Quick hits.
- Columbia University will not submit data to U.S. News & World Report for the next edition of its college rankings, the provost announced on Thursday. A Columbia professor alleged earlier this year that the university had submitted false data to the magazine. Columbia ranked second nationally in the 2022 rankings of national universities. (The Chronicle, Columbia University)
- A major change in public-records requirements for universities in Pennsylvania is working its way through the state’s General Assembly. If passed, it would require state-related universities to disclose salary, budget, and contract information in a user-friendly online database. (The Center Square)
- The Virginia Community College system board relented after Gov. Glenn Youngkin demanded that his administration take part in the board’s search for a new chancellor to lead the 23-campus system. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
- After a Johns Hopkins summer program for high-school students was canceled less than two days before it was to begin, the program’s staff published an open letter to senior leadership about what went wrong.
Who gets to manage the endowments of America’s wealthiest colleges?
Researchers working with Knight Foundation and NYU’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights tried to survey the country’s wealthiest 25 private and 25 public colleges on the diversity of asset management firms overseeing their endowments. They hoped to study the degree to which the endowments hire firms owned by women and members of racial or ethnic minority groups.
But 34 of the 50 institutions refused to share their diversity data, denying any visibility into who is managing the $273 billion in assets they hold. About 12 universities fully participated in the study.
Becase of the low response rate, researchers decided to publish the information without drawing conclusions about the wider field. Read the full report here.
Weekend reads.
Here’s a list of Chronicle staff-recommended reads to keep you busy this holiday weekend:
- Courtney Kueppers details her experience with voluntary sobriety for WBEZ Chicago.
- James D. Walsh digs into why the journalist Patrick R. Keefe is predisposed to writing about the “bad guys” in a profile for New York magazine’s Intelligencer.
- Tim Prudente takes readers on his journey to restore a neglected, century-old rowhouse in Baltimore for The Baltimore Banner.
Comings and goings.
- Jim Tressel, president of Youngstown State University, will step down on February 1, 2023.
- Bill Clark, head coach of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers, will step down on August 1, 2022.
- Ming-Tung (Mike) Lee, an emeritus professor of business administration at Sonoma State University, has been appointed interim president of the institution. He will begin on August 1, following the departure of Judy Sakaki, who will step down on July 31.
Footnote.
Here’s something I wish existed when I was in undergrad:
A TikToker named Blaine has styled his account, @blainesdeclassified, as a college survival guide. He posts about aspects of the college experience, like the “weird time span” between finals week and graduation when it seems like hardly anyone is on campus.
He also maintains a playlist called “Campus Crashing,” where he sometimes poses as a medical student or law student. He’s decided Salve Regina University, with its Gilded Age grounds, is the “bougiest” campus he’s ever seen, and Hampshire College is the “most bizarre” — “the campus literally looks like a summer camp.”