Weekly Briefing

Press pause and catch up on the week’s biggest stories. Delivered on Saturdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, sign up to receive it in your email inbox.

From: Fernanda Zamudio-Suarez

Subject: Weekly Briefing: Is this misinformation expert spreading misinformation?

She studies misinformation. Is she spreading it herself?

Author and educator Joan Donovan sits for a portrait before she participates in the the Platforms, Power and Democracy conference in Montreal on the 29/11/2023
This image was created by projecting digital noise image onto the subject and then overlaying digital noise in parts of the frame. — Roger Lemoyne for The Chronicle

Joan Donovan’s role at Harvard University was eliminated last year. She alleged, without firsthand evidence, that Harvard was acting on behalf of the tech-giant Meta, a focus of her research. A Chronicle investigation has now found that several of Donovan’s claims about her time at Harvard are misleading, untrue, or have been contradicted by people involved. Our Stephanie Lee reports.
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program is renowned for propelling promising minority scholars in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. The program, which has been around since 1988, has inspired at least five institutions to create their own versions and boasts alums that include a surgeon general and a scientist who helped create a Covid vaccine. But the six-week summer boot camp that kicks off the program has drawn scrutiny for its harsh methods. Our Maggie Hicks and Katherine Mangan have the story.
Before Harvard University’s commencement ceremonies were scheduled to begin, the Harvard Corporation, the institution’s governing board, rejected a list of undergraduate-degree candidates put forward by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The corporation adopted a list that left out 13 graduating seniors. Though these students all met the academic requirements to graduate, they had participated in a pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard. Thus, the corporation refused to issue the degrees their instructors had voted to confer. This move shows that the board, composed mostly of business leaders who have never worked in higher education, runs the most important parts of the institution. That’s a problem, argue Andrew Manuel Crespo and Kirsten Weld, both Harvard faculty members, in this opinion essay for The Review.

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She studies misinformation. Is she spreading it herself?

Joan Donovan’s role at Harvard University was eliminated last year. She alleged, without firsthand evidence, that Harvard was acting on behalf of the tech-giant Meta, a focus of her research. A Chronicle investigation has now found that several of Donovan’s claims about her time at Harvard are misleading, untrue, or have been contradicted by people involved. Our Stephanie Lee reports.
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program is renowned for propelling promising minority scholars in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. The program, which has been around since 1988, has inspired at least five institutions to create their own versions and boasts alums that include a surgeon general and a scientist who helped create a Covid vaccine. But the six-week summer boot camp that kicks off the program has drawn scrutiny for its harsh methods. Our Maggie Hicks and Katherine Mangan have the story.
Before Harvard University’s commencement ceremonies were scheduled to begin, the Harvard Corporation, the institution’s governing board, rejected a list of undergraduate-degree candidates put forward by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The corporation adopted a list that left out 13 graduating seniors. Though these students all met the academic requirements to graduate, they had participated in a pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard. Thus, the corporation refused to issue the degrees their instructors had voted to confer. This move shows that the board, composed mostly of business leaders who have never worked in higher education, runs the most important parts of the institution. That’s a problem, argue Andrew Manuel Crespo and Kirsten Weld, both Harvard faculty members, in this opinion essay for The Review.

Lagniappe

Read. I love stories about a closing, or a place or person that is one of the last of its kind. Here are three:
- Manhattan says goodbye to Webster Apartments, one of its women-only boarding houses. In the first half of the 19th century these apartments were vital to the city’s economic expansion, but over the following century nearly all of them closed. (The Paris Review)
- In Tampa, the Sulphur Springs Pool, is closed. Though the city has 11 other public pools, this one served a neighborhood where most of the residents are Black and median incomes are low. For some, it feels like the last pool is gone. (Tampa Bay Times)
- Here’s a Chronicle classic: The puppetry program at West Virginia University, nearly the last of its kind, makes the case for its survival.
Listen. Thanks to AI, there’s now a search engine for faces, a powerful and potentially dangerous tool in the hands of law enforcement, corporations, and even regular people. This podcast episode explains. (Search Engine, Apple Podcasts)