Quick hits.
- The University of Idaho will demolish the house where four students were stabbed to death in November. A spokesperson told the Idaho Statesman the university plans to have the house brought down by the end of the spring semester. (Idaho Statesman)
- The King’s College, in New York City, has asked its donors to fork over $2.6 million to help it meet basic needs and avoid shutting down. It’s raised less than $200,000 so far. (Inside Higher Ed)
- Columbia University will end its Covid-vaccination mandate when the national public-health emergency declaration ends, on May 11. (Bill Grueskin on Twitter)
- In the midst of a financial crisis, New Jersey City University will retain its nursing, English as a second language, and early-childhood education programs, and cut 98 other programs. The university’s interim president cited its mission of helping low-income students enter the middle class as the reason for preserving the programs. (northjersey.com)
A faculty panel recommended censure, but she was suspended and banished instead.
Controversy over an award-winning UCLA ecologist who was suspended without pay and banned from campus deepened last week when her supporters accused the University of California at Los Angeles chancellor’s office of blowing concerns about collegiality out of proportion and deciding to “massively expand” the sanctions a faculty committee had recommended.
Meanwhile, emails and documents obtained by The Chronicle paint a picture of an embattled department whose members were divided over whether Priyanga Amarasekare was justified in her complaints about discrimination or whether she had taken those grievances too far, behaving unprofessionally toward her colleagues.
As the fallout over Amarasekare’s’s suspension continued, personnel issues that are normally handled behind a university-enforced wall of privacy spilled into the open. Our Katherine Mangan has the latest.
The future of college finances.
It’s budget season for colleges, and that could mean faculty and staff raises, money for new programs and improvements, and breathing room, or layoffs, cutbacks, and, in the worst cases, closure.
For many colleges, budgeting in 2023 is tougher than ever, according to experts. Tuition-dependent private institutions and increasingly tuition-dependent public colleges are facing lower revenues, thanks to enrollments depressed by the pandemic and continuing demographic shifts. The nearly $80 billion in federal aid that buoyed institutions through the worst of Covid-19 is effectively gone. And the go-go economy that helped the country power through the worst of the past three years has cooled, sapping endowment performance and spiking inflation, which makes it more expensive to heat classrooms and feed students.
Read more from our Lee Gardner.
Comings and goings.
- Katie Fraumann, executive associate athletics director for development at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has been named senior vice president for advancement and external relations at DePaul University, in Illinois.
- Christian Mitchell, deputy governor for public safety, energy, and infrastructure under Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, has been named vice president for civic engagement at the University of Chicago.
- Theresa Byrd, associate dean and chair of the department of public health at Texas Tech University, has been named dean of the School of Health Professions at the University of Texas at Tyler.
- Javier Cevallos, president in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has been named president of the American Academic Leadership Institute.
To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.
Footnote.
Is someone cutting onions in this newsletter?
John Hao, a 20-year-old student who was paralyzed from the chest down in the February 13 shooting at Michigan State University, got the gift of a lifetime last week from his hospital bed.
When James Harden, a star on the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, heard that Hao was a huge fan of his and had been injured in the shooting, he sent Hao a game-worn pair of sneakers, donated to his GoFundMe campaign, and called Hao on FaceTime. In a recording of Hao and Harden’s conversation, Harden says, “Everything will work itself out, be strong. You’re all right. You’ll be all right, I promise you are.”
Harden told ESPN’s Malika Andrews he gave Hao his phone number, and hopes Hao will one day be able to attend a 76ers game.
