GradHacker

With Republicans in the majority in the House of Representatives and oversight looming, the U.S. Education Department is planning to stay busy with another round of negotiated rule making. The docket for this year includes amending regulations on accreditation, state authorization, the definition of distance education, cash management and third-party servicers. The regulatory agenda for 2023, rel…

Alan Dettlaff/Twitter The University of Houston suddenly removed its dean of social work last month. The university has said it did so to better align the Graduate College of Social Work with broader institutional priorities. The former dean, Alan Dettlaff—who is returning to the social work faculty, for now—says his views on racial justice got him fired. “I’ve said many times, one of the things …

Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images Tabitha Edson always knew she wanted to work in health sciences. She earned a nursing assistant certification in high school but decided not to pursue the field at Westminster College, a small private institution in Salt Lake City; she worried that it would limit her job opportunities when she graduated. Instead, she found herself drawn to public…

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times Two years ago today, a group of insurrectionists, whipped into a frenzy by former President Trump’s false rhetoric about a stolen election, waged an attack on the U.S. Capitol, seeking to subvert American democracy. During the course of that tumultuous day, Trump made several calls to legal counsel—including to Mark Martin, a former North Carolina Supreme Court ju…

fotografixx/Getty Images Students who enroll in William Altman’s psychology classes at the State University of New York’s Broome Community College sometimes find themselves hooked up to an electroencephalograph—a device that measures electrical activity of the brain—while driving simulated cars either with or without texting. Others in the class participate by monitoring the device’s output or th…

Gwengoat/iStock/Getty Images Plus Community colleges across the country are struggling to recruit and hire new people after losing faculty and staff members in droves during the pandemic. The institutions lost 13 percent of their employees nationally from January 2020 to April 2022, according to an estimate from EAB, a higher education consulting firm. A recent data analysis from EAB shows that f…

- Franklin University is starting an M.S. in professional sales leadership. - Manhattan College is introducing a B.A. in criminology major. - Muhlenberg College has launched a graduate certificate in diversity, equity and inclusion. - Paul Smith’s College is starting a certificate program in clean energy. - Rider University has started a bachelor of arts in social media strategies. - University o…

YouTube/North Idaho College December was a whirlwind month for members of the North Idaho College Board of Trustees. They held four meetings, admitted three violations of open meetings laws, faced two lawsuits and named a new interim president after abruptly placing President Nick Swayne on administrative leave. The board’s rapid-fire actions did not go unnoticed by North Idaho’s accreditor. NIC …

Franklin Pierce University While campus sustainability efforts have steadily grown over recent decades, COVID caused a pause at many institutions. On the one hand, closures had a positive impact on energy usage. “You can create a net-zero campus pretty easily by just shutting it down,” quips Jay Antle, executive director of the Center for Sustainability and a history professor at Johnson County C…

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Congress is sending more than $1.5 billion to colleges and universities thanks to earmarks and pouring millions more into student success grant programs as part of the $1.7 trillion spending package for fiscal year 2023 that lawmakers approved late last month. The bill signed into law by President Biden increases the maximum annual Pell Grant award to $7,395—a $500 in…

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Congress is planning to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $7,395—a $500 increase—and put more money toward several student success grant programs as part of a $1.7 trillion spending package for fiscal year 2023. The 4,155-page draft spending plan, unveiled early Tuesday morning, will be voted on this week as lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives pl…

A few things are dependable in higher education, no matter what the high-level trends are. One is that some faculty members are going to do outrageous things, leaders on their campuses are going to get mad and Inside Higher Ed's readers won't be able to get enough of it. Another is that administrators at some colleges are going to make decisions that are foolish or short-sighted, professors are g…

FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images When New York University announced last month that it would suspend admissions to its undergraduate music education program, students were shocked. They weren't worried about whether they would still be able to graduate; the email sent Nov. 1 by Marilyn Nonken, who chairs the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, which includes music education, specifi…

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard University Harvard University announced its 30th president Thursday, drawing from within to hire Claudine Gay, the first Black president in the institution’s nearly 400-year history. The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay will officially assume the position next summer. Gay, currently the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was hired after a…

Ethan Miller/Getty Images Scooters, hoverboards and other battery-powered devices have become favored modes of transportation for getting students quickly across sometimes sprawling campuses, but critics say the micromobility devices have become so ubiquitous—and are often driven so recklessly—that they pose a safety hazard to pedestrians as well as the students and others using them. After a spa…

- Elmira College is starting a minor in data analytics. - University of Cincinnati is starting a Ph.D. in health and rehabilitation sciences. - University of South Carolina is starting a certificate in digital studies. 3/3 Articles remaining this month.

Alex Wong/Getty Images While President Biden’s one-time student loan forgiveness plan remains tied up in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Education Department is working on a more far-reaching and costly plan to overhaul how people pay back their loans. The overhaul of the department’s income-driven repayment program, which bases monthly payments on an individual’s income and family size, would cut pa…

Ryan Kennedy You don’t have to spend much time on MSNBC or Fox—or even the congressional deliberations on C-SPAN, for that matter—to see that Americans’ collective ability to engage in civil discourse is in doubt. Colleges are not immune, as evidenced by speaker shutdowns and students’ own doubts about whether they can speak freely on campus. It was with those concerns in mind that Ryan Kennedy, …

Dina Pielaet/Moorpark College It’s finals season at Moorpark College, a community college in Ventura County, Calif. For students in the Exotic Animal Training and Management program, that requires some pretty unconventional demonstrations of knowledge. As part of her assessment, Abbey Quilter has to get a female hyena named Kadogo to present her paw to have blood drawn. Quilter trained her for th…

ZeynepKaya/E+/Getty Cameron Mozafari wasn’t surprised when a student walked into his office at Cornell University and started crying. “Honestly, this happens so frequently now that my first reaction was, ‘You don’t need to disclose anything to me that will make you feel uncomfortable,’” said Mozafari, who teaches engineering communication at Cornell’s College of Engineering. “‘Because whatever yo…