Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, June 26. Jack Stripling, Kate Hidalgo Bellows, and Fernanda Zamudio-Suarez wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Enrollment dip catnip

For critics of how colleges have handled student protests, a small, private liberal-arts college in Boston has served up a tantalizing narrative.

Emerson College’s president, Jay M. Bernhardt, recently suggested that its disappointing fall enrollment projections may be related to pro-Palestinian student protests there this past spring. Because of those projections, Emerson will eliminate some staff and potentially some faculty positions, Bernhardt wrote in an email to faculty and staff members last week.

Beyond protest backlash, a host of other factors may be to blame for the college’s woes, our Eric Kelderman reports.

National trends and Emerson’s price point could be contributing to its problems. The college enrolled about 4,155 students in the fall of 2022, according to federal data. It hasn’t provided numbers for this coming fall, beyond saying they’re not good.

Cost is relevant: Emerson is more expensive for many students than some similar colleges, Eric reports. The average net price for undergraduates in 2022 — the amount they paid after all financial aid — was more than $51,000, according to federal data. That’s nearly 70 percent higher than at peer institutions.

The president himself also listed other factors: Enrollment nationally is trending away from small private colleges, and the disastrous rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has delayed students’ decisions and deposits.

Meanwhile, some observers seem to be relishing what they see as a comeuppance. Emerson showed great empathy for protesters. And now it is “facing the consequences of its feckless response,” the National Review trumpeted with apparent glee. A Boston Herald editorial told readers not to weep for Emerson, because “they did it to themselves.”

The college is a juicy target for this kind of critique, because of its generosity to protesters who established an encampment on a public street. After Boston Police Department officers broke up the encampment in riot gear, Emerson posted bail for the arrested students, didn’t discipline them, and provided housing to those who had to stay in town for court appearances after dorms had closed, the college’s president said at the time.

Assigning fallout to controversy is tricky business, though. Like Emerson, the University of Missouri at Columbia once attributed enrollment declines to student protests. Following a spate of protests over race-related issues, in 2015, Mizzou projected a 15-percent drop in enrollment. But, as Eric reported at the time, factors like a decline in high-school graduates and recruitment competition from other universities were also at play.

It’s hard to measure how controversy affects broader goals. Indeed, after major sports scandals, some colleges have raised big bucks.

Another variable: a college’s brand. Emerson’s commitment to social justice is part of its identity, which may explain in part its approach to protesters. That said, Jewish students in particular might be turned off by a college that appears soft on pro-Palestinian protests. Nationally, since the war in Gaza and Israel began, some Jewish students have said they feel threatened and offended by antisemitic chants and graffiti they’ve observed on their campuses. (About 14 percent of Emerson undergraduates are Jewish, according to Hillel International.)

At the same time, many protesters nationally say they are motivated by a strong sense of social justice — a value that, at least in the abstract, Emerson appears to embrace. After George Floyd’s murder, in 2020, the college’s then-president, M. Lee Pelton, issued to the campus a forceful call to action. In the face of structural racism, he wrote, “The most important question is: What are you going to do?”

Read more about protests and enrollment in Eric’s story: Emerson College Says Protests Drove an Enrollment Decline. But There’s More to It.

Quick hits

• Bacone College files for bankruptcy: The move comes after years of financial difficulties at the historically Native American-serving institution. According to its website, the Oklahoma college is not closing, but will not enroll students until further notice. The interim president said Bacone is looking for a partner to acquire or merge with it. Bacone almost lost its campus last year over unpaid bills. (Inside Higher Ed)
• U. of Utah closes student-resource centers: The move affects centers that serve Black, LGBTQ, and female students, in an effort to comply with a new state law that takes aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The law, which goes into effect July 1, does allow cultural centers to remain as long as they welcome all students, don’t offer academic advising, and focus on education instead of resources. Many public institutions in states that have passed anti-DEI laws have taken actions beyond the requirements of the legislation. (The Salt Lake Tribune)
• Former U. of Arizona grad student sentenced: The student who was convicted of killing a professor on the campus in 2022 was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without parole after being found guilty of first-degree murder last month. Prosecutors said the man, Murad Dervish, shot Thomas Meixner, the head of the hydrology and atmospheric-sciences department, following more than a year of alleged threats against faculty members in that department. The murder and criticism of how the university handled the threats ushered in a suite of safety updates there. (USA Today, The Chronicle)
• Michigan institution suspends sorority: The University of Olivet suspended its Sigma Beta sorority for hazing after videos of “alarming behavior” surfaced and members stepped forward. Sigma Beta was stripped of its status as a student organization, and of its house through June 2025. (WILX)
• Ohio bills conflict over DEI measures: State lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would require public and private colleges to enforce a policy on racial, religious, and ethnic harassment and intimidation. But the move has prompted questions about whether it would conflict with a Senate bill that would ban mandatory DEI training in most situations. (Ohio Capital Journal)

Quote of the day

“That is not at the heart of our academic mission.”

— Sian Leah Beilock, president of Dartmouth College, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on her approach to pro-Palestinian protests

Beilock has been praised for her handling of the tensions that have racked higher education since the start of the war in Israel and Gaza. Dartmouth, the only Ivy League institution that the Education Department has not investigated for reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia since October 7, has emphasized civil discourse among students with different beliefs.

When a pro-Palestinian encampment began at Dartmouth this spring, Beilock had it removed in a matter of hours, drawing a faculty censure vote. According to Jewish Insider, the president made a distinction, while speaking on the Aspen panel, between protest and occupying a community space for a single ideology. “That is taking over someone else’s free speech,” she said, and it goes against the college’s mission.

Stat of the day

$72,000

— That’s law-school graduates’ median annual earnings minus debt payments four years after graduation, according to a report out this week by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.

Analyzing the Education Department’s College Scorecard data, the report found that after graduating from a handful of top law schools — at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern, and Stanford Universities, and the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania — J.D.s’ annual earnings minus debt are more than $200,000. But graduates of 33 other law schools net less than $55,000. The report throws cold water on the idea that a J.D. from anywhere is a ticket to immediate wealth. In many cases, new lawyers spend years paying off their student-loan debt.

Comings and goings

• Aracely Aguiar has been named president of Los Angeles Pierce College after serving as interim president.
• Susan D. Stuebner, president of Colby-Sawyer College, in New Hampshire, will not become president of Marietta College, in Ohio. She was appointed in April but has withdrawn due to “an unforeseen change in personal considerations.” Margaret L. Drugovich will continue to serve as interim president of Marietta College.
• Jaffus Hardrick, president of Florida Memorial University, has stepped down.
• Jessica Berg, co-dean of the School of Law at Case Western Reserve University, in Ohio, has been named dean of the School of Law at the University of California at Davis.

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

Footnote

Ameen Mokdad is a self-taught musician. He first learned the violin, and on his album The Curve, he plays many instruments. But in the song “A Day In The Prince Kingdom,’' the percussion isn’t him, or a drum — it’s the sound of machine gunfire and bombs outside his home in Mosul, Iraq.

When ISIS invaded Mosul in 2014, Mokdad continued to play in secret, he told NPR this week. After ISIS found him and smashed his instruments, he built new versions with supplies he could source locally, like strings used to cut soap.

This year Mokdad got a scholarship to a master’s program at Wesleyan University. “I was like, wait a minute. What?” he told NPR. “I’m very excited, though, very excited.” He described art and music as vital to a healthy life.

A scholarship to study music at Monmouth College was a turning point for Mariela Shaker, a fellow violinist and a refugee from Syria who first shared her story with The Chronicle a decade ago, and is now a professional musician, human-rights advocate, and American citizen. The opportunity, she said, was “more than I dreamed of.”