Tag: News

  • An opportunity to reframe the DEI debate (opinion)

    An opportunity to reframe the DEI debate (opinion)

    The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague letter on Friday that instructs college leaders to eliminate any campus activities that directly or indirectly treat students differentially on the basis of race. Others will rightly push back on the logic of the department’s stated justifications, the absurdity of its timing and the accuracy of its examples, but I want to suggest that campus leaders can also take this as an opportunity to enact real change on behalf of all students.

    This is a moment for campus leaders to reframe the terms of the current debate over the legitimacy of special diversity, equity and inclusion programs by doing the long-needed work of truly decentering whiteness as the normative identity and experience within so many campus curricula and co-curricular programs.

    If we are to truly serve our students regardless of race, and if—as the department’s letter states—we have to put an end to even the subtle ways racial preferences and privileges are attached to seemingly race-blind policies, then watch out. Most campuses have a lot of work to do, and much of it is not going to be to the liking of those who believe that it is DEI programs that make an otherwise level playing field an unfair one.

    What the Dear Colleague letter fails to mention is that the proliferation of DEI activities on campuses came about as a more or less conservative compromise position as the population grew more diverse and as students demanded greater access. In treating Black and other minoritized students as “special,” such programs meet the needs of these students in supplementary ways rather than by ensuring that the core curriculum and student life experience are equally useful, meaningful and available to all. If the department insists that we put an end to all DEI programming, then it will also have to support efforts to ensure that whiteness is not smuggled in as the norm or standard.

    Early in my teaching career, I saw the ways that DEI programs could be used to reinforce white centrality rather than challenge it. Student demands for a more representative and accurate curriculum were met with resistance by senior faculty uninterested in expanding their own spheres of knowledge. Special courses in “women’s history” or “Black studies” became the compromise position. Rather than revising the canon to reflect the needs of a curious student body, rather than incorporating new scholarship into the university’s core, rather than interrogating the biases and histories of the curriculum, new courses and departments were created while the original ones were left intact. This détente (you teach yours and I teach mine) became the model.

    Many of the special programs that the Dear Colleague letter seems to have in mind follow this pattern. They keep in place a curriculum and campus culture firmly centered around the interests and perspectives of white students while offering alternatives on the side. If compromise via DEI activities is no longer an option, then a better solution will have to be found. The diversity of the student body is a fact that will still require a reckoning. Decades of scholarship reveal the many ways whiteness is encoded in supposedly neutral policies and programs, and this will not be magically erased. For many colleges, achieving a campus where white students are not unintentionally given extra opportunities based on their race will require radical change.

    My guess is that the department knows this on some level. Otherwise, why is race rather than sex or religion targeted? A sex-neutral campus would have to do away with single-sex housing and sex-segregated sororities and fraternities. A religiously neutral campus could no longer privilege Christian holidays or values.

    We should absolutely fight against the many overt inaccuracies of the Dear Colleague letter. And we should fight against both overt and covert expressions of racism and white supremacy. But we need not fight on behalf of compromise solutions to the very real problems that inspired our current DEI campus environment. Instead, we can use this unexpected opportunity to pick up where we left off and ensure that every program, every aspect of the curriculum, every student service is designed with the needs of our very diverse student body in mind. We can stop treating the experiences and needs of white students as the default or the neutral.

    What would our institutions look like if normative whiteness were no longer at the center and the need for many of the special DEI alternatives were made moot? Let’s find out.

    Marjorie Hass is president of the Council of Independent Colleges.

    Source link

  • Social media can benefit college students with disabilities

    Social media can benefit college students with disabilities

    College students often have a complicated relationship with social media, with a large number of learners active on multiple social media platforms but also aware of the negative mental health consequences social media can have.

    Teens receive hundreds of notifications on their phones every day, with over half of one study’s participants receiving more than 237 notifications per day. Nearly one in five teens say they’re on YouTube or TikTok almost constantly, according to a 2023 survey from Pew Research.

    A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found one-third of respondents indicated social media was one of the biggest drivers of what many call the college mental health crisis.

    A recent study authored by a group of researchers from Michigan State University and published in the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education evaluates how students with disabilities interact on social media and build social capital.

    Researchers found disabled students—including those with autism, anxiety, attention-deficit and/or hyperactivity disorder—were more likely to seek out new relationships and engage in active social media posting, which can advance connectedness and relationships among learners.

    The background: While social media can offer users social supports, such as promoting a sense of belonging during times of transition or crisis, it also poses risks for young people, including cyberbullying and online harassment, according to the study.

    Previous studies show youth with disabilities experience higher rates of cyberbullying compared to their peers, but students with disabilities are also more likely to report they receive social support through social media, which could be tied to the social isolation they can experience in person.

    Existing literature often focuses on the negative effects of social media for young adults with disabilities, but it is not known if there are differences between the experiences of those with and without disabilities and their social media habits.

    “Understanding different learners’ experiences with social media could help college faculty, special education professionals, and counselors not only consider using social media to create more welcoming and supportive learning environments but also how they might play a role in building individual learner’s capacity for positive digital participation,” researchers wrote.

    Methodology: Researchers conducted a survey of college undergraduates in the U.S. with and without disabilities in fall 2021, collecting data on social media use, social capital and psychological well-being. In total, 147 students responded to the survey.

    From this sample, researchers selected five individuals with and five individuals without disabilities to participate in semistructured interviews. Participants were matched based on social media habits and demographic factors, such as gender.

    Results: Through postsurvey interviews with 10 students, researchers learned that while both groups of students engage on social media for personal entertainment and to stay connected with people in their social circles, students with disabilities were more likely to say they used social media to initiate and grow relationships.

    All five participants without disabilities used Snapchat to interact with friends or keep in touch with loved ones in an informal manner, and all participants used Instagram to stay up-to-date with their peers.

    Among the five participants with disabilities, students reported using more social media platforms individually, and these learners were more likely to use TikTok (which in fall 2021 first hit one billion monthly active users compared to Instagram’s then-two billion users) compared to their peers. Students reported using TikTok for watching videos, sharing humor with their friends or participating in larger community building, including professional learning networks or cosplaying.

    Students without disabilities were more likely to say social media made no difference on their relationships or that it positively impacted their relationships by allowing them to stay in touch over geographical distances or other barriers.

    Similarly, all students with disabilities said social media assisted with their relationships, allowing them to connect with new people, expand their community and help manage their disabilities by connecting with others.

    Some respondents with disabilities said they felt more confident to engage with strangers in a safe way online and that social media was an avenue to find like-minded people they wouldn’t ordinarily interact with, allowing them to build new relationships. This was a unique trend to students with disabilities; those without were more likely to say they use social media to engage with people they already had relationships with.

    Students with disabilities may have greater challenges with in-person socialization, which researchers theorize makes social media particularly important for these learners, who also said they’re more likely to post on social media versus passively scroll.

    Interacting with others in the disability community and breaking stigma around disability was another theme in conversations with disabled students. These interactions could be with peers who share their disability or from medical professionals or support groups who provide new information.

    One limitation to the research was social desirability bias, or respondents’ tendency to answer questions in a way that would please researchers, meaning students underreport undesirable behaviors. The sample included only female and nonbinary students, which creates further limitations to the data.

    Put in practice: Researchers offered some suggestions for how educators can utilize this data to create a more inclusive learning environment, including:

    • Integrating social media into the classroom. While some digital learning platforms have forums for community building, such as a discussion board, these platforms can be less accessible than traditional social media platforms.
    • Facilitating personalized learning environments. Higher education leaders can consider ways to use social media to create formal and informal learning experiences in and around courses. These learning environments can also include methods for peer communication and connection, helping make learning more collaborative.
    • Engaging on social media themselves. Self-disclosure by professors can help build relationships in the classroom and enhance learning, but instructors must weigh safety, privacy and other legal boundaries in their social media usage. This could be one way to model positive social media usage for students, including how to have productive interactions with others.

    In the future, researchers see opportunities for analysis of design, implementation and evaluation of social media interventions for connection among students with disabilities, such as peer mentoring programs, online support groups or digital storytelling. There should also be consideration of the long-term effects of social media use on students’ mental health and well-being.

    Get more content like this directly to your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.

    Source link

  • Why are campuses quiet as democracy is in crisis? (opinion)

    Why are campuses quiet as democracy is in crisis? (opinion)

    A close friend who works at a nearby college asked me why, in 2025, there haven’t been student protests of the kind that we saw during the Vietnam War and after the killing of George Floyd.

    She questioned why campuses seem eerily quiescent as events in Washington, D.C., threaten values essential to the health of higher education, values like diversity, freedom of speech and a commitment to the greater good. We also wondered why most higher education leaders are choosing silence over speech.

    Deans and presidents seem more invested in strategizing about how to respond to executive orders and developing contingency plans to cope with funding cuts than in exerting moral leadership and mounting public criticism of attacks on democratic norms and higher education.

    My students have their own lists of preoccupations. Some are directly threatened and live in fear; some see nothing special about the present moment. “It is just more of the same,” one of them told me.

    And many faculty feel especially vulnerable because of who they are or what they teach. They, too, are staying on the sidelines.

    All of us may be tempted by what a student quoted by the Yale Daily News calls “a quiet acceptance and a quiet grief.” None of us may see a clear path forward; after all, the president won a plurality of the votes in November. How can we save democracy from and for the people themselves?

    I do not mean to judge the goodwill or integrity of anyone in our colleges and universities. There, as elsewhere, people are trying their best to figure out how to live and work under suddenly changed circumstances.

    No choice will be right for everyone, and we need empathy for those who decide to stay out of the fray. But if all of us stay on the sidelines, the collective silence of higher education at a time when democracy is in crisis will not be judged kindly when the history of our era is written.

    Let’s start by considering the role of college and university presidents in times of national crisis. In the past, some have seen themselves as leaders not just of their institutions but, like the clergy and presidents of philanthropic foundations, of civil society.

    Channeling Alexis de Tocqueville, Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld explains that “the voice of leaders in civil society help[s] certify truth,” creating “priceless ‘social capital’ or community trust.” He asks, “If college presidents get a pass, then why shouldn’t all institutional leaders in democratic society shirk their duties?”

    In the 1960s and ’70s, some prominent college presidents refused to take a pass. The University of Notre Dame’s Theodore Hesburgh became a leading voice in the Black civil rights struggle. Amherst College president John William Ward not only spoke out publicly against the Vietnam War, he even undertook an act of civil disobedience to protest it.

    A half century earlier, another Amherst president, Alexander Meiklejohn, embraced the opportunity afforded by his position to speak to a nation trying to recover from World War I and figure out how to deal with mass immigration and the arrival of new ethnic groups.

    At a time of national turmoil, he asked Americans some hard questions: “Are we determined to exalt our culture, to make it sovereign over others, to keep them down, to have them in control? Or will we let our culture take its chance on equal terms … Which shall it be—an Anglo-Saxon aristocracy of culture or a Democracy?”

    Those questions have special resonance in the present moment.

    But, especially after Oct. 7, college presidents have embraced institutional neutrality on controversial social and political issues. That makes sense.

    Yet institutional neutrality does not mean they need to be silent “on the issues of the day when they are relevant to the core mission of our institutions,” to quote Wesleyan University president Michael S. Roth. And, as Sonnenfeld notes, even the University of Chicago’s justly famous 1967 Kalven report, which first urged institutional neutrality, “actually encouraged institutional voice to address situations which ‘threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.’”

    Do attacks on diversity, on international students and faculty, and on the rule of law and democracy itself “threaten the very mission of the university”? If they don’t, I do not know what would.

    As Wesleyan’s Roth reminds his colleagues, “College presidents are not just neutral bureaucrats or referees among competing protesters, faculty and donors.” Roth urges them to speak out.

    But, so far, few others have done so, preferring to keep a low profile.

    The silence of college leaders is matched by the absence of student protests on most of their campuses. Recall that in 2016, when President Trump was first elected, “On many campuses, protests exploded late into election night and lasted several days.”

    Nothing like that is occurring now, even as the Trump administration is carrying out mass deportations, threatening people who protest on college campuses, attacking DEI, calling for ethnic cleansing in Gaza, ending life-saving foreign aid programs and trampling the norms of constitutional democracy.

    Mass protests on campuses can be traced back to 1936, when, as Patricia Smith explains, “college students from coast to coast refused to attend classes to express their opposition to the rise of fascism in Europe and to advocate against the U.S. involvement in foreign wars.”

    They were followed by the University of California at Berkeley’s free speech movement in the 1960s and protests against the Vietnam War, including those that occurred after fatal shootings of student protesters at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard. There were anti-apartheid protests in the 1980s, and, more recently, students across the country organized protests against police brutality and racism after George Floyd’s death and against Israel’s military actions in Gaza in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

    Though there have been small protests on a few college campuses, nothing like what occurred in response to those events has transpired in 2025.

    Students may have learned a bitter lesson from the crackdowns on protesters engaged in pro-Palestinian activism. And many of them are deeply disillusioned with our democratic institutions. They care more about social justice than preserving democracy and the rule of law.

    Students may not be following events in the nation’s capital or grasping the significance of those events and what they mean for them and their futures.

    It is the job of those of us who teach at colleges and universities to help them see what is happening. This is no time for business as usual. Our students need to understand why democracy matters and how their lives and the lives of their families will be changed if American democracy dies.

    Ultimately, we should remember that the costs of silence may be as great as the costs of speaking out.

    M. Gessen gets it right when they say, “A couple of weeks into Trump’s second term, it can feel as if we are already living in an irreversibly changed country.” Perhaps we are, but Gessen warns that there is worse to come: “Once an autocracy gains power, it will come for many of the people who quite rationally tried to safeguard themselves.”

    Gessen asks us to remember that “The autocracies of the 20th century relied on mass terror. Those of the 21st often don’t need to; their subjects comply willingly.”

    At present, college and university presidents, students and faculty must care about more than protecting ourselves and our institutions. We must speak out and bear witness to what Gessen describes and warn our fellow citizens against compliance.

    This will not be easy at a time when higher education has lost some luster in the public’s eyes. But we have no choice. We have to try.

    Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

    Source link

  • UTSA launches first-year seminar for veteran students

    UTSA launches first-year seminar for veteran students

    The transition to college is a challenge for many students as they navigate the bureaucracy of higher education, build community and discern their goals and plans after graduation.

    For student veterans, an added challenge can be having too many choices.

    “The beauty of the military is they tell you what your path is in life and where you’re going to be assigned, what your job is gonna be,” says Brian Rendell, senior director of academic credentialing, leadership development and marketable skills at University College, part of the University of Texas at San Antonio. “Once you leave that, it’s an open book.”

    A new course offering at UTSA helps individuals with military service experience adjust to their life at the university and connect with peers who have similar backgrounds. The course, launched this calendar year, fulfills a general education requirement and provides personalized assistance with obtaining credit for prior learning.

    What’s the need: UTSA, located in San Antonio, known as “Military City USA,” Rendell jokes, serves a large number of military-affiliated learners, including offering a robust ROTC program and enrolling dozens of student veterans.

    Veterans, compared to their peers, are often older and have complex life experiences.

    Student veterans at UTSA shared with campus leaders that they didn’t always feel connected with their peers who came straight out of high school, which pushed administrators to consider other ways to create community for military-affiliated learners.

    The course is also designed to help consider their military training from an asset-based perspective.

    “What a lot of veterans don’t realize is the military teaches you so many skills,” Rendell says, including teamwork, discipline and hard work, which can assist in academic pursuits. While some careers have a direct application into postmilitary life, such as pilots, “there’s no tank drivers in the civilian world,” so helping students see where their skills and talents could assist them in the future requires some individual attention.

    How it works: The course, part of the Academic Instruction and Strategies (AIS) program, provides support and community for veterans for their academic and personal achievement.

    UTSA enrolls a large population of military-affiliated students, including ROTC cadets and veterans.

    AIS is required for all incoming students with fewer than 30 credits, and the initial Air Force pilot cohort fell within this category, though the course may be open to additional learners in the future, Rendell says.

    All AIS courses address academic skills and career planning, but unique to student veterans is one-on-one support from staff to evaluate their past experiences and military training to see where to award credit for prior learning.

    The in-person course is exclusively being taught by faculty and staff who are former service members themselves. Rendell, a retired Air Force colonel, is teaching the pilot cohort and has found his shared experiences help break down barriers.

    “I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how honest these students have been about the struggles they’ve had in the military or just in life,” Rendell says.

    Rendell invited representatives from the Veterans Association and the Student Veteran Association to speak in class, helping build connections across the institution and beyond.

    Looking ahead: The initial cohort of AIS student veterans includes five learners, but Rendell anticipates course enrollment to grow quickly due to the university’s large number of military-affiliated students.

    Next fall, he anticipates two to three sections of a veterans-only AIS with 20 to 30 learners per class.

    Campus leaders will track qualitative feedback from veterans to gauge the impact of the program, as well as CPL awarded to veterans, as measures of success.

    UTSA currently has a Center for Military Affiliated Students, which helps with onboarding and financial aid, and is launching a living-learning community on campus for ROTC participants to further connect students physically.

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

    Source link

  • A West Virginia HBCU reviews programs after anti-DEI order

    A West Virginia HBCU reviews programs after anti-DEI order

    West Virginia State University has been tasked with reviewing its programs and practices after the state’s governor issued an executive order against diversity, equity and inclusion. While other public institutions in the state have to do the same, West Virginia State University is in a somewhat unique position: It’s a public, historically Black institution with a predominantly white student body. The university serves all, but diversity and inclusion are part of its founding mission.

    Higher ed experts say that while few public HBCUs are openly discussing the issue, West Virginia State isn’t the only such institution that’s undergoing this kind of review process as DEI bans proliferate. Some argue that subjecting HBCUs to these reviews is counterintuitive in light of their historic mission, raising questions about how such institutions will fare in the current state and federal policy landscape.

    West Virginia State launched its review after Governor Patrick Morrisey last month banned state institutions from using “state funds, property, or resources” to “grant or support DEI staff positions, procedures or programs.” He also prohibited mandating DEI statements or any training or programming that “promotes or encourages the granting of preferences based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an advocacy organization for free speech rights, castigated the executive order as overly broad and warned it could limit what’s taught in West Virginia classrooms.

    The executive order also required “all cabinet secretaries and department heads under the authority of the Governor” to complete a report within 30 days, identifying any positions, procedures or programs based in “theories of DEI.”

    In response, West Virginia State University, along with other public universities in the state, submitted a letter outlining diversity-related positions, programs and activities, said Ericke Cage, the university’s president.

    “If there are concerns raised by the governor’s office … then we need to work to negotiate possible resolutions,” Cage said, though he expects it won’t come to that.

    In the letter, the university’s general counsel, Alice R. Faucett, argued that a comprehensive review found no evidence the university engages in or supports “preferential treatment” based on DEI principles.

    At the same time, the response readily acknowledged the university’s history and mission as an HBCU.

    “All procedural practices and programs at WVSU are designed to foster an inclusive and equitable environment,” Faucett wrote. They also “promote fairness and equal access while ensuring no group receives preferential treatment. The University remains dedicated to serving all members of the community, particularly those who have been historically marginalized, as part of its longstanding mission.”

    The letter highlighted some practices and policies that reflect the university’s “commitment to diversity, inclusion and compliance with state directives.” They included annual Title IX trainings, services for sexual assault survivors, campus presentations on human rights law and email messages recognizing Black History Month, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Women’s History Month and other observances.

    Faucett’s response also noted that the university receives some federal grants and privately funded scholarships with “DEI components,” without offering further detail.

    Felecia Commodore, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said other public universities have taken a similar approach to DEI bans, arguing to state lawmakers that “there’s nothing to reorganize, because we’re not doing what you’re saying.”

    ‘Baked Into Who We Are’

    Though such DEI reviews might seem fraught for an HBCU, Cage believes the university is likely to come out unscathed—and it may even fare better under the governor’s scrutiny than its non-HBCU counterparts. He noted that West Virginia State doesn’t have a DEI office or specific DEI personnel, a detail also highlighted in the university’s response document.

    “When it comes to diversity and inclusiveness, that’s really baked into who we are as an institution as part of our DNA,” Cage said. “At our very core, we are all about being a highly inclusive institution where any student, regardless of their background, can come and get a good-quality education.”

    He also emphasized that WVSU’s student population is majority white. University data from fall 2024 shows white students made up about 72 percent of the roughly 3,200 enrollees, while Black students composed about 10 percent, making it hard to argue the HBCU favors one racial group over another. Nationwide, non-Black students made up 24 percent of enrollment at HBCUs in 2020, compared to 15 percent in 1976, a trend that’s sparked discussion within some of these institutions about how to preserve HBCUs’ legacy while attracting and serving an increasingly broad range of students.

    Commodore pointed out that, in fact, “HBCUs were some of the only institutions that never had race-based admissions.” HBCUs were founded after the abolition of slavery to educate Black Americans at a time when such students weren’t welcome at other higher education institutions.

    For a while, non-Black students “chose not to go to them, but [HBCUs] have been inclusive since their inception,” she said. “If the aim of these reviews of DEI is to ensure that institutions are not discriminating because of race or gender or sex, to ensure that people are not being prioritized or excluded … actually, HBCUs were the model for that.”

    Given that history, Cage theorized HBCUs may not be heavily affected by DEI bans for the same reasons he’s hopeful for his own institution: Diversity and inclusion are intrinsic to how these institutions operate, not housed in a particular office or center. At the same time, they serve all students. Non-HBCUs, on the other hand, have made changes over the years, building up supports and services for students of color, which are now at risk.

    For “predominantly white institutions [that] have not traditionally or historically had that focus on inclusivity, I think it will be a challenge,” Cage said. “It is important for institutions to be welcoming, to provide support systems for diverse students,” and DEI programs were intended to make sure students from underrepresented backgrounds “felt that they were part of the university community.”

    Some non-HBCUs in the state are scrambling to make changes to comply with the executive order. The state flagship, West Virginia University, just a few hours away from WVSU, reported in late January that it would shut down its Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in response to the executive order, a move the governor celebrated as a “win.”

    “This is just the beginning of our effort to root out DEI,” Morrisey said in a video announcement about the division’s demise. “That’s going to happen more and more in the weeks and months ahead.”

    Concerns Remain

    Shaun Harper, University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California and an opinion contributor to Inside Higher Ed, said it’s become “incredibly pervasive” for public HBCUs to have to conduct reviews of their DEI work as state-level DEI bans spread—even if many HBCU leaders aren’t discussing the issue publicly.

    And such reviews are extra burdensome for HBCUs, he argued.

    “If a predominantly white institution gets that same request, it’s likely a lot easier for them to list their culture centers, their Office of Multicultural Affairs, perhaps the office of the chief diversity officer,” said Harper, who also serves as USC’s Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. For HBCUs, it’s “impossible, in fact, to catalog everything that would otherwise qualify in any other context as DEI” because most have majority-Black student populations and gear their programming and services toward their student bodies.

    “It’s really onerous for presidents and their cabinet members and others on their campuses to even attempt to complete this exercise,” Harper added. “It requires enormous sums of their time.”

    Harper doesn’t believe state lawmakers are gunning for HBCUs with anti-DEI bans; it’s more likely they thought very little about how hard it would be for them to list their diversity efforts, he said. Nonetheless, the bans make some public HBCU leaders fear for their state funding if they don’t comply, or if their DEI reviews fail to appease state lawmakers when many don’t have funding to spare.

    Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said part of the challenge with many DEI bans is their “vagueness” and the “chaos” that can create for higher ed institutions.

    The wording of some laws and executive orders calls into question, what can an HBCU do “to acknowledge, teach, celebrate, promote, its roots?” she said. “Is celebrating a national holiday”—like Martin Luther King Jr. Day—“is that acceptable?”

    Cage said he hasn’t ruled out that some of WVSU’s programs could be at risk—including federal grants with DEI components or privately funded scholarships for students from certain racial backgrounds or geographic areas—as a result either of the governor’s executive order or President Donald Trump’s efforts to root out federal funding for DEI.

    “If those privately funded scholarships are put in jeopardy, or if federal grants are eliminated, there will be a direct impact on our ability to support our students or to advance research and innovation on our campus,” he said. “Our students come to us with a thirst for knowledge, but they also come to us with not a lot of financial resources. I can’t tell you where we would come up with the resources to fill that gap.”

    While the university is reviewing its academic programs as well, Cage said any changes to curricula or academic programming would fly in the face of the university’s accreditation standards, which require a commitment to academic freedom.

    “When it comes to academic freedom and integrity, those are things that we really need to hold the line on,” he said.

    Source link

  • Philadelphia Schools Could Start Before Labor Day for the Next 2 Years – The 74

    Philadelphia Schools Could Start Before Labor Day for the Next 2 Years – The 74


    Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Philadelphia students could head back to classes before Labor Day for the next two years, according to proposed academic calendars the district released Tuesday.

    The pre-Labor Day start for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 calendars will allow for longer spring and winter recesses as well as additional cultural and religious holidays throughout the year, district officials said this week.

    Superintendent Tony Watlington also confirmed Tuesday that district schools and offices will be closed on Friday for the Philadelphia Eagles celebratory Super Bowl parade.

    “We look forward to celebrating the Eagles’ victory as a community, and we hope that our students, staff and families will do so safely and responsibly,” Watlington said in a statement.

    The question of whether to start before or after Labor Day has rankled families and district leaders in recent years, in part because many Philly schools do not have adequate air conditioning. That has forced some buildings to close or dismiss students early due to excessive heat in the first week back.

    This school year, the first day back landed before Labor Day, and 63 schools without air conditioning dismissed students early, during the first week of classes. However, school started after Labor Day in 2023-24, and heat closures still impacted students’ learning time that first week.

    Watlington said at his state of the schools address this year that over the past three school years, the number of schools without air conditioning has shrunk from 118 to 57 thanks in part to a donation from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

    Shakeera Warthen-Canty, assistant superintendent of school operations and management at the district, said their academic calendar recommendations this year are built off of a survey and several in-person feedback sessions.

    The majority of parents and caregivers who responded preferred a post-Labor Day start, the survey found. But students, teachers, school staff, and community members reported they overwhelmingly preferred starting the school year before Labor Day.

    Some 16,400 parents, students, school staff, principals, and community members responded to the survey the district sent out last September, Warthen-Canty said.

    Respondents also said they wanted more frequent breaks for longer durations to accommodate family vacations, as well as time to rest, support mental health, and prevent staff burnout.

    State law says districts must have a minimum of 180 student days, or a minimum of 900 instructional hours for elementary school students and 990 hours for middle and high school students. The district’s collective bargaining agreement with the teachers union also requires 188 teacher work days, as well as a minimum of 28 professional development hours.

    The district officials’ calendar recommendations will go to the school board for a vote before they are enacted.

    If approved, winter recess would be seven days in 2025-26 and eight days in 2026-27, while spring break would be five days both years.

    In addition to the five state and national holidays (Memorial Day, Independence Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day), Philadelphia school district school holidays in 2025-26 and 2026-27 would include:

    • Labor Day
    • Rosh Hashanah
    • Yom Kippur
    • Indigenous Peoples Day
    • Veterans Day
    • Martin Luther King Jr. Day
    • Presidents Day
    • Lunar New Year
    • Eid al-Fitr
    • Good Friday
    • Eid al-Adha
    • Juneteenth

    This school year, both Indigenous Peoples Day and Veterans Day were school days.

    As for how the new calendar may interact with Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s commitment to “extended-day, extended-year” school: Deputy Superintendent Jermaine Dawson said this week the district has ensured any expansion of that program will work “alongside our calendar of school days.”

    This story was originally published at Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.


    Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Source link

  • IEl Salvador’s notorious CECOT Mega-Prison That Could House US Deportees and Possibly US Citizens (CBS News)

    IEl Salvador’s notorious CECOT Mega-Prison That Could House US Deportees and Possibly US Citizens (CBS News)

    CBS News this week got a first-hand look at El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism, a prison that could soon house deportees (and possibly US citizens) from the U.S.  The Trump Administration is working on a deal even if it violates human rights. The images are disturbing. 

    Esta semana, CBS News pudo ver de primera mano el notorio Centro para el Confinamiento del Terrorismo de El Salvador, una prisión que pronto podría albergar a deportados (y posiblemente ciudadanos estadounidenses) de los EE. UU. La Administración Trump está trabajando en un acuerdo, incluso si viola los derechos humanos. Las imágenes son inquietantes.

     

    Source link

  • Trump admin threatens to rescind federal funds over DEI

    Trump admin threatens to rescind federal funds over DEI

    The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights declared all race-conscious student programming, resources and financial aid illegal over the weekend and threatened to investigate and rescind federal funding for any institution that does not comply within 14 days.

    In a Dear Colleague letter published late Friday night, acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor outlined a sweeping interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down affirmative action. While the decision applied specifically to admissions, the Trump administration believes it extends to all race-conscious spending, activities and programming at colleges.

    “In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students,” Trainor wrote. “These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia.”

    The letter mentions a wide range of university programs and policies that could be subject to an OCR investigation, including “hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

    “Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race,” Trainor writes.

    Backlash to the letter came swiftly on Saturday from Democratic lawmakers, student advocates and academic freedom organizations.

    “This threat to rip away the federal funding our public K-12 schools and colleges receive flies in the face of the law,” Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, wrote in a statement Saturday. “While it’s anyone’s guess what falls under the Trump administration’s definition of ‘DEI,’ there is simply no authority or basis for Trump to impose such a mandate.”

    But most college leaders have, so far, remained silent.

    Brian Rosenberg, the former president of Macalester College and now a visiting professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that the letter was “truly dystopian” and, if enforced, would upend decades of established programs and initiatives to improve success and access for marginalized students.

    “It goes well beyond the Supreme Court ruling on admissions and declares illegal a wide range of common practices,” he wrote. “In my career I’ve never seen language of this kind from any government agency in the United States.”

    The Dear Colleague letter also seeks to close multiple exceptions and potential gaps left open by the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action and to lay the groundwork for investigating programs that “may appear neutral on their face” but that “a closer look reveals … are, in fact, motivated by racial considerations.”

    Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that colleges could legally consider a student’s racial identity as part of their experience as described in personal essays, but the OCR letter rejects that.

    “A school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students,” Trainor wrote.

    Going even further beyond the scope of the SFFA decision, the letter forbids any race-neutral university policy that could conceivably be a proxy for racial consideration, including eliminating standardized test score requirements.

    It also addresses university-sanctioned programming and curricula that “teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not,” a practice that Trainor argues can “deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school.”

    The department will provide “additional legal guidance” for institutions in the coming days.

    That wide-reaching interpretation of the SFFA decision has been the subject of vigorous debate among lawmakers and college leaders, and in subsequent court battles ever since the ruling was handed down. Many experts assumed the full consequences of the vague ruling would be hammered out through further litigation, but with the Dear Colleague letter, the Trump administration is attempting to enforce its own reading of the law through the executive branch.

    Even Edward Blum, the president of Students for Fair Admissions, doesn’t believe the ruling on his case applies outside of admissions.

    “The SFFA opinion didn’t change the law for those policies [in internships and scholarships],” he told Inside Higher Ed a few days before the OCR letter was published. “But those policies have always been, in my opinion, outside of the scope of our civil rights law and actionable in court.”

    What Comes Next

    The department has never revoked a college or state higher education agency’s federal funding over Title VI violations. If the OCR follows through on its promises, it would be an unprecedented exercise of federal influence over university activities.

    The letter is likely to be challenged in court, but in the meantime it could have a ripple effect on colleges’ willingness to continue funding diversity programs and resources for underrepresented students.

    Adam Harris, a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank New America, is looking at how colleges responded to DEI and affirmative action orders in red states like Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Texas for clues as to how higher education institutions nationwide might react to the letter.

    In Texas, colleges first renamed centers for marginalized students, then shuttered them after the state ordered it was not enough to comply with an anti-DEI law; they also froze or revised all race-based scholarships. In Missouri, after the attorney general issued an order saying the SFFA decision should apply to scholarships as well as admissions, the state university system systematically eliminated its race-conscious scholarships and cut ties with outside endowments that refused to change their eligibility requirements.

    “We’ve already seen the ways institutions have acquiesced to demands in ways that even go past what they’ve been told to do by the courts,” Harris said.

    The letter portrays the rise of DEI initiatives and race-conscious programming on college campuses as a modern civil rights crisis. Trainor compared the establishment of dormitories, facilities, cultural centers and even university-sanctioned graduation and matriculation ceremonies that are advertised as being exclusively or primarily for students of specific racial backgrounds to Jim Crow–era segregation.

    “In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history, many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies and in dormitories and other facilities,” Trainor wrote.

    Harris, who studies the history of racial discrimination on college campuses, said he finds that statement deeply ironic and worrying.

    “A lot of these diversity programs and multicultural centers on campuses were founded as retention tools to help students who had been shut out of higher education in some of these institutions for centuries,” Harris said. “To penalize institutions for taking those steps to help students, that is actually very much an echo of the segregation era.”

    Source link

  • Lawmakers Advance Bill Requiring SD Schools to Teach Native American History, Culture – The 74

    Lawmakers Advance Bill Requiring SD Schools to Teach Native American History, Culture – The 74


    Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    South Dakota public schools would be required to teach a specific set of Native American historical and cultural lessons if a bill unanimously endorsed by a legislative committee Tuesday in Pierre becomes law.

    The bill would mandate the teaching of the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings. The phrase “Oceti Sakowin” refers to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people. The understandings are a set of standards and lessons adopted seven years ago by the South Dakota Board of Education Standards with input from tribal leaders, educators and elders.

    Use of the understandings by public schools is optional. A survey conducted by the state Department of Education indicated use by 62% of teachers, but the survey was voluntary and hundreds of teachers did not respond.

    Republican state Sen. Tamara Grove, who lives on the Lower Brule Reservation, proposed the bill and asked legislators to follow the lead of Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Chairman J. Garret Renville. He has publicly called for a “reset” of state-tribal relations since the departure of former Gov. Kristi Noem, who was barred by tribal leaders from entering tribal land in the state.

    “What I’m asking you to do today,” Grove said, “is to lean into the reset.”

    Joe Graves, the state secretary of education and a Noem appointee, testified against the bill. He said portions of the understandings are already incorporated into the state’s social studies standards. He added that the state only mandates four curricular areas: math, science, social studies and English-language arts/reading. He said further mandates would “tighten up the school days, leaving schools with much less instructional flexibility.”

    Members of the Senate Education Committee sided with Grove and other supporters, voting 7-0 to send the bill to the full Senate.

    The proposal is one of several education mandates that lawmakers have considered this legislative session. The state House rejected a bill this week that would have required posting and teaching the Ten Commandments in schools, and also rejected a bill that would have required schools to post the state motto, “Under God the People Rule.”

    South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.


    Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Source link

  • Greensboro School Is First Public Gaming and Robotics School in the Country – The 74

    Greensboro School Is First Public Gaming and Robotics School in the Country – The 74


    Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Historic Foust Elementary School has had a game changing start to the year. School and district leaders, parents, and community members were eager to get inside one of Greensboro’s newest elementary schools for their ribbon cutting ceremony on Feb. 3, 2025 to witness an innovative progression in the school’s history. They were greeted by students and the school’s robotic dog, Astro.

    Foust Elementary School, part of Guilford County Schools (GCS), is the country’s first public gaming and robotics elementary school, according to the district. The school still sits on its original land, but the building has been rebuilt from the ground up. They began welcoming students into the new building at the start of 2025.

    Foust Elementary School’s history goes all the way back to the 1960s. Foust student Nyla Parker read the following account at the ribbon cutting ceremony:

    “Since its construction in 1965, Julius I Foust Elementary School has prided itself in serving the students and families of its community, with the goal of creating citizens who will leave this place with high character and academic excellence. … Now, almost 60 years later, we welcome you to the new chapter of Foust Gaming and Robotics Elementary School. As a student here at Foust, I am excited about various opportunities that will be offered to me as I learn more about exciting industries such as gaming, robotics, coding, and 2D plus 3D animation. Thank you to the voters of our community for saying yes to the 2020 bond that allowed this place to become a reality for me and my fellow classmates. Game on!”

    Foust is a Title I school in a historically underinvested part of Guilford County. Several years ago, the district conducted a master facility study, which resulted in Foust getting on the list to receive an entirely new building.

    “Foust was one of the oldest buildings in the district and it was literally falling apart, so we were on the list to have a total new construction,” said Kendrick Alston, principal of Foust.

    “During that time, we also talked with the district and really thought about, well, building a new school. What can we also do differently in terms of teaching and learning, instead of just building a new building?”

    The mission of Foust is to “envision a future where students are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and tools to lead the new global economy,” according to their website. The new global economy, featuring high projected growth in fields that include technology, was a driving factor for planners as they decided to focus the school on gaming and robotics.

    There are many jobs that can come from learning the skills necessary to build video games and robots. Looking at recent labor market trends, many of those jobs are growing. Web developers and digital designers have an 8% projected growth rate from 2023-2033 with a median pay of $92,750 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    “We looked at a lot of studies, we looked at research, and one of the things that we looked at was something from the World Economic Forum that looked at the annual jobs report. We saw that STEM, engineering, those kinds of jobs, were some of the top fastest growing jobs across the world,” said Alston. “When we think about school looking different for our students and being engaging, well, let’s make it something that’s relevant to them but is also giving them a skill set that they can be marketable in the global workforce as well.”

    The team at Foust, including teachers and staff, have spent several months in specialized training on a new and unique curriculum designed to help prepare students for the ever evolving world of work. The building, designed to bring 21st century learning to life, is part of the first phase of schools constructed from a combined $2 billion bond.

    “I am excited for what this new space is going to produce,” said Hope Purcell, a teacher at Foust. “With the continued support from our robotics curriculum, students will have the opportunity to tap into a new world of discovery that will prepare them for the future.”

    Many community and education leaders were present at the ribbon cutting, including several county commissioners and Guilford superintendent Whitney Oakley. Oakley shared excitement about the new school and reminded everyone that the leaders who came before her who advocated for the passing of the bond and were open to the vision of a school like Foust were a huge part of making this new school a reality.

    “Today is not just about celebrating a building,” Oakley said. “It’s about celebrating what this building really represents, and that’s opportunity and access to the tools of modern K-12 education. It represents the culmination of years of planning and conversation and design to make sure that we can build a space that serves families and students for decades to come. The joy on the faces of the staff and the families and the students is just a reminder that teaching and learning is more effective when everybody has the resources that they need to thrive, and that should not be the exception, that should be the rule.”

    Students sometimes need different levels of support and resources in order to thrive. Foust hopes to be a place where all students can succeed. Another school district in New Jersey, the Morris-Union Jointure Commission, is using gaming and technology to engage students with cognitive and behavioral differences. They have created an esports arenadesigned specifically for students with cognitive challenges, like Autism Spectrum Disorder. This is just one example of how gaming can create an inclusive learning environment.

    As Foust settles into its brand new building, they are already planning for new opportunities ahead, including partnerships with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University for innovative programming for students and parents.

    This article first appeared on EducationNC and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.


    Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Source link