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Embattled Eastern Gateway Community College to close
Eastern Gateway Community College, a long-struggling Ohio institution, will close this fall after battling financial woes for over a year. The university’s board of trustees approved a plan on Wednesday to shutter the college on Oct. 31. Courses will be held through the summer, with a graduation in August.
Sonoma State president on leave after protest agreement
Mike Lee was disciplined after striking a deal with student protesters. The agreement included an unusual embrace of an academic boycott of Israeli universities. Sonoma State University President Mike Lee has been placed on administrative leave after sending a campus-wide email about a deal with pro-Palestinian protesters that led California State University system officials to accuse him of insubordination.
New ChatGPT eyed for better learning at universities
The latest ChatGPT’s more human-like verbal communication has professors pondering personalized learning, on-demand tutoring and more classroom applications. Haya Ajjan eagerly sat in front of her computer on Monday, joking she was on the edge of her seat, watching OpenAI announce its newest iteration of ChatGPT. “I thought, right away, this is going to change personalized learning,” said Ajjan, associate dean at Elon University’s Love School of Business in North Carolina.
As protests still smolder, law enforcement agencies intervene
The volume and intensity of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses appears to have decreased in recent weeks from its febrile peak in late April. However, this week, leaders at two campuses where protests have continued to smolder called on law enforcement to intervene.
Sonoma State president retires amid protest controversy
Sonoma State University President Mike Lee has left his role mere days after striking a controversial deal with pro-Palestinian protesters on campus that brought a rebuke from California State University System leaders, who accused Lee of “insubordination” and placed him on administrative leave.
Scholar of Islamophobia speaks on campus protests
Khaled Beydoun, a scholar of the First Amendment and Muslim identity, discusses free speech rights on campus and argues that Islamophobia and antisemitism have shared roots. As campus protests raged across the country and pro-Palestinian demonstrators were increasingly cast as antisemites, Khaled Beydoun feared the characterization was a disservice not only to Muslim students but also to their Jewish peers.
Belmont permits hiring faculty of all faiths or none
The faith-based university in Tennessee has taken another step away from its longstanding tradition of hiring only Christian professors. Existing faculty are expected to have mixed reactions. Belmont University has hired only Christian professors for most of its history, but university leaders announced Wednesday that faculty members of all faiths, or no faith at all, are now welcome to apply, representing a major policy shift for the private Christian institution in Nashville.
Seven Georgia public colleges reinstate testing requirements
A slate of public colleges and universities in Georgia will begin requiring standardized test scores on applications again after the state’s Board of Regents voted on the matter Tuesday. Though the board oversees the entire 26-campus University of Georgia System, only seven will require test scores: Augusta University, the University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia College and State University, Georgia State University, Georgia Southern University and Kennesaw State University.
The Education Department’s $50 million FAFSA completion push
The U.S. Education Department is doling out $50 million to help students complete the troubled federal aid form. Access advocates say it’s not too late to make an impact—but time is of the essence. In late March, as students were reeling from a wave of delays and errors plaguing the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA), Chandra Scott, executive director of the college access nonprofit Alabama Possible, sat down with leaders at the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) in Washington, D.C.
Scholar of antisemitism speaks on campus protests
Benjamin Ginsberg, a scholar of American politics, Jewish history and higher education policy, explores recent campus protests and the “endlessly debated” line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. At the center of debates on what pro-Palestinian protests mean for campuses across the country is one question—are student protesters exercising antisemitism and creating an unsafe learning environment for their Jewish peers?
Washington academic student workers get deal, halt strike
The University of Washington and a union representing academic student employees there reached a tentative agreement Tuesday night, ending a strike after just one day. The union, UAW Local 4121, noted in a news release Wednesday that the deal includes a 36 percent base salary increase over three years, “the largest raises the bargaining unit has ever won in a contract.”
Socioeconomic mobility as a criterion for sorting colleges
Proposed changes to Carnegie Classification would categorize institutions based on their enrollment of low-income and minoritized students and learners’ post-college earnings. The American Council on Education (ACE) is proceeding with its plan to categorize colleges and universities based in part on how successfully they provide a “springboard to a better life” for their students.
Florida A&M trustees want external review of dubious donation
The Florida A&M University Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to hire an external firm to investigate the $237 million donation it said it had received from Gregory Gerami, an allegedly ultra-rich hemp farmer who doesn’t seem to hold the wealth he claimed.
3 Ways to Encourage College Students to Seek Help (opinion)
The act of asking for help is something that doesn’t come naturally to all students, and higher ed has a responsibility to invest in efforts to improve help-seeking, write student success professionals Cecilia Santiago-González and Zoe Lance at Cal Poly Pomona. Recent headlines have put the complexities of higher education on full display, from historically low levels of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA) completion to substantial drops in enrollment.
Defense department cuts 13 of its language flagship programs
Linguists are concerned about the implications the elimination of these programs may have on foreign relations. The U.S. Department of Defense is withdrawing funding for more than a third of the 31 language flagship programs it supports at 23 universities across the country. The move, which a department spokesperson said in email was driven by a “Congressional change in funding,” caught the linguistics community by surprise as one of the latest examples of declining support for postsecondary foreign language education.
College students pitted against ChatGPT to boost writing
New University of Nevada online courses aim to teach future educators about AI limitations through competition. Amid the swirl of concern about generative artificial intelligence in the classroom, a Nevada university is trying a different tactic by having students compete against ChatGPT in writing assignments. Students in two courses at the University of Nevada, Reno, are going head-to-head with ChatGPT by answering the same prompts as the AI and aiming to get a higher grade.
When trustees run for office
A handful of trustees are running for state and federal office this fall in an election cycle where recent higher education controversies will likely be on voters’ minds. In the state primaries that wrapped Tuesday night, current and former college trustees were among both the winning and losing candidates. Now some are headed to the general election in November, while others are ending their campaigns. Meanwhile, a few are awaiting primary day at the upcoming polls in their states.
Harvard faculty members push for university-wide senate
Amid attacks in multiple states on shared governance, faculty members seek to strengthen their role at America’s oldest higher education institution. Last year, Florida’s Republican legislature passed a law saying university leaders aren’t “bound by the recommendations or opinions of faculty or other individuals” in hiring decisions. In West Virginia, Bluefield State University leaders eliminated their institution’s Faculty Senate.
How presidents should engage boards during current protests (opinion)
Peter Eckel and Rob Farrell advise presidents on how best to engage boards during the campus upheavals over the Middle East conflict. Among the many phone calls and messages presidents are receiving about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the associated campus challenges, a healthy dose of them probably come from board members. Trustees are reading the news, thinking about their college or university and its students, faculty and staff members, presidents, and other senior administrators. They are wondering what the proper function and role of the board is in times like these. What should trustees be doing—and not doing—right now?
Democrats, Republicans say higher education is valuable
Americans may not be happy with higher education, but regardless of political affiliation, most still see its “value,” according to a new Third Way survey. Even as the public’s loss of faith in higher education dominates headlines amid campus protests, the rising cost of attendance, growing anti-DEI sentiment and more, it seems that most Americans still see value in a college degree. According to a survey of 1,500 U.S.
A Q&A with Stephen Burd, enrollment management critic
Stephen Burd’s new book blames much of higher ed’s current woes on the multi-million dollar industry. He spoke with IHE about how admissions became a numbers game and why poor students are worse off for it. Comb through the administrative ranks of any major university and chances are you’ll see a job title containing the words “enrollment management,” usually attached to a vice president or vice provost or director.
Concessions to protesters validate their tactics (opinion)
Sara Coodin writes that college leaders should resist the temptation to reward student disruptors in the name of campus peace. Seven months ago, in the days and weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attacks, Jewish parents, alumni and community groups pored over the statements of American university leaders searching for signs of moral clarity. Now, following a wave of student protests over the Israel-Hamas war, we are once again closely reading presidents’ statements, this time about encampments.
Helping higher education own its AI future: Key podcast
This week’s episode of The Key, Inside Higher Ed’s news and analysis podcast, explores the recently announced partnership between Arizona State University and Open AI—one major way colleges and universities are trying to make sure higher education isn’t left behind in generative AI’s development.
Chapel Hill shifts $2.3M from DEI to police, public safety
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday to reallocate $2.3 million that was planned to fund diversity, equity and inclusion programming next fiscal year to instead fund university police, a board member said.
Will chatbots wreak havoc on academic publishing? (opinion)
Without changes, thousands of academic papers could be sent to chatbots as reviewers without the knowledge of the authors, Cynthia Rudin warns. I recently spent an hour trying to respond to a review of a paper that my lab submitted to one of the top machine learning (ML) conferences. These are considered the most prestigious places to publish in artificial intelligence (AI), but shockingly, the review quality at these conferences has always been ridiculously bad.
Southwestern blasts student's anti-Israel commencement speech
Southwestern University on Monday condemned a student's speech at its commencement Saturday, characterizing as “highly controversial and antisemitic” her use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and asserting that she had misled institutional officials by delivering a different speech from the one she had sh
Supporting rural startup ecosystems: Academic Minute
Today on the Academic Minute, part of University of St. Thomas Week: Danielle Ailts Campeau, associate dean of the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship and a clinical professor of entrepreneurship, examines the opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation in rural areas.
Can faculty counteroffers be applied more equitably?
A new study shows that women and faculty of color who receive outside job offers are far less likely than their white, male peers to receive a counteroffer to stay at their current institution. When a faculty member receives a job offer from an outside organization or institution, their current employer often responds with a counteroffer—a written contract outlining increased salary and benefits—in an effort to retain them.