Straws in the Wind - Part 78

From the Houston Chronicle: The Texas State University System Board of Regents has approved new rules that will temporarily dissolve faculty senates and increase board members' oversight on curriculum and hiring decisions. A vote on Friday made Texas State the first of the state’s seven university systems to adopt changes stemming from Senate Bill 37. The law limits faculty influence and advances a fight against what some Republicans perceive to be a liberal bias in higher education. 

...Faculty members in the Texas State system won't have a formal mechanism for that input until their advisory groups, known as faculty senates, re-start under a new structure in line with the board's rules. The law stipulates that regents can affirm existing senates if they adopt SB 37 before Sept. 1, otherwise they will be abolished on the same date. Texas State did not affirm the existing senates.

...Texas State's board members approved the rules through a consent agenda, without any discussion...

SB 37 clarified that universities have the final say on curricula — though under the guidance of governing boards. The boards’ reviews could pinpoint courses they deem unnecessary for the workforce...

SB 37 puts faculty councils or senates under guidelines set by the board. Faculty will soon have less say in who serves on their senates: New groups will be smaller in many cases, capped at 60 members made up of at least two representatives from each college or school. The university president will appoint one member per school, with the ability to serve six consecutive one-year terms, and the remainder will be elected by a vote of that schools’ faculty. Those members can serve two-year terms, then they must step down from their positions...

Full story at https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/texas-state-sb37-20808973.php.

From the NY Times: The Justice Department on Tuesday found that George Washington University was “deliberately indifferent to antisemitic discrimination” on its campus, the latest allegation from the Trump administration over a college’s response to discrimination against Jewish students and faculty.

In a letter to GWU President Ellen Granberg, Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said that the Justice Department would deploy “enforcement” measures against the school unless a voluntary resolution is reached. She requested a response by Aug. 22.

“No one is above the law, and universities that promulgate antisemitic discrimination will face legal consequences,” Dhillon said in a statement.

The Trump administration has sought to reform higher education through investigations into alleged civil rights violations, often relating to antisemitism or diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Critics have said the administration is using antisemitism probes as a pretext to pursue an unrelated conservative agenda. In recent weeks, prominent institutions reached settlements with the administration, including Columbia University, which agreed to pay more than $200 million as part of changes meant to claw back federal funding cut by the administration.

GWU, which was the center of region-wide encampment demonstrations during campus protests against the war in Gaza last year, confirmed that it is reviewing the letter and plans to respond in a “timely manner.” ...

Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/08/12/george-washington-university-justice-department-antisemitism/.

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From the Hechinger Report: ...An exodus appears to be under way of Ph.D.s and faculty generally, who are leaving academia in the face of political, financial and enrollment crises. It’s a trend federal data and other sources show began even before Trump returned to the White House. On top of everything else affecting higher education, this is likely to reduce the quality of education for undergraduates, experts say. Nearly 70 percent of people receiving doctorates were already leaving higher education for industry, government and other sectors, not including those without job offers or who opted to continue their studies, according to the most recent available figures from the National Science Foundation — up from fewer than 50 percent decades ago.

As for faculty, more than a third of provosts reported higher-than-usual turnover last year, in a survey by Hanover Research and the industry publication Inside Higher Ed. That was before the turmoil of this late winter and spring. “People who can get out will get out,” said L. Maren Wood, director and CEO of the Center for Graduate Career Success, which works with doctoral and other graduate students at 69 colleges and universities to provide career help. If the spree of general job-switching that followed Covid was dubbed “the Great Resignation,” Wood said, what she’s seeing now in higher education is “the Great Defection.”

Getting a Ph.D. is a traditional pipeline to an academic career. Now some of the brightest candidates — who have spent years doing cutting-edge research in their fields to prepare for faculty jobs — are leaving higher education or signing on with universities abroad, Wood said.

...A Facebook group of dissatisfied academics, called The Professor Is Out, has swelled to nearly 35,000 members. It was started by Karen Kelsky, a former anthropology professor who previously helped people get jobs in academia and now coaches them on how to leave it. “It’s difficult to overcome the stereotype of a university professor, which is that they’re coddled, they’re overprivileged, they’re arrogant and just enjoying total job security that nobody else has,” said Kelsky, who also wrote “The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job,” a second edition of which is due out this fall. Today, “they are overworked. They’re grossly underpaid. They are being called the enemy. And they’re bailing on academia,” she said...

Full story at https://hechingerreport.org/a-great-defection-threatens-to-empty-universities-and-colleges-of-top-teaching-talent/.