Quick hits.
- The online test-administration service ProctorU hired outside experts to audit its software after a U.S. senator noted cybersecurity concerns. (CyberScoop)
- Ohio University trustees voted unanimously to revoke Yusuf Kalyango Jr.'s tenure and terminate his employment. At least two students accused the journalism professor of sexual harassment. (The Columbus Dispatch)
- The Yale University law professor Amy Chua was recently removed as one of the school’s small-group leaders for this fall’s entering law students, after students accused her of violating a 2019 agreement that stemmed from misconduct allegations. Chua has denied holding dinner parties, one of the restrictions adopted to stop her interacting with students outside of class. (Yale Daily News)
- Bowling Green State University has expelled its Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity chapter from campus for hazing violations after the death of Stone Foltz, a Pi Kappa Alpha pledge, last month. (WTOL)
- North Carolina State University raised $58.1 million during its its 24-hour Day of Giving on March 24, breaking all previous records for a campus giving day at any university. (The Chronicle of Philanthropy)
Is application inflation worth the hype?
Application totals at highly selective colleges during the 2020-21 admissions cycle broke records — and, surely, record numbers of hearts. The more applicants that apply to a hypercompetitive college, the more rejections it must deliver. And there’s been no shortage of commentary on that truism in the past week, with headlines like “Harvard and Its Peers Should Be Embarrassed About How Few Students They Educate” and “Why Stanford Should Clone Itself” earning clicks.
But what do application metrics really tell us? After all, application inflation isn’t new: Acceptance rates at many institutions have been plummeting for years. And application tallies from big-name colleges overshadow the challenges facing most institutions in higher education’s vast ecosystem, as well as the struggles of many students within it. Those eye-popping numbers can create a false sense of a never-ending boom — and obscure human stories within each admission statistic. Our Eric Hoover explains why.
How Brown U. boosted Black and Latina/o applications to its public-health master’s program.
The pandemic has caused a surge of interest in public-health master’s programs. That rise is especially striking at Brown University, where applications to its MPH program more than doubled from last year, with the increase driven partly by Black and Latina/o applicants.
The program still has plenty of work to do. Even with the large increases in Black and Hispanic applicants — 187 percent and 137 percent, respectively, from the year before — these groups account for only 15 percent of the total pool. Still, officials are hopeful they’re on a trajectory to a more-diverse program. They’ve taken a number of steps that help explain the surge in interest from underserved communities. Our Vimal Patel explains in this week’s edition of the Race on Campus newsletter.
Join us at our next virtual event: Higher Ed’s Reset.
Covid-19 has presented higher ed with tremendous challenges, but also an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how it educates and operates. Join us for Higher Ed’s Reset, a three-day virtual event April 20-22 to help colleges not just recover but also rebuild better after the pandemic. Register here.
Comings and goings.
- Glenn M. Sulmasy, provost and chief academic officer at Bryant University, has been named president of Nichols College. He will succeed Susan West Engelkemeyer, who plans to retire.
- Donald J. Green, president of Georgia Highlands College, has been named president of Point Park University. He will succeed Paul Hennigan, who plans to retire.
Footnote.
Ah, Reviewer 2: The academic personality we all love to hate. Social Science Quarterly set out to quantify that hatred last summer, with a study designed to “empirically test the wide belief that Reviewer #2 is a uniquely poor reviewer.”
As part of the study, the reviewer database from the journal Political Behavior was analyzed to determine whether the second reviewer was more critical of a manuscript or more likely to rate it more than one category below the mean of the other reviewers. The results may surprise you: Reviewer #2 was exonerated, and no evidence was found to indicate that second reviewers are “either more negative about the manuscript or out of line with the other reviewers.”
So who’s the culprit? David A. M. Peterson, the study’s author, comes to the following conclusion: “Reviewer #2 is not the problem. Reviewer #3 is. In fact, he is such a bad actor that he even gets the unwitting Reviewer #2 blamed for his bad behavior.”
On Twitter, Social Science Quarterly pointed out the reach of Peterson’s work, which was downloaded 142,000 times last year. We’d love to see a follow-up study.