Hook is one of dozens of faculty members who have been punished for their comments about Kirk’s death.
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A South Dakota district court judge ordered the University of South Dakota on Wednesday to reinstate Michael Hook, a tenured professor of art who was put on leave with an “intent to terminate” after he posted comments on his personal Facebook page about Charlie Kirk.
“The court concludes that Hook spoke as a citizen and his speech was on a matter of public concern,” district court judge Karen Schreier wrote. “Defendants note that Hook’s Facebook page identified himself as a professor at the University of South Dakota … but this alone does not show that a post made on his personal Facebook account is speech that arises from Hook’s duties as a professor.”
Hook is one of dozens of faculty and staff members who have been punished for their comments about Kirk’s death. He was put on leave two days after posting, “Okay. I don’t give a flying fuck about this Kirk person,” on his Facebook page on Sept. 10, the day Kirk was shot and killed in Utah.
“Apparently he was a hate spreading Nazi. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the idiotic right fringe to even know who he was,” Hook continued. “I’m sorry for his family that he was a hate spreading Nazi and got killed. I’m sure they deserved better. Maybe good people could now enter their lives. But geez, where was all this concern when the politicians in Minnesota were shot? And the school shootings? And Capitol Police? I have no thoughts or prayers for this hate spreading Nazi. A shrug, maybe.”
Hook later deleted the post and posted an apology.
Hook was informed in a letter from Bruce Kelley, dean of the University of South Dakota College of Fine Arts, that in posting the comment on Facebook he’d violated two university policies. The first dealt with “neglect of duty, misconduct, incompetence and abuse of power,” and the second detailed that when employees speak publicly “they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence, they should at all times be accurate, show respect for the opinions of others and make every effort to indicate when they are not speaking for the institution.”
As part of the temporary restraining order, Schreier ordered that the university may not proceed with a disciplinary meeting between Hook and university officials scheduled for Sept. 29. The temporary restraining order will remain in effect until a preliminary injunction hearing on Oct. 8.
Forty-seven percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, according to a new poll.
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Despite the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on colleges and universities, American confidence in higher education is growing.
According to a poll the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy published Thursday, 47 percent of 1,030 Americans surveyed said they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education institutions, with a net positive rating of 33—up 13 percentage points since 2023. Survey respondents reported more confidence in higher education than in the police (44 percent), the medical system (38 percent) and large tech companies (25 percent).
Those findings echo the results of two recent polls—one by New America and another by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. The latter showed that 42 percent of Americans said they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, compared to a low of 36 percent in 2024 and 2023.
But like those polls, Vanderbilt’s showed partisan divides.
While 69 percent of Democrats said they were confident in higher education, only 35 percent of Republicans said the same; just 24 percent of respondents who identify with Trump’s Make America Great Again movement expressed confidence. However, the vast majority (78 percent) of people surveyed said a college education is “very” or “somewhat” important for a young person to succeed, including 87 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans.
“While the conventional wisdom may suggest that support for colleges and universities is low, it’s important to highlight that most Americans view higher education as a net positive for society, and its support has actually increased from the low levels we saw in 2023 and 2024,” Josh Clinton, co-director of the Vanderbilt poll, said in a news release. “Yes, there are real concerns—most people think affordability is a major problem, and many perceive colleges and universities as having a partisan slant—but that’s very different from widespread opposition to the idea of higher education itself.”
Fifty-six percent of people surveyed believe that colleges and universities conduct scientific and medical research that saves lives, but only 14 percent said they remain as affordable as possible. The majority (67 percent) also cited political bias on campuses as a serious problem, though Democrats (54 percent) were less likely to agree than Republicans (79 percent), especially those who identified with the MAGA movement (91 percent).
Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of respondents said universities should refrain from taking official stances on political issues, including 83 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Democrats.
The University of Arizona is quietly shutting down its four microcampuses in China at the end of this semester, in response to a government report released earlier this month that criticizes branch campuses of U.S. institutions in China.
The report, by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the Committee on Education and the Workforce, said American college and university branch campuses in China can “facilitate technology transfer and pose national security risks.” It follows a similar report from a year ago that the new report said led to the closure of eight U.S. branch campuses in China.
The report, “Joint Institutes, Divided Loyalties,” highlights programs at 13 institutions deemed to be “high risk”—including one UA microcampus, the Arizona College of Technology at Hebei University of Technology, which awards students a B.S. in applied physics—and calls on the universities to sever those partnerships. (It also highlights a former partnership between UA and the Harbin Institute of Technology, a Chinese university affiliated with the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, but the university told Inside Higher Ed that partnership ended in 2023.) It’s unclear if any of the other 12 institutions have taken steps toward ending their programs at Chinese institutions.
Though the report only referenced one current UA microcampus, the university said it will close all four of its campuses in China.
“Acknowledging a congressional directive, the University of Arizona immediately terminated its China-based microcampus agreements. We have communicated directly with those affected and are working with enrolled students to help them continue their education,” a university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed via email.
In total, 2,200 students, 36 faculty and four staff will be impacted by the closures, the spokesperson said. UA will provide funds to help employees relocate back to the U.S.; the university is also working to help students figure out next steps.
The university has a total of 18 microcampuses across the globe—programs that are housed at another university, in which students are taught by a mix of professors from UA and the partner institution and earn degrees from both institutions. The first such program was a bachelor’s program in law at Ocean University of China, in which students study both Chinese and U.S. law.
University officials told Inside Higher Ed in 2017 that the main goals of the microcampuses were to increase the university’s internationalization, provide students with affordable international pathways and earn revenue. They also said they hoped to eventually launch 25 microcampuses worldwide and reach 25,000 students.
In a post on X, the Committee on Education and the Workforce lauded UA’s move.
“@uarizona is making the right decision to end its China-based campus agreements. The CCP uses these programs to steal cutting-edge research for its own military buildup and promote communist ideology,” the post reads. “These programs are a direct threat to U.S. national security. Every American school should follow suit and end agreements with the CCP.”
‘Boom, We Shut Down’
Ken Smith, who leads the environmental science dual-degree program at UA’s microcampus at the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University in China’s Shaanxi province, said he was informed the program would be shuttering just a week ago.
Now in its fifth year, the program has been incredibly successful, Smith said. It had recently completed a yearlong federal and provincial review process and had received exceptional marks. Student outcomes were also strong, with many going on to top-tier graduate programs in the U.S. and Europe. Others were able to find careers in China, despite environmental science being a low-demand degree in the country, because they held degrees from a well-regarded U.S. university.
“Things were really going super well, and, boom, we shut down,” he said.
Rong Qian, who graduated in the program’s second class this past spring, told Inside Higher Ed he was “shocked” to hear the program was ending. He credited the UA professors for boosting his confidence and inspiring him to apply to graduate school in the U.K., where he is now studying at Imperial College London. He also noted that UA’s reputation has helped him and his classmates get into such good programs.
“I want to express my gratitude for those professors, especially those from [UA] … not only for their patience and time [with] me and my studies, but also for their encouragement, their support and their easygoing characteristics,” he said.
Smith said that current seniors in the program will still be able to graduate with their UA degrees, and he’s working with both UA and NWAFU to try to find a way for the third-year students to finish out their programs as well. However, he’s doubtful that newer students will be able to get a degree from UA; they could study online or come to the U.S. to finish, but he doesn’t think the former option will hold much appeal, while the latter is prohibitively expensive for most.
In the university’s email to students at the affected campuses sent earlier this week, which the university shared with Inside Higher Ed, Jenny Lee, dean of international education, wrote, “The U of A is committed to supporting you in the completion of your degree. We welcome you to join us at our main campus, in Tucson, Arizona, under an extended Study Arizona Program for up to 4 semesters (usually during the junior and senior years). The U of A will follow up soon with further guidance regarding Study Arizona and other possible options for your degree completion pathway.”
The closure of the program is not just a loss for UA, Smith said, but also for the nation as a whole.
“Living in China for the past four years and watching the U.S. news, I think a lot of political figures don’t know much about China … It’s a major modern economic power, a major military power,” he said. “I think it’s in everyone’s best interest that people in the U.S. and people in China understand each other. The kind of program I was involved with was a major educational success, but it was also a diplomatic success. It got the University of Arizona’s name out there. People wanted us there. They enjoyed learning about the American education system, and, unfortunately, now, that’s all over.”
Despite the possibility of a government shutdown next week, the Education Department is slated to begin the complicated endeavor of determining how to carry out the sweeping higher ed changes in Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The agenda for the weeklong meeting, which kicks off Monday, includes hammering out details about loan repayment plans and how to help struggling borrowers return to good standing. The key issue on the table, though, will likely be determining how best to differentiate between graduate and professional degree programs for future borrowers.
The terms “graduate” and “professional” were once nothing more than a trivial self-prescribed classification. But under the Republicans’ new law, they have become critical labels that could alter which college programs get more federal aid. For example, under the new plan, student borrowers in a graduate program will be limited to $20,500 per year or $100,000 total, whereas those enrolled in a professional program will be able to borrow more than double that.
And while lawmakers on Capitol Hill gave the department a foundational definition of what qualifies as professional in the bill, it’s up to Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent and the negotiated rule-making advisory committee to write rules that detail how that definition will work in practice. (The committee is scheduled to meet for another weeklong session in November, and only after that can the department finalize its proposal and open the floor for public comment.)
Some university lobbyists and career associations want the department to include more programs in the professional bucket and make a comprehensive list of those that qualify. Others recommend using a broad definition and then letting institutions sort the programs. Consumer protection advocates, however, are urging the department to stick to the original, more narrow definition in an effort to prevent greater levels of student debt.
The department’s initial proposal, released this week, stuck largely to the 10 programs cited in the existing definition but added a catch-all clause to add “any other degrees designated by the Secretary through rulemaking.”
To Clare McCann, a former Education Department official and now managing director of policy for the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University, the initial proposal shows that the department doesn’t quite know how it wants to define a professional program.
“This is a really complicated issue,” she said. “So it seems clear to me that the department is planning to use this first session to gather ideas and feedback but is not planning to come to the table with a real proposal of its own.”
Further complicating the issue, McCann and others say, it’s going to be difficult for the department to finalize its rule fast enough to give students and institutions enough time to prepare. (Currently, the new loan caps are slated to kick in as of July 1, 2026.)
As McCann explained, the earliest colleges and universities could expect to see a proposed rule—let alone a finalized one—would be later this fall. And at that point, many prospective students have already started receiving acceptance letters.
“There will be many people making decisions about whether and where they’re going to graduate school, and they’ll be doing that in a vacuum, without final rules about what they’ll be able to borrow and how they’re going to be able to repay it,” she said. “So this whole regulatory process is going to be an incredible time crunch.”
Current Definitions
The current definition of “professional,” which is laid out in the Higher Education Act of 1965, states that in order to qualify as professional a degree must signify that a student has the skills necessary beyond a bachelor’s degree in order to practice a specific profession.
Later it adds that “professional licensure is also generally required,” and provides a short but nonexhaustive list of programs that could fit the bill, including: pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, osteopathy, law, optometry, podiatry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic medicine and theology. (That list served as the foundation for the department’s proposal.)
Some groups, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, made clear in their public comments that they interpret this definition to be an intentionally “flexible” and “inclusive approach.” And based on that, they encouraged the department to maintain a broad definition and allow institutions to self-certify their programs with periodic review from the department.
Jordan Wicker, the senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs at Career Education Colleges and Universities, a lobbying group for for-profit institutions, added that the economy and higher education landscape are constantly evolving—pointing to the need for a broader definition.
“I don’t know that you want to re-regulate a comprehensive list any time curriculums or programs change,” he told Inside Higher Ed.
Others, including the American Council on Education, agree that the interpretation should be broad but say the best way to ensure that is the case is by creating a more complete list of eligible programs. “At the very least,” ACE said in its comment letter, the list should include dozens of clinical and health science programs highlighted under an existing regulation known as financial value transparency. On top of that, it also urges the department to include about 15 additional programs, including architecture, accounting, social work, education and word languages.
Halaevalu Vakalahi, president of the Council on Social Work Education, agreed, arguing that many programs like hers meet the current definition.
“We’ve always identified ourselves as a profession,” she said. “There’s licensure, there’s accreditation—all of the things that we have as part of the social [work] profession are also in the list that currently exists on what is a profession.”
But Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, drew the exact opposite conclusion, arguing that Congress intended for the definition to be stringent and address “unnecessary student debt.” (Graduate student debt accounts for nearly half of the student loan portfolio, raising concerns for lawmakers and advocates.)
“While this list is not exclusive, Congress did not indicate that it intended to include any other fields in crafting the OBBBA loan limits,” senior policy adviser Ben Cecil wrote in a recent blog post about the distinction. “By codifying this list as written, the Department can best enforce the legislative intent of ensuring that students aren’t overborrowing for graduate school and have manageable debt compared to their program’s earnings.”
High-Stakes Talks
With the different proposals on the table, those interviewed agreed that it will be rather difficult for the committee to reach consensus. If the committee doesn’t reach an agreement, the department is free to interpret the definition cited in OBBBA however it wants.
McCann from PEER, who worked at the department during the Obama and Biden administrations, said that until she starts to see the debate play out, it’s hard to know which approach will win. But no matter what, she added it will likely be an uphill climb.
“It’s a challenging issue for negotiators, and there are a lot of competing interests with pretty high stakes attached,” she said. So “this is going to be a difficult committee on which to get that kind of agreement.”
Todd Jones, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio and a former Republican staffer in the department, said that he expects the Trump administration will lean toward a more narrow definition if the committee doesn’t reach consensus. At that point, he added, it will be up to the individual types of programs to lobby for why they should be added to the list.
“The question is, what has the administration already decided that they are going to give on?” Jones said. “And the things I’ve heard while I was in D.C. over the past few months indicate that there may not be support for some of these social science higher degrees being considered professions and instead simply being considered master’s.”
In about 520CE, or so the story goes, Radegund was born, daughter of Bertachar, one of three brother kings of Thuringia.
Uncle Hermanfrid, one of the other brothers, killed Bertachar; Radegund moved into his household. Hermanfrid allied with another king, Theuderic, to defeat Radegund’s other uncle, Baderic, and thus became sole King of Thuringia. And in so doing he reneged on an agreement with Theuderic.
I hope you’re paying attention, because there’ll be a short test later.
Now Theuderic was not the kind to forget a slight, and in 531, when Radegund was 11, he invaded Thuringia, with his brother Clothar. They defeated Hermanfrid, and Ragemund was taken into Clothar’s household. She lived in Picardy until 540, when Clothar married her, bringing his total of wives to six. (The other wives were Guntheuca, Chunsina, Ingund, Aregund and Wuldetrada, just in case you think I’m making this up.)
In 545 Clothar murdered Radegund’s last surviving brother, and that was clearly the last straw, as she fled. She sought the protection of the church, and Medardus, Bishop of Noyen, ordained her as deaconess. In about 560 she founded the abbey of Sainte-Croixe near Poitiers, and she died in 567, having reputedly lived an austere, ascetic life, renowned for her healing powers. Or so the story goes.
Now fast forward 600 years or so. Malcolm IV, King of Scotland and Earl of Huntingdon, visited Poitiers, the site of the cult of the now-sanctified Radegund. He gave ten acres of land to found a priory, dedicated to St Mary and St Radegund. And this land was in what would in time become central Cambridge.
Now fast forward another 300 years. The priory now had a – ahem – reputation. John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, in whose see the priory sat, was given permission by Pope Alexander VI and King Henry VII to dissolve the priory. This was in 1496; the later description of the priory as a “community of spiritual harlots” may have been the cause; it may also, of course, have been a post facto justification. In any event, the priory was dissolved and a college founded in its place. The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge, which is now more commonly known as Jesus College, Cambridge, took over the priory buildings, and away it went.
Bishop Alcock, by the way, gave the college its arms: the three cocks’ heads play on his surname. No sniggering at the back there.
For hundreds of years Jesus was, in essence, a training college for clergy, staying small. But in 1863 Henry Morgan was appointed tutor of the college, and set about his duties with energy. The railway boom at the time meant that some of the original priory lands could be sold, bringing in cash with which Morgan expanded the college: by 1871 there were four times as many students as ten years previously; by 1881 the college had nearly doubled in size again from 1871. And these students would not be confined to those seeking a career in the Church of England.
Let’s have a look at some Jesus College people. (What’s the correct term? Jesuits is logical but it really does have a more specific meaning. Jesusites? Jesusians? I bet there’s a correct term, and I bet someone will comment to say.)
A good place to start is Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Henry VIII, and architect of the English reformation. Cranmer may have (but probably didn’t) attended the college as a student, but he was certainly reader in divinity at Jesus from 1517 to 1528. He didn’t keep strong connections to the college after moving into court circles as archbishop, but as he was ultimately executed as a traitor (he backed the wrong team in the post-Edward VI power struggle) this may have been no bad thing, for the college at least.
Let’s then move on to Laurence Sterne, student at the college 1733–37. He became a clergyman, but no-one remembers him for this. Because he arguably invented the English novel, with The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman published between 1759 and 1767. If you don’t know it, have a read; it is well worth it. It may change your opinions about just how modern modern writing is.
Next in the roll of honour is Thomas Malthus, student of the college 1784–88 and fellow 1793–1804. As an economist Malthus was influential. In his Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society he argued that population growth was unsustainable, because demand for food would inevitably outstrip supply. It is worth noting that the world population at that time was about 800 million; it is ten times that today. And while food is not fairly distributed across the world, neither is there a population crash as Malthus argued there would be.
And now let’s move on to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, romantic poet and opium addict, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. Coleridge was a student at Jesus. He developed his opium habit while at college, and in his third year dropped out to join the army, under the assumed name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbache. His brother had to pay a bribe to get him out of the army, and although he returned to Cambridge thereafter he never quite graduated.
In 2019 Jesus appointed its first female master, Sonita Alleyne, having first admitted women as students in 1979. Alleyne was also the first black head of an Oxbridge college, preceding Valerie Amos at University College, Oxford by a year. More generally, the college has a very good run through its history here.
Jesus is a sporty college, and its boat club is very strong. It holds the most headships of the river in the May and the Lent bumps, across both men’s and women’s boats. (I tried to explain about Cambridge rowing a while ago – here’s the link in case you’re interested.)
As a way to help all of academia, colleges, universities, and other educational institutions around the world, I introduce the “Compass Framework for AI Literacy Integration into Higher Education.” This is a completely free (Creative Commons 4.0) AI literacy framework for easy and flexible integration of AI literacy into the curriculum. This framework is designed from my experience working with many universities around the world, reviewing other AI frameworks, and from various other research.
The AI literacy components are made up of: Awareness, Capability (including prompt engineering), Knowledge, and Critical Thinking (to include bias, ethics, environmental impacts, and avoiding overreliance.
This AI literacy framework also addresses student learning outcomes and provides specific examples of how this framework can be integrated without necessarily increasing credit requirements. Additional information is also presented dealing with needed subskills, advanced AI skills for degree-specific fields, alternative frameworks, and additional actions needed to ensure overall success with AI literacy integration.
An introductory video on this important and free AI literacy framework is available through the Sovorel Center for Teaching & Learning educational YouTube channel here:
The Compass Framework for AI Literacy Integration into Higher Education has been designed and made available for free by the Sovorel Center for Teaching & Learning. Please let us know you have used it, it has been helpful for your organization, or if you have any other feedback. Thank you very much, and we appreciate everyone’s ongoing support.
In a recent statement and a series of fireside chats, Education Secretary Linda McMahon repeatedly drew attention to her efforts to move all career, technical and adult education programs from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor and consolidate some as part of the Trump administration’s quest to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
“I can’t think of a more inefficient system than to have duplication and just one side not knowing what the other is doing,” she said at one conservative policy summit last week. “So let’s consolidate them all in the Department of Labor, where I think they should be. And if we show that this is an incredibly efficient and effective way to manage these programs, it is my hope that Congress will look at that and approve these moves.”
According to ED, many staff members from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education are already working under the supervision of the DOL, though the funding for the programs they oversee is still managed by McMahon. Moving that money, which was appropriated by Congress to the Education Department, would require legislative approval. But symbolically, the integration process is under way.
The Trump administration is not the first government body to propose or execute such a merger, however. A handful of states have combined their departments of higher education and workforce development agencies in the hopes of better aligning state budgets, curriculum and grant allocation with the needs of local employers. Missouri, for example, has been working since 2018 to integrate what was the Department of Higher Education and the Division of Workforce Development into a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.
Inside Higher Ed spoke with the newly fused department’s commissioner, Bennett Boggs, and deputy commissioner, Leroy Wade, to understand how it came to be, what challenges they faced in the process and the benefits they’ve seen as a result.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Take me back and tell me a little bit about what sparked this merger for Missouri.
Wade: There was a realization that we weren’t being as effective as we could be as a state in terms of our economic development. And so Governor Parson, at that point, put together a group called Talent for Tomorrow that looked at what direction do we need to go and what kinds of things do we need to focus on? And then there was an ancillary piece called Best in the Midwest that looked around at our surrounding states to decide, from an economic development, from a workforce perspective, how are we doing?
Unfortunately, what we found was that we weren’t doing really very well. We were toward the bottom in almost everything that we looked at. And so out of that process and a listening tour all around the state to hear what folks wanted and what their perspective was, came two things. One was to try and streamline our Department of Economic Development. The other piece was to look at, how do we change our pipeline system? And that’s what brought the Division of Workforce Development to merge with the Department of Higher Education
Q: How did the process of merging these two institutions work? Was it all led by the governor and the state executive branch, or did it require any legislative backing?
Wade: The governor has the authority to reorganize state government, if you will, at least to a certain extent. So the process started with an executive order laying out what that reorganization would look like. Now, the Legislature has a role in that process. They can’t make changes to it, but they can either vote to accept it or not. But it went through; there was no legislative opposition.
There was some existing statutory language that talked about the Department of Higher Ed, and so there had to be some language changes to adopt the new name of the organization and to reflect some of the structural changes that took place. But it was really all driven by that executive order.
Q: One of the core justifications we’ve heard from the Trump administration for merging the CTE operations at a federal level is to eliminate what they say are duplicate programs. When Missouri combined its agencies, was that one of your motivations as well, and did you find any duplicates to consolidate?
Boggs: What we have found here in Missouri is not so much duplication as an opportunity for coordination. A large part of it was about combining functions that have similar end goals but are not exactly the same program. It’s about asking, how can they be coordinated to be more effective together?
Commissioner Bennett Boggs
One of the answers to that is leveraging broader expertise. If you bring people and programs together and help broaden the perspective of the work that they’re doing, it allows the organization to move from silos to strategic partnerships.
For example, Missouri is very strong in registered apprenticeships. But it’s not just in the trades. We’ve also developed some really effective programs in education and health care and some other professional industries. Part of that is because we’ve been able now to coordinate with local workforce boards, local regional employers and then the two- and four-year institutions, particularly regional ones. Before, these three groups may have been unintentionally competing because they weren’t that aware of each other, but now by working together they can be a funding stream. They can bring resources together to help strengthen and accelerate workforce development that would not have happened if they kept operating separately.
It also just strengthens our communications and helps us as a department talk about higher education in terms of, how does this make life better for Missourians? And that’s a better, healthier conversation to be having.
Q: Despite the shared end goal, there had to be times where there was internal conflict in trying to streamline things. For example, if both an apprenticeship program and a health-care school are training hospital technicians, I can imagine they’re each trying to fill their own seats. So what were some of the challenges you faced in the merger process and how did you overcome them?
Boggs: We know in Missouri, 65 percent of all jobs currently require education or training past high school, and that number is only expected to grow. Of that, 35 percent would be an associate degree or some certification, and 30 percent would be a bachelor’s degree and above. So this is a statewide effort to create pathways for all Missourians—so this is not either-or, it’s yes-and.
Why can’t a student have an internship or a work-based learning experience while in a postsecondary institution? And so part of those regional partnerships is that they help us think about things like that. They’re not only preparing students for the current job but asking, how do we get them on a pathway to be ready for the next one?
One of the challenges in this is understanding that different sections of our department work in different time frames. For example, we run 21 job centers in the state, and when folks come in the door there, they need a job to pay the rent next week. We also have different parts of the department that are approving academic programs in a way that might not really take off for three to five years. It’s not only a difference in pace but also culture and lingo. We just have to be aware of each other and learn.
The other challenge is potential for misalignment related to policies, data and physical infrastructure. This really hits home in terms of our planning and budget folks. We now have an array of state and federal programs that support Missourians in paying for education, whether that’s state-funded financial aid or federal [Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act] funds. These separate funding streams have different requirements, different reporting structures and eligibility criteria, so our staff then has to be able to think quickly, know about and pivot between multiple particular funding streams.
Q: We’ve also heard critics of the merger at the federal level suggest that there may be barriers in statute that make it difficult to merge or consolidate various programs and grants. Did you experience any difficulties legally when merging your two agencies?
Boggs: We didn’t encounter any legal hurdles, but as I was mentioning earlier, understanding the differences in the federal and state funding streams and the requirements and the structures and the eligibility requirements, those kinds of things had to get worked through.
Q: So would you say it was less about trying to change the existing rules and regulations for various programs and more trying to understand those stipulations in order to use the funding in a more strategic, collaborative way?
Boggs: I think that’s pretty accurate. It’s about keeping the similar end goal in mind, and then asking, what funds can be used to help advance to that shared goal?
Q: All challenges aside, over all, has this merger positively affected Missouri’s higher ed and workforce development landscape? And, if so, how?
Boggs: Absolutely. It’s changed the tone and the conversation statewide in terms of postsecondary education being part of economic and community development. It has pulled in strategic partners, from job centers, regional workforce boards, chambers of commerce and regional universities to have really interesting gatherings and talk about where they need to grow. And it makes for a better conversation about the cutting-edge research our flagship institution does. Over all, it helps us as a state have a better, more comprehensive conversation about learning and workforce development.
Q: Has the Trump administration reached out to you in an effort to learn from Missouri’s experiences in merging these two departments?
Boggs: No, but if they wanted to contact us, we’d be happy to assist however we could.
Q: Do you think there’s an opportunity for the federal government to learn from both the challenges and the successes that you have experienced at the state level?
Boggs: You know there’s a famous quote from Louis Brandeis that says, “States are the laboratories of democracy.”
I wouldn’t pretend to know what the federal government can take away from Missouri. They are operating at a much more complicated level, with many more components in play. But certainly in Missouri, we’ve had a good experience doing this, and we’re still discovering new areas for improvement all the time.
In fact, we’ve got a technical cleanup bill we’re proposing this upcoming legislative session of just small bits and pieces in the state statutes from before the merger that still need to be addressed. Part of what helped us out, though, is data—the integrating of some of the disparate data systems into now a more comprehensive data group, and that’s helping us statewide with better policymaking.
A 2025 survey of 5,000 undergraduates by Inside Higher Ed, supported by Generation Lab, found that the greatest share of students rated their nutrition at college as average (44 percent), with an additional 30 percent describing their nutrition as below average or poor.
A number of colleges and universities are working to teach students proper nutrition habits and equip them to lead healthy lives in and beyond college.
The research: A 2023 literature review found that college students experience a variety of risk factors that make them uniquely positioned to experience food insecurity, including busy schedules and a lack of access to nutritious food.
Several studies found that students who had cooking experience were less likely to face food insecurity, implying that those without cooking or food-preparation skills may be at higher risk for food insecurity, according to the report.
The report suggests colleges can provide cooking and meal-preparation demonstrations to help students gain skills, as well as learn how to prepare low-budget, nutritious meals. One study cited in the literature review suggested adding nutrition education—including food budgeting and recipes—as a feature of first-year seminars.
Inside Higher Ed compiled five examples of nutrition education designed to address student health, food insecurity and malnutrition.
University of Memphis: Grilling Classes
To help teach students how to cook using relevant tools and resources, the University of Memphis staff hosts a lunchtime nutrition class, teaching students how to prepare and grill a personal pizza.
The university charges students $15 to participate in the class, which covers ingredients and lunch foods, providing a low-cost and casual introduction to basic cooking principles.
University of North Dakota: Culinary Corner
At UND, students get the chance to lead their peers in cooking classes. Events are open to all campus members, including faculty and staff, and the hourlong sessions in the wellness center teach students how to prepare simple meals.
In addition, UND has a virtual demonstration library so students can teach themselves how to cook a range of healthful recipes from wherever they are, including honey-glazed salmon, chana masala or acai bowls. Each demonstration video features a student instructor and a recipe card for viewers to follow along.
Lewis College, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension: Fulton Fresh University
This fall Georgia State University students benefited from a free cooking demonstration and nutrition course pilot hosted by two local institutions.
Fulton Fresh University, a partnership between Lewis College and the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, typically educates seniors or those in low-income communities. But in 2024, the partners tested a new offering for college students who don’t necessarily know how to cook and are more inclined to eat quick meals or takeout, according to a university press release.
The four-week, no-cost course provided students with 10 pounds of produce at each session, in addition to spices and a variety of kitchen tools to keep.
Iowa State University: Culinary Boot Camp
Iowa State University students can participate in a two-credit course, Culinary Boot Camp, which provides nutrition education and culinary skills to promote healthy living.
The course, which has been offered since 2016, covers topics including storing food safely, reducing food waste, converting recipes and shopping efficiently for groceries, among others.
Cornell University: Get Cooking With Cornell Dining
Cornell offers students a chance to learn from the professionals: the campus dining team. Members host events in the Discovery Kitchen in a residence hall on campus, where students can practice preparing plant-based dishes, which they then enjoy.
The goal is to help students learn to make healthy dishes that are both tasty and environmentally friendly.
Do you have a wellness intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.
Angelo State walked back some provisions of its new anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
Michael Barera/Wikimedia Commons
Directives related to a slate of convoluted and sometimes contradictory new policies prohibiting discussion of transgender topics and identity have left employees at Angelo State University frightened and confused.
As of Monday, conversations and content about transgender identities are still prohibited, but employees are allowed to use students’ preferred names, display rainbow flags in their offices and on their cars, and talk about lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer identities, according to emails from department heads to faculty obtained by Inside Higher Ed.
The changes were clarified to employees after a meeting between the deans, provost and ASU legal counsel. Employees are still seeking other clarifications. For example, students who are already working on papers related to transgender identity are allowed to continue doing so, but it’s unclear whether they could give a final class presentation on the topic.
Only some faculty members at some the university’s colleges have been told about these changes. Others are still responding to the initial policies handed down to employees Friday following a meeting with Angelo State leadership. The policies are stringent and exhaustive: no pride flags, no calling students by the singular “they” or using their preferred names (unless it aligns with their sex assigned at birth), no pronouns in email signatures and no mention of the fact that there are more genders than the two assigned at birth.
None of the policies are formalized in writing, and that is purposeful, said Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors. The guidance only changed after faculty brought up questions about the policies, which deans took back to the provost and university counsel. Final details about what is and is not allowed and how the rules will be enforced are still under discussion.
This isn’t unique to my state, but it’s my first time encountering it.
Pennsylvania’s state government runs on a July-to-June fiscal year, which means that it was supposed to have passed a budget for this fiscal year by July 1.
It hasn’t passed one yet, and passage doesn’t look imminent.
This is becoming a problem.
It’s already a problem for our county, which has announced cuts. And it’s increasingly a problem for the college.
Based on previous years, we’ve expected the state allocation to cover a little over 40 percent of the operating budget. (The county’s figure is much lower.) So far this year, it has covered zero percent, for a difference of—let’s see, carry the three—millions.
We have reserves, and they’ve come in handy. But they’re meant to even out cash flow over the course of a year, to cover emergencies and to help with large expenses. They were never intended to supplant the state’s role in the budget. Our CFO recently had to calculate the number of months we could go without the state allocation, which is a number you never want to matter.
For those keeping score at home, reserves at a community college are very different from endowments at universities. Endowments are generated mostly from a combination of donations and investment returns, and they’re meant to “throw off” a certain amount per year to pay for other things. Those other things can be the operating budget, or scholarships, or facilities, as specified. (Endowment funds are a mix of restricted and unrestricted. Restricted funds can only be used for designated purposes; unrestricted funds are more flexible.)
Reserves, by contrast, are generated from operational savings and are meant to provide a bit of buffer. They’re almost always invested very conservatively because they’re meant to be liquid. Endowments can take greater risks because they’re intended to have much longer time horizons. If endowments are like retirement accounts, reserves are closer to savings accounts.
They’re crucial for cash flow because peak revenue times and peak spending times don’t always align. For a college on a traditional calendar, August shows high revenues and low spending, and October shows high spending and low revenues. That’s because students pay tuition in August to take classes in October.
Reserves can create perverse incentives for legislators. A legislator looking to pay for some other line item closer to his heart may see a public college with relatively healthy reserves as a painless target for cutting. But once reserves are spent, they’re spent, and one of the dangers of public-sector math is that even a single year’s cut can become a new baseline. At that point, climbing out of the hole can become a Sisyphean nightmare.
In practice, that means that public colleges have to perform a delicate balance with reserves. Save too much, and you become a tempting target. Save too little, and you may find yourself in a tight spot if something happens.
Right now, something is happening—or not happening, to be exact—with a major impact. The frustrating part is that the something in question is unnecessary. This isn’t the aftermath of a natural disaster; it’s collateral damage from a political standoff. The fact that it leaves us much more vulnerable to, say, a natural disaster doesn’t seem to bother legislators.
So, my request to the elected leaders of Pennsylvania, and to other states in similar spots: Pass a budget! Reserves weren’t meant for this.
