Quick hits
- College “troubled” by Trump statement during town hall: Saint Anselm College, in New Hampshire, continued to defend its decision to host a controversial CNN town hall with former President Donald Trump, saying he is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. But the Roman Catholic institution added that it was “deeply troubled” by Trump’s remarks about a lawsuit in which he was found liable for sexual assault and by audience members’ reacting with laughter. Trump turned a question about the case into an answer about how he was polling with voters, and denied knowing the woman who had sued him, E. Jean Carroll, even though a jury awarded her $5 million for sexual abuse and defamation. (Saint Anselm College, NBC News)
- First Idaho tuition increase since 2019: The Idaho State Board of Education on Monday approved 5-percent increases in tuition and fees for resident undergraduates at Boise State University, Idaho State University, and the University of Idaho, as well as a 5.6-percent hike at Lewis-Clark State College. The increases come as universities face rising costs like employee pay, utilities, and health-insurance premiums. (KTVB)
- Oxford ditches Sackler ties: The University of Oxford is striking the Sackler name from two museum galleries, a library, and several staff members’ positions, becoming the latest institution to distance itself from the family that owns the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma. Oxford said it is retaining all of the family’s gifts and will continue recognizing the name on a building plaque and a museum donor board for “historical recording of donations to the university.” (The Guardian, The Chronicle)
- Accreditor asks Adirondack college for teach-out plan: The Middle States Commission on Higher Education asked Paul Smith’s College, a private institution in upstate New York, to draw up a teach-out plan amid heightened concern about its finances. The institution said the request had been prompted by a cyberattack affecting systems that administer financial aid. Paul Smith’s is seeking to be acquired by a nonprofit organization that’s focused on work-force preparation. (Adirondack Explorer)
New in The Chronicle
A three-year presidency
Jack Thomas will step down as president of Central State University at the end of June, capping a short tenure at the historically Black institution in Ohio. His departure follows similar complaints about his leadership style from his time as president of Western Illinois University. Our Megan Zahneis has more.
Colorblind admissions
What do people mean when they say they’re colorblind? The answer is more important than ever as the Supreme Court considers the future of race-conscious admissions.
As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. put it in a 2007 case, “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But in practice, it’s not so simple, Richard Thompson Ford writes in The Review.
AAUP censures leaders at two colleges
The American Association of University Professors’ governing council voted to censure administrations at Emporia State University, in Kansas, and Collin College, in Texas, it said on Tuesday. Censure indicates the faculty organization finds a lack of protection for academic freedom and tenure.
Emporia State and the Kansas Board of Regents ignored standards recommended by the AAUP and their own procedures when they terminated 30 professors who were either tenured or on the tenure track, according to the AAUP. Faculty members weren’t involved in decisions on the cuts or on curricular changes, which means shared governance is lacking at the institution, the AAUP said.
Collin College fired three professors, in violation of their academic freedom to criticize institutional policies, the AAUP said. It also faulted the procedures the college had used to fire them.
Comings and goings
- Venkat Reddy, chancellor of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, will step down and return to the faculty after serving for the next year as an adviser for special projects to the University of Colorado system’s president.
- Roderick Smothers, president of Philander Smith College, in Arkansas, will step down after eight years of leading the college.
- Jeff Borden, vice provost for learning experience at National University, in California, has been named dean of the School of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, in Washington.
To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.
Footnote
Our Andrew Mytelka contributes the following dispatch from a family graduation he attended this past weekend.
Commencements, like weddings, seem of surpassing importance at the time, but then are swiftly forgotten as participants depart with what they came for: a diploma or a spouse. In the moment, a gown, a corsage, a table’s centerpiece, matter more than anything. Afterward, who remembers?
Unless something goes wrong. That’s why colleges take such pains to plan their events. Everything must be perfect — because, in a sense, a college’s graduation ceremony is the final act in a courtship that it hopes will lead to decades of alumni engagement.
A recent commencement I attended shows how. The college devised an elaborate set of rules for parents and graduates, to make sure all went smoothly. Some seemed to be hopeless bids at controlling the uncontrollable: No confetti, air horns, champagne bottles, or beach balls. Turn off all phones. Mortarboards with objectionable messages may be confiscated. Grads must wear “professional attire” (i.e., clothes, I assume) under their gowns.
Commencement is, unlike nearly all college events, the thankless work of staff across a campus, from the parking attendants right up to the president. It’s a joyous occasion for the grads and their families, but for the staff it’s a day when any miscue, however small, could seem like a world-class bad-hair day.
For the record, the commencement went off without a hitch. Unless you count the parent I overheard grousing, “Where’s that commemorative brick we bought?”
