Dr. William InbodenWilliam Inboden, an expert on national security and foreign policy scholar, has been appointed executive vice president and provost at The University of Texas at Austin, effective Aug. 1. He will also hold the William Powers Jr. Chair and a joint faculty appointment with the Department of History and the School of Civic Leadership.
Inboden has held several academic leadership roles at UT Austin and the UT System from 2010 to 2023. These include serving as founder and executive director of the Clements Center for National Security, founding editor-in-chief of the Texas National Security Review, and co-director of The University of Texas System National Security Network.
In addition, Inboden served as a faculty member in the LBJ School of Public Affairs and was a Distinguished Scholar at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law.
Currently the director of the Alexander Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, Inboden is also a Peterson Senior Fellow with the Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He received Ph.D., M.Phil and M.A. degrees in history from Yale University and an A.B. in history from Stanford University.
Deborah F. RutterDeborah F. Rutter, the former president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., has been appointed vice provost for the arts at Duke University.
From 2014 to 2025, Rutter was the first woman to serve as president of the Kennedy Center, the nation’s cultural center and living memorial to President Kennedy. Under Rutter’s leadership, the center experienced a period of transformative programmatic growth; opened the REACH, a physical expansion of the campus; and strengthened its financial position through increases in its endowment and working capital reserves.
Rutter is a graduate of Stanford University, where she majored in music and German, and earned an MBA from the University of Southern California. Trained in piano and violin, she previously served as president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and executive director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. She also held executive leadership roles with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Rutter received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Duke in 2023.
Jessica BergerJessica Berger has been appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer at Chapman University.
Berger brings nearly two decades of advancement and fundraising leadership experience across multiple institutions. Most recently, she served as vice president for university advancement and executive director of the foundation at California State University, San Marcos (CSUSM), where she led a team of nearly 50 professionals across fundraising, alumni and donor relations, marketing and communications, events and government relations.
Prior to CSUSM, Berger spent seven years at Harvey Mudd College, rising to the role of assistant vice president for development. Earlier in her career, Berger contributed to fundraising efforts at Polytechnic School in Pasadena during a $93 million campaign, raised private support for a children’s home in Kenya and served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressional staff member focused on constituent advocacy.
Berger earned a Master of Social Work from Cleveland State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Wittenberg University, both with honors.
Polly TrottenbergPolly Trottenberg—a former Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), and a nationally recognized authority on transportation, infrastructure, and public policy and management—has been named dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a Global Distinguished Professor at NYU.
Trottenberg takes up her new duties on August 1, 2025.
From April 2021 until January 2025, Trottenberg served as the Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Transportation, making her the chief operating officer of a 57,000-person federal agency, where she helped oversee hundreds of billions of dollars of new investments in roads, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, airports and ports. Trottenberg also served in 2023 as the Acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the federal government’s largest and most complex 24/7 operational agency, with 44,000 employees and hundreds of facilities across the US and overseas. Prior to USDOT, Trottenberg served for seven years as New York City’s Transportation Commissioner, steering the 5,800-person agency through an era of growth and innovation, as well as the challenges of COVID. She led the City’s Vision Zero initiative, the first in the US, a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and data-driven effort to reduce roadway fatalities. NYCDOT operates one of the US’s largest urban transportation systems, with 6,000 miles of roads, nearly 800 bridges, the nation’s largest traffic operation and parking system, the Staten Island Ferry, and extensive bicycle, pedestrian, and public plaza infrastructure. Between 2009 and 2014, she served first as Assistant Secretary and later Undersecretary of Transportation Policy at the USDOT. She previously spent 12 years on Capitol Hill, which was preceded by two years at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Trottenberg received her BA in history from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and her MPP from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Raquel MonroeHoward University has named Raquel Monroe dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. In that role, she Monroe will oversee academic, performance, and research programming for visual arts and design, music, and theater arts at Howard. Monroe currently serves as a full professor and associate dean of graduate education and academic affairs at the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT Austin) College of Fine Arts. Monroe will begin her new role Aug. 4, 2025.
Monroe is a founding board member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance and a member of Propelled Animals, a multimedia, interdisciplinary arts collective. Before her work at UT Austin, she was a professor in dance and an administrator at Columbia College in Chicago.
Monroe earned bachelor’s degrees in dance and theatre and a master’s degree in communication from Arizona State University. Monroe also holds a doctorate in culture and performance from the University of California, Los Angeles.
RAJ AGNIHOTRI has been named the next Raisbeck Endowed Dean of Iowa State University’s Debbie and Jerry Ivy College of Business. He will begin his service July 1, 2025. Agnihotri currently serves in the college as Mary Warner Professor and Morrill Professor of marketing and assistant dean for industry engagement at Iowa State. He has served at Iowa State since 2018, and in his current role as assistant dean since 2024. Prior positions include appointments at the University of Texas-Arlington and Ohio University. Agnihotri earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Pune in India, an MBA in management from Oklahoma City University, and a Ph.D. in marketing from Kent State University.
On June 4, 2025, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation titled “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.” The proclamation, citing national security concerns, suspends or limits entry into the United States for certain foreign nationals from 19 countries identified as having inadequate screening and information-sharing practices. The restrictions take effect on Monday, June 9, 2025.
This proclamation implements directives from Executive Order 14161, issued on January 20, 2025, which stated that it is U.S. policy to deny entry to foreign nationals who may pose national security or public safety threats. That order required federal agencies to review global vetting practices and recommend countries for entry restrictions based on insufficient identity management or cooperation.
Following that review, the secretary of state, in consultation with the attorney general, secretary of homeland security and director of national intelligence, recommended entry restrictions on foreign nationals from 19 countries.
Countries Affected
The proclamation imposes:
Full entry suspensions (both immigrant and nonimmigrant visas) for nationals of: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Partial entry suspensions (specific visa types, including B-1/B-2 and F/M/J visas) for nationals of: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The administration cites overstay rates, lack of cooperation in accepting removable nationals, and terrorist activity or governance instability as justification.
Exemptions and Waivers
The proclamation includes a number of exemptions, including lawful permanent residents of the United States; dual nationals traveling on a passport from a non-restricted country; holders of certain visa categories such as diplomatic, NATO, and adoption-related visas; immediate family-based immigrant visa applicants with verified relationships; and Special Immigrant Visa recipients, including Afghan and U.S. government employees. Also exempt are individuals traveling to participate in major international sporting events — such as the World Cup or Olympics — including athletes, coaches, support staff and immediate relatives, subject to determination by the secretary of state.
In addition, case-by-case waivers may be granted if the secretary of state or attorney general determines that the individual’s travel would serve a critical U.S. national interest, including participation in legal proceedings or for humanitarian reasons.
This action reflects a return to policies implemented during President Trump’s first term. In 2017, the administration issued an executive order restricting entry from several predominantly Muslim countries. The order was revised multiple times following legal challenges and was ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii (2018). The Biden administration reversed the policy on its first day in office in 2021.
The partial suspensions affect several nonimmigrant visa categories common in higher education, including F (students), M (vocational students), and J (exchange visitors) from the listed countries. CUPA-HR will continue to monitor developments related to this proclamation and its potential implications.
Jason KingJason King has been named senior vice president for legal affairs and general counsel at Hofstra University.
King most recently served as associate vice president of strategic risk management and chief legal officer at The University of Texas at San Antonio, a role where he oversaw institutional risk and provided legal counsel to university leadership. Previously, he served as chief compliance and ethics officer for The University of Texas System Administration, where he held various roles from 2012 to 2023, and led the development and execution of a system-wide research compliance strategy that safeguarded a $3.5 billion research portfolio from foreign influence and misconduct.
Earlier in his career, King was an associate at Akers & Boulware-Wells, LLP, and assistant general counsel for the Texas Ethics Commission. King holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a Juris Doctor from Baylor University School of Law.
Dr. Vicki Patterson DavidsonCongresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) delivered a moving speech at Tougaloo College’s commencement ceremony earlier this month. While listening to her speech, I remembered the three times someone called me the ‘N’ word – once as an elementary school student, once as a high school student, and once as a sophomore at Tougaloo College. Each time, the racial epithet was uttered by a white male.
My family was one of the first to integrate the North Pike School District in Pike County, Mississippi in the 1970s – fifteen years after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. I knew it was ignorance that drove others to call me the ‘N’ word during the 1980s and 1990s.
My daughter experienced a similar remark while growing up in central Mississippi in the mid-2000s. A classmate told her during recess that he “did not play with Black girls.” Heartbroken, I shared two quotes and a song with her later that evening. “Nothing in the whole world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and one by Oprah Winfrey, a native Mississippian, who told Wellesley College graduates in 1997 to “turn your wounds into wisdom.”
That evening we listened to “I’m Here” from the Broadway musical, The Color Purple – a song which resonates with so many Black girls and women across our nation. “I’m Here” would later be performed at the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors celebrating Winfrey. My daughter decided to dress like Winfrey during Black History Month that school year. My daughter had turned her wounds into wisdom.
Mirroring the courage and strength of Fannie Lou Hamer, a prominent activist who frequently visited Tougaloo College during the Civil Rights Movement, Congresswoman Crockett addressed the state of American civil rights and liberties under the Trump administration. Crockett’s commencement speech was not disturbing. Her speech, full of wisdom, rang with relevance as she stood near the historic steps of the Woodworth Chapel below the steeple bell. The cowardly threats and reactions which followed are what continue to ring with prejudice, hatred, and ignorance nearly fifty-four years after Hamer delivered her famous “Is It Too Late?” speech at Tougaloo in the summer of 1971.
Known for its educational excellence and activism in higher education, Tougaloo College is no stranger to controversy. A private, historically Black liberal arts college that has hosted and graduated prominent civil rights leaders and politicians for years, Tougaloo is the same institution that educates and prepares future physicians, scientists, lawyers, educators, and researchers who serve Mississippi and the global community.
Tougaloo College students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, and community stand together in wisdom without fear. We are not invisible. We are not silent. We are here.
Dr. Vicki Patterson Davidson is an alumna and an Assistant Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Education at Tougaloo College.
On May 1, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) issued a field assistance bulletin providing guidance on determining employee or independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) while DOL reviews the 2024 final rule, Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The rule currently faces legal action in multiple federal court cases in which the Trump DOL has taken the position that it is reconsidering the 2024 rule, including whether to rescind the regulation.
Simply put, the bulletin states that WHD “will no longer apply the 2024 Rule’s analysis when determining employee versus independent contractor status in FLSA investigations.” Instead, WHD will enforce the FLSA’s worker classification rules according to Fact Sheet #13, which was issued in 2008, and Opinion Letter FLSA2019-6, which was issued during President Trump’s first term.
The opinion letter from Trump’s first term articulates WHD’s position on gig economy worker classification, ultimately finding such workers to be independent contractors because they work for the consumer and do not fit “any traditional employment paradigm” under the FLSA. The Biden administration previously withdrew the opinion letter, but it has now been reinstated as Opinion Letter FLSA2025-2.
Fact Sheet #13 provides a broader perspective regarding the meaning of “employment relationship.” It specifically asserts that an employee under the FLSA is “one who, as a matter of economic reality, follows the usual path of an employee and is dependent on the business which he or she serves,” and that an employer-employee relationship under the law is tested by “economic reality.” It also lists seven factors that are considered significant by the Supreme Court in determining employee classification under the FLSA:
The extent to which the services rendered are an integral part of the principal’s business;
The permanency of the relationship;
The amount of the alleged contractor’s investment in facilities and equipment;
The nature and degree of control by the principal;
The alleged contractor’s opportunities for profit and loss;
The amount of initiative, judgment, or foresight in open market competition with others required for the success of the claimed independent contractor; and
The degree of independent business organization and operation.
Looking Ahead
The field assistance bulletin changes the enforcement priorities of WHD with respect to worker classification, though the Biden administration’s independent contractor rule remains in effect for the time being. Legal challenges against the Biden rule are ongoing, and the Trump administration has started reviewing the regulation, though there is no official process yet to rescind it.
CUPA-HR continues to monitor for updates related to the independent contractor classification regulations and will keep members informed of future updates.
