Tag: University

Higher education postcard: London South Bank University

On 12 May 1888 the London Evening Standard reported as follows:

A meeting is to be held at the Mansion House at twelve o’clock, on June 8, to consider the projected South London Polytechnic Institutes. It is stated that Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, and Sir Lyon Playfair have agreed to be present in order to lend their support to the scheme.

We’ve met Sir Lyon Playfair before – sometime secretary to the Department of Science, he advised on the question of a maritime school for Southampton, which ultimately became Southampton Solent University. Lord Rosebery and Lord Salisbury were both eminent politicians, Salisbury a Tory, Rosebery a Liberal. In 1888 Salisbury was Prime Minister. Rosebery would be Prime Minister soon too – he succeeded Gladstone in 1894, the following year being replaced himself by Salisbury. Clearly the support of these figures was significant. But what was going on?

Enter Mr Edric Bayley. Bayley was a solicitor living in Southwark: partner at a local practice, he was becoming a man of some substance. In 1892 and 1895 he was elected as a member of the London County Council, representing Southwark West for the Progressive Party. Prior to that, in 1887, he had established a group – the South London Polytechnic Institutes Council or, in some accounts, Committee. This sought to use funds under the control of the Charity Commissioners to create technical and recreative institutes in New Cross, Borough and Battersea. This seems to have been the scheme referred to in the Evening Standard article. In 1888 the Charity Commissioners agreed to match funds up to £150,000 for this scheme. And do the game was most definitely afoot.

The New Cross institute became Goldsmiths College; the Battersea one became Battersea Polytechnic and in due course the University of Surrey.

The Borough story goes like this. In 1890, anticipating success, buildings were purchased: these had previously been the base of the British and Foreign School Society; the South London Polytechnic Institutes (Borough Road Site) Act 1890 authorised the purchase. In 1891 sufficient funds had been raised to proceed with the overall scheme, and an act of Parliament passed to create a legal basis for the new institutions. And in 1892 Lord Rosebery opened the polytechnic. His speech was notable for suggesting that by forbidding smoking in the new polytechnic, they would be unable to compete favourably with public houses. And that the structures against dancing and dramatic performances similarly might be too severe.

It’s worth looking at this extract from his speech – reported in The Globe of Friday 30 September 1892. Not only because it gives a lovely flavour of Rosebery’s speech-making, but also for the slight hint, maybe, of Johnsonian populism.

The polytechnic was a technical and recreative institute, which means that as well as technical courses, it also had a gymnasium, and offered facilities for clubs and so on. Obviously as long as they weren’t dramatic or involved dancing. The model was the People’s Palace in the east end, which became Queen Mary College. And that’s a story for another time.

And so the Borough Polytechnic Institute started to do what it did, which was to educate people. Very successfully too, with the National Bakery School, for example, being an early innovation.

In 1970 the Borough Polytechnic Institute became the Polytechnic of the South Bank, and incorporated a number of other institutions: the Brixton School of Building, the City of Westminster College, and the National College of Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering. In 1975, when education colleges were being brought into existing HEIs, the Battersea College of Education and some of the provision at Rachel MacMillan College of Education joined the polytechnic.

In 1987 the polytechnic shuffled its name, becoming the South Bank Polytechnic. In 1992 it became South Bank University and in 2003 it became London South Bank University.

Finally, here’s a jigsaw of the card. It’s unposted, which means I can’t be sure of the date, but it looks to be pre-World War One.

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October 23, 2025
Michigan State University lays off 99 employees
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Dive Brief:
- Michigan State University is laying off 99 faculty, staff and executives this month amid rising costs and other budget pressures, President Kevin Guskiewicz said in a public message Wednesday.
- The university had cut an additional 83 employees since March because of the Trump administration’s revocation of federal research funding. Taken together, the job cuts represent 1.3% of Michigan State’s workforce.
- Officials expect the job eliminations to save the university $50 million annually. “Today we expect the overall general fund budget to be largely on target,” Guskiewicz said.
Dive Insight:

In explaining the layoffs, Guskiewicz pointed to rising costs, including significant increases in employee healthcare costs. The institution’s operating expenses generally have risen as well, a sectorwide trend playing out across the country.

Between the fiscal years 2023 and 2024, Michigan State’s operating expenses rose 10% to $3.2 billion, according to its latest financial report. They rose 17.9% between fiscal years 2020 and 2024.

Revenue hasn’t kept pace, and the university’s operating loss widened by nearly a quarter to $840 million in fiscal 2024. However, with state funding and other outside revenue sources factored in, the university’s total net position more than tripled during the same period.

Along with inflation, federal funding disruptions have weighed on Michigan State’s budget.

By Oct. 1, the Trump administration had terminated 74 federally funded projects at the university, totaling $104 million in multiyear grants and contracts, according to Guskiewicz. Those include grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Another 86 research projects, at minimum, have been hit with stop-work orders, pauses on future funding or conditional terminations, Guskiewicz said.

Enrollment has been a bright spot for the university, with its fall headcount hitting 51,838 students, according to institutional data.

“This total is close to our predictions and will keep us on the budget path we have laid out,” Guskiewicz said. Michigan State’s undergraduate class this semester hit a record 41,415 students.

However, he noted recent declines in international enrollment have weighed on tuition revenue. International students made up 8.2% of Michigan State’s student body in fall 2025, down from 8.5% last year. Their share of the university’s enrollment has almost halved since 2015, when they made up 15% of its students.

Michigan State’s colleges and administrative units have been working since the summer to cut their budgets by 9%.

“I am proud of units achieving as many savings as possible through non-personnel actions and evaluating vacancies before filling open roles,” Guskiewicz said. “Nearly two-thirds of the reductions, in fact, were proposed across supplies, services and other non-personnel expenses.”

But, he added, Michigan State wasn’t entirely able to avoid layoffs, hence the round of workforce cuts announced this week.

“These colleagues are valuable parts of our community, and their loss, for any reason, is still felt by colleges and programs,” Guskiewicz said.

The layoff numbers don’t include those whose employment classification changed, or faculty whose contracts were not renewed. However, Guskiewicz said it was difficult to quantify how many of those contract nonrenewals were related to the budget cuts or other factors such as enrollment levels or course demand.
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October 23, 2025
What the hell is going on at Indiana University?
Indiana University banned its student newspaper from printing just days before homecoming weekend — after firing the paper’s advisor when he refused to censor critical coverage.

That would be bad enough on its own, but FIRE is taking this one personally, as the Indiana Daily Student reported this hostile campaign was due in part to its coverage of FIRE’s ranking Indiana University as the worst public university for free speech.

You read that right. The school’s response to the news that they are bad at free speech … is to censor the news. It’s ironic — and not just in the Alanis Morissette sense — that these actions will likely push its overall ranking even lower next year. At least we can’t fault them for consistency.

Take action now — tell Indiana University it can’t fire a free press

And to make sure the school’s odious status fully benefits from the Streisand effect, we want to explain in excruciating detail exactly how the school earned such a low ranking.

“The president has called snipers on protestors before.”

That’s what one IU student told FIRE when asked for our annual survey to describe a time they felt they could not express their views on campus because of how other students, faculty, or administrators would respond. Another student told us:

“When I, as a student leader and representative of my entire campus, had a sniper gun pointed at me when trying to defend a protest that was in compliance with school policies.”

Both comments refer to how IU handled the pro-Palestinian protest encampments in the spring of 2024. On the eve of the protest at Dunn Meadow — a campus green space where students set up “shantytowns” in 1986 to protest and demand divestment from apartheid South Africa — administrators held an 11th-hour meeting and enacted a more restrictive speech policy banning unauthorized structures such as tents. The next day, they called in state police. That’s when officers with sniper rifles took position on the Indiana Memorial Union roof.

The year prior, IU ranked 243 out of 251 schools in our College Free Speech Rankings and was the second-worst public university overall. This year, after the sniper incident, IU ranks 255 out of 257 schools — performing poorly in terms of openness (255), administrative support (251), self-censorship (246), and comfort expressing ideas (227).

When asked this year whether they had ever been disciplined or threatened with discipline for their expression on campus, roughly a quarter of IU students said yes. 2% said they had been disciplined and 21% said they had been threatened with it.

We told you IU was a bad place for free speech.

IU faculty agree. Almost three-quarters of those we surveyed last year from March 4 to May 13 said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that the administration protects free speech on campus, while 69% said academic freedom is “not at all” or “not very” secure on their campus.

In April 2024, faculty launched a petition calling for a vote of “no confidence” in the university’s leadership. They cited encroachments on academic freedom and shared governance, highlighting examples that raised concerns about viewpoint discrimination. These included the university’s suspension of associate professor Abdulkader Sinno from his advising role after he publicly criticized the university for denying a room reservation to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group he advised, as well as its cancellation of an art exhibit and talk featuring Palestinian artist Samia Halaby at its campus museum.

That no-confidence resolution passed, with 93% of the 948 faculty members in attendance voting in favor.

Those two incidents negatively impacted IU’s performance in the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, and the cancellation of Halaby’s exhibition and talk also hurt IU in this year’s rankings.

But that’s not all. This year, IU was also penalized for:
- Postponing a campus event featuring prominent pro-Israel activist and Hamas critic Mosab Hassan Yousef after multiple student groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Middle Eastern Student Association, criticized the event and called Yousef “Islamophobic.” IU told Yousef that it was postponing the event because of “security threats involving the Muslim community and several white supremacist groups.” The event was not rescheduled.
- Failing to stop student protesters from disrupting a talk between Senator Jim Banks and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichick by pushing and harassing attendees, chanting to disrupt the event, and accusing the speakers of supporting “genocide” and “killing children.” The discussion was halted as police removed several protesters. The event then continued without further disruption.
- Canceling the LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference after President Trump issued executive orders restricting the use of federal funds for DEI initiatives.
- Banning three students from campus for a year after they were arrested for trespassing during the aforementioned suddenly out-of-bounds pro-Palestinian encampment in Dunn Meadow.
And then, last week, the school fired its Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush and then doubled down on its censorship efforts by ordering the student newspaper Indiana Daily Student to cease its print publication because it published two stories about the school suspending the Palestine Solidarity Committee and about how the school was the worst-ranked public university in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings.

We told you Indiana University was a bad school for free speech. In fact, it’s literally one of the worst. And the public is as outraged as we are — so far, over 1,700 people have sent our Take Action email to IU President Pamela Whitten telling her she can’t censor a free press.

Congratulations Indiana, you’ve managed to outdo yourself. See you at the bottom next year.
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October 23, 2025
What the hell is going on at Indiana University?
Indiana University banned its student newspaper from printing just days before homecoming weekend — after firing the paper’s advisor when he refused to censor critical coverage.

That would be bad enough on its own, but FIRE is taking this one personally, as the Indiana Daily Student reported this hostile campaign was due in part to its coverage of FIRE’s ranking Indiana University as the worst public university for free speech.

You read that right. The school’s response to the news that they are bad at free speech … is to censor the news. It’s ironic — and not just in the Alanis Morissette sense — that these actions will likely push its overall ranking even lower next year. At least we can’t fault them for consistency.

Take action now — tell Indiana University it can’t fire a free press

And to make sure the school’s odious status fully benefits from the Streisand effect, we want to explain in excruciating detail exactly how the school earned such a low ranking.

“The president has called snipers on protestors before.”

That’s what one IU student told FIRE when asked for our annual survey to describe a time they felt they could not express their views on campus because of how other students, faculty, or administrators would respond. Another student told us:

“When I, as a student leader and representative of my entire campus, had a sniper gun pointed at me when trying to defend a protest that was in compliance with school policies.”

Both comments refer to how IU handled the pro-Palestinian protest encampments in the spring of 2024. On the eve of the protest at Dunn Meadow — a campus green space where students set up “shantytowns” in 1986 to protest and demand divestment from apartheid South Africa — administrators held an 11th-hour meeting and enacted a more restrictive speech policy banning unauthorized structures such as tents. The next day, they called in state police. That’s when officers with sniper rifles took position on the Indiana Memorial Union roof.

The year prior, IU ranked 243 out of 251 schools in our College Free Speech Rankings and was the second-worst public university overall. This year, after the sniper incident, IU ranks 255 out of 257 schools — performing poorly in terms of openness (255), administrative support (251), self-censorship (246), and comfort expressing ideas (227).

2026 College Free Speech Rankings: America’s colleges get an ‘F’ for poor free speech climate

The sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings show a continued decline in support for free speech among all students, but particularly conservatives.

Read More

When asked this year whether they had ever been disciplined or threatened with discipline for their expression on campus, roughly a quarter of IU students said yes. 2% said they had been disciplined and 21% said they had been threatened with it.

We told you IU was a bad place for free speech.

IU faculty agree. Almost three-quarters of those we surveyed last year from March 4 to May 13 said it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that the administration protects free speech on campus, while 69% said academic freedom is “not at all” or “not very” secure on their campus.

In April 2024, faculty launched a petition calling for a vote of “no confidence” in the university’s leadership. They cited encroachments on academic freedom and shared governance, highlighting examples that raised concerns about viewpoint discrimination. These included the university’s suspension of associate professor Abdulkader Sinno from his advising role after he publicly criticized the university for denying a room reservation to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group he advised, as well as its cancellation of an art exhibit and talk featuring Palestinian artist Samia Halaby at its campus museum.

That no-confidence resolution passed, with 93% of the 948 faculty members in attendance voting in favor.

Those two incidents negatively impacted IU’s performance in the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, and the cancellation of Halaby’s exhibition and talk also hurt IU in this year’s rankings.

But that’s not all. This year, IU was also penalized for:
- Postponing a campus event featuring prominent pro-Israel activist and Hamas critic Mosab Hassan Yousef after multiple student groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Middle Eastern Student Association, criticized the event and called Yousef “Islamophobic.” IU told Yousef that it was postponing the event because of “security threats involving the Muslim community and several white supremacist groups.” The event was not rescheduled.
- Failing to stop student protesters from disrupting a talk between Senator Jim Banks and Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichick by pushing and harassing attendees, chanting to disrupt the event, and accusing the speakers of supporting “genocide” and “killing children.” The discussion was halted as police removed several protesters. The event then continued without further disruption.
- Canceling the LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference after President Trump issued executive orders restricting the use of federal funds for DEI initiatives.
- Banning three students from campus for a year after they were arrested for trespassing during the aforementioned suddenly out-of-bounds pro-Palestinian encampment in Dunn Meadow.
And then, last week, the school fired its Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush and then doubled down on its censorship efforts by ordering the student newspaper Indiana Daily Student to cease its print publication because it published two stories about the school suspending the Palestine Solidarity Committee and about how the school was the worst-ranked public university in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings.

Front page of Indiana Daily Student Homecoming Edition on Thursday, October 16, 2025.https://issuu.com/idsnews/docs/indiana_daily_student_homecoming_eedition_-_thursd

We told you Indiana University was a bad school for free speech. In fact, it’s literally one of the worst. And the public is as outraged as we are — so far, over 1,700 people have sent our Take Action email to IU President Pamela Whitten telling her she can’t censor a free press.

Congratulations Indiana, you’ve managed to outdo yourself. See you at the bottom next year.
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October 23, 2025
Re: University | Join the Conversation Before It’s Too Late
Hello Everyone,

The Re: University team here! I know you didn’t expect to hear from us this week, but we just passed the 100-day mark until the Re: University conference and the excitement is getting real. For those of you who don’t know, we are hosting the conference in the Marriott Ottawa on January 28^th and 29^th.

Our full agenda will be released soon but we have begun announcing our speakers and themes. Our two-day agenda is focused on exploration and action.
- Day One looks outward and forward. Through provocative plenaries, global case spotlights, and rapid-fire exchanges, participants will examine how universities are adapting to shifting financial realities, emerging technologies, and new models of teaching and learning. The focus is on ideas: what’s possible, what’s working elsewhere, and what change might look like in practice.
- Day Two turns those ideas into strategy. Sessions will focus on the “how” of transformation, think: governance, funding models, partnerships, and culture change. Participants will dig into what it takes to move from experimentation to execution and build institutions that are both resilient and ready for the future. While we may be biased, it is an incredible lineup so far.
So if you haven’t already, you should check out who is on the agenda so far here.

We also wanted to give you a heads up that we are 90% sold out of tickets so if you are planning to come, please make sure to get your ticket soon.

The university is the focal point of this conference, although we have others attending from the college sector, and we are so happy to say we have representatives from nearly 50 Canadian universities. If your institution isn’t on this list, we would love you to be part of the conversation:

Algoma University

Ambrose University

Brock University

Capilano University

Carleton University

Concordia University

Dalhousie University

Emily Carr University of Art and Design

Kwantlen Polytechnic university

Lakehead University

McMaster University

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Mount Allison University

Mount Royal University

Mount Saint Vincent University

Nipissing University

Northeastern University

Ontario College of Art & Design University

Ontario Tech University

Pacific Coast University for Workplace Health Sciences

Queen’s University

Saint Mary’s University

Simon Fraser University

St. Francis Xavier University

St. Jerome’s University

Thompson Rivers University

Toronto Metropolitan University

Trent University

Université de l’Ontario français

Université de Moncton

Université de Montréal

University College of the North

University of Alberta

University of British Columbia

University of Calgary

University of Guelph

University of Guelph-Humber

University of Manitoba

University of Northern British Columbia

University of Ottawa

University of Regina

University of Saskatchewan

University of Toronto

University of Victoria

University of Waterloo

Western University

Wilfrid Laurier University

York University

Yorkville University

We have been asked who should attend this conference and although it is open to anyone with an interest in the future of postsecondary education, we wanted to give you an idea of who will be joining these conversations.

40% of these attendees come from the President, Vice-President and Associate Vice-President portfolios, another 40% are Deans and Deputy Deans. The remaining 20% come from a wide range of roles such as CAOs, Special Advisors, Managers, Directors, Professors and many other important roles. We have attendees from institutions coast to coast with representatives also from colleges and polytechnics along with government, associations and various industry stakeholders. And not to forget our partners who we know are looking forward to meeting you all. Check them out here.

Whoever you are, if you are passionate about the future of the university in Canada then now is the time to get involved in the conversation.

We hope to see you there,

The Re: University Team

Thank you to our partners:
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October 23, 2025
University of Northern Colorado plans to lay off 50 employees
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Dive Brief:
- The University of Northern Colorado plans to lay off about 50 staff members in early November and eliminate roughly 30 vacant roles, CFO Dale Pratt said during a town hall last week.
- The layoffs come as the university tries to close a projected $7 million budget shortfall for fiscal 2026 and shrink its scale to meet lower enrollment levels. The job eliminations are expected to save $8 million to $10 million annually, or up to 7.5% of its personnel expenses.
- Signaling that layoffs were on the horizon earlier this month, university President Andy Feinstein pointed to unexpected reductions in state funding, lower-than-anticipated revenue from enrollment, inflation and historically low employee turnover.
Dive Insight:

Many of the University of Northern Colorado’s financial woes stem from enrollment that is shrinking faster than expenses. Between 2018 and 2023, the public institution’s fall headcount fell by nearly a third, to 9,067 students.

Following the pandemic, officials had expected a rebound in enrollment that has yet to materialize, Pratt said. Meanwhile Feinstein said the university is still optimistic that growth lies ahead given robust retention rates and other factors.

Even so, its student body is likely to remain smaller in the years ahead compared to the past. In his presentation, Pratt cited a note from S&P Global Ratings analysts arguing that the university’s financial health depended on its ability to scale down to meet a smaller student body going forward.

He also pointed to metrics showing that the university has more employees per student than nearly all other colleges in the state, and that its net operating results per student have been negative since fiscal 2023.

Going into the fiscal year, officials had a balanced budget drawn up for fiscal 2026, based in part on expected employee turnover and projected enrollment. Leaving jobs unfilled would have allowed University of Northern Colorado to save on costs without having to resort to layoffs, which leaders did consider when initially making the budget earlier this year, Pratt said.

But not as many employees left on their own as the university expected, with its turnover rate falling from 19.1% in June 2022 to 11.8% in June of this year, according to Pratt’s presentation. Just between 2024 and 2025, the turnover rate fell by 2 percentage points.

Moreover, Colorado lawmakers reduced the university’s funding for the current fiscal year by $550,000 to plug an unanticipated hole in the state budget, Pratt said.

An even bigger financial blow came as the new school year began. In the fall semester, 391 fewer students enrolled than the institution budgeted for, with an actual headcount of 8,443. That metric includes 119 fewer degree-seeking undergraduate students than anticipated, which Pratt described as especially worrisome.

“There were changes here that occurred that really caught us off guard,” Pratt said.

Although officials are still analyzing what exactly happened, Pratt pointed to the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration and visas, including for international students, and the recent state budget cuts.

That translated into a dip in international enrollment at larger universities in the state, including University of Colorado and Colorado State University. However, to compensate for the declines, those institutions may have recruited and enrolled students that otherwise would have gone to the University of Northern Colorado, Patt and Feinstein said.

All of those factors combined to strain the University of Northern Colorado’s budget and pressure leaders to make cuts. Officials were still clearing the layoffs with the university’s legal and human resources offices at the time of the townhall, Pratt noted.

He also said that faculty positions would only be eliminated through vacancies or nonrenewals of contracts.

In addition to its workforce, the university plans to rein in spending on travel, professional development and services and supplies. It is also reviewing student wages and graduate assistantships.
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October 23, 2025
Furore over Stanford University AI conference – Campus Review

A controversial conference at a prestigious American university where AI will author and review academic research papers has faced worldwide backlash as Australian academics join the debate about the event.

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October 21, 2025
New VC for University of Southern Qld – Campus Review

International crime expert Professor Paul Mazerolle has been appointed to lead the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), replacing acting vice-chancellor Karen Nelson.

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October 21, 2025
UVA the Fifth University to Reject Trump Higher Ed Compact

UVA officials told the Trump administration that they seek no special treatment.

Daxia Rojas/AFP via Getty Images

On a day of campus demonstrations urging officials to reject the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” the University of Virginia announced Friday that it opposes the president’s offer of yet-unrevealed special funding benefits in exchange for signing.

“The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship,” interim president Paul Mahoney wrote in a message Friday to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, which he shared with the university community. “A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education.”

The compact asks colleges to agree to overhaul or abolish departments “that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” without further defining what those terms mean. It also asks universities, among other things, to commit to not considering transgender women to be women; reject foreign applicants “who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values”; and freeze “effective tuition rates charged to American students for the next five years.”

In exchange for these agreements, the White House has said signatories would “be given [funding] priority when possible as well as invitations to collaborate with the White House.” But the administration hasn’t revealed how much extra funding universities would be eligible for, and the nine-page compact doesn’t detail the potential benefits. The compact, as well as a Thursday statement from the White House, can also be read as threatening colleges’ current federal funding if they don’t sign.

Mahoney told McMahon that his university agrees “with many of the principles outlined in the Compact, including a fair and unbiased admissions process, an affordable and academically rigorous education, a thriving marketplace of ideas, institutional neutrality, and equal treatment of students, faculty, and staff in all aspects of university operations.”

“Indeed,” Mahoney wrote, “the University of Virginia leads in several of these areas and is committed to continuous improvement in all of them. We seek no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals.”

The decision makes UVA the fifth of the nine initial institutions presented with the deal to publicly turn it down. It’s also the first public university and first Southern institution to reject it. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first of the nine to turn it down, on Oct. 10, followed by Brown University and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California.

UVA’s rejection of the compact comes after the Trump administration successfully pressured then–UVA president James Ryan to step down in June. The Justice Department had demanded he step down. The UVA Board of Visitors voted to dissolve the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion office in March, but multiple conservative alumni groups and legal entities complained that Ryan failed to eliminate DEI from all corners of campus.

A coalition of groups opposed to the compact, including the UVA chapter of the American Association of University Professors, praised the rejection in a Friday news release.

“Today’s events demonstrate the power of collective organizing and action to defeat tyranny,” the statement said. “We hope that we serve as an example to the other public universities that received the ‘Compact’—the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of Arizona—giving them the courage and clarity not to buckle.”

UVA faculty groups had overwhelmingly urged university leaders to reject the compact. And hundreds of demonstrators showed up to the anti-compact rally Friday on the UVA campus in Charlottesville, Cville Right Now reported.

Dartmouth College and Vanderbilt University also haven’t revealed their decisions. But after MIT announced its refusal of the compact, Trump offered it to all U.S. colleges and universities to sign.

White House officials met Friday with some universities about the proposal. The Wall Street Journal reported that UVA, Arizona, Dartmouth, UT Austin and Vanderbilt were invited, along with universities that weren’t part of the original nine: Arizona State University, the University of Kansas and Washington University in St. Louis.

White House spokesperson Liz Huston compared the compact in a statement to calls from former Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who she said “called on our universities to be of greater service to the nation.”

“President Trump has called on universities to do their part in returning America to its economic and diplomatic successes of the past: a nation of full employment, pioneering innovations that change the world, and committed to merit and hard work as the ingredients to success,” she said, adding the administration hosted “a productive call” with several universities.

A White House official said UVA and the other seven invited universities participated in the call.

“They now have the baton to consider, discuss, and propose meaningful reforms, including their form and implementation, to ensure college campuses serve as laboratories of American greatness,” Huston said.

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October 17, 2025
University of Rochester student expelled after speaking out about harassment will lead orchestra in concert to affirm free expression

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 20, 2025 — A former doctoral conducting student at the Eastman School of Music who was silenced after reporting harassment by a faculty member is standing up for herself in the way she knows best — by conducting a classical music concert in support of free expression.

Rebecca Bryant Novak will conduct a volunteer orchestra at the Hochstein School of Music Performance Hall in Rochester, N.Y., on Thursday, Nov. 20, in a concert sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, our first-ever classical music concert in support of free speech. The evening will feature Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture and selections from Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 — two works that faced censorial pressure in their own time and which emphasize the timeless connection between civil liberties and artistic expression.

The event will also feature internationally acclaimed violinist Lara St. John, praised by The New York Times as “a high-powered soloist.”

For Bryant Novak, who was expelled from the University of Rochester earlier this year after filing a complaint against one of her professors at Eastman, the evening will provide her not only with an opportunity to create wonderful music but to send a message to the school that she will not be intimidated into silence.

“All I’ve wanted since I came to Eastman was to become a conductor and share my appreciation for great music with others,” Bryant Novak said. “I’m looking forward to doing so this evening — while reminding Eastman that I’m not going away.”

Shortly into her first semester as a doctoral student in fall 2023, Bryant Novak complained about behavior by a professor who she said made sexist comments.

After a yearlong investigation, a panel of faculty and administrators agreed that the professor had indeed violated Rochester’s harassment policy and that Eastman’s Title IX coordinator had mishandled her complaint.

Despite all this, Eastman allowed the same school authorities to retain oversight of Bryant Novak’s academic trajectory — with one official telling her that the school restricted her performance times because of her complaint against the professor.

When Bryant Novak complained, Eastman did nothing. As a result of the alleged retaliation, Rochester opened a second investigation into Eastman’s mishandling of the situation in December 2024, and Bryant Novak publicly disclosed the university’s new investigation in a Substack article on Feb. 10.

Two weeks later, Eastman abruptly expelled Bryant Novak, citing a failure to make academic progress, even though the school never showed that she met that criteria. In doing so, the school ignored its written policy that calls for students to be given ample notice if they are in danger of falling short of academic standards.

FIRE is calling on Rochester President Sarah C. Mangelsdorf to immediately reinstate Bryant Novak and ensure that she is able to complete her doctorate under the oversight of Eastman faculty and officials who are not already subject to investigation for misconduct in her case. And we’re not alone. Over 800 members of the public have signed on to our Take Action campaign telling Mangelsdorf to heed the call.

In any case, Bryant Novak won’t be banished from the conductor’s podium. We hope to have you join us for “Outspoken: Music for Free Speech,” an evening championing the right to free expression — hers and yours.

The concert is free and open to the public. To attend, RSVP here to reserve your spot.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

CONTACT
Karl de Vries, Director of Media Relations, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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October 17, 2025