Daily Briefing

Welcome to Wednesday, February 22. Today’s Briefing was written by Sylvia Goodman, with contributions from Julia Piper. Write to us: sylvia.goodman@chronicle.com.

When conflict and politics disrupt research.

Russia’s war on Ukraine caused an abrupt rupture in academic research. Joint projects were called off overnight, with European countries outright banning research cooperation with Russia. Russia’s government, too, announced measures to discourage international collaboration.

Russia is not the only place where on-the-ground fieldwork has become difficult, if not impossible, for outside researchers. In China, President Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on power has extended to academe. Archives have been closed to the public. Once-innocuous topics of inquiry, like trade policy or migration, have become politicized. Wariness of the West has made it more difficult for researchers to interview officials or average citizens. And Sino-American tensions, including policies put in place by the U.S. government, have further chilled scholarly exchange.

If the door has been slammed shut for researchers of Russia, it has been closing, bit by bit, for those who study China. After the relative openness of recent decades, many worry this could be a return to a time when both countries were largely closed off and academics were forced to do their work from afar.

“We’re back to being Cold War scholars,” said Jeremy S. Friedman, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who studies the history of communism and socialism in Russia, China, and the developing world.

Find out more from our Karin Fischer.

Quick hits.

• The president of Asbury University, a private Christian institution, disbanded a 24/7 revival meeting on the campus after 13 days. The religious services drew thousands to the small Kentucky town of Wilmore when they went viral on TikTok. (Insider)
• An 18-year-old man has been charged in the death of a Temple University police officer who was shot near campus Saturday night. (CBS News)
• Striking graduate students at Temple University have voted overwhelmingly to reject a tentative agreement to end a bitter three-week-old walkout on the Philadelphia campus. The deal had offered the 750 teaching and research assistants unspecified higher pay and health insurance for them but not their dependents. It’s not clear what will happen next. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Bills requiring Virginia public universities to better assess if a person poses a violent threat and notify authorities quickly have passed the legislature and are heading to the governor’s desk three months after three students died in a shooting at the University of Virginia. (The Washington Post, The Chronicle)
• The salary of Richard Corcoran, New College of Florida’s incoming interim president, will be $699,000 plus benefits — a figure double his predecessor’s and more than almost any other president in the system. Corcoran was previously the Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and the state’s education commissioner before stepping down in 2022 amid allegations of bid-rigging. (Tampa Bay Times)
• Wyoming lawmakers have removed disincentives for virtual learning at community colleges by allowing the state to reimburse community colleges equally for virtual and in-person courses. (The Sheridan Press)
• Graduate-student workers at the University of Minnesota announced plans to unionize this week as they push for better pay and scheduled raises. (CBS News)
  

Quote of the day.

“Time to rally the troops and positive love for public comments.”

— Greg McKenzie, chair of the North Idaho College Board of Trustees, in a text message to a student

The accreditor of North Idaho College issued a “show cause” sanction on Thursday, and although the college is still accredited for now, the sanction is a final warning before the institution risks losing its accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

The Coeur d’Alene Press reported that McKenzie sent the text message to at least one NIC student asking for comments praising the trustees and Interim President Greg South at the next board meeting and the first since the accreditor’s sanction. Another trustee asked via email that “a large number of conservatives” attend the meeting.

Comings and goings.

• Michael L. McFrazier, dean of the Whitlowe R. Green College of Education at Prairie View A&M University, has been named acting president.
• Susan Rundell Singer, vice president for academic affairs and provost at Rollins College, in Florida, has been named president of St. Olaf College, in Minnesota.
• Margaret Lo, director of business engagement at the Institute for Market Transformation, in Washington, D.C., has been named chief sustainability officer at Ball State University.
• Paul Edwards, chief business officer for the Richard Bland College at the College of William and Mary, has been named vice president for finance and administration at Western Illinois University.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote.

Almost everyone — myself included — has some grade, paper, or other academic failure that still sticks with them. Maybe you still dream about it. But Gaurav Sabnis, associate professor of marketing at Stevens Institute of Technology, believes it’s important to talk about such topics openly — with his own students.

“Flex your lowest academic low score,” Sabnis wrote on Twitter. “To remind us that almost everyone fails at some point in life but it isn’t the end of the road. Just a memory in the end.”

The tweet garnered nearly 50,000 retweeted responses, as people from all walks of life shared their failures and eventual triumphs. Sabnis shared his own: “Mine was 27/100 in Engineering Math 2, just a year after I’d scored 99 in 12th boards. Much needed kick in my butt.”

What’s you lowest-score flex? What grade or assignment was your “kick in the butt”? We want to hear from you at sylvia.goodman@chronicle.com.