Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Monday, September 9. Laura Krantz starts us off with the top of today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

The Chronicle is coming to your ears

What happens on campuses has an important influence on our society at large: the recent Israel-Hamas protests, the debate over affirmative action, the fight over whether the government should forgive student loans.

That is why, starting tomorrow, we’re launching College Matters from The Chronicle, a weekly news podcast that will explore how campuses shape people and how people shape the higher-ed industry.

Because you, faithful Daily Briefing readers, are one of our most valued audiences, we offer you this sneak peak from Jack Stripling, the show’s host and a longtime Chronicle reporter. If you want to check it out, the trailer just dropped and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Jack, can you give us a preview of the first episode?

I had a fascinating conversation with Beth McMurtrie, a senior writer for The Chronicle, about college students struggling to read long passages and lacking the skills or the motivation to do college-level work.

For those who remember reading Beth’s story, what can they gain from listening to her give an interview about it?

There’s actually a great moment in our interview in which we talk about this very thing. Reading is a wonderful but solitary endeavor. A conversation naturally steers you toward alleyways you hadn’t walked down before or even known were there.

What can listeners expect from the pod going forward?

Right out of the gate, you’re going to hear us talk about the important, frustrating, and sometimes just weird things happening on college campuses. But let’s not spoil the journey. I like that we’re still finding our way. That’s what reporters do.

What will Daily Briefing readers — some of higher ed’s closest observers and veterans — gain from the podcast?

I’m an avid podcast listener, and the best ones are those that develop a strong community. Anyone as passionate about higher ed is going to feel right at home here. And, like any good community, this podcast is going to be a place where we can talk through complex issues, laugh together, and occasionally bicker — probably over parking.

You are a longtime Chronicle reporter and your name is likely familiar to many of this newsletter’s readers. What has it been like to learn the audio medium and what are you excited about when it comes to hosting this show?

My specialization for many years has been investigative journalism, which is rewarding but painstaking work. You can spend a lot of time buried in documents. (This story took about a year.) What I love already about the podcast is how nimble we can be with it. Every week, we’re diving into something new.

Don’t wait to subscribe. Be ready when the first episode drops tomorrow by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts.

Quick hits

• Six in 10 faculty members in the South wouldn’t recommend working in their states: A survey of nearly 3,000 faculty members in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia reflected deep dissatisfaction with the state of higher education. Respondents were particularly concerned about political interference and tenure changes, concerns that carry over from similar polling last year. (Georgia AAUP, The Chronicle)
• Judge’s concerns jeopardizes NCAA settlement: A federal judge raised concerns about the proposed House v. NCAA antitrust settlement, criticizing in particular a provision that could enable the NCAA to stop boosters’ name, image, and likeness payments that act as player salaries. She gave lawyers three weeks to renegotiate, putting pressure on the NCAA to scrap a provision it considered a critical part of a pending arrangement that would pay $2.75 billion to former athletes, create a revenue-sharing framework for future players, and allow the NCAA to claim it maintains competitive balance between teams. (ESPN, The Chronicle)
• Trump pledges to yank accreditation for campus antisemitism: The GOP’s presidential candidate told Republican Jewish Coalition donors last week that “colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support.” (Reuters)
• Baseball strikes out at Bob Jones University: The private institution in South Carolina is ending its baseball program and cutting employees, citing $5.5 million in expected losses over the next two years. (WYFF)

Student experiences beyond the protests

As colleges prepare to navigate fall protests stoked by the Israel-Hamas war, they have plenty of headlines to review about extreme cases and clashes. But data that illuminate the feelings of a broader slice of students can be invaluable.

Eitan Hersh, a Tufts University professor, has been researching the experiences of Jewish and non-Jewish college students over three years. His work is funded by the Shimon Ben Joseph Foundation, which works to support Jewish education in the United States. Here are some takeaways from a new report that summarizes surveys and focus groups with students from 2022 to 2024:

• The share of students who felt very close to the Jewish community spiked, then fell. It increased in the fall of 2023, shortly after Hamas’s attack in Israel set off the war in Gaza, then dropped back to pre-October 7 levels by spring.
• A quarter of Jewish students felt the need to hide their Jewish identity in 2023-24. One in five non-Jewish students said they wanted to ostracize Jewish students who supported Israel as a Jewish state.
• Relationships that bridge divides became more difficult. In the fall of 2023, some 22 percent of non-Jewish students said it would be hard for pro-Israel and pro-Palestine students to be friends. By the spring of 2024, that had grown to 32 percent. A third of Jewish students and a third of Muslim students said they lost friends because of clashing views on the war.
• Students disagreed whether their colleges were pro- or anti-Israel. Jewish students tended to view their institutions as being against Israel. Non-Jewish students felt their colleges were aligned with Israel.
• Pro-Palestinian demonstrators who were Jewish tended to come from the working class or middle class and identify as very liberal. Most also identified as LGBTQ, and they often grew up with “less robust Jewish backgrounds.”

For more: Read more key findings here.

Comings and goings

• Heather M. Owen, deputy athletics director and senior woman administrator at Stanford University, has been named director of athletics at Santa Clara University.
• Vasileios Maroulas, a professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, has been named associate vice chancellor and director of the AI Tennessee Initiative.
• Dean C. Collins, president of Point University, in Georgia, plans to retire at the end of the 2024-25 academic year.
• Ysabel Trinidad, vice president for administrative affairs and chief financial officer at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, plans to step down at the end of the year.

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

Footnote

Readers have been sending in photos from my favorite time of year, the possibility-filled hours known as student move-in. Today’s submission comes from Hamilton College, in upstate New York, where the new president, Steven Tepper, lent a hand.

Hamilton lauded Tepper for bringing “a visionary approach to making creativity and human expression central to learning, discovery, and civic engagement” when it announced his hiring in February. And you know anyone who rocks a bow tie while carrying boxes is committed to human expression.