Tag: News

  • How Leaders Can Chart a Path Through the Chaos (opinion)

    How Leaders Can Chart a Path Through the Chaos (opinion)

    The pressures on higher education leaders and their institutions have intensified with the new U.S. presidential administration’s agenda. We all became familiar with uncertainty as a result of the pandemic, but this new series of policy mandates and legal challenges creates an even more ambiguous environment. Higher education’s basic foundations, operating systems, cultures, values and structures are being challenged, which implies systemic change may be required.

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

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

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

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

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

    The final category of externalities may be of particular relevance right now. This category refers to anything happening outside the university, from local community issues to state and federal policies. It goes beyond state appropriations and budgets to include social, political and economic factors. As leaders consider their external environment, here are some questions they can use to help them identify opportunities for and barriers to change, as well as levers they can use to inform the actions they can take:

    1. Are there state or federal policies or programs that are related to the change you are trying to achieve?
    2. What initiatives, organizations or businesses in your community might have a stake in this change?
    3. If your campus is public or part of a state system, are there messages, policies and priorities that can be drawn on to support changes?
    4. Is your campus a member of a national association that has initiatives you might participate in that will help you advance your change or gain momentum and support?
    5. Are there state, federal or philanthropic organizations that have grant programs aligned with your change goals? Do you have any major donors that can be engaged in your change project to support your goals?

    Let’s see how this exploration might help leaders chart a strategic path forward through the current climate of chaos and uncertainty. Leaders might identify some challenges with respect to their state or federal policy environment that present barriers. For example, in states that have defunded diversity efforts, universities have less funding to accomplish their goals of creating more inclusive environments to serve all students. However, they may find an opportunity to participate in a national project sponsored by an association that provides them the time and space to reconfigure their structures and programs in ways that would still allow them to reach their goals.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Adrianna Kezar is the Dean’s Professor of Leadership, Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California.

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  • Louisiana Sees Improved Pass Rates With Corequisite Model

    Louisiana Sees Improved Pass Rates With Corequisite Model

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Bowdoin to Devote $50M Gift to AI Learning, Teaching

    Bowdoin to Devote $50M Gift to AI Learning, Teaching

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Understanding Incoming College Student Demographics

    Understanding Incoming College Student Demographics

    Anecdotally, higher education practitioners frequently share challenges and changes with today’s college students, but how unique are the incoming learners of the Class of 2029?

    A February report published by the American Council on Education and the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, found the incoming class of college students is more diverse than past classes in terms of race, sexuality and socioeconomic standing.  

    According to the CIRP Freshman Survey 2024, some demographic groups are less likely to say they’re confident in their academic abilities and that they encounter mental health struggles, highlighting ongoing need to support students with their personal and academic development in higher education.

    “This report gives institutional leaders a clear view of today’s first-year students—their backgrounds, aspirations, and challenges—so they can better support learner success,” said Hironao Okahana, vice president and executive director of ACE’s Education Futures Lab, in a February press release. “Centering student experiences in higher education policy and practice is essential, and these findings help colleges and universities create environments where all students can thrive.”

    Methodology

    The survey, conducted between April 14 and Oct. 10, 2024, includes data from 24,367 incoming students across 55 colleges and universities.

    Demographics: Over half of respondents (50.8 percent) identify as white, but significant portions are students of color, including more than one race (14.8 percent), Asian and Pacific Islander (14.6 percent), Hispanic or Latino (11.0 percent), or Black and African American (7.7 percent). Around 1 percent of respondents are American Indian or Alaska Native.

    Nearly 10 percent of surveyed students reported English was not their primary language, and almost half of those learners are U.S. citizens.

    A majority of respondents indicated they are heterosexual (82.3 percent), but the next-greatest share identify as bisexual (8.5 percent).

    Nineteen percent of respondents were classified as low-income, defined in this study as having a family income of less than $60,000. First-generation students (those whose parents or guardians had no college experience) made up 12.4 percent of all students and one-third of the low-income group.

    Eight percent of respondents were military-affiliated, and these learners made up 3 percent of the low-income group.

    College prep: Nearly all students took three years of math in high school, but those from higher-income backgrounds were more likely to have completed advanced mathematics courses and Advanced Placement courses.

    Women (66.8 percent) were less likely than men to see themselves as having strong academic ability, compared to their male peers (75.8 percent) and those who indicated another gender identity (72.3 percent). Similarly, female students were less likely to say they have above-average intellect, compared to men and others.

    Despite that lack of self-confidence, women were more likely to report earning A’s in high school (78 percent) compared to men (72 percent) and other gender minorities (72 percent). Women and nonbinary students were also more likely to say they felt challenged by their coursework frequently (34.9 percent and 36.2 percent, respectively).

    Over half of students studied at least six hours per week, but first-generation students were less likely to study for six hours per week, compared to their continuing-generation peers. First-generation college students were also slightly more likely to work for pay at least six hours per week at 41.3 percent versus 38.6 percent.

    Around one-third of students socialized with their friends for at least six hours per week, on trend with national data that suggests Gen Z spends less time with friends compared to previous generations.

    Personal struggles: Mental health concerns have risen among young people nationally, and many incoming college students indicate feelings of being overwhelmed or depressed. Nonbinary students were most likely to report feeling anxious, stressed or depressed, and women were slightly more likely than men to share mental health concerns.

    “When asked how they compare with their peers on emotional health, men showed the most confidence; 48.5 percent rated themselves as above average or in the top 10 percent,” according to the report. “By contrast, only 35.2 percent of women and just 16.6 percent of students who identified outside of the gender binary rated themselves as above average or in the top 10 percent.”

    Around half of students indicated they had at least some chance of using mental health services offered at their institution.

    Financial stress continues to weigh on students, with over half (56.4 percent) expressing some or major concern about paying for college. Latino (81.4 percent) and Black students (69.6 percent) were more likely to say this was true. Sixty percent of Latino students, over half of American Indian or Alaska Native, and half of Black students utilize Pell Grants to fund their education, and each of these groups also relied on work-study funding for their education costs at higher rates than their peers.

    However, many students believe in the economic value of a college education, despite the financial barriers to access.

    Politics: For the first time, the survey asked students if they considered state policies and legislation to be important to their college decision. One-third of men and almost 40 percent of women considered politics and legislation to be at least somewhat important of where to go to college, compared to 56 percent of their nonbinary peers. LGBTQ students (48 percent) also weighed this factor as important more than their peers.

    The Class of 2029 is also civically engaged, with one-quarter of respondents indicating that they frequently or occasionally have demonstrated for a cause and one-third of respondents having publicly communicate their opinion about a cause. LGBTQ students were more likely to agree with these statements.

    Military-affiliated students also reported high levels of community engagement, such as volunteering and voting.

    Across the U.S., diversity, equity and inclusion work has become more controversial, but respondents still indicate a care for social equity. A majority of college students believe racial discrimination is still a major problem in the U.S., with students of color more likely than their white peers to share this opinion. Many students expressed an interest in correcting social inequalities and gender equity.

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  • Essay on Immigration Law and Student Activism (Opinion)

    Essay on Immigration Law and Student Activism (Opinion)

    On Sept. 23, 1952, Mugo Gatheru had just finished English class when an American official approached him and flashed a United States Immigration Services badge. Gatheru, a young Kenyan student at Lincoln University, quickly realized that his education was not the officer’s concern. His politics were. The officer interrogated him about his role as an editor of the Kenya African Union’s newspaper, The African Voice, and about whether he had ever engaged in political agitation against government officials in Kenya, India, England or the United States.

    In the 1950s, the Cold War logic of American immigration enforcement sought to place Gatheru into a rigid political binary: communist or anticommunist, agitator or ally. But Gatheru challenged these political borders. When accused of being an agitator, the young Kenyan student reframed the terms of the interrogation. Agitation, he argued, was a matter of perspective. British colonial authorities may have seen him as disruptive, but what he was doing was simply a continuation of the democratic ideals he had learned in America. “After all,” he told the immigration officer, “even George Washington was an agitator here in your country.”

    Seventy-three years later, it’s old wine in a new bottle.

    The same Immigration and Nationality Act that was used to justify deportation proceedings against Mugo Gatheru in the 1950s is now being wielded against Mahmoud Khalil. In Gatheru’s time, the target was anticolonial activists suspected of communist ties; today, it’s Palestinian advocates accused of supporting terrorism. The global politics are different, but the playbook remains the same: Silence dissent, rebrand it as a security threat and use immigration law to make it disappear.

    These cases are not just about two individuals. They are part of a much longer history of using immigration enforcement as a tool of political suppression on college campuses. Gatheru was one of many African, Latin America, Asian and Caribbean students in the mid-20th century whose presence in U.S. universities became politically suspect. Fueled by Cold War anxieties, U.S. authorities from across the political spectrum saw anticolonial activism as inherently subversive to American geopolitical interests. In the late 1970s, the Carter administration, which professed a strong commitment to human rights, employed the same tools of immigration enforcement to investigate and silence Iranian students who denounced U.S. complicity in the shah’s regime. And in the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration also utilized those same tools to prosecute young Palestinian activists in Los Angeles.

    The history of immigration and student activism is thus also a history of global racial politics. White European students were welcomed into American universities while Black and brown international students from the Global South were scrutinized for their political beliefs. In effect, academic freedom was never truly universal for international students. It was selectively granted and shaped by a racialized global hierarchy that mirrored U.S. Cold War priorities. Ultimately, an uncomfortable truth might be this: American universities are deeply entangled in America’s geopolitical agenda, and their commitment to academic freedom rarely extended to those who challenged U.S. hegemony.

    Today, the U.S. government is deploying a similar logic. In addition to Khalil’s arrest, the government has trumpeted the arrest of another international student tied to the Columbia protests, Leqaa Kordia, and the visa revocation and “self-deportation” of Ranjani Srinivasan, who says she got mistakenly swept up in arrests of protesters during the occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall last spring. A Georgetown University postdoctoral scholar from India, Badar Khan Suri, was also arrested last week, targeted, according to his lawyer, for his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.”

    In other words, these are not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate policy effort to criminalize Palestinian advocacy and antiwar protest.

    In the past two years alone, we have seen student groups labeled as extremist, faculty members investigated for their political speech and foreign nationals facing heightened scrutiny for their views on the ongoing war in Israel-Palestine. The arrest of Khalil, even if dropped, has had its intended effect: It sends a chilling message that political dissent, particularly when voiced by students from politically fraught regions, comes at a cost.

    The echoes between these cases should prompt us to reflect on the historical legacies at play. Both Gatheru’s and Khalil’s experiences show how governments, fearing the power of certain ideas, attempt to control the discourse by criminalizing student activists. Both demonstrate how racialized and colonialist logics shape the policing of dissent, whether in the 1950s, under the specter of communism, or in 2025, under the guise of counterterrorism. And, most significantly for those in higher education, both reveal the ways in which universities serve as battlegrounds for global political struggles.

    Yet both cases also highlight the potential role of academic communities and activist networks in resisting such overt suppression of political activism. When Gatheru faced deportation, university allies and civil rights leaders and groups, including Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, mobilized on his behalf. Faculty and students at Lincoln University established the Friends of Mugo Gatheru Fund. They reframed his case as a fight for both racial justice and academic freedom. Their efforts eventually led to the U.S. government dropping its case.

    Khalil’s arrest has likewise sparked widespread resistance. Student organizations and faculty at Columbia have mobilized swiftly, with Jewish faculty members holding a campus rally under the banner “Jews say no to deportations.” Meanwhile, an online petition demanding Khalil’s release has amassed more than three million signatures. These responses underscore the broader stakes of Khalil’s case: It is not just about one student but about the right to dissent in an era in which protest is again being reframed as a national security threat.

    Gatheru’s case, once seen as a national security risk, is now remembered as an example of state overreach. Will we look back on Khalil’s case the same way? If so, it will be because students, faculty and advocates refused to allow immigration enforcement to dictate the terms of political activism. As Gatheru reminded his interrogator, George Washington was an agitator, too. The question is whether we will continue to punish today’s agitators for following in that tradition.

    David S. Busch is the author of Disciplining Democracy: How the Modern American University Transformed Student Activism (Cornell University Press).

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  • The Struggling Sanctuary Campus Movement

    The Struggling Sanctuary Campus Movement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    ‘Meaningful,’ ‘Risky’ or Both?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Try Reading Job Descriptions With a Growth Mindset (Opinion)

    Try Reading Job Descriptions With a Growth Mindset (Opinion)

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

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

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

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

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

    Consider the following ways in which reading job descriptions with a growth mindset can create more opportunities in your career exploration and job search.

    • See and articulate your transferable skills and experiences.

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

    Shortly after finishing my Ph.D., I came across a job posting for a school relations manager at a nonprofit organization, liaising between high school teachers and the organization. The job fit my interests, but at first glance it didn’t seem to match my skill set. In particular, the job description asked for relationship-building skills, which I had never thought about as a skill set, let alone one that I possessed. As I reflected on my experience throughout my time in graduate school, I thought about a short-term, part-time position I had meeting once a month with high school history teachers to help them design lesson plans. I enjoyed this work and was good at it and, though I had never thought about it before, realized that I could frame this experience as relationship building. In my application materials and job interviews, I emphasized this skill set and expressed confidence in continuing to grow in this area, and I got the job.

    • Open up new career fields.

    Several years ago, I worked with a Ph.D. student in art history who was interested in a career in user experience research. Although she was still two years away from graduation, she started looking at job descriptions to get a better sense of the responsibilities and qualifications for the kinds of roles she desired. In her research, she noticed that many positions asked for evidence of user experience projects, and some even asked for a portfolio. While some students would have seen this as an insurmountable barrier (a fixed mindset), she instead let her growth mindset kick in and got to work building her portfolio through project-based online courses, independent projects and on-campus jobs, and continued to network with practitioners in the field. Her hard work and help from others paid off, and she was able to move into the field after she graduated.

    • Compete for jobs for which you may be somewhat underqualified.

    Students often let the perception of being underqualified for a job prevent them from applying. This is a well-documented tendency among women and underrepresented groups, and, for graduate students, the impostor phenomenon often contributes to reduced confidence in relation to career possibilities. Most graduate students know about this tendency and the advice to apply if you meet 60 to 75 percent of the qualifications, Yet, many still have difficulty getting over the hump to apply when they don’t meet 100 percent of the qualifications in the job description. Or, if they do apply, they undersell their qualifications in their application materials.

    When you approach a position description for a job that interests you but feels like a reach, start with the job responsibilities and imagine yourself performing the tasks listed. If there are things on the list you haven’t done before, imagine how you could build on the skills and capacities you have in a new setting and then improve over time. Next, go through each qualification and look for some connection, however tenuous, to something you have done before and write it down. If you have trouble doing this on your own, work with a career adviser who can help. Usually this process helps you see capacities and qualifications you didn’t know you had and will give you confidence that you can grow into a role that feels like a stretch.

    • Apply for jobs for which you may feel overqualified.

    This next piece of advice addresses the other end of the spectrum—jobs for which you feel overqualified. Ph.D. students who are entering a field other than academia are making a career transition, which often requires spending some time in a role that might feel beneath your qualifications. This is especially true in certain industries like publishing, journalism, marketing and communications, and others. It can feel demoralizing for doctoral students to apply for jobs that only require a bachelor’s degree.

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

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

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

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  • Arkansas Passes Higher Ed “Reform” Bill

    Arkansas Passes Higher Ed “Reform” Bill

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

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

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

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  • Former Kansas City School Police Officer Fights for Student Safety Via Nonprofit – The 74

    Former Kansas City School Police Officer Fights for Student Safety Via Nonprofit – The 74

    KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Marialexa Sanoja publicly quit her job as a Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools police officer over concerns with the district’s handling of student safety needs and founded a nonprofit to help kids escape the challenges in Wyandotte County.

    In the three-and-a-half months Sanoja was stationed at Wyandotte High School, the district’s largest school with 1900 students, Sanoja said she filed 140 incident reports and that in most instances the district failed to take action. The district, through its YouTube channel, disputed her figures and asserted it handled concerns responsibly.

    “It didn’t take long for me to find out that the students were not in the best interest of anybody,” Sanoja said. “When the police officer becomes a safe space for students, there is something wrong with that.”

    After her resignation in December 2023, Sanoja founded Missión Despegue, translated to “mission takeoff,” a nonprofit that helps parents and students document their grievances with the school district to hold the district accountable for its handling of safety issues.

    Sanoja saw the district’s response to a sexual assault case and its communication as inadequate, and experts echo her concerns. Now, Sanoja works with current and former students to get their GED certificates, drivers licenses, mental health care and prevent substance abuse.

    Sanoja’s concerns

    Sanoja said much of the Latino community, which makes up 72% of Wyandotte High School, is afraid to complain or make a scene because many of them are new to the country. She aims to empower them, and help them achieve the “American dream.”

    One reason Sanoja resigned — and a former student dropped out — was because of the district’s response to the former student’s experience of being sexually assaulted at school. Kansas Reflector doesn’t identify minors who have been sexually assaulted.

    According to an incident report filed by Sanoja, the former student was a freshman and alone in the Wyandotte High School stairwell when a group of older boys groped her and made sexual remarks. She began recording the boys with her phone, which prompted them to leave, the report said.

    Sanoja was off duty that day. The former student asked the on-duty officer to file a report, which Sanoja says she never saw. The day after, Sanoja and the former student said they filed an incident, criminal, and Title IX report. The former student wanted to press charges.

    “After that, I just stopped going to school, because I didn’t feel safe,” the former student said in an interview with Kansas Reflector.

    Sanoja said security camera footage and the former student’s video showed the boys’ faces. The former student said the district told her that because the boys never returned to school, it could not suspend them. However, the former student said she continued to see the boys on campus.

    “Ultimately, the district didn’t do anything about it. We were asking, at least, for suspension. That didn’t happen,” Sanoja said.

    A spokesperson from the district told Kansas Reflector it was unable to provide comment on the former student’s case, or the district’s responsibility to handle reports of sexual assault.

    Sanoja publicly resigned with a letter that accused the district of failing to communicate with parents. She wrote that she was worried about instances where students brought guns to school property and all parents weren’t notified.

    In a response video to Sanoja’s resignation, district superintendent Anna Stubblefield said “those incidents are not always relayed to all families. Not because we’re hiding anything, but because the impact is low and to protect the privacy of our students.”

    A district spokesperson told Kansas Reflector the “administration is required to contact parents regarding student issues — such as absences, drug-related concerns, or fights — in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct.”

    Expert opinions

    Ken Trump, an expert in school safety communications who is not related to the president, said parental anxiety over school safety is rising nationwide.

    “It’s very easy to get caught up if you’ve got a couple thousand kids in a school, dealing with incidents and other things. But you need to take a tactical pause in this, and go back to looking at the communications,” Trump said. “You can’t go back to the old-school mindset of if someone finds out about it we’ll talk. That doesn’t work anymore.”

    Sanoja said that after a student overdosed at school and she contacted the parents directly, the high school principal told Sanoja to route all communication with parents through administration.

    Sanoja said that she continues to receive videos of physical fights in the schools, totaling in the hundreds, since her resignation.

    Michael Dorn, a school safety expert who assists schools after major acts of violence, said  Sanoja’s allegations were concerning. He said he would have responded to her concerns differently than the school district did.

    “I was a school district police chief for 10 years,” Dorn said. “If an officer in my department wrote that kind of resignation letter, I would request a state police investigation. I would ask for a polygraph test, and I would ask that she be polygraphed. I wouldn’t do anything like that, but if someone alleged that I did and I didn’t do it, I would request that to clear my name.”

    Sanoja worked as a police officer in Lenexa before transitioning to the school district and said Wyandotte High School presented the most significant challenges she’s seen. She believes the problems are “within the culture” of the school.

    “Everybody’s tired of the way the district is handling things,” Sanoja said. “They’ve been failing these kids for years.”

    Fixing root causes

    Through her nonprofit, Sanoja helps students who leave the district, like the former student who was sexually assaulted, earn their GED certificate.

    When they’re out of the school environment, Sanoja said, they thrive.

    Sanoja said most of the families she works with are immigrants, and the parents do not speak English.

    “We face the daunting task of ending the stigma, shame and judgement that come with our culture,” Sanoja said.

    Missión Despegue seeks to fix the root causes of the problems seen in school — like substance abuse, violence, bullying, and mental health issues. Sanoja said she sees these problems reflected in things like the graduation rate of the district. For the 2023-2024 school year it was 78.1%, which is 11.4 percentage points lower than the state average.

    Through donations, Sanoja covers the cost of mental health appointments, DMV license and GED class registrations, and laptop purchases for students pursuing their GED certificate without one. In February, she began converting first-time offenders’ court fees, in hopes of reducing recidivism.

    With the help of more than 100 volunteers, Sanoja has hosted events where she provides Narcan and educates parents about the dangers of substance abuse. She also guides volunteers to further training, like drug prevention and compassion fatigue workshops.

    Sanoja said she doesn’t get paid for her work with Missión Despegue. She said she needs an assistant, because she has “a long list of people that need help.”

    “I see something in them. I know they’re going to be successful,” Sanoja said. “I want that opportunity for every kid I have.”

    Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: [email protected].


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  • 5 Years After Reopening, South Carolina Agriculture School is Beyond Capacity – The 74

    5 Years After Reopening, South Carolina Agriculture School is Beyond Capacity – The 74


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    McCORMICK — Cows compose the greeting committee at the Governor’s School for Agriculture, flocking to the fence just past the entrance to watch visitors drive past.

    Established in 1797 as a farming school for poor and orphaned children, the campus known for centuries as John de la Howe has changed missions several times. The latest turned it into the nation’s only residential public high school providing an agricultural education.

    Pastures of horses, sheep and cows dot the 1,310-acre property tucked off a rural road in McCormick County inside a national forest.

    The campus’ dozen residential halls are full, and for the first time since the new mission began, officials are having to turn away prospective students because of a lack of space, said Tim Keown, the school’s president.

    Cows graze in a pasture behind a staff house at the Governor’s School for Agriculture on Feb. 21. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

    Two more halls sit mostly empty as they await decorations from the school’s alumni committee and, next year, a new batch of students to fill them.

    After a rocky start, including findings of ethical and financial mismanagement during the school’s first year after the change, things are looking up, Keown said.

    Last year, the school regained the accreditation it lost in 2016. And for the first time in 25 years, auditors last year found no problems, a rare accomplishment for a state agency, he said.

    Driving through the expansive campus, where classrooms abut greenhouses and open pastures, Keown described a vision for the school’s future, including continuing to expand its capacity and offering more classes to cover the full spectrum of agriculture.

    His ideas have gotten support from the House of Representatives’ budget writers.

    That chamber’s state spending plan for 2025-26, passed last week, includes $2 million for continuing renovations and $4 million for a new meat processing plant.

    “We don’t expect (students) to all go back and be full-time farmers,” Keown said. “But there are hundreds of thousands of jobs across South Carolina that need young people to enter those jobs.”

    Becoming a school for agriculture

    The mission adopted in 2020 is a return to the school’s roots.

    Dr. John de la Howe, a French doctor who immigrated to Charleston in 1764, wrote in his will that he wanted the farm he had purchased to be an agricultural seminary for “12 poor boys and 12 poor girls,” giving preference to orphans, Keown said.

    John de la Howe’s grave at the Governor’s School for Agriculture. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

    For years, that was what the school was.

    During World War I, John de la Howe became a state agency and a home for orphaned children, which it remained until the 1980s. Then, as orphanages waned in use, its purpose adjusted again to become a public residential school for sixth- through 10-graders with serious behavior problems.

    That, too, fell out of favor over the years, as more counties established programs that kept troubled teens closer to home.

    Attendance dropped, and costs per students skyrocketed.

    In 2003, then-Gov. Mark Sanford recommended, without success, closing the school and sending its students to a military-like public school in West Columbia for at-risk teens. In 2014, Gov. Nikki Haley recommended putting the Department of Juvenile Justice in charge.

    In March 2016, with the school’s accreditation on probation, House budget writers recommended temporarily transferring oversight to Clemson University.

    Weeks later, the state Department of Education made a final decision to yank the school’s accreditation. Deficiencies cited by inspectors included classes taught by uncertified teachers, the school not meeting the needs of students with disabilities, and the lack of online access.

    That forced the Legislature to make a decision.

    Legislators eventually settled on creating a third residential high school offering a specific education. The agriculture school joined existing governor’s schools for the arts and for science and math.

    The year the school was supposed to open its doors to its first new class of students, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Distancing restrictions meant students could no longer share rooms, so the school halved its capacity and began its first year with 33 students.

    The next year, the school’s population doubled.

    At the start of the 2024 school year, 81 students were enrolled, and another 81 had graduated. Once renovations in three dorms are complete, the capacity will increase to 124, plus day students, Keown said.

    “It’s been like putting together a huge puzzle with many missing pieces over the last couple of years,” Keown said. “But we’re finally finding all those pieces, and it’s all making more sense.”

    The new mission

    Blake Arias knew he wanted to study plants. Other than that, he had little interest in agriculture when he applied for the governor’s school.

    “If you looked at my application, it was very obvious that I didn’t have a background and that I didn’t know much,” Arias said.

    When he first arrived at the school nearly three hours from his home in Summerton, he wasn’t particularly interested in handling animals. And he really, really didn’t want to learn to weld.

    Three years later, Arias, who graduates this spring, still focuses primarily on plants.

    However, he also spends hours every day after class helping a rabbit, Chunky, lose some weight before he takes her to shows. He’s working on earning a beekeeping certification. And he even learned how to weld.

    A sheep looks over a fence at the Governor’s School for Agriculture on Feb. 21. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

    “Am I the best welder? Absolutely not,” Arias said. “But I really enjoyed it, and it taught me something new because they gave me the opportunity.”

    Arias is part of about half of the school’s population that comes in with little background in agriculture, Keown said. Applicants must have at least a 2.7 GPA. The goal is to take all kinds of students, whether they grew up on a farm or in a city and show them all sorts of opportunities in agriculture.

    That’s not limited to farming.

    The school offers four designated pathways: agricultural mechanics, horticulture, plant and animal systems, and environmental and natural resources. Students choose a focus, but they’re introduced to a sampler platter of what’s out there, Keown said.

    “It really shows you all the possibilities that there are in each field,” said Emily White, a senior from McCormick.

    Day to day

    The days typically begin long before students report to the cafeteria at 7:45 a.m.

    Like on any farm, horses, pigs and rabbits need feeding and cleaning, and plants need tending.

    Students take a blend of core classes, such as English, math and social studies, and classes focused on agriculture, Keown said.

    Even the core classes, which are all honors-level courses, typically use agriculture as a touch point for students, said Lyle Fulmer, a recent graduate.

    Math problems, for instance, might use real-life examples of balancing a budget on a farm. For students interested in agriculture, that adds excitement to what might usually be their hum-drum classes, he said.

    “Even if it was frustrating and I didn’t know how to solve the problem, I would work through it and I would know that this was something that I very well could be doing someday,” said Fulmer, who is now a freshman at Clemson University.

    Once classes are over, students have the rest of the afternoon to do as they please.

    The inside of a residence hall at the Governor’s School for Agriculture on Feb. 21. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

    White said she typically goes to the pig barn to clean, feed and work with Hank the Tank, a pig she’s planning to show.

    Other students might practice rodeo riding or clay shooting, two of the sports the school offers. Some gather at the saw mill to help process trees salvaged when Tropical Storm Helene swept through campus last September.

    By 6:15 p.m., students are expected to return to their residence halls or other communal areas for an hour of study time. Like college students, they have the run of their residence halls under the watchful eye of a residential advisor.

    Along with accumulating credits to get ahead in college courses, the freedom Fulmer had as a high school student helped prepare him for living in the dorms and all the challenges that accompany that. He already knew how to keep his space tidy and handle disagreements with roommates, which many incoming freshmen don’t, he said.

    “It really did prepare me a lot for college,” Fulmer said.

    What the future holds

    Standing on the front lawn of the president’s mansion, glimpses of the dining hall visible across an expansive open lawn, Keown described his vision of the school’s future.

    In the next couple of years, the school will start offering classes in culinary arts and hospitality management, which will help students who want to go into the growing industry of agritourism that creates attractions out of farms.

    “Our ag kids learn to grow (the food), our culinary students prepare it, our tourism hospitality students manage the banquets,” Keown said of his vision.

    Also in the near future is the meat processing plant, which Keown hopes to have finished in the next three years. That will give students skills to land high-paying jobs straight out of high school and fill a gap in the agricultural industry, Keown said.

    Timothy Keown, president of the Governor’s School for Agriculture, stands in front of the president’s house on Feb. 21, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

    A decade from now, Keown hopes to see 300 students roaming the grounds. He also wants them to grow about half of what they eat, compared with 20% now.

    In Keown’s mind, the school presents a bright spot for the future of agriculture. While the number of farmers under the age of 35 has grown slightly in recent years, the average age of farmers is 58, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture.

    Photos of recent alumni hung from flagpoles on campus. Driving under them, Keown named each graduate and where they went to school. Many go to Clemson, though some went to schools in other states.

    Most are still pursuing degrees in agriculture.

    “They are making us really proud,” Keown said.

    SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: [email protected].


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