Quick hits.
- Wellesley College students on Tuesday approved a nonbinding referendum to allow admission of nonbinary and transgender applicants. Wellesley currently offers admission only to people who live and identify as women. (The New York Times)
- Delaware State University made students who wished to join a new safety working group sign a nondisclosure agreement. The group formed in response to student unrest about campus safety and sexual violence. (Delaware Online)
- The Iowa Board of Regents ordered the state’s three public universities to suspend all new diversity, equity, and inclusion programs while the board evaluates existing DEI efforts. That process is expected to take a few months. (The Des Moines Register)
- A bill proposed in the Ohio legislature would prohibit employees of public colleges from striking. The bill would also ban diversity statements in faculty hiring and require annual evaluations of professors. (The Columbus Dispatch)
- Hello, neighbor: The University of Southern California has bought a building to serve as a campus in Washington, D.C., for $49.4 million. (The Washington Post)
Protesters gather outside Charlie Kirk talk at UC-Davis.
Activists gathered on Tuesday evening outside a University of California at Davis building to protest an event hosted by the campus chapter of Turning Point USA. The chapter had invited Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and Turning Point co-founder, to speak before a 500-person audience.
According to a UC-Davis news release, the speech proceeded without interruption, but about 100 protesters converged on the main event entrance. They threw eggs and other objects, and some reported being pepper-sprayed by others in the crowd. One police officer was injured when he was jumped on and pushed to the ground. Two people were arrested for graffitiing a wall outside.
At the northeast entrance to the building, protesters broke 10 glass panes in the doors. They left the premises after not gaining access to the building.
In case you missed it: Student protesters last week at Stanford Law School interrupted a federal judge who had been invited to speak by the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society. Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, and the dean of its law school, Jenny Martinez, sent an apology letter to Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, criticizing how staff members had responded to the disruption.
“Staff members who should have enforced university policies failed to do so, and instead intervened in inappropriate ways that are not aligned with the university’s commitment to free speech,” the letter read, apparently referring to the associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, who joined Duncan at the podium and addressed students’ concerns.
Read our Julian Roberts-Grmela’s coverage of this saga.
Comings and goings.
- Christopher Dougherty, an associate professor of business and former vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Chestnut Hill College, in Pennsylvania, has been named president of Madonna University, in Michigan.
- Thomas Hudson, president of Jackson State University, in Mississippi, has resigned after being placed on administrative leave.
- Benjamin E. Rohdin, interim vice president for enrollment management and student success and associate vice president for enrollment management and student success at New Jersey City University, has been named vice president for enrollment management at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York.
To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.
Footnote.
Aaaaaaaand we’re back with another r/Professors Reddit post. This time the topic is students who send professors their medical diagnoses.
A user called liquidInkRocks requested that students ask their doctors to write “general, nonspecific” notes on why they were unable to attend class. “I appreciate your intention, but I don’t want to read the intimate details,” the original poster wrote. In response, other Reddit commenters shared stories of students who had divulged too much information by way of explaining an absence.
“I remember a student had missed because they were in court for a traffic ticket,” notjawn wrote. “Their lawyer sent me a really sappy ‘absence’ note that concluded with ‘Warmest regards.’ I just like to think Atticus Finch wrote that.”
This one, by SlightScholar1, really had me in the first half, as they say: “Last semester I had a student send me the hospital release form for not completing an assignment as they were in the hospital after a car accident. I could have done without the note telling me they were released into police custody to be taken to jail.”
To be fair, students are sometimes asked to provide detailed explanations so their professors know they’re not making things up. Some might just be going a little overboard with it. Wrote bearded_runner665: “My department wants us to ask for obits for funerals because we have a lot of dying grandparents. Had a student send me a picture of a corpse. I didn’t even ask for the obit.”
