Straws in the Wind - Part 405

From the Brown Daily Herald: The Generative AI in Teaching and Learning Committee report found asymmetric patterns of generative AI use across campus... According to the report — shared with the community Provost Francis Doyle — 56% of undergraduate respondents and 67% of graduate and medical student respondents reported intentionally using generative AI tools daily or weekly. The committee noted they found a disconnect between the ways students and faculty use generative AI. They found that while a majority of students who responded to their survey use generative AI to learn new concepts, only a quarter of faculty respondents said they asked their students to use generative AI as a tool for their coursework. When they did so, it was often to have students think critically about AI or use it as a learning assistant...

An audit of roughly 3,000 syllabi from academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25 found that more than half did not include a policy on generative AI usage in teaching and learning... The report noted that over 70% of student survey respondents in the life sciences and physical sciences identified as frequent generative AI users, while only 41% of humanities and the arts students identified as frequent users. Despite differences in AI adoption, students and faculty alike share concerns that over-reliance on generative AI could “reduce long-term critical thinking, have negative cognitive consequences and undermine academic integrity,” Doyle added. 

...For the near-term phase of the roadmap, the committee recommended that the University set baseline rules for generative AI while each department develops “standards for their areas when their expectations diverge from the baseline rules.” The recommendations also call for providing “centralized, enterprise-level GenAI tools” through the Office of Information Technology. In the next phase, the committee recommends updating the College and Graduate School academic codes to “explicitly address boundaries of AI assistance” as well as providing training to develop AI literacy among University staff. 

...The final phase recommends exploring the development of a coalition of peer institutions to set national standards for AI usage in higher education...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/07/university-report-finds-split-ai-adoption-patterns-concerns-of-risks.

Straws in the Wind - Part 403

From Inside Higher Ed: For the first time since he started teaching Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory nearly two decades ago, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano gave his students a take-home midterm this spring. Quite a few students had expressed anxiety about being in a classroom after a gunman killed two students and injured nine in a December mass shooting at Brown, and so “it was appropriate,” he said, to allow students to take their exams at home.

But by the end of the semester, Serrano regretted the decision. Dozens of students in the class likely used artificial intelligence to cheat and earn perfect or near-perfect scores on their midterm, he said. Serrano in turn made the final exam in-person, which led more than a dozen students to drop the course and even more to fail it. Administrators’ response to the widespread cheating event has been “meek,” he said, and the incident has raised questions about how universities can—and should—respond to AI-enabled cheating at scale.

His welfare economics class typically attracted up to 30 students, but this spring he taught 86—an increase he attributes to the promised take-home exams. When the midterm came along, the average score was 96 percent. “Historically the average grade in the midterm of this course has ranged between 65 and 80 [percent], and this exam was harder than the exams I wrote in the past, because … take-home is an opportunity to challenge the class a little bit more, given that you’re giving the students unlimited time,” Serrano said.

...In a message to students after the midterm that he shared with Inside Higher Ed, he told them he suspected many of them of using AI to cheat and, with the blessing of his dean, changed the final exam to an in-person test. Serrano heard crickets from his students, but 18 of them subsequently dropped the class. Nine students remained enrolled but did not take the final exam. And Serrano said the results proved him right; three students earned a zero, and the average score on the final was 48.6 percent—by far a historic low, he said. Previously, the average final exam score had never dropped below 65 percent. Only a few students scored similarly to how they did on the midterm. In a follow-up message to students, Serrano announced the midterm was void and the final exam would be worth 80 percent of the students’ final grade. Any student that scored a 40 percent or higher on the final earned a passing grade—previously, he set the passing line at 50 percent or higher. In total, 19 students failed the class...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat.

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Not a surprise:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMRyLzUzpuU.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 178

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard plans to install additional security cameras around academic buildings and undergraduate residential areas, expanding a campus security push that administrators privately linked to the fatal shooting at Brown University and to possibly enforcing Harvard’s rules on campus protests.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson James M. Chisholm confirmed... that Harvard plans to add cameras around academic buildings and in the River and Quad residential areas. In a statement, Chisholm wrote that planned installations are part of Harvard’s “regular process” of assessing and updating its security infrastructure. But in an April 30 email to members of the Student Services Undergraduate Advisory Board — a group of students who provide feedback to College administrators on the undergraduate experience — Dean of Student Services Michael P. Burke directly tied the planned camera installations to security concerns raised by the Brown shooting... Burke wrote that the new cameras may also be a response to “crime investigation and possibly even campus use rules enforcement.”

Harvard enacted University-wide campus use rules in summer 2024 after months of pro-Palestine student protests across the College and graduate schools, including a 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/7/6/harvard-to-add-security-cameras/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 342

From the Brown Daily Herald: In a United States Senate Appropriations Committee hearing..., Alabama Sen. Katie Britt attacked Brown’s security preparedness for the Dec. 13 shooting. Britt stated that Brown violated the Clery Act — which the University is currently under investigation for — which stipulates requirements for security and safety on university campuses. Britt is a Republican senator from Alabama, the home state of Ella Cook ’28, who was killed in the shooting. 

...“Public reporting from local stations and student news outlets has made it clear to me that the murder of Ella Cook, her fellow classmate and the wounding of nine others were entirely preventable,” Britt said in the hearing. “They were the predictable result of more than a decade of ideological degradation and the vilification of police and law enforcement at Brown.”

“Brown did nothing,” Britt repeated throughout her statements. University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in a statement to The Herald that “there should be no ambiguity about Brown University’s enduring commitment to maintaining a safe and secure campus.” ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/04/alabama-sen-katie-britt-attacks-brown-s-preparedness-response-to-dec-13-shooting.

Straws in the Wind - Part 332

From the Brown Daily Herald: Three students who were injured on campus during the Dec. 13 shooting are suing the University in three separate lawsuits over security failures, citing inadequate security measures and a failure to act on repeated warnings about the shooter’s suspicious behavior. “Brown’s conduct, as alleged herein, was so willful, reckless and wicked as to amount to criminality, which, for the good of society and as a warning to Brown, ought to be punished by an award of punitive damages over and above that provided in an award of compensatory damages,” one of the complaints reads.

All three lawsuits were filed last Thursday in Rhode Island Superior Court, and the students are seeking more than $10,000 in damages each for medical expenses as well as physical and mental distress. The students were not identified in the documents, and were referred to as “J. Doe No. 1, 2 and 3.” ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/04/three-students-injured-in-dec-13-shooting-sue-brown-over-alleged-security-failures.

Straws in the Wind - Part 326

From the Brown Daily Herald: Economics Professor Roberto Serrano normally holds in-person exams for his ECON 1170: “Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory” class, but this semester he decided to assign a take-home, closed-book exam for the first midterm to alleviate pressure for students after the Dec. 13 shooting. But after the class’s grade distributions indicated widespread cheating, Serrano has decided to return to in-person exams for all of his courses. The median for the exam was 98%, with 40 out of 86 students scoring 100%. Compared to previous data, the distribution for his first ECON 1170 midterm was “absolutely ridiculous,” especially since he had designed a more challenging exam for the take-home format, Serrano said in an interview with The Herald. “Historically, the average grade in the midterm exams ranged from 65 to 85,” Serrano said. After investigating the exam results, Serrano said he found signs of AI use and collaboration amongst students...

Pakzad-Hurson also suspects student AI use on homework assignments. “The biggest shift is just that students are seemingly a lot better at homework now,” Pakzad-Hurson said. He has noticed “perfect performance” on homeworks and “poor performance” on tests. Pakzad-Hurson lowered the weight of homeworks on students’ overall grades to reduce the incentive to submit AI work.

Economics Professor Rajiv Vohra noted that AI does not appear to be a problem with in-person exams, but may be an issue with homeworks or take-home exams. Teaching Professor of Economics Sylvia Kuo has also noticed potential AI usage on her homework assignments, even though they are graded based on effort. She said she has seen “weird answers” that still arrive at a solution, but use terminology that is inconsistent “with what was taught.”

In the last year, Kuo has also seen a decrease in exam scores, despite the fact that the content of exams has been “roughly” the same since she started teaching the course more than a decade ago. She said this suggests students are not using their “own brain” to do the “learning in order to perform well on exams.” ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/04/after-ai-cheating-concerns-economics-professors-see-in-person-exams-as-a-path-forward.

Straws in the Wind - Part 305

From the Brown Daily Herald: In a historic move, graduate fellows at Brown are seeking recognition as part of the Graduate Labor Organization, the union representing graduate student employees... Leaders from RIFT-AFT Local 6516, GLO’s parent group, sent a message to University officials announcing the graduate fellows’ intent to unionize... The move appears to be the first of its kind at a private U.S. institution of higher education, something union organizers argue is made possible by a novel Rhode Island law passed in August that explicitly codifies the right of graduate student employees — including fellows not working as teaching or research assistants — to unionize.

Graduate fellows are students who receive stipend funding unrelated to whether or not they officially work as research or teaching assistants. The University’s current contract with GLO includes only graduate student employees recognized by the National Labor Relations Board, many of whom are teaching or research assistants. Fellows are not currently recognized at the federal level, according to Patrick Crowley, the president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO branch, which advocated for the bill’s passage. “This is exactly why we did it: to make sure that workers who don’t have the right to organize federally can organize in the state,” Crowley said...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/03/graduate-fellows-seek-to-unionize-in-unprecedented-move.

Disability Creep

There has been increasing concern about the rising proportion of undergraduate students claiming disabilities on college campuses. Most of the UC campuses show that trend. Disabled students can receive accommodations on tests and other assignments. But the rise seems prominent in a number of private universities. The San Francisco Chronicle has a search option for looking at the trend.

From Fall 2013 to Fall 2023:

• Stanford (top of the list in Fall 2023): 7% to 38.2%
• Dartmouth: 7% to 15.8%
• Cornell: 6% to 21.6%
• Harvard: no more than 3% to 21.0%
• Brown: 10% to 22.0%
• Yale: 8% to 19.8%
• Columbia: 6% to 14.3%
• Princeton: no more than 3% to 15.5%
• U of Pennsylvania: 6% to 15.0%
• USC: no more than 3% to 13.0%
• CalTech: no more than 3% to 11.7%

===

*https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/stanford-disabled-disability-student-21361362.php.

Straws in the Wind - Part 282

From the Brown Daily Herald: Brown will offer optional hostile intruder training to students, faculty and employees... Students, faculty and employees can register online to attend the newly designed in-person or live virtual training sessions... All sessions will be led by FBI-trained instructors, Brown Police Chief Hugh Clements and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham wrote in the message.

Prior to the Dec. 13 mass shooting, the University had “not done active shooter training with students” unless a department requested a training session that included students, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 previously told The Herald. Training for faculty and employees was offered but not mandatory, Paxson said. After Dec. 13, “we know that building a sense of preparedness for such events can help contribute to an individual sense of safety and well-being,” the message reads. “At the same time, we understand that each person’s readiness to participate will vary.”  ...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/03/brown-to-offer-hostile-intruder-training-for-students-faculty-employees.

Note: UCLA's training video is at the link below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbqmzCZS_A.

Straws in the Wind - Part 268

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: ...New York University will begin a new initiative aimed at getting students to spend less time on their phones. It’s called NYU IRL (short for “in real life”), and it spans the university’s Manhattan, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai campuses, where students will be enticed to enter “device-free zones" ...NYU IRL, which Linda G. Mills, NYU’s president, announced earlier this year, includes new resources for faculty to try “device optimization” in their classrooms, such as making it a featured topic in the university’s faculty learning exchange week, which is happening now. NYU will also host in-person events like a “supper club” in its dining halls.

To mark the beginning of the effort, NYU professor and author Jonathan Haidt is hosting a “fireside chat” early next month to talk through his bestselling book, The Anxious Generation. The 2024 book argues that the rise in smartphone usage in childhood over the last decade has contributed directly to the rise in mental illness in younger generations. Mills cites Haidt’s findings as a major inspiration for the new program...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/nyu-wants-students-to-put-down-their-phones-will-they.

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From the NY Times: The Defense Department has decided to cut academic ties with nearly two dozen top universities and think tanks as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against what he calls anti-American values and “wokeness.” ...In a video published to social media* ...Mr. Hegseth denounced the institutions in blistering language, calling them politically liberal institutions with “wicked ideologies” that were indoctrinating U.S. service members. He said that, beginning in the new school year in September, the Defense Department would ban service members from attending those universities.

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*https://x.com/secwar/status/2027474502876070386.

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In addition to Harvard, which was banned earlier this month, the Defense Department said the banned institutions would include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, George Washington, Tufts, St. Louis and Carnegie Mellon, as well as the College of William & Mary, Middlebury College and Queen’s University in Ontario.

When Mr. Hegseth cut ties with Harvard, it was seen as part of a wider pressure campaign by the Trump administration to force the university to cut a deal with the government. But some of the universities that were banned on Friday have already agreed to a laundry list of demands from the Trump administration as part of an effort to remake the culture of higher education. The Defense Department said it would also cut ties with seven high-profile think tanks in Washington known for their defense and national security analysis: the Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America, the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Center for a New American Security, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Henry L. Stimson Center...

Mr. Hegseth, who served as an infantry officer with the National Guard, graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School in 2013 with a master’s degree in public policy... The Defense Department said it was considering replacing the programs with those at institutions including state universities and conservative Christian schools like Liberty University and Hillsdale College...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/politics/pentagon-universities-think-tanks.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 249

From the Brown Daily Herald: President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20, emphasized the importance of maintaining the University’s core values while navigating security questions following the shooting on Dec. 13 at Tuesday’s faculty meeting. Paxson updated faculty members on a new community initiative called “Brown Loves Providence,” new security initiatives and the post-shooting reviews. The University expedited its process of adding blue light phones and panic buttons to classrooms, Paxson said, especially in places where staff handle cash, so that they “feel more secure.” ...

Paxson acknowledged ...concerns, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a sense of “openness” on campus. “When people go to an academic seminar, they shouldn’t feel like they’re going through TSA to board an international flight,” Paxson added.

This spring, the University will be conducting “trauma-informed active shooter training,” Paxson added...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/02/paxson-shares-hopes-to-keep-brown-both-open-and-secure-at-february-faculty-meeting.

Straws in the Wind - Part 247

From the Brown Daily Herald: Brown is working with global consulting firm Teneo for its two external security assessments following the Dec. 13 shooting... According to the announcement, the reviews are set to continue throughout the semester, after which “key outcomes” will be shared with the Brown community and the public. The first assessment is an after-action review, which will assess campus safety before, during and after the shooting. The second assessment is a comprehensive campus safety and security assessment, which will look into Brown’s security practices and infrastructure. 

When University President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 first announced the security assessments Dec. 22, the external organization that would be carrying out the reviews had not yet been announced, but that the Brown Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, would be overseeing the reviews. The two co-leads of Teneo’s review team for their work with Brown are Courtney Adante and Bill Bratton.Adante is the president of Teneo’s security risk advisory team, and she has a master’s degree in cybersecurity risk and strategy from New York University, according to Teneo’s website. Bratton is the executive chairman of risk advisory at Teneo, and he formerly served as commissioner of the New York and Boston Police Departments and chief of the Los Angeles Police Department...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/01/consulting-firm-teneo-to-assist-with-post-shooting-security-reviews.

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From Inside Higher Ed: Faculty members in the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Science were asked to sign a three-page memo pledging not to “indoctrinate” their students, the Houston Chronicle reported. In a November email to faculty, Houston president Renu Khator wrote that the university’s responsibility is to “give [students] the ability to form their own opinions, not to force a particular one on them. Our guiding principle is to teach them, not to indoctrinate them.” The recent memo, sent by college dean Daniel O’Connor, asks faculty to “document compliance” with Khator’s note. It’s a way to ensure all faculty members are compliant with Texas’s Senate Bill 37, O’Conner told associate English professor María González in a meeting. The law mandates regular reviews of core undergraduate curriculum but does not address indoctrination or what material can or cannot be taught.

By Feb. 10, faculty must signal their agreement with the following five statements: “A primary purpose of higher education is to enhance critical thinking;” “Our responsibility is to give students the ability to form their own opinions, not to indoctrinate them;” “I understand the definition and attributes of critical thinking;” “I design my courses and course materials to be consistent with the definition and attributes of critical thinking;” and “I use methods of instruction that are intended to enhance students’ critical thinking.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/02/06/houston-faculty-must-pledge-not-indoctrinate-students.

Straws in the Wind - Part 227

From Inside Higher Ed: Clemson University has agreed to rescind the termination of Joshua Bregy, an assistant professor in the department of environmental engineering and earth sciences, nearly four months after dismissing him for resharing a post on his personal Facebook page that criticized the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Bregy sued after he was terminated on Sept. 26, claiming that his firing violated his First Amendment rights. 

As part of the settlement, Bregy will receive pay and benefits “throughout the original term of his employment,” the ACLU of South Carolina, which represented Bregy, said in a news release. In addition, Clemson provost Robert Jones agreed to “provide positive letters of recommendation to potential employers based on Dr. Bregy’s classroom teaching.” For Bregy’s part, he agreed to drop his lawsuit and resign from his position at Clemson effective May 15, 2026. He will not have any teaching, research or other faculty obligations through the spring semester, according to the release...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/01/13/clemson-settles-professor-fired-kirk-comments.

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From the Brown Daily Herald: All [Brown] University owned and occupied buildings equipped with card readers will require Brown ID swipe access as the spring semester begins, Interim Vice President of Public Safety Hugh Clements and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham announced in a Friday email to the Brown community. Beginning Jan. 20, buildings with classrooms will require card swipe access between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., but “building-specific accessibility will vary beyond these hours to accommodate student organization activities, events, meetings and other programming,” the email reads. Buildings offering “shared campus services” will remain accessible to all community members with a Brown ID during standard business hours.

The University has already implemented security enhancements in Barus and Holley, the Engineering Research Center and the Lassonde Innovation and Design Hub, such as placing cameras at all entrances and exits and installing door alarms to signal propped doors. Brown public safety officers will continue to provide security in these spaces as classes begin, according to the email...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/01/brown-enforces-id-swipe-access-for-equipped-buildings-enhances-security-as-spring-semester-begins.

Straws in the Wind - Part 221

From the Brown Daily Herald: Brown is launching an initiative to support healing and recovery after the Dec. 13 mass shooting in Barus and Holley, President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 announced in a Monday email to the Brown community. The initiative, called “Brown Ever True,” will bring “together resources, programming and services focused on mental health, psychological wellness and ensuring a sense of physical security for our full community,” Paxson wrote. Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Matthew Guterl will lead the team coordinating the initiative, and the Brown University Community Council will constitute the advisory body. 

Paxson added that a “campus-wide service” honoring Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and supporting the nine injured students is in the works for late January. Interim Vice President for Public Safety and Police Chief Hugh Clements announced a slew of new safety actions Dec. 30, including the transition of key-access buildings to card-access and the installation of additional security cameras...

Full story at https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2026/01/paxson-announces-campus-wide-healing-and-recovery-effort.

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Note: We again provide a link below to the UCLA mass shooting training video:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbqmzCZS_A.

---

From the Yale Daily News: A Buckley Institute report last month on the predominance of Democrats on the Yale faculty sparked criticism from conservatives about political imbalances in higher education — and prompted an apparent response from Yale. On Dec. 1, the organization released its Yale Faculty Political Diversity Report, which reported that 82.3 percent of the 1,666 faculty members examined are registered Democrats or primarily support Democratic candidates. Of the remaining faculty, 2.3 percent were found to be Republicans with the remaining 15.4 percent not affiliated with either major party. Of 43 departments that grant undergraduate degrees, 27 had no Republican faculty members at all, according to the report.

...On Dec. 23, after the Buckley Institute report had been covered by several news outlets and received widespread attention online, Yale News released an unsigned “Statement regarding faculty political affiliations.” While it did not specifically mention the Buckley Institute or its report, the statement addressed many of the concerns that arose from the release of the report earlier that month. “Yale hires and retains faculty based on academic excellence, scholarly distinction, and teaching achievement, independent of political views,” the statement reads... 

The Buckley Institute report took account of faculty members across the Law School, the School of Management and what it described as 43 “undergraduate degree-granting departments” at Yale. The institute used L2 Voter Data, a database of all registered voters in the United States, to determine each faculty member’s political affiliation, according to the report. For individuals whose affiliation was unavailable or unaffiliated, the institute used the Federal Election Commission’s campaign donation database. Faculty members whose affiliations were not accessible — 331 of the 1666 faculty members — were not accounted for in the final percentages...

Several conservative-leaning outlets, including Fox News, The New York Post and Campus Reform, which is described on its website as “a conservative watchdog in the nation’s higher education system,” covered the report’s findings...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2026/01/12/buckley-report-on-liberal-faculty-gains-traction-and-yale-responds/.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 106

From the NY Times (Recapping events of 2025): The letter landed with a thud... in the inbox of Harvard University’s president, Alan M. Garber. The message, from Linda McMahon, President Trump’s education secretary, conveyed an understanding of an emerging deal between Harvard and the White House that flew in the face of the terms the university had been insisting on. Dr. Garber felt he had made clear in recent negotiations that the university would not agree to pay the federal government to settle a monthslong battle with the Trump administration over antisemitism on campus and other matters. But Ms. McMahon’s Saturday message said the opposite. In it, she thanked Dr. Garber for what she portrayed as his commitment to sending $200 million to the government as part of a deal.

Dr. Garber wrote back to clarify Harvard’s position. But, in response, the administration doubled down, introducing terms that were so far-reaching that university officials saw them as nonstarters. It was unclear whether Ms. McMahon’s interpretation of Harvard’s proposal resulted from a miscommunication or from a deliberate effort to force the university into a year-end deal after months of faltering negotiations. Whatever the case, it was the latest twist in the long-running dispute between Harvard and the Trump administration, which has shaped up to be the marquee battle in the administration’s effort to exert more influence over elite colleges and universities it views as too liberal.

The episode also underscored the emerging role played by people inside the administration who want to extract more concessions from Harvard. And it raised new questions about whether some of those voices were more interested in preserving the power of the government’s threat against Harvard as a message to other universities than in reaching a settlement with the nation’s wealthiest university...

The university has acknowledged that antisemitism had spread through parts of Harvard, affecting to some extent hiring, coursework and the culture of the campus in Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Garber, who is Jewish, has said he was “sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community,” and has taken steps to combat antisemitism at Harvard. The Trump administration, though, has routinely depicted Harvard’s efforts as tardy and insufficient. And Mr. Trump has suggested that he is looking to punish Harvard for both perceived past misdeeds and its defiance this year...

Harvard officials, already anxious about the prospect of backlash to any settlement with a president many on campus see as autocratic, are sensitive to the details of any agreement. For months, they have viewed an accord between Brown University and the Trump administration as a model. Under that agreement, Brown agreed to spend $50 million on state work force development programs over a decade. The university did not have to enter into a rigorous monitoring agreement, and it secured a provision that Brown leaders viewed as safeguarding academic independence.

Trump administration officials had initially signaled that Harvard could secure some terms similar to those offered to Brown. But administration officials now contend that Harvard’s troubles in recent years were far graver than Brown’s. Some also point to Harvard’s colossal endowment as a reason that it should pay more. Harvard has made clear that it is willing to spend more than Brown, but the university’s opposition to treating any portion of that payment as a fine is grounded in its belief that its failures fell short of violations of federal law and are no worse than any other school’s. Some at the university believe that agreeing to a fine would be tantamount to a bribe or an admission of guilt and that it would be depicted that way by detractors — even if a settlement were to explicitly say the university did not acknowledge wrongdoing...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/us/trump-harvard-letters-deal.html.

Brownian Movement (Toward Security)

Given the shooting at Brown (and the connected shooting of an MIT professor), Brown appears to be moving toward tighter security:

From ABC News: Brown University is moving forward with a series of safety and security steps following the deadly shooting on campus this month that left two students dead and nine others injured. The Ivy League university's announcement comes the same day the Department of Education announced it would be reviewing the school for potential Clery Act violations.* Brown University's review includes putting Rodney Chatman, the vice president for public safety and emergency management for the school on leave, effective immediately, the university's president announced on Monday. The former chief of police of the Providence Police Department, Hugh T. Clements, will serve as interim chief.

In a message to the campus community, President Christina H. Paxson said the university will first focus on immediate safety measures through a rapid response team working to ensure the campus remains secure during winter break and ahead of the Spring 2026 semester. The university will also hire outside experts to conduct an after-action review of the shooting. That review will examine campus safety conditions leading up to the incident, how the university prepared for and responded on the day of the shooting, and how emergency response efforts were handled afterward...

Full story at https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/brown-university-police-chief-put-leave-dept-education/story?id=128637735.

It's hard to imagine that similar reviews aren't occurring at other universities including UCLA.

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*U.S. Department of Education Announces Review of Brown University for Potential Clery Act Violations

December 22, 2025

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-review-of-brown-university-potential-clery-act-violations

Today, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) announced it will conduct a program review of Brown University (Brown) in response to the December 13, 2025, shooting on its campus, which killed two students. The Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) will investigate if Brown violated Section 485(f) of the Higher Education Act, otherwise known as the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act (Clery Act), which requires institutions of higher education to meet certain campus safety and security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid. 

In the hours after the shooting, public reporting appeared to show that Brown’s campus surveillance and security system may not have been up to appropriate standards, allowing the suspect to flee while the university seemed unable to provide helpful information about the profile of the alleged assassin. Additionally, many Brown students and staff reported that the university’s emergency notifications about the active shooter were delayed, raising significant concerns about their safety alert system. If true, these shortcomings constitute serious breaches of Brown’s responsibilities under federal law. 

“After two students were horrifically murdered at Brown University when a shooter opened fire in a campus building, the Department is initiating a review of Brown to determine if it has upheld its obligation under the law to vigilantly maintain campus security,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Students deserve to feel safe at school, and every university across this nation must protect their students and be equipped with adequate resources to aid law enforcement. The Trump Administration will fight to ensure that recipients of federal funding are vigorously protecting students’ safety and following security procedures as required under federal law.” 

As part of the review, FSA has requested that Brown submit information by January 30, 2026, including: 

• Copies of the original 2024 and 2025 Annual Security Reports (ASRs), and any revised versions of these reports that were produced for the purpose of complying with the Clery Act, along with credible evidence of distribution and/or redistribution; 
• An “audit trail” showing all incidents of crime (organized by offense classification) for the calendar years 2021-2024 and an “audit trail” showing all arrests made by Brown University Public Safety and Emergency Management Department (BPS) or other state or local law enforcement agencies, and all referrals for disciplinary action against students or employees for violations of state laws and local ordinances related to the illegal possession, use, and/or distribution of weapons, drugs, or liquor that were included in the statistical disclosures contained in the University’s 2024 and 2025 ASRs; 
• A copy of the BPS’s activity/dispatch/call log for calendar years 2021-2025; 
• A copy of the daily crime log for calendar years 2021-2025; 
• A list of all Timely Warnings and Emergency Notifications issued by the university during calendar years 2021-2025, with a brief description of the means or media used to disseminate the notices; 
• A copy of all of Brown’s policies and procedures, including any internal policies and procedures, related to timely warnings and emergency notifications, maintenance of a daily crime log, and emergency response notifications and evacuation, and a copy of any assessments of Brown’s campus safety policies and practices conducted since 2020; and 
• A complete set of BPS’s standard operating procedures regarding dispatch, response to calls, reporting writing, arrests including issuance of citations, and protocols for active shooter scenarios. 

Background 

The Clery Act requires colleges and universities receiving federal student aid to annually disseminate a public Annual Security Report to employees and students, which must include statistics of campus crime and details about the efforts taken to improve campus safety, including timely issuance of campus alerts and safety procedures to the campus community. FSA is responsible for enforcement of the Clery Act and may undertake an investigation of a specific incident or conduct a program review that examines systemic challenges with complying with the law. The Department may fine institutions of higher education that have violated the Clery Act and may require them to make policy changes to come into compliance with the law.

Another Day; Another Academic Shooting - Postscript

From the NY Times: Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts said Thursday that they had connected the killings of two Brown University students and an M.I.T. professor to a man who was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire. Claudio Neves Valente, 48, went to a storage facility in Salem, N.H., shortly after he shot Nuno F.G. Loureiro, the M.I.T. professor who was found dead in his home in Brookline, Mass., on Tuesday, the authorities said. Three days earlier, Mr. Neves Valente had opened fire in an auditorium at Brown University in Providence, R.I., killing two students. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the authorities said...

...Mr. Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, entered the United States on a student visa in 2000 and became a permanent resident in 2017, according to the Providence police. Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, said she believed that Mr. Neves Valente knew Dr. Loureiro from their time in the same academic program in Portugal from 1995 to 2000. Dr. Loureiro earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, according to his M.I.T. profile.

Mr. Neves Valente’s motive for the shooting at Brown University remained unclear, Peter F. Neronha, Rhode Island’s attorney general, said on Thursday. Mr. Neves Valente was briefly enrolled in a graduate physics program at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001, according to Christina Paxson, the university’s president. The authorities said there was no indication that Mr. Neves Valente knew... the two Brown students who were killed...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/brown-mit-shootings-what-we-know.html.

==

Note: Prior posts on these events are at:

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/12/brown-u-shooting.html (contains link to the UCLA active shooter training video) and

https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/12/another-day-another-academic-shooting.html.

Another Day; Another Academic Shooting

The authorities said on Tuesday that they had opened a homicide investigation after a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was fatally shot at his home in Brookline, Mass. The professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was a member of the departments of nuclear science and engineering and physics, as well as the director of M.I.T.’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the school said...

“This is an active and ongoing homicide investigation,” the District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. An office spokesman, David Linton, said on Tuesday that there had not been any arrests in the case...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/us/mit-professor-shot-brookline-nuno-loureiro.html.

No arrests at this time in the Brown U case, either.

Brown U Shooting

 

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5rndR38GYo.

Note: UCLA Active Shooter Video:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbqmzCZS_A.

Straws in the Wind - Part 186

From The Atlantic: Administering an exam used to be straightforward: All a college professor needed was an open room and a stack of blue books. At many American universities, this is no longer true. Professors now struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation, which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise-prohibited technology. The University of Michigan has two centers where students with disabilities can take exams, but they frequently fill to capacity, leaving professors scrambling to find more desks and proctors. Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago, told me that so many students now take their exams in the school’s low-distraction testing outposts that they have become more distracting than the main classrooms.

...Over the past decade and a half, however, the share of students at selective universities who qualify for accommodations—often, extra time on tests—has grown at a breathtaking pace. At the University of Chicago, the number has more than tripled over the past eight years; at UC Berkeley, it has nearly quintupled over the past 15 years.

The increase is driven by more young people getting diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression, and by universities making the process of getting accommodations easier. The change has occurred disproportionately at the most prestigious and expensive institutions. At Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are registered as disabled. At Amherst, that figure is 34 percent. Not all of those students receive accommodations, but researchers told me that most do. The schools that enroll the most academically successful students, in other words, also have the largest share of students with a disability that could prevent them from succeeding academically...

Full story at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/elite-university-student-accommodation/684946.