Quick hits.
- Gardner-Webb University’s Board of Trustees dropped O. Max Gardner III, a grandson of a man for whom the North Carolina college was named, from its membership for malicious conduct, including threatening to shoot a university contractor. (WJZY)
- An openly gay pastor and graduate of West Texas A&M University removed the university from his will after its president canceled a campus drag show. (KVII, The Chronicle)
- Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, will remove a former president’s name from its library because of her racist and antisemitic beliefs. (Philly Voice)
- The University of Houston is considering the future of an academic building where two students have died this spring. Both deaths were apparent suicides. (Houston Chronicle)
- Millikin University, in Illinois, will lay off 15 employees, including tenured and tenure-track faculty members. (WAND)
College offers students with learning disabilities the opportunity to study abroad.
Beacon College, a liberal-arts institution in central Florida, prides itself on meeting the educational needs of students with learning disabilities, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other learning differences.
But in one area, the college was falling short: study abroad. Although Beacon ran 10-day international trips during the summer, its students had no opportunity to take part in longer-term immersive and academically focused overseas study, said Shelly Chandler, the provost.
Chandler and her colleagues set out to change that. In the fall of 2017, they started Beacon in Tuscany, which the college says is the first semester-long global-education program for students who learn differently.
Nationally, students with disabilities study abroad at lower rates than their classmates. While about one in five American undergraduates report having a disability, according to the U.S. Department of Education, only 11 percent of students who go abroad do, the latest findings from an annual survey by the Institute of International Education show. Their numbers have increased since the institute began collecting such data, in the 2006-7 academic year. Back then, less than 3 percent of study-abroad students said they had a disability.
Beacon’s efforts show that it is possible to expand international opportunities for students with disabilities and suggest some strategies for serving them.
Read more from our Karin Fischer in this week’s Latitudes newsletter.
Comings and goings.
- Suzanne Sherman, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the New College of Florida, has stepped down. Brad Thiessen, who served as interim president after Patricia Okker’s removal, has been named interim provost.
- Kathy Kaoudis, vice president for administrative services and chief financial officer at the Community College of Denver, has been named vice chancellor for administration and finance at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
- Michael S. Spencer, interim dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, has been named to the post permanently.
To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.
Footnote.
It’s Sweet 16 time, which calls for a roundup of the funniest, most surprising, and most heart-warming moments in this year’s NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. I won’t attempt to rank the moments.
New Jersey, home of the upset: Last year saw the Saint Peter’s University Peacocks advance to the Elite Eight in the men’s tournament, upsetting Kentucky, Murray State, and Purdue in one fowl swoop. This year we’ve watched Princeton University and Fairleigh Dickinson University topple higher-ranked teams — the University of Arizona and Purdue University, respectively — in the first round. FDU’s defeat of Purdue reminded us of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County’s shocking rout of the University of Virginia in 2018, a more embarrassing part of my college experience than when I got blonde highlights.
*Clutches pearls:* Players are letting the curse words fly in this year’s tournaments, according to Deadspin. In one interview, a player for Florida Atlantic University apologizes immediately for cursing, only to be reassured by the interviewer that they’re on cable, not the public airwaves.
Twins in the tourney: Haley and Hanna Cavinder are headed to the Sweet 16 with the University of Miami. The twins are, according to the Associated Press, “two of the bigger stars of the name, image, and likeness era in college athletics,” boasting 4.4 million followers on TikTok.
