First-time president

Xavier A. Cole

Effective the first of June, the student affairs vice president at Marquette University, Dr. Xavier A. Cole, will become the president of Loyola University New Orleans. This will be the first time Cole assumes a school’s presidency, and it is Loyola’s first person of color and second layperson to take the helm at the 111-year-old Catholic university.

Cole led the Division of Student Affairs at Marquette for the past seven years and was recognized by his peers and students for his response to the pandemic and for cultivating an inclusive campus culture for first-generation students and those of color. He discovered his passion for student affairs first serving as a resident advisor and as a graduate hall director at Miami University Ohio, and he went on to develop his craft in a pair of institutions in Maryland.

Cole received his doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied the effectiveness of Jesuit universities in preparing future lay leaders. From 2017 to 2022, he was vice chair and director of the education committee on the board of Messmer Catholic Schools, a K12 network of Catholic schools serving Milwaukee’s north and west sides.

“We have found a real gem for our students in Dr. Cole,” said Robért LeBlanc, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees, according to a press release. “Throughout his career, Dr. Cole has been guided by Ignatian-influenced education ideals of fortifying the mind, body, and spirit.”

A trombone and euphonium player, Cole will most likely be found at Loyola University seeking permission to audition and play in the student orchestra pits and jazz bands. There’s no better place to greet the student body through jazz than New Orleans.

Daniel J. Ennis

First-time president Daniel J. Ennis will be leaving his current post at Coastal Carolina University as provost and executive vice president for a challenging position at Delta State University in Mississippi. The school’s last president was fired for witnessing a decline in enrollment and financial challenges.

Enrollment at Delta State has dropped 29% since 2014 and reversing that trend will be at the top of Ennis’ to-do list. In his time at Coastal Carolina, enrollment grew and their first-year retention rate bumped up 6%, totaling 73%, according to AP News.

A tenured professor of English, he has served in other administrative roles for the past 20 years.

Presidents picking up at new schools

John Nicklow

While the jazz-playing Dr. Cole takes his talent to New Orleans, civil engineer Dr. John Nicklow is on his way out of The Big Easy to The Sunshine State. While this isn’t Nicklow’s first rodeo as a school president, he does share one important similarity: he is walking into Florida Tech with a student-oriented approach.

“One of the things that I do love, what we’ve done in New Orleans, is really become part of the community. And build long-lasting, lifelong relationships and partnerships,” Nicklow said, according to Yahoo.

Since 2015, Nicklow served as the president of the University of New Orleans. He was the first president to leave the school with a positive enrollment rate since Hurricane Katrina, and he was also the first president to lead a major comprehensive fundraising campaign in the school’s 65-year history.

Located in Melbourne, Fla., Nicklow’s extensive STEM research background is a sensible fit for the school on the “Space Coast.” He has published over 75 articles and four books, which have focused on advancing STEM education and optimizing environmental and water resources. He received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Arizona State University.

Joseph Foy

Dr. Joseph Foy joined Alverno College as Vice President for Academic Affairs two weeks after the pandemic forced the school completely online. His accomplishments through adversity pushed him into the school’s interim presidency, and now it has landed him a full-time president position at Benedictine College. Foy’s accomplishments in building Alverno’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Belonging are what helped Foy stand out to Benedictine’s Board of Trustees.

“As the next president of Benedictine University, it will be my responsibility to help build upon a foundation of excellence while concomitantly helping to meet the future of an increasingly globalized and diverse world,” said Foy, according to Market Insider.

Foy’s other accomplishments at Alverno College include his philanthropy, where he deepened engagement with existing connections and opened new pipelines for grant-seeking opportunities. Before Alverno College, Foy served as Dean of the Faculty at Marian University in Wisconsin from 2018 to 2020. From 2014-2018, he led statewide enrollment and recruitment strategies as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin Colleges.

The Benedictine president-elect holds a Ph.D. in American Government and Comparative Politics from Notre Dame, Indiana.

Presidents stepping down

Frederick G. Slabach

Frederick G. Slabach, president of Texas Wesleyan University, has accepted the bittersweet call to serve as dean of the University of Mississippi Law School, of which he is a graduate.

“I love Texas Wesleyan,” he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “But for [wife] Melany and me Mississippi is home. We are excited to the moon.”

“Being asked to return home to help lead my alma mater, one of the oldest public law schools in America, is a dream come true,” he added.

Since taking the helm in 2011, Slabach has helped the university reach new heights, including doubling endowment, increasing freshman applications by more than 280% and reinstating the football program after a 75-year hiatus.

“It was really a team effort,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. “No one person can take the credit. I am very proud that we have accomplished several things that will last after I’ve left. The biggest thing is the quality of instruction, along with increased size and diversity.”

While Slabach gets to walk out in the sunset, others didn’t get that privilege

Jason Wingard

Following concerns over growing crime at the Philadelphia university, Jason Wingard, the board of trustees accepted Temple University President Jason Wingard’s resignation on Tuesday. He was the university’s first Black president.

While the board did not specifically mention the reason for his resignation, his stepping down marks the end of his less than two-year presidency shadowed by high-profile campus crimes, a graduate-student strike and dwindling confidence from faculty members, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“While I am confident in my ability to pivot strategy and lead Temple through this crisis, I understand, and it has been made clear, unfortunately, that too much focus is on me rather than the challenges we seek to overcome,” Wingard said in a statement Wednesday.

His last day was Friday.

Katherine Bergeron

Connecticut College President Katherine Bergeron will be stepping down at the end of the semester after facing criticism by students and staff over a planned fundraising trip to a controversial social club.

Scrutiny arose after students and staff became aware of the college’s decision to host an event at the Everglades Club in Florida. Students said the club has a racist past,” the Connecticut Mirror reports.

Students also protested after the school’s former dean of institutional equity and inclusion, Rodmon King, resigned. His decision came after the details of the fundraising trip surfaced, as well as the college’s treatment of students of color and LGBTQ students.

“Certainly, the road has not always been easy,” Bergeron said in a statement. “It never is, when the work is so important and the goals so ambitious. The past several weeks have proven particularly challenging, and as president, I fully accept my share of responsibility for the circumstances that have led us to this moment.”

Thomas K. Hudson

Following months of a no-confidence vote by the faculty senate, Jackson State University President Thomas K. Hudson is set to resign at the end of this month.

On March 2, the board of trustees for the state Institutions of Higher Learning placed Hudson on administrative leave but did not state why. However, according to the JSU faculty senate, they were uncertain whether the administration was promoting a “healthy, safe and secure environment,” the Associated Press reports.

They also cited issues surrounding his failure to consult faculty on decisions regarding curriculum changes. According to a statement, university faculty are calling for the “restoration of shared governance, transparency, accountability and academic democracy.”

More from UB: A regulation targeting tenure in Florida gains approval, big win for DeSantis

The post President moves: hearty welcomes and rocky goodbyes appeared first on University Business.

A new study conducted by leaders from Colgate University has identified that a permeating reason why female leadership has stagnated is that president search committees tend to overlook women who have not served in academic roles, whereas the same is not true for men. Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar and L. Hazel Jack’s discovery partially disproves the usual mill of the rationale given for women hitting this glass ceiling, such as women opting to raise children instead, their general distaste for leadership roles and embedded sexism in the hiring process.

“We discovered a different kind of bias,” said Rodriguez-Farrar, according to Colgate Research. “Presidential searches tend to look at people who have been provosts or academic deans, which requires full professorship, and that pool is still male-dominated. “There’s a bias against women who are not in an academic rank. We have bigger hurdles to cross if we want to become college presidents.”

The Colgate chief of staff (Rodriguez-Farrar) and vice president (Jack) created their own data set utilizing public information from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which analyzed 2,723 public, nonprofit private, and for-profit private four-year institutions. Their data found only 713 of those institutions are led by women, which is smaller than ACE’s study.

When Rodriguez-Farrar and Jack differentiated the data by gender, they found the prevailing trend that women presidents generally come from a limited number of academic roles. For example, more women (76.6%) came from an academic institution than men (69.7%) and of that amount, 39.1% of women presidents held academic roles compared to 33.1% of men. Moreover, more women (19.5%) presidents were chief academic officers beforehand than men (13.1%).

While the majority of both men and women come from academic institutions with academic backgrounds, the rising need for schools to leverage fundraising strategies to compensate for stagnating enrollment has led schools to hire presidents with different sets of skills. For example, recent president hires Greg King at Mount Union College (Alliance, Ohio) and Garry W. Jenkins at Bates College (Lewiston, Maine) were lauded for their strong record of fundraising.

Here are four steps to increasing viable female candidates, as provided by Rodriguez-Farrar and Jack:

1. Look for unconscious bias in the backgrounds of your candidate pool
2. Encourage women applicants
3. Ask your search firm to think outside the box
4. Highlight women leaders

More from UB: What recession? How Villanova turns student degrees into jobs

The post President search committees are overlooking women – Here’s why appeared first on University Business.

In three short months, New College of Florida installed six new trustees, ousted its president, abolished its Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence, and is now removing any trace of Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez, who uses ze/zir pronouns. The three other officers who worked in the now-defunct DEI program were reassigned.

“I have to think about how am I going to sustain my family after all of this, and that has been very difficult to navigate. Professionally, I am in mourning because I see that the DEI is being attacked, not only at New College,” said Rosario-Hernandez in an interview with The Washington Post. “I am the first casualty in many ways.”

These sweeping changes come at the heels of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ agenda to terminate any remnants of DEI initiatives that serve “as an ideological filter, a political filter,” at Florida’s public universities. Richard Corcoran, New College’s current president, is one of DeSantis’ top allies, recently serving on his Board of Governors. Christopher Rufo, one of DeSantis’ New College Board picks who voted in favor of Corcoran believes Rosario Hernandez’s interpretation of DEI in higher education is nonsense, believing zir “period of unemployment” would give Rosario-Hernandez “the opportunity to develop real work skills, instead of fomenting hysterical racial grievance narratives.” Rufo’s comments are also partly a reaction to Rosario-Hernandez believing his stance against DEI is due to his agenda for “white supremacy.”

As New College’s new leadership continues to groom the school in a more conservative direction, one out-of-state school is lending a hand to students who would like to jump ship. Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., announced last Thursday its offering admission to Florida College students, matching their current cost of tuition and without loss of credits when transferring.

“Increasingly, public institutions are a target for those trying to censor discussions of racism, white supremacy, gender identity, structural barriers to equity, and the reproduction of oppressive hierarchies,” said the school in a statement. “This doesn’t serve the students, it doesn’t serve democracy, and it certainly doesn’t serve the world those students seek to improve.”

This may prove to be a real consideration for students, as many of them – along with alumni and stuff – protested the decision to abolish DEI in droves.

“Regardless of your attempts to suppress our educational freedom we will continue to learn the subjects that you want to ban,” said student Sam Sharf, according to CNN. “We reject the social inequalities that your ideology defends.”

As for Rosario-Hernandez, she issued a dire warning for other schools who face similar targets against DEI offices, such as those in Texas and Oklahoma.

“People should be paying attention to what’s happening at New College of Florida because they could be next. Their institutions can be next, their state can be next,” ze said. “We need to be aware of what’s happening so that we can hold our political appointees accountable for their actions.”

More from UB: The new Red Scare: Faculty is likely to censor speech more than ever

The post New College of Florida’s purge claims top DEI officer: “I am the first casualty” appeared first on University Business.

Dedicated to embracing an evolving higher education landscape that’s cost-effective, career-minded and digitally native, Vermont has begun to revitalize its once-fledgling student body. Two big initiatives pushing this change are recent school mergers and a powerful free community college pipeline.

Starting this July, Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College will consolidate into Vermont State University—a lean, cost-effective hybrid learning machine. While the separate campuses will remain as is, they will all fall under the new flag. Vermont State University is a reaction to high costs and a fledgling stream of school enrollment. Vermont’s Agency of Education discovered that only 60% of high school graduates pursue higher education. A great incentive will be the school’s low in-state tuition: $9,999 a year.

Aside from increased state investment, the tuition decrease is partly due to the school’s shrewd budget, which has already begun to ruffle some feathers. Last month, full-time faculty filed a motion of no confidence to school leadership when it announced a transition to a fully digital library, which would have eradicated roughly 300,000 books across its five campuses. The erasure was part of the school’s $500,000 commitment to renovating its library spaces, updating them to meet the demands of a digital-first student body. University leaders also added that the decision would save the school $500,000 annually.

More from UB: Have you considered a merger? Because hope is not a plan in higher ed

“Based on officially reported IPEDS data from 2014 to 2022, requests for physical materials and books have decreased by 83% to 91%, whereas requests for digital materials have increased by 328% to 3513% at our three institutions: Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College,” read a university statement.

Following the widespread pushback, Vermont State University conceded, promising to keep 10% of its current collection. Books will be salvaged based on the frequency of specific checkouts and their proscribed academic value according to department chairs and the university provost.

Recent philanthropic efforts between the J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation in partnership with the Community College of Vermont allows recently graduated high school students to complete their associate degree at no cost through the state’s Free Degree Promise. The initiative also provides students with a living stipend and career counseling. Low-income student enrollment has since flourished, with the Community College of Vermont reporting its largest Early College enrollment figure.

Vermont’s enrollment numbers at public four-year institutions teetered toward a decline dating back to at least 2017. The pandemic, however, plunged those numbers by 13% between fall 2019 and fall 2021, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. While Vermont’s four-year public institution enrollment has swung back 12.2%, its private non-profit school enrollment continues a steep decline: 19% since the fall of 2019.

The post How Vermont is winning the fight against falling enrollment appeared first on University Business.

Next on the list with the most women leading the world’s top-ranked schools is the U.K. at eight, followed by a tie between Germany and the Netherlands with five and France with three.

The United States not only made up one-third of the list, but it also made up the vast majority of the ranking’s most elite institutions. Five out of the top 10 women-led schools were from America, four of which reside in the country’s top five. The University of Oxford in the U.K. nabbed the top spot, but MIT and its president, Sally A. Kornbluth, followed right behind. MIT is ranked fifth in overall world rankings, and the University of California Berkeley came in third on this list, eighth overall. The University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University trailed closely behind.

With recent Ivy League presidential appointments, an even higher representation of U.S. schools could easily end up on this list in the future. In July, Harvard and Columbia will officially welcome new presidents, both of whom are women. THE’s overall world rankings currently rank those schools at #2 and #11, respectively. Only 2.5% of THE’s top 200 institutions of higher education are led by women of color, which makes Harvard’s recent appointment of its first Black female president, Claudine Gay, a major milestone. Minouche Shafik from the London School of Economics and Political Science, which ranks seventh among women-led universities and 37 overall, will also be trailblazing her war into Columbia’s top position. She will be their first female president.

More from UB: Emerging leaders: 4 colleges hire their first Black or female—or both—president

“Having an institution like Harvard really take a stand and put a Black woman at the helm—this venerable, revered institution—we hope will send a signal to so many of the other institutions that are still enmeshed in recruiting and procedures and governing boards that are not inclusive,” said Gloria Blackwell, chief executive of the American Association of University Women.

While the United States seems to be making promising leaps, Blackwell alludes to the lack of female representation that plagues schools internationally. The 48 top-ranked women-led colleges were dissected from THE’s top 200 overall. That’s less than a quarter of the world’s best schools being led by women.

However, it does represent a 12% increase compared to last year and a 41% bump from five years ago. In Germany, five of the leading universities are led by women—three more than last year, according to the World Economic Forum.

The post Represent! U.S. female college presidents shine in international report appeared first on University Business.

Jackson State University’s (JSU) Faculty Senate Executive Committee handed then-president Thomas Hudson a “no-confidence” vote in late January for damaging the campus community’s trust in leadership’s commitment to shared governance. The Senate cited his frequent absences in meetings and disregard for their concerns, such as proper campus maintenance and raising alarms about homeless individuals inhabiting campus facilities, for example. He has since been placed on administrative leave with pay.

JSU’s previous president resigned following a sting operation in Clinton, Miss., that caught him soliciting prostitutes, a charge of which he was later found guilty. The president elected prior to that resigned after the school’s cash reserve crashed down by 89% over her five-year term. Sprinkle in some interim presidents, and the average tenure of Jackson State’s presidents since 2010 is two years, compared to the six-year national average, according to ACE.

Fueling the “fire,” Jackson State recently saw the meteoric arrival and shocking departure of one of football’s most prized talents, Deion Sanders, disappointing fans and the student body who cherish JSU’s athletics, which their new president promised will be a “huge” priority.

On Monday, Dr. Elayne Hayes-Anthony held her first press conference as Jackson State’s interim president, intent on looking toward the future. She did not address Hudson’s tenure or whether he’ll be returning, calling the situation a “personal matter” although she may have slightly alluded to it: “The goal of my administration is to move the university forward with integrity; also, transparency and accountability,” Hayes-Anthony said during the news conference, reported WAPT-TV. “We recognize that trust is earned, and I intend to earn your trust.”

More from UB: Overhaul at Florida’s New College starts big, ousts sitting president

Thrust into the position Friday morning amid declining enrollment numbers, Hayes-Anthony’s first week at the helm of Jackson State will kick off with a listening tour beginning with thoughts and concerns from students.

Hayes-Anthony was the chairwoman and a professor for JSU’s journalism and media studies program since 2015 and held the same positions at Belhaven University for 17 years prior to that. She received her Ph.D. in organizational communication broadcast law at Southern Illinois University.

“I want to thank the Institutions of Higher Learning for entrusting me with the institution that I love, Jackson State University,” she said. “I am committed to upholding the Jackson State University mission to serve the student body.”

The post After a ‘no confidence’ vote, JSU sits its seventh president since 2010 appeared first on University Business.

With state officials in Florida, Oklahoma and now Texas drawing battle lines against critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion, faculty and school leaders are walking on eggshells to avoid saying the wrong thing to a diverse student body when teaching complex, intersectional topics.

In response, PEN America and the American Council on Education (ACE), the country’s major coordinating body for colleges and universities, released a new guide for presidents, chancellors and other campus leaders on how to uphold academic freedom’s reputation amid nationwide legislation that aggressively aims to curb it.

Making the Case for Academic Freedom in a Challenging Political Environment: A Resource Guide for Campus Leaders provides academic leaders the most effective tools to discuss “divisive topics” with state policymakers, the media and campus stakeholders and cut through the noise of attacks against supposed “woke ideology.”

“As threats of censorship in academic settings grow stronger, we look to university leaders and free expression advocates to defend campus free speech against viewpoint-based legislative incursions and to champion the value of open academic inquiry in our democracy,” said Jeremy C. Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America and a co-author of the toolkit.

More from UB: With academic freedom under attack, how does the U.S. stack up vs. other nations?

Here is a summary of the guide:

Playbook with policymakers

When speaking with officials who can dictate laws on how public learning institutions are operated, school leaders must communicate these foundational ideas to keep policymakers on the same page and find common ground.

• A sign of a healthy democracy is the level of rigor and freedom of debate in higher education institutions.
• Transparent intellectual inquiry, civil discourse and open debate are the building blocks to examining complex issues, challenges and ideas. Colleges and universities provide that medium.
• Professors should present views on a topic that are “accurate, nondoctrinaire and consistent with curricular requirements” to properly expose adult college students to controversial and contentious ideas that encourage rigorous discourse. Exposure to different points of view and weighing their merit is the process of becoming a contributing adult in society.
• To uphold academic freedom and shared governance, faculty are responsible for creating course curricula—not government officials. Instead, they should partner with colleges and universities to best campuses that struggle with cultivating hospitable environments.

Speaking to the media

Leveraging the influence of college and university leaders, higher education institutions can proactively reach out to local media outlets to reflect on the importance of academic freedom and why government interference and legislation can erode the nation’s democracy.

Consulting with a school’s media relations team, understand these things before interacting with the media:

• What is the focus of the story and the reporter’s angle?
• What is the focus of the story, and what are three or four points you want to get across? Provide them with relevant data and sources.
• Repetition can be a powerful tool in an interview to drive home your key message.

Effective ways to communicate with the public at large via media exposure without sitting down for an interview can be providing an op-ed, letters to the editor and social media/blog posts.

Difficult questions you should expect to answer

The guide also provides hypothetical questions college and university leaders should expect to confront and the best language to use to avoid a war of words. Such questions are:

• Are “divisive concepts” taught on your campus?
• Do you oppose efforts to ban critical race theory or the teaching of “divisive concepts”?
• How concerned are you about this push to censor faculty and restrict what’s taught in college, including
  about slavery and racism?
• Do you worry that teaching about race will actually lead to more division?

Read the full guide for the answers and advice on how to corral support from campus stakeholders to defend academic freedom.

The post Defend your college’s academic freedom: Here’s a toolkit to help you do it appeared first on University Business.

The number of full-time enrolled undergraduate students for Mount Holyoke, Mount Union and St. Norbert College all fall somewhere around 2,000. NYU’s numbers, on the other hand, are 10 times that at 25,854, according to Niche.

Linda G. Mills: NYU

For the past six months, NYU’s presidential search committee assessed over 100 candidates, but Linda G. Mills’ extensive involvement with the university since 1999 put her at the forefront of the race. On Feb. 15, the Board of Trustees announced their unanimous selection.

The president-designate was NYU’s Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice Provost for Global Programs and University Life for the past decade and is a lifetime member of the school’s senior leadership team.

“Throughout her long tenure at NYU, Linda Mills has demonstrated a profound commitment to the University,” said Evan Chesler, Chair-Designate of the Board of Trustees and Vice-Chair of the Presidential Search Committee in a statement. “She has a deep familiarity both with NYU’s great strengths and with those areas that need additional attention, support and investment for NYU to achieve the next level of excellence.

As a chaired professor and licensed professional in social work, her academic accomplishments in the field are extensive, focusing on bias, trauma and domestic violence. She has published articles in Harvard Law Review and Cornell Law Review, among others. Mills received her Ph.D. in health policy in 1994 from Brandeis University.

Her presidency will officially begin July 1.

Danielle Ren Holley: Mount Holyoke College

Before being reined as the 20th president of Mount Holyoke College, she was busy revitalizing Howard University’s school of law as dean and professor.

She was the perfect person to do it, too. The president-elect currently serves as co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and sits on the board of the Law School Admissions Council. She also earned awards with the Association of American Law Schools and the National Bar Association, to name a few honors.

“I admire so many things about Danielle Holley,” said Christina Paxson, President of Brown University, in a school statement. “She understands the power of a liberal arts education to create the visionary leaders the world sorely needs. She is deeply committed to advancing equity and justice. She has excellent academic judgment. She is a natural collaborator and a great listener. For these and numerous other reasons, Danielle is a marvelous choice to be Mount Holyoke’s 20th president.”

She is the first Black female president in the school’s 186-year history.

More from UB: Thanks to her “unshakable confidence,” Columbia University names its first female president

Laurie Joyner: St. Norbert College

This isn’t Laurie Joyner’s first rodeo as a college president. Since 2017, she’s been at the helm of St. Xavier University in Chicago and, before that, Wittenburg University in Ohio.

Based in large part on her extensive involvement and leadership in Catholic colleges, the Association of Catholic Colleges & Universities recently elected Joyner to their board.

Although Joyner’s presidency doesn’t take effect until July, that hasn’t stopped her from discussing her action plan at the Catholic liberal arts college, where she will be focusing on shared governance issues, enrollment numbers and philanthropy.

“It’s really important to have our faculty and staff and administrations and board of trustees on the same page about a shared vision for the future,” she said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I’ll be listening and looking at the strategic planning priorities and will likely end up tweaking those a bit.”

She will be the first woman to lead the school in its 125-year history.

Greg King: Mount Union College

Over the past 30 years, Greg King has been a jack of all trades at Mount Union. From enrollment services to student affairs, there seemed to be nothing that the now-president-designate couldn’t do.

“Greg has extensive experience in the facets of running a university,” said Matt Darrah, chair of the University’s Board of Trustees. “His leadership experience, institutional knowledge, meaningful relationships, and immense passion for Mount Union uniquely qualify him for this role, which will provide him with an opportunity to further impact the future of his alma mater.”

His most notable success—and what probably won the minds of the Board of Trustees—is his tenure as Mount Union’s vice president of advancement. Since 2008, he has raised the school’s endowment past $150 million through several campaigns.

Now, he is the first Black president in the school’s 177-year history.

The post Emerging leaders: 4 colleges hire their first Black or female—or both—president appeared first on University Business.

House bill 999 is the latest legislative effort to combat what the governor believes is higher education’s continued agenda “to impose ideological conformity, to try to promote political activism.”

State authority over education

The board of trustees at each school would be responsible for all faculty hiring under House bill 999, which grants DeSantis direct influence over the state’s public higher education system’s operations. The governor is responsible for hand-picking six of the board’s seats, and virtually another five since the Board of Governors is largely molded by the governor as well.

The most recent DeSantis-backed board of trustees ousted its president in an effort to create a more conservative-leaning, Christian-valued institution emulating Hillsdale college in Michigan.

If passed, House bill 999 – which will allow a faculty member’s tenure to be reviewed “at any time” – could potentially weave itself into two other proposed legislative efforts that some current faculty fear chills speech. The notorious “Stop WOKE Act” would reprimand faculty for curriculum that inflicts shame or anguish, such as systemic racism. Regulation 10.003 proposed by the Board of Governors would assess a tenured faculty member based on their compliance to state law (such as the “Stop WOKE Act”) and without input from other tenured faculty.

The “Stop WOKE Act” House bill is under appeal and passage of regulation 10.003 awaits decision still. Although nothing is certain, its implications are huge.

Despite possible punishment, some faculty are determined to continue their curriculum as long as they can.

“I just decided, ‘I’m not going to run from it.’ This is what I teach. This is what I study. There’s tremendous value in students learning about these things,” said UCF professor Jonathan Cox to ProPublica.

Down with DEI

The bill also eliminates any majors and minors focused on critical race theory, gender studies, intersectionality, or any other “derivative” major or minor that espouses discrimination of any kind.

After probing into its state college and university spending on all DEI-related initiatives and promising to effectively ban them, House bill 999 will officially prohibit all spending, save those geared toward Pell Grant recipients, first-generation college students, and military veterans.

Setting the historical record straight

The bill asserts that the state’s general education courses cannot define “American history as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence” and any that imply a different narrative lens like “identity politics,” such as “Critical Race Theory” is not allowed.

A new school metric used to evaluate a college or university’s performance will scrutinize students’ “education for citizenship of the constitutional republic,” though how to quantify that remained undefined.

More from UB: Oklahoma is the latest state to wage war on DEI

The post DeSantis’ quest to conquer higher ed just got scarier appeared first on University Business.

Dr. Rodmon Cedric King, Connecticut College’s former Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion (DIEI), insisted President Katherine Bergeron avoid hosting a fundraising event at a Florida venue King knew had a reputation for racism and antisemitism. His advice fell on deaf ears, and as quickly as he was ignored, he resigned.

“I regret our decision to schedule an event at a location whose history and reputation suggest otherwise,” Bergeron wrote in an open letter. “We made that decision believing that our values were clear. But the decision to proceed came across differently, and we recognize now that we were wrong.”

It may seem like a knee-jerk reaction to give up one’s position as a college dean because of the president’s singular misstep, but in his letter to the Board King cited Bergeron’s “bullying behaviors” as the foundation for his decision. He also stressed how her “toxic administrative culture” instilled fear among faculty and crippled their efforts to hold collaborative, successful school meetings.

More from UB: Overhaul at Florida’s New College starts big, ousts sitting president

Students fueled the fire, criticizing Bergeron’s response to King’s resignation as lacking accountability and measures to improve.

“How could she be ‘shocked’ to receive the news when countless staff members and administrators have attested to the ‘toxic’ work environment she has fostered throughout her presidency?” wrote one student in an op-ed for Connecticut College’s student newspaper.

As students continued to object to King’s resignation, many of the school’s departments issued statements in solidarity with students and supporting protests that lead to social change, drawing the campus community into direct conflict with the school’s leadership.

The Board of Trustees attempted to do damage control, penning a public statement empathizing with them. However, their response proved too meek for the faculty.

“Hiring a team of consultants strikes us as a classic media relations move to deflect attention from the core issues by essentially postponing any actionable commitment to change and relying instead on a corporate PR strategy aimed at ‘reputation rehabilitation,’” read a letter signed by 120 faculty members.

The letter went on to suggest that the relationship between leadership and the campus community undergo “a fundamental change,” and called on the Board to hold an open forum during its campus visit on Friday, Feb. 24, noting that input from “committees and ‘leaders’ is not sufficient at this point.”

One student noted that in his “three or four years at Conn,” King is the third DIEI Dean to have arrived and departed from the position there.

“There clearly is a disconnect between the higher administration and the DIEI office,” said student Sam Maidenberg. “And that position has just been on a constant revolving door.”

The post Chaos in Connecticut: Faculty, students seek to replace ‘bullying’ president appeared first on University Business.