Good morning, and welcome to Thursday, February 6. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Resounding silence

The Trump administration has successfully sucked up all the oxygen in the room since taking power less than three weeks ago — probably by design. College leaders haven’t really said much at all. But why?

College leaders are trying to adapt to rapid change and prepare for what comes next, The Chronicle’s David Jesse writes. They’re facing pleas for protection from those who are immigrants or LGBTQ and who feel targeted by Trump’s orders. They’re setting up teams to evaluate federal mandates as they roll in. And they may be trying to figure out what federal funding needs to flow to keep operations going and which pots of money are available should the feds choke off cash.

Fearing reprisal, many presidents declined to talk to David on the record. It’s important to keep perspective, some suggested. Despite the intrigue in Washington, basketball games continued on campus, after all.

When leaders have spoken, they’ve been more insipid than inspiring. Yale University wants to “assure you that we are actively working to understand the implications of any new policies, guidelines, and priorities,” its president and provost wrote. “In recent days, we have continued to engage in discussions with legislators about the critical importance of the partnership between the federal government and institutions of higher education.”

That’s despite the administration taking action that is clearly hitting campuses. Recent moves to dismantle USAID are poised to undermine programs housed at red-state flagships, The New York Times has noted. USAID’s Feed the Future initiative, which promotes global food access, is built on labs at U.S. institutions like Mississippi State University, where the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish operates under a $15-million grant.

• Mississippi State will “continue to monitor” the funding pause, a spokesperson said.

To be sure, this is a fraught time. Lawyers are sorting through novel legal theories and confusing directions from the feds. The stakes are enormous: Federal research funding totaled almost $60 billion for universities in 2023.

And efforts to raid the ivory tower don’t always rankle those off campus. A center that works to improve agriculture abroad doesn’t necessarily resonate with voters at home.

To hear some tell it, higher-ed leaders are hoping to rise above any perceived war on higher education.

• “There was widespread recognition that higher education needs to do a better job of telling its own story, and not lose the narrative to misinformed and misguided critics,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian, two leadership experts at Yale, wrote in Time about last week’s Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit.

And taking time to evaluate the situation can be a smart strategy. College leaders may fear their institutions will be targeted if they speak up — never mind that the administration is already announcing investigations. And they may hope to better understand how the landscape has actually changed, rather than how the new administration says it’s changed.

• “What is show and what is policy doesn’t shake out for a few months,” John Comerford, the president of Otterbein University, in Ohio, told David. “It would be a mistake to overreact. They want to get a reaction. It’s a ‘stick it to the libs’ kind of thing. It’s not wise to take the bait.”

But that may just be whistling past the graveyard. “The administration will investigate and sue prominent universities to make examples of them and cower the rest into full compliance,” Brendan Cantwell recently wrote in The Chronicle Review. Quiet or not, here they come.

Ironically, the sector’s fundamentals are stronger than expected. First-year enrollment is up, graduation rates have risen, and tuition has been declining in inflation-adjusted terms, Cantwell notes.

And yet it’s a small association and a professors’ union that have challenged Trump in court, not the institutions with multibillion-dollar endowments that find themselves in the crosshairs. The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and the American Association of University Professors joined other groups in a lawsuit this week, alleging that the president is overstepping by trying to stamp out diversity, equity, and inclusion in the government and private sector.

The bigger question: Are college leaders making “stick it to the libs” easier, because “the libs” don’t stick up for themselves? Even those who don’t want to directly challenge the Trump administration might find themselves in a stronger position if they were to clearly advocate for their mission and values — because those aren’t supposed to change when the president does.

For more from The Chronicle:

• 📱Read David’s full story: ‘It’s Creating Chaos': College Presidents Weigh Responses to Trump’s Upheavals
• 📱Consider Brendan’s full argument in The Review: Here’s How the Sector Can Find Its Footing
• 🎧 Listen to the latest College Matters podcast: Unwinding DEI

Trump news dump

• Trump tries to ban trans athletes: An executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” threatens to yank federal funding from educational programs that don’t “protect all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms.” That’s a sharp contrast to the Biden administration’s efforts to extend antidiscrimination protections to cover LGBTQ students, including athletes. Biden’s Education Department promised, but never delivered, a regulatory rewrite that would have prevented colleges from automatically banning trans athletes from sports teams that match their gender identity. (The White House, Associated Press)
• Nonbinary option struck from FAFSA: As the U.S. Department of Education opened a 60-day public-comment period to gather suggestions for ways to improve next year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid, officials announced that students will only be able to select between male and female under the upcoming form’s gender-identification options. The Department also confirmed that an update allowing colleges to make batch corrections is on track to be released by the end of the month, hewing to a previously announced schedule for addressing a broken function that’s frustrated financial-aid officers. (U.S. Department of Education, The Chronicle)
• Faculty Senate chair distributes “know your rights” card: Leila Hudson, the chair of the University of Arizona’s Faculty Senate, emailed members a cut-out card designed to be carried and given to any law-enforcement officers who inquire about their citizenship. The card says its bearer declines to answer questions or consent to a search, citing 5th and 4th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Distributing the cards is an act of civics education that’s consistent with the faculty chair’s role, Hudson said. (Arizona Daily Star)

Quote of the day

“We felt used.”

— Jacqueline Cole, a senior for Duke University, wrote in The Assembly about an all-expenses-paid, weeklong trip she and 70 students took to China’s Jiangsu province.

Cole describes being hounded on the tour of China by the media, which often coached students into applauding the country’s culture. Footage of the students was then broadcast “to project China’s cultural influence and international appeal.”

• Duke and its campus in China weren’t told about the media aspect, a spokesman said. Duke still plans to run the program, but with added “boundaries on Chinese media access to student participants.”

🔗 If you read one non-Chronicle story today, make it this one: How I Accidentally Became Part of China’s PR Campaign

Quick hits

• Ousted Michigan State dean gets plum appointment: Sanjay Gupta will hold an endowed professorship and co-chair a high-profile commission that seeks to align Michigan State University with employer and economic needs. That’s under a settlement between the university and Gupta, who was accused of not reporting sexual misconduct when he was dean of the university’s business school. Gupta sued, saying he’d thought the misconduct had been reported and suggesting he’d been wrongfully terminated as dean in 2022 so that the university’s provost at the time could eliminate a potential rival for its presidency. (The Detroit News, The Chronicle)
• Appeals court blocks professor’s reinstatement: A three-member panel overturned a lower court’s ruling last week that ordered Louisiana State University to return Ken Levy to the classroom. Levy, a law professor, was yanked from the classroom during an investigation into allegations that he insulted Gov. Jeff Landry and used vulgar language while teaching. The appeals court ruled that returning Levy to his teaching job required a full hearing on the evidence in the case. But the court upheld a temporary restraining order preventing LSU from infringing on Levy’s academic freedom or free speech. (Associated Press)
• Oregon lawmakers pitch more free community college: Education-committee chairs want to increase the number of students eligible for the state’s Promise program as much as fourfold. A bill would eliminate a requirement that students enroll immediately after high school, allow residents to take part even if they graduated in a different state, expand eligibility to students who earned their high-school degrees while incarcerated, and eliminate high-school GPA requirements. But the changes would cost $67 million at a time when the program is cash-strapped. (The Oregonian)
• North Carolina community colleges push faster completion: The North Carolina Community College System is touting a new Boost program that offers student support and advising, in an effort to increase graduation rates and cut time to graduation. The effort, modeled on the City University of New York’s oft-cited Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, starts with eight colleges this year and plans to add seven more in 2026. The philanthropy Arnold Ventures is funding it with a $35.6-million grant. (North Carolina Community Colleges, The Chronicle)
• Re-enrollment effort nears 1,000 students after two years: California Reconnect, an effort to assist working adults who want to go back to college and finish degrees, has contacted 14,700 people in parts of the state deemed to have high need, helping almost 1,000 re-enroll in 13 institutions. The project’s backers touted it as improving re-enrollment rates, but it would still need massive expansion to reach a large share of the estimated 6.6 million Californians who’ve earned some college credit without attaining a two- or four-year degree. (InsideTrack)

Comings and goings

• Kayse Shrum, president of Oklahoma State University, has stepped down. Jeanette Mendez, the university’s provost and senior vice president, has been named acting president.
• Joseph L. Odenwald, president of Southwestern Michigan College, has been named president of Alma College, in Michigan.
• Greg Hirth, a professor of earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Brown University, has been named vice president for research after serving in the role on an interim basis since September.
• Jermaine Whirl, president of Augusta Technical College, has been named the sole finalist for president of Savannah State University.

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

Footnote

Readers have been recommending good television shows about college. Today’s suggestion comes from Neva Bryan, senior director of academic enhancement for the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. Neva writes:

“Although it’s a show about aliens passing as humans on Earth, Third Rock From the Sun offers some amusing insight into the behind-the-scenes politics of faculty and college administration.”

🌎 Do you know an out-of-this world TV show that references 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. Down-to-Earth suggestions will also be accepted.