Good morning, and welcome to Monday, March 31. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Making sense of mergers

In 2021, several foundations put up a few million dollars to pay for small grants so that colleges could explore partnerships like mergers — which for years had carried a stigma in higher ed.

Let’s check on what they’ve learned.

Forging partnerships between colleges is like moving from courtship through marriage. That picture emerges from a new evaluation released today of the Transformational Partnerships Fund.

Agreements, like relationships, are hard to build and maintain. College leaders said hammering out a deal “typically involved ups and downs, setbacks, periods of stagnation, and unexpected turns and opportunities,” the evaluation says.

Counselors offering help are often met with wariness. “I knew it was sensitive. I didn’t fully appreciate how sensitive it is,” John MacIntosh, managing partner of SeaChange Capital Partners, the nonprofit that runs the fund, told the Daily Briefing. “One of the lessons we’ve learned is we need to be out there. We need to be making presentations in person at events and giving comfort that we’re a safe, empathetic resource.”

The Transformational Partnerships Fund committed to 31 grants totaling $1.71 million as of August. The typical award tops out at $100,000 for financial or legal consultants working on a merger, though smaller grants have gone to individual institutions considering a deal.

• Twenty-nine institutions have participated. They averaged 3,902 students, not counting one large online institution that was an outlier.
• More than half successfully merged or were acquired. Eight stayed independent, and four closed.

Leaders say the outside assistance is key. “It helped us clarify what it was we were looking for and gave our board a sense that we can do this sort of thing,” said Peter Ebb, former board chair at Urban College, a Boston institution that affiliated with Southern New Hampshire University after receiving money from the fund.

Fortune favors the bold. Ideally, institutions don’t wait to kick the tires on a deal until the financial picture is bleak. Starting early means colleges are more likely to bring strong programs to the table that will make them attractive partners.

• “I would advise presidents to be honest with themselves and honest with their boards,” Reyes González, president emeritus of St. Augustine College, in Chicago, which was acquired by Lewis University in 2023, told the Daily Briefing. “If they continue to increase the tuition to their students and nevertheless their enrollment and net revenue continues to decline … things are not going to get easier. They are going to get more difficult.”

College leaders are hungry for advice about mergers and resources to support them, the new evaluation found.

• “Very often the obstacle … isn’t a lack of will or interest,” Donna M. Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, which has been working with SeaChange, told the Daily Briefing. “It’s a lack of capacity. The small stuff: limited resources, not sufficient analytics to drill down and do the due diligence you need to do something like this.”

More key takeaways from the evaluation:

• Deals had to overcome communications challenges, managing stakeholders, navigating laws, financial pressures, and organizational-capacity limits, college leaders said.
• People need space to respond. “Create space and time in partnership plans that account for the ways in which students, faculty, alumni, and Boards may respond,” the report says.
• Funders should limit burdens. College presidents need the process of getting money to be fast and transparent, with as little paperwork as possible.

The bigger picture: The taboo is off of merger talks amid mounting financial pressures, technological changes, the demographic cliff, and horror stories about a few colleges collapsing in the late 2010s. And with the Trump administration injecting new uncertainty into the higher-ed landscape, even merger skeptics might want to keep an eye on how institutional partnerships are reshaping the sector.

• “There is going to be a lot of this coming down the pipeline,” Namrata Patel, executive director of Research for Social Impact, the consultancy that did the review, told the Daily Briefing. “How do you advocate for supporting institutions, going through this process, and making sure it’s done in a humane, kind, reasonable, professional way?”

Quick hits

• Columbia changes presidents: Katrina A. Armstrong announced she’s going back to leading the university’s medical center, a role she held before becoming interim president in August, writing that her “heart is with science” and her “passion is with healing.” Claire Shipman, co-chair of Columbia’s board, immediately took over as acting president, the institution said on Friday night. In a statement, Shipman pledged to “uphold academic freedom and open inquiry.” The leaders didn’t directly reference whether the change was related to the institution’s controversial attempt to appease the Trump administration in hopes of winning back $400 million in federal grants. But the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force called the move “an important step toward advancing negotiations.” (Columbia University, The Chronicle, U.S. Department of Education)
• Targeted institutions say they comply with affirmative-action bans: Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a probe last week into whether race is being illegally used in admissions decisions at Stanford University and University of California campuses at Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Irvine. Stanford said it moved to comply after the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions in 2023. The UC system has maintained that it complies with a 1996 ballot proposition that barred using race in admissions at state institutions. (U.S. Department of Justice, Reuters)
• CAIR pushes model protest policy: The Council on American-Islamic Relations is distributing guidance in the wake of complaints about pro-Palestinian protests, backlash against them, and controversial revisions to college protest policies. CAIR says its model would help institutions protect student activists from retaliatory discipline, limit “unnecessary” law-enforcement involvement, and support protesters who face harassment. Its guidance includes time, place, and manner restrictions that allow “spontaneous demonstrations and amplified sound.” (CAIR, The Chronicle)
• Chinese professor fired under Florida law: New College of Florida fired Kevin Wang this month, citing a 2023 state law against public universities employing people from “countries of concern” including China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. Wang is authorized to work in the United States and is seeking asylum after he says he faced political repression from the Chinese Communist Party. He’d been an adjunct teaching Chinese language and culture for nearly two years. (Suncoast Searchlight)
• Kentucky DEI ban pushed through: The state’s public colleges have until June 30 to comply with a ban on diversity, equity, inclusion offices and training after lawmakers easily overrode a veto from Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat. (WLKY)
• Psychology accreditor represses diversity standard: As the Trump administration pressures accrediting bodies, the American Psychological Association this month voted to suspend a requirement that postgraduate programs commit to diversity when recruiting and hiring. Programs will still be required to teach about respecting cultural differences for effective treatment. Critics worry the change will undermine recent efforts to diversify a psychology work force that is disproportionately white. (The New York Times)
• Student government nixes resolution on Christ: Jacksonville State University’s Student Senate voted down a resolution this month that would have stated the institution “acknowledges the kingship of Jesus Christ over all the world so that this great university may, at last, receive the great blessing of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.” Opponents argued the measure was not constitutional and may have violated students’ personal beliefs. (Al.com)

Quote of the day

“I don’t feel it’s important to leave — I feel I have an enormous opportunity.”

— Jason Stanley, a philosopher who is leaving Yale University for the University of Toronto

Stanley has said he’s leaving the United States because of its political environment. “I want my kids to grow up in a free society,” he told The Chronicle’s Nell Gluckman, arguing that professors he works with who aren’t citizens can no longer speak about politics in the United States in light of the Trump administration’s deportations.

He criticized a lack of coordination in responses to the Trump administration: “Columbia gets targeted. Other colleges’ response is, Let’s keep our heads down and we won’t be seen, we won’t be a target. Columbia does this obsequious, embarrassing, Oh, hit us again, please. Hit us again.”

But Stanley maintains he was drawn to the University of Toronto, calling that institution “like a kid in a candy shop” that’s creating a place where journalists and scholars can come “from democratically backsliding countries.”

• “I don’t view myself as fleeing. I’d love to get myself arrested for political reasons,” Stanley said. “Think what my grandkids could say.”

The bigger question: Are top U.S. institutions losing a bit of their luster amid their uneven reactions to wrenching protests and the ensuing federal scrutiny? Stanley follows two Yale colleagues, the historians Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, to the University of Toronto. And several Ivy League institutions this week reported falling undergraduate application numbers this cycle.

🗪 Read the full interview: Why Jason Stanley, a Scholar of Fascism, is Leaving Yale for Canada

Stat of the day

75 percent

That’s the share of about 1,650 U.S. researchers who responded to a Nature survey by saying they were considering leaving the country because of disruptions caused by the Trump administration.

The context: This type of unscientific survey tends to reflect the sentiments of those with the strongest feelings — Nature gathered responses on its website, through an email newsletter, and on social media. But 75 percent is still an eye-opening share.

Join us, join us, join us to talk Trump again

You turned out in overwhelming numbers for The Chronicle’s last two live events discussing the Trump administration, the changes it’s pushing, and what it all means for higher ed. And you told us the conversation helped make sense of these difficult times. So Sarah Brown, news editor, and your Daily Briefing scribe are headed back in front of the camera.

We’ll be live Thursday, April 3, at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. It’s the first of three sessions, all sponsored by Google Cloud. Then we’ll be back at the same time on April 24 and May 8.

Sign up for all three sessions at once. Then you can attend one, attend two, or, hopefully, all three. We’ll catch you up on the latest each time.

• ✒️ Register to attend: Click here.
• 📧 Submit questions and comments: Do so when registering or by emailing dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Comings and goings

• Nicholas Katona, vice president for advancement and alumni engagement at St. Cloud State University, has been named vice chancellor for university advancement and alumni relations at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
• Laura Crawley, vice president for mission, engagement, and innovation at Lenoir-Rhyne University, in North Carolina, has been named president of Bethany College, in Kansas.
• Paul Newton, a former member of the North Carolina state senate and former general counsel at Duke Energy, has been named vice chancellor and general counsel at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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

Footnote

First there was the giant flying squirrel fossil discovered at the Gray Fossil Site at East Tennessee State University. Then came Olney Central College protecting locally loved albino squirrels. Finally, word arrived that the rare white squirrels’ range spreads farther than we might have thought.

Now the Footnote’s very squirrelly spring continues with news that researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have been studying how squirrels manage to land and balance on narrow, wobbly branches as they traverse the trees. It turns out they’re basically rodent gymnasts doing front handstands — squirrels’ front legs absorb most of the energy upon landing.

“Squirrels are nature’s best athletes,” Robert Full, a professor of integrative biology, told the university’s in-house news publication. “The way that they can maneuver and escape is unbelievable.”

Here’s where the fun ends. The researchers used their knowledge to build a robot that can jump and stick landings.

The goal is to create a cybernetic explorer fit to traverse one of Saturn’s moons. But this technology will surely be commercialized here on Earth. It’s only a matter of time before retailers deploy squirrel-inspired leaping robots as delivery drones, crashing through the trees with our merchandise.