Quick hits.
- A new database allows users to search whether their local museum or college is holding onto Native American remains. More than 600 federally funded institutions have reported possessing remains to the Department of the Interior, three decades after Congress created a process for tribes to request repatriation. (ProPublica)
- The University of Pittsburgh is closing its English Language Institute, which for almost 60 years has helped international students improve their English skills. Leaders fault decreasing enrollment and increasing financial difficulties. (TribLive)
- A federal district court in Illinois has ruled that Title IX protects independent contractors, denying a request by DePaul University to dismiss a wrongful-termination Title IX lawsuit brought by a contracted mental-health provider. (Inside Higher Ed)
- An investigation by The Michigan Daily found that Sophie Zhang, a Michigan graduate and Facebook whistle-blower, filed a Title IX complaint last fall against her father, a professor at the University of Michigan. Zhang alleges her father abused her on the basis of her transgender identity. (The Michigan Daily)
- The University of Florida is spending $300,000 on a new swimming pool for the mansion to be occupied by the family of Ben Sasse, the former Republican senator from Nebraska who will take office next month as the campus’s new president. The university decided to build the pool, and its cost is being borne by UF donors. (WUFT)
Grad students get higher stipends amid surge in unionizing.
Graduate students across the country are voting to unionize and securing pay increases from their colleges — a movement that got a major boost from the recently settled strike across the University of California system. The strike, which included grad students, postdocs, and academic researchers, was the largest in American higher-ed history.
As the strike dragged on for weeks, several other universities offered salary increases or one-time payouts to their grad students and postdocs. At some colleges, graduate students took steps to unionize. One expert said the labor organizing was part of a decade-long trend that has seen “more than a 50-percent growth in the unionization of graduate assistants and research assistants.”
Here’s more from our Kate Marijolovic, Julian Roberts-Grmela, and Eva Surovell.
Stat of the day.
51 percent
That’s the proportion of young professionals who report having needed help for mental-health issues in the past year, according to a new Mary Christie Institute survey.
The survey, which was conducted by Morning Consult and released by Mary Christie in partnership with the Healthy Minds Network, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of Colleges and Employers, finds that early-career college graduates are experiencing significant mental-health issues and cite their jobs as contributing factors. More than 1,000 college-educated working adults ages 22 to 28 participated.
Respondents are split over whether their colleges prepared them emotionally for the work force. Thirty-nine percent say that yes, their colleges did prepare them for the emotional side of work, while another 39 percent say their colleges didn’t.
Comings and goings.
- Stephen C. Head, chancellor of Lone Star College, plans to retire on August 1.
- JuliAnn Mazachek, president of Midwestern State University, in Texas, has been named the next president of Washburn University, in Kansas. Keith Lamb, MSU’s vice president for enrollment management and student affairs and chief strategy officer, has been named interim president.
- Karen K. Petersen, dean of the Kendall College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tulsa, has been named president of Hendrix College, in Arkansas.
- Frederick G. Slabach, president of Texas Wesleyan University, has been named dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law.
To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.
Footnote.
I asked for your opinions on your college town’s food, and, like a speedy campus robot, you delivered.
William A. Marko, a graduate of Tulane University, wrote to say that yes, New Orleans has the best food. “World-class restaurants, neighborhood joints, po’ boy places, great bars, and music clubs!” he wrote. “And the food scene continues to grow,” with a blend of cuisines from around the world.
Anne Tomsky, who attended the University of Richmond, said that Virginia’s capital city “absolutely has the best food scene ever.”
I even received a campus love story in my inbox. Paul Stock, who attended Clarion University of Pennsylvania — now known as PennWest Clarion — reminisced about Bob’s Sub Shop. In college, Stock and his girlfriend would grab cheese subs and cherry sodas at Bob’s and then eat lunch in the park. “It was so relaxing and sort of romantic, for college students,” he wrote. They got married after graduation. Bob’s is still standing.
The Research Triangle, in North Carolina, appears to be a hotly contested foodscape. Peter Lange, a political-science professor and former provost at Duke University, said that Durham has the best food, while John Barnshaw, who attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote that Chapel Hill was not the most delicious place he’s ever lived. We’ll need graduates of N.C. State, Shaw University, and other Raleigh institutions to settle this debate!
