Chronicle of Higher Education

Opinion: A Vanderbilt/Wash U report cast anthropology as damaged by left-wing politicization. This essay argues that the case rests on a narrow view of the field — including 12 elite departments and LLM-coded abstracts — not a comprehensive assessment. https://chroni.cl/4ieZoni

Dartmouth College's provost, Santiago Schnell, will face a no-confidence vote at a November 9 faculty meeting. This comes after Dartmouth's student newspaper found that Schnell had used AI in his academic and editorial writing. https://chroni.cl/3UPSoFN

Mamon Saleh had two suitcases packed for college. He had earned a full scholarship to Penn, and later one to a university in Hong Kong. But visa denials kept him in Latakia, Syria. He's one of the many students who are rich in aspirations and stuck in limbo. https://chroni.cl/4ia9B5S

Mamon Saleh won a full ride to Penn. Then the country on his passport kept him out. His story shows how tightening borders are reshaping who gets access to higher education and what colleges lose when admitted students cannot arrive. https://chroni.cl/4ia9B5S

From 2018: The New York Times reported that NYU found Avital Ronell responsible for sexually harassing a former student. Andrea Long Chu, who worked with Ronell, argues the case exposes a deeper problem: academic celebrity, fear, and silence. https://chroni.cl/3W3J8hD

In this week's Teaching newsletter: The temptation to use AI is nearly everywhere online. To prevent misuse some professors are having students complete more assignments in class. Have we reached the point where students are no longer asked to read and write independently? https://chroni.cl/4BrQcou

This week on College Matters: From the well-heeled to the cash-strapped, colleges are slashing budgets, cutting programs, and axing jobs. Listen wherever you get your podcasts: https://chroni.cl/4zS57qx

🚨New podcast alert 🚨Introducing Open Questions, from The Chronicle Review. Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin will talk with a prominent, provocative thinker about academic culture, ideas, and politics. First up, a conversation with Jill Lepore. Listen now: https://chroni.cl/4yIHAHk

Cornell’s Faculty Senate is weighing a no-confidence vote over the administration’s handling of sexual misconduct. But faculty are split: Some see a necessary call for systemic change; others warn the resolution is too broad and premature. https://chroni.cl/4jBDUU0

Employees raised alarms years ago about Zulma Toro’s conduct. An investigation that began this year into the former president's conduct ended without a final report when she resigned. Read The Chronicle’s investigation: https://chroni.cl/3UdgE4v

A jury awarded David Sabatini $6 million in a defamation case against his accuser, five years after sexual-harassment allegations cost him his professorship at MIT. Is the result proof of an unfair rush to judgment? https://chroni.cl/47tW0QD

A judge has temporarily stopped an effort to dissolve Antioch University’s board and fire its president, Lori Varlotta, as a dispute tied to Antioch’s merger with Otterbein continues. https://chroni.cl/4i3fr8T

Kalshi wants users bet on acceptance rates at 22 major universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The online prediction market is even seeking federal approval. Admissions experts aren't a fan of the idea. https://chroni.cl/4BqNa3W

More than 200 students at SUNY Geneseo recently received a marketing email from an AI company, which has partnered with their university, that set off faculty alarms about academic freedom. The provost said she had not approved or known about the email before it was sent. https://chroni.cl/4dQu8tx

A month ago, hard times were seemingly behind the University of Minnesota. Then, in September, the university announced a $250 million budget cut. What happened? https://chroni.cl/4skC6kE

New: UCLA's budget deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year has shrunken again to $58 million. In April the campus had gone from $425 million to $220 million. Here's the latest: https://chroni.cl/4z2bPKf

Opinion: Ohio has put $59 million into civics institutes at five public universities. Now a new bill would give their directors “sole and exclusive authority” over civics courses statewide. The author argues this is a new front in curriculum politics. https://chroni.cl/4A7C8PF

This week on College Matters: Endowment raids. Program cuts. Buyouts. This may be higher ed's worst budget crisis in decades. Listen wherever you get your podcasts: https://chroni.cl/4zS57qx

A performance audit of the post-tenure review system in Utah found shortcomings in the way underperforming faculty members are dealt with. The solution, it argues, is to professionalize the role of department chairs. But that’s not what professors necessarily want. https://chroni.cl/4z36UZP

A jury awarded David Sabatini $6 million in a defamation case against his accuser, five years after sexual-harassment allegations cost him his professorship at MIT. Is the result proof of an unfair rush to judgment? https://chroni.cl/47tW0QD

New: Rema Vassar, a Michigan State University trustee, is suing several of her colleagues and other MSU leaders, claiming they retaliated and intentionally discriminated against her. Read more: https://chroni.cl/488R040

This week in our Jagged Intelligence newsletter: Religious colleges are making a case that higher education should be about more than skills AI can automate, things like character, meaning, and human dignity. Subscribe for free here: https://chroni.cl/4BjfRiX

Humanities dissertations have fallen by 49 percent since 2015, compared with a drop of 4.5 percent in the social sciences, according to a new analysis of nearly 445,000 dissertations in these two fields over 65 years. Explore the data: https://chroni.cl/4yxUZ4S

Some college accreditation upstarts begin with big ideas about ending "political correctness" and "wokeness." But as they start trying to attract members, they talk less about hot-button politics and more about the decidedly unsexy work of accreditation. https://chroni.cl/4BjWhTS

Opinion: After leaks about the AHA’s lobbying strategy, its leaders asked council members to sign a confidentiality certificate then hired a corporate law firm to investigate who shared internal material. https://chroni.cl/4z2RK6N

From 2025: Four candidates. One slot for student body president. And an untold number of complaints filed between them. This is the story of how the pursuit of power at Ohio State University went totally off-the-rails. https://chroni.cl/4eGaWik

Opinion: A journal editor tested AI-generated peer reviews and found them detailed, constructive — and sometimes bracingly critical. The harder question: not whether AI is perfect, but whether it can outperform the system academics already distrust. https://chroni.cl/4sf8h4J

What has the computer-science enrollment cliff meant for colleges? I took a look at Oregon State University, which lost 23 percent of its CS majors, leading to a $19 million budget shortfall(!), and chatted with CS faculty members across the country: www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

A Ku Klux Klan-themed image shared by students at the University of Maryland’s flagship has put a fresh spotlight on an institution that’s spent much of the past decade confronting charges of racism. https://chroni.cl/4dPwh8L

UNC-Chapel Hill has settled antisemitism and admissions claims with the Trump administration. Under the agreement announced Monday, the government found no civil-rights violations, and the university paid no money. https://chroni.cl/4k6l5Zh

Oregon State bet big on computer science. After a profitable run, things have gone south.

Computer-science departments have seen their own enrollment cliffs over the last year, driven by fears that AI is making entry-level programming jobs obsolete. Oregon State lost nearly 1,000 computer-science majors in a year. https://chroni.cl/4yQjoDf

From 2025: Jill Lepore said Harvard’s culture became “incredibly prosecutorial” around 2014 so much so that she nearly left academe. In this interview, she discusses regret, civics, constitutional history, and what universities are for. https://chroni.cl/4i41nuC

No more out-of-state tuition for the University of Alaska starting in fall 2027. The bet: a clearer price, more students, and a stronger state work force. The risk: proving the numbers work over time. Read about it in our new, free newsletter: https://chroni.cl/480C4VD

As families and policymakers demand clearer proof of college’s value, more institutions are creating a new senior role: the chief career officer. The challenge is whether authority, data, and faculty buy-in can turn a title into better outcomes for students. https://chroni.cl/4k1MPhA

A Harvard professor’s Financial times essay got an AI-use note. A Nature Africa author said AI did almost all the writing. A philosophy journal published a paper written largely by Claude. Academe still hasn’t settled the basic question: What counts as authorship now? https://chroni.cl/4jX1PNO

A USC law dean says her viral post about now-former Trump spokeswoman Katie Zacharia’s legal credentials was misinterpreted. Zacharia, who never passed the bar, was ousted Friday. https://chroni.cl/3UxEzf2

Opinion: If AI is now part of academic writing, what should institutions actually evaluate? This essay argues that analytical writing should be judged by evidence, structure, argument, and accountability not by guesses about how each sentence was produced. https://chroni.cl/4eDRdjg

In this week's Review newsletter: Jill Lepore warns that “the artificial state” alienates citizens from one another and weakens civic obligation. Subscribe here, it's free: https://chroni.cl/4srYE37

When a Wyoming microbiology student came down with troubling symptoms, his wife teamed up with chemistry professors to test the water in his coffee pot. Now, a grad-school colleague faces charges that she tried to poison him before attempting to escape to China. https://chroni.cl/4ynYoDi

Opinion: At the University of Toronto 160 spots in “Dead Book Clubs” filled in one day. No phones. No grades. No professors. Just students reading Kafka, Munro, Greene and others together. What does this enthusiasm say about the so-called reading crisis? https://chroni.cl/3UvA9VZ

On many campuses, fraternities appear more powerful than presidents. In this episode of College Matters, Holden Thorp, who had a tumultuous run as chancellor of UNC Chapel Hill, said frats and football are virtually untouchable. https://chroni.cl/4i6x5re

Many higher ed workers prefer working remotely at least part-time, surveys find. But there are trade-offs: less feedback, weaker ties and fewer creative ideas, especially for junior employees. Two economists explain what that means for higher ed. https://chroni.cl/4dGaNv5

From 2019: Thehumanities are experiencing a “second secularization.” First religion lost authority, then the cultural canon did. The result, this essay argues, is a post-religious, post-canon age. https://chroni.cl/4i2yZJt

Sonoma State cut its NCAA Division II program to help close a $24-million deficit. Then enrollment fell by 800 students, including athletes. Now 10 sports will return in 2027. Understand how leaders reversed the decision and subscribe to our free leadership newsletter: https://chroni.cl/4dH4NlP

Cornell’s 2025 campus-climate survey found that 35 percent of undergraduate women and 8 percent of undergraduate men reported nonconsensual sexual contact. But a lower response rate complicates comparisons with prior years. We examined what the data can and can’t show. https://chroni.cl/4zu7pf6

New: Cornell's president said he would take, "a very careful, open look" at Greek life on the university's campus during a contentious meeting with the Faculty Senate on Wednesday afternoon. https://chroni.cl/4yjD5mj

Experts say Cornell appears to have followed federal law and its own protocols after Jane Doe’s sexual-assault report. But the university acknowledges that it fell short in other ways. https://chroni.cl/4dFNUI3

Opinion: The University of Michigan paused a first-semester pass/fail pilot after national criticism and “distorted narratives,” its president said. In this opinion essay, a Michigan professor argues the retreat sets a troubling precedent for academic decision-making. https://chroni.cl/4il1282

New: Richard Linton, president of Kansas State University since 2022, will be the next president of Virginia Tech. He'll take over from Timothy Sands, who abruptly announced his resignation in April. https://chroni.cl/4yQnc80