Tag: Higher

Short-term service learning experiences help college students

College students are known to be strapped for time. A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found the No. 1 stressor in students’ lives is balancing academics with personal, family or financial responsibilities such as work.

Research shows campus involvement is tied to students’ retention, career development and sense of belonging while in college, but helping time-strapped students access these experiences can be a challenge for institutions.

This year, Goucher College in Maryland created a new forum through the office of Community-Based Learning. The short-term micro-experiences allow students to dip their toes into service without committing to a semester or longer. The college first piloted the unpaid opportunities in spring 2024, and student participation in service learning has increased as a result.

The background: The Office of Community-Based Learning offers seven focus areas for community engagement: animal welfare, empowering ability, environmental sustainability, food and housing security, K-12 education and youth development, immigrant and refugee programs, and health and wellness.

Participation could include off-campus Federal Work-Study roles, volunteering with a social justice student club or through a campus organization, taking a Community-Based Learning course, engaging in an internship, or serving as a student director. The office also partners with faculty members to provide experiences in the classroom, such as a semester-long project for a nonprofit partner or a field trip to a partner site.

One of the reasons CBL has previously not offered short-term or one-day service opportunities is because of ethical concerns of how impactful these experiences are for the organizations or individuals being served.

The change is reflective of the needs of today’s students, who are more likely to be working for pay or on a compressed timeline to complete their undergraduate program as quickly as possible, CBL director Lindsay Johnson Walton said.

To ask students to invest in a long-term program that requires three, four or five semesters’ worth of time, “it’s not practical,” she said.

On the other side, nonprofit and community partners can be so desperately in need of support that they hold fewer concerns about the model of service. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the same students as long as it’s engaged students,” Johnson Walton explained.

Offering short-term participation opportunities requires more work from the college to generate the experience and fill out paperwork because it only happens once, but Johnson Walton hopes with future iterations the process will become more streamlined.

How it works: CBL offers around one micro-experience per week, many taking place on a Saturday morning or afternoon. Each experience has a cap of 10 to 12 students.

Students sign up in advance and commit to volunteering for a few hours. College staff handle logistics, including transportation, covering background checks and coordinating with the site, so students just have to show up and serve. Student coordinators, who are part-time staff working for CBL, also contribute to the organization and execution of events.

Some experiences that work well as short-term offerings include volunteering at the food bank or assisting at an animal shelter, while other partners, such as public schools, still operate best with more sustained interactions.

On the trip back, staff lead a short debrief and guided reflection to help students connect their experiences to larger learning objectives and provide additional opportunities to learn or serve, if needed. Students are also sent a short questionnaire that asks them to reflect on their work.

Short-Term Experiential Learning Grows

Community-based learning isn’t the only area where Goucher College has shortened the duration of experiential learning opportunities.

In 2020, Goucher launched micro-internships for students, primarily to address a lack of offerings available to students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The remote offerings help connect students with alumni and other college partners and give students a project to assist in their career development and growth.

Similarly, the global education office has seen a growth in student interest for three- to five-week study abroad offerings rather than semester-long programs.

Who’s doing it: The micro-experiences have attracted a wide variety of students, some who are curious about service learning and just want to dip their toes in. International students often fall into this category because volunteering can be a uniquely American experience, and the projects give them insight into different organizations and spaces they may not otherwise engage in, such as schools, Johnson Walton said.

Others have a passion for service but are unable to devote much time to it, so micro-experiences provide a flexible opportunity.

Many students had a service requirement while in high school or were told that volunteering is a good feature for their college application, which makes service more of a reflex, Johnson Walton said. “They think they should be doing it, because culturally it’s been built into the list of things you’re supposed to do.”

Each of these students reflects an opportunity to further engage them in longer-term community-based learning in a curricular or co-curricular setting.

Feedback from participants shows that even small or short projects can have an impact on the student. At a volunteer appreciation event, one student wrote they learned how to plant a tree, which is a simple action, but one that can help a lot of people and a skill they can take and use again and again, Johnson Walton said.

Similarly, sorting food at the food bank can seem insignificant, but recognizing how many people that food will feed can help students gain perspective on their service impact.

For organizers of community-based learning experiences, it can be hard to grapple with the potential harm done by short-term community service because of the power dynamics involved, but Johnson Walton has learned that allowing students to get out and do can be a great first start to thoughtful and intentional service.

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March 25, 2025
What Happens if Libraries Can’t Buy Ebooks? (opinion)
Clarivate, the company behind ProQuest, dropped a bombshell in the academic publishing world last month when it announced that it will “phase out one-time perpetual purchases of digital collections, print and digital books for libraries.” Instead, institutions will pivot to subscription-based access models. Clarivate justifies this seismic shift by pointing to the need for regular content updates, particularly as AI-enhanced research tools reshape scholarly publishing.

While perpetual-access options for ebooks won’t vanish entirely—they’ll remain available through certain marketplaces like Clarivate’s Rialto platform—this decision drastically curtails traditional purchasing options. More troubling, it signals an acceleration of a broader industry trend toward subscription-only models, raising profound questions about the future of academic scholarship and underscoring libraries’ critical role in ensuring equitable, continuous access to scholarly resources.

The Critical Difference Between Books and Journals

In recent years, some major commercial publishers like Hachette and Penguin Random House have moved from perpetual access to subscription-based access models for ebooks, a shift that to date has primarily impacted public libraries.

This subscription push mirrors the established practice for scholarly journals but presents unique challenges for academic ebooks. Unlike journals, which primarily deliver new findings, academic books represent enduring intellectual investments. A monograph acquired today often remains essential to scholarship decades later, particularly in humanities disciplines like history, literature, philosophy and sociology, where foundational texts retain their relevance across generations.

Financial and Academic Risks

Given academic books’ distinctive value, subscription-only access threatens to undermine teaching and research continuity. Faculty who design courses around specific texts may suddenly find essential works unavailable due to licensing changes. Researchers engaged in long-term projects risk losing access to crucial resources if subscriptions lapse. Though subscription models initially offer lower up-front costs and greater flexibility, the cumulative expenses can become substantial over time, introducing budgetary uncertainty.

Yet subscription models also offer distinct advantages for certain institutions. Programs with rapidly evolving content, especially in STEM fields requiring frequent updates, may benefit from subscription flexibility. Smaller colleges and institutions experiencing enrollment fluctuations or curricular shifts might find subscriptions economically viable due to lower immediate costs. Subscriptions can help institutions avoid large up-front expenditures, manage predictable annual budgets more effectively and ensure continuous access to current scholarly content.

Understanding these potential financial implications becomes crucial, especially as other industries have navigated similar challenges when transitioning to subscription-based models.

Lessons From Other Industries

Higher education can extract valuable insights from similar transitions in software and media streaming sectors. Traditionally, software represented a one-time transaction granting perpetual access, allowing customers indefinite use after an initial investment. The shift to software as a service (SaaS) fundamentally altered this paradigm, providing continuous access through recurring subscriptions. SaaS models initially attracted organizations due to lower up-front costs and greater flexibility to scale services as needed. However, this transition introduced budgetary uncertainty, as ongoing subscription fees can be unpredictable over time.

The media industry’s experience with subscription models offers another cautionary tale. Platforms like Netflix and Spotify initially captivated consumers with affordable, convenient access to vast content libraries. Yet over time, numerous competing services entered the market, fragmenting content distribution. Consumers found themselves juggling multiple subscriptions to maintain comprehensive access, resulting in “subscription fatigue” and significantly increased total costs. This fragmentation not only impacted household budgets but also created complexity in managing multiple services, ultimately diminishing the convenience these platforms initially promised.

Drawing parallels to higher education, subscription-only models could similarly fragment access to academic resources, forcing institutions to maintain multiple subscriptions for comprehensive collections. Over time, this fragmentation could increase administrative complexity and total costs, complicating resource management. Institutions must therefore approach subscription-only models with caution and deliberation.

Open Access as a Strategic Solution

One proactive strategy for addressing subscription challenges involves embracing open access (OA), a model providing free, unrestricted online access to scholarly research. Unlike traditional commercial models dependent on paywalls, OA enables anyone to read, download and distribute content without cost barriers. This dramatically increases research visibility and democratizes knowledge by making it accessible regardless of institutional affiliation or financial capacity.

Institutions can strategically support OA by investing in university presses, institutional repositories and collaborative publishing platforms. Successful examples include the Directory of Open Access Books, Open Book Publishers and the Open Library of Humanities, which have demonstrated sustainable, rigorous academic publishing methods. Redirecting a portion of subscription budgets to these initiatives can build permanent collections while fostering transformative scholarly communication practices.

However, OA models face their own challenges. Financial sustainability concerns emerge because publication costs often fall on authors or institutions, potentially disadvantaging researchers without institutional backing. Moreover, robust infrastructure, consistent funding and effective policy frameworks remain essential to maintaining quality and longevity of OA content.

Moving Forward: A Call to Action

As academic scholarship navigates these transformative currents, institutional leaders must proactively engage with their libraries, publishers and vendors. Delaying action risks fragmented access, escalating costs and compromised academic integrity.

Leaders should urgently prioritize collaborative actions to:
- Develop balanced subscription and perpetual-access models in partnership with publishers and vendors.
- Invest strategically in open-access initiatives while acknowledging and addressing their implementation challenges.
- Strengthen consortia and partnerships to enhance negotiating power, reduce fragmentation and streamline resource management.
- Foster structured communication among faculty, libraries, publishers and vendors to align acquisitions with academic priorities.
The proactive decisions we make today will shape academic scholarship for decades to come, ensuring that vital resources remain accessible, sustainable and equitable for all.

Leo S. Lo is dean and a professor in the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences at the University of New Mexico and president of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

The author serves as a volunteer member of the Clarivate Academic AI Advisory Council. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Clarivate.
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March 25, 2025
How Leaders Can Chart a Path Through the Chaos (opinion)
The pressures on higher education leaders and their institutions have intensified with the new U.S. presidential administration’s agenda. We all became familiar with uncertainty as a result of the pandemic, but this new series of policy mandates and legal challenges creates an even more ambiguous environment. Higher education’s basic foundations, operating systems, cultures, values and structures are being challenged, which implies systemic change may be required.

Leading systemic change is difficult enough in a less demanding environment. In this one, higher ed leaders will need tools and resources that can help them strategically chart a path through the chaos. They will need advice about how to adapt and continue important work that may be challenged by current executive orders, as well as advice about how to navigate the sheer volume of those orders.

Leaders can be more successful adapting and strategizing if they do so in ways that honor their unique contexts. Context variously creates opportunities or presents barriers that influence the actions leaders may take. Therefore, it is important for leaders to step back for a few moments and “get on the balcony,” as Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow put it.

While many leaders may not think they have the time to do this, it is critically important they take the time to understand the complexities of the current situation so as not to overreact, react too quickly or react incorrectly. For example, a leader responding to a recent executive order may move quickly to announce program and office closures, but without time to consider options and understand context, this quick action may have a greater negative impact than some other, more strategic approach, one that does not compromise institutional integrity.

Leaders may also find they have levers available to them that are important to identify and use strategically. For example, partnerships with donors or grant opportunities are great levers to not only achieve strategic priorities but also provide relief for shortfalls that may result from the current political climate.

One way leaders can “get on the balcony” is to dive into their context and ask key questions with their leadership teams. This analysis will illuminate aspects of the leadership landscape that perhaps weren’t fully realized, highlight opportunities and fill in the details of challenges they are facing. Important categories of context to analyze are institutional mission; campus culture; politics, leadership and governance; human capital and capacity; physical, financial and technological resources; and externalities.

The final category of externalities may be of particular relevance right now. This category refers to anything happening outside the university, from local community issues to state and federal policies. It goes beyond state appropriations and budgets to include social, political and economic factors. As leaders consider their external environment, here are some questions they can use to help them identify opportunities for and barriers to change, as well as levers they can use to inform the actions they can take:
1. Are there state or federal policies or programs that are related to the change you are trying to achieve?
2. What initiatives, organizations or businesses in your community might have a stake in this change?
3. If your campus is public or part of a state system, are there messages, policies and priorities that can be drawn on to support changes?
4. Is your campus a member of a national association that has initiatives you might participate in that will help you advance your change or gain momentum and support?
5. Are there state, federal or philanthropic organizations that have grant programs aligned with your change goals? Do you have any major donors that can be engaged in your change project to support your goals?
Let’s see how this exploration might help leaders chart a strategic path forward through the current climate of chaos and uncertainty. Leaders might identify some challenges with respect to their state or federal policy environment that present barriers. For example, in states that have defunded diversity efforts, universities have less funding to accomplish their goals of creating more inclusive environments to serve all students. However, they may find an opportunity to participate in a national project sponsored by an association that provides them the time and space to reconfigure their structures and programs in ways that would still allow them to reach their goals.

By thinking through the philanthropic landscape, institutional leaders might find that there are donors who share a passion for inclusivity and thus can be cultivated as supporters of programmatic initiatives. Leaders might also undergo a search to identify possible grants or foundation funders that align with campus goals. These types of funding mechanisms are useful levers for creating a change agenda that allows for continuation of the mission despite the initial challenges.

Identifying the opportunities and barriers is the first step towards strategic action. Let’s dive into the next step by looking closely at leader “moves.” If we focus on the opportunity of participation in a national project aimed at inclusion, that will involve several moves to ensure success.

For example, the selection of a team charged with taking on this task is critically important, and getting the right set of individuals may involve thinking differently than usual. Given the current environment, it might make sense to ensure there is legal expertise on the team. It may also be especially important to assure those who are asked to lead that they will have the support of institutional leaders. Sense making and learning is another important area for action: giving people information and helping them know what is possible in the current environment is an essential leadership move at the moment.

There are likely advocacy and political moves that also need to be made to set the stage on campus or within the state to garner additional support or prepare for potential backlash. Finally, for the team’s work to be sustained in the long term, leaders might think ahead to how they can sustain or scale the programmatic, cultural and/or structural outcomes that are achieved during the initiative at a time when national leaders question the nature of the work. In the current environment, staff and faculty may also have fears that need to be addressed before they commit to this work over the long term.

More information and examples can be found in our recently published “The Change Leadership Toolkit for Advancing Systemic Change.” Whatever leaders do, they must keep moving forward even though the headwinds might be strong. Delaying action may only create larger problems that are even more intractable or insolvable. Responding too quickly may also result in irreparable and unnecessary damage that may be difficult to recover from down the road. Systemic change takes time and process and most of all requires a thoughtful, strategic and focused approach tailored to the goals and environment in which leaders are operating.

The process and example provided above just skim the surface of the deliberate kind of work higher education leaders have to do in today’s climate as they assess their contexts, take advantage of levers and opportunities, and identify key moves they will need to make to ensure successful adaptation. We hope that this essay introduces leaders to a process they can use to inform their actions so they can keep calm and carry on.

Susan Elrod is the former chancellor and professor emeritus of Indiana University South Bend. She studies higher education systemic change and is actively engaged in helping campus leaders build capacity to create more strategic, scalable and sustainable change.

Adrianna Kezar is the Dean’s Professor of Leadership, Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California.
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March 25, 2025
Louisiana Sees Improved Pass Rates With Corequisite Model

During the 2020–21 academic year, only 12 percent of students attending a public institution in Louisiana who attempted to complete a credit-bearing English class passed. This past fall, success rates among learners jumped to 60 percent.

The change reflects an overhaul of remedial education courses at the state level, led by the Louisiana Board of Regents, to improve completion rates across the system’s 28 colleges and universities.

The initial numbers, coupled with high passing rates among mathematics courses, are a step in the right direction to support credential attainment for adults in Louisiana, said Tristan Denley, deputy commissioner of academic affairs and innovation for the Board of Regents.

What’s the need: The overhaul of remedial education is tied to the state’s strategic initiative, Louisiana Prospers, which sets a goal for 60 percent of the state’s adult population to have at least a credential of value. At present, the state is at 51 percent attainment, up six percentage points from 2021.

“One of the fundamental changes that had to be made to be able to increase that attainment in that way is really the barrier of early math and English success,” Denley explained.

Compared to remediation, corequisite courses reflect an asset-based approach to student success that indicates institutional readiness for student achievement. Resea r ch shows students who are placed in corequisite courses are more likely to retain, save money and graduate earlier, compared to their peers.

“A traditional approach to remediation sort of says, ‘Well, I know you think you’re in college, but maybe not quite yet,’” Denley said.

Other states, including California, Georgia, Illinois and Tennessee have also prioritized corequisite courses over remedial education offerings to boost student success.

Building better: The process of rolling out corequisite education began in spring 2022, providing each of the state’s 28 institutions 18 months to launch the math program and then another 18 months for English courses.

Louisiana launched its corequisite course structure for math courses in starting in fall 2023, and during that academic year, 52 percent of students in a corequisite class completed a college-level math course, up 41 percentage points from 2020–21, when only 11 percent of remedial math students completed a credit-bearing course.

Implementing corequisite education at scale is a large undertaking, requiring work from math and English faculty as well as the registrar’s office and others, and each rollout looked a little different depending on the college and its needs.

The system office hosted technical assistance and professional development events to support campuses, including semesterly corequisite academies, which brought together 150 faculty who teach corequisite math and English to share best practices, identify common challenges and establish a community of practice.

“Interestingly, there are lessons to be learned from the math folk for the English folk, and vice versa, as well as among themselves in those different disciplines,” Denley said.

One important facet of the corequisite model is addressing students’ self-perceptions of themselves as learners—particularly in math courses where students experience math anxiety—so the board established “Mindset Meauxtivators,” a faculty development course that emphasizes a growth mindset. Two hundred–plus corequisite faculty have completed the course, and a dozen or so serve as faculty champions for this work within their own campuses or regions.

What’s next: The state will continue to collect data and parse through to identify trends in completion of credit-bearing English and math courses across student groups and institutions.

Identifying opportunities to support faculty with modern pedagogy that assist with corequisite education is another focus for the board, because the teaching style is much different from remedial.

Attainment is the goal of this current strategic plan, but future student success work in Louisiana will address socioeconomic mobility and ensuring students “make good on the credential they earn,” Denley said. “After they’ve earned that, what are ways in which we can make sure that that credential is life-changing, both to themselves and to their families and their communities?”

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March 25, 2025
Bowdoin to Devote $50M Gift to AI Learning, Teaching

Bowdoin College has received a $50 million gift from Reed Hastings, 1983 alumnus, Netflix cofounder and Powder Mountain CEO, to create the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity.

The gift, the largest in the college’s 231-year history, will be used largely to support teaching and research related to artificial intelligence. It will pay for 10 new faculty members, expand faculty-led research and curriculum offerings, and drive campuswide conversations about the benefits and challenges of AI.

“This donation seeks to advance Bowdoin’s mission of cultivating wisdom for the common good by deepening the College’s engagement with one of humanity’s most transformative developments: artificial intelligence,” Hastings said in a press release. “As AI becomes smarter than humans, we are going to need some deep thinking to keep us flourishing.”

Hastings credited a late Bowdoin mathematics professor, Steve Fisk, for first encouraging him to study AI. “Steve was about forty years too early, but his perspective was life-changing for me,” Hastings said.

“We are thrilled and so grateful to receive this remarkable support from Reed, who shares our conviction that the AI revolution makes the liberal arts and a Bowdoin education more essential to society,” Bowdoin president Safa Zaki said in a statement.

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March 25, 2025
Bridging Further and Higher Education: Building a Truly Tertiary Education System
- Professor David Phoenix OBE is Vice-Chancellor of London South Bank University and Chief Executive of LSBU Group.
- Dr Katerina Kolyva is Chief Executive Officer of The Education and Training Foundation.
Post-16 education in England is at a pivotal moment, with increasing efforts to create a more integrated and collaborative system. While elements of competition remain, the reintegration of the sector into the Department for Education presents new opportunities for colleges and universities to enhance their contributions to local communities. Both further and higher education providers play distinct yet complementary roles in supporting diverse learners, but significant challenges remain in achieving a fully joined-up system. The establishment of Skills England, along with the skills and industrial strategies, signals a growing recognition of these complexities, highlighting the need for a cross-government approach. Achieving greater alignment across the post-16 landscape could provide an opportunity to shape a system that empowers learners, strengthens local economies, and supports national prosperity.

In February, the Education and Training Foundation and London South Bank University therefore brought together a range of relevant stakeholders to discuss existing models of best practice and the workforce characteristics needed to help develop an effective tertiary education system.

University and college mergers, franchise agreements, Institutes of Technology and Group models are all examples of imaginative approaches to post-16 collaboration. Workforce characteristics found within these models include a leadership team with a clear vision, strong awareness of institutional values, and resilience against the prevailing winds of policy. Having the correct personnel with a positive and creative mindset can foster strategic risk-taking and allow for continuous learning with the avoidance of blame, though people and culture initiatives alone cannot be relied upon to deliver a coherent system.

Our marketised higher education system and a focus on further-higher education transitions around level 4 could risk missing the bigger picture. We need government to develop a national framework within which local skills and innovation strategies can be developed. Such strategies would seek to consider issues related to the skills pipeline (including key areas such as adult education and gateway qualifications) but would also look at job creation by leveraging universities to drive innovation with business. Such a system-based approach needs to also consider what post-16 provision in the schools sector looks like and how this interfaces with further education, as well as the interface between further and higher education. This is essential if we are to provide alternative study pathways that meet the needs of the majority whilst also preventing duplication and redundancy at all levels.

Published in December 2024, the government’s Devolution White Paper could be a first step towards establishing a framework for regional collaboration and addressing these missing elements. Strategic Authorities could take an important role in working alongside further and higher education providers and employers to identify skills shortages and promote clear pathways from education and training into employment through a combination of specialist institutions. The government, through a coordinated approach across departments, could use various regulatory and financial levers to encourage genuine collaboration between providers where there is a mismatch between skill demands and provision, while also simplifying the complex regulatory landscape.

A greater level of specialisation and the recognition of the importance of different institutional missions has the potential to support a greater diversity of missions and a shift to a more collaborative framework. When combined with designing a corresponding careers, information, advice and guidance service, this will allow institutions to build more pathways for learners, meaning a more inclusive system. Those who are educationally disenfranchised would have more options to re-enter education and work, breaking down a key barrier to opportunity and, in the long term, boosting economic growth.

Regulation, market forces, and financial constraints can both foster and hinder collaboration. If government can find the correct balance, post-16 education will better serve learners and employers, boosting equality of opportunity and economic growth. Government commitments to boost devolution, publish an industrial strategy and reduce intra-governmental bureaucracy tacitly acknowledge the problem, but an overarching framework for addressing this is lacking. Once the IFATE Bill, which will formally establish Skills England, achieves Royal Assent, government must establish a mechanism to ensure cross-departmental coordination, bringing together Skills England, regional authorities, education providers, and employers to drive structural change.
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March 25, 2025
Upcoming Events April 1st and April 8th (Higher Ed Labor United)

By cutting funds to lifesaving research and medical care, the Trump administration is abandoning families who are suffering and costing taxpayers billions of dollars. These cuts are dangerous to our health, and dangerous to our economy.

On Tuesday, April 8th, 2025 workers across the country are standing up and demanding NO cuts to education and life-saving research.

Organize an action for April 8 or join one already in the works.

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March 24, 2025
The Struggling Sanctuary Campus Movement

American University’s student government recently passed a referendum calling on the university to designate itself a sanctuary campus and limit its cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Student protests broke out at the University of North Carolina Asheville, the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere to push those campuses to embrace sanctuary status. A petition with the same demand from Colorado State University’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America garnered more than 3,000 signatures.

“It is of the utmost importance that students, staff, and community members see CSU committing to protect the most threatened students in this community,” read the student petition to Colorado State administrators.

The petitions and protests have also been fueled by student frustrations with universities’ compliance with other federal immigration actions. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other groups sued Columbia University on behalf of students after federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a green card–holding recent Columbia graduate, at his university-owned apartment because of his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests. Shortly afterwards, Department of Homeland Security agents searched two Columbia dorms, though no arrests were made. The CAIR lawsuit, which also targets the House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce, led to an injunction that stopped the university from sharing more student records with lawmakers.

“While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University,” Khalil said in a statement from an ICE detention center in Louisiana. “Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats.”

The renewed push for sanctuary campuses harks back to President Donald Trump’s first term, when students at dozens of campuses petitioned their colleges to follow the lead of sanctuary cities and create boundaries for their cooperation with federal immigration officials. At the time, a handful of higher ed institutions agreed to designate themselves sanctuary campuses and protect undocumented students to the fullest extent the law allows. Many more made public declarations of support for undocumented students without actually embracing the title.

This time around, while some college and university leaders have promised they’ll support students in every way legally possible, few are eager to comment publicly on Trump’s immigration actions or use the sanctuary title, for fear of overpromising the protections they can offer or attracting unwanted attention to their campuses, potentially putting students or federal funds at risk.

The Trump administration has already gone after sanctuary cities, with Chicago among the first targeted for immigration raids. One of Trump’s early executive orders asserted that “sanctuary jurisdictions” shouldn’t receive federal funding. The Trump administration also sued the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois and New York State over their immigration policies last month. And recently, Republican lawmakers lambasted the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City for their sanctuary statuses at a contentious hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Some college leaders are clearly worried that using the term “sanctuary” could make them a target as well. Even the few colleges and universities that previously designated themselves sanctuary campuses seem hesitant to use, or discuss, the term. Inside Higher Ed reached out to eight higher ed institutions that have called themselves sanctuary campuses in the past. Three institutions declined interviews, and four didn’t respond to email requests for comment.

A spokesperson for a community college in the Southwest confirmed in an email that the institution “remains committed to serving and supporting all students” but no longer actively uses the term “sanctuary.”

“Because our top priority is student safety, we prefer not to comment further,” the spokesperson wrote.

‘Meaningful,’ ‘Risky’ or Both?

Current debates over the term “sanctuary” likely reflect some of the ways this political moment differs from Trump’s first term.

Notably, fears that federal immigration officials could venture onto campuses became a reality after Khalil’s recent arrest, heightening the risks of taking a public stand. Other federal immigration actions affecting students and scholars followed, including the arrest of Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University.

A professor at an institution that previously declared itself a sanctuary campus emphasized that Khalil’s case made those working with undocumented students “even more alarmed.” During Trump’s first term, campuses ultimately weren’t a target of federal immigration actions, but the events of the past month at Columbia show that may no longer be true, said the professor, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on condition of anonymity.

Another key difference between Trump’s first and second terms is that most of today’s undocumented students can’t participate in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects those brought to the U.S. as children before 2007 from deportation and allows them to work legally. That means many undocumented students are arguably more vulnerable than they were during Trump’s first term, the professor said. At the same time, campuses have far more infrastructure, resources and legal training to support undocumented students than in the past, they added.

The professor believes it’s still worthwhile for colleges to call themselves sanctuary campuses—or at least offer undocumented students some kind of public support—because it means a lot to affected students and the faculty and staff supporting them. It helps them feel “braver.”

“I think it’s both meaningful and risky,” they said. “In fact, I think it might be more meaningful now because it’s so risky.” But “I don’t necessarily think that using the word ‘sanctuary’ is the key. I think the key is saying something.”

College leaders likely believe “not speaking out is going to give them a layer of safety, because we’re not waving a flag, like, ‘Look over here,’” the professor added. “I get that, but I’m just not sure that it’s right.” They noted that even though Columbia cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters, the Trump administration has shown no signs of letting up on the institution, vowing to strip it of hundreds of millions of federal dollars.

Even some college leaders who have long supported undocumented students have always had issues with the sanctuary designation, said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Her organization doesn’t encourage the term because she worries it’s amorphous and sends a confusing message to undocumented students.

To her, the label evokes the idea of “civil disobedience,” reminiscent of the way churches housed and shielded Central American refugees in the 1980s sanctuary movement. But campuses are still responsible for “complying with the law,” she said. If students interpret the term “sanctuary” to mean otherwise, she fears they might misunderstand what protections they do and don’t have.

“It’s actually not communicating clearly and transparently what the campus is going to do,” she said.

Feldblum believes students’ outrage toward Columbia over its handling of federal immigration actions reflects how easy it is to misunderstand campuses’ legal options. From her perspective, Columbia followed best practices by developing policies delineating private and public space on campus—where ICE can and cannot enter without a judicial warrant—and making sure immigration officials had the correct warrants when they came knocking. Feldblum argued a sanctuary campus would have done the same.

She emphasized that just because campus leaders take extra care with their language doesn’t mean they’re doing any less to support undocumented students. She said many campuses are furiously updating their protocols on how to handle ICE officials on campus and ramping up services and supports for undocumented students without a sanctuary label.

“The commitment to support students, to use the tools in our toolbox to make sure that we’re protecting students’ right to free speech, that we’re supporting our campuses so they are places for safe and supportive learning is very much at top of mind for campus leaders,” Feldblum said.

Maryam Ahranjani, professor of law at the University of New Mexico, expressed similar discomfort with the term “sanctuary”; she argued it “may not have the same meaning to everyone” and as a result can be “counterproductive.”

“There may be people who would actually support the goals of people in favor of a designation, but maybe they just don’t like the term,” Ahranjani said.

Instead of making a big national push for sanctuary, advocates of undocumented student should “think about how to get the support of highest-level leaders, presidents, provosts” on a set of specific goals informed by the needs and concerns of undocumented students’ on individual campuses, she added.

Colleges need plans in place for how they’d respond to ICE raids, but undocumented students could also be facing other problems that go unnoticed, like bullying or “how the current climate affects [their] ability to learn,” she said. “I think it’s important to talk to them about what their exact individual needs are.” But some advocates for sanctuary campuses insist the designation is needed now more than ever, with both undocumented populations and campus free speech squarely in the administration’s crosshairs.

Michelle Ming, political director at United We Dream, an immigrant youth advocacy organization, empathizes with campus leaders who fear for their federal funding but argues that colleges that don’t embrace sanctuary campus status deny undocumented students a sense of security, thus depriving them of the full benefits of the college experience.

“What is the point of having a school if it’s not going to be safe?” she said. To Ming, sanctuary means students “feel safe to go to class. They feel safe to go and do what they came to do—and paid to do—which is learn, further their education, discover what the next step in life is and form communities that really resonate with who they are and who they want to be. And that includes exercising free speech.”

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March 24, 2025
Try Reading Job Descriptions With a Growth Mindset (Opinion)
In a résumé workshop with a group of Ph.D. students, I shared a job description for a position for which they were qualified. The students had participated in an advanced pedagogy program at my university’s Center for Teaching and Learning, and the position was an instructional technologist at a small liberal arts college. Immediately, the students searched the job description for qualities and experiences they lacked and reasons why they were unqualified. Many were so turned off by the job title that they likely would not have continued reading had they come across this position on their own.

Then I encouraged the students to approach the position description with a bias toward “I’m qualified.” In other words, instead of starting with the assumption that they were not qualified for the role, do the opposite. Once they changed their mindset and believed that they were qualified, they were able to see many connections between their skills and experiences and what they read in the job description.

In my work as a graduate student career adviser, I have found that this tendency for Ph.D. students to approach descriptions for jobs outside their academic field from a deficit perspective is quite common. Graduate students who have trained for years with an eye toward an academic position in their field often see themselves as utterly unqualified when they begin to search for jobs in other sectors. This can even be the case for those who have spent considerable amounts of time on career exploration and self-reflection and feel committed to a career in a field other than academia. Once they get to the job search process, they get hung up on the job descriptions themselves.

When I told another career adviser about my “bias toward ‘I’m qualified’” approach, she said that this reminded her of the growth mindset concept. Psychologist Carol Dweck came up with the concept of the growth mindset nearly 20 years ago, and it has since been applied to everything from business to professional sports to early childhood education. In short, a growth mindset is, to cite Dweck’s definition, “based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.” In other words, you can change and improve many aspects of yourself through hard work and help from others. This is in contrast to a fixed mindset, which is the belief that your qualities are “carved in stone” and cannot be changed.

This concept has many applications in work and life, and when we are stressed about a job search it is easy to let a fixed mindset take over. However, adopting a growth mindset in just one context—reading job descriptions—can help you be more positive and open-minded in your job search. Of course, not everyone can do every job, but a growth mindset will help you see and articulate both your qualifications and your potential in a new career field.

Consider the following ways in which reading job descriptions with a growth mindset can create more opportunities in your career exploration and job search.
- See and articulate your transferable skills and experiences.
Talk to a career adviser for five minutes, and they are likely to discuss the importance of transferable skills. Yet it can be tough to conceive of your skills, know which skills are most important, see how they might come in handy in other contexts and then articulate those skills in a way that is appealing to other audiences. Here is an example from my own career about how reading a job description with a growth mindset helped me identify and articulate a skill set I didn’t know I had.

Shortly after finishing my Ph.D., I came across a job posting for a school relations manager at a nonprofit organization, liaising between high school teachers and the organization. The job fit my interests, but at first glance it didn’t seem to match my skill set. In particular, the job description asked for relationship-building skills, which I had never thought about as a skill set, let alone one that I possessed. As I reflected on my experience throughout my time in graduate school, I thought about a short-term, part-time position I had meeting once a month with high school history teachers to help them design lesson plans. I enjoyed this work and was good at it and, though I had never thought about it before, realized that I could frame this experience as relationship building. In my application materials and job interviews, I emphasized this skill set and expressed confidence in continuing to grow in this area, and I got the job.
- Open up new career fields.
Several years ago, I worked with a Ph.D. student in art history who was interested in a career in user experience research. Although she was still two years away from graduation, she started looking at job descriptions to get a better sense of the responsibilities and qualifications for the kinds of roles she desired. In her research, she noticed that many positions asked for evidence of user experience projects, and some even asked for a portfolio. While some students would have seen this as an insurmountable barrier (a fixed mindset), she instead let her growth mindset kick in and got to work building her portfolio through project-based online courses, independent projects and on-campus jobs, and continued to network with practitioners in the field. Her hard work and help from others paid off, and she was able to move into the field after she graduated.
- Compete for jobs for which you may be somewhat underqualified.
Students often let the perception of being underqualified for a job prevent them from applying. This is a well-documented tendency among women and underrepresented groups, and, for graduate students, the impostor phenomenon often contributes to reduced confidence in relation to career possibilities. Most graduate students know about this tendency and the advice to apply if you meet 60 to 75 percent of the qualifications, Yet, many still have difficulty getting over the hump to apply when they don’t meet 100 percent of the qualifications in the job description. Or, if they do apply, they undersell their qualifications in their application materials.

When you approach a position description for a job that interests you but feels like a reach, start with the job responsibilities and imagine yourself performing the tasks listed. If there are things on the list you haven’t done before, imagine how you could build on the skills and capacities you have in a new setting and then improve over time. Next, go through each qualification and look for some connection, however tenuous, to something you have done before and write it down. If you have trouble doing this on your own, work with a career adviser who can help. Usually this process helps you see capacities and qualifications you didn’t know you had and will give you confidence that you can grow into a role that feels like a stretch.
- Apply for jobs for which you may feel overqualified.
This next piece of advice addresses the other end of the spectrum—jobs for which you feel overqualified. Ph.D. students who are entering a field other than academia are making a career transition, which often requires spending some time in a role that might feel beneath your qualifications. This is especially true in certain industries like publishing, journalism, marketing and communications, and others. It can feel demoralizing for doctoral students to apply for jobs that only require a bachelor’s degree.

In this case, use a growth mindset to imagine how you could advance within the organization or how this first position could be a stepping-stone to another opportunity in a couple of years. Keep in mind that people with advanced degrees tend to get promoted to a higher level and more quickly than those with just a bachelor’s. You won’t be stuck in this first role forever, and it will give you a chance to demonstrate your skills in your new field.

Underlying these tips is a nudge to get online and read some job descriptions, even if you aren’t yet ready to apply. Just make sure that when you do, you suit up with your growth mindset first.

Rachel Bernard is the GSAS Compass Consultant at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she focuses on career development for master’s and doctoral students. She is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing a national voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.
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March 24, 2025
Arkansas Passes Higher Ed “Reform” Bill

Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a wide-ranging bill last Tuesday, upending the state’s higher education budget and clamping down on DEI and student protests, according to The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas ACCESS Law includes a number of measures prioritizing funding for trade schools and short-term credential programs, including using the lottery system to fund school scholarships and eliminating support for Advanced Placement accelerated learning tracks in an effort to encourage career readiness over traditional college prep.

The law also doubles funding for the state’s Academic Challenge Scholarship and expands eligibility to trade school applicants; prohibits colleges from spending on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or participating in any external DEI programs; and amends the state’s excused absence policies to prevent students from participating in protests.

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March 24, 2025