Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Thursday, May 25. Today’s Briefing was written by Rick Seltzer, with contributions from Julia Piper. Write to me: rick.seltzer@chronicle.com.

Three years after George Floyd’s murder, campuses haven’t found a new policing model

Three years ago today, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. As resulting protests erupted across the country, activists pushed for college campuses to rethink their law-enforcement operations.

“Even though some college leaders gestured toward broader plans to reform their police departments, sweeping changes haven’t occurred,” our Kate Hidalgo Bellows writes.

Some institutions instead started to focus on crime and gun violence on and near campuses. That prompted action.

• George Washington University’s police department will start arming some officers this fall.
• Portland State University quietly distanced itself from restricting officers’ ability to patrol with weapons.
• The Johns Hopkins University plans to start up its own police department this fall.
• The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities rekindled relations with Minneapolis police two years after severing some ties.

“Universities decided to wait it out until activism died out,” said Charles H.F. Davis III, an assistant professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

To be sure, some policy changes have been put in place. But those examples tend to be more incremental.

• California State University campuses banned officers from using the carotid hold, which cuts off blood flow to the brain.
• George Washington trains officers on de-escalation and unconscious bias, added police body cameras, and increased student involvement in the hiring of officers.
• Portland State publishes its campus police policy manual online.

Security is important, college leaders maintain — particularly in light of continued mass shootings, a rising number of people who carry weapons, and expectations that colleges will keep students safe. Campus police can respond to threats more quickly and reliably than municipal police departments, which are frequently understaffed, the theory goes.

Two key questions:

• Do armed officers actually make campuses safer — and for whom? Activists say giving officers weapons jeopardizes marginalized groups, pointing to research that says police disproportionately stop people of color.
• What alternatives exist? Some activists have called for colleges to abolish their police departments entirely, or prefer de-escalation teams instead of armed officers. But then what happens if a bad actor shows up armed?

The bigger picture: Campus police are just one of many areas college leaders grappled with following Floyd’s murder. But if colleges don’t find a way to lead here, how will they ever do so on other issues of race and class that cut even more directly to the heart of higher ed’s history?

Read the full story here.

Quick hits

• AAUP castigates Florida: Academic freedom, shared governance, and tenure at Florida’s public colleges are under an “unparalleled” ideological assault, the American Association of University Professors said in a new report. The faculty group described complicit administrators, a corrupt patronage system, and self-censorship — even at private institutions — as politicians work to “enforce conformity with a narrow and reactionary political and ideological agenda.” It warned that conservative politicians are using the swift overhaul of New College of Florida as a test case for encroaching on other public institutions across the country. (AAUP)
• ACT plans layoffs: The ACT is seeking to sell a campus and will lay off 106 people from its headquarters in Iowa City in June. The nonprofit testing provider, which has experienced some steep losses in recent years, blamed the cuts on shifting education and work force-development environments. (Iowa City Press-Citizen)
• College-job platform crackdown: The Justice Department reached settlements totaling more than $460,000 with 10 companies that used a Georgia Institute of Technology job-recruitment platform to post advertisements that excluded candidates who were not U.S. citizens. Federal law prohibits limiting jobs on the basis of citizenship or immigration status, except in certain circumstances. (U.S. Department of Justice)
• Florida congressman floats NIL legislation: Draft legislation would create a federal regulatory body to oversee name, image, and likeness deals for college athletes, stop boosters and other third parties from dangling incentives to recruit students to a college, and require agents, boosters, and other collectives to be registered. The draft, from Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Republican, comes as the National Collegiate Athletic Association has pushed Congress to act in the face of a complicated web of state laws. (CBS)
  

Public higher-ed funding finally recovered from the Great Recession

More money and fewer students was the story for public higher education in the 2022 fiscal year, according to the State Higher Education Finance report released this morning by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (Sheeo).

• State and local funding for higher education rose by 7.5 percent from 2021 to 2022, hitting $120.7 billion.
• Full-time equivalent, or FTE, enrollment fell by 2.5 percent to 10.31 million.
• Education appropriations per FTE increased by 4.9 percent to $10,237 — even after accounting for inflation.

It’s the first time per-student funding eclipsed levels seen in 2008, before the Great Recession walloped public spending. Per-student funding in 2022 was 3.1-percent higher than it was back before the financial crisis.

Federal-relief funding tied to the Covid-19 pandemic bolstered the money flowing to higher ed, but the report found that funding per FTE would still have increased, even without the extra federal dollars. Total education revenue, which includes tuition on top of appropriations, hit an all-time high as recorded by Sheeo — $17,393 per FTE.

Still, it’s not all wine and roses.

• Net tuition revenue fell, dropping by 1 percent in 2022, after adjusting for inflation.
• Public colleges collected 5.8-percent less in tuition revenue per student than they did five years prior.
• The report warned of potential cuts when federal-stimulus money runs out.

The situation varies in different parts of the country. Total education revenue was at an all-time high in 11 states, but 28 states were still doling out lower appropriations than they were before the Great Recession. Low and unequal funding disproportionately hurts students of color and low-income students, according to Sheeo.

The bigger picture: Education appropriations have been rising for 10 years, while public FTE enrollment has been falling for 11 years. Whether those trends continue will shape higher ed’s future.

Read more from our Helen Huiskes.

Comings and goings

• Cathy Horn, interim dean of the College of Education at the University of Houston, has been named to the post permanently.
• Ryan F. Morgan, an associate professor and department head for chemistry, geosciences, and physics at Tarleton State University, has been named dean of graduate studies and the School of Business, Math, and Science at Chadron State College.
• Charles A. (Chuck) Wright III, chief development officer for the hunger-relief organization Philabundance, in Philadelphia, has been named vice president for development and vice chancellor for advancement at Rutgers University at Camden.

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

Footnote

The University of Richmond issued a warning about an aggressive peacock roaming campus on Tuesday. The bird reportedly caused minor injuries.

I’m an amateur bird enthusiast, in case the recent Footnotes on Clayton State University’s Swoose Cam and the much-missed celebrity duck Long Boi didn’t tip you off. But this is a good reminder that whether you see a goose, swan, turkey, vulture, or peacock, it’s best to stand back. The bird is less likely to feel threatened.

I think we view birds through binoculars because, like fireworks and, occasionally, family, they are best enjoyed at a safe distance.