Straws in the Wind - Part 261

From CNN: Military officers could soon find dozens of top colleges and universities across the United States abruptly off limits for tuition assistance as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against schools he describes as being biased against the US military and sponsoring “troublesome partnerships with foreign adversaries.” The uncertainty about tuition assistance and eligible programs for Defense Department funding has led to confusion and concern amongst service members who have already applied or been accepted to these schools. Officials also said they were concerned it amounted to an attempt to purge diversity of thought from the military.

The policy was rolled out in a memo signed by Hegseth last week saying that beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, the Pentagon would be severing its relationship with Harvard University and discontinuing all graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs there for active-duty service members. Hegseth ordered the military services to “evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty members at Ivy League universities and any other universities that similarly diminish critical thinking and have significant adversary involvement, and determine whether they deliver cost-effective, strategic education for future senior leaders when compared to public universities and military masters programs,” according to a source familiar with the memo...

Full story at https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/politics/us-military-top-universities-tuition-assistance.

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From Inside Higher Ed: The University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design removed an art exhibit that includes anti-ICE artwork, the artist told The Denton Record-Chronicle. The exhibit, Ni De Aquí Ni De Allá (“Not From Here, Not From There”), by Brooklyn-based artist Victor Quiñonez, was scheduled to open officially on Feb. 19. The works explore Quiñonez’s Mexican and Mexican American identity and his experiences as an undocumented person in East Dallas, The Dallas Observer reported. Several pieces in the exhibit, which was originally organized by Boston University, appear to criticize United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement... 

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/02/17/u-north-texas-cancels-exhibit-anti-ice-art.

Straws in the Wind - Part 28

From Inside Higher Ed: Public colleges and universities in Texas have been asked to identify which of their students are undocumented so they can be charged out-of-state tuition, The Texas Tribune reported. The move follows a district court ruling [in June] that prohibits students who are not legal residents from paying in-state tuition. In a letter to the state's public college presidents..., Texas Higher Education commissioner Wynn Rosser wrote that “each institution must assess the population of students who have established eligibility for Texas resident tuition … who are not lawfully present and will therefore need to be reclassified as non-residents and charged non-resident tuition.”

The new rates will go into effect for the fall 2025 semester, Rosser wrote. The letter offered no further guidance about how institutions might comply...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/06/25/texas-colleges-asked-identify-undocumented-students.

And from the NY Times: The cyberattack that caused a widespread shutdown of Columbia University’s computer systems last week appears to be the work of a “hacktivist” — a hacker who also stole student data with the apparent goal of furthering a political agenda, a Columbia official said on Tuesday. During the outage, which began on June 24, a smiling image of President Trump appeared on some computer screens at the university, including on public monitors in the student center. The Columbia official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, did not provide a motivation for the attack.

But Bloomberg News, which received messages from the apparent hacker, said that the person described stealing student data in order to see if Columbia was using affirmative action in its admission policies, a practice the Supreme Court effectively barred in 2023... The university is in the midst of trying to negotiate a settlement with the Trump administration to unfreeze more than $400 million in federal funding for research, which the administration pulled over its claims that Columbia had not done enough to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/nyregion/columbia-university-hacker.html.

From Yale Daily News: Yale is implementing an immediate 90-day hiring pause, reducing non-salary expenses by 5 percent, delaying several construction projects and lowering annual salary increases for faculty and staff members. Faculty and staff received an announcement of those changes on Monday afternoon in a message signed by Provost Scott Strobel, Vice President for Finance Stephen Murphy and Senior Vice President for Operations Jack Callahan. The message was also posted to the Office of the Provost’s website.

The message referred to Congress’s present consideration of a steep increase to the rate at which Yale’s endowment will be taxed, one of the proposals in President Donald Trump’s sweeping “big beautiful bill.” Since the House of Representatives advanced a version of the legislation in May, Yale administrators have warned that the tax hike could imperil the University’s research budget and student financial aid...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/07/01/yale-pauses-hiring-tightens-budget-in-anticipation-of-endowment-tax-hike/.

A Statute of Limitations

We previously noted a pending Texas bill that would limit and restrict academic senates in state higher ed institutions.* Here is a follow up from Inside Higher Ed: Texas governor Greg Abbott... signed into law legislation allowing public college and university presidents to take over faculty governance bodies. Senate Bill 37 says that only an institution’s governing board can create a faculty council or senate. If a board decides to keep one, the college or university president gets to pick the “presiding officer, associate presiding officer, and secretary” and prescribe how the body conducts meetings. Unless the institution’s board decides otherwise, faculty governing bodies must shrink to no more than 60 members. The Texas A&M University Faculty Senate currently has 122.  

The 60 members must include at least two representatives from each of the colleges and schools that comprise the institution—including what the law describes vaguely as “one member appointed by the president or chief executive officer of the institution,” with the rest elected by the faculty of the particular school or college. This could mean that half of a faculty senate would be chosen by the president, barring an exemption by the institution’s board...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/06/24/texas-passes-law-presidents-control-faculty-senates.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2025/06/straws-in-wind-part-13.html.

Straws in the Wind - Part 13

From Inside Higher Ed: Texas public college and university presidents will be able to take control of their faculty governing bodies if Gov. Greg Abbott signs a bill now before him. “Shared governance structures may not be used to obstruct, delay, or undermine necessary institutional reforms or serve as a mechanism for advancing ideological or political agendas,” says Senate Bill 37, which the Republican-dominated State Legislature passed May 31. Multiple states have considered GOP bills targeting shared governance, but SB 37 is a sweeping example. It says that “only the governing board of an institution of higher education may establish a faculty council or senate.”

If a college or university board decides to keep a faculty governing body, the institution’s president gets to prescribe how it conducts meetings. The president also gets to pick the “presiding officer, associate presiding officer, and secretary.” In addition, unless the college or university’s board decides otherwise, faculty senates and councils must shrink to no more than 60 members. Those remaining 60 would have to include at least two representatives from each of the colleges and schools that comprise the institution—including what the bill describes vaguely as “one member appointed by the president or chief executive officer of the institution” and the rest elected by the faculty of the particular school or college. This could mean that half of a faculty senate or council would be chosen by the president if an institution’s board doesn’t grant exemptions from these requirements.

...In another blow to faculty control of their own governance bodies, SB 37 establishes term limits for faculty senate and council members—and allows presidential appointees to serve longer than the elected members. The presidential appointees would get to serve six consecutive years before having to take two off, while the elected members could only serve two years before the mandatory two-year break. A faculty senate or council member could also have their seat stripped at any time; the bill says the provost can recommend to the president that members be “immediately removed” for failing to attend meetings or conduct their “responsibilities within the council’s or senate’s parameters” or for “similar misconduct.” ...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/shared-governance/2025/06/09/texas-presidents-may-soon-control-faculty-senates.

New University Librarian

From the Bruin: Former UCLA director of library special collections Athena Jackson will be the next Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian, UCLA announced Thursday. Jackson will start in the role March 1, succeeding Virginia Steel – who had occupied the position since 2013, according to an announcement from Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt. Jackson previously served as director of library special collections at UCLA beginning in 2019 before becoming the dean of libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair at the University of Houston in 2021. 

Jackson was also previously the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and head of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State University, a special collections librarian at the University of Miami, the coordinator of the North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project and an archivist at the North Carolina State Archives.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Houston and received a Master of Science in library and information science from the University of North Texas. Jackson is also involved in scholarship dialogues through member organizations of the University of Houston such as the Association of Research Libraries, the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Texas Digital Library...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2024/01/25/ucla-appoints-athena-jackson-as-norman-and-armena-powell-university-librarian.