What Milliken said about AI, Trump administration, and TPM

On April 9th, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) held a lunch/conference on issues facing higher education.

The program was moderated by Tani Cantil-Sakauye, PPIC President and CEO (also former chief justice of the California Supreme Court). Guests were Sonya Christian, Chancellor, California Community Colleges, Mildred García, Chancellor, The California State University, James Milliken, President, University of California, and Kristen Soares, President, Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. 

In response to an initial question about the major challenges facing higher ed, Milliken said he told the Regents - when he was a candidate for his current position, that the two important challenges were the conflict with the Trump administration and adapting to AI. He said he now thinks the former is less an issue than the latter. 

Asked about campus free speech, he indicated that free speech had to be balanced against interference with the operation of the university, a point with which the moderator agreed.* You can hear what he said at the link below.

Or direct to https://ia601506.us.archive.org/0/items/newsom-03-04-2026/PPIC%20Higher%20Ed%20Event-Milliken%204-9-2026.mp4.

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*These conversations often focus on constitutional rights and other legalisms. The constitution, however, gives the same right to say that the Earth is flat as it does to say that the Earth is round. One of the values - not rights - of universities is that they are supposed to help you to know what you are talking about. It would have been nice if someone had pointed this out. So I just did.

Straws in the Wind - Part 309

From the Yale Daily News: More than 120 students and alumni recently signed a letter addressed to Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis to express “deep concern” after film studies lecturer Shakti Bhagchandani told her students that Yale would not renew her contract due to budget tightening measures. German lecturer Austen Hinkley spoke to his 72-person “Marx, Nietzsche, Freud” lecture about his contract non-renewal, which he also said was impacted by budget cuts. Lecturer Matthew Morrison, who teaches a course in medicine and the humanities, wrote in an email to his former students that “Yale has, as yet, not renewed my contract for next year, conceivably due to its newly straitened financial situation.”

Bhagchandi, Hinkley and Morrison are all part of the instructional faculty, a group that comprises the non-tenure track positions of lecturers and lectors, who have limited job security even under more normal budgetary circumstances. In an email to the News, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Steven Wilkinson acknowledged that recent pressure on Yale’s budget impacted contract decisions. It remains unclear how likely the contracts’ renewals would have been without the austerity measures caused by an impending endowment tax hike...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/articles/instructors-let-go-amid-budget-cuts-drawing-flak-on-yale-s-priorities.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 140

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard College Dean David J. Deming acknowledged that far more students are likely using artificial intelligence than the College’s disciplinary system has been able to detect, saying he hopes to “push harder” on the issue in the years ahead. Speaking at a fireside chat for Academic Integrity Week on Thursday and at an open forum earlier in the week, Deming described AI as an urgent challenge facing the College — but stopped short of proposing a standardized policy to govern its use, pointing to the difficulty of writing rules that work across courses as different as Computer Science 50 and an upper-level English seminar. “The biggest challenge, from my perspective, with AI is that it blurs the boundaries of what we would call cheating or academic integrity in ways that actually make it really hard to write policy around,” Deming said Thursday.

Deming said the clearest cases of AI misuse — students submitting AI-generated work with hallucinated citations or accidentally including the chatbot prompt in their submission — tend to be the ones that reach the Honor Council, the student and faculty body tasked with reviewing potential violations of academic integrity policies. “But for every one of those, there are many cases where students are using AI in a more subtle way,” he said.

...Assistant Dean of Harvard College Dwight Fee, who moderated the fireside chat and has served on the Honor Council, said the body requires clear evidence of AI misuse before pursuing a case. “If we have to get into guessing, it just doesn’t become a case,” Fee said. Asked to estimate how widespread AI misuse is among students, Deming cited a survey by the Harvard AI safety group that found 88 percent of students were using AI at least weekly. He said he expected the share to be higher now...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/3/deming-ai-usage-classroom/.

Coming April 24th - Part 2

Faithful blog readers may recall our post from last December reporting on a new policy that all course material had to be made accessible to disabled students as of April 24th.* It was unclear then what exactly is required and how course materials, which may be printed, video, or audio, would have to be adapted.

We are now two weeks from the deadline. EdSource is carrying an article, derived from a Daily Cal piece, describing problems at Berkeley in making the adaptation. The EdSource article doesn't seem to recognize that this is a systemwide challenge, not just a Berkeley issue:

UC Berkeley faculty are scrambling to meet changes to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, leaving them feeling both unsupported and concerned about revamping online materials, the Daily Californian reported. Professors have until April 24 to make digital course materials accessible online. Previously, according to the Daily Cal, online content accessibility standards for these materials were reserved for public resources. Additional measures to ensure accessibility have been implemented based on students’ accommodations. 

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the university in 2022 for allegedly failing to meet the standards. UC Berkeley was given 3 1/2 years to comply, the Daily Cal reported. Some professors, for example, noted that software designed to build websites — or format mathematical formulas — can’t be easily converted to compatible formats, including PDFs, or isn’t screen-reader accessible. Others have voiced concern that public materials may now be removed as a result, which happened after the 2022 lawsuit...

Full story at https://edsource.org/updates/uc-berkeley-faces-deadline-to-make-online-materials-ada-accessible.

There seems to be a UC-wide problem with not much time to fix it. 

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/12/coming-april-24th.html.

Just a Reminder

UC President Clark Kerr hands
Master Plan to Gov. Pat Brown
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From time to time, we like to remind folks - for all the good it does - about the need to develop and implement a new Master Plan for Higher Education, rather than make ad hoc legislative decisions. Currently, according to Capitol Weekly, there are four bills in the legislature that would make ad hoc adjustments:

...The California State University (CSU) system can already award some doctoral degrees, the scope of their offerings is limited to those that do not duplicate those provided by the University of California (UC). That restriction would go away under AB 2693 (Alvarez), which removes the requirement that the UC must approve any PhD offerings the CSU provides.

Restrictions on the California Community Colleges (CCC) system would also change under AB 2694, which would overturn a law that bars community colleges from offering a BA/BS degree if a similar program exists anywhere in the state. AB 2694 (Alvarez) would bar duplication “only within the same geographic region where there are documented unmet regional workforce needs.”

...AB 2301 [Soria] would establish a pilot program authorizing up to 10 community college districts to offer a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), in an effort to address California’s nursing shortage.

Another Alvarez bill (AB 664) would allow Southwestern College in South San Diego County to offer up to four workforce-aligned bachelor’s degree programs...

All four bills are now in the Assembly Committee on Higher Education. The deadline to pass policy bills is April 24th.

Full story at https://capitolweekly.net/californias-higher-education-master-plan-in-flux/.

Of course, putting a bill in the hopper doesn't mean it will be enacted and signed by the governor. But there already have been such bills that have been enacted and signed. And there are likely to be more.

And even without the bill, there is this:

From Santa Monica Patch: Santa Monica College has received approval from the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and the Accrediting Commission of Community & Junior Colleges to launch a Bachelor of Science degree in Cloud Computing. “This new baccalaureate degree marks an important moment for Santa Monica College in fulfilling our mission of continuing to be a leader in preparing students for careers, as well as transfers,” SMC Superintendent/President Dr. Kathryn E. Jeffery said.

The four-year degree will be SMC’s second, after its B.S. in Interaction Design (IxD)—which was launched as part of a landmark statewide pilot program in 2015—and is slated to meet regional needs in one of the fastest-growing sectors in the global economy...

Full story at https://patch.com/california/santamonica/santa-monica-college-launching-bachelor-s-degree-cloud-computing.

Straws in the Wind - Part 308

From Inside Higher Ed: The University of Missouri has stripped the Legion of Black Collegians—its historic Black student governing body—as well as at least four other minority affinity groups of all annual designated funding, starting in July, The Columbia Missourian reported. In addition to losing official funding, the groups will no longer be recognized as university-sponsored organizations. Mizzou officials said in a public statement that they made the decision in order to comply with DEI restrictions issued by the Department of Justice in July. In an email to Inside Higher Ed, university spokesperson Christopher Ave said that it was the funding model—not the organizations themselves—that violated the DOJ memo. (The organizations can still apply for funding like other student groups.)

...In a series of social media posts, the targeted student organizations argued that the memo constitutes guidance—not law. But when asked about the students’ objections, Ave said, “the memo provides specific guidance on the Department of Justice’s interpretation of federal law.” ...Some higher education history experts see Mizzou’s move as more than just another pre-emptive action taken by university leaders in response to Trump’s intimidation tactics. The flagship university has a deep history of racial tensions and student activism on campus, so they’re watching closely to see how the students respond...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/diversity/race-ethnicity/2026/04/07/mizzou-terminates-official-funding-black-student-council.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 139

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard President Alan M. Garber '76 urged affiliates last Tuesday to treat disagreement as a core feature of academic life, arguing that engaging with competing ideas is essential to how the University teaches and produces knowledge. Speaking during the second day of Harvard’s annual Community and Campus Life Forum, Garber positioned the University’s ongoing efforts around campus culture within its broader intellectual mission, emphasizing that how students and faculty interact shapes what they are able to discover...

The forum, a three-day event that brought together more than 200 affiliates in person and virtually, was the first held under the office’s new name after it was rebranded last April from the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. The programming reflected a broader shift in emphasis away from discussions around individual identity, with sessions focused on constructive dialogue and engaging across differences. Garber said that meaningful inquiry depends on exposure to unfamiliar perspectives and a willingness to test one’s assumptions against evidence and argument...

The address comes as Harvard faces political pressure over its approach to diversity initiatives, including the Trump administration’s repeated demand that the University dismantle DEI programs. While Garber’s remarks echoed themes from previous years, he used the word “diversity” only once in his speech, in reference to “diverse viewpoints.”

...The data also pointed to challenges in engaging across difference. Only 59 percent of respondents said they had formed satisfying relationships with people who hold different viewpoints, and several groups fell below 50 percent when asked about their comfort expressing opinions across ideological lines...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/6/garber-ccl-forum/.