Tag: opinion

  • Letter to Faculty on Self-Censorship and Boldness (opinion)

    Letter to Faculty on Self-Censorship and Boldness (opinion)

    This is a call to my dear faculty friends and colleagues in higher education institutions.

    In the first months of the new presidential administration, and indeed since the election, many have been searching for answers. I have been in more meetings, gatherings and brain dump sessions than I can count, all focused on the same existential question: What does this all mean?

    I have heard a number of higher education faculty, in particular those who are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion work, who are wondering what this means in terms of their research and teaching. I do not want to minimize these fears, but I would also like to reframe these discussions.

    The fears are real, and the threats that people face vary greatly from state to state. That is, the potential repercussions for someone in South Dakota or Idaho are substantially greater than for someone in California, for example. I also fully understand that pretenure or non-tenure-track faculty members risk more than those like me with the protections of tenure. I also am aware that issues around federal research funding for DEI-related topics remain highly unsettled as grant cancellations continue.

    I am not calling for us to be lacking in strategy or unaware of our contexts. However, I am extremely concerned that a number of my fellow academics are engaging in pre-emptive self-censorship.

    That is, my dear friends and colleagues continually make statements like these behind closed doors:

    • “Only sign on/speak up on issue X if you are comfortable.”
    • “We need to be sensitive to the potential harm that can befall our members.”

    I do not disagree with these sentiments on their face, but I worry about this on two fronts.

    First, there is one key issue I have not seen engaged in these discussions: While tenured faculty are currently under attack across the country, we also have privileges enjoyed by no one else on college campuses, such as academic freedom and tenure.

    While this does not absolutely insulate us from potential harms stemming from regressive laws or executive actions, it does mean that relative to professors of practice, adjuncts and staff, we enjoy a number of privileges they do not. For example, in my home state of Arizona, staff are considered at-will employees and can be quickly dismissed for speaking out.

    I do not deny that we are living in perilous times, but what good are academic freedom and tenure if we do not use them? Some think, I believe mistakenly, that speaking out will only embolden the attacks on higher education institutions and faculty. I, instead, am more compelled by Frederick Douglass’s proclamation,

    Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted …”

    Generation after generation, people have been convinced that being quiet will quell attacks, and generation after generation, this approach has only invited more of them. It also seems fairly clear that the attacks on higher education are not going to stop any time soon.

    I am reminded of the first time I saw Noam Chomsky speak, when he offered, “We are so concerned with the cost of our actions that we forget to ask, what is the cost of inaction?” We are frequently so concerned with the potential consequences of speaking out, we forget what our silence will invite.

    This leads to my second point: What good are academic freedom and tenure if we do not use them? We as academics so often talk about the rights afforded us through academic freedom. Much less frequently do we ask what the social responsibilities of said freedom are. Returning to Chomsky, the responsibility of intellectuals is to “speak the truth and expose lies.” There can be no greater calling for academics in a “post-truth” society than to do both publicly and boldly.

    Finally, and I cannot stress this enough, we are not going to feel comfortable before speaking out. I am reminded of Archie Gates (George Clooney’s character in Three Kings), who said, “The way this works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of and you get the courage after you do it, not before you do it.” This is why I am frustrated by the continual asking if my dear faculty friends and colleagues feel comfortable about speaking up, being identified in actions and putting ourselves in harm’s way. We will not a priori feel comfortable, so this should not be a prerequisite for action.

    So let us take comfort in the prophetic words of Audre Lorde in her poem “A Litany for Survival”:

    and when we speak we are afraid
    our words will not be heard
    nor welcomed
    but when we are silent
    we are still afraid

    So it is better to speak
    remembering
    we were never meant to survive.”

    Make no mistake—this is an all-out attack on higher education. When the current president refers to the “enemies from within,” this in part means us. For some reason, higher education leaders currently think that they can simply put their heads down, not make waves and ride out this storm. For every leader like President Danielle Holley of Mount Holyoke College, who openly challenges Trump’s attacks on DEI, there are many more who are removing DEI language from websites while considering shutting down these programs.

    This is extremely misguided, because being quiet will not save us.

    Bending the knee and precomplying will not stave off these attacks.

    Acquiescing to censorship will not stop the threats.

    Only engaging in collective, bold, public, strategic struggle and disruption has the potential to do so.

    We did not pick this fight, but this is the fight that we are in.

    Nolan L. Cabrera is a professor at the University of Arizona, but he writes this as a private citizen. Views expressed here are only his own. He is the author of Whiteness in the Ivory Tower (Teachers College Press, 2024), and this op-ed is adapted from Chapter 3 of the book. He is also the co-author of Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

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  • Banning DEI Is Catastrophic for U.S. Science (opinion)

    Banning DEI Is Catastrophic for U.S. Science (opinion)

    Our scientific enterprise in the United States is the envy of the world. Top scientists from around the globe want to come to work here, specifically because of the environment that we have fostered over decades to support scientific innovation and intellectual freedom. Federal investment in research is one of the primary foundations upon which this extraordinarily successful system has been constructed.

    It is not simply the dollar amount of federal funding that makes this system so successful. It is also about how we allocate and distribute the funds. Long before “DEI” was common parlance, we made robust efforts to distribute funds broadly. For example, instead of concentrating funding only in the top research institutions, as many other countries do, we created programs such as EPSCoR (1979) to direct funding to support research and development throughout the entire country, including rural areas. This was done in recognition that excellence in research can be found anywhere that and colleges and universities serving rural and impoverished communities deserve to benefit from and contribute to the economic and scientific engine that the federal government can provide.

    The National Science Foundation also implemented Broader Impacts in its grant review process (originating in the 1960s and formalized in 1997). The goal of the NSF review criteria for broader impacts was to ensure that every federally funded project would have some benefit for society. These broader impacts could take a wide variety of forms, including but not limited to new tools and innovations, as well as efforts to grow the STEM workforce by supporting those historically and economically excluded from becoming scientists.

    Diversity, equity and inclusion funding is one of the mechanisms that we use to continue this legacy of equity in federal funding of scientific research. This approach has also helped reduce public mistrust of science and scientists—a mistrust attributable to science’s historical abuses—by ensuring that the benefits of scientific progress are shared widely and equitably and by making the work of scientists more transparent and accessible.

    Until fairly recently in history, science was primarily an activity for the wealthy. Training as a scientist requires many years of deferred salary, due to the extensive education and practical skill development needed to conduct independent research and start a laboratory. For those who make it through this training, research jobs can be scarce, and the salaries are not high, considering the highly specialized skills required and the high demands of the job. Many of the best and brightest minds have been excluded from the scientific process by this economic reality. Federal funding provides critical support for science workforce development, primarily through stipends and salaries for undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. These stipends ease (but do not erase) the economic burden of training as a scientist.

    When you hear “DEI in science,” this is largely what we are talking about. A vast portion of federal DEI funds in the sciences goes directly to support highly talented and accomplished trainees who have deferred their personal economic progress for the opportunity to contribute to science in the U.S. This wise national investment helps to ensure that our science workforce can recruit the most meritorious trainees, regardless of their economic backgrounds. Without these initiatives, our science workforce would be much smaller with a narrower set of perspectives. Our national investment in science training is not altruistic—it is the very reason why the U.S. is a global leader in science and technology. This leadership contributes to our nation’s safety and capacity to deal with the existential problems we now face.

    The framework of DEI recognizes that systemic economic and social injustices are present in our society, due to historical and contemporary realities such as slavery, Jim Crow, genocide of Native peoples, redlining, a broken immigration system, educational and health-care disparities, and discriminatory practices in housing and employment against nonwhite, disabled and LGBTQ+ communities. These disparities have resulted in a lack of intergenerational wealth and resources among many communities in the U.S., leading to unequal access to scientific training and careers.

    The claim, now made by our federal government, that a meritocracy can be achieved by ignoring these injustices is simply false and illogical. DEI is not only about diversity training and hiring practices. In the sciences, it is essential and existential to the goal of developing the most robust, talented and highly skilled science workforce in the world.

    With Executive Order 14151, issued by the Trump administration, this funding is under attack, undoing decades of progress that have fostered some of the most talented and brilliant minds of our time. Rigorous training programs are being canceled, graduate students are losing their funding and the training of an entire generation of scientists is being jeopardized. Science will lose an extraordinary amount of talent, necessary for our nation’s industrial and economic leadership, because of this executive order.

    Furthermore, this removal of funding is being enacted on the basis of identity, effectively endorsing a form of government-imposed segregation of science. Advancements in science are often determined by the demography of those doing the science, and a diversity of perspectives and research questions is necessary for scientific innovation. For example, sickle cell disease is chronically underfunded and underresearched, despite the severity of the disease, likely because it affects descendants of people from regions with high instances of malaria, including many African Americans. Indeed, some scientific breakthroughs and technologies may never materialize or be greatly delayed due to the exclusion of talented individuals on the basis of their identity. This is a fundamental threat to scientific progress and academic freedom.

    The federal banning of DEI programs is a slap in the face to every person who has struggled to become a scientist in the face of systemic injustices. These trainees, past and present, have missed out on economic opportunities, deferred building their families and made many personal sacrifices so that they can create innovative solutions to our nation’s most pressing scientific and technological challenges. The creation of these DEI programs came from the extraordinary efforts of thousands of people, many of whom have overcome injustices themselves, working tirelessly across many decades so that the most meritorious and talented individuals all have an opportunity to succeed as scientists.

    Referring to these efforts as “shameful discrimination,” as the Trump administration has now done, is a cruel attempt to destabilize the emotional well-being of everyone who has created and been supported by these essential programs. It is an example of blaming the victims of past and ongoing injustice for their plight in society, rather than working to dismantle the systems that perpetuate inequality and limit access to a fair and just future, where a true meritocracy in science becomes possible.

    We believe that the efforts to ban, diminish and misrepresent DEI and diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs should be immediately stopped and reversed to avoid the most serious negative impacts of these new policies. Removal of DEI programs will demoralize and disincentivize an entire generation of scientists in training. It will greatly reduce the scientific workforce and remove top talent from our training programs as funding mechanisms are dismantled.

    Our graduate students, undergraduates, postdoctoral fellows and other early-career scientists are those most greatly impacted by the removal of this support. This will severely jeopardize the status of the U.S. as a global leader in science, and the catastrophic impacts will be felt for decades. We stand by those most affected by the DEI ban, especially our trainees, and we demand an immediate reinstatement of DEI funding.

    We are speaking out using the speech and intellectual freedoms afforded to us by the U.S. academic system and the U.S. Constitution. We are calling on our institutions to stand with us in defense of DEI in science. Institutions and professional societies must reaffirm their own commitments to DEI. Some institutions have already made strong statements of reaffirmation of these values, but others have begun to remove their internal and external DEI initiatives pre-emptively. We understand the need for institutions to protect their employees and students from adverse consequences, but we argue that the consequences of dismantling diversity programs are much greater for our communities, as these steps usher in a new era of segregation in science and academia.

    We urge the public, our lawmakers and politicians to stand with us. We believe that DEI is foundational to science and an attack on DEI is an attack on the core of science itself in the United States.

    Joseph L. Graves Jr. is the MacKenzie Scott Endowed Professor of Biology and the director of the Genomic Research and Data Science Center for Computation and Cloud Computing at North Carolina A&T State University.

    Stacy C. Farina is an associate professor of biology at Howard University.

    Parvin Shahrestani is an associate professor of biological science at California State University, Fullerton.

    Vaughn S. Cooper is a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh.

    Gilda A. Barabino is president and professor of biomedical and chemical engineering at Olin College of Engineering.

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  • What Happens if Libraries Can’t Buy Ebooks? (opinion)

    What Happens if Libraries Can’t Buy Ebooks? (opinion)

    Clarivate, the company behind ProQuest, dropped a bombshell in the academic publishing world last month when it announced that it will “phase out one-time perpetual purchases of digital collections, print and digital books for libraries.” Instead, institutions will pivot to subscription-based access models. Clarivate justifies this seismic shift by pointing to the need for regular content updates, particularly as AI-enhanced research tools reshape scholarly publishing.

    While perpetual-access options for ebooks won’t vanish entirely—they’ll remain available through certain marketplaces like Clarivate’s Rialto platform—this decision drastically curtails traditional purchasing options. More troubling, it signals an acceleration of a broader industry trend toward subscription-only models, raising profound questions about the future of academic scholarship and underscoring libraries’ critical role in ensuring equitable, continuous access to scholarly resources.

    The Critical Difference Between Books and Journals

    In recent years, some major commercial publishers like Hachette and Penguin Random House have moved from perpetual access to subscription-based access models for ebooks, a shift that to date has primarily impacted public libraries.

    This subscription push mirrors the established practice for scholarly journals but presents unique challenges for academic ebooks. Unlike journals, which primarily deliver new findings, academic books represent enduring intellectual investments. A monograph acquired today often remains essential to scholarship decades later, particularly in humanities disciplines like history, literature, philosophy and sociology, where foundational texts retain their relevance across generations.

    Financial and Academic Risks

    Given academic books’ distinctive value, subscription-only access threatens to undermine teaching and research continuity. Faculty who design courses around specific texts may suddenly find essential works unavailable due to licensing changes. Researchers engaged in long-term projects risk losing access to crucial resources if subscriptions lapse. Though subscription models initially offer lower up-front costs and greater flexibility, the cumulative expenses can become substantial over time, introducing budgetary uncertainty.

    Yet subscription models also offer distinct advantages for certain institutions. Programs with rapidly evolving content, especially in STEM fields requiring frequent updates, may benefit from subscription flexibility. Smaller colleges and institutions experiencing enrollment fluctuations or curricular shifts might find subscriptions economically viable due to lower immediate costs. Subscriptions can help institutions avoid large up-front expenditures, manage predictable annual budgets more effectively and ensure continuous access to current scholarly content.

    Understanding these potential financial implications becomes crucial, especially as other industries have navigated similar challenges when transitioning to subscription-based models.

    Lessons From Other Industries

    Higher education can extract valuable insights from similar transitions in software and media streaming sectors. Traditionally, software represented a one-time transaction granting perpetual access, allowing customers indefinite use after an initial investment. The shift to software as a service (SaaS) fundamentally altered this paradigm, providing continuous access through recurring subscriptions. SaaS models initially attracted organizations due to lower up-front costs and greater flexibility to scale services as needed. However, this transition introduced budgetary uncertainty, as ongoing subscription fees can be unpredictable over time.

    The media industry’s experience with subscription models offers another cautionary tale. Platforms like Netflix and Spotify initially captivated consumers with affordable, convenient access to vast content libraries. Yet over time, numerous competing services entered the market, fragmenting content distribution. Consumers found themselves juggling multiple subscriptions to maintain comprehensive access, resulting in “subscription fatigue” and significantly increased total costs. This fragmentation not only impacted household budgets but also created complexity in managing multiple services, ultimately diminishing the convenience these platforms initially promised.

    Drawing parallels to higher education, subscription-only models could similarly fragment access to academic resources, forcing institutions to maintain multiple subscriptions for comprehensive collections. Over time, this fragmentation could increase administrative complexity and total costs, complicating resource management. Institutions must therefore approach subscription-only models with caution and deliberation.

    Open Access as a Strategic Solution

    One proactive strategy for addressing subscription challenges involves embracing open access (OA), a model providing free, unrestricted online access to scholarly research. Unlike traditional commercial models dependent on paywalls, OA enables anyone to read, download and distribute content without cost barriers. This dramatically increases research visibility and democratizes knowledge by making it accessible regardless of institutional affiliation or financial capacity.

    Institutions can strategically support OA by investing in university presses, institutional repositories and collaborative publishing platforms. Successful examples include the Directory of Open Access Books, Open Book Publishers and the Open Library of Humanities, which have demonstrated sustainable, rigorous academic publishing methods. Redirecting a portion of subscription budgets to these initiatives can build permanent collections while fostering transformative scholarly communication practices.

    However, OA models face their own challenges. Financial sustainability concerns emerge because publication costs often fall on authors or institutions, potentially disadvantaging researchers without institutional backing. Moreover, robust infrastructure, consistent funding and effective policy frameworks remain essential to maintaining quality and longevity of OA content.

    Moving Forward: A Call to Action

    As academic scholarship navigates these transformative currents, institutional leaders must proactively engage with their libraries, publishers and vendors. Delaying action risks fragmented access, escalating costs and compromised academic integrity.

    Leaders should urgently prioritize collaborative actions to:

    • Develop balanced subscription and perpetual-access models in partnership with publishers and vendors.
    • Invest strategically in open-access initiatives while acknowledging and addressing their implementation challenges.
    • Strengthen consortia and partnerships to enhance negotiating power, reduce fragmentation and streamline resource management.
    • Foster structured communication among faculty, libraries, publishers and vendors to align acquisitions with academic priorities.

    The proactive decisions we make today will shape academic scholarship for decades to come, ensuring that vital resources remain accessible, sustainable and equitable for all.

    Leo S. Lo is dean and a professor in the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences at the University of New Mexico and president of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

    The author serves as a volunteer member of the Clarivate Academic AI Advisory Council. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Clarivate.

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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • A way to honor the teach-in movement at 60 (opinion)

    A way to honor the teach-in movement at 60 (opinion)

    This month marks the 60th anniversary of the teach-in movement against the U.S. war in Vietnam. The first teach-in was held at the University of Michigan, March 24–25, 1965; by the end of the spring semester, teach-ins had spread to college and university campuses across the nation, educating tens of thousands of students, faculty and community members about the moral, political and strategic reasons why the escalating Vietnam War was doomed to failure.

    The teach-ins were sparked by the Johnson administration’s launch of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam in late February 1965. But it is less its antiwar ideas than its strategic and tactical brilliance that makes the teach-in movement so relevant today, offering a valuable model for resisting the threat that the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and hatred of the liberal university poses to academic freedom and free speech on campus, the university’s funding of scientific research, the college and university’s role in battling racial and sexual discrimination, and higher education’s cosmopolitanism and international character.

    Though we tend to think of the campus antiwar movement as led by radical students who used militant tactics, breaking university regulations and the law in their protests, the teach-in movement was initiated by faculty, not students, and it did not break any such regulations or the law. Its only tools were education—offered by knowledgeable speakers—and effective publicity and outreach. In fact, the very idea of a teach-in was the result of a tactical retreat.

    Initially, Michigan’s Faculty Committee to Stop the War in Vietnam had envisioned a work moratorium, a day when faculty did not teach their regular academic classes so that the whole university could focus on the Vietnam War. But this moratorium idea proved immensely controversial, drawing all kinds of denunciations, especially from the state’s war-hawk politicians, who labeled it an anarchist hijacking of the university that denied students access to their classes. Seeing that this controversy was distracting people from the war itself, the faculty shrewdly changed course. Instead of a work moratorium, they came up with the idea of an antiwar teach-in that would begin after classes ended and go on through the night (from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.).

    Some on the left saw this tactical shift as unfortunate, even cowardly, and feared that few students would attend such an evening event. But they were wrong. This first teach-in drew some 3,000 students, faculty and community members. It was, in the words of one its speakers, Carl Oglesby, “like a transfigured night. It was amazing: classroom after classroom bulging with people hanging on every word of those who had something to say about Vietnam.” Michigan’s antiwar faculty then helped raise funds for more teach-ins in May, which connected with faculty and student activists on more than 100 campuses, with the movement reaching its peak at a University of California, Berkeley, weekend teach-in that drew some 30,000 participants. All this provided a major boost to the peace movement and helped make the campuses a center of antiwar activism.

    In our own era, college and university administrations have tightened campus regulations to restrict mass protest and have been quick to have even nonviolent anti-Gaza war student protesters arrested for the most minor campus rule violations. In fact, last spring there were more than 3,000 arrests nationally, for campus antiwar encampments that were quite tame compared to the disruptive student protests that erupted in the Vietnam era’s most turbulent years.

    The decline of free speech on campus since the 1960s is also evident when one reflects back on the famous case of Marxist historian Eugene Genovese. At a Rutgers University teach-in, Genovese, in 1965, provoked a huge right-wing backlash by saying that he did “not fear or regret the impending Vietcong victory in Vietnam. I welcome it.” Despite calls for Genovese’s firing from many supporters of the war, including then-former Vice President Richard Nixon, Rutgers’ administration, while disdaining Genovese’s pro-Vietcong views, defended his right to free speech and refused to fire him—though two years later Genovese, tired of the death threats and political pressure, opted to leave Rutgers. One hears no such campus administration defense of free speech today as Trump, who pardoned his J6 rioters, pursues arrests and deportations of anti-war student protestors, including the arrest and detention of recent Columbia University graduate and Green Card holder Mahmoud Khalil.

    All this repression has struck fear into the hearts of student activists. So, while direct action and civil disobedience have their place in campus protest, they are, understandably, not in vogue at this authoritarian moment. This is a time when important news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, the business community, the U.S. Senate minority leader, and campus administrators cower in fear of the Trump administration. This seems like a good time for faculty to act boldly yet strategically, taking the lead, showing that their campuses can, without rule-breaking or civil disobedience, become major centers of education about Trump’s authoritarianism, his embarrassingly illiberal and predatory foreign policy, and his crude attacks on education, the courts, the press, the First Amendment and federal agencies. Faculty should use their skills as teachers and scholars, as their predecessors did in 1965, but this time help teach America about the threat Trumpism poses to democracy and education, in a new national wave of teach-ins that would honor our past and offer hope for the future.

    Robert Cohen is a professor of history and social studies at New York University. His research focuses on student protest, free speech and the Black Freedom Movement in 1960s America. His most recent book is Confronting Jim Crow: Race, Memory and the University of Georgia in the 20th Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2024).

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  • OPINION: Here’s why we cannot permit America’s partnership with higher education to weaken or dissolve

    OPINION: Here’s why we cannot permit America’s partnership with higher education to weaken or dissolve

    Abrupt cuts in federal funding for life saving medical research. Confusing and misleading new guidance about campus diversity programs. Cancellation, without due process, of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and contracts held by a major university. Mass layoffs at the Education Department, undermining crucial programs such as federal student aid.

    All of this, and more, in the opening weeks of the second Trump administration.

    The president has made clear that colleges and universities face a moment of unprecedented challenge. The partnership the federal government forged with American higher education long ago, which for generations has paid off spectacularly for our country’s civic health, economic well-being and national security, appears in the eyes of many to be suddenly vulnerable.

    America must not permit this partnership to weaken or dissolve. No nation has ever built up its people by tearing down its schools. Higher education builds America — and together, we will fight to ensure it continues to do so.  

    Related: Tracking Trump: his actions on education    

    Some wonder why more college and university presidents aren’t speaking out. The truth is, many of them fear their institutions could be targeted next.

    They are also juggling immense financial pressures and striving to fulfill commitments to teaching and research.

    But the American Council on Education, which I lead, has always stood up for higher education. We have done it for more than a century, and we are doing it now. We will use every tool possible — including litigation, advocacy and coalition-building — to advance the cause.

    ACE is the major coordinating body for colleges and universities. We represent institutions of all kinds — public and private, large and small, rural and urban — with a mission of helping our members best serve their students and communities.

    Let me be clear: We welcome scrutiny and accountability for the public funds supporting student aid and research. Our institutions are subject to state and federal laws and must not tolerate any form of discrimination, even as they uphold freedom of expression and the right to robust but civil protest. 

    We also know we have much work to do to raise public confidence in higher education and the value of a degree.

    However, we cannot allow unwarranted attacks on higher education to occur without a vigorous and proactive response.

    When the National Institutes of Health announced on Feb. 7 a huge cut in funding that supports medical and health research, ACE joined with the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and a number of affected universities in a lawsuit to stop this action.

    ACE has almost never been a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the federal government, but the moment demanded it. We are pleased that a federal judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction to preserve the NIH funding.

    When the Education Department issued a “Dear Colleague” letter Feb. 14 that raised questions about whether campus programs related to diversity, equity      and inclusion would be permissible under federal law, ACE organized a coalition of more than 70 higher education groups calling for the department to rescind the letter.      

    We raised concerns about the confusion the letter was causing. We pointed out that the majority opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts in the Students for Fair Admissions case acknowledged that diversity-related goals in higher education are “commendable” and “plainly worthy.”    

     We invited the department to engage with the higher education community to promote inclusive and welcoming educational environments for all students, regardless of race or ethnicity or any other factors. We remain eager to work with the department. 

    Related: Fewer scholarships and a new climate of fear follow      the end of affirmative action

    Unfortunately, in recent days the administration has taken further steps we find alarming.

    ACE denounced the arbitrary cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia University. Administration officials claimed their action was a response to failures to adequately address antisemitism at Columbia, though it bypassed well-established procedures for investigating such allegations. (The Hechinger Report is an independent unit of Teachers College, Columbia University.)

    Ultimately, this action will eviscerate academic and research activities, to the detriment of students, faculty, medical patients and others.

    Make no mistake: Combating campus antisemitism is a matter of utmost priority for us. Our organization, along with Hillel International and the American Jewish Committee, organized two summits on this topic in 2022 and 2024, fostering important dialogue with dozens of college and university presidents.

    We also are deeply concerned about the letter the Trump administration sent to Columbia late last week that makes certain demands of the university, including a leadership change for one of its academic departments. To my mind, the letter obliterated the boundary between institutional autonomy and federal control. That boundary is essential. Without it, academic freedom is at risk.

    Meanwhile, layoffs and other measures slashing the Education Department’s workforce by as much as half will cause chaos and harm to financial aid and other programs that support millions of students from low- and middle-income families. We strongly urge the administration to change course and Congress to step in if it does not.

    Despite all that has happened in the past several weeks, we want President Trump and his administration to know this: Higher education is here for America, and ready to keep building. Colleges and universities have long worked with the government in countless ways to strengthen our economy, democracy, health and security. We cannot abandon that partnership. We must fortify it. 

    Ted Mitchell is president of the American Council of Education in Washington, D.C.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about academic freedom was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Why Every American Has a Stake in Columbia’s Fate (opinion)

    Why Every American Has a Stake in Columbia’s Fate (opinion)

    March 13 was a watershed day in the annals of American higher education and the history of America’s commitment to freedom and limited government. On that day, the Trump administration issued an edict telling Columbia University, a private institution, how to function.

    The people who founded the American republic must be turning over in their graves.

    Such a bold assertion of government power would be more familiar to people in many other nations. But in the United States, this is a shocking development and a warning of what is in store, not just for higher education, but for the entire country.

    What is happening at Columbia is an initial test of the Trump administration’s ambition to curb institutional autonomy, limit and punish dissent, and make life miserable for anyone who does not toe their line. That’s why each of us, whether or not we work in higher education, has a stake in Columbia University’s fate.

    Let’s face it: Universities are what people in the Departments of Defense or Homeland Security might call “soft targets.” Soft targets are easily accessible, relatively unprotected and therefore vulnerable to attack.

    A concerted, decades-long campaign against higher education by conservative critics, combined with excesses in universities’ quests to make themselves more inclusive and just, have eroded public support for and trust in America’s colleges and universities, which are now at historic lows.

    Public disdain for private, prestigious institutions like Columbia is high and growing. Critics call them snobbish, arrogant and out of touch.

    Some have even laid the blame for the rise of the MAGA movement on their doorstep.

    Like the successful, decades-long right-wing campaign to take over the courts in this country, which has wreaked havoc in the lives of ordinary Americans, the campaign against Columbia will, if similarly successful, prove costly well beyond that New York City campus.

    What is unfolding there is a testing ground for efforts in other sectors of American life.

    Acting in a high-handed and arbitrary manner in its dealings with Columbia paves the way for the government to carry out similar abuses of power elsewhere. Attacking academic freedom is a stalking horse for attacking freedom of speech and other freedoms.

    It is important to recall that Trump’s campaign against Columbia didn’t start on March 13. It began earlier with the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts and the move by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and recent graduate who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

    But the March 13 letter took it to new levels.

    The first thing to note about that letter was that it came from officials in the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration. They joined not only in asserting their right to intervene at Columbia under Titles VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act but to remind the university of the Trump administration’s power to cripple it financially.

    Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Title VII makes it unlawful for employers to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

    Since the act’s passage, it has been clear that alleged violators of Title VI must be afforded due process before federal funds can be withheld. That guarantees fairness and impartiality in investigations and ensures that enforcement actions will not be precipitous.

    The March 13 letter, with its demand for “immediate next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government,” is a chilling reminder of what happens when a government seeks to wield its formidable power without respecting the due process rights of those it targets.

    And if it gets away with practicing what one commentator calls “regulation by intimidation” at Columbia, the administration will be emboldened to do more of the same, and not just in higher education.

    The March 13 letter touches on matters colleges and universities routinely determine for themselves. For example, it demands that the university complete disciplinary proceedings against students who were involved in taking over a campus building last year and who participated in encampments in support of Palestinians. And it specifies that penalties of “expulsion or multi-year suspension” should be imposed.

    The same day it received the Trump administration’s letter, the university announced that it was expelling or suspending some students involved in the Hamilton Hall takeover and temporarily revoking the diplomas of other students who had since graduated.

    In addition, the March 13 letter directs Columbia to “Abolish the University Judicial Board (UJB) and … empower the Office of the President to suspend or expel students.”

    The intrusiveness of the letter extends to telling Columbia that it must ban the wearing of masks on campus and “formalize, adopt, and promulgate a definition of antisemitism” (it specifically cites the definition used in Trump’s Executive Order 13899). It even demands that Columbia’s Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies be put into “academic receivership” so that its faculty can no longer make hiring and curriculum decisions.

    That is the administration’s way of forcing the university to punish the department, some of whose faculty supported the encampment movement. Receivership means someone from outside the department would be appointed to make decisions for its faculty. It is a rarely used and nuclear response to departmental dysfunction.

    If Columbia were to do what the March 13 letter asks, it would be waving the white flag of surrender to any pretense that it will respect and protect academic freedom, the most prized and essential aspect of teaching and research in higher education. That would send a powerful and chilling signal about the administration’s ability to ensure freedom means the freedom to say and do what it prescribes.

    Taken together, the provisions in the March 13 letter amount to an effort to put the entire university into a kind of receivership. Beyond the world of higher education, receivership involves a court appointing “an independent ‘receiver’ or trustee to manage all aspects of a troubled company’s business. The company’s principals remain in place, but they have little authority over the company for the duration of the receivership.”

    The March 13 letter signals that intention when it calls for the development of a plan of “long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”

    “Innovation” and “excellence” are the watchwords for colleges and universities, businesses, artistic enterprises and individuals seeking to lead a free life. But since the founding of the republic, this country has been guided by the belief that the government would not be in the business of saying what could count as innovative and excellent in private life.

    If Americans stay on the sidelines as the current administration tries to bring Columbia to its knees, we will not only be damaging higher education, we will also be turning the founders’ vision of the relationship between the government and the people on its head.

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

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  • How Can Deans Support Faculty Well-Being? (opinion)

    How Can Deans Support Faculty Well-Being? (opinion)

    A recent issue of Liberal Education, a magazine published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, takes up the issue of the mental health crisis in academia with five excellent pieces on how institutions can enhance student well-being. Two other articles explore how administrators and faculty members should administer self-care. That split is telling, for it sends the tacit message that universities are in the business of setting up systems to support students, but when it comes to employees, you are on your own.

    As a dean in the middle of his eighth year in that role, I want to address this gap by sharing tangible steps and practices administrators can use to systematize support for faculty well-being, in the hopes that I might inspire my decanal colleagues at other institutions to experiment with some of the strategies below. While those examples are inspired by my experience in a small, private, comprehensive university setting, most will translate to other environments.

    Just to be clear, it makes perfect sense why administrators do not focus on the well-being of their faculty, as a plethora of other responsibilities takes precedence. My own institution is a case in point, for while our deans’ responsibilities document calls on us to provide “recognition, encouragement, and support for the work faculty are doing,” the emphasis is on the labor produced by faculty rather than on their well-being. Such support work is often elided institutionally by more pressing and more measurable tasks tied to the operations of the university.

    This elision has been especially acute over the past half decade, as universities and colleges wrestle with a brutal collision of challenges, including enrollment pressures, budget cuts, student unrest, attacks on DEI, program prioritization, AI challenges and so on. When faced with such a list of horrors, though, I conclude that support of faculty well-being has never been more important, given the weight of these pressures on professors.

    Deans (as well as other leaders) can embrace the following strategies to enhance the well-being of their faculty. Most of them do not cost any money.

    • Protect faculty’s time. Because time is the most valuable currency of faculty life, think about how you can protect that precious resource. Because the “university bureaucracy … inevitably consumes the time and attention of its subjects to justify its existence,” according to Cal Newport, deans should consider how they can shield faculty from the pressures of the neoliberal, bureaucratic machine that thrives on forms, reports and trainings. Focus on work that is directly mission-aligned and create efficiencies in required processes like accreditation reports, tenure and promotion review, and budget management so that faculty are free to concentrate on their students and research.

    Newport also laments that our technocentric workplace—an environment “defined by hyperactive digital distraction and onerous administrative burdens”—has converted faculty into middle managers, ultimately “strangling productivity and making [them] miserable.” Therefore, ask yourself if that latest email update to your faculty is really necessary.

    Speaking of email, try to lay off the communication outreach outside of business hours—it’s the rare issue that requires immediate attention from faculty at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. Use your email’s delay-delivery function liberally. And the tag appended to your signature line announcing that you “may work outside regular business hours and thus don’t expect an immediate reply from recipients” still does not stop the issue from landing on the psychological plate of faculty and could be misinterpreted as merely a passive-aggressive signal that you are working when others are not.

    • Acknowledge mental health challenges. It’s tough out there: Data show that higher ed employees are feeling burned out, with more than half of faculty and staff respondents in one recent survey saying “their job took a negative toll on their mental or emotional health.” More than a third pointed to their work supporting the emotional needs of students as having an impact on their own mental well-being. Recognizing that faculty in my own unit were being stretched thin as a consequence of their extraordinary efforts supporting students during the COVID-19 pandemic, I invited two of the university’s mental health counselors to visit our annual retreat to help faculty reset boundaries that had eroded during the past few years, to offer them insight into the mental health challenges of students and, most importantly, to give faculty permission to say no to unreasonable student requests.
    • Defend faculty’s academic freedom. A recent AAC&U survey shows faculty are feeling enormous pressure from external attacks on academic freedom, and they are struggling to navigate these treacherous waters inside and outside the classroom. Such anxieties will most likely accelerate over the next four years. According to the survey, “more than one out of three faculty report that they feel more constrained, compared with six or seven years ago, in their ability to speak freely” in terms of classroom content, faculty governance and even as a citizen. About half are self-censoring—even statements they believe to be true—for fear of “drawing negative attention.”

    Faculty see their academic leaders—deans and provosts—as chiefly responsible for protecting those freedoms, so we should be ready to stand up for faculty if they do come under attack. But in the meantime, deans must also acknowledge and support the well-being of faculty, which happens to be the final recommendation of the AAC&U report: “Even as legislative actions and the mercurial nature of politics may feel beyond institutional control, colleges and universities must find ways to support faculty mental health.”

    • Lead with empathy. When life intrudes or a family tragedy strikes, necessitating that a faculty member step away from their work unexpectedly, deans can give the imprimatur of the institution for faculty to redirect their emotional energy away from work and toward the personal matter at hand. A small change in wording in replying to their unfortunate news can make a world of difference. Instead of a curt email like “thanks for letting me know,” try something a bit more proactive: “I’m so sorry to hear this difficult news. Please know that we’ve got things covered for you so that you can focus your attention where it belongs, on your loved ones. Please let me know if there’s any way I can help with that project.”
    • Walk the talk. The narrative of faculty “going to the dark side” of administration and immediately forgetting the needs of their professorial colleagues is as old as the university itself, but one consequence of that narrative is that the resultant distrust, anger and suspicion can wear on the well-being of faculty. One approach to bridging that gulf is to demonstrate you are still in touch with the needs of faculty by standing in their shoes. The most obvious way to send that signal is to teach one class annually as a dean. If presidents can do it, certainly we can find a way.

    For me, this gesture was never more important than during the COVID-19 pandemic, as faculty were asked to pivot online with one week of warning and changes to protocols (wipe down the surfaces, stay behind the plastic shields, support students in quarantine) came down from on high at a dizzying pace. Standing beside my faculty in the classroom gave my requests during that difficult time extra weight. Likewise, make sure you are visible at the university’s latest Title IX training, attend required orientations and share tips learned from navigating your institution’s new frustratingly opaque HR system so that faculty know you are not exempt from such institutional responsibilities.

    • Own your mistakes. Being quick to admit your errors—both small and large—models for faculty that it is OK to fail, thus lowering the emotional pressure they may be feeling to perform, particularly junior faculty. Mea culpas from a leader may even encourage risk-taking and innovation in your unit. If an electronic form for faculty prepared by an administrative assistant does not work, that is on the dean for not checking it before its distribution, and you should say so. I once mishandled a conflict between faculty members and apologized afterward to faculty for not doing better. Taking Augustine’s dictum to heart—“fallor, ergo sum” (I err, therefore I am)—will humanize the dean and hopefully make you more approachable when faculty need support.
    • Advocate for faculty. One of the great pleasures of the dean’s role is your ability to advocate for your unit and its personnel. Letting faculty know you’ve got their backs and that you are always on the lookout for opportunities they might find exciting can help ground them mentally. Connecting them with a conference opportunity, suggesting them for a speaking gig or putting their name forward for a professional development workshop gives faculty confidence that they have someone in a position of power looking out for them, even in the face of all the uncertainties currently plaguing higher ed. Likewise, making professional development funds easier to access makes it less stressful for faculty who want to improve their craft.
    • Know your faculty’s work and recognize their achievements. As president of Princeton, Harold Shapiro used to read one book per week by his faculty members and even attended lectures to better understand their work and what they cared about. I would be hard-pressed to think of another gesture by a leader that might gratify an academic colleague more. Other signals of support can include a private note of congratulations or a “well done” at a university function. Following the mantra of “criticize in private and praise in public,” recognize faculty achievement at unit meetings, alumni gatherings and in email blasts, and do so for a wider variety of achievements beyond major grants, publications or teaching awards.
    • Provide stability. With new strategic plans coming down the pike every few years, administrative churn resulting in continuously shifting priorities, and constant requests to cut budgets while also innovating, the dean has the unique opportunity to provide a modicum of stability for their faculty in terms of processes and practices, consistent timelines and the unit’s strategic direction. In the face of turmoil across the larger institution, establishing your own unit as a sea of tranquility—as much as is possible—will be welcome. Parroting the institution’s “hair on fire” ethos is not helpful.
    • Bring faculty into the decision-making loop. Anxiety can surface when we do not feel in control of our circumstances, especially during times of crisis. While it is difficult to counter the many macro pressures facing higher ed, deans can give faculty some sense of ownership over your school’s direction by soliciting feedback on matters that go beyond those identified in the faculty manual, whether it is the unit’s fundraising focus for the year, locations for retreats or approaches to space allocation. Not all will be interested in participating, but faculty will appreciate being asked. On the flip side, no one’s mental health ever improved by being micromanaged by a supervisor: Give your faculty room to breathe.
    • Surface inequities—and then do something about them. Service work across units tends not to be distributed equitably: Women and faculty of color do more than their fair share. That is unacceptable, and deans are in position to right this wrong through strategies I have discussed previously. Systemizing equity policies instead of forcing faculty to depend on the good will of supervisors will also lessen the anxiety of faculty with the least power to say no.

    On a related note, deans can play a role in supporting faculty of color, LGBTQ+ faculty and other minoritized faculty in light of the overtly hostile national (and sometimes state) climate that gets expressed through attacks on DEI programming, the hollowing out of the curriculum and demonization of personnel. Tokenism, microaggressions and overt discrimination in the white, heteronormative space of the academy provide daily challenges for minoritized faculty. William A. Smith’s concept of “racial battle fatigue” is unfortunately alive and well in higher education, and deans can support their personnel suffering under the weight of that trauma not only by enacting policies that advance equity and inclusion, but also by offering to listen, intervening when invited and endorsing strategies of self-care.

    • Create community. Individuals who do not have a strong sense of community typically have greater odds for experiencing mental health challenges. While I am certainly not suggesting the workplace stand in for family or friend groups, deans have the opportunity to create community in their academic units in ways that will enhance faculty well-being, whether that be through annual retreats where faculty can deepen personal relationships with each other or the establishment of a strong culture and clarity around a unit’s mission, so that faculty buy-in for the unit’s work will excite and unite personnel.

    When I recently reviewed my annual dean’s evaluations from faculty for the past two years, anonymous respondents repeatedly highlighted in their optional narrative comments the following features of my leadership: commitment to faculty, listening and helping faculty feel heard, creating community, providing support, evincing compassion and care, and relationship-building. These qualities all fall under the faculty well-being umbrella, so it is worth honoring such faculty voices as we choose, as deans, where to focus our attention and request that universities fold these responsibilities into administrative job descriptions.

    Richard Badenhausen is dean of the Honors College at Westminster University and a board member of the American Conference of Academic Deans.

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