With threats of deportation, efforts to restrict travel from certain countries and looming cuts to finance at both the state and federal level, the world of higher education currently faces one of the most uncertain periods it has ever faced.

That is the assessment of Dr. Robert L.
“The mood on campus during the six months that I’ve had the pleasure of serving as the 10th chancellor has been one of uncertainty,” Jones said Tuesday at an education summit.Jones, a veteran research university leader and newly installed chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Our students have to deal with a climate that often time makes them feel unwelcome,” Jones said. “It creates a climate of fear.

“They’re really concerned about the deterioration of the climate on campus in ways that most of us have not experienced,” said Jones, an internationally respected authority on plant physiology.

Jones said when student fears are coupled with budgetary problems at the state level — Illinois is currently grappling with a budgetary gridlock — and federal budget proposals that would “dramatically impact the issue of affordability and accessibility for students,” it leads to even more uncertainty.

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Professor of the Higher Education Department at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education Dr. Ana M. Martínez Alemán came to the University of Connecticut’s Puerto Rican and Latin American Cultural Center Wednesday afternoon to speak about breaking down the bias problems that plague America’s higher education system from a student-to-professor perspective.

“The big question is: Does race, age and gender effect learning at higher education institutions? The answer is, it does,” Dr. Martínez Alemán began.

Dr. Martínez Alemán has been studying and analyzing racism and sexism for many years and derives her perceptions of higher education classrooms from statistics gathered from institutions. She remarked that for most of the 20th century, getting this information about collegiate educators was extremely difficult without actually being in the classroom, whereas the K-12 systems were very good at getting the data and responding in a constructive fashion.

She extrapolated on a huge variety of topics outside of gender and race, making a clear distinction of race vs. ethnicity and gender vs. sex, all with unique effects on perceptions of educators from students. This data shows that men are less likely to come under scrutiny as educators than women, regardless of their race.

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America’s universities are certainly in the news a lot these days. In today’s Wall Street Journal, within the first section I found four large stories: “Colleges Seek More from Deals,” “The Silencing of Heather Mac Donald,” “Witness to the Star Chamber,” and “How to End a Campus Injustice with the Stroke of a Pen.” Collectively, one could argue the stories demonstrate three things about today’s campuses. First, their leaders are rather greedy rent-seekers consumed with revenue maximization. Second, they mightily strive for adulation amongst what they regard as enlightened society, namely leftish politically correct elites (and also cash-disbursing politicians). Third, they increasingly have abandoned their historic belief in promoting free speech and civil but vigorous debate.

This is truly a tale of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The article about universities making deals with private enterprise regarding non-academic college functions actually speaks to one relatively commendable trend in universities: an increasing out-sourcing of non-core functions to private businesses. Ohio State’s 50 year leasing on its heating, cooling, and power systems for over a $1 billion was probably very smart — what do universities know about running utilities? That follows up on a similar deal they made leasing parking facilities. Colleges should be about teaching and research, not running food operations, dormitories, power plants, and the like.

Moving on to the “bad,” Claremont McKenna College (CMC)’s largely shutting down a speech by Heather Mac Donald is shameful. CMC had done a good thing — sign on to the Chicago Principles asserting academic freedom and free speech is vital — but somehow could not stop some demonstrators who did not like Mac Donald’s views, actually a very topical and I think important message relating to protests, Black Lives Matter, and the role of police in law enforcement. The only good thing about the incident: college president Hiram Chodosh promised that the students preventing unfettered free speech “will be held accountable.” If he follows through by truly delivering appropriately severe punishment to the perpetrators — expulsion or at least a long suspension — CMC will redeem itself. This is not the first such incident the school has faced in recent years, and if it wants to keep its reputation as one of the best liberal arts colleges west of the Mississippi, it needs to act forcibly.

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Women shoulder a disproportionately large workload at home in ways that might disadvantage them professionally. But are female professors also “taking care of the academic family” via disproportionate service loads? A new study says yes and adds to a growing body of research suggesting the same.

“We find strong evidence that, on average, women faculty perform more service than male faculty in academia, and that the service differential is driven particularly by participation in internal rather than external service,” the study says. “When we look within departments — controlling for any type of organizational or cultural factor that is department specific — we still find large, significant differences in the service loads of women versus men.”

All that matters because service loads “likely have an impact on productivity in other areas of faculty effort such as research and teaching, and these latter activities can lead directly to salary differentials and overall success in academia,” the paper says. “In the urgency to redress not only differences in time use but compensation imbalances, as well, the service imbalance is one that deserves to rise to the forefront of the discussion.”

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced the hiring of nine senior staff members Wednesday, including an acting under secretary with significant experience working on student aid and postsecondary issues.

The hiring of most of the individuals in the announcement had previously been discussed publicly, but it was the first official announcement from DeVos about who would fill key staff positions. Like other federal agencies in the Trump administration, the Department of Education has gone nearly three months without naming appointees to a number of political positions.

James Manning, who was named senior adviser to the under secretary and acting under secretary of education, was picked last November to lead the Trump “beachhead” team at the department — the group appointed by the incoming administration to assist with the transition at each federal agency. Manning has experience as a department official going back to the Carter administration, last serving as acting chief operating officer of federal student aid. As acting under secretary, Manning would be the most senior official in the department after DeVos.

Rohit Chopra, the former student loans ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Manning is experienced and fair-minded.

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A white nationalist group that initially claimed affiliation with Auburn University has prompted condemnation from officials there.

The controversy surrounding the Auburn White Student Union represents the continued rise of white supremacist activities on university campuses, intensified by the contemporary political landscape.

Per its website, the group subscribes to the “alt-right” movement — a right-wing following that often espouses white supremacist and racist views. Initially the site was emblazoned with an eagle and the moniker “Whites of the Alt-Right Educating Auburn Gentiles for Liberation and Empowerment,” or WAR EAGLE, a reference to the university’s motto. Since, the logo has been removed and replaced with a disclaimer that the group isn’t associated with Auburn.

The group is shrouded in digital anonymity. No contact information appears on its website, and the organization that registered the website domain is listed as “c/o RespectMyPrivacy LLC.”

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There was a time when ‘higher education’ and ‘debt’ were mutually exclusive terms. Currently, college tuition is rising higher than the inflation rate, but there still remains one affordable option — community colleges.

The Center on Education and the Workforce projects that by 2018 there will be a demand for 22 million college-educated workers and at the current rate, we will be unable to meet that demand of college graduates. This calls for innovative solutions, such as the ones proposed by Texas lawmakers who have filed several bills to allow some or all community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees. This offers a practical solution to marry the debate between the accessibility and affordability of a higher education, while also addressing the demand for an educated workforce.

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For Ajmal Alami, it’s more important “to have workers win a $15 minimum wage than it is to, maybe, change the name of a building to someone else’s name.”

“Not that those aren’t campaigns worth going for,” said Mr. Alami, the campus coordinator for the Young Democratic Socialists at Virginia Tech, “but there are bigger fish to fry.”

On the campus, in Blacksburg, Va., Mr. Alami said, the newly formed socialist group is trying to help graduate students organize around Virginia’s right-to-work laws, and it’s hoping to help dining-hall workers navigate the same anti-union rules. Elaina Colussi, who organizes the University of Oregon’s Young Democratic Socialist chapter in Eugene, is also looking inside its cafeteria for causes.

“Our student campus workers that work in the dining halls and stuff just got their free shift meals taken away, and now they have to pay, like, $3 a meal, which is ridiculous,” Ms. Colussi said, referring to a policy change that went into effect last fall.

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At a University of Maryland University College career fair last week, the scene was familiar: Students and recent alumni of the flagship’s online college, dressed in their professional best with blazers, name tags, and business cards, lingered before tables of recruiters, who gave out free merchandise and spoke of job opportunities.

The longest line of job seekers was at the U.S. State Department’s table — ironic, since hiring at the department is still stalled under a partial freeze signed by President Trump.

Right across from that table, only a handful of prospective hires waited to speak with representatives of an agency with sunnier employment prospects — U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a corner, next to a table for the Washington Nationals, a border-patrol agent and a CBP officer, whose job is to maintain security at ports of entry, stood dressed in full uniform, ready to recruit.

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A federal judge in Hawaii issued an injunction late Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from temporarily barring nationals of six Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — from entering the U.S.

The injunction is against President Trump’s revised travel ban, which he issued this month after federal courts blocked his first ban. While many in higher education said the second ban was in some ways better than the first, they still objected to its automatic refusal to allow some people to come to the United States to study or teach because of their country of origin.

The judge’s order is likely to be appealed by the Trump administration. As with the first round of litigation, higher education is playing a prominent role in the legal arguments.

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