Tag: Jobs

  • Fixed Tuition

    Fixed Tuition

    A few days ago, someone mentioned how nice it would be if students could have their tuition level held steady after enrollment, so they could plan. It got me thinking.

    The usual version of that proposal assumes that students enroll full-time at a given tuition level, then sail through, full-time, unimpeded, until their on-time graduation. The benefit to the students (and their families) is obvious, both in terms of absolute amounts of money and in terms of predictability. As a parent who has been paying out-of-state tuition since 2019, I get the appeal.

    Of course, the rest of the economy doesn’t freeze costs for years at a time, and college employees live in that economy. So annual tuition increases would still have to happen, but they could only be inflicted upon new students. In any given year, freshmen would pay more than sophomores, who would pay more than juniors and so on. The first year that happened, the increase for freshmen would have to be pretty dramatic to ensure that future years would generate enough revenue. Or, theoretically, states could make up the difference.

    That doesn’t seem likely.

    For example, Pennsylvania hasn’t even passed its budget yet for this year. You know, the one that we’re several months into. Uncertainty rolls downhill; asking us to guarantee years in advance when we don’t even have this year’s figure yet isn’t realistic. In its defense, the state is dealing with a federal funding situation that could be described as mercurial. Higher ed funding at the state level competes with other priorities, such as the state versions of Medicaid.

    Now, if the promise of fixed tuition led to a more rational federal budgeting process …

    OK, OK. Seriously, though, using variable revenues to cover fixed costs is a dangerous game. Very elite private schools often have the option of using endowment returns to provide predictable operating funds, which, in turn, could lead to more predictable tuition charges. But those of us at the mercy of annual (and frequently late) state allocations don’t have that option.

    Even allowing for all of that, though, I can’t help but wonder about the student that the model assumes. It’s essentially the IPEDS model: first-time, full-time, degree-seeking, supported by family. In the community college world, that describes a small minority of the student body.

    Here, students move into and out of full-time status from semester to semester. Sometimes life happens and they step out for a bit (or longer), then decide to return years later. They usually work for pay, often full-time, while they’re taking classes. Stop-start patterns of enrollment make predictable tuition harder to define. They also necessarily lead to higher increases for those who come back, since the entire increase for any given year is visited upon new students, rather than being spread evenly across classes.

    Free community college would have solved this, of course, by setting a figure of zero and leaving it there. As long as operating support increased with costs, that would be sustainable, and it’s admirably simple. But that doesn’t appear to be on the table at the federal level, and states can’t deficit spend during recessions, which is usually when demand for other services increases and tax revenues drop.

    If we could set public funding in a way that covers fixed costs, leaving only the variable costs to be covered by tuition, then there could be a real possibility for a (clearly defined) tuition freeze. Or at least the levels would be low enough that annual increases wouldn’t hurt so much. Until that happens, though, it’s just untenable. As a parent, that bothers me, but the blame should be placed where it actually belongs.

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  • How Witnessing Violence Impacts Brain Development (opinion)

    How Witnessing Violence Impacts Brain Development (opinion)

    On Sept. 10, a public lecture at Utah Valley University became the site of a nightmare when the political commentator Charlie Kirk was killed before thousands of students. Whatever one thinks of Kirk’s politics, the trauma endured by those young witnesses will last far longer than the news cycle. For adolescents, such moments do not fade when the cameras leave. They etch themselves into the brain—literally. Witnessing violence, even indirectly, negatively impacts brain development.

    At the University of Southern California’s Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE), our colleagues recently studied how violence exposure shapes young people. Again and again, the evidence is stark: When adolescents witness or hear about violence in their communities, their developing brains bear the burden. The anterior cingulate cortex—a region critical for processing stress and pain, emotional regulation, motivation, learning, and social connection—has a greater decrease in gray-matter volume in adolescents exposed to more community violence. This pattern of gray-matter volume decrease has been seen in ground troops deployed to war and in people affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. It has been linked to anxiety, depression and difficulty sustaining attention.

    Yet neuroscience also points to a path forward. Our newest research, published this year in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, offers a striking counterpoint: Adolescents are not passive victims of their environments. They have within them the capacity to buffer these harms, within themselves and within society. That capacity is what we call transcendent thinking.

    Transcendent thinking is the ability to move beyond the immediate details of an event and consider the complexities that characterize a diverse society, to explore perspectives that differ or conflict with one’s own and to contemplate the bigger picture: What does this mean for me, for my community, for justice and fairness? When teenagers reflect in these ways, they are not escaping reality but engaging it more deeply. They are searching for meaning, considering multiple perspectives and placing their experience in a larger human story. This, in turn, helps them imagine how things might be different, and how they might contribute to the change.

    In our study of 55 urban adolescents, those who more frequently engaged in transcendent reflection about social issues showed a greater increase in gray-matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex two years later—the very brain region seen to be most vulnerable to violence exposure. In other words, transcendent thinking didn’t erase the negative effects, but it appeared to give young people’s brains some scaffolding to adapt and heal.

    This has profound implications for how we respond to political and community violence. The instinct, understandably, is to shield young people from harsh realities. But shielding won’t work. Adolescents are already encountering violence—whether on the street, online or in lecture halls. What they need are the tools to make sense of it, to weave their experiences into narratives of purpose and agency rather than despair. And for this, they need curiosity about the experiences of others and safe opportunities to think across difference.

    Fortunately, transcendent thinking is not rarefied or inaccessible. It is something every young person can do and likely already does spontaneously. The challenge is to nurture it deliberately and thoughtfully. Schools and colleges can make space for students to grapple with complex social issues and to connect classroom learning with ethical and civic questions. Families and communities can invite adolescents into intergenerational storytelling, where young people see how others have wrestled with hardship and injustice. Education that emphasizes civic reasoning and dialogue can strengthen not only academic outcomes but also neurological resilience and long-term well-being.

    This is both a scientific and a civic imperative. Neuroscience is showing us that meaning making changes the brain. We need support for educators to find ways to translate that science into daily practices that help young people transform tragedy into purpose. Our vision is to illuminate the capacities that empower adolescents to question their and others’ beliefs, to engage across difference, to imagine futures and work to create the world they want to live in.

    The tragedy at Utah Valley University underscores how high the stakes have become. America’s young people are coming of age amid rising polarization and public acts of violence. We cannot protect them or shield them from it, but we can equip them to counter its developmental impacts.

    Transcendent thinking is not a cure-all. But it is a proven developmental asset that can buffer the effects of witnessing community violence on the brain. It is also a civic skill we urgently need: the ability to see beyond the present conflicts and tragedies to the larger questions of justice, community and meaning.

    If we want to safeguard both adolescent development and democratic life, we must equip schools, colleges, families and communities with the tools to cultivate transcendent thinking.

    Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is the Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology and a professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California and founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education.

    Kori Street is executive director of USC CANDLE.

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  • Black Student Found Hanging From Tree at Delta State

    Black Student Found Hanging From Tree at Delta State

    Demartravion “Trey” Reed was a 21-year-old student at the Mississippi institution.

    Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

    Delta State University has been rocked by the discovery of a Black student’s body hanging from a tree in the middle of campus on Monday.

    Demartravion “Trey” Reed was a 21-year-old student at the Mississippi institution. Recalling a long, painful history of lynchings, his death has spurred an outpouring of grief and anger across the country.

    The Bolivar County Coroner’s Office said on Monday that a preliminary examination of Reed’s body showed no evidence of foul play, including “any lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones or injuries consistent with an assault.”

    But Reed’s family members are calling for their own investigation, including an independent autopsy, and have demanded access to video footage that might reveal more details of his death.

    “From the beginning, the family has been seeking transparency in this investigation,” Vanessa J. Jones, an attorney representing the family, told Inside Higher Ed. “Especially after a tragic incident like this occurs, and you’re dealing with a state that has a past history which includes a painful history of racial violence … transparency is paramount.”

    The Reed family’s distrust in the handling of the student’s death was deepened when officials allowed his mother to view her son’s body from the neck up only, Jones said.

    Officers also shared conflicting details of Reed’s death when they first spoke to his family, Jones said. According to Jones, the Grenada County Sheriff’s Department went to Reed’s grandfather’s home on Monday and said Reed was found dead in his dorm room “from an apparent suicide.”

    Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump has taken on the family’s case and said in a post on X that he will lead a team of civil rights leaders and organizers in “pursuing transparency for Trey’s family.”

    “We cannot accept vague conclusions when so many questions remain,” he wrote. Crump described Reed as a “young man full of promise and warmth, deeply loved and respected by all who knew him.”

    Lawmakers are also demanding more information.

    “We’ll never have true justice for Trey, because that would mean he would still be with us—but there must be answers,” Massachusetts representative Ayanna Pressley wrote on X.

    Mississippi representative Bennie G. Thompson called for a federal investigation into Reed’s death.

    “It is always a tragedy when a young life is cut short,” Thompson said in a statement. “We must leave no stone unturned in the search for answers. While the details of this case are still emerging, we cannot ignore Mississippi’s painful history of lynching and racial violence against African Americans.”

    Updates From the University

    At a press conference Wednesday, Delta State University president Daniel J. Ennis said Reed’s loss was “devastating” and “the manner of how Trey was discovered has stirred many emotions in this community and many emotions around the state and the nation.”

    Ennis reiterated the coroner’s early conclusions but said he recognized the psychological impact of Reed’s death. “This is not only about facts,” Ennis said. “It’s about emotions and it’s about feelings and the way this loss and how it was discovered affects people’s lives.”

    Ennis, who is white, said he acknowledged his weakness in not being “adequate to speak to the imagery that this incident raises.”

    Delta State serves roughly 2,800 students, about 40 percent of whom are Black. Ennis said the campus has been receiving threatening phone calls and messages since Reed’s death.

    “I can say that my heartbreak is comprehensive, not just for Trey—although it is primarily for Trey—but for the fact that the rest of the world has an impression of Delta State that is so at odds with what I know to be this institution,” which is “the joy and the grace of people living and working together and respecting each other,” he said.

    Mike Peeler, Delta State University chief of police, told the press that Reed’s body was transported to the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office for a full autopsy on Wednesday morning. Authorities expect preliminary autopsy results within 24 to 48 hours. He said DSU Police, the Cleveland Police Department, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Bolivar County Sheriff’s Office planned to update the public on the findings after first meeting with Reed’s next of kin.

    He told reporters law enforcement officials were reviewing relevant video, but he couldn’t offer any more details. Peeler also said he had no information about Reed’s family being told his death took place in his dorm room.

    He emphasized during the press conference that “this is an isolated incident” and “there are currently no active threats to the campus,” which “remains a safe environment for students, faculty and staff.”

    ‘Heartbroken’ Students

    Nonetheless, the grisly incident has frightened Black students on campus.

    “Hearing that happened to another Black student, it really makes me feel unsafe,” a Delta State student, Stacie Hoskins, told WAPT16.

    The nature of Reed’s death has had an emotional impact on Black students on other campuses as well; some treated it as a foregone conclusion that Reed was killed and issued statements of support to fellow students.

    The Black Student Union at Illinois State University directed students to campus counseling resources, and its executive board said it was “heartbroken by the tragic loss of Trey Reed, whose life was cut short by a horrific act of violence.”

    North Carolina A&T University’s NAACP chapter posted on Instagram that Reed “could have been any of us. Any Black student. Any campus.”

    “Our education is under attack. Our sanity is under attack. Our very existence is under attack,” the chapter said. “We refuse to stay silent. Black lives matter. Black students matter. Always.”



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  • AI Teaching Learners Today: Pick Your Pedagogy

    AI Teaching Learners Today: Pick Your Pedagogy

    University budgets across the country are broken. Overall revenue and accumulated financial support appear to be declining for a wide variety of reasons.

    New funding policies, administrative reorganizations such as those at the Department of Education, lean fiscal times for states, diminished regard for higher learning, fewer requirements for degrees among employers hiring for entry-level positions and the impact of artificial intelligence all come together to reduce the pool of new students, tuition revenues and grants. As a result, new initiatives are stifled unless they show promise to immediately reduce costs and generate new revenue.

    The cost of developing, designing and teaching classes is often largely determined by the faculty and staff costs. Long-running lower-division classes at some universities may be taught by supervised teaching assistants or adjunct faculty whose salaries are lower than tenure-track faculty’s. However, we are now confronted with highly capable technologies that require little to no additional investment and can bring immediate revenue positive opportunities. Each university very soon will have to determine to what extent AI will be permitted to design and deliver classes, and under what oversight and supervision.

    However, few of us in higher ed seem to realize that such technologies are freely available today. The tsunami of new and improving AI technologies has inundated us over the past three years so quickly that many in academe have not been able to keep up.

    Case in point is the rapidly expanded and enhanced AI app. We know them by the names Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude and a few others that we tried out in 2023 or 2024. Early on, they were deficient in many ways, including hallucinations and a strictly limited number of words you could put into a prompt. That has largely changed, though hallucinations can still happen—which is why it is good practice to compare prompts submitted at multiple sites, as has been suggested previously in this column.

    AI is now capable of teaching higher learners in a highly sophisticated way. Given a thoughtful, detailed prompt, it is able to implement most of the proven pedagogical approaches, many of which are unknown to our teaching faculty. It is able to dig more deeply into a topic with more recent data than many of the faculty members are using. It can interpolate, extrapolate and pursue conjectures to their statistical conclusions, revealing unexpected outcomes. It can be friendly, supportive, patient and also challenging at the appropriate times.

    My point is that the prompt today can be a most powerful teaching tool that can consistently create a robust, engaging learning environment. It can even offer material through a variety of pedagogies. A well-written, detailed prompt can be the equal of many of our teaching assistants, adjunct faculty and, yes, full-time faculty members who have not been deeply trained in effective pedagogy and current practice.

    Let’s test out one of these technologies right now!

    This one below, shared by the “There’s an AI for That” newsletter, provides an online tutor to teach students using an assortment of time-tested technologies and pedagogies. The first step begins with merely a prompt, albeit not a short one. The Interactive Learning Tutor is a virtual instructor that runs on the leading frontier AI app models (Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude). Most interesting is not only the vast range of topics it is prepared to deliver, but the range of pedagogies it will enable at the request of the learner. So, the learner can pick their pedagogy rather than being subject to the designer’s and instructor’s choice of teaching and learning methods.

    “This prompt turns AI into a dual-role system that first helps learners choose the most effective study techniques for their subject, then switches into live teaching using those chosen methods. In Navigator Mode, the system gathers details about what the user wants to learn and how they prefer to learn it, then presents a curated set of three to five evidence-based methods from its catalog. Each method is explained in depth, with strengths, limitations, step-by-step applications and concrete examples tied to the user’s subject. It also suggests learning archetypes, outlines pitfalls and fixes, creates an integrated action plan, and provides tools like reflection prompts, comparison tables, and pathways matrices to help learners see their options clearly.”

    This is a highly qualified virtual teaching assistant, eager and well prepared to take on the task of teaching an individual in an online tutorial or class. Imagine 30 students, with a week or so initial orientation, running this app to achieve specified learning outcomes in an engaging, interactive way. The materials provided in the individual tutorial could be augmented through a syllabus of supplementary readings, reference materials and periodic assessments leading up to a final project or paper to be submitted individually or by groups in the class. The prompt and app take over the most important role of engaging and guiding the student in ways proven to be successful.

    So, let’s give this a road test! Step one is to copy the 1,112-word prompt that begins with and ends with . Paste this into the input box of your chosen AI app and press enter. After a brief moment for processing, the app will reply with an invitation to share the topic about which you would like to learn. This would be defined by the instructor of the course along with the learning outcomes for the class. As an enthusiastic learner who is going to attend an outdoors bluegrass music festival today, I typed in, “I want to learn about bluegrass music, including how it evolved, its popularity, the geographic range of its performance, the instruments used and cultural impact.” Including such learning outcomes will streamline the process for later assessments.

    Gemini replied, “That’s a fantastic topic! Bluegrass music has a rich history and a vibrant culture. We can definitely break down its evolution, instruments, and cultural impact.” Gemini went on to write,

    Now, to help me suggest the best learning methods for you, could you tell me a bit about how you prefer to learn? For example, when you’re trying to understand something new, do you find it helps to:

    • Discuss it and ask lots of questions?
    • Organize information visually, maybe with timelines or diagrams?
    • Listen to examples (like different songs) and connect them back to the concepts?
    • Try to explain it to someone else to make sure you’ve grasped it?

    Gemini also offered a personalized action plan to set the schedule.

    Integrated Action Plan

    • Immediate Actions (First 1-2 Hours): Use the Socratic method to generate a list of foundational questions about bluegrass. Use dual coding to create a simple timeline of major events (e.g., Bill Monroe forms the Blue Grass Boys, Earl Scruggs joins, the Newport Folk Festival).
    • Medium-Term Actions (First Week): Use the Storytelling method to weave those timeline events into a narrative about the birth of the genre. Pick one specific concept (e.g., “the high lonesome sound”) and use the Feynman technique to explain it in your own words.
    • Long-Term Actions (Ongoing): Continue to build out your visual library (dual coding) with instrument diagrams and regional maps. As you learn more, continuously refine your core story (Storytelling) and test your understanding of complex subtopics (Feynman technique).

    Further details were shared by Gemini in table format to ensure that the learner understood the different approaches. Then it gave me, the learner, the chance to affirm that I wanted to blend those modes. And then we were off and running.

    This format seems ideal to prototype just-in-time certificate programs, over-demand programs where insufficient numbers of faculty are readily available and other instances where time or finances may not permit full design and teaching staffing. Carefully monitor each student by asking them to share their exchanges with the app. Be vigilant to protect the learner’s FERPA rights. Use secure methods for quizzing and other assessments. Compare the outcomes to other such classes and gather feedback from the participating learners. Modify the original prompt to meet your needs and refine the results for the next offering.

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  • California Unions Sue Trump Admin Over Threats to UC System

    California Unions Sue Trump Admin Over Threats to UC System

    The Trump administration has frozen more than $500 million in federal funding to UCLA.

    A coalition of California education unions and faculty associations is suing the Trump administration to challenge what they say is “the illegal and coercive use of civil rights laws to attack the University of California system and the rights of their members,” the American Association of University Professors announced Tuesday. 

    The coalition comprises 19 groups—including the AAUP, the American Federation of Teachers and 10 University of California campus faculty associations—and is represented by the legal organization Democracy Forward.

    “We will not stand by as the Trump administration destroys one of the largest public university higher education systems in the country and bludgeons academic freedom at the University of California, the heart of the revered free speech movement,” AAUP president Todd Wolfson said in a statement. “We stand hand in hand to protect not only our individual rights to free expression, debate, and association, but also to safeguard the health, safety, and economic mobility of our communities—all of which is at risk.”

    The Trump administration has issued a litany of demands to the University of California in exchange for restored federal funding, including unfettered government access to faculty, student and staff data; cooperation with immigration enforcement; a ban on gender-inclusive restrooms and locker rooms; an official statement that the UC does not recognize transgender identity; and over a billion dollars in penalties. So far, the University of California, Los Angeles, has borne the brunt of the demands, but university system officials fear that funding freezes could extend to the system’s other campuses.

    On Sept. 4, University of California, Berkeley, officials notified 160 faculty, staff and students that their names appeared in documents given to the Trump administration as part of the administration’s investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus. 

    “UCLA [faculty association] is honored to stand with this coalition, which presents as an important reminder of what the UC really is—the people who day in and day out do the work on UC campuses,” Anna Markowitz, president of the UCLA faculty association executive board, said in a statement Tuesday. “Today, we join the people of the UC in standing up against federal extortion, job loss, bans on speech and expression—against any effort to dismantle core public values that have made the UC great.”

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  • University of Arkansas Creates Faculty Learning Community

    University of Arkansas Creates Faculty Learning Community

    Effective teaching and learning are key elements of a student’s academic success, but ensuring professors have access to training, support and resources to employ best practices in the classroom can be a challenge for institutions.

    At the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, Lynn Meade created the Faculty Learning Community to tackle this issue, uniting professors across disciplines to improve student learning and achievement.

    The Faculty Learning Community, which launched this summer, strives to unite staff and faculty across campus to work toward the shared goal of student success, Meade said.

    The background: Meade has worked as a communications professor at the University of Arkansas for two decades, but in 2023, she realized there were entire student support teams and departments that she didn’t know about. The university hosted an event on high-impact practices to invite stakeholders to share and learn from one another.

    “I sat down at a table with a whole lot of student success people, and I was amazed at all the things that they were doing and how I could be on our campus for so long and [have] no idea the things that were going on behind the scenes, things students could take advantage of that they hadn’t yet,” Meade said.

    This experience prompted her to get more involved with support staff and orchestrate opportunities for other professors to learn from one another across campus. “We need to find a way to integrate faculty and student success initiatives,” Meade said. “They need to know what one another are doing, they need to shake hands, make friends, have coffee, talk—the things that really make things happen, because our students, their success depends on us cooperating.”

    Students are more likely to talk to a faculty member they trust than seek out a support office on campus, Meade said. “I think informing them not only how to teach their class well, but also how to integrate those resources, is really important.”

    The result was the Fulbright Faculty Learning Community, a community of practice and faculty development program, which Meade now leads as director.

    How it works: The program launched with four offerings for faculty: a course-building workshop, a reboot class to help with updating content, forums for sharing innovative teaching ideas and introductions to student success teams.

    One of Meade’s goals is to avoid replicating existing efforts on campus but provide a one-stop shop to unify and amplify the great work taking place. “There’s so many cool resources on our campus, but there’s no one place they all exist,” she said.

    The Fulbright Learning Community had its kickoff event this summer, engaging 14 faculty members in a three-hour workshop on course building.

    The workshop invited faculty to consider students, rather than content, at the center of their syllabus, using a communications principle of audience and purpose. “I think if our audience is students and our purpose is to teach them, maybe we shouldn’t say, ‘I’m going to cover my material,’ but, ‘I’m going to think of ways that they can learn the material,’” Meade said.

    Survey Says

    A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 40 percent of respondents believe their academic success would improve if professors connected in-classroom learning to issues outside the classroom or students’ career goals.

    Some professors who are straight out of grad school may have only received teacher education or used material given to them by other faculty, Meade said. Others who have taught abroad but never in the U.S. may need some help adapting their materials for American students.

    The learning community also invited career center professionals to showcase ways to embed career competencies in the syllabus and attach resources to their learning management system to help address career development for students. A future session will invite professors to share how they’re using and teaching generative AI tools.

    “Faculty success equals student success,” Meade said. “The teachers are their first line [of support]; a lot of that success is what’s happening with the teacher. When we all work together on the same side, how we communicate with each other is going to make a big impact on the student retention.”

    If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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  • Elon U and Queens U of Charlotte to Merge

    Elon U and Queens U of Charlotte to Merge

    Elon University and Queens University of Charlotte, private institutions roughly two hours apart, announced Tuesday that they plan to merge, with more details to come in the next few months.

    Although the “formal structure of the proposed merger” still needs to be finalized, Elon officials said in a university announcement that “the vision is clear: to create a stronger, more sustainable model of higher education in Charlotte that expands access, enhances opportunity, prepares a future-ready workforce and honors the storied legacies of both institutions.”

    Language in the announcement suggests that Elon will absorb Queens as part of the merger.

    “At the conclusion of the merger, which is anticipated in the summer of 2026, Elon will operate Queens in partnership with existing and legacy leaders,” Elon officials wrote in a news release.

    Elon is the larger of the two institutions and appears to be more financially stable.

    Elon enrolled more than 7,230 students last fall, according to its Common Data Set. The head count at Queens came in at 1,599 students last fall, its Common Data Set shows. Elon has an endowment valued at more than $361 million, compared to nearly $162 million at Queens, which has operated at a deficit in recent years, public financial records show.

    Queens also laid off employees last year after it missed its enrollment goal by about 100 students, which it blamed on the flawed rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid. 

    Officials expect the merger, which will require regulatory approval, to be finalized next summer.

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  • It’s Censorship, Not Cancel Culture

    It’s Censorship, Not Cancel Culture

    “We are in the cancel culture part of the tragedy cycle.”

    This is the declaration of Adam Goldstein, vice president of strategic initiatives for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, writing at the organization’s website.

    In the piece, dated Sept. 12, he chronicles almost three dozen incidents of individuals being sanctioned, suspended or terminated for public remarks following the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk.

    The vast majority of these incidents concern schools, colleges and universities. The examples exhibit a pattern of public outrage, which gets the attention of a public official, who then calls for sanction, followed by the sanction being administered by another public entity.

    As a typical example, Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn called for the firing of a Cumberland University professor on Sept. 11, the day after Kirk’s death. On Sept. 12, the professor was dismissed, along with a member of the university staff.

    Goldstein says that this is a cycle of “the cancel culture machine. It goes like this: A tragedy happens. Someone reacts by celebrating that tragedy for whatever reason. Then the social media mob comes to demand this person be fired, expelled, or otherwise punished for their views.”

    I’m appreciative of Goldstein’s work to compile, publicize and criticize these actions, but I have an important point of disagreement. Most of these are not incidents of cancel culture.

    It’s censorship.

    The problem is not about “social media mobs” making demands, but on the public officials in power following through and punishing those views.

    Whatever anyone thinks about people saying things on social media, all of it (providing it doesn’t run afoul of the law) is a form of protected speech. Some may decry the effect of that speech, but this doesn’t make it not speech. Charlie Kirk’s Professor Watchlist was a documented vector of threats and harassment directed toward college faculty, but the website itself is too is an example of speech, even when the website called for professors to be fired.

    The public discussion about these issues has been unfortunately muddled for years, including by FIRE president Greg Lukianoff, who, along with his Coddling the American Mind co-author Jonathan Haidt, invented a psychological pathology they called “safetyism” in order to delegitimize student speech they believed to be “illiberal.”

    The “cancel culture” narrative had much the same effect, by categorizing contentious speech where people were advocating for particular outcomes—without having the power to directly enact those outcomes—as something akin to censorship. Whatever one thinks of the phenomenon as a whole or individual examples of it, it was never censorship.

    United States senators calling for firings and then college presidents complying is straight-up censorship.

    These distinctions very much matter in this moment, because it is clear that numerous government officials are interested in using the response to Kirk’s death as a pretext to crack down on speech they don’t approve of. The United States State Department is “warning” immigrants not to “mock” Kirk’s death.

    Legal remedies to illegal firings are also no longer guaranteed in a system where politicians are willing to use the weight of their office to crush dissent. At Clemson, one employee was fired and two faculty members were removed from teaching duties after complaints originating with the Clemson College Republicans surfaced. The South Carolina attorney general, Republican Alan Wilson, issued an opinion holding Clemson harmless if it fired the employees claiming, without evidence, the speech was tantamount to threats.

    Other state legislators overtly threatened the school’s state funding should officials fail to act.

    Coercion, intimidation.

    Representative Clay Higgins declared that he is “going to use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

    The same Clay Higgins sponsored the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act in 2023, in which he said, “The American people have the right to speak their truths, and federal bureaucrats should not be dictating what is or isn’t true. We must continue to uphold the First Amendment as our founding fathers intended.”

    In 2021, Blackburn, who called for the firing the Cumberland University professor, introduced an anti–cancel culture resolution, declaring, “Cancel culture is a barrier to a free marketplace of ideas and remains antithetical to the preservation and perpetuation of global democracy.”

    It is tempting to nail Blackburn and Higgins as hypocrites, but again, this mistakes the underlying aim of the larger political project for surface-level features. Blackburn and Higgins were against “cancel culture” because they did not approve of the potential consequences for speech with which they agreed. They are now calling for sanctions against speech and speakers with which they disagree. In both cases, they are using their power to promote speech of which they approve and discount that of which they don’t approve.

    The major difference is that instruments of the state are acting on these calls to sanction, suspend and fire people.

    Like I said, censorship.

    The only thing that’s changed is the locus of power and a presidential administration that is more than willing to use the instruments of the state to intimidate and silence the opposition.

    This isn’t cancel culture; it’s authoritarianism.

    As I say, I’m appreciative of FIRE’s attention to these incidents, but the facts of what’s going on show the limits of trying to adjudicate freedoms—including academic freedom—entirely through the lens of free speech. If we’re going to preserve our freedoms, I think it’s important that, at the very least, we use the most accurate descriptive language we can.

    FIRE’s Goldstein is wrong. We aren’t in the “cancel culture” part of the cycle.

    We’re in the retaliation, censorship, coercion, authoritarianism part of the cycle, and the wheels are turning ever faster.

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  • Berkeley Releases 160 Names, Complies With U.S. Investigation

    Berkeley Releases 160 Names, Complies With U.S. Investigation

    The names of faculty, students and staff were contained in documents related to a federal investigation on alleged campus antisemitism.

    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    The University of California, Berkeley, told about 160 faculty, staff and students on Sept. 4 that their names appeared in documents officials gave to the Trump administration, which is investigating the university’s response to reports of campus antisemitism, The New York Times reported. 

    According to Berkeley, the 160 names provided to the Education Department in compliance with the investigation include people accused of or affected by antisemitic incidents, as well as those who filed complaints about antisemitism on campus.

    Berkeley is one of numerous higher education institutions the Trump administration is investigating for alleged antisemitism, including the University of California, Los Angeles. The UC system is also weighing Trump’s demands that UCLA pay the government a $1.2 billion settlement to restore $584 million in frozen federal research funding.  

    Berkeley’s decision to hand over the 160 names comes two months after House Republicans grilled Berkeley’s chancellor, Rich Lyons, and two other university leaders at a hearing about their alleged failures to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment. At the hearing, Lyons said the university has an “obligation to protect our community from discrimination and harassment” and uphold the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

    While some alumni criticized Berkeley’s compliance with the Trump administration’s investigation, the UC system said in a statement to the Times that it’s “committed to protecting the privacy of our students, faculty, and staff to the greatest extent possible, while fulfilling its legal obligations.”

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  • More Colleges Promise Grads Employment, Grad School Placement

    More Colleges Promise Grads Employment, Grad School Placement

    For some students, enrolling in college can feel like a gamble due to the high cost and lack of a clear career at the end of the program. But a growing number of colleges and universities are guaranteeing students will land a job or graduate program slot within months of graduation.

    Bethel University in St. Paul is the latest to make such a promise; Bethel’s Career Commitment provides students in the College of Arts & Sciences with additional assistance if they are still unemployed or not enrolled in graduate school six months after graduation—including by offering a tuition-free spot in a graduate-level Bethel course or a staff job at the university. 

    The trend indicates a growing awareness among institutions of their responsibility to provide students with career-development opportunities, as well as their recognition that a lack of institutional support can impact the college’s perceived value.

    State of play: Nationally, institutions of higher education are struggling to demonstrate value to the public, including prospective students, parents and lawmakers. Much of the trepidation comes from a lack of transparency regarding colleges’ high cost of attendance and the mountain of student loan debt Americans hold, as well as high unemployment and underemployment rates among graduates.

    A recent survey by Tyton Partners found that among students who believe college is worth the cost, 95 percent think higher education is preparing them well for jobs and careers.

    In general, students give fair ratings to the work campuses are currently doing to prepare them for their professional lives. A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that the plurality of students rate their institution’s efforts in career development as “average” (34 percent), 44.6 percent combined consider their college “good” or “excellent,” and 18 percent said poor or below average.

    Today’s college students are also eyeing a competitive job market during an economic downturn, as well as pressures from evolving technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence, that threaten entry-level roles.

    Embedding career development throughout the curriculum or as a graduation requirement is becoming more common, encouraging students to think about life after college earlier and in more meaningful ways so they aren’t caught unprepared when senior spring rolls around.

    Previous research shows that students engaged in career development are more likely to secure a job; a 2022 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that students who engaged with their career center received more job offers than their peers who didn’t. But some structural barriers can hinder students’ ability to participate in career activities, including off-campus work, caregiving responsibilities or lack of awareness of services. Internships are also increasingly competitive, leaving some students behind.

    How it works: A key piece of the Bethel Career Commitment is that students must undertake significant measures to advance their own career before the university will open additional doors of support.

    Students must complete four “phases” of career preparation prior to graduation to be eligible for a spot in Bethel’s career commitment plan. The elements include creating a Handshake profile, meeting with a career-development coach and participating in an internship. And after they earn their degree, students must meet with a career coach monthly and apply for at least 20 jobs per month to complete the final phase.

    In addition, students must have a minimum 3.0 GPA, be in good financial standing with the university and be willing to relocate.

    For students who don’t meet all the eligibility requirements, the university provides postgraduation career support in the form of coaching, Bethel University president Ross Allen told Inside Higher Ed.

    “Today, 99 percent of Bethel graduates are employed or in graduate school within a year, so we expect a small number of graduates will need the additional postgraduation support,” Allen said.

    He anticipates that graduate-level credits will often be “the most helpful next step vocationally,” but the university may offer short-term employment opportunities to students based on staffing needs, Allen said.

    A national picture: Other institutions, including Thomas College in Maine, Davenport University in Michigan, Curry College in Massachusetts and the University of Tulsa, guarantee their graduates employment, also on the condition that students participate in career development while enrolled.

    At Davenport, for example, students in select majors who earn a 3.0 GPA, complete an internship or experiential learning opportunity, and participate in extracurricular activities are supported by the DU Employment Guarantee. The plan allows students to enroll in 48 additional credits tuition-free in a graduate, undergraduate or professional program at the university, as well as participate in career coaching and recruitment efforts.

    At Curry College, students who opt into the Curry Commitment receive assistance with federal student loans for up to 12 months. They are also given a paid internship or a tuition waiver for six credits of graduate studies at the institution. To be eligible, a student must participate in career advising, workshops and résumé development; earn at least a 2.8 GPA; and graduate within four years.

    None of these institutions differentiates among the types of job a student may secure—making no distinction between a part-time role or one that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree—leaving some questions about the underemployment of college graduates.

    If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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