Tag: Higher

College Aid Previews Aim to Improve Early Decision

With the imminent arrival of early-decision results comes a new round of hand-wringing about the admissions practice, which affords students a better chance of getting accepted to their top institution but requires them to commit if admitted.

Critics argue that the practice disadvantages low- and middle-income students, who fear being locked into attending a college before they know if they can afford it—although many colleges with an early-decision option allow students to back out over financial constraints. It also prevents applicants from comparing financial aid offers across multiple institutions.

“Because there is so much uncertainty, families with high incomes are more likely to choose early decision and therefore benefit from its more favorable odds. It’s the perfect tool for maximizing revenues at schools positioned as luxury products, with price tags to match,” wrote Daniel Currell, a former deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the Department of Education from 2018 to 2021, in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday that argued for the end of early decision. Indeed, Common App data about the fall 2021 freshman class showed that students from the wealthiest ZIP codes were twice as likely to apply early decision.

But despite the criticisms, some institutions are aiming to make the practice more equitable. A handful of small liberal arts colleges have introduced initiatives in recent years to allow students to preview their financial aid offers before they decide whether or not to apply early, which admissions leaders say they hope will make lower-income students feel more comfortable taking the leap.

Reed College, a selective liberal arts college in Oregon, began offering early-decision aid reviews this year, which allow early-decision applicants to request and view their full financial aid packages before they receive an actual decision from the university. Just like an official aid offer, the preview is calculated by financial aid staff using the College Scholarship Service profile.

If they aren’t entirely comfortable with the amount of aid they’re set to receive—or they’d rather compare offers from other institutions—they can drop their application down into the early-action pool.

“I just think that this anxiety that people have over not getting the best financial deal for their family has been a barrier for people saying, ‘This is my first-choice school and I want to do everything I can to increase my chances for admission,’” said Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed.

Early financial aid offers are among the various steps institutions have taken in recent years to improve cost transparency and, in many cases, show students that their institutions are affordable. Others include improved cost estimators and campaigns offering free tuition for families under a particular income limit. Institutions hope that such innovations will help prevent students from writing off their institutions—particularly selective institutions that offer significant aid—due to their sticker prices.

So far, Reed’s reviews appear to be doing a good job of enticing applicants who otherwise might not have applied early; the number of early-decision applicants this year increased 60 percent compared to last admissions cycle. Only one student has opted to switch to early action, which is nonbinding, after receiving their estimated offer.

Similar programs at other institutions have also proven successful. Whitman College in Washington began offering early financial aid guarantees in 2020 to any prospective student who had filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The initiative wasn’t created specifically to promote early decision, said Adam Miller, vice president for admission and financial aid. But he said he hoped that making it clear to families that Whitman is affordable would also open doors for students interested in applying early decision but nervous about costs.

Early-decision applications haven’t increased at Whitman like they did this year at Reed. But Miller noted that the college’s early-decision applicants are as socioeconomically diverse as the institution’s overall applicant pool, rather than skewing wealthier.

“As we think about these nationwide conversations and the very valid criticism of early decision, we think that our approach allows us to have kind of a win-win,” he said. “We still get the benefit of students who are applying early, [so] that we can start to build our incoming class with some confidence,” while also eliminating financial uncertainty for families.

Last year, the university’s four-person financial aid staff handled 546 requests for early aid guarantees. It’s an extra lift for the tiny office, but, Miller said, 410 of those students ended up applying—“so it’s not like we were doing a lot of extra work for students that we weren’t going to be doing it for anyway.”

Macalester College also launched such a program in 2021. The institution, which typically admits between 35 and 40 percent of its incoming class from early decision, implemented aid previews in conjunction with a number of other steps aimed at improving access, including going test-optional and eliminating its application fee.

“If we have an opportunity to do something that we think might be helpful to an individual student or family, I guess I feel as responsibility as an enrollment manager to try to initiate a new practice or new policy,” said Jeff Allen, vice president for admissions and financial aid at Macalester.

Boosting Cost Transparency

Financial aid experts said they see early financial aid calculations as a good option for institutions hoping to make the early-decision process—and college costs over all—more transparent.

Students should be able to “apply early decision to a school where they know it’s the place for them and they don’t need to be saying, ‘But I need the financial aid so maybe this isn’t a good choice,’” said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “That option should be available to anyone that finds the school where they really feel like they belong via early decision without having to factor in their finances, so any kind of early estimates, accurate early estimates—anything like that is a positive thing.”

She noted that such programs might be too heavy of a lift for institutions receiving massive numbers of applications every year, but also that larger institutions have more resources and staffing to accommodate such requests.

James Murphy, a senior fellow at Class Action, an advocacy organization focused on “reimagining elite higher education,” said that while he sees early aid previews as a positive step toward transparency, they don’t address some of his key concerns about early decision. At many expensive private high schools, he said, nearly every student applies early decision, whereas public high school students often aren’t even aware of the option.

“There’s kind of a culture thing. If you go to Georgetown Prep … everybody’s applying early decision, or most students are applying early decision, unless they’re applying to Harvard or Stanford that don’t have it … When you look at public schools, that’s not nearly as common,” he said. “I think raising awareness of early decision as a viable option for more students is one step that higher education could take to make it a little bit more equitable.”

He also noted that some institutions admit over half of their incoming classes from early-decision applicants, which dramatically lowers the chances for regular-admission applicants to be admitted.

“The New York Times had that op-ed about banning it. That’s not going to happen. Colleges will fight so hard to make that not happen,” he said. But, he said, “what I would love to see is caps” on the percentage of students that can be admitted early decision.

Source link

December 12, 2025
In Defense of Berkeley Instructor Peyrin Kao

Peyrin Kao, a University of California, Berkeley, computer science lecturer, was suspended from teaching for a semester after UC Berkeley decreed that Kao’s criticism of Israel had violated campus bans on “political advocacy” in class. There are two significant problems with this action: Kao didn’t engage in advocacy in his class, and Berkeley’s rules don’t restrict political advocacy.

The suspension of Kao reflects two alarming possibilities: Either Kao is being targeted for his criticism of Israel and there is selective persecution of faculty for leftist political beliefs, or Kao’s suspension shows a new, broader ban on all political speech in the classroom.

The fact that this repression is happening at UC Berkeley—a top university in a blue state legendary for the Free Speech Movement and liberal politics—indicates how widespread censorship is across the country today.

As Kao noted, “The university loves to talk about how they are ‘the free speech university,’ ‘the home of the free speech movement’ … but when it comes to Palestine: ‘Sorry, we’re drawing the line, your free speech does not apply.’”

In October, UC Berkeley executive vice chancellor and provost Benjamin Hermalin wrote a letter determining that Kao was guilty of violating Regents Policy 2301 in two incidents.

In 2023, Kao, after dismissing class, spoke for four minutes about ethics and technology, and expressed criticism of the Israeli government. In 2024, Kao informed students that he was on a hunger strike (without explaining why).

It’s shocking that such trivial examples of advocacy could ever justify such a severe punishment. In the first case, Hermalin makes a ridiculous argument that what happens after a class is over is in fact part of the class.

He writes, “Nothing in Regents Policy 2301 can be read to indicate it doesn’t apply when a course goes into ‘overtime.’” While it’s true that the rules about behavior during classes apply when instructors extend a class beyond the normal time (“overtime”), those limits end when the class is over. The Provost even quotes Kao’s words: “It is 2pm so class is officially over.” Once Kao says that, there is no overtime. There is only after-class time, and that time is not regulated by the Policy 2301 for course content. Of course, Kao’s brief comments on ethics in technology should be fully protected during a computer science class, but the fact that they happened outside of class means they cannot be regulated by these rules about classroom speech.

The second alleged violation is even more ridiculous. Kao is accused of breaking the rules by uttering 20 words: “I’m currently undergoing a starvation diet for a cause that I believe in. If that sounds interesting, there’s a link.”

The provost concluded, “I find Mr. Kao to have misused the classroom for the purpose of political advocacy, an action that constitutes a violation of Regents Policy 2301.”

No, he didn’t, and no, it isn’t. Telling students that you’re on a starvation diet isn’t “political advocacy”; if Kao was ill or dieting for health reasons, he would be fully entitled to warn students of this fact in case it affected him, and nothing about these words is “political advocacy.” The same logic applies to a medical condition induced for political reasons.

But the provost is also wrong on a much deeper level: There is no prohibition on “political advocacy” in Policy 2301. The word “advocacy” never appears in Policy 2301. Yet the provost proceeds to wonder “whether the instructor’s intent is to advocate” and frequently quotes his interviews rather than focusing on what he said in class and what Policy 2301 says. Political advocacy in the classroom is fundamentally protected by academic freedom.

Astonishingly, the provost even asked, “To what extent is a hunger strike an in-class advocacy activity precluded by Regents Policy 2301?” In what bizarro world could a hunger strike ever be deemed “in-class advocacy”? Refusing to eat during class is not “advocacy” at all. The suggestion that Regents Policy 2301 could be interpreted to require teachers to eat outside the classroom is insane.

The provost noted, “His actions are no different from those of an instructor who repeatedly wore a t-shirt when teaching that had on it a very visible political symbol or a picture of a political candidate.” Wait, does the provost actually think that professors are banned from wearing T-shirts with symbols on them? Will a professor with a peace symbol T-shirt be hauled before the provost for dress code violations? Wait until the provost finds out that some professors wear crosses while teaching—I’m sure that will be quickly prohibited by any fair-minded ban on advocacy.

Perhaps UC Berkeley professors need to start wearing T-shirts with the First Amendment on them to remind the provost why we must not allow political commissars to dictate what teachers wear, say or think.

Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression argued, “If you’re going on tangents during class or expressing a political advocacy to students during class as a professor, you’re on company time.” But the whole concept of academic freedom is a rejection of “company time.” Academic freedom in the classroom means that the instructor, not the company, decides what is taught. The classroom is “professional time” where instructors must meet professional standards. But professional standards allow for wide leeway to go on tangents, discuss broader issues and even chat with students about nonprofessional topics. If there is a professor who has never uttered any words in any class unrelated to the course topic, I would love to meet that weirdo.

If a professor is wasting half of every class on a tangent unrelated to the course, then that professor should be disciplined. But the reason for the discipline must be politically neutral and disconnected from any viewpoint discrimination. A professor who expresses political views in class is no different from a professor who expresses views about the football team or a professor who discusses the weather (in a class unrelated to it). All of them are engaging in speech not germane to the class.

But no one can seriously argue that a four-minute statement after class about ethics in technology or a 20-word comment about being on a hunger strike could possibly describe an instructor who is failing to teach the content of the class by going on constant tangents.

The fact that Kao’s words were repeatedly described as “political” is not evidence of Kao’s guilt, but proof of the administration’s guilt. By targeting Kao purely for his political speech, and applying standards that would never be used for similar noncontroversial speech, the Berkeley administration is confessing to its violation of the First Amendment and standards of academic freedom that protect faculty from retaliation for their views.

Policy 2301 is a terrible policy, enacted in 1970 by the regents to suppress free speech, and it violates standards of academic freedom and the First Amendment by targeting “political indoctrination” (rather than all “indoctrination”) and therefore engages in viewpoint discrimination against disfavored political views.

But even Policy 2301 does not allow the kind of repression demanded by the provost, which is why he doesn’t quote any of its specific provisions in claiming Kao’s alleged violation of it.

The provost repeatedly accuses Kao of being “at odds with the spirit of Regents Policy 2301” but fails to quote anything in the policy he actually violated. Suspensions cannot be justified by “spirits”; they can only be legitimate if there is a clear violation of the rule.

The provost’s report is so grossly incompetent—fabricating clauses about “advocacy” that don’t exist in a policy he apparently hasn’t read—that it shows how arbitrary this act of political retaliation was.

Writing that the punishment was “up to you,” the provost gave his subordinates an implicit order to suspend Kao with only one other option: “I would have no objection if you wished to impose a more severe disciplinary action than the one I proposed.” Obviously, he would object to anything less than a suspension, and the resulting suspension is not surprising to anyone. It is highly unprofessional for a top administrator to personally intervene in a discipline case in order to manipulate the outcome and decree what punishment must be given.

The repressive administrative overreaction at Berkeley is precisely why we must give enormous freedom to instructors to do things that we think are wrong. Unless you protect the right of faculty to say dumb and inappropriate things in their classes, people driven mad by the possession of administrative power will seek to fire professors for what they say and do outside of class.

We should want professors who feel free to express their values and their ideas openly, even when it offends some people. We should reject a world where every professor must fear saying a disapproved word in a classroom where every utterance is monitored for wrongthink.

I don’t agree with Kao’s goals of campus divestment from Israel. I don’t agree with Kao’s tactics of engaging in a hunger strike. And I don’t agree with Kao’s methods of discussing his views in or after his classes.

But Kao did not violate any university rules, and it is fundamentally unjust to suspend him for purely political reasons. People are free to criticize him for his ideas, but not to censor him or punish him for expressing them.

UC Berkeley administrators have violated Kao’s academic freedom and the First Amendment in their shameful punishment of him for his free speech, and they deserve condemnation not only for this unjust act against Kao but also for the much larger chilling effect this repression will cause across the University of California.

Source link

December 12, 2025
Purdue Allegedly Rejecting Chinese, Other Grad Students

Purdue University is allegedly rejecting large numbers of Chinese graduate student applicants.

wanderluster/iStock/Getty Images

Current and prospective Purdue University graduate students say the institution rejected a slew of Chinese applicants from its grad programs for this academic year. Also, one grad student says the university told grad admissions committees in the past couple of months that it’s highly unlikely to accept students from any “adversary nation” for next year.

Faculty were told those countries are China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela, said Kieran Hilmer, a teaching assistant on the leadership committee of Graduate Rights and Our Wellbeing (GROW), a group trying to unionize Purdue grad workers. That list broadly matches the commerce secretary’s catalog of foreign adversaries.

Hilmer said the university conveyed this prohibition verbally. “They didn’t write any of this down,” he said.

Purdue isn’t commenting on the allegations. The university has faced scrutiny from members of Congress about its ties to China. In May, the Trump administration briefly said it would revoke Chinese students’ visas nationwide. The president has since changed his tune and said he would welcome more students from China.

A Chinese student who wished to remain anonymous because he’s still trying to get into Purdue told Inside Higher Ed he received an offer to be a research assistant last February, meaning his funding was secure to become a Purdue grad student this academic year. But, in April or May, he said, the Office of Graduate Admissions told him that his application was denied.

The redacted two-paragraph letter that he provided to Inside Higher Ed said admission “is competitive and many factors are carefully considered,” but “we are not able to provide specific feedback.”

The student, who said he got his master’s degree in the U.S. and wishes to remain here, said he had already moved to West Lafayette, where Purdue’s flagship campus is, signed a lease and turned down other institutions’ offers. He said the rejection could impact his visa.

“I may get deported,” he said.

He said he learned through social media that at least 100 other Chinese students were similarly rejected.

Purdue spokespeople also didn’t provide a response to the Lafayette Journal & Courier and the Exponent student newspaper when asked about this issue. The Journal & Courier, which first reported the story, cited four faculty members from “a wide range of departments” who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the university.

Multiple heads of graduate admissions committees didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday; one who answered the phone referred a reporter to the press office, which didn’t respond. Emails sent to Office of Graduate Admissions employees went unanswered.

While Purdue won’t explain what actions it’s taking or why, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said in a September report that it’s been investigating Purdue and five other universities—Stanford and Carnegie Mellon Universities and the Universities of Maryland, Southern California and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—all year “regarding the presence and research activities of Chinese national students on their campuses.”

Hilmer said Purdue is rejecting Chinese applicants in “a specific attempt to comply with the U.S. Select Committee.” (The committee didn’t comment Thursday on whether it pressured Purdue to go as far as it allegedly has.) But Hilmer also said the “hostility and malice” the university is showing these students goes further than what the committee requested.

“As Purdue said in its response to the House Select Committee, international students are fully vetted by the United States government when they apply for their visas,” Hilmer said. “And, on top of that, in order to work on projects related to national security, they need to get further security clearance. So there’s no reason for Purdue to make this unilateral extralegal decision to ban all of these students.”

He said many of these students were already in the U.S.

“This policy is obviously discriminatory and immoral, and, on top of that, it violates Purdue’s policy on nondiscrimination,” he said. The Chinese student told Inside Higher Ed that he doesn’t accept the committee pressure rationale, because Purdue wasn’t the only university under investigation.

If Purdue is responding to the committee’s pressure, it’s another example of a selective American institution bending to the federal government’s efforts to reduce international enrollment and to particularly target Chinese students and scholars. During President Trump’s first term in office, the Justice Department launched the controversial China Initiative, which investigated faculty ties to China.

Republicans said the initiative sought to counter espionage, but Democrats, education lobbyists and Asian American advocates argued it was ineffective and instead justified racial profiling and discrimination. A study suggested the initiative’s investigations may have caused valuable researchers of Chinese descent to leave the U.S. for China.

Hilmer said Purdue’s rejection of Chinese students will harm its reputation and ability to recruit the best students and workers.

“Even if they’re not international students, they’re going to say, ‘Why would I ever accept an offer from Purdue if there’s no guarantee that it’s actually an offer?’” he said. “Why would they ever feel comfortable accepting an offer from Purdue if they could go anywhere else?”

Source link

December 12, 2025
Shouldn’t College Be for Learning?

In a long, passionate, well-reasoned, thoroughly evidenced cri de coeur published at Current Affairs, San Francisco State professor Ronald Purser declares, “AI Is Destroying the University and Learning Itself.”

That attention-grabbing headline is a bit misleading, because as Purser makes clear in the article, it is not “AI” itself that is destroying these things. The source of the problem is human beings, primarily the human beings in charge of universities that have looked at the offerings from tech companies and, failing to recognize the vampire prepared to drain their institutions of their life force, not only invite them across the threshold but declare them their new bosom buddies.

Dartmouth University recently announced a deal with Anthropic/Amazon Web Services that university president Sian Beilock declared “is more than a collaboration.” The promises are familiar, using AI “to augment—not replace—student learning,” as though this is something we know how to do, and that this is best explored en masse across all aspects of the university simultaneously, rather than through careful experimentation. I think I understand some of the motivation to these kinds of deals—to seize some sense of agency in uncertain times—but the idea that even an institution as august as Dartmouth with such a long history in the development of artificial intelligence will be “collaborators” with these two entities is wishful thinking, IMO.

Purser’s piece details much of what I’ve heard in my travels from institution to institution to speak and consult on these issues. There is a lot of well-earned angst out there, particularly in places where administrations have made bets that look like a Texas Hold’em player pushing all in on a pair of eights. No consultation, no collaboration, no vision beyond vague promises of future abundance. A recent AAUP report stemming from a survey of 500 of its members shows that one of the chief fears of faculty is being sidelined entirely as administrations strike these deals.

This uninvited guest has thrown much of what we would consider the core purpose of the university in doubt. As Purser says, “Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.”

While Purser’s account is accurate to a degree, I also want to say that it is not complete. As I wrote a couple of months ago, there are also great signs of progress in terms of addressing the challenges of the moment. The kind of administration and institutional carelessness that Purser documents is not universal, and even under those conditions, faculty and students are finding ways to do meaningful work. Many people are successfully addressing what I’ve long believed is the core problem, the “transactional model” of schooling that actively dissuades students from taking the required risks for learning and personal development.

One of the most frequent observations I’ve made in doing this work is that many, perhaps even most, students have no real enthusiasm for an AI-mediated future where their thoughts and experiences are secondary to the outputs of an LLM model. The fact that they find the model outputs useful in school contexts is the problem.

I was greatly cheered by this account from Matt Dinan, who details how he built the experiences of his course from root pedagogical values in a way that clearly signals to students the importance of doing the work for themselves, the importance of their thoughts and the sincere belief that taking a risk to learn is worth doing and well supported.

What we see is that success comes from giving instructors the freedom to work the problem under conditions that allow the problem to be solved. Note that this does not de facto require a rejection of AI. There’s plenty of room for those more interested in AI to explore its integration, but it does mean doing more than signaling to faculty and students, “You’re going to use AI and you’re going to like it.”

Much of what Purser describes is not only the imposition of AI, but the imposition of AI in a system that has been worn down through austerity measures over many decades, leaving it vulnerable to what is nothing more than an ideology promising increased efficiency and lower cost while still allowing the institutions to collect tuition revenue. This thinking reduces the “value proposition” of higher ed to its credentialing purpose.

I know that the popular image of colleges and universities is that they are slow to change, but I have actually been surprised at the speed at which many institutions are making this AI future bet, particularly when we don’t know what future we’re betting on.

Applying the tech ethos of “move fast and break things” to education has gained some traction because there is evidence to point toward and say, “This thing is already broken, so what do we have to lose?”

We could lose a lot—and lose it forever.

I remain open to the idea that generative AI and whatever comes after it can have positive effects on higher education, but I am increasingly convinced that when it comes to the experiences of learning, we know very little as to how this should be done. As Justin Reich wrote recently at The Chronicle, “stop pretending you know how to teach AI.”

We shouldn’t abandon the things we do know how to teach (like writing) while we experiment with this new technology. We shouldn’t dodge the structural barriers that Ronald Purser outlines in his piece, hoping for an AI savior around the corner. This isn’t what students want, it’s not what students need and it is not a way to secure an ongoing value proposition for higher education.

Source link

December 12, 2025
An opportunity to reset the higher education environment?

Author:

Bahram Bekhradnia

Published:

12 December 2025

This blog was authored by Bahram Bekhradnia, HEPI’s founder and President, and was first written before yesterday’s news about the Chief Executive of the Office for Students standing down at Easter 2026.

The recently published OfS Strategy states that, in addition to being ambitious and vigilant, in future the organisation will be ‘collaborative’ and ‘vocal’ in promoting English higher education as a force for good. If that really is its intention, it will represent a huge and welcome change from its past behaviour. No doubt this new approach reflects that of a new Government and Secretary of State. But this leopard will not find it easy to change its spots so suddenly.

These spots derive from the environment and ideology that gave rise to its creation. In that respect, the recent Post-16 Education and Skills white paper represents a great missed opportunity to correct one of the more egregious faults of the present regime – an ideology which underpinned the 2011 white paper and the changes that followed: the ideology of higher education as a marketplace

The 2010/11 regime, enshrined in legislation and which continues even now, is based on the notion that higher education – indeed, perhaps education more generally – is a ‘product’ and that students are ‘consumers’ of that product. And consequently, as is the case with respect to consumers of other monopoly (or monopolistic) products like gas, water, telecoms etc they need a ‘market’ regulator to protect their interests. So in the same way as we now have Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom, we needed an OfStud.

But even those other ‘Offices for’ recognise the need for a healthy sector and are concerned with the national interest and their sector as a whole. Not so the Office for Students, which has steadfastly avoided any concern to ensure that England has a healthy and successful higher education sector, but has focused firmly and exclusively on protecting student interests – or at least what it has perceived as being student interests.

For more than a decade, its modus operandi has been to wag its finger sternly at higher education institutions and tell them that they must do better – however well they are doing – and to say nothing to advocate for higher education. Indeed, constantly telling universities that they must do better has fed the anti-university environment fostered by previous ministers (even the previous Prime Minister spoke of ‘rip-off degrees’) and a hostile press.

The leadership of the OfS could not be expected to change its spots. New leadership was clearly required, and the replacement of the Chair represents a good start. But after more than a decade of undermining the higher education sector, it will take more than a new Chair at the top of the organisation to enable it credibly to discharge its new stated aim of being ‘collaborative’ and ‘vocal that higher education is a force for good’.

New leadership is certainly required, but beyond that, the Government needs to create a body that is more than a regulator – one that has explicit responsibility for fostering the health of the sector as a whole and ensuring that England has the higher education sector that it needs. It should reject the ideology of higher education as a marketplace, of education as a product and of students as ‘consumers’ of that product.

Source link

December 12, 2025
Higher education postcard: Normal College, Bangor revisited

Greetings from Bangor!

We’ve visited Normal College before, but I frankly couldn’t resist sharing this postcard, with a very lovely scene, so we’re going back for another look. This time at an occurrence in the college’s early years, and a couple of newspaper snippets.

As we’ve seen, the college was founded in 1868, through the efforts of Hugh Owen and the British and Foreign Schools Society.

The Illustrated Times on 14 January 1960 published an engraving and the following text:

The accompanying Engraving represents the Normal Training College in course of erection at Bangor, the foundation-stone of which was laid by Lord John Russell on the 11th of November last. The ground occupied the building, and overlooking the Menai Straits, was generously given for the purpose by the Hon. E. G. D. Pennant, MP. The institution is for the training and instruction of forty students to act as schoolmasters in the northern division of the principality. Our Illustration is from the design made by Mr. John Barnett, the architect.

10 November 1890 saw student protest at the college. As the Weekly Times and Echo reported the following Sunday:

The students at the North Wales Normal College at Bangor, about seventy in number, were on Tuesday summarily expelled for having left the college on Monday night as a protest against the food served. The institution, which is used for the training of Board schoolmasters for schools in North Wales, is now entirely closed, and will remain so till Christmas. The college authorities aver that the food complained of was excellent, and that the revolt arose through the impertinence of one student, who was ordered to leave the table, upon which his companions rose and joined him. As the students declined to appear before the Committee, either by deputation or individually, the only course left to the Committee was to authorise Principal Rowlands to dismiss them pending an enquiry.

What happened next? Well, a flurry of back and forth in various newspapers, about who called who a liar, and then in January the search for a new principal begins. Are these events connected? We do not know for sure, but it must be a strong suspicion. The Jisc archives hub holds material which suggests that the students were readmitted after 3 days, and an official enquiry launched by the Inspector for Training Colleges. This concluded that the food was fine, but discipline was lax.

On 5 February 1891 the South Wales Daily News published the following letter:

Allow me to call the attention of Welsh educationalists in general, and old Bangorians in particular, to the appointment of a new principal for the above college [Normal College, Bangor]. I understand that the ‘enemy’ its doing its utmost to shelve the only man entitled to the post – the honoured vice-principal, Mr John Price. It behoves Old Bangorians to be up and doing – that is, assuming sectarianism is trying to crush Mr Price. More anon, I am &c, Iwan.

And then in April 1891 the appointment of John Price was announced, after an eight hour committee meeting/interview panel, with hints that the defeated candidate – Mr Keri Evans, a Congregationalist from Carmarthen College – was supported by a number of Calvinistic Methodists, and would surely be heard from again.

Another time I will try to dig further into this. I may have to learn some theology to do so.

On 2 July 1914 the North Wales Weekly News published the following report of a cricket match between Llanwrst and Normal College. It was a low scoring match. And, the tea interval being a highlight, clearly not one which gripped the reporter.

The year before, Normal had beaten Llanwrst, and judging by the scorecard for both games it looks like some sort of time- or over-limited game was being played.

The boat on the card is the MV St Trillo. This was built in 1936 at the Fairfield shipyard in Glasgow, for the Liverpool & North Wales Steam Ship Co. She was one of three pleasure steamers operated by the company along the north Wales coast; this blog post has details of the kinds of trips she would make. Originally called the St Silio, in 1945 she was renamed the St Trillo. In 1963 her owners folded, and St Trillo was bought by P&A Campbell. She continued to operate in North Wales and also in the Bristol Channel, between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare. She was scrapped in 1975 in Dublin.

Here’s the postcard as a jigsaw. I’m sorry that its such a tricky one this week, but as I said, I couldn’t resist the card. The card was posted in September 1958 to Mr and Mrs Budden in Liverpool 11:

Ronnie and I are here for the day and it is glorious and the boat is packed. We were too late to post these so am writing on the boat. Hope you had a nice week, I phoned twice but guessed you were out. Am going to Pat’s on Friday, so will not be up this week. Will phone, Love Maurice

Source link

December 12, 2025
Higher education needs to better understand the link between neurodivergence and hormonal dysregulation

The purpose of this article is to highlight an issue that is likely to affect many women working in higher education – but it’s one that they, their colleagues, and their managers are probably unaware of.

In general, there is now a much greater understanding of the issues for women, and their male colleagues and managers, around peri- and post-menopause. Obviously that is not specific to HE but something that many organisations, including universities, have been keen to provide information and support on.

What is less well publicised is the link between hormonal dysregulation and an exacerbation of neurodivergent traits in neurodivergent people. You might be wondering why this would be a particular issue for the HE sector. But there is evidence to suggest that universities are likely to attract a higher percentage of neurodivergent staff in academic roles (albeit often undisclosed), due to the strengths that are associated with many neurodivergent behaviours.

These strengths include the ability to hyperfocus on the details of a single topic for a long time, without noticing when one is tired or hungry, for example. This is often a skill or behaviour that is displayed by those with significant responsibility for research.

Perfectionism is also a known neurodivergent behaviour, often displayed by academics involved in both teaching and research, as are high levels of intellectual curiosity, creativity and original thinking. Finally, many neurodivergent individuals have a strong empathy towards the disadvantaged, linked to a strong desire to improve social justice – without this, many academics would not have decided to work in higher education.

Having any or all of these skills does not mean that one is neurodivergent, but rather that neurodivergent individuals often have strengths in these areas. There is also an understanding that those individuals who excel at mathematics, and other STEM related disciplines, are more likely to be neurodivergent. Again this will include many academics working in HE.

Making the link

It is only recently that psychologists and schools have started becoming more aware of how neurodivergent traits manifest in children, and so more children are being diagnosed with these behaviours – and thus able to get the help, support and reasonable adjustments they need to thrive.

Not so with the current adult workforce. When I was at school there was some awareness of dyslexia, although it was rarely talked about, but nothing about autism or ADHD. Indeed I first learned I had dyslexia during a university interview aged 17 when I was told that my English teacher had “helpfully” declared this in her reference. There was no awareness that finding out this way might be a shock, or that I might have other challenges that might benefit from support.

Even when my children were school age (some 20 or 30 years ago), very few children in their classes were diagnosed, and then it was limited to boys with disruptive behaviours.

There is now a greater understanding of the different forms of neurodivergence and, in particular, ADHD and autistic spectrum disorder. People with these neurodevelopmental conditions can exhibit the strengths above as well as less welcome ones, such as overwhelm, difficulty coping with sudden changes, the need for routine and one’s own space, sensory issues including noise and lighting, and suicidal ideation and self-harm.

Why is this a problem? I went undiagnosed for 59 years. I could have gone through life without needing a diagnosis – had it not been for the exacerbation of traits that I now recognise was a result of the hormonal dysregulation I have experienced during the past 15 years. Years of significant overwhelm leading to dark thoughts and a desire to self-harm, extreme reactions to certain lights, noise, a dislike of being touched and an increasing inability to cope with change – particularly last-minute changes (not uncommon in higher education at present).

I experienced similar issues during puberty and pregnancy. As with menopause, I put this down to hormonal change but failed to appreciate that this was linked to my, then unknown, neurodivergence.

From recent experience and observation, I began to suspect that autistic traits increased as we aged and for women were exacerbated when linked with the symptoms of menopause. However when I attended a course on neurodiversity in the workplace facilitated by Zara Sloane, I learned that there was indeed a known link between hormonal dysregulation and an exacerbation of neurodivergent traits.

In that same course, I also learned that the positive traits of many neurodivergent conditions were the very behaviours that arguably made great researchers and academics. So there are also likely to be many undiagnosed neurodivergent women in HE, unaware that the extreme physical, emotional, and functional impairment that they experience during their monthly cycle could be due to a neurodivergent condition which when treated, or even just better understood by themselves and their managers, could make life much more manageable.

Supporting neurodivergent women in academia

We now have more women in the UK workplace in general and also in higher education. Many of these are entering peri- and post-menopausal stages. In every menopause café my workplace runs, I hear examples of extreme symptoms women have that are not being sufficiently helped by HRT and other therapies. Is there something more going on? I am not saying we need to diagnose every potentially neurodivergent academic but, if someone suspects they might have a neurodivergent condition, and wants a screening, should we not find the resource for this?

Just knowing that my monthly cycle, peri- and post-menopausal symptoms have been and are affected by my autism, in ways that other women don’t experience, is liberating. I now understand the overwhelm better, and can put in place periods of quiet work during the day to help regulate me. I can remove myself from situations that are particularly noisy and find a sympathetic ear without it leading to a crisis. But what about the thousands of other female academics who have not yet been diagnosed and are unaware of this relationship?

If you have read this far, please bring this to the attention of your managers and leadership teams. Together, let’s publicise this link and get the support for the neurodivergent women in academia who think they just have extreme hormonal symptoms and don’t realise this is connected to neurodivergent conditions which need treating differently.

Source link

December 12, 2025
Willamette and Pacific Universities Plan Merger

If approved, the merger between Willamette (above) and Pacific would create the largest private university in Oregon.

Pacific University and Willamette University have signed a letter of intent to merge, pending approval, which would create the largest private institution in Oregon if the deal is finalized.

Together the two institutions have a collective study body of about 6,000 students.

“If finalized and approved, this merger would be a defining moment for private higher education in the region. Pacific and Willamette are both deeply rooted in Oregon’s history and have educated thousands of leaders who have helped make the Pacific Northwest synonymous with innovation and excellence,” Willamette president Steve Thorsett said in a news release.

Pacific president Jenny Coyle emphasized a shared “commitment to addressing the region’s most pressing workforce needs while preserving the personalized, mission-driven education that defines both of our institutions” and the opportunity to leverage “our collective strengths.”

The combined entity would be known as the University of the Northwest.

The two institutions plan to operate under a shared administrative structure but maintain their respective campuses, admissions requirements, academic programs and athletic teams. Their main campuses are located roughly an hour apart; Willamette is in Salem and Pacific in Forest Grove. Willamette also has a campus in Portland that houses an art college.

The merger will require approval from regulatory bodies, including the Department of Education.

Source link

December 11, 2025
7 in 10 employers have high confidence in higher ed, survey finds
Dive Brief:
- Seventy percent of employers nationwide said they have high confidence in higher education, according to a poll released Thursday from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and research firm Morning Consult.
- Three-quarters of Republican employers expressed high confidence in higher education, followed by 70% of Democrats and 55% of independents. That finding contrasts with other recent polls, which show Democrats viewing the sector more positively than Republicans.
- The survey suggests that employers hold colleges in higher esteem than the general public does. Just 42% of adults said they had high confidence in the higher education sector in a poll earlier this year from Gallup and Lumina Foundation.
Dive Insight:

The results from AAC&U and Morning Consult contrast sharply with recent surveys that show the public is continuing to question whether higher education is worth the price. In the new poll, nearly three-quarters of surveyed employers, 73%, said they believe a college degree is “definitely” or “somewhat” worth it.

Meanwhile, a recent NBC News poll found just one-third of registered voters adults agreed that a four-year degree is “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime.” That’s down from 53% of adults who said the same in 2013.

The results of the new poll suggest employers want college graduates to have a wide range of skills when they enter the workplace. Applying knowledge to the real world was the No. 1 skill desired, with 95% of employers agreeing that ability is “very” or “somewhat” important.

Similar shares of employers also said teamwork, oral and written communication, locating and evaluating information, analyzing and solving complex problems, critical thinking, and ethical judgment and decision-making were important skills.

In addition, employers indicated they want college graduates to have skills related to artificial intelligence.

More than 9 in 10 of the respondents said AI skills are very or somewhat important. A slightly smaller share, 81%, expressed confidence that colleges are helping students develop those skills.

Employers indicated they’d be more likely to hire graduates who had hands-on experiences in college. When considering such experiences, employers were most likely to say completing an internship or apprenticeship, as well as holding a leadership role, would make them more likely to consider hiring a candidate.

Eight in 10 employers said they’d be very or somewhat more likely to hire someone with those experiences.

Around three-quarters of respondents also said they’d be more likely to hire graduates who participated with a community organization, worked with people from different backgrounds, acted as a peer mentor, held either an on- or off-campus job, or undertook research with the help of faculty.

Microcredentials are also becoming more popular with employers, with 81% saying they are somewhat or very valuable when making hiring decisions. Nearly half of employers, 47%, consider them as “evidence of proficiency for a technical skill.”

However, only 22% of employers view them as a substitute for a college degree.

According to a report accompanying the survey, the results also suggest that employers “strongly support conditions that foster open dialogue, diverse perspectives, and students’ freedom to learn.”

Nearly 9 in 10 employers agreed that “all topics should be open for discussion on college campuses.” And a similar share said they would view a degree more favorably if it came “from an institution known for respecting diverse perspectives.”

Additionally, a little more than 8 in 10 said they would have a more positive view of a degree from an institution “that was not subject to government restrictions on what students learn and discuss.”

The survey was administered online in August to a little over 1,000 employers, whom the survey defined as managers or higher at organizations that employ 25 or more workers. Nearly three-quarters were hiring managers, while the remainder were executives.
Source link
December 11, 2025
Youngkin Loses Battle Over Board Picks

Governor-elect Spanberger will now get to select 22 board members.

Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images

The legal battle over whether Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s university board appointees will take their seats is over after a judge set a trial for 2026, Virginia Business reported. Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger will assume office next month, rendering the lawsuit moot.

The case will be dismissed, shutting down an effort to install the Republican governor’s board picks, many of whom had previously worked for or donated to the GOP and were rejected by Virginia Democrats. Now Spanberger, a Democrat, will be able to name 22 board members that otherwise would have been appointed by Youngkin, giving her the opportunity to shift the political balance of boards away from the right.

Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares had sought to expedite the legal fight by asking Virginia’s Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling that determined that blocked board picks could not take their seats. Youngkin has argued the board appointments must be rejected by the full Senate, not just the Democrat-led Privileges and Elections Committee, which voted down multiple picks.

However, Virginia’s Supreme Court declined to hear the case, remanding it to a lower court.

Spanberger and state Democrats are expected to quickly fill multiple vacancies that have left boards hobbled, including at George Mason University, which does not have a quorum. GMU’s board met recently, despite the lack of a quorum and legal questions about their ability to do so.

Youngkin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

Source link

December 11, 2025