Thursday, March 13, 2025

Lee Bollinger presents his thoughts







--Lee Bollinger, former president of Columbia University and the University of Michigan

podcasts this week: Grammar Girl, Fresh Air, & The Key with Inside Higher Ed


Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Local college students give up spring break to give back [ WOOD TV8 ]

Education Department Lays Off Nearly Half of Staff [ Inside Higher Ed ]

The flava:
The Education Department laid off “nearly 50 percent” of its more than 4,100 employees Tuesday evening, according to four sources inside the agency who were told about the plans and an agency news release. . . . 

The reductions will bring the total workforce down to fewer than 2,200. 

The department’s D.C. offices will be closed Wednesday for “security reasons,” according to an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed. The email instructed department staff to take their laptops home with them on Tuesday in order to telework Wednesday, and said they would “not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th, for any reason.” 

The article:

Thursday, March 6, 2025

As Trump Goes After Universities, Students Are Now on the Chopping Block [ NYTimes ]

The flava:
In the early weeks of the Trump administration’s push to slash funding that colleges and universities rely on, grants and contracts had been cut and, in a few cases, researchers had been laid off.

In recent days, the fiscal pain has come to students.

At the University of Pennsylvania, administrators have asked departments in the School of Arts & Sciences, the university’s largest school, to cut incoming Ph.D. students. In some cases, that meant reneging on informal offers, according to Wendy Roth, a professor of sociology.

Her department had to decide which of the students would be “unaccepted.” Dr. Roth, chair of graduate education, was chosen to explain those decisions to them.

“Two of them, I would say, were extremely upset. One person was in tears,” she said. “It’s just the most terrible thing to get that kind of news when your plans are made.”

Since taking office, the Trump administration has issued orders that threaten to broadly undercut the financial foundation of university based research, including deep reductions in overhead cost reimbursements through the National Institutes of Health. Court challenges have paused some of the cuts, but universities are bracing for uncertainty. The University of Pennsylvania could face a $250 million hit in N.I.H. funding alone. . . . 

The article:

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Trump threatens to pull federal funds for US schools allowing ‘illegal protests’ [ The Guardian ]

The flava:
Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to halt all federal funding for any college or school that allows “illegal protests” and vowed to imprison “agitators”, in a social media statement that prompted alarm from free expression advocates.

“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” the US president wrote on Truth Social.

“Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on [sic] the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

In a statement on Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire) condemned Trump’s remarks. . . . 

The article: