too early to say whether this is the start of a longer-term trend,” added a spokesperson.

“What is important now is for universities and government to continue to work together to promote the U.K. as a welcoming destination, and to preserve our competitive offer to international students.”

Recent data also showed that a record number of Americans applied for U.K. citizenship last year, which immigration lawyers attributed to Trump’s presidential re-election bid and victory.

Source link

March 14, 2025