Half

From Inside Higher Ed: The National Science Foundation’s chief management officer says the agency, a major federal research funder, is seeking approval to hire more employees after the Trump administration’s cuts last year left it without enough staffing. Micah Cheatham also told the National Science Board, which approves NSF policies, at Wednesday’s board meeting that the agency is trying to “consolidate” solicitations for grant awards to half, or less, of the usual amount of these funding opportunities—raising concerns that fewer researchers will receive funding. Cheatham said this move would reduce workload, but also help applicants. “The fewer solicitations you have, the less time grant applicants have to figure out which of our pigeonholes they fit into,” he said.

Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, a board member and the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s vice chancellor for research, expressed concern that fewer solicitations will lessen junior faculty’s ability to receive awards that jump-start their careers. She also said the agency’s practice of frontloading the funding of previously multiyear grants further reduces how many researchers receive grants in a year...

The White House confirmed that Trump is nominating Jim O’Neill as the NSF’s next director. O’Neill was dismissed earlier this month from leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a position he had only held since late August.*

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2026/02/26/nsf-plans-boost-staffing-halve-grant.

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From CNN: ...O’Neill, who [was] second-in-command behind Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at HHS and the interim leader of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been a controversial figure at the agency, where he helped to amplify anti-vaccine messaging and concerns about Medicaid fraud, and cheered the United States’ departure from the World Health Organization...

Full story at https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/health/rfk-aides-jim-oneill-hhs-cdc.

Straws in the Wind - Part 269

From the Daily Princetonian: Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude have started influencing the way that universities and institutions of higher education operate. AI has not only changed the ways in which professors navigate their classrooms, but it has also upended long-established systems for exams. This change is well-illustrated by the economics department, which has begun administering only in-person final exams...

The ‘Prince’ analyzed the final assessment schedules for the last three semesters to better understand how the University is trying to tackle concerns relating to cheating and AI. The number of take-home exams has been continuously declining over the last three semesters. In Spring 2025, they were more popular than in-person finals, but just a year later, they have become scarce as generative AI has become more commonplace, with only 49 take-home exams being administered this semester...

The number of take-home exams have more than halved in number since this time last year, from 168 to 49. There were more take-home exams in the Spring 2025 semester than there were in-person finals. Now, there are less than 50 take-home exams scheduled. From Spring to Fall 2025, the number of in-person exams has increased by over 50 percent. The number of papers, projects, and presentations have increased by 61 exams in the span of only a year...

Full story at https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2026/02/princeton-data-end-of-take-home.

Getting closer

The D line subway will extend along Wilshire to La Cienaga starting May 8. The extension after that gets to Century City in Spring 2027. The further extension to UCLA and the VA is due in Fall 2027, in time for the Olympics.

Info at https://www.metro.net/d-line-extension/.

So, we're getting closer..

but no cigar yet.

Bad News, Good News

A company named Conduent has been sending out letters warning of a data breach that apparently affected some participants in UC health plans. Conduent appears to do clerical work for health plans. The letter does not say which health plan is involved. It does say information such as Social Security number was stolen.

The letter is dated Dec. 31, 2025 and refers to a data breach a year before that. But the letter arrived last week. The first page of a 3-page letter is shown here. The other pages contain boilerplate language about credit rating agencies, freezing your credit, etc.

The good news, such as it is, is that UC folks already had their data stolen some time back and UC provides free data monitoring. So if you got the letter, it is unlikely that anything new was stolen.

Californians can freeze their credit at the three credit agencies for free. It's a good idea to do it. But it does involve some hassle if you want to do something involving finances such as apply for a new credit card. You have to unfreeze access for a temporary period in such cases.

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A letter dated Jan. 26, 2026 was circulated within UCOP indicating which plans were affected. As far as yours truly knows, no information was sent by UC directly to plan participants. Below is the list of plans as of a month ago:

• Anthem – Elevance Health: Over 83,000 UC PPO members were affected. Notifications were or will be sent in three separate waves based on the business functions performed by Conduent. Some members may receive multiple notifications.
• Accolade: No member impact, as this vendor is not used.
• Navitus: No member impact, as this vendor is not used.
• Kaiser Permanente: 18 members affected.
• Optum Behavioral Health: Confirmation pending.
• Health Net: 633 UC Blue & Gold HMO members and 50 Postdoctoral members affected.
• UnitedHealthcare: No member impact, as this vendor is not used.

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.

Maybe we worry too much about AI ???

 

Yes, AI has become a problem for higher ed. It lacks ACS (artificial common sense):

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNaN0iAuan8.

I Never Promised You a Rose Bowl? - Part 15

Meanwhile, back at the Bowl... From the California Post:

Having committed to playing at the Rose Bowl next season, UCLA’s long-term football fate remains in the hands of a court. Attorneys representing the school are appealing an LA Superior Court judge’s decision to deny arbitration in the Rose Bowl’s breach-of-contract case against UCLA. Those same attorneys have also filed a motion to pause the case, pending the appeal decision. But discovery has started in the case after a judge denied UCLA’s previous attempt to cease depositions, and it’s possible the appeal may not significantly delay the start of jury selection in the trial...

UCLA’s plans are increasingly uncertain after the school committed to remaining at its longtime home stadium for next season. The move came not long after the dismissal of UCLA vice chancellor and chief financial officer Stephen Agostini, one of the primary proponents of a move to SoFi Stadium...

Full story at https://nypost.com/2026/02/28/sports/ucla-appeals-arbitration-decision-in-rose-bowl-suit/.