Good morning, and welcome to Friday, January 31. Evan Goldstein contributed the stat of the day. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

The state of the states

This week’s deluge of news from the Trump administration threatens to overshadow important — and sometimes related — developments in the states, which traditionally have much more direct control over higher ed. Let’s catch up, once again, Quick Hits style.

• Florida OK’s general-education cuts: Florida’s Board of Governors on Thursday approved a much-reduced roster of courses that fulfill gen-ed requirements, capping months of work under a state law that seeks to bar core courses from distorting “significant historical events” or teaching “identity politics.” The university system’s chancellor proclaimed students won’t have to take classes with “indoctrinating concepts” in order to graduate. This month, professors sued to challenge the state law that prompted the review. (The Chronicle)
• Iowa lawmakers weigh their own gen-ed overhaul: A House subcommittee advanced a bill that would require students to take coursework in “western heritage” and “American heritage,” among other subjects. The measure says a course can’t “distort significant historical events or include any curriculum or other material that teaches identity politics.” Critics charge the overhaul would limit academic freedom. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
• South Carolina governor wants higher-ed review: Henry McMaster, a Republican, renewed a call for lawmakers to evaluate the state’s 33 institutions for affordability, sustainability, and program alignment with work-force needs. McMaster also requested millions for technical colleges, students at historically Black institutions, and state aid for low-income students. (Governor of South Carolina)
• Missouri State ceases DEI work: The university this week closed its Office of Inclusive Engagement and shut down diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. President Richard (Biff) Williams said that 38 percent of the institution’s budget is supported by the state, so it “must align with the requirements laid out by state leadership.” (Springfield News-Leader)
• Utah advances trans dorm limits: House Republicans sent a measure to the State Senate that would require students to live in rooms that match their sex as designated at birth, even if the sex listed on their birth certificates have been changed. Supporters say gender-neutral housing would still be available. Critics argue the measure targets those who are trans, saying the bill comes after a parent complained that her daughter was assigned a trans resident adviser at Utah State University. The adviser has since been harassed online. (KSL)

• Christian colleges balk at dual-enrollment exclusion: Crown College and the University of Northwestern at St. Paul, in Minnesota, sued to challenge restrictions on the state’s postsecondary-enrollment program, which allows high-school students to earn college credit. A 2023 amendment barred colleges from participating in the program if they require students to sign statements of faith. The colleges’ lawyer argues that the government can’t exclude institutions based on religious beliefs. (Fox News)
• Turn a liberal-arts college into a health-sciences campus? John Braun, a Republican who is the minority leader of the State Senate in Washington, has proposed turning Evergreen State College into a branch of the University of Washington focused on the health sciences. He argues the college’s enrollment is far below its peak, and that the change would address shortages in health-care workers. Evergreen was founded during the alternative-education movement of the 1960s and allows undergraduates to design their own courses of study. (The Olympian)
• Objections to Ohio State civics center: The University Senate at the flagship research institution narrowly passed a symbolic vote against creating the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society. Lawmakers acted on “fundamentally false premises” when they justified a 2023 law that will establish the center under the argument that Ohio State’s teaching and research is biased, said Sara Watson, who chairs the Senate’s Faculty Council. (WOSU)
• Massachusetts governor wants major campus rebuilds: Maura Healey, a Democrat, has proposed raising $2.5 billion through bonding to fund a decade of building projects at the state’s public colleges. Backers say the money is needed because campuses built to hold baby boomers are now 50 years old, student needs are changing, and earmarks for past building projects have often favored politically connected institutions. (The Boston Globe)
• Virginia Senate kills campus antiterrorism bill: Sen. Bill Stanley, a Republican, proposed banning terrorist organizations and their representatives from recruiting on the state’s college campuses. Opponents argued the measure could be used to chill speech, unfairly target pro-Palestinian activists, and persecute Muslims and Arabs. (Virginia Mercury)
• Kentucky colleges just say no to marijuana: Although the state legalized medical marijuana at the beginning of this year, many institutions say they won’t allow the prescribed drug on campus. Colleges that draw federal financial aid are required to ban illicit substances, and marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I drug. (The Courier Journal, The Chronicle)

The bigger picture: As the Daily Briefing often repeats, the states are the laboratories of democracy. Ideas that are debated in one state often spread to others.

Stat of the day

78 percent

That’s the percentage of college presidents who gathered earlier this week at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit and found the following statement to be true: “Donald Trump is going to war with higher education.”

Trump news dump

• HR programs and language may need to change: The work of providing “access and opportunity for all employees” hasn’t changed in light of President Trump’s executive orders, but processes and language might need to “evolve,” the president of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources told members. HR officers can still promote equitable work and pay, build cultures of respect, remove bias, and be transparent, Andy Brantley wrote. (CUPA-HR)
• Northeastern renames DEI operations: The private Massachusetts-based university has been changing the name of programs and rewriting websites, replacing phrases tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion with “belonging” in the wake of a January 21 executive order from President Trump that pushed to investigate DEI at wealthy private colleges. The university remains committed to “embracing our entire global community” even as “internal structures and approaches may need to be adjusted,” a spokesperson said. (WGBH)
• Michigan State nixes Lunar New Year celebration: The event, to be hosted by the university’s communications college and public-media station, was called off in the wake of President Trump’s executive orders targeting immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion. “These actions have prompted feelings of uncertainty and hesitation about gathering for events that highlight cultural traditions and communities,” the college’s DEI director wrote in an email obtained by the university’s student newspaper. It’s at least the second Michigan State event affected by a Trump executive order after the university last week postponed a “Future of DEI Policy at MSU” panel. (The State News)

The context: The American Association of University Professors has come out against “anticipatory obedience” to the Trump administration and state governments.

Quick hits

• North American professors leery of AI: Three-quarters of professors in the United States and Canada could see themselves using artificial intelligence in future teaching, significantly below the 90 percent of faculty members from other parts of the world who said the same, according to a new survey of faculty members in 28 countries. (The Chronicle’s Teaching newsletter)
• Macy’s cuts employee college benefit: The retailer ended its contract with Guild, which had allowed workers to enroll at no personal cost in degree and certificate programs from the likes of Southern New Hampshire University. The program had little effect on retention and promotion, and only a small share of employees used it. (ModernRetail)
• Expulsion threat over social-media posts costs university: Kimberly Diei has settled with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for $250,000 after it threatened to expel her from a pharmacy doctorate program because of social-media posts that it deemed vulgar and unprofessional. Diei, who has since graduated and works as a pharmacist, alleged that the university violated her free-expression rights by punishing her for posts made on her own time that didn’t relate to her status as a student. (The New York Times)

Weekend reads

• The Conservative Threat to Race-Based Funding for Minority-Serving Institutions (The Chronicle)
• The Vogue for “Belonging” Misses the Point of Education. (The Chronicle Review)
• Hate Endowment Taxes? Reform the University. (The Chronicle Review)
• For Colleges, Defining Antisemitism Hasn’t Gotten Any Easier (The Chronicle)
• Indiana Families Are Tired of ‘College for All.’ Should High School Change? (WFYI)
• Should ‘Sports’ be a College Major? (The New York Times, subscription required)

Comings and goings

• Jeanette Parker has been named provost and vice president for academic affairs at Campbellsville University after serving as interim vice president for academic affairs.
• Marie Hardin, dean of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University, has been named president of Quinnipiac University.
• Kathleen Heckman, interim vice president for university advancement at the University at Buffalo, has been named to the post permanently.

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

Footnote

Readers have been recommending good television shows about college — and, on occasion, coloring outside the lines with good movies about college. Jason Lee, copy editor extraordinaire at The Chronicle, has been chiming in with his own suggestions as he checks yours. He contributed the following:

• Film: Kicking and Screaming
• TV: Community
• TV: Saved by the Bell: The College Years

Unfamiliar with any of the above? Chances are your knowledge still outpaces my own. Jason told me Kicking and Screaming was Noah Baumbach’s first film at age 26, and I replied that movies with young actors make me feel unaccomplished. Jason had to break it to me that Baumbach was, in fact, the director.

📺 Do you know a good TV show about college? Email the show’s name and why you like it to dailybriefing@chronicle.com. Include your name and title, and your submission could appear in a future Footnote.