Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, November 26. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

By god, that’s Linda McMahon’s music

One useful way of understanding Donald J. Trump’s candidacy and presidency may be through the lens of professional wrestling: an attention-chasing spectacle with a soap-opera’s sense that unexpected twists are just around the corner, and where antiheroes, outsiders, and misfits appeal to the crowd in part because they transcend norms and flout authority.

If you buy this gimmick, it could help to explain the forthcoming Department of Education as well, courtesy of Trump’s choice for the job.

Which of Linda McMahon’s wrestling characters will she resemble as education secretary? McMahon is a former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment who played different versions of herself in several on-screen appearances decades ago. They include:

• The people’s champion: McMahon counterbalanced villains including her husband, with whom she co-owned the wrestling promotion. At one point she kicked him in the crotch during WWE’s flagship pay-per-view show.
• The adult in the room: She served as a source of otherwise-scarce rationality, making in-program announcements about business decisions.
• The heel: McMahon also took villainous turns, once publicly firing a fan-favorite announcer and kicking him between the legs.

To be sure, McMahon is much more than a wrestling persona. Aside from WWE:

• Her CV includes some relevant education and government experience. She led the Small Business Administration in the first Trump administration, chairs a pro-Trump think tank, did multiple stints as a trustee at Sacred Heart University, was appointed to Connecticut’s State Board of Education, and unsuccessfully ran twice for U.S. Senate.
• She’s associated with several conservative higher-ed stances. She recently supported bipartisan legislation to make federal Pell Grants available for short-term programs. She’s backed apprenticeship and technical-education programs. The think tank she chairs staked out many conservative higher-ed positions associated with Trump, like opposing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

But now the education secretary has to sell herself to the Senate and the world of education. Is she credible? A competent manager? An effective policy advocate? Someone who will feud with colleges? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• SBA employees’ engagement and satisfaction rose during her time leading that agency, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
• Did she conflate different bachelor’s degrees? McMahon said in a 2009 questionnaire that she had a bachelor’s degree in education, when in fact she received her degree in French with a teaching certificate, The Washington Post reported. A Trump transition spokesperson called stories on the matter “politically motivated attacks.”
• She’s been accused of turning a blind eye to alleged sexual abuse at WWE by former employees who worked as “ring boys.” Her husband was also named in that lawsuit. Her lawyer called the claims baseless. (McMahon’s husband also faces an investigation into allegations he used his role in the company to conceal sexual abuse and trafficking, The Washington Post reported. He’s denied wrongdoing, and her lawyer said the pair are separated.)

Politicians and higher-ed associations have so far spared McMahon from cheap heat. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican and ranking member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said her SBA experience could help her run the Education Department. The American Council on Education, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities were among those issuing statements congratulating McMahon. Jason Altmire, the president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, told the Daily Briefing McMahon is “someone we’ll be able to work with.”

The bigger picture: McMahon is far from Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial pick for attorney general who had to drop his bid amid alleged scandal. But the Education Department is in a tough spot, because Republicans want to dismantle or drastically change it, and even some college presidents think improvements are needed. McMahon’s approach to the job will be key.

What else to watch as the Trump term nears

Keep an eye on these developments as the Trump team transitions from campaign to administration.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo has a plan to withhold federal money from colleges that don’t dial back diversity efforts, The Wall Street Journal reported. He also wants the federal government to clamp down on race-based affirmative action. Rufo said he’s meeting with the president-elect’s team next month.

Colleges are telling international students to hurry to the U.S. before a potential travel ban. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst told international students who are leaving the country over the winter break to be back on American soil by inauguration day, according to WGGB and WSHM. It’s a nod to the possibility that the incoming administration could revive a version of Trump’s first-term travel bans. Wesleyan University offered similar guidance, Vermont Public Radio reported.

Quick hits

• Colleges add speech and protest-intervention teams: After a spring filled with divisive pro-Palestinian protests, institutions have in some cases hired full-time free-speech administrators and mediators as they fill out teams tasked with making clear to activists which demonstrations are and aren’t permitted. The strategy has drawn some criticism, including that it risks creating unnecessary barriers to constitutionally protected protest and that protecting free speech requires shared understanding on campus rather than extra bureaucracy. (The Chronicle)
• Saint Augustine’s U. cuts half of employees: The struggling private institution in Raleigh, N.C., cut expenses by $17 million in an effort to retain its accreditation. Eliminated are 67 percent of full-time faculty positions, or 37 professorships; 57 percent of adjuncts, or 32 positions, and 41 percent of staff jobs, or 67 positions. Several under-enrolled programs are also being cut, according to a university statement. (WRAL, The Chronicle)
• U. of Wyoming rejects concealed carry: Trustees narrowly voted last week against allowing people to carry concealed firearms on some parts of campus after students and employees raised concerns about gun violence and mental health. The board’s chair, who voted in favor of the defeated measure, called for engaging with lawmakers to avoid “a result that you’re going to like a lot less” than the defeated proposal. It would not have allowed concealed carry in certain locations including dormitories. (WyoFile)
• Ohio State promises to keep all sports: One of the country’s largest athletic departments plans to next year keep all 36 of its sports, add 91 scholarships, and provide players with the full $20.5 million allowed under a landmark legal settlement that’s nearing final approval, according to its athletics director. To help foot the bill, Ohio State is pursuing more sponsorship opportunities and expects to revise its football ticket plans. Elsewhere, the pending pay-for-pay settlement has prompted new ticket fees and questions about whether institutions will cut Olympic sports. (Ohio State University, Associated Press, ESPN, The Chronicle)

Comings and goings

• Jane Close Conoley, president of California State University-Long Beach, will retire in June 2025.
• Sarah Feldner, dean of the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University, has been named acting provost after Kimo Ah Yun was named president.
• Hazel Sive, dean of the College of Science at Northeastern University, will step down in June 2025.
• Katherine Ankerson, executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, will retire at the end of the year.

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

Footnote

“Provost” was recently featured as the word of the day by The New York Times. The publication gave readers a definition of the term and asked them to use it in a sentence, giving fans of academic fiction reason to hope that some authors will seize on the prompt and embark on a larger writing challenge.

More interesting to Chronicle readers — at least until those novels are published — is that the Times counted how frequently “provost” appeared in an article on NYTimes.com in the last year: 87.

This seems surprisingly low, considering the number of recent higher-ed stories that drew the publication’s attention in which top academic officers likely played a key role. Times writers have notably focused on leadership turnover at highly selective colleges, a movement to re-implement standardized admissions test requirements, curricular ties to pro-Palestinian protests, and the efficacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.

Worried about a paucity of provost coverage? The Chronicle has you covered. A quick, completely unscientific search of Chronicle.com shows 93 different results in the last six months alone. You read that right. We lapped The Times in half a year by writing stories like a provost’s quick boomerang back to Florida, offering advice on working with the faculty, keeping track of leaders’ new jobs, and publishing a letter to the editor on academic program review.

The two publications are very different and have distinct missions, of course. We’re not competing with the Times. But if it we were, we’d brag about 193 Chronicle articles using the word “provost” over the full year.