Out

From Inside Higher Ed: Dartmouth University Provost Santiago Schnell resigned Wednesday after a faculty-led review committee concluded that he “used AI to meaningfully alter his writing” and “fell short” of the university’s academic integrity standards. “I expect our senior leaders to hold themselves to the highest standards,” Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock, who has called for “more AI” at the university, wrote in a memo to students, faculty and staff. “Out of respect for his colleagues and the institution, Santiago has resigned as provost and is leaving the university."

...The controversy surrounding Schnell’s AI use started in August when Semafor published an investigation showing that the AI detector Pangram flagged an editorial he wrote for The Washington Post as at least 80 percent AI generated. A few weeks later, The Dartmouth followed up with its own investigation into more of Schnell’s published writings, also using Pangram to detect the extent of AI use. According to the student newspaper, Pangram determined that Schnell’s work was 96 percent “AI-written” across the nine professional articles he published this year, including the Post essay and two academic papers about mathematics. 

...In response to the outcry, Beilock convened an independent advisory committee composed of faculty and alumni to review how Schnell used AI in his writing and determine if he met publishers’ AI-disclosure requirements, if he was honest about his AI use and if that use constituted a violation of Dartmouth policy... The committee noted that Schnell didn’t fully cooperate with their investigation...

Full story a https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2026/10/28/dartmouth-provost-resigns-over-ai-use.

Market Opportunity

The lack of SAT scores for UCLA and Berkeley admissions seems to have created a market opportunity. The Facebook ad above reads:

A 1550 SAT won’t help your child get into UCLA or UC Berkeley.

Both schools stopped looking at test scores. For strong students at schools like Harker, Harvard-Westlake, and Bishop’s, that changes everything.

Without scores, grades, essays, and what your child does outside class decide who gets in. Many families are still planning for an application that no longer exists...

And, of course, after a free introductory program in how to cope with the non-use of the SAT, the service above - for a fee - will tell anxious and affluent parents how to cook up the right sort of application.

Straws in the Wind - Part 509

From Inside Higher Ed: The Ohio State University College of Medicine discriminated in its admissions process, giving preference to Black and Hispanic applicants over white and Asian applicants, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. It's the 10th time this year the administration has found that a medical or law school discriminated, while 20 such investigations remain open... The DOJ letter... says OSU used a socioeconomic scale developed at UC Davis’s medical school, which the department considers a “race proxy.” The DOJ claims that UC Davis had discriminated in its medical school admissions, citing the same scale. According to the DOJ’s letter to Davis, that scale includes metrics like parental education level and coming from an “underserved area.”

The department also noted disparities in MCAT scores between admitted Black and Hispanic students and admitted Asian students: In 2025, the median MCAT score for admitted Black students was 514 (83rd percentile) and 515 (88th percentile) for admitted Hispanic applicants, while admitted Asian students had a median score of 517 (94th percentile)... Critics... argued that the findings often misinterpret the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban, which allowed for the use of socioeconomic factors in admissions...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/10/22/osu-college-medicine-discriminated-doj-claims.

Expansion

You may have seen the front-page item in last Sunday's LA Times about the expansion of the UCLA Health System:

University officials say its expansion to five hospitals and 300 clinics — up from 150 locations a decade ago — has given more Southern Californians access to its academic medicine... Nurses at the university’s flagship hospital Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood say the expansion has created crowding that has caused what they describe as an ongoing, daily crisis in the emergency room.

Patients coming from the 300 clinics for hip replacements, heart surgeries and other procedures at Ronald Reagan often wait one or two days in the emergency department until beds become available upstairs in the hospital, according to UCLA officials. To accommodate those patients who’ve been admitted but don’t have a room, the hospital has installed dozens of beds in what was once the emergency department’s waiting room and in adjacent spaces. That has forced people waiting for emergency care into a large white tent outside, which was put up during the COVID-19 pandemic...

At the September Regents committee meeting, Spisso, UCLA Health’s president, told board members that the system needs to add as many as another 400 hospital beds so that newly admitted patients no longer have to wait. For months, rumors have circulated that UCLA will soon buy Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, which would make the university the only hospital operator in that city. UCLA bought the city’s other hospital in 1995...

UCLA’s expansion strategy has been financially successful, according to the health system’s annual report... The university is now spending nearly $300 million to renovate a 170,000-square-foot building that sits on nine acres near Los Angeles International Airport. Purchased in 2024, the campus’ many offerings will include a sports medicine institute with physical therapy and advanced imaging, as well as an ambulatory surgery center with 10 operating rooms... The university also plans to soon open a new 119-bed psychiatric hospital in L.A.’s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood. The facility was once the 204-bed Olympia Medical Center, where most patients were Black, Latino and underinsured. Olympia shut down after the university purchased it in December 2020. The renovated hospital allows UCLA to relocate and expand the 74-bed Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, which is currently on the fourth floor of Ronald Reagan Medical Center...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-10-25/ucla-health-expansion-raises-costs-concerns.

One thing that is underplayed in the story is an explanation of why the expansion is occurring. If you look at the other side of the market, you have health insurers, public and private. There are now only a handful of major insurance players in the LA area. So you have a handful of players in any negotiation on reimbursement for medical procedures. Being large - lots of beds, lots of docs, etc. - improves the negotiating position of providers such as UCLA when they negotiate with carriers.

Trellix Departing - CrowdStrike Arriving

Does "Trellix" ring a bell? Here is a reminder from an AI summary:

UC Systemwide Trellix Dispute

• The Mandate: UC President Michael Drake ordered the systemwide deployment of Trellix EDR cybersecurity software on university-managed devices.

• Faculty and Academic Senate Opposition: Faculty members and the UC Academic Senate Assembly formally protested the rollout. They argue the administration bypassed shared governance consultation.

• Privacy and Surveillance Concerns: Faculty raised alarms that root-level access could allow file monitoring, alteration, or deletion, infringe on academic freedom, and expose sensitive research data or government collaboration channels (such as the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative).

• Administration Stance: The UC Office of the President (UCOP) maintained that Trellix limits data collection strictly to system-level threat indicators without monitoring personal browsing or emails.

• Phase-out Plans: For instance, UCLA Transitioning from Trellix to CrowdStrike scheduled a full retirement of Trellix by May 2027 in favor of CrowdStrike.

==

Trellix Corporate Data Breach Investigation

• The Incident: Trellix disclosed a security and source code repository incident in 2026, followed by notification letters sent to affected individuals in August 2026.

==

UCLA Transitioning from Trellix to CrowdStrike for Endpoint Security

October 27, 2026  Security

https://dts.ucla.edu/news/ucla-transitioning-trellix-crowdstrike-endpoint-security

--

Protecting UCLA's systems, information and digital environment is essential to supporting our university's teaching, research and service missions.

As part of a University of California-wide initiative, the UC Office of the President (UCOP) is replacing the current systemwide endpoint security solution, Trellix HX (formerly known as FireEye), with CrowdStrike Falcon, a modern cybersecurity platform providing antivirus and other detection and prevention capabilities designed to protect computers and university information from evolving threats.

In alignment with UC expectations, UCLA will retire Trellix by the end of May 2027, making a timely transition to CrowdStrike essential to maintaining supported endpoint protection. While the security software is changing, the cybersecurity requirements established by UC in 2024 remain in effect. UCLA is committed to making this transition in consultation with both campus academic and administrative governance to develop the detailed rollout plan and necessary adjustments.

No action is required at this time, as your local IT team will provide instructions as the project gets underway.

--

What Is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike is an Endpoint Detection and Response solution designed to detect, prevent and respond to cybersecurity threats, including malware, ransomware and unauthorized access.

Compared with Trellix, CrowdStrike is designed to provide enhanced protection, support a broader range of devices and operate more efficiently in the background, minimizing the impact on everyday device use.

CrowdStrike is not intended to monitor your work, research or productivity. Its purpose is cybersecurity threat detection and response, and UCLA's use of the technology remains subject to UC privacy and data-use policies. This includes any use of CrowdStrike for remote cyber threat remediation in alignment with university consent procedures. As part of the governance process, a formal academic committee dedicated to cyber transparency has been requested to ensure ongoing alignment with these policies and to review activity.

What Should I Expect?

UCLA has begun deploying CrowdStrike through a pilot with select campus units to test and refine the installation process. The broader rollout will occur in phases, in conjunction with ongoing IT and academic governance review:

October 2026 – January 2027: Campus IT teams will prioritize installing CrowdStrike on servers and administrative staff computers.

January 2027 – May 2027: Deployment will tentatively expand to faculty, researchers, and other applicable devices across campus following consultation with the Academic Senate.

Beginning June 1, 2027: Duo Desktop will no longer recognize Trellix as an approved endpoint security solution. Devices without CrowdStrike may be unable to access certain high-risk UCLA applications and services.

Depending on your device, CrowdStrike may be installed automatically by your IT team or require you to complete additional installation steps. Your local IT team will communicate the timing, instructions, and support available if action is needed.

What Happens Next?

As UCLA prepares for the transition, your local IT team will share additional details about timing, expectations, and any steps you may need to take. Again, no action is required at this time. Please wait for further instructions from your local IT team before installing CrowdStrike or removing Trellix from your computer.

For more information, including frequently asked questions about deployment, device compatibility, privacy and upcoming access requirements, visit the OCISO CrowdStrike website:

https://ociso.ucla.edu/crowdstrike-falcon-endpoint-security-antivirus

Sincerely,

Darnell Hunt

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

--

Michael J. Beck

Administrative Vice Chancellor

==

NOTE 1: Blog readers may recall that Trellix became an issue both at the UCLA campus level and systemwide at the Academic Senate's Assembly. The issue for faculty involved personal cybersecurity. There is a general reference to this concern in the Hunt-Beck memo above. It is highlighted in boldface.

NOTE 2: (from AI) - CrowdStrike is headquartered in Austin, Texas — 206 East 9th Street, Austin, TX 78701 — after relocating from Sunnyvale, California in 2021. Beyond Austin, the company runs a significant global footprint: regional hubs in Washington D.C., London, Sydney, Tokyo, and Singapore, plus smaller offices across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

NOTE 3: If you are reading this blog through the older 

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/, 

typing in "Trellix" will bring you references to concerns raised by faculty. (The newer parallel blog

https://danmitchellsblogcontinues.blogspot.com/ 

does not go back far enough to have those references.

Slipping

Story from EdSource: https://edsource.org/2026/uc-freshmen-math-failure-doubled/767983.
 

Straws in the Wind - Part 508

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: ...The Survey of Earned Doctorates [is] an annual survey by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics on research doctorate recipients at American institutions... The 2025 survey found that the number of doctorates earned in the humanities dropped 20 percent since 2015, while the number of doctorates earned in the social sciences saw a smaller decline of 3 percent. Over all, the number of doctorates increased by 8 percent. This survey also found that these two disciplinary areas are among the longest doctorates to complete...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/humanities-dissertations-have-declined-far-more-steeply-than-those-in-the-social-sciences-report-finds.