Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to use artificial intelligence to review and revoke visas of foreign students who appear to be Hamas sympathizers, Axiosreported Thursday, citing State Department officials.
The “Catch and Revoke” initiative will use AI to review tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts, looking for signs that they supported Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
If officials find a social media post from an international student that appears to endorse the attack and looks “pro-Hamas,” that could be grounds for visa revocation, an official told Axios.
Officials also plan to check news reports of anti-Israel demonstrations and lawsuits brought by Jewish students that might indicate a foreign national engaged in antisemitic activity.
Axios reported that to launch Catch and Revoke, the department examined a database of 100,000 people in the Student Exchange Visitor System since October 2023 to see if any visas had been revoked but the student was allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration.
“We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration,” a State Department official said, “which suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement.”
The official said, “It would be negligent for the department that takes national security seriously to ignore publicly available information about [visa] applicants in terms of AI tools … AI is one of the resources available to the government that’s very different from where we were technologically decades ago.”
“Under President Trump, the Immigration Nationality Act [sic] is great again,” the official added.
Embattled Pennsylvania State University trustee Barry Fenchak’s time on the board may be nearing an end: A subcommittee voted Wednesday that he was “unqualified and ineligible” to run again.
Fenchak is one of nine trustees on the 36-member board who are elected by alumni. His term is set to expire at the end of June. But Fenchak—who is already locked in litigation with Penn State over what he considers its lack of fiscal transparency—plans to fight the decision.
“This is completely in line with Penn State’s long-standing pattern with regard to trying to maintain their secrecy, and myself and our legal team will be evaluating these recent actions by Penn State and taking the appropriate actions in the court,” Fenchak told Inside Higher Ed.
The outspoken trustee has been at the center of controversy for nearly a year as he has sought to obtain more details on the university’s rising endowment management fees, even filing a lawsuit for that information. Penn State initially refused to provide the financial details that Fenchak, an investment adviser, said he needed to perform his fiduciary duties; he argued that endowment management fees inexplicably climbed from 0.62 percent in 2013–14 to 2.49 percent by 2018–19. Eventually, as a result of his litigation, he was able to obtain the requested documents, he told Inside Higher Ed.
Fellow trustees previously tried to boot Fenchak from the board last fall after he made a crude joke to a female staff member. Paraphrasing the PG-rated Tom Hanks movie A League of Their Own, Fenchak—who is bald and had just received a Penn State baseball cap as a gift at a university event—joked that it made him look like “a penis with a hat on,” according to court records.
In his opinion granting the preliminary injunction, Centre County Court Judge Brian J. Marshall wrote that while he “is not suggesting that plaintiff should not be sanctioned,” the court had been “presented with credible and, in many instances uncontroverted, evidence that Plaintiff has been subject to ongoing retaliation by Defendants.”
The judge also noted that Fenchak had sued Penn State just three days before the remark that the board used as justification for his removal.
Now, months later, the board landed on a new tactic to remove Fenchak: The nine-member nominating subcommittee voted 8 to 1 last week to bar him from running for re-election.
Daniel Delligatti, vice chair of the subcommittee, argued that Fenchak had been warned multiple times about “inappropriate behavior” and that he failed to live up to the board’s code of conduct.
Fenchak’s attempt at humor made staff members feel uncomfortable, Delligatti said, and his candidacy for a second term was not in “alignment with Penn State’s mission and values.”
Trustee Jay Paterno was the sole dissenting vote. He argued that “the process” as he understood it was “outside the scope of our review.”
Fenchak attended the virtual meeting but was denied an opportunity to speak on his own behalf.
Deliberations on blocking Fenchak from running for re-election were largely confined to a closed executive session meeting of the nominating subcommittee, which preceded the deciding vote.
A Legal Fight
Though a judge halted Penn State’s initial efforts to remove Fenchak, the board and the university’s legal team are again trying to oust him. The same day that the nominating subcommittee shot down Fenchak’s re-election bid, the university filed a motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction that allowed Fenchak to remain on the board as his lawsuit proceeded.
Fenchak alleges the motion was filed mere minutes after the subcommittee’s decision, which would prevent him from finishing his current term as well as serving another one.
Penn State officials did not provide a comment on the situation.
In response to a request for an interview with trustees, Shannon Harvey, assistant vice president and secretary for the board, referred Inside Higher Ed to a video of the subcommittee’s virtual meeting.
As of publication, Fenchak had not filed a legal response. But he noted one is coming. Beyond the impact on him personally, he also has broader concerns about the board’s process to bar trustees from re-election, which was adopted over the last year as he pressured the university to release financial documents.
“Forget about my specific situation. This process disenfranchises and essentially steals the vote from our alumni,” Fenchak said. “That’s a right our alumni have had for 150 years, and now we are telling those alumni who they can and who they cannot vote for to represent them on the board. Frankly, that’s unconscionable. As a Penn Stater, it’s heartbreaking.”
Changes to the way alumni trustees are elected have also caught the attention of state lawmakers.
At a Feb. 20 Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee hearing, Republican representative Marla Brown questioned Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi about the change. Brown said she had fielded complaints from constituents and seemed skeptical about the new processes.
“I can tell you that people are not happy about it, and the optics on it are not good. As I’m sure you’re aware, it looks like a conflict of interest that the board is mainly concerned with picking and choosing the muscle in which the candidates will be serving on the board,” Brown said.
Asked why Penn State made the change, Bendapudi noted it was a board decision.
“Did you support the change?” Brown asked.
“I report to them and I have no say in it one way or the other,” Bendapudi answered.
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Dive Brief:
An Arizona bill that would cut all state funding for public colleges offering classroom instruction related to diversity, equity and inclusion cleared a key legislative hurdle Thursday. State Senate lawmakers advanced the bill in a preliminary vote, and a final Senate vote on the measure could come as soon as Monday.
If enacted, the legislation would prohibit faculty at the state’s public universities and community colleges fromrelating “contemporary American society” to a wide range of social and economic topics, including whiteness, antiracism, unconscious bias and gender-based equity.
It would also ban colleges from teaching that racially neutral or color-blind policies or institutions “perpetuate oppression, injustice, race-based privilege, including white supremacy and white privilege, or inequity.”
Dive Insight:
State Sen. David Farnsworth introduced the bill earlier this month, saying in a recent press release that he was motivated to do so after taking a class at a nearby community college.
“The course provided by the local community college represents the very ideology that is dividing America, teaching students to view white American men through a lens of privilege and oppression,” he said.
Farnsworth further described education about gender fluidity as “indoctrination” and said his proposal puts “students’ academic futures over political agendas.”
If the bill is enacted, faculty would not be allowed to “relate contemporary American society to”:
Critical theory.
Whiteness.
Systemic racism.
Institutional racism.
Antiracism.
Microaggressions.
Systemic bias.
Implicit bias.
Unconscious bias.
Intersectionality.
Gender identity.
Social justice.
Cultural competence.
Allyship.
Race-based reparations.
Race-based privilege.
Race-based diversity.
Gender-based diversity.
Race-based equity.
Gender-based equity.
Race-based inclusion.
Gender-based inclusion.
The bill would allow colleges to teach about subjects related to racial hatred or race-based discrimination, like slavery and Japanese-American internment in World War II — but only if instructors do not include any of the above subjects.
The proposal faces an uncertain fate, as control of Arizona’s executive and legislative branches is split between parties, with a Democratic governor but Republican control of the House and Senate.
Despite growing more conservative through the 2024 election, the Republican party doesn’t have a veto-proof supermajority. And Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has voiced support for and spearheaded DEI initiatives, is unlikely to sign the bill.
Even so, the bill threatens large pools of funding for Arizona’s higher education institutions, especially its three public universities.
Arizona’s public four-year institutions receive 74% of their funding from state support,according to a 2024 report from theState Higher Education Executive Officers Association.
For example, the University of Arizona’s main campus got almost $303 million in state general funds in fiscal 2024.
Farnsworth’s bill comes as Arizona colleges are already facing two powerful headwinds — a $96.9 million reduction in overall state funding for fiscal year 2025 and a wave of federal DEI restrictions.
Since taking office Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has signed executive orders attempting to eliminate DEI in higher education and elsewhere, though a court order recently blocked major portions of two of those orders.And the U.S. Department of Education recently issued guidance giving colleges until the end of February to cut all DEI or risk losing federal funding.
The University of Arizona recently took down the webpage for its Office of Diversity and Inclusion. The flagship also removed references to “diversity” and “inclusion” from its land acknowledgement — a statement recognizing the Indigenous tribal land the campus sits on — though the original version remains available on at least one department webpage.
Protesters on the University of Arizona’s main campus called on the institution’s leaders Thursday to continue its DEI initiatives.
As of Thursday evening, almost 2,500 University of Arizona students, employees, affiliates and others signed a letter calling for the institution to reverse the changes it made to its web presence.
“We view your actions as preemptive and harmful over-compliance,” the letter reads, referencing the university’s response to the Education Department’s guidance and Trump’s executive orders. “Faculty, staff, and students should not have to fear political retaliation for upholding academic freedom, engaging in free speech, or advocating for their rights.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis is launching a state initiative to cut spending and optimize efficiency modeled after the Elon Musk’s federal Department of Government Efficiency, which has cut billions in contracts at federal agencies, The Orlando Sentinel reported.
Over the course of a year, Florida’s version of DOGE intends to sunset dozens of state boards and commissions, cut hundreds of jobs, and probe university finances and managerial practices.
“This is the DOGE-ing of our state university system, and I think it’s going to be good for taxpayers, and it’s ultimately going to be good for students as well,” DeSantis said Monday.
He added that the state would leverage artificial intelligence to help with the initiative.
The Republican governor also indicated that the state-level initiative would target what he referred to as “ideological study stuff” in an effort to “make sure that these universities are really serving the classical mission of what a university should be, and that’s not to impose ideology. It’s really to teach students how to think and to prepare them to be citizens of our republic.”
The move comes as the state has already targeted curriculum in recent months, stripping hundreds of courses from the general education offerings of state universities earlier this year. Many of the classes touched on topics such as race, gender, sexuality, and non-Christian religions.
Florida has also hired multiple GOP officials—some sitting, others who previously served—to lead state universities, including several who have no higher education management experience.
In a response to DeSantis, who pressed for the need to eliminate inefficiencies, the Florida Democratic Party noted that Republicans have controlled state politics for nearly 30 years and questioned the outgoing governor’s motivations in launching the state equivalent of DOGE.
NEW YORK, NY –Counslr, a leading B2B mental health and wellness platform, announced today that it has expanded its footprint into the State of New Mexico starting with a partnership with Vista Nueva High School, Aztec, NM; and into the State of Illinois starting with a partnership with Big Hollow School District, Ingleside, IL. These initial partnerships will empower students and staff to prioritize their mental health by enabling them to access unlimited wellness resources and live texting sessions with Counslr’s licensed and vetted mental health support professionals, who are available on-demand, 24/7/365. By increasing accessibility to Counslr’s round-the-clock support, Vista Nueva and Big Hollow aim to bridge gaps in mental health support for students and staff, enabling those who previously did not or could not access care, whether due to cost, inconvenience, or stigma, to receive the support they desire.
1 in 6 youth suffer from a mental illness, but the majority do not receive mental health support due to substantial obstacles to care. Additionally, mental health is even a bigger challenge in rural America due to unique barriers, including fewer providers resulting in longer wait times or insufficient access to crucial mental health services. This resource scarcity underscores the urgency for additional resources and innovative solutions to bridge this critical gap in mental health care for school communities.
“We are happy to be able to offer students another tool that they can use to support their mental well-being. Knowing that students have been able to speak with a professional outside of school hours helps us know this app was needed and is useful,” states Rebekah Deane, Professional School Counselor, Vista Nueva High School. “We hope this tool also assists students in learning how to navigate systems so that when they graduate high school they know these options exist and they can continue to seek out support when necessary.”
As factors such as academic pressures, social media influence, burnout and world events contribute to heightened stress levels and mental health challenges, schools throughout the country are recognizing the growing need to offer more accessible resources and preventative mental health services to both students and staff.
“Counslr provides an extremely easy-to-access platform for those who otherwise may not seek the help they need, and we are very excited to join Counslr in this partnership. We are all very well aware of the impact that technology has had on the mental health of our students and we feel that Counslr can meet our students in a setting they are comfortable with,” states Bob Gold, Big Hollow School District Superintendent. “Outside of our students, we are thrilled to be able to offer this service to the amazing adults who work with our students every day. There are so many families dealing with some sort of trauma, and the life of an educator is no different. These adults tend to give so much of themselves to their students, so we strongly feel that our efforts here to join with Counslr is our way of providing an opportunity for our educators to focus on their own mental health.”
In addition to the geographic expansion,Counslr has also expanded its existing footprint in states like New York, most recently partnering with the Silver Creek Central School District to support its students and staff.
“We know mental health needs are on the rise, for students and adults. To me, Counslr is a resource our students and staff both deserve,” states Dr. Katie Ralston, Superintendent, Silver Creek Central. “In the beginning stages at Silver Creek Central, it has proven to be an asset, as it offers access to everyone on the spot, any day, for any situation.”
“Supporting diverse populations of students and faculty across the country clearly illustrates that mental health knows no boundaries,” said Josh Liss, Counslr CEO. Adding that, “With 86% of Counslr’s users being first-time care seekers, we strive to reach these silent sufferers who need help, but do not or cannot access it, no matter where they are located.”
ABOUT COUNSLR
Counslr is a text-based mental health support application that provides unlimited access to robust wellness resources and live texting sessions with licensed professionals, 24/7/365. Users can access support on-demand within two minutes of opening the app, or by scheduled appointment. Through real-time texting, users enjoy one-on-one, private communication with a licensed counselor that can be conducted anytime, anywhere. Counslr was designed to help individuals deal with life’s day-to-day issues, empowering individuals to address concerns while they are “small” to help ensure that they stay “small”. Counslr partners with organizations of all shapes and sizes (companies, unions, nonprofits, universities/colleges, high schools, etc) so that these entities can provide Counslr’s services to their employees/members/students at no direct cost. For more information, please visit www.counslr.com.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
Tennessee State University is looking for help from state lawmakers as it tries both to stay afloat and to revamp its operations and finances for the long term.
The public historically Black institution is on pace to run out of cash by April or May, Interim President Dwayne Tucker said Tuesday at a meetinghosted by Black Caucus members in the state Legislature.
TSUintends to present a five-year turnaround plan to the Legislature. Operations through the first year of the plan could be financed by removing restrictionson roughly $150 millionout of $250 million the state previously set asidefor university infrastructure, Tucker noted.
Dive Insight:
TSU’s financial troubles are steep and immediate.An FAQ page on the university’s website acknowledges that the financial condition has reached crisis levels stemming from missed enrollment targets and operating deficits.This fall, the university posted a projected deficit of $46 million by the end of the fiscal year.
The university identified inefficient processes in financial aid, advising and enrollment systems, that contributed to its woes. It also said those problems were exacerbated by 2024’s messy federal rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Additionally, and perhaps most damaging, the university launched a full scholarship program for some students without a plan to fund it throughout students’ journey to graduation. It paid $37 million toward the scholarship in fiscal 2022 using federal pandemic emergency funds. When that money ran dry, TSU had to issue tens of millions of dollars in institutional financial aid, causing it to heavily discount its tuition.
The scholarship helped attract students, with fall enrollment hitting 8,198 students in 2023, compared to 7,774 in 2018. But the university couldn’t ultimately afford to maintain those aid levels.
Taking aim at the university’s management, Tennessee lawmakers last March passed a Republican-led bill to replace all of the university’s trustees and restructure its board, over the objection of Democrats.
Emergency state funding last fall kept the institution operating, but Tucker said TSU will need more to not just turn around — but to stay open.
“It’s a fact that we can’t pay our bills,” Tucker said, noting also that the university would likely not be open today without state help.
But Tennessee also owes TSU money, according to a federal assessment.
In a letter to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in 2023,then-U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the institution had been hurt by “longstanding and ongoing underinvestment” as a public land-grant HBCU.By their estimate, inequitable funding gaps led Tennessee State to miss out on $2.1 billion over 30 years.
Tucker dismissed the idea of suing the state for the $2.1 billion,arguing that the legal process could take years —while the university’s financial needs are immediate.Legal action could also potentially anger the legislators whose support TSU needs to help provide funding. Moreover, the institution could lose a legal challenge, he added.
Tucker — the university’s second interim president in less than a year — argued for focusing instead on the state funding gap identified by the Legislature in 2021. That gap amounts to over $540 million.
Since identifying the amount, Tennessee lawmakers lined up a one-time $250 million sum for the university to invest in infrastructure. Tucker said the university could use a portion of those funds to keep it afloat through the first year of a five-year plan.
Along with state help, TSU and its board are considering financial exigency, a restructuring process that allows an institution experiencing budgetary distress to lay off tenured faculty and shut down academic programs.
In a special meeting of TSU’s board on Jan. 31, a consultant with the National Association of College and University Business Officers presented a detailed workshop on how exigency works.
Tucker said Tuesday that officials were considering exigency but that it wasn’t in the university’s immediate plans.
Two presidents resigned abruptly with few details in recent days: Kayse Shrum stepped down at Oklahoma State University, and Armando Valdez resigned the presidency of Colorado State University, Pueblo.
For Shrum, the move comes less than four years into her job and with no public explanation.
Local news outlet NonDoc reported that her resignation—which blindsided many at the university—coincides with an opaque review of improper transfers of “legislatively appropriated funds.” NonDoc also noted recent tensions over the contract of football coach Mike Gundy, who signed a restructured deal that gave him an extension but also a $1 million–a–year pay cut.
One anonymous source told the news outlet that the situation escalated quickly as Shrum “went from being on solid footing last Thursday to essentially not being president on Monday night.”
Though the resignation was official Monday, the Board of Regents did not announce the move until Wednesday.
Valdez resigned as president of CSU Pueblo one day shy of hitting a year on the job. The move follows an independent investigation that found he had violated university policy, according to a Colorado State University System news release. System officials did not indicate what policy Valdez allegedly violated, noting in the news release that Valdez disagreed with the findings but recognized he had lost “the confidence of the Board of Governors and CSU System leadership. As a result, to allow the university to move forward, he resigned his role.”
System officials told The Pueblo Chieftain that his resignation and the alleged policy violation were a personnel matter and therefore “not something the CSU system will be commenting on.”
A new year is underway, but many colleges are still reeling from the fiscal challenges of 2024.
With yawning budget gaps and bleak financial projections at some campuses, administrators are cutting jobs, academic programs and athletics options to plug holes and stabilize their finances.
Here’s a look at cuts announced in January.
Sonoma State University
Facing a budget deficit estimated at nearly $24 million, the California State University campus is enacting deep cuts that will include dismissing dozens of faculty members, eliminating multiple programs and dropping athletics, according to an announcement from interim president Emily F. Cutrer.
“The University has had a budget deficit for several years. It is attributable to a variety of factors—cost of personnel, annual price increases for supplies and utilities, inflation—but the main reason is enrollment,” Cutrer wrote in an announcement last month.
She added that Sonoma State’s enrollment has dropped by 38 percent since 2015.
On the personnel side, 46 faculty members, including tenured as well as adjunct professors, will not have their contracts renewed for the next academic year. An unspecified number of lecturers will also receive notices that “no work will be available in fall 2025,” Cutrer wrote. Four management and 12 staff positions are also being eliminated as part of Sonoma State’s cost-cutting measures.
In addition, more than 20 programs have been identified for closure and others will be combined. University officials are also looking to close a half dozen academic departments.
All 11 SSU athletic programs, which compete at the NCAA Division II level, will be eliminated. However, SSU coaches have announced plans to file a lawsuit in an effort to save their sports.
California State University, Dominguez Hills
Anticipated budget cuts also drove layoffs at this CSU campus in Southern California, which let go 32 employees last month, many probationary or temporary workers, LAist reported.
“While these layoffs will be disruptive to our operations, the vast majority of our staff will remain employed at CSUDH continuing to provide the high level of support to our community that we are known for,” President Thomas Parham wrote in an email.
Other institutions across California are also likely to introduce cost-cutting measures in the coming months due to anticipated decreases in state appropriations that will limit funding. The 23 institutions in the CSU system are bracing for state budget cuts of nearly $400 million.
University of New Orleans
After consolidating five colleges into two in December, the University of New Orleans laid off 30 employees last month as it chips away at a $10 million budget deficit, NOLA.com reported.
Additionally, the university announced furloughs for full-time, nontenured employees last month, which local media outlets reported will affect nearly 300 workers.
“While these actions are necessary, we are deeply sensitive to the hardship they undoubtedly will cause. We remain fully committed to supporting those who are affected through this transition,” President Kathy Johnson said in a January announcement. “Our focus remains on protecting UNO’s academic mission and its vital role in the New Orleans region. We are pursuing long-term strategies to increase enrollment, secure new funding, and enhance operational efficiency to avoid similar measures in the future.”
St. Francis College
The financially struggling institution in New York laid off 17 employees last month, The City reported. It follows other moves administrators have made in recent years—including previous layoffs, the sale of the Brooklyn campus and the elimination of athletic programs—to help fix St. Francis’s financial woes.
Despite the institution’s recent struggles and multiple years of operating losses, President Tim Cecere offered the news outlet an optimistic outlook, noting that cost-cutting measures have put the college on a path toward sustainability.
“The college hasn’t been this strong in years,” Cecere said. “We have zero debt, which not a lot of colleges can say. Every dollar that comes in is optimized for the benefit of the students.”
St. Norbert College
Jobs and programs are on the chopping block as the small Catholic institution in Wisconsin navigates financial issues, The Green Bay Press Gazette reported.
At least 13 majors will be cut, including chemistry, computer science, history and physics.
An unspecified number of faculty members are also expected to be laid off, the newspaper reported, as the college aims to shave $7 million in expenses ahead of the next fiscal year.
Cleveland State University
Efforts to cut spending prompted Cleveland State University to drop three athletic programs—wrestling, women’s softball and women’s golf—Ideastream Public Media reported.
Cleveland State will also move its esports team from athletics to the College of Engineering.
The move comes as the university whittles down a budget deficit that reportedly stands at $10 million. Last summer 50-plus faculty members took buyouts as part of cost-reduction efforts.
Indiana University
More than two dozen jobs were eliminated from the state flagship’s athletics department last month—part of a cost-reduction effort in response to the House v. NCAA settlement, which will require IU and other institutions to begin sharing revenue with athletes starting in the 2025–26 academic year, The Indianapolis Star reported.
Of the 25 positions eliminated, 12 were reportedly vacant.
Western Illinois University
Furloughs for administrative employees who are not in a bargaining unit are expected as the regional public institution seeks to cut expenditures, Tri States Public Radio reported.
WIU is reportedly dealing with a $14 million deficit for fiscal year 2025.
The furlough program will run from the beginning of February through July 31 and is tiered by annual salary. Administrators making more than $150,000 will be required to take three unpaid days off each month, while those earning between $100,000 and $149,000 will be asked to take off two unpaid days each month and those making $99,999 to $75,000 will have to take off one unpaid day per month.
Catholic University of America
With the Catholic research university in Washington, D.C., facing a $30 million structural deficit, administrators are considering merging departments and potentially closing the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art, Catholic News Agency reported.
Officials did not specify publicly whether job cuts would be included as part of the overall changes, which are expected to go before CUA’s Board of Trustees for approval in March.
University System of Maryland
Amid state budget cuts, Maryland’s public university system will likely be forced to lay off employees.
Anticipating a funding cut of $111 million across the 11-campus system, officials may eliminate as many as 400 jobs through layoffs as well as closing vacant positions, The Baltimore Banner reported, which they estimate will save $45 million. Though a timeline for cuts was not announced, system chancellor Jay Perman said some jobs will be student facing, including advising, counseling and mental health services. Perman also noted that some faculty positions across the system will likely go unfilled.
Pennsylvania State University chancellor emeritus Dan Greenstein joins Martin Betts to discuss his varied career and how it impacts his work today.
The chancellor has held roles at the University of Oxford, the University of California, the Gates Foundation and Boston Consulting.
He explains the recruitment platform that facilitated the university’s major mergers and what front office systems transformed student experience and institutional sustainability.
Students will be able to choose from dozens of different courses across various disciplines—including STEM, English, ethnic studies and history—to satisfy the requirement, which is set to take effect as early as fall 2026.
“Climate change is an all-hands-on-deck crisis that requires understanding and solutions from all different disciplines and sectors of society,” Autumn Thoyre, co-director of the university’s Climate HQ, which supports climate-related work on campus, told KQED. “Our students’ lives are already being impacted by climate change, and so we think it’s part of our responsibility as a university to prepare students for that.”
Although numerous other colleges and universities across the nation require climate change–focused coursework, SF State officials said in a news release that its focus on climate justice, or “the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalized and underserved populations,” is novel.
“We are responding to the understanding that all jobs in the future will be climate jobs in some way. Our students, no matter their major and no matter their career, need to understand climate change because it is already impacting their lives,” Thoyre said in the release. “If you come to SFSU, you will learn about climate change and be ready for it in your career and civic life, you’ll be an informed voter and you’ll be ready for discussions with your family and friends.”
