Straws in the Wind - 446

From the Alabama Reflector: The Jacksonville State University Board of Trustees voted... to dissolve its faculty senate and staff council, the latest school to do so after passage of a state law this spring. In a statement Tuesday, Randall Jones, the chair of the board, said it had “a responsibility to ensure Jacksonville State University complies with Alabama law while providing sound governance, accountability, and responsible stewardship of the public resources entrusted to the university.”  

...HB 580, sponsored by Rep. Troy Stubbs, R-Wetumpka and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in April, limits faculty senate bodies to advisory roles; requires periodic reviews for tenured professors and give boards of trustees at colleges and universities the final say in developing curriculum. It was passed in April and is set to go into effect Oct. 1.

Auburn University’s Board of Trustees voted in June to abolish its faculty senate and take direct control of curricula, even though the law had provisions for Auburn and the University of Alabama, both established under the state Constitution, that the law would not be construed to impede the authority “to manage its respective campuses.” ...

Full story at https://alabamareflector.com/2026/08/17/jacksonville-state-university-board-of-trustees-dissolves-faculty-senate-staff-council/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 377

From Inside Higher Ed: The Auburn University Board of Trustees... gave itself complete control over course offerings, curriculum, degree requirements and academic credentials while eliminating shared governance at the Alabama land-grant university. Faculty say they have serious concerns about the policies and a host of unanswered questions about what the changes will mean in practice. The two policies, passed unanimously without discussion, mimic what Alabama House Bill 580 will require of other public institutions when it takes effect in October. As a land-grant institution created and governed by the state Constitution, Auburn isn’t explicitly bound by the law, but lawmakers have made veiled threats to punish noncompliance anyway by withholding state funding for offending institutions. The university appears to be taking a page out of Texas public institutions’ playbook by pre-emptively overcomplying with new state law, experts say.

...The existing Faculty Senate is dissolved. It already held an advisory-only role, but its replacement—the Presidential Academic Advisory Council—“is a shift from faculty-led governance to administratively controlled consultation,” the Auburn American Association of University Professors chapter wrote in a statement. The council will “provide advice and perspective, at the President’s request and direction, on matters related to academic policy, academic governance, and the academic mission of the University,” as well as “confidential” advice on other matters, according to the policy. The body may not issue any public statements on behalf of the university...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/trustees-regents/2026/06/05/auburn-board-takes-curricular-control-dissolves-senate.

Straws in the Wind - Part 136

From The Athletic/NY Times: Penn State fired head coach James Franklin... despite being on the hook for $45 million remaining on his contract, according to a school source. It is the second-largest buyout in college football history, behind what Texas A&M owed Jimbo Fisher when it fired him on Nov. 12, 2023. The Aggies owed Fisher roughly $77 million on a contract that runs through 2031. Franklin’s buyout is only the third in college football history to surpass the $20 million threshold for a fired coach, joining that of Fisher and Gus Malzahten, who was owed $21.4 million when he was fired by Auburn in December 2020.

In 2021, Franklin signed a 10-year contract that paid him $7 million per year in annual compensation plus a $1 million annual loan for life insurance. There were also incentives and retention bonuses in Franklin’s contract, but only his annual compensation and loan are part of the buyout. The massive buyout figure comes as coaching salaries have skyrocketed in recent years. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, the industry saw an increase in fully guaranteed contracts awarded to top coaches with buyouts that crept up into the upper eight figures...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6711634/2025/10/12/penn-state-james-franklin-buyout-explained/.

From the NY Times: The University of Virginia became the fifth school to rebuff a White House proposal to give universities preferential treatment if they uphold a set of White House demands. The White House offered the proposal to nine universities last week, asking them to sign on to a list of requirements laid out in a 10-page document in exchange for funds. In declining to sign on to the agreement, Paul G. Mahoney, Virginia’s interim president, said that while the university agreed with many principles outlined in the proposal, it wanted “no special treatment” in funding.

“A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of the vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education,” Mr. Mahoney wrote in a note to Linda McMahon, the education secretary, and two other administration officials. Mr. Mahoney’s announcement, which also went out to the campus community late Friday afternoon, followed similar decisions in the past week by other schools that received the government’s offer, including M.I.T., Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/us/university-of-virginia-white-house-compact.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 98

From the NY Times: An online group said that it was behind a number of recent hoax emergency calls that drew a heavy law enforcement response to college campuses across the United States and were timed to coincide with the start of the school year. The group, which calls itself Purgatory, highlighted news media coverage of the recent hoaxes in a public-facing channel on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service often used by criminals. The online group is suspected of being connected to several of the episodes, including reports of shootings, according to cybersecurity experts, law enforcement agencies and the group members’ own posts in a social media chat. The group’s claims could not be independently verified...

Twice in the final weeks of August, Villanova University responded to reports of a gunman on campus, which later the authorities determined to be false. On Aug. 25, at least six colleges, including the University of Arkansas, experienced lockdowns for similar threats that turned out to be bogus. And on Wednesday, the false alarms continued at Auburn University in Alabama and Texas Tech University...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/us/school-shooting-hoax-universities-purgatory-swatting.html.

From the Daily Cal: UC Berkeley has provided the personal information of roughly 160 students, staff and faculty to the federal government in a directive from the UC Office of the President. In an attempt to comply with an investigation into alleged campus antisemitism by the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, or OCR, UC Berkeley released the names of individuals and their “potential connection” to reports of alleged antisemitism...

Full story at https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/uc-berkeley-turns-over-personal-information-of-more-than-150-students-and-staff-to-federal/article_a4aad3e1-bbba-42cc-92d7-a7964d9641c5.html.