Quick hits.
- A group of graduate students in Harvard University’s department of African and African American studies is calling for reforms in the wake of the sexual-harassment controversy surrounding the anthropologist John L. Comaroff. (The Harvard Crimson, The Chronicle)
- The University of Maryland at College Park has opened an ablution room to provide Muslim students and other community members a place to cleanse themselves before prayer. (The Diamondback)
- The U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s service on a key governing board at Harvard University is raising questions about whether, if confirmed, she would have to recuse herself from the cases on race-conscious admissions in the court’s next term. (The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle)
Threats to tenure.
From our Sarah Brown: This week I’ve been at the SXSW EDU Conference & Festival, an annual event in Austin, Tex., that aims to foster innovation in education. This is my first in-person conference in two years. On Wednesday, I attended a panel where faculty members discussed what they see as troubling threats from state legislatures to tenure and academic freedom. The American Association of University Professors and the African American Policy Forum are leading a national campaign to encourage faculty senates to pass a resolution defending academic freedom — with the hope of presenting a united front against political interference in academe.
It was the University of Texas at Austin Faculty Council’s decision to pass this resolution that prompted Dan Patrick, lieutenant governor of Texas, to hold a news conference calling for the end of tenure and for all professors who teach critical race theory to be fired. The incident last month drew national attention.
Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology and chair of the Faculty Council’s academic-freedom committee, said she thought passing the resolution would be the end of it. She never expected the situation to blow up as it did. “You can imagine I did a lot of second-guessing,” Gore said in an interview. But, Gore said, Patrick was undoubtedly prepared to go to bat against higher ed — it was just a matter of time.
Gore said she believes the AAUP is an effective venue for fighting those threats because its advocacy and censures of institutions gain the attention of accreditors and other key stakeholders. She said she believes UT’s leadership has the faculty’s back in this fight. She met this week with Jay Hartzell, the university’s president. “I felt very reassured,” she said, “by what President Hartzell told us about how he feels about academic freedom.”
Comings and goings.
- Kathy Schwaig, interim president since July 2021 of Kennesaw State University, has been named the sole finalist to be the permanent president by Georgia’s Board of Regents.
- Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen, senior director for the New York/tri-state region at the New Israel Fund, has been named dean of the Rabbinical School and dean of the division of religious leadership at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
- Mo Wang, director of the Human Resource Research Center and chair of the department of management at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, has been named the college’s first associate dean for research.
Footnote.
If you’ve been missing last year’s cicadas, have no fear: Giant spiders are almost here.
Researchers at the University of Georgia announced last week that millions of invasive Joro spiders (Trichonephila clavata) are expected to parachute from the sky this summer and spread across the East Coast.
The Joro spider, from East Asia, is the size of a child’s hand (terrifying), can tolerate cold weather (impressive), and is harmless to human beings (but, may I add, still has fangs!). And they’re quite colorful — see here.
The Joro began infiltrating North America in 2013, concentrating in Georgia. Unlike some invasive species, it doesn’t seem to be doing much damage and could provide nice meals for hungry birds. Scientists at the University of Georgia believe the invaders could spread through most of the Eastern Seaboard.
To which I say — “Absolutely not.” California’s looking real nice now.
