Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, November 27. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

🦃 A quick scheduling note: The Daily Briefing will not publish tomorrow or Friday. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving!

Teaching to the testosterone

This year’s election highlights a gender gap that’s been looming on campus, as our Amanda Friedman reports.

Political attitudes are shifting on college campuses, among young men in particular. Donald J. Trump seems to have broken the demographic’s recent preference for Democrats, even as young women remained more loyal to the left.

• One survey showed a 19-point swing that gave Trump a narrow victory among young, college-educated men.

Pay attention, because colleges are also struggling to attract young men. And Republicans are increasingly skeptical of enrolling in college.

• In 1970, three of every five college students were male, according to federal data. By 2022, that had dropped to 42 percent — although growth in the overall number of college students means a far larger number of men enroll today than did 50 years ago, as critics of a “male enrollment crisis” have pointed out.

Conservative attitudes have grown among young men for about a decade, according to the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey. Theories abound as to why, including:

• Economic anxiety: Consumer prices rose. The Biden-Harris administration talked a big talk on student-loan forgiveness, only to deliver piecemeal victories that fell far short of reforming the tattered financial-aid system.
• Conservatives organized: Trump’s remaking of the Republican Party reinvigorated College Republicans and enabled newer groups like Turning Point USA to gain ground. The right jacked up the volume on its argument that campuses suppress critical thinking and dissent in favor of a stifling liberal consensus.
• Men heard a message from educated liberals: “The focus on women’s disadvantages, on MeToo, on toxic masculinity, is sending a signal,” said Melissa Deckman, a political scientist who studies the impact of gender, religion, and age on political behavior.
• Masculinity needs a model: Some young men are uncertain about their role in society in the face of changing gender norms. Trump became a standard-bearer for audacity and projected strength.

The bigger questions: How do colleges convince more skeptical young men to enroll? Are they offering an education that’s relevant to their lives? And how do leaders ensure everyone feels at home on campus in the face of deep political divisions that track with gender?

📱 Read the full story from The Chronicle: Why Did More College-Educated Young Men Vote for Trump This Year?

Quick hits

• Should students with undocumented family members fill out the FAFSA? The National College Attainment Network raised concerns that data collected via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid could be used to fuel the incoming Trump administration’s promised mass deportations. The group wrote to its members that for some families, the risks of filling out the form “could now outweigh the considerable benefits of federal student aid.” Other experts are still trying to evaluate the data’s security amid a tangle of legal restrictions and exemptions governing how FAFSA information may be used and shared between government agencies. (The Chronicle)
• Keystone College vows to fight accreditation loss: The Middle States Commission on Higher Education said it will withdraw the Pennsylvania institution’s recognition by the end of the year, citing concerns about its financial resources and governance. But the college, which has been seeking to become a subsidiary of a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization, says it will appeal the decision. (Middle States, WVIA)
• Birmingham-Southern ditches campus buyer: Miles College had asked to delay closing on its planned purchase of Birmingham-Southern College’s shuttered 192-acre campus by a month to December 24. Birmingham-Southern trustees declined, saying they must sell the site as quickly as possible. The two private Alabama institutions had already delayed the closing once. (WBMA)
• Cost cutting roils U. of Denver: Trying to address dropping enrollment and an $11-million deficit, the private institution cut eight administrative staff jobs this fall, eliminated an undisclosed number of vacant positions, and is shuffling other staff roles. Faculty members in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, which was affected by many of the changes, passed a vote of no-confidence in the institution’s chancellor. (The Denver Post)
• Courts won’t disqualify San Jose State volleyball player: U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews wrote on Monday that there is no reason to rush a lawsuit that challenges the Mountain West Conference’s transgender-participation policy, which has been in place since 2022. In doing so, the judge turned down a motion shortly before the conference’s women’s volleyball tournament, which starts today. Plaintiffs sought to declare ineligible a women’s volleyball player and strip wins from San Jose State’s team because the player is allegedly transgender. An appeals court upheld the ruling on Tuesday. (ESPN, Associated Press)

Protect the brand

Colleges guard their logos jealously.

Drake University won an early victory in its lawsuit against a crosstown community college. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Friday barring Des Moines Area Community College from using a “D” logo that Drake argues is too similar to its own branding, Bloomberg Law reported. The judge gave the community college 21 days to stop using the logo, which it adopted in 2023.

• “It is difficult to see how this is not persuasive evidence of intentional copying,” U.S. Chief District Judge Stephanie Rose wrote, citing the community college’s choice of colors that are “nearly identical” to Drake’s. But she questioned whether the public is actually confused by the similarity.

The community college is considering its next steps. Its president pointed out that the court didn’t find enough evidence to establish that it intentionally sought to cause confusion, according to the Des Moines Register.

A middle school has been warned off of using its longtime nickname. Cheatham Middle School, in Tennessee, has been told to stop using the University of Cincinnati’s logo design and Bearcats nickname because they are trademarks registered to the public Ohio institution, WKRN reported. The middle school has used the Bearcats name for more than 20 years.

• Never fear quarrels. A company whose owner graduated from Xavier University, a private institution in Cincinnati, has offered to help the school switch to Xavier’s “Musketeers” nickname.

Weekend reads

• A Case of Fraud (The Chronicle Review)
• When Aspiring Authoritarians Seize Faculty Power (The Chronicle Review)
• Rural Students’ Options Shrink as Colleges Slash Majors (The Washington Post/The Hechinger Report/Open Campus)
• How Are College Students Using AI Tools Like ChatGPT? (EdSource)
• Arizona Is the Only State That Separates Students Under English-Only Laws. A Mountain of Evidence Shows It Doesn’t Work. (Open Campus/Arizona Luminaria)
• UNC’s Project Kitty Hawk Cleans Up After a CEO’s Departure (The Assembly)
• Cal State University Cuts Add Frustration, Graduation Time to Some Students’ Plans (LAist)

Comings and goings

• Adrienne Freng, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Wyoming, has been named interim dean of the college. She replaces Scott Turpen, who has been named interim provost.
• Dan Stephens, chief financial officer of the University of West Georgia Foundations, has been named vice president for finance at George Mason University.
• David Rohrbacher, a professor of classics at New College of Florida, has been named provost and vice president for academic affairs.
• Karl Haushalter, chair of the department of chemistry and a professor of chemistry and biology at Harvey Mudd College, has been named vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

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

Footnote

As we head into the long Thanksgiving weekend, I’d like to take a moment to offer gratitude to colleges that offer resources to their local communities. Here are three randomly selected examples:

• Holding a competition for mathletes: Beaufort County Community College, in North Carolina, was home to a math competition for third, fourth, and fifth graders from five local elementary schools, according to WITN.
• Donating turkeys: Rider University, in New Jersey, gave 128 Thanksgiving meals to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, according to the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.
• Hosting a race: Sweet Briar College, in Virginia, was home to a Girls on the Run race, which promotes confidence among girls, WSET reported.

We shouldn’t pretend small acts will be enough to usher in a utopia free from want, inequity, and bitterness. But we also shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking wide-ranging reforms are the only way to improve the world. Community-minded volunteerism is important, so thank you to all of the people and institutions that engage in it.