Tag: University

  • University of California freezes hiring as it braces for funding cuts

    University of California freezes hiring as it braces for funding cuts

    Dive Brief:

    • The University of California is implementing a hiring freeze across its 10 campuses as it navigates potential funding cuts at both the federal and state levels, system President Michael Drake said in a message Wednesday. 
    • Drake also directed UC locations to roll out other cost-cutting measures, such as delaying maintenance and reducing travel expenses. 
    • “I recognize this is a time of great uncertainty for many in our UC community and in higher education across the country,” Drake said. “Throughout our history as an institution and as a nation, we have weathered struggles and found new ways to show up for the people we serve.”

    Dive Insight:

    UC joins an ever-growing cohort of higher education institutions taking preemptive steps to brace their budgets against a storm of funding cuts and financial attacks coming from the Trump administration. 

    Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University are just a few of the major research universities that have also frozen hiring in recent weeks as they brace for federal funding cuts potentially coming from multiple directions. 

    Many institutions have cited the 15% cap on indirect research cost funding that the National Institutes of Health announced in February. Such a reduction would amount to billions of dollars collectively and could translate into funding shortfalls in the tens of millions of dollars for many universities. 

    NIH is the largest funder of UC research, having provided a total $2.6 billion to the system in the 2023-24 academic year, according to the system. Among the system’s campuses that could be hardest hit, UCLA stands to lose $65 million under the funding cap, UC San Francisco $121 million and UC San Diego $102 million, according to a New York Times analysis.  

    Faced with massive cuts to its research funding from the agency, UC filed a declaration in support of the lawsuit against NIH brought by the California attorney general and more than 20 other states.

    A judge overseeing multiple lawsuits against NIH has paused the funding cap, but uncertainty abounds among higher education leaders over the issue and other potential funding stoppages in Washington. 

    “The University’s legal team prepared for this moment and has been working diligently to protect the University and our mission through the courts,” Drake said. “These efforts have allowed us to stave off some of the immediate and projected financial impacts — but not all.”

    Even before President Donald Trump took office, UC faced potential future budget strains from state-level cuts. A fiscal 2025-26 budget proposal unveiled in January by Gov. Gavin Newsom would reduce UC’s funding by $271 million. At the time, Drake— who plans to step down as system leader at the end of the 2024-25 academic year —  expressed concern about how the cuts would affect UC students and services. 

    Prior to that, the system had been improving its financial trajectory, with the system’s overall total budget loss shrinking significantly in fiscal 2024 to $178 million, less than a tenth of the prior year’s shortfall. 

    In his message Wednesday, Drake said he asked the presidents of all UC locations to “prepare financial strategies and workforce management plans that address any potential shortfalls,” adding that “every action that impacts our University and our workforce will only be taken after serious and deliberative consideration.”

    Source link

  • More than 200,000 former Walden University students owe more than $9 Billion

    More than 200,000 former Walden University students owe more than $9 Billion

    The Higher Education Inquirer has recently received a Freedom of Information (FOIA) response regarding student loan debt held by former Liberty University students.  The FOIA was 25-01941-F.  

    Source link

  • More than 290,000 Liberty University student loan debtors owe more than $8 Billion

    More than 290,000 Liberty University student loan debtors owe more than $8 Billion

    The Higher Education Inquirer has recently received a Freedom of Information (FOIA) response regarding student loan debt held by former Liberty University students.  The FOIA was 25-01939-F.  

    Source link

  • What women experience in the university estates professions

    What women experience in the university estates professions

    I am as aware as anyone else of the reputation of AUDE (the Association of University Directors of Estates) for being something of a white male club.

    As the Executive Director of that club, I think the reputation is less and less true with every passing year, though of course I would say that. The association is very much on a journey on EDI issues, but we are doing more than you might imagine.

    Our small office team is undertaking ILM Level 4 training on managing equality and diversity. We are looking at inclusive design and have recently published a new guide to neurodiversity design and management. And we are looking more closely at the association membership itself to read between the lines of the demographic patterns available to us.

    What we found

    Our membership identity data is patchy: we’ve only been measuring this since 2022, and it isn’t compulsory for members to share. 47 per cent of those members we can measure are women. That starts to seem something like parity. But at the most senior level of membership, of those colleagues making it through to a director role, the proportion is more like one in six, significantly below the level in other professional services. We wanted to examine the barriers to women’s progress in estates, and did so in the recently published report Well the assumption is…: Conversations with women leaders in estates and facilities which is available to colleagues across the sector on the AUDE website.

    The report looks at the career experiences of women in estates – colleagues that are leading on the fabric and the development of your campuses today, vital to the successful and financially viable functioning of your institution. And it highlighted a very consistent set of obstacles, including the lack of a visible career path, the constantly undermining nature of casual sexism– anything but casual and at its worst deployed in abhorrent and confidence-wrecking verbal hand grenades – as well as issues around health, maternity and menopause, and more.

    Responses to the report

    It taps into the frustration of women telling us their stories and processes them into an emotive document that is quite unlike the tone of anything we’ve published before. I recommend a read. We’ve had several very consistent reactions to this work.

    The first is most common from women. “Yes”, they have told us, “This is the experience exactly. You haven’t missed anything out. I recognise these stories from my own life”. In private we’ve heard further stories, of things happening now, that would bring many of us to an abrupt and shocked halt, and more than reinforce every word of the report. I’ve spoken to many female members of AUDE, and it doesn’t take much work to uncover experience and attitudes that are damaging and have held us back, or acted as entirely unwelcome and unnecessary obstacles, including several in my own career which are referenced in the report.

    A second common reaction has been from male members of the association scrambling to get past the sheer embarrassment of having it spelt out to them how awful other men can be – in their teams, in their universities, now. This group includes colleagues doing great proactive things to quickly learn from the report and have fruitful conversations with others about what needs to improve. Those colleagues are swotting up on pay gap information, talking to HR about family friendly policy and blind recruitment processes. They are opening their eyes to the issues, seeking a greater level of understanding including within their own teams, challenging the status quo, and taking steps towards becoming EDI allies within their institutions.

    But we’ve also had a reaction which can best be expressed as – and in awareness of a very un-Wonkhe-like word coming up – “Why have AUDE been so arsey about this? AUDE have slightly embarrassed themselves here by being so visibly annoyed. What bad taste they’ve shown. We’re going to stay silent and dignified.”

    For me, it takes a particularly adept form of mental gymnastics to be more annoyed by the tone than by the message. Yes, with the help of the dictionary definition, we have been bad-tempered. Collecting and listening to our report participants’ stories as we did, bad-tempered is what we felt.

    Refreshing honesty

    The entire EDI agenda faces more of a pushback, right now, than for decades. Silence in the face of grotesque disadvantage may seem dignified to some. But to others it will seem altogether darker, a caving into the status quo that is impossible to justify. Many people can see the difference and have thanked us for calling out the unacceptable, and our “refreshing, real, human honesty”.

    Those women participating in the report’s production were immensely keen to give full credit to the many men who had acted as career mentors and role models. But such solidarity was far from the only experience. People don’t like being forced to confront difficult issues, but it is what we have asked of the AUDE membership with the publishing of this report. This is a difficult issue, and it is right under our noses. If (male) colleagues will not trust the take of our report, trust other things. Speak to the women in your family as your first port of call. Casually undermined at work by men without the experience or the understanding or the insight of the woman in the conversation? That’s the least of it. When was the last time you truly listened to some of the quieter voices in your institution? What would you hear if you did?

    What’s next?

    We fully acknowledge our shortcomings. The report, about women’s experiences, was commissioned by the man that leads our EDI group and written by the man that leads on the association’s comms. Not everyone will like that. We fully understand we haven’t dealt with intersectional experiences in an attempt to understand the differences that faith or disability or sexuality or ethnicity may add to the mix.

    From my perspective the association is late to the party so can hardly expect congratulations on finally arriving; our (construction) industry is behind the times; our colleagues (via a September 2024 benchmarking report on salary and conditions) tell us that the institutional stance on EDI is highly significant in their decision to stay in HE roles; and corporately, buy-in to EDI is expected of us at every level of seniority, and a gap in this area could rightly hamper our promotion prospects.

    Culture change takes a long time. We don’t want to be an obstacle but an enabler. This is exactly where we should be – learning, changing, and bringing others with us whenever we can. I’m proud the association is on this journey.

    Source link

  • Feds suspend $175M to University of Pennsylvania over trans athletics policy

    Feds suspend $175M to University of Pennsylvania over trans athletics policy

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    The Trump administration has suspended $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, citing its athletics participation policies for transgender students, according to a Wednesday post from a White House social media account. 

    The cuts are to discretionary spending from the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to Fox Business, the first to report the news. 

    “We are aware of media reports suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn, but have not yet received any official notification or any details,” a Penn spokesperson said via email Wednesday. 

    The spokesperson added, “We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions.”

    In an executive order last month, President Donald Trump barred colleges and K-12 schools from allowing transgender women to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity and threatened to pull all federal funding from institutions that don’t comply. 

    The day after Trump signed the directive, the U.S. Department of Education opened a Title IX investigation into Penn, San José State University and a K-12 athletics association over policies the agency said were out of step with the executive order. 

    Former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, has been at the center of polarizing debates over gender identity and college athletics participation. In 2022, Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I championship for her victory in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. 

    Last week, more than a dozen college athletes sued the NCAA, alleging that allowing Thomas to compete in the championship violated Title IX, the sweeping statute barring sex-based discrimination in federally funded institutions. 

    The complaint comes only a month after a similar lawsuit was filed against Penn and the NCAA over Thomas’ participation in the Ivy League’s 2022 swimming championship. 

    The NCAA updated its policies after Trump’s executive order to only allow students assigned female at birth to compete in women’s athletics.

    Source link

  • Trump Admin Pauses $175M to University of Pennsylvania

    Trump Admin Pauses $175M to University of Pennsylvania

    The Trump administration is pausing $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, apparently because the college allowed a transgender woman to compete in women’s sports three years ago.

    The funding pause, announced Wednesday via a White House social media post, is not related to any investigation. Instead, the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services stopped the $175 million as part of an “immediate proactive action to review discretionary funding streams,” a senior White House official said in a statement. The legality of the move isn’t clear, and officials didn’t specify what the paused funding was intended to be used for.

    The official did note that the university “infamously permitted a male to compete on its women’s swimming team.”

    The University of Pennsylvania became a target for Republicans and conservatives after swimmer Lia Thomas, who initially competed on the men’s swimming team, transitioned and then swam for the women’s team during the 2021–22 season—in compliance with the NCAA policies at the time. Thomas went on to win the NCAA championship in the 500-yard freestyle, although her time was not an NCAA record.

    President Donald Trump campaigned in part on getting “men out of women’s sports,” and signed an executive order in early February specifically banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. The order is part of a broader rollback of trans rights, and Trump has gone so far as to deny the existence of trans and gender-nonconforming people, declaring that there are only two sexes, male and female.

    Shortly after the order was signed, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title IX investigation into transgender athletes participating in college sports at the University of Pennsylvania. The Education Department also urged the NCAA to rescind all “records, titles, awards, and recognitions” given to trans women and girls. Since Trump’s order, the NCAA and Penn have acceded and revised policies to prevent trans women from competing in women’s sports.

    A senior Trump administration official told Fox Business that the pause was a “proactive punishment” and that the university is at risk of losing all federal funding as part of the ongoing Title IX investigation.

    “This is just a taste of what could be coming down the pipe for Penn,” the official told Fox Business, which first reported on the pause.

    A University of Pennsylvania spokesperson said Wednesday afternoon that the institution had yet to receive any official notification or any details about the pause. The spokesperson noted that Penn follows NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.

    “We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions,” the spokesperson said.

    Columbia, Penn and other universities are facing great uncertainty when it comes to federal funding as Trump looks to cut spending and crack down on programs that don’t align with his priorities. Penn recently paused hiring and took other steps to curb spending.

    Pausing Penn’s funding without any formal investigation and outside the typical processes for such a punishment is just the latest salvo in Trump’s attacks on wealthy universities. Earlier this month, the administration cut $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University, accusing the institution of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”—an unprecedented move that alarmed experts and higher education advocates. Trump officials then ratcheted up the pressure by demanding sweeping changes at Columbia as a precondition to formal negotiations. Columbia has until Thursday, March 20, to respond.

    Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education, said the administration is punishing conduct they disagree with, adding that he found the Penn pause “more troubling” because of the lack of explanation or rationale.

    “It’s one thing to say we think there’s a big problem,” he said. “It’s a much bigger deal to say we’re arbitrarily suspending funding without a reason … You should at least have a reason for taking serious action.”

    He noted that the current regulations governing Title IX don’t specifically bar transgender students from participating in women’s sports, and that Penn is in compliance with the policies. So he’s not sure what Penn could offer the Trump administration to restore the funding.

    Blake Emerson, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the funding pause is illegal since the administration didn’t follow the processes under Title IX to pull funding. That process includes a formal hearing and a report to Congress.

    “There is no freestanding executive power to cut off money without legal authority,” he said. “It’s another instance in this pattern of the Trump administration not just aggressively using the law to target political opponents and universities, but flouting the law and not even showing casual regard for the legal process.”

    Emerson noted that executive orders aren’t laws, and that if the Trump administration wants to change the existing interpretations of Title IX, it has to go through the rule-making process.

    He urged Penn and Columbia to fight the cuts, as he doesn’t think “acquiescence is likely to appease” the Trump administration.

    “Universities have a strong case to make that the funds being cut off are really necessary to provide essential public services the universities provide,” he said. “We’re losing scientific research because of these illegal steps, and universities are failing to make the case for their own programs when the actions being taken against them are clearly illegal. To my mind, acquiescence is a major blunder.”

    Meanwhile, conservative activists who have railed against trans athletes praised the move.

    Riley Gaines, who competed against Thomas, called the timing of the announcement “serendipitous” in a social media post. Three years ago Wednesday, she tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championships.

    Beth Parlato, senior legal adviser for the Independent Women’s Law Center, said in a statement that the message from the funding pause was clear: comply or suffer the consequences.

    “President Trump means business and he’s not going to tolerate any school willfully violating the law,” Parlato said. “It is so encouraging to see an administration actually follow through with promises made to the American people, and I’m looking forward to watching each and every school that fails to protect women and girls be held accountable.”

    Source link

  • Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

    Columbia AAUP Urges University to Reject Trump’s Demands

    The American Association of University Professors chapter at Columbia University is urging officials there to reject the Trump administration’s demands, which include putting an academic department under receivership, abolishing the University Judicial Board and giving security employees arrest authority.

    “Compliance would make Columbia complicit in its own destruction, stripping shared control of academic and student affairs from the faculty and administration and replacing the deliberative practices and structures of the university with peremptory fiats from outside the institution,” the AAUP chapter said in a statement Tuesday. “We see no evidence that compliance would assuage the hostility of the White House.”

    The Trump administration announced March 7 it was canceling about $400 million in federal grants and contracts for Columbia due to what it claims is the university’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Then, in a letter last week, federal officials listed “next steps that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” They set a March 20 deadline for complying with the demands, which also include a mask ban, a plan for changing admissions and more.

    The Columbia AAUP’s statement said, “The government’s demands read like a ransom letter, dictating to the university what principles it must sacrifice and what ideological positions it must adopt to restore research funding.” As for the justification of fighting antisemitism, the AAUP chapter said the university took “many actions over the last year to accommodate its Jewish students, sometimes at the expense of the grievances of other campus groups.”

    The AAUP chapter said this “assault on Columbia will serve as a model for attacks on other universities across the nation” and urged colleagues to speak out and “march in the streets.”

    The White House didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday.

    Source link

  • HEDx Podcast: ‘Never waste a crisis’: CIO of Arizona State University – Episode 159

    HEDx Podcast: ‘Never waste a crisis’: CIO of Arizona State University – Episode 159

    Arizona State University (ASU) chief information officer Lev Gonick and Dave Rosowsky, senior advisor to the president of ASU, both believe universities can thrive in the age of AI by actively shaping how the technology is integrated into higher education.

    In this podcast, they share how ASU fosters innovation through bold leadership, a culture of rapid experimentation, and partnerships with over 300 tech companies.

    Get a sneak peek into the lessons they’ll be sharing at HEDx’s April conference in Melbourne, which will offer insights into how universities can “do the work to change the model” and embrace the transformative potential of AI.

    Read more:

    Do you have an idea for a story?
    Email [email protected]

    Source link

  • Columbia University faces ultimatum from Trump administration to keep federal funding

    Columbia University faces ultimatum from Trump administration to keep federal funding

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Columbia University received a daunting laundry list of tasks Thursday from the Trump administration: Suspend or expel protesters. Enact a mask ban. Give university security “full law enforcement authority.”

    The Ivy League institution must comply with these and other demands by March 20 or further endanger its “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by multiple news sources. 

    Last week, the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism canceled $400 million of Columbia’s federal grants and contracts, alleging the university had failed to take action “in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” It also noted that Columbia has $5 billion in federal grant commitments at stake.

    The stunning move came only four days after the task force opened an antisemitism investigation into the university.

    On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education also sent warnings to 60 colleges — including Columbia — that it could take punitive action if it determines they aren’t sufficiently protecting Jewish students from discrimination or harassment.

    In Thursday’s letter, Trump administration officials said they expected Columbia’s “immediate compliance” after which they hope to “open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.” 

    The letter’s edicts are just the latest in a series of decisions made by the Trump administration and Columbia officials that have put the well-known New York institution into a tailspin.

    Strong language, few details

    Officials at the Education Department, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. General Services Administration sent Columbia Interim President Dr. Katrina Armstrong nine policy changes the Trump administration expects the university to make to retain federal funding.

    The agencies — all of which are part of the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force — accused Columbia of failing “to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment,” along with other alleged violations of civil rights laws. 

    But despite the high stakes, the task force’s demands are ambiguous. 

    For example, its letter orders the university to deliver a plan on “comprehensive admissions reform.”

    “The plan must include a strategy to reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy,” it said.

    The task force’s letter offers no further insight into what it expects Columbia to change or how it believes the university is out of line with federal standards.

    The letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    The GSA directed an emailed request for comment to the Education Department. Neither the Education Department nor HHS responded to inquiries Friday.

    The task force also ordered the university to ban masks that “are intended to conceal identity or intimidate others,” while offering exceptions for religious and health reasons. But it did not give criteria to determine why someone is wearing a mask.

    “We are reviewing the letter from the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration,” a spokesperson for Columbia said Friday. “We are committed at all times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing all forms of discrimination and hatred on our campus.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a civil rights watchdog, criticized the federal officials’ demands Friday. 

    While the group has been critical of Columbia’s handling of student protesters, it said the letter does not follow “the normal procedure for revocation of federal financial assistance for violations of Title VI.” Title VI refers to the law barring discrimination on race, color and national origin at federally funded educational institutions. 

    “While these include some policy steps that Columbia should already have taken, the letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse,” FIRE said in a statement.

    A change in due process

    The Trump administration’s task force is demanding Columbia complete ongoing disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied campus buildings and organized encampments last year. The university must dole out meaningful discipline — meaning expulsions or multi-year suspensions — the letter said.

    The same day the task force’s letter is dated, Columbia announced it had issued “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions” related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall.

    In April 2024, pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the university’s Hamilton Hall after then-President Minouche Shafik announced Columbia would not divest from companies with ties to Israel. 

    Source link

  • My robot university counsellor – The PIE News

    My robot university counsellor – The PIE News

    The PIE’s Director of Research and Insight, Nicholas Cuthbert tests the limits of virtual counsellor software!

    Can he tell the difference between a human and a machine? The video shows how AI is revolutionising recruitment, with powerful WhatsApp integrations and offer-letter capabilities making lead conversion faster and smoother than ever.

    Source link