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Community college baccalaureate programs in California can help more Black and Latino students earn bachelor’s degrees in a state that badly needs a more educated workforce, according to a new report.
The Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, a research effort examining civil rights and equal opportunity issues affecting racial and ethnic groups, today released the report calling for a “strategic” expansion of baccalaureate programs at community colleges. The researchers who produced the report say the expansion should have a focus on racial equity and labor market needs.
Hispanics make up 38.1 percent of all state residents 25 and older, but among all state residents with a bachelor’s degree, only about 11.5 percent are Hispanic, according to the report. Black residents make up a much smaller share of the state population but have a similar degree gap. Student parents, first-generation college students and adult learners are also among those who might benefit from “accessible and affordable pathways for bachelor’s degrees for place-bound students,” the report states.
State legislation in 2021 authorized the expansion of community college baccalaureate programs, establishing that proposed new programs undergo a review that involves the California State University and the University of California systems. Some recent expansion efforts have met with pushback from CSU faculty members. A CSU faculty leader told Inside Higher Ed he has concerns about using state dollars to bolster baccalaureate programs that might exist elsewhere.
But duplication shouldn’t be an issue, according to the authors of the report.
As an example of “strategic” expansion, they say in the report, “Community colleges might consider offering degrees in fields where there is a clear shortage of bachelor’s degree–educated workers, even if these fields overlap with existing four-year programs (e.g., if local demand for registered nurses outpaces the production of bachelor’s degrees in nursing at the nearest California State University).”
There are currently no community college baccalaureate programs in nursing in the state.
The report says California’s “leading role in higher education has dwindled over time” and that the state’s “college degree production is not keeping pace with employer demand.”
Notable differences exist between students in community college baccalaureate programs compared to state university programs, according to the researchers.
The report cites previous research findings that community college students as more likely to be working adults with families and “place-bound” to the area where they live, and it asserts that in states such as Florida—where community college baccalaureate programs are more common—allowing “program overlap between the community college and state university system” results in “little competition for students between sectors.”
Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, an education professor at UCLA and co-author of the report, said that when it comes to hearing points raised by CSU faculty members, “I think that there’s a space to listen and document concerns. But when it comes to approving these programs, I think there has to be use of evidence. Like I said, we have data and evidence that points to the fact that we’re not serving the same students. That’s a very important point that we wanted to make in this report.”
The report describes how Florida community colleges are part of the Florida College System, while public universities are part of the State University System, and approximately 60 percent of the Florida College System bachelor’s programs were also offered by the State University System, according to 2015 data, “yet the SUS has not experienced any notable enrollment declines in these areas.”
Florida and Washington are two states that have authorized community college baccalaureate programs for the longest amount of time, the report states, so data from those states are often studied given the history and size of the programs.
The report includes some data on students in existing California community college baccalaureate programs but notes that “the existing data infrastructure consists of parallel data systems that can differ in how they count/report students and how they measure progress and outcomes.” The authors call for improved data collection.
The report’s authors also note an equity gap between the number of Latino students attending community college and the number transferring to four-year institutions. Among community college students, “while Latina/o/x students represent 51 percent of all students who declared a degree/transfer goal, they represent 35 percent among those who successfully transfer within four years.”
Thomas Norman, a professor of management at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and vice chair of CSU’s Academic Senate, has questions about the costs associated with adding baccalaureate programs at community colleges.
“Oftentimes, people look at the amounts students pay. But that’s not really the cost that we should be looking at from the state perspective,” Norman said, describing concerns about how state dollars might be needed to pay for costs associated with creating programs similar to those already at universities.
He also emphasized California State University system’s commitment to equity, which he said includes addressing the needs of nontraditional students.
Daisy Gonzales, interim chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, praised the report’s recommendations.
“This UCLA report shows us what the legislature and our Board of Governors saw in the potential to expand California Community College bachelor’s degree program with the passage of AB 927,” she said in a statement, referring to the 2021 law that allows up to 30 additional community colleges to add baccalaureate programs each academic year. “By expanding community college bachelor’s degree programs, we can close equity gaps, address workforce demands and lead social mobility at scale for Californians.”
While the affordability of community college baccalaureate programs makes them attractive to students, Rios-Aguilar said students also have existing obligations that prevent them from being able to commute to four-year colleges that may be farther away from their homes.
“I think the value proposition from these programs is that you can stay local. In some cases, students are attending part-time so they can continue working,” Rios-Aguilar said.
Ivy Love, a senior policy analyst with New America, a liberal Washington think tank, said her research has found that Florida residents see a big boost in earnings if they complete a community college baccalaureate program. Considering all areas of study, those with a baccalaureate degree earned about $10,000 more than those with just an associate degree, Love said. Her research found “a pretty racially and ethnically diverse group of students who graduate from these programs in Florida,” adding that about half are age 30 or older.
While many more of these programs exist in Florida—the report counted over 150 in Florida compared to 15 in California—Love said those enrolled still make up a small percentage of all community college students in Florida.
Deborah Floyd, a professor of higher education leadership at Florida Atlantic University, said in an email that the “strongest advocates” for expanding community college baccalaureate programs are “often employers within communities,” including, for example, school boards seeking teachers and hospitals or health-care facilities seeking workers.
“Businesses with a need for educated leaders and managers often advocate for these degrees,” Floyd said.
Efforts to improve college access and support for foster youth have spurred new laws in multiple states, with legislators from both major parties heeding calls to do more for a group of students often without family to call on for help.
“I’ve observed the level of bipartisan support for these issues increasing over the last couple of years, which is really promising,” said Rodd Monts, director of state policy for SchoolHouse Connection, a national nonprofit organization that works to help young people overcome homelessness through education.
Efforts in states such as Washington tackle the broader issue of students experiencing homelessness in addition to supporting foster youth. Other states, such as Virginia, have recently passed more narrowly focused bills to help foster youth.
Many colleges and universities have offered various programs supporting foster youth, at times in partnership with a philanthropic group or a state agency. But there appears to be growing momentum for new or more comprehensive statewide efforts to assist a group that is statistically less likely to complete college. Monts said he has observed “an increasing number of legislative proposals being introduced over all.”
Anne Ferrell Tata, a first-term Republican delegate in the Virginia General Assembly, sponsored legislation that aims to provide more campus housing over academic breaks to students with experience in foster care. The bill received unanimous approval from Tata’s colleagues on both sides of the political aisle and awaits the signature of Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
The bill states that public colleges and universities with residence halls open during breaks must offer free housing during intersessions to students who were receiving support through the state’s foster care system at age 18. A fiscal impact statement said the cost to colleges was “indeterminate,” but it would likely increase the overall costs to students for campus housing.
A 2013 study by academic researchers at the University of Chicago and Rutgers University found that between 31 percent and 46 percent of youth aging out of foster care had experienced homelessness at least once by age 26.
“So anything we can do to redirect them to a more productive path is a win for all of us,” Tata said. “Everyone knows education is the ticket to independence and success.”
Tata said this includes community colleges and trade schools.
“They don’t have to have a four-year degree,” but “if they can do it and they want one, it’s vitally important that we come alongside them and help them.”
Some recent efforts to help these students have involved increased funding in the form of state grants for foster youth attending college.
An estimated 37 states offer either tuition waivers or scholarships for foster youth, according to a report by three advocacy organizations: Fostering Academic Achievement Nationwide Network, Education Reach for Texans and John Burton Advocates for Youth. Students may also qualify for federal education and training voucher assistance, but these grants may not add up to the full cost of attending college, advocates say.
Even as various bills have been introduced at the federal level in recent years to help foster youth attend college, some states are forging ahead with their own legislation.
Minnesota lawmakers in 2021 created the state’s Fostering Independence Grant to cover the full cost of attendance, which includes room and board, books and supplies, and other expenses. The grant, provided to students for the first time this past fall, assists foster youth at public colleges and universities after other financial aid and any family contributions are exhausted. Participating private institutions in the state have agreed to provide aid to cover gaps from the grant.
A total of 389 students received the grant, according to Keith Hovis, director of communications for the state’s Office of Higher Education. A statewide report for 2020 listed 13,442 youth of any age as being in out-of-home placement in Minnesota’s foster care system. The grant is open to Minnesotans under age 27 who were in the state’s foster care system at any point after their 13th birthday.
Hovis said the total grants awarded have exceeded the $3.79 million state allocation for the new program.
“We are transferring funds from other programs to fulfill the remaining spring semester need and fund students for summer. We are projecting $4M of payments in the 2022–2023 academic year. We are also requesting an increase of funding for 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 to meet anticipated need,” Hovis said in an email.
While white children in Minnesota made up the largest racial group of those in out-of-home placements, “relative to their population, African American/Black, American Indian, children identifying as two or more races, and those of any race identifying as Hispanic, are more likely to both enter and continue in care,” according to the state report.
National data show that Black and Native American children are overrepresented in foster care, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national organization that works to help children, youth and families. The foundation also reported that LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented in foster care.
Some California lawmakers are currently pushing a statewide measure designed to pay the full cost of attendance for students with experience in foster care.
“The state had done a good job for a long time trying to put lots of resources out into the world for foster youth to go to college,” State Senator Angelique Ashby, a Democrat, said in a recent webinar about the proposed legislation. “But it was mostly tuition, and foster youth, by definition, are housing insecure. So not knowing where you’re going to live or where you’re going to get your food means you can’t really focus on college.”
The grant would be paid for through an expansion of California’s existing Middle Class Scholarship program and could decrease awards for other students by about $61, or 3.5 percent, say advocates with John Burton Advocates for Youth, which is promoting the bill.
The governors of Minnesota and California are both Democrats, as are the majority of lawmakers in their state legislatures, but Mississippi, a deeply Republican state, last year passed a similar law to provide college scholarships for foster youth. (There are about 4,000 children in foster care in Mississippi, according to the state’s child welfare authority.) The scholarship program aims to provide, when combined with other financial aid, for the full cost of attendance at public higher education institutions, or up to the average cost to attend a state public institution if the student attends a private institution. Students must be under 25 and, like in Minnesota, must also have been in the state’s legal custody or lived in group homes licensed by state child welfare authorities at any point since age 13 to be eligible for the scholarships. The first awards are set to be made in the 2023–24 academic year, according to the law signed by Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican.
“We have a duty and an obligation to ensure children growing up in foster care have the opportunity to turn their struggles into strengths,” Reeves said in a statement, noting that the program includes $1 million in state funding. Reeves said he was “proud’ to support the legislation.
“I hope that this can be a model for other states seeking to better support their foster children as well,” he said.
Debbie Raucher, director of education for the California-based nonprofit John Burton Advocates for Youth, said efforts at individual campuses across the state to help foster youth go back some 25 years and cited California State University, Fullerton, as an early initiator.
“I would describe California as the trailblazer on this issue,” Raucher said.
Foster youth advocates like Christina Torres have played a role in getting new proposals heard by sharing the difficulties they have faced.
“Living in a group home, I wasn’t really prepared for my college experience. I ended up homeless maybe a month into college, and I had a daughter at the time,” said Torres.
California had 28,407 children entering foster care in 2019, according to state data for youth through age 17. State lawmakers passed a 2022–23 budget bill that funds campus support programs for foster youth across all three public postsecondary systems, including the California State University and University of California systems, in addition to community colleges in the state.
“This was really the accumulation of 10 years’ worth of advocacy work. Things happen incrementally,” Raucher said.
In Washington State, lawmakers are considering making permanent a legislative pilot program begun in 2019 that allows state grants to colleges and universities to be used to help students with short-term housing needs and provide them with access to laundry, storage, shower and other facilities.
Charles Adkins, 25, helped draft the initial Washington legislation when he was a college student. The legislation was informed by his experience as a homeless teen. He served as a student government lobbyist at Evergreen State College, allowing him access to legislators.
“In order to stay in my dorm room over winter break, I was asked to pay almost $700,” said Adkins. He said he couldn’t afford that amount and ended up staying with a friend.
Adkins, a member of the Yurok Tribe, said he was inspired by a short documentary about efforts to help homeless college students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
The other model for the Washington State legislation was an effort in place at K-12 schools, such as in Everett, Wash., where Adkins attended high school.
“We set out to try to make a program that looked in many ways to this program at Everett Public Schools called Kids in Transition,” said Adkins, who helped advise Mike Sells, a lawmaker from the western Washington city, on the initial legislation. Adkins now works as a legislative policy analyst with the Tulalip Tribes in Washington.
School districts throughout the U.S. must designate liaisons to help their homeless students under the federal McKinney-Vento Act. Some states, like Washington, are extending that idea to colleges.
As Adkins recalls, some legislative efforts resulted in “huge pushback from a lot of the colleges,” with some stating that their homeless student populations were essentially nonexistent. But Washington State University published a statement online saying it “strongly supports the effort to make [the program] permanent.”
Jennifer Manley, dean of student engagement and retention at South Puget Sound Community College, said grant money provided through the pilot program has helped the college rent three apartment units for students. She estimated that between 35 to 40 students have been housed in the units since 2019, and there’s a waiting list of students seeking to live in them.
At Yakima Valley College, a community college in Washington State, Guadalupe Huitron-Lilly, a faculty counselor who has helped oversee the pilot project, said the program is needed.
“I think it is very important that this program be funded on a long-term basis,” she said.
Efforts to improve college access and support for foster youth have spurred new laws in multiple states, with legislators from both major parties heeding calls to do more for a group of students often without family to call on for help.
“I’ve observed the level of bipartisan support for these issues increasing over the last couple of years, which is really promising,” said Rodd Monts, director of state policy for SchoolHouse Connection, a national nonprofit organization that works to help young people overcome homelessness through education.
Efforts in states such as Washington tackle the broader issue of students experiencing homelessness in addition to supporting foster youth. Other states, such as Virginia, have recently passed more narrowly focused bills to help foster youth.
Many colleges and universities have offered various programs supporting foster youth, at times in partnership with a philanthropic group or a state agency. But there appears to be growing momentum for new or more comprehensive statewide efforts to assist a group that is statistically less likely to complete college. Monts said he has observed “an increasing number of legislative proposals being introduced over all.”
Anne Ferrell Tata, a first-term Republican delegate in the Virginia General Assembly, sponsored legislation that aims to provide more campus housing over academic breaks to students with experience in foster care. The bill received unanimous approval from Tata’s colleagues on both sides of the political aisle and awaits the signature of Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
The bill states that public colleges and universities with residence halls open during breaks must offer free housing during intersessions to students who were receiving support through the state’s foster care system at age 18. A fiscal impact statement said the cost to colleges was “indeterminate,” but it would likely increase the overall costs to students for campus housing.
A 2013 study by academic researchers at the University of Chicago and Rutgers University found that between 31 percent and 46 percent of youth aging out of foster care had experienced homelessness at least once by age 26.
“So anything we can do to redirect them to a more productive path is a win for all of us,” Tata said. “Everyone knows education is the ticket to independence and success.”
Tata said this includes community colleges and trade schools.
“They don’t have to have a four-year degree,” but “if they can do it and they want one, it’s vitally important that we come alongside them and help them.”
Some recent efforts to help these students have involved increased funding in the form of state grants for foster youth attending college.
An estimated 37 states offer either tuition waivers or scholarships for foster youth, according to a report by three advocacy organizations: Fostering Academic Achievement Nationwide Network, Education Reach for Texans and John Burton Advocates for Youth. Students may also qualify for federal education and training voucher assistance, but these grants may not add up to the full cost of attending college, advocates say.
Even as various bills have been introduced at the federal level in recent years to help foster youth attend college, some states are forging ahead with their own legislation.
Minnesota lawmakers in 2021 created the state’s Fostering Independence Grant to cover the full cost of attendance, which includes room and board, books and supplies, and other expenses. The grant, provided to students for the first time this past fall, assists foster youth at public colleges and universities after other financial aid and any family contributions are exhausted. Participating private institutions in the state have agreed to provide aid to cover gaps from the grant.
A total of 389 students received the grant, according to Keith Hovis, director of communications for the state’s Office of Higher Education. A statewide report for 2020 listed 13,442 youth of any age as being in out-of-home placement in Minnesota’s foster care system. The grant is open to Minnesotans under age 27 who were in the state’s foster care system at any point after their 13th birthday.
Hovis said the total grants awarded have exceeded the $3.79 million state allocation for the new program.
“We are transferring funds from other programs to fulfill the remaining spring semester need and fund students for summer. We are projecting $4M of payments in the 2022–2023 academic year. We are also requesting an increase of funding for 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 to meet anticipated need,” Hovis said in an email.
While white children in Minnesota made up the largest racial group of those in out-of-home placements, “relative to their population, African American/Black, American Indian, children identifying as two or more races, and those of any race identifying as Hispanic, are more likely to both enter and continue in care,” according to the state report.
National data show that Black and Native American children are overrepresented in foster care, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national organization that works to help children, youth and families. The foundation also reported that LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented in foster care.
Some California lawmakers are currently pushing a statewide measure designed to pay the full cost of attendance for students with experience in foster care.
“The state had done a good job for a long time trying to put lots of resources out into the world for foster youth to go to college,” State Senator Angelique Ashby, a Democrat, said in a recent webinar about the proposed legislation. “But it was mostly tuition, and foster youth, by definition, are housing insecure. So not knowing where you’re going to live or where you’re going to get your food means you can’t really focus on college.”
The grant would be paid for through an expansion of California’s existing Middle Class Scholarship program and could decrease awards for other students by about $61, or 3.5 percent, say advocates with John Burton Advocates for Youth, which is promoting the bill.
The governors of Minnesota and California are both Democrats, as are the majority of lawmakers in their state legislatures, but Mississippi, a deeply Republican state, last year passed a similar law to provide college scholarships for foster youth. (There are about 4,000 children in foster care in Mississippi, according to the state’s child welfare authority.) The scholarship program aims to provide, when combined with other financial aid, for the full cost of attendance at public higher education institutions, or up to the average cost to attend a state public institution if the student attends a private institution. Students must be under 25 and, like in Minnesota, must also have been in the state’s legal custody or lived in group homes licensed by state child welfare authorities at any point since age 13 to be eligible for the scholarships. The first awards are set to be made in the 2023–24 academic year, according to the law signed by Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican.
“We have a duty and an obligation to ensure children growing up in foster care have the opportunity to turn their struggles into strengths,” Reeves said in a statement, noting that the program includes $1 million in state funding. Reeves said he was “proud’ to support the legislation.
“I hope that this can be a model for other states seeking to better support their foster children as well,” he said.
Debbie Raucher, director of education for the California-based nonprofit John Burton Advocates for Youth, said efforts at individual campuses across the state to help foster youth go back some 25 years and cited California State University, Fullerton, as an early initiator.
“I would describe California as the trailblazer on this issue,” Raucher said.
Foster youth advocates like Christina Torres have played a role in getting new proposals heard by sharing the difficulties they have faced.
“Living in a group home, I wasn’t really prepared for my college experience. I ended up homeless maybe a month into college, and I had a daughter at the time,” said Torres.
California had 28,407 children entering foster care in 2019, according to state data for youth through age 17. State lawmakers passed a 2022–23 budget bill that funds campus support programs for foster youth across all three public postsecondary systems, including the California State University and University of California systems, in addition to community colleges in the state.
“This was really the accumulation of 10 years’ worth of advocacy work. Things happen incrementally,” Raucher said.
In Washington State, lawmakers are considering making permanent a legislative pilot program begun in 2019 that allows state grants to colleges and universities to be used to help students with short-term housing needs and provide them with access to laundry, storage, shower and other facilities.
Charles Adkins, 25, helped draft the initial Washington legislation when he was a college student. The legislation was informed by his experience as a homeless teen. He served as a student government lobbyist at Evergreen State College, allowing him access to legislators.
“In order to stay in my dorm room over winter break, I was asked to pay almost $700,” said Adkins. He said he couldn’t afford that amount and ended up staying with a friend.
Adkins, a member of the Yurok Tribe, said he was inspired by a short documentary about efforts to help homeless college students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
The other model for the Washington State legislation was an effort in place at K-12 schools, such as in Everett, Wash., where Adkins attended high school.
“We set out to try to make a program that looked in many ways to this program at Everett Public Schools called Kids in Transition,” said Adkins, who helped advise Mike Sells, a lawmaker from the western Washington city, on the initial legislation. Adkins now works as a legislative policy analyst with the Tulalip Tribes in Washington.
School districts throughout the U.S. must designate liaisons to help their homeless students under the federal McKinney-Vento Act. Some states, like Washington, are extending that idea to colleges.
As Adkins recalls, some legislative efforts resulted in “huge pushback from a lot of the colleges,” with some stating that their homeless student populations were essentially nonexistent. But Washington State University published a statement online saying it “strongly supports the effort to make [the program] permanent.”
Jennifer Manley, dean of student engagement and retention at South Puget Sound Community College, said grant money provided through the pilot program has helped the college rent three apartment units for students. She estimated that between 35 to 40 students have been housed in the units since 2019, and there’s a waiting list of students seeking to live in them.
At Yakima Valley College, a community college in Washington State, Guadalupe Huitron-Lilly, a faculty counselor who has helped oversee the pilot project, said the program is needed.
“I think it is very important that this program be funded on a long-term basis,” she said.
The University of Iowa will pay the full amount of a legal settlement that ended a racial bias suit filed by former members of the university’s football team.
The university’s president announced Thursday that the payment would be made after an uproar among state lawmakers over an earlier plan to use taxpayer funds to cover $2 million of the $4.2 million settlement, The Des Moines Register reported.
“After listening to the concerns of Iowans and in consultation with the Board of Regents leadership, I have determined the University of Iowa Department of Athletics will reimburse the state general fund for the $2 million due to the recent settlement,” President Barbara Wilson said in a statement.
Lawmakers and the state’s auditor have been critical of the university’s athletic director, Gary Barta, among others. A legislative subcommittee meeting held Thursday morning included discussion of a bill requiring athletic departments at universities overseen by the state’s regents to repay the state for unbudgeted legal settlement costs. A lobbyist read Wilson’s statement during the meeting.
“I am delighted that she listened to the outcry from taxpayers who wanted real accountability,” Rob Sand, the state’s auditor, told the Register.
University officials admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement. The former football players, who are Black, filed their lawsuit in 2020. They alleged the use of racial slurs as well as being required to abandon hairstyles and other aspects of their culture to fit in with what the lawsuit called the “Iowa Way” under Coach Kirk Ferentz, and that they were retaliated against after speaking out.
The University of Iowa will pay the full amount of a legal settlement that ended a racial bias suit filed by former members of the university’s football team.
The university’s president announced Thursday that the payment would be made after an uproar among state lawmakers over an earlier plan to use taxpayer funds to cover $2 million of the $4.2 million settlement, The Des Moines Register reported.
“After listening to the concerns of Iowans and in consultation with the Board of Regents leadership, I have determined the University of Iowa Department of Athletics will reimburse the state general fund for the $2 million due to the recent settlement,” President Barbara Wilson said in a statement.
Lawmakers and the state’s auditor have been critical of the university’s athletic director, Gary Barta, among others. A legislative subcommittee meeting held Thursday morning included discussion of a bill requiring athletic departments at universities overseen by the state’s regents to repay the state for unbudgeted legal settlement costs. A lobbyist read Wilson’s statement during the meeting.
“I am delighted that she listened to the outcry from taxpayers who wanted real accountability,” Rob Sand, the state’s auditor, told the Register.
University officials admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement. The former football players, who are Black, filed their lawsuit in 2020. They alleged the use of racial slurs as well as being required to abandon hairstyles and other aspects of their culture to fit in with what the lawsuit called the “Iowa Way” under Coach Kirk Ferentz, and that they were retaliated against after speaking out.
The cancellation of two days of classes at D’Youville University almost a month ago turned out to be only the start of computer network problems that have led to frustrations across campus, faculty members say.
“I would characterize this as highly unusual,” said Bonnie Fox Garrity, president of the university’s Faculty Senate and a faculty member for 24 years.
Faculty members said they resumed teaching after the private university in Buffalo, N.Y., canceled classes from Feb. 9 to 10. But lingering problems included a lack of Wi-Fi access in academic buildings and unreliable online portals, such as the university’s Self-Service web application used by students to pay bills and register for classes.
University administrators have not said what caused the outage.
“We’re not being offered much explanation, or, I would even say, particularly, guidance as to how we’re to handle the various things that are unfolding,” said Brandon Absher, a philosophy professor and faculty union president.
The university’s president, Lorrie Clemo, declined an interview request.
On Monday—four days after a WIVB television news report about the effects of the outage on the campus aired—the university issued a campuswide statement about network availability.
“We have been actively investigating the cause of the outage and working to restore functionality of all of our systems with the help of our IT team and external systems specialists,” the statement said in part. “We understand most connectivity issues associated with the temporary internet system have been resolved, and Canvas and Self-Service are now both fully operational.”
A statement from the university in response to questions from Inside Higher Ed said, in part, that the institution has “been in regular contact with our staff, faculty and students since the outage” and that in addition to investigating the outage’s cause, the university is working to “further improve our systems and reduce the likelihood of future issues.”
Chris Patridge, an associate professor of chemistry at the university for about 10 years, said he expects to continue to use his personal cellphone’s hotspot capability to teach his classes this week rather than attempt to log on to a “guest” Wi-Fi network that the university has made available.
“I have security on my phone,” Patridge said, adding that he has concerns about whether malware or a virus contributed to the university’s lengthy technical problems. “It is starting to trickle back to sort of normal functionality, but I don’t think we’ve ever had outages like this.”
The university declined to say whether the outage was the result of a malware or virus attack.
“We’re not able to share more details on the investigation at this time but will be updating students, faculty and staff directly as pertinent information becomes available,” the university said in a statement. “We are confident that the secondary Wi-Fi network is safe to use and we are not aware of any reliability issues since our systems have been restored.”
Some faculty members said the problems for a time affected the university’s learning management system, which hosts classroom syllabi and textbooks and is typically the main way for students and faculty members to track classroom assignments.
“You can understand why everyday classroom experience becomes very frustrating, because they cannot keep up with their work as they would like to and they know they’re falling behind,” Absher said of students.
He estimated that it “probably took a week” for students and faculty to reliably access the university’s LMS, though he said it wasn’t clear to him if all students and faculty experienced the same amount of difficulty.
“Students have expressed frustration with their lack of access to some systems on campus, but they, I think, have appreciated the adjustments, and they’ve been working with us,” Fox Garrity said.
Students vented last week when network systems weren’t available.
“We graduate in May and can’t apply now,” Carleta Fukua told WIVB.
Graduate student Alex Patkalitsky said “only some people can get on” the university’s networks.
Fox Garrity said faculty members worked on low-tech, “chalk-and-talk” solutions. Videos, rather than being viewed in class, were assigned in advance.
The low-tech approach hasn’t been all bad, Fox Garrity said, though it was something new for a generation of students who’d grown accustomed to using online technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There have been moments where we’ve been working on a paper worksheet and the students have commented positively, that, ‘this is different, this is working,’” Fox Garrity said.
Challenges came even with that approach, however, she said.
“We didn’t always have enough whiteboard space to do what we’d like to in a chalk-and-talk environment,” Fox Garrity said of the available classrooms.
When it came to testing, “we have split larger groups of students who were going to use testing that required technology into multiple smaller groups to increase the chances that all of the students could access the network at the same time,” Fox Garrity said. Patridge said he struggled to print out tests before the university provided an alternate printer.
Faculty members “have been as flexible as we could be with testing dates and due dates to try to assist students,” Fox Garrity said.
She added that both students and faculty used personal cellphone hotspots to try to log on to university networks reliably.
Absher said he’s been frustrated with the lack of communication from the university’s administration about the problems.
“We’re routinely offered timelines or explanations that, ‘This will be available on this day,’ and it is not available on that day,” Absher said Friday.
Entering last week, “we were basically assured that internet access would be available in every building, you know, going forward,” Absher said. That was not the case last Friday, he said, adding that university administrators should provide more direct communication about the problems rather than inaccurate or vague statements.
Patridge, vice president of the union’s executive committee, said negotiations for a new faculty contract began in February 2021, and faculty members have been working without a contract for 551 days as of Monday.
“Faculty morale has definitely been affected, because you’re already trying to do your job in less than an ideal situation,” Absher said.
Fox Garrity said she, too, thought the administration could have done more to communicate about the network troubles.
“I think that it would be helpful if more information were shared,” Fox Garrity said. “It would assist faculty in planning for how to adapt their courses to have a better understanding of potential timelines as we work through this.”
She added, “I don’t know if knowing the exact cause is important, but I think if we could assist people in not needing to speculate or have concerns about what it might have been, I think that would help faculty to adapt more quickly. I think it would reduce the stress levels of both faculty and students on campus.”
A former director of the Office of Institutional Equity at New Mexico State University has filed a retaliation lawsuit claiming her civil rights were violated under a state whistle-blower statute, The Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
Laura Castille, who also served as the university’s Title IX coordinator, alleges that she was forced to resign last year after reporting that a New Mexico State system administrator, Vice Chancellor Ruth Johnston, improperly helped a “close ally” land a chief auditor position. The lawsuit also alleges “gross mismanagement, abuse of authority and violation of university policy,” according to the Sun-News.
In December, a former provost, Carol Parker, also sued the university, alleging she was fired after trying to investigate pay discrimination issues.
The university declined to comment about the most recent lawsuit, according to the Sun-Times.
Ben Gubernick, an attorney for Castille, told the newspaper, “This is people trying to remove checks and balances. This is like Game of Thrones–type stuff.”
This year, the university fired its men’s basketball coach, Greg Heiar, and canceled the rest of the season amid reports of locker room hazing and after a player shot and killed a University of New Mexico student. No criminal charges have been filed in either case, and the university’s chancellor, Dan Arvizu, last week in a statement said that the law firm Greenberg Traurig will investigate the hazing allegations, according to KRWG Public Media.
A former director of the Office of Institutional Equity at New Mexico State University has filed a retaliation lawsuit claiming her civil rights were violated under a state whistle-blower statute, The Las Cruces Sun-News reported.
Laura Castille, who also served as the university’s Title IX coordinator, alleges that she was forced to resign last year after reporting that a New Mexico State system administrator, Vice Chancellor Ruth Johnston, improperly helped a “close ally” land a chief auditor position. The lawsuit also alleges “gross mismanagement, abuse of authority and violation of university policy,” according to the Sun-News.
In December, a former provost, Carol Parker, also sued the university, alleging she was fired after trying to investigate pay discrimination issues.
The university declined to comment about the most recent lawsuit, according to the Sun-Times.
Ben Gubernick, an attorney for Castille, told the newspaper, “This is people trying to remove checks and balances. This is like Game of Thrones–type stuff.”
This year, the university fired its men’s basketball coach, Greg Heiar, and canceled the rest of the season amid reports of locker room hazing and after a player shot and killed a University of New Mexico student. No criminal charges have been filed in either case, and the university’s chancellor, Dan Arvizu, last week in a statement said that the law firm Greenberg Traurig will investigate the hazing allegations, according to KRWG Public Media.
The cancellation of two days of classes at D’Youville University almost a month ago turned out to be only the start of computer network problems that have led to frustrations across campus, faculty members say.
“I would characterize this as highly unusual,” said Bonnie Fox Garrity, president of the university’s Faculty Senate and a faculty member for 24 years.
Faculty members said they resumed teaching after the private university in Buffalo, N.Y., canceled classes from Feb. 9 to 10. But lingering problems included a lack of Wi-Fi access in academic buildings and unreliable online portals, such as the university’s Self-Service web application used by students to pay bills and register for classes.
University administrators have not said what caused the outage.
“We’re not being offered much explanation, or, I would even say, particularly, guidance as to how we’re to handle the various things that are unfolding,” said Brandon Absher, a philosophy professor and faculty union president.
The university’s president, Lorrie Clemo, declined an interview request.
On Monday—four days after a WIVB television news report about the effects of the outage on the campus aired—the university issued a campuswide statement about network availability.
“We have been actively investigating the cause of the outage and working to restore functionality of all of our systems with the help of our IT team and external systems specialists,” the statement said in part. “We understand most connectivity issues associated with the temporary internet system have been resolved, and Canvas and Self-Service are now both fully operational.”
A statement from the university in response to questions from Inside Higher Ed said, in part, that the institution has “been in regular contact with our staff, faculty and students since the outage” and that in addition to investigating the outage’s cause, the university is working to “further improve our systems and reduce the likelihood of future issues.”
Chris Patridge, an associate professor of chemistry at the university for about 10 years, said he expects to continue to use his personal cellphone’s hotspot capability to teach his classes this week rather than attempt to log on to a “guest” Wi-Fi network that the university has made available.
“I have security on my phone,” Patridge said, adding that he has concerns about whether malware or a virus contributed to the university’s lengthy technical problems. “It is starting to trickle back to sort of normal functionality, but I don’t think we’ve ever had outages like this.”
The university declined to say whether the outage was the result of a malware or virus attack.
“We’re not able to share more details on the investigation at this time but will be updating students, faculty and staff directly as pertinent information becomes available,” the university said in a statement. “We are confident that the secondary Wi-Fi network is safe to use and we are not aware of any reliability issues since our systems have been restored.”
Some faculty members said the problems for a time affected the university’s learning management system, which hosts classroom syllabi and textbooks and is typically the main way for students and faculty members to track classroom assignments.
“You can understand why everyday classroom experience becomes very frustrating, because they cannot keep up with their work as they would like to and they know they’re falling behind,” Absher said of students.
He estimated that it “probably took a week” for students and faculty to reliably access the university’s LMS, though he said it wasn’t clear to him if all students and faculty experienced the same amount of difficulty.
“Students have expressed frustration with their lack of access to some systems on campus, but they, I think, have appreciated the adjustments, and they’ve been working with us,” Fox Garrity said.
Students vented last week when network systems weren’t available.
“We graduate in May and can’t apply now,” Carleta Fukua told WIVB.
Graduate student Alex Patkalitsky said “only some people can get on” the university’s networks.
Fox Garrity said faculty members worked on low-tech, “chalk-and-talk” solutions. Videos, rather than being viewed in class, were assigned in advance.
The low-tech approach hasn’t been all bad, Fox Garrity said, though it was something new for a generation of students who’d grown accustomed to using online technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There have been moments where we’ve been working on a paper worksheet and the students have commented positively, that, ‘this is different, this is working,’” Fox Garrity said.
Challenges came even with that approach, however, she said.
“We didn’t always have enough whiteboard space to do what we’d like to in a chalk-and-talk environment,” Fox Garrity said of the available classrooms.
When it came to testing, “we have split larger groups of students who were going to use testing that required technology into multiple smaller groups to increase the chances that all of the students could access the network at the same time,” Fox Garrity said. Patridge said he struggled to print out tests before the university provided an alternate printer.
Faculty members “have been as flexible as we could be with testing dates and due dates to try to assist students,” Fox Garrity said.
She added that both students and faculty used personal cellphone hotspots to try to log on to university networks reliably.
Absher said he’s been frustrated with the lack of communication from the university’s administration about the problems.
“We’re routinely offered timelines or explanations that, ‘This will be available on this day,’ and it is not available on that day,” Absher said Friday.
Entering last week, “we were basically assured that internet access would be available in every building, you know, going forward,” Absher said. That was not the case last Friday, he said, adding that university administrators should provide more direct communication about the problems rather than inaccurate or vague statements.
Patridge, vice president of the union’s executive committee, said negotiations for a new faculty contract began in February 2021, and faculty members have been working without a contract for 551 days as of Monday.
“Faculty morale has definitely been affected, because you’re already trying to do your job in less than an ideal situation,” Absher said.
Fox Garrity said she, too, thought the administration could have done more to communicate about the network troubles.
“I think that it would be helpful if more information were shared,” Fox Garrity said. “It would assist faculty in planning for how to adapt their courses to have a better understanding of potential timelines as we work through this.”
She added, “I don’t know if knowing the exact cause is important, but I think if we could assist people in not needing to speculate or have concerns about what it might have been, I think that would help faculty to adapt more quickly. I think it would reduce the stress levels of both faculty and students on campus.”
An enrollment surge at Tennessee State University combined with a lack of student housing led to a scathing comptroller’s report calling for a change in the historically Black university’s leadership.
But the university’s longtime president, Glenda Glover, alumni and other supporters of the Nashville institution have argued against a proposal that would place the institution under the oversight of the Tennessee Board of Regents, the governing board for 37 technical and community colleges in the state.
At stake is local control of an institution in a state that has admitted to years of inequitable funding for its only public historically Black college. The state’s comptroller, Jason Mumpower, has told lawmakers that change is needed because “right now, TSU is not a well-run organization.” His report cites a lack of planning for an expansion of the university’s scholarship program that exacerbated a housing crunch—leading to several hundred students being housed in hotels miles away from campus—as well as a lack of proper documentation to ensure that incoming students met grade point average or financial need requirements to receive the institutional awards, among other problems.
A joint House and Senate subcommittee in the state General Assembly recommended Monday that Tennessee State keep its Board of Trustees for at least one more year. A full committee on government operations has yet to make a decision.
“The school proposed a plan to self-correct. The collective wisdom was to give them a small extension to see if there is progress,” State Senator Adam Lowe, a Republican on the subcommittee, said in an email Tuesday. Lowe voted in favor of the one-year extension.
Mumpower told lawmakers that university leaders should have foreseen a housing crisis, given that it more than quadrupled its 2022–23 scholarship budget to $28.3 million, from $5.2 million the previous year.
“In the fall of 2021, management decided to conduct an extensive recruiting campaign to bring in more students, which by itself is not an issue. But unfortunately, these students were promised housing—housing the Tennessee State University management knew they did not have a sufficient supply of,” Mumpower said.
Glover, who spoke at the committee meeting and a meeting of an ad hoc committee a week earlier, said the comptroller’s calls for change were out of proportion in their severity compared to the alleged problems at the university. She told lawmakers the state regents’ board “has no structure whatsoever to support a four-year institution.”
Glover described the university as taking action in response to a 41 percent yield rate for admitted students, which is well over expectations based on rates in past years.
“It is over one-third more students wanting to come to TSU, so we adjusted our scholarship budget,” Glover said. “No, we didn’t just adjust the budget in advance to get more students.”
Glover attributed the increased enrollment to an “HBCU renaissance,” as more students opt for Black colleges and minority-serving institutions.
Along with Glover, who has led Tennessee State since 2013, the university’s current trustees also addressed lawmakers.
“The TSU board, President Glover and the TSU administration take the concerns raised in the comptroller’s report seriously and have taken measures and will take additional substantive measures to ensure these issues are addressed and corrected,” said Deborah Cole, a former bank president and the board chair.
The university became what’s considered a locally governed institution only in 2017, after a statewide reorganization following passage of a state law known as the Focus on College and University Success Act, or FOCUS. The law called for a reorganization that resulted in six four-year universities in Tennessee getting their own boards of trustees, rather than being overseen by the Tennessee Board of Regents.
The comptroller’s office described housing problems as likely to continue into the foreseeable future. According to the comptroller’s report, Tennessee State had a fall 2022 enrollment of 9,218 students, an increase of 1,141 students compared to the previous fall.
Glover emphasized that the university has “no housing crisis” this spring semester.
“We’re working to ensure housing is addressed for fall 2023 and long term,” Glover has said. The university enrolled 3,567 first-year students this past fall, and Glover told lawmakers last week that “we’re going to manage our enrollment to align with our housing capacity.” The university stated in response to a draft of the comptroller’s report that new student enrollment for fall 2023 semester would be limited to about 2,600.
Tennessee State has plans to build two new residence halls and to tear down three or four existing residence halls. The comptroller’s report noted that this could result in a net decrease of 500 beds on campus.
Glover, trustees and supporters have also pointed to the state’s underfunding of the university as contributing to its problems. A previous legislative report found between $150 and $544 million in unpaid land-grant funds should have gone to the university from fiscal years 1957 through 2007.
Governor Bill Lee last year championed a $250 million state “investment” to improve campus buildings and other physical infrastructure at Tennessee State. His proposal won approval in the General Assembly and the university in January announced its plans to renovate several academic and student services buildings. But that money cannot be used to build student housing, according to the comptroller’s report, as such buildings are considered auxiliary facilities that generate revenue.
Tennessee State supporters raised the issue of persistent underfunding during committee meetings about the comptroller’s report.
“The accomplishments of Tennessee State University are all the more impressive when one recalls that TSU has experienced decades of being underfunded,” said Charles Galbreath, president of the university’s national alumni association. “The issue of land-grant funding must be considered when assessing the university’s business affairs and overall management.”
Obie McKenzie, a finance executive and member of the university’s Board of Trustees, told lawmakers that if “we’d had the money that we were due, perhaps our buildings wouldn’t be falling down.”
“Perhaps we wouldn’t be putting our students in hotels if we’d just been treated a little more fairly and had the money that we were due,” McKenzie said.
Glover has told lawmakers that the university “is in a better position now than it’s ever been in our 111-year history,” including financially.
Artenzia Young-Seigler, chair of the university’s Faculty Senate, said in a phone interview she supports the president’s plan and the current Board of Trustees.
“We are excited about the increased enrollment. Having said that, we know that there will be additional faculty that will be needed,” said Young-Seigler, a biology professor and faculty member for more than two decades. Young-Seigler said her academic department hired temporary or adjunct faculty members to help with the recent enrollment increase, and she expects more permanent hires to be made.
Young-Seigler said the possibility of changes to the university’s leadership is concerning.
“I think everyone is concerned on campus about what’s happening, because it affects all of us.”
Some students have complaints about the university, however. The comptroller’s office received “several emails from students citing unfulfilled scholarships, housing assignment uncertainty, and a lack of timely or clear responses concerning scholarships and housing,” according to the report, which lists 18 inquiries from Aug. 1 through Oct. 13 of last year.
One first-year student told television station Fox 17 that hotel living “makes me feel like I made the wrong choice sometimes, if I’m being honest” and described it as “really very taxing.” The student said the hotel’s hot water did not always work.
Last August, the university requested state approval to spend $17 million for fall 2022 emergency housing, with the money coming from about $7.2 million in institutional plant fund reserves and the rest from student housing fees, according to the report. The requested amount—downsized from a request made in July—included $13 million for five hotels, which ended up housing 881 students, including 250 first-year students. The hotels are located 3.5 to 12.7 miles from the downtown campus.
Other emergency housing consisted of a property about a mile from campus that housed 167 students, including 161 freshmen, according to the comptroller’s report.
“The housing issue that we’ve illustrated today is only a symptom of a much larger management problem,” Mumpower said at the committee meeting, noting that his report also questioned the university’s lack of documentation of scholarship recipients’ grade point averages and financial need, among other issues.
Mumpower said, “The students who were recruited and received scholarships may actually not have qualified for these scholarships on the basis of their GPA requirements.”
The report stated that about 529 out of 1,722 freshman scholarship awards—nearly one out of three—didn’t meet minimum grade point average requirements. A majority of the scholarships were “full-cost” awards that included an offer of “guaranteed housing,” according to the report.
If students qualified based on financial need, there was “inadequate documentation that students qualified for scholarships based on a random sample of TSU student files reviewed,” the report stated.
Glover told lawmakers that the report “tried to portray that we had unqualified students receiving scholarships,” but that “no student received a scholarship” who didn’t meet GPA requirements or qualified “from a need-based standpoint.”
“That part of the report is absolutely, unequivocally untrue,” Glover said.
In response to questions from Inside Higher Ed about why the comptroller found inadequate documentation, a university spokeswoman referred to a press statement and the university’s written response to the comptroller’s report.
The university’s response stated, “The process includes verifying each scholarship recipient’s final high school transcript which contains the GPA, before finalizing the student’s financial aid and scholarship awards. Students whose final GPA did not meet scholarship requirements were awarded need-based grants.”
The university’s statement also noted that scholarship dollars came from “internal financial operations, without any request from the state of Tennessee for scholarship funds.”
The comptroller’s office attempted to match student transcript information about high school grade point average to university files on students. Out of a sample of 59, only 16 matched, meaning that the grade point average on the transcript was the same as recorded by the university in its scholarship records. In 20 cases, no comparison was possible because “the scholarship listing lacked the student’s GPA, the student’s transcript was missing, or the GPA on the transcript was not comparable to the GPA on the TSU scholarship listing (i.e., not the same GPA calculation methodology),” the report stated. In other cases, the transcript GPA did not match the university’s “scholarship listing.”
Glover told lawmakers the grade point average for incoming first-year students “has steadily increased” in recent years.
Mumpower and the comptroller’s office presented several options for leadership changes, including having the board replace Glover.
“We’ve developed a situation where the management runs the Board of Trustees instead of the Board of Trustees running the university,” he told lawmakers.
For her part, Glover has criticized the idea of the university being placed under the state Board of Regents and referred to a 2001 agreement known as the Geier Consent Decree, which put an end to litigation begun in 1968 alleging a dual system of higher education in Tennessee segregated by race.
The decree, which lasted for five years, required the state to provide more financial support for the university and included other measures to expand access to higher education for Black students.
In describing the possibility of Tennessee State being placed under the state Board of Regents, “That is discrimination,” Glover said.
An enrollment surge at Tennessee State University combined with a lack of student housing led to a scathing comptroller’s report calling for a change in the historically Black university’s leadership.
But the university’s longtime president, Glenda Glover, alumni and other supporters of the Nashville institution have argued against a proposal that would place the institution under the oversight of the Tennessee Board of Regents, the governing board for 37 technical and community colleges in the state.
At stake is local control of an institution in a state that has admitted to years of inequitable funding for its only public historically Black college. The state’s comptroller, Jason Mumpower, has told lawmakers that change is needed because “right now, TSU is not a well-run organization.” His report cites a lack of planning for an expansion of the university’s scholarship program that exacerbated a housing crunch—leading to several hundred students being housed in hotels miles away from campus—as well as a lack of proper documentation to ensure that incoming students met grade point average or financial need requirements to receive the institutional awards, among other problems.
A joint House and Senate subcommittee in the state General Assembly recommended Monday that Tennessee State keep its Board of Trustees for at least one more year. A full committee on government operations has yet to make a decision.
“The school proposed a plan to self-correct. The collective wisdom was to give them a small extension to see if there is progress,” State Senator Adam Lowe, a Republican on the subcommittee, said in an email Tuesday. Lowe voted in favor of the one-year extension.
Mumpower told lawmakers that university leaders should have foreseen a housing crisis, given that it more than quadrupled its 2022–23 scholarship budget to $28.3 million, from $5.2 million the previous year.
“In the fall of 2021, management decided to conduct an extensive recruiting campaign to bring in more students, which by itself is not an issue. But unfortunately, these students were promised housing—housing the Tennessee State University management knew they did not have a sufficient supply of,” Mumpower said.
Glover, who spoke at the committee meeting and a meeting of an ad hoc committee a week earlier, said the comptroller’s calls for change were out of proportion in their severity compared to the alleged problems at the university. She told lawmakers the state regents’ board “has no structure whatsoever to support a four-year institution.”
Glover described the university as taking action in response to a 41 percent yield rate for admitted students, which is well over expectations based on rates in past years.
“It is over one-third more students wanting to come to TSU, so we adjusted our scholarship budget,” Glover said. “No, we didn’t just adjust the budget in advance to get more students.”
Glover attributed the increased enrollment to an “HBCU renaissance,” as more students opt for Black colleges and minority-serving institutions.
Along with Glover, who has led Tennessee State since 2013, the university’s current trustees also addressed lawmakers.
“The TSU board, President Glover and the TSU administration take the concerns raised in the comptroller’s report seriously and have taken measures and will take additional substantive measures to ensure these issues are addressed and corrected,” said Deborah Cole, a former bank president and the board chair.
The university became what’s considered a locally governed institution only in 2017, after a statewide reorganization following passage of a state law known as the Focus on College and University Success Act, or FOCUS. The law called for a reorganization that resulted in six four-year universities in Tennessee getting their own boards of trustees, rather than being overseen by the Tennessee Board of Regents.
The comptroller’s office described housing problems as likely to continue into the foreseeable future. According to the comptroller’s report, Tennessee State had a fall 2022 enrollment of 9,218 students, an increase of 1,141 students compared to the previous fall.
Glover emphasized that the university has “no housing crisis” this spring semester.
“We’re working to ensure housing is addressed for fall 2023 and long term,” Glover has said. The university enrolled 3,567 first-year students this past fall, and Glover told lawmakers last week that “we’re going to manage our enrollment to align with our housing capacity.” The university stated in response to a draft of the comptroller’s report that new student enrollment for fall 2023 semester would be limited to about 2,600.
Tennessee State has plans to build two new residence halls and to tear down three or four existing residence halls. The comptroller’s report noted that this could result in a net decrease of 500 beds on campus.
Glover, trustees and supporters have also pointed to the state’s underfunding of the university as contributing to its problems. A previous legislative report found between $150 and $544 million in unpaid land-grant funds should have gone to the university from fiscal years 1957 through 2007.
Governor Bill Lee last year championed a $250 million state “investment” to improve campus buildings and other physical infrastructure at Tennessee State. His proposal won approval in the General Assembly and the university in January announced its plans to renovate several academic and student services buildings. But that money cannot be used to build student housing, according to the comptroller’s report, as such buildings are considered auxiliary facilities that generate revenue.
Tennessee State supporters raised the issue of persistent underfunding during committee meetings about the comptroller’s report.
“The accomplishments of Tennessee State University are all the more impressive when one recalls that TSU has experienced decades of being underfunded,” said Charles Galbreath, president of the university’s national alumni association. “The issue of land-grant funding must be considered when assessing the university’s business affairs and overall management.”
Obie McKenzie, a finance executive and member of the university’s Board of Trustees, told lawmakers that if “we’d had the money that we were due, perhaps our buildings wouldn’t be falling down.”
“Perhaps we wouldn’t be putting our students in hotels if we’d just been treated a little more fairly and had the money that we were due,” McKenzie said.
Glover has told lawmakers that the university “is in a better position now than it’s ever been in our 111-year history,” including financially.
Artenzia Young-Seigler, chair of the university’s Faculty Senate, said in a phone interview she supports the president’s plan and the current Board of Trustees.
“We are excited about the increased enrollment. Having said that, we know that there will be additional faculty that will be needed,” said Young-Seigler, a biology professor and faculty member for more than two decades. Young-Seigler said her academic department hired temporary or adjunct faculty members to help with the recent enrollment increase, and she expects more permanent hires to be made.
Young-Seigler said the possibility of changes to the university’s leadership is concerning.
“I think everyone is concerned on campus about what’s happening, because it affects all of us.”
Some students have complaints about the university, however. The comptroller’s office received “several emails from students citing unfulfilled scholarships, housing assignment uncertainty, and a lack of timely or clear responses concerning scholarships and housing,” according to the report, which lists 18 inquiries from Aug. 1 through Oct. 13 of last year.
One first-year student told television station Fox 17 that hotel living “makes me feel like I made the wrong choice sometimes, if I’m being honest” and described it as “really very taxing.” The student said the hotel’s hot water did not always work.
Last August, the university requested state approval to spend $17 million for fall 2022 emergency housing, with the money coming from about $7.2 million in institutional plant fund reserves and the rest from student housing fees, according to the report. The requested amount—downsized from a request made in July—included $13 million for five hotels, which ended up housing 881 students, including 250 first-year students. The hotels are located 3.5 to 12.7 miles from the downtown campus.
Other emergency housing consisted of a property about a mile from campus that housed 167 students, including 161 freshmen, according to the comptroller’s report.
“The housing issue that we’ve illustrated today is only a symptom of a much larger management problem,” Mumpower said at the committee meeting, noting that his report also questioned the university’s lack of documentation of scholarship recipients’ grade point averages and financial need, among other issues.
Mumpower said, “The students who were recruited and received scholarships may actually not have qualified for these scholarships on the basis of their GPA requirements.”
The report stated that about 529 out of 1,722 freshman scholarship awards—nearly one out of three—didn’t meet minimum grade point average requirements. A majority of the scholarships were “full-cost” awards that included an offer of “guaranteed housing,” according to the report.
If students qualified based on financial need, there was “inadequate documentation that students qualified for scholarships based on a random sample of TSU student files reviewed,” the report stated.
Glover told lawmakers that the report “tried to portray that we had unqualified students receiving scholarships,” but that “no student received a scholarship” who didn’t meet GPA requirements or qualified “from a need-based standpoint.”
“That part of the report is absolutely, unequivocally untrue,” Glover said.
In response to questions from Inside Higher Ed about why the comptroller found inadequate documentation, a university spokeswoman referred to a press statement and the university’s written response to the comptroller’s report.
The university’s response stated, “The process includes verifying each scholarship recipient’s final high school transcript which contains the GPA, before finalizing the student’s financial aid and scholarship awards. Students whose final GPA did not meet scholarship requirements were awarded need-based grants.”
The university’s statement also noted that scholarship dollars came from “internal financial operations, without any request from the state of Tennessee for scholarship funds.”
The comptroller’s office attempted to match student transcript information about high school grade point average to university files on students. Out of a sample of 59, only 16 matched, meaning that the grade point average on the transcript was the same as recorded by the university in its scholarship records. In 20 cases, no comparison was possible because “the scholarship listing lacked the student’s GPA, the student’s transcript was missing, or the GPA on the transcript was not comparable to the GPA on the TSU scholarship listing (i.e., not the same GPA calculation methodology),” the report stated. In other cases, the transcript GPA did not match the university’s “scholarship listing.”
Glover told lawmakers the grade point average for incoming first-year students “has steadily increased” in recent years.
Mumpower and the comptroller’s office presented several options for leadership changes, including having the board replace Glover.
“We’ve developed a situation where the management runs the Board of Trustees instead of the Board of Trustees running the university,” he told lawmakers.
For her part, Glover has criticized the idea of the university being placed under the state Board of Regents and referred to a 2001 agreement known as the Geier Consent Decree, which put an end to litigation begun in 1968 alleging a dual system of higher education in Tennessee segregated by race.
The decree, which lasted for five years, required the state to provide more financial support for the university and included other measures to expand access to higher education for Black students.
In describing the possibility of Tennessee State being placed under the state Board of Regents, “That is discrimination,” Glover said.
This article contains explicit and potentially offensive terms that are essential to reporting on this situation.
Jacksonville University ignored pleas for help from a student with a learning disability who died by suicide two months after being dismissed from the Florida institution’s cross-country team, according to a wrongful death lawsuit.
Julia Pernsteiner, 23, died in her dorm room Nov. 8, 2021, according to the lawsuit filed this month by her parents against the university and its former cross-country coach, Ronald E. Grigg Jr., who the lawsuit alleges referred to Pernsteiner as “retarded” and also “attacked her about her weight.”
After being dismissed from the team, Pernsteiner “continued to reach out for help to JU staff” and wrote an email to the university’s athletic director three weeks before her death asking for advice, the lawsuit states.
“I would like to stay and work on improving my grades,” Pernsteiner wrote, adding, “I just am not able to do it myself,” according to the lawsuit. The university had previously agreed to provide “necessary” services and accommodations she qualified for under the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to the lawsuit.
“When her pleas for help went unanswered Julia’s frustration spiraled into desperation and depression,” the lawsuit states.
Pernsteiner had been recruited by Grigg to join the cross-country team, and she enrolled at the university in spring 2021. The lawsuit states that she and others on the team told university officials about Grigg’s conduct, which the lawsuit describes as “oppressive, threatening, bullying, condescending and demeaning” toward many team members.
Grigg’s resignation was announced in July amid allegations that he had bullied runners.
Jacksonville University does not comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman told The Florida Times-Union, but she said, “The students, faculty and staff of Jacksonville University continue to mourn Julia’s tragic death and we sympathize with the Pernsteiner family for their loss.”
(Note: The headline on this article originally misidentified Jacksonville University.)
Carnegie Mellon University announced today a $116 million donation from the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation to help underrepresented students pursue graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The university, located in Pittsburgh, will add $34 million to the private foundation’s gift to establish the CMU Rales Fellows Program, which will provide full tuition and a stipend to students enrolling in select master’s degree and doctoral programs. The first student cohort will enroll in fall 2024, with an expected 86 fellows to be added each year.
The university’s announcement states that the “intended beneficiaries of the program are candidates from low socio-economic backgrounds, first-generation college students, graduates of minority-serving institutions and other groups who remain underrepresented in STEM.”
The announcement cited a previous National Science Foundation report calling for greater representation of women and Black and Hispanic scholars in STEM fields to help expand the nation’s domestic talent pool. The Vision 2030 report stated that Black and Hispanic people working in science and engineering jobs “remain underrepresented compared to their proportion in the general population,” and that women made up just 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce as of 2017.
“At the heart of the CMU Rales Fellows Program is a commitment to remove existing barriers and empower this next generation of domestic talent so they can apply their skills and ingenuity to realize new scientific and technological breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity,” the university’s president, Farnam Jahanian, said in the announcement.
Carnegie Mellon University announced today a $116 million donation from the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation to help underrepresented students pursue graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The university, located in Pittsburgh, will add $34 million to the private foundation’s gift to establish the CMU Rales Fellows Program, which will provide full tuition and a stipend to students enrolling in select master’s degree and doctoral programs. The first student cohort will enroll in fall 2024, with an expected 86 fellows to be added each year.
The university’s announcement states that the “intended beneficiaries of the program are candidates from low socio-economic backgrounds, first-generation college students, graduates of minority-serving institutions and other groups who remain underrepresented in STEM.”
The announcement cited a previous National Science Foundation report calling for greater representation of women and Black and Hispanic scholars in STEM fields to help expand the nation’s domestic talent pool. The Vision 2030 report stated that Black and Hispanic people working in science and engineering jobs “remain underrepresented compared to their proportion in the general population,” and that women made up just 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce as of 2017.
“At the heart of the CMU Rales Fellows Program is a commitment to remove existing barriers and empower this next generation of domestic talent so they can apply their skills and ingenuity to realize new scientific and technological breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity,” the university’s president, Farnam Jahanian, said in the announcement.
State legislators in Virginia have passed a bill requiring threat assessment teams at public colleges and universities to notify police within 24 hours of identifying someone as posing “an articulable and significant threat.”
The requirement calls for campus police to be notified along with police in the city or county where the college is located. Police in the jurisdiction where the individual deemed to be a threat lives or is known to be located also must be notified.
Public colleges and universities also must obtain any criminal history and health records of individuals considered a threat.
The bill, which awaits the signature of Governor Glenn Youngkin, sets forth the new requirements after a University of Virginia student in November shot and killed three classmates who were members of the university’s football team.
A 2008 Virginia law, which was passed after the shooting at Virginia Tech in which 32 people were killed, requires public colleges and universities to establish threat assessment teams, including law enforcement officers, mental health professionals and student affairs and human resources representatives, to assess and intervene when individuals display behavior considered to be a safety concern.
After suspending its men’s basketball program last week and firing the team’s head coach amid allegations of repeated sexual hazing of a player by teammates, New Mexico State University’s top administrator said an internal investigation has started and an outside review will be launched.
The university’s Office of Institutional Equity, which investigates Title IX violation complaints and reports of sexual misconduct, along with campus police, and the university’s Dean of Students Office are “among the groups working on this particular investigation” of the players' conduct, a university spokesman said in an email.
Chancellor Dan Arvizu said during a press conference Wednesday that the university will also seek out an “independent” review to examine university processes.
He said questions about how and why the hazing occurred are being asked of campus officials charged with safeguarding students, and that those questions extend beyond the athletic department.
“There’s obviously responsibilities that go into the athletic department. There are also responsibilities in other functions of our institution that relate to student safety and privacy,” Arvizu said. “We’re examining all of those processes to ensure that even where things might be legally sufficient, maybe they weren’t adequate.”
Arvizu defended the institution’s top athletics official, Mario Moccia.
The only person fired immediately in the wake of the allegations was first-year head basketball coach Greg Heiar, who was let go Tuesday after the university suspended the basketball program indefinitely Feb. 10 and placed the coaching staff on paid administrative leave. The following day, the university announced the suspension would extend for the rest of the current season. Moccia said Wednesday that the plan is for men’s basketball to return to the courts next season.
“I regret the outcome,” Moccia said when asked whether he regretted bringing on Heiar to lead the men’s basketball program. “But more, I regret what’s happened to the victim.”
Jamie Bronstein, a history professor and vice chair of the university’s Faculty Senate, criticized the institution for caring too much about its image at the expense of other concerns.
“Speaking only for myself, I think there are more people implicated in this issue than just the head coach, and I wish the habitual posture of the university were to be transparent about problems instead of immediately moving into public relations mode,” Bronstein said in an email.
She said faculty members were told that mental health counseling services would be made available to students who want help.
Arvizu and Moccia did not share details of the alleged hazing that Arvizu denounced as a “culture of bad behavior” within the men’s basketball program, which had been riding a wave of success with four NCAA Tournament appearances in the last six years.
But the good times did not extend even into the first months of Heiar’s short run as the head coach. A New Mexico State player in November fatally shot a University of New Mexico student in the early morning hours of a day when a game had been scheduled between New Mexico State and the University of New Mexico. State police said both the player, Mike Peake, and the University of New Mexico student were shot. Peake sustained a leg wound. No criminal charges have been filed against Peake, who was suspended from the team. Three other team members who the university said arrived at the scene after the shooting were suspended for a Dec. 7 game. The university in December announced the hiring of a law firm to conduct an external review of the events and the university’s response to the shooting.
A campus police report on the recent hazing incident filed Feb. 10 described an unknown player who provided details about instances of spanking and touching of a player’s scrotum, which had been going on since about July or August of last year.
“He stated that the most recent incident occurred on Monday February 6th 2023 inside the basketball locker room. He stated that the 3 of the previous named players held him down with him facing down, removed his clothing exposing his buttocks and began to ‘slap his ass,’” the report states, also noting that the player “advised that this has been an ongoing” issue both at home and away games, happening “in front of the whole team and that no one intervened.”
The report also noted allegations that another player possibly had been subjected to similar treatment.
The names of the reported victim or victims have not been released, nor have the names of any players accused of hazing.
Arvizu denied any prior knowledge about hazing in the men’s basketball program and said that Moccia “has been extremely transparent with me about all things that he knew when he knew them.”
But Arvizu said his not knowing about the hazing also raised questions.
“It’s that process that has given me pause to say, why not?” Arvizu said.
He went on to detail what he described as a “deficiency” when it comes to complaints like those filed with an institution’s Title IX office, though it wasn’t clear if Arvizu was referring to the specific hazing alleged to have occurred within the men’s basketball program.
In a Title IX case, “when they are not able to complete their process by whatever, for whatever reason, students don’t respond or whatever, then they don’t report” to his office, Arvizu said.
“That’s a deficiency,” he said. “They don’t let me know, ‘Hey, there’s a concern in some particular aspect of our institution that you need to, you may want to take a look at.’”
Arvizu’s comment referred to privacy limitations on the sharing of information, a university spokesman, Justin Bannister, said in an email.
“To clarify the Chancellor’s remarks—he understands that there are privacy provisions that are needed for Title IX investigations, but he feels it would be helpful for him to receive more information about certain allegations when they are made,” Bannister said.
The police report noted that the player who came forward “wanted to remain anonymous and does not want to pursue criminal charges at this time.”
It’s not surprising that a victim of extreme locker room hazing would hesitate about coming forward, said Michael S. Carroll, a professor of sport management at Troy University in Alabama, who has written about hazing in college sports.
“If you read what allegedly happened in this case, it’s embarrassing to admit as a college young man that’s what happened to you,” Carroll said. In general, “it really isn’t until you get major hazing cases, where someone is really hurt or demeaned, that you see victims coming forward.”
Moccia, New Mexico State’s athletic director since 2015, spoke Wednesday about measures that were already in place to try to prevent hazing.
“At the beginning of each year, there’s a full squad meeting with all of our student athletes where hazing is discussed,” he said, adding that the campus also complies with an NCAA-mandated meeting for athletes to discuss sexual violence prevention, intervention and response. A handbook for student athletes also includes a section on hazing, Moccia said.
Carroll said that while it isn’t clear what hazing-prevention measures are in place for athletes at most universities, the best message is one of zero tolerance.
That also involves establishing a “comprehensive definition” to explain, “Here’s what hazing means,” as well as setting up a system to report hazing complaints and making sure those complaints are taken seriously, Carroll said.
Examples can drive home the point, he said: “‘This incident occurred at this school, and this happened as a result. I want you to think about your future at this university.’”
Brandon Larrañaga, 22, a student at New Mexico State, said he tried to attend as many of the team’s home games as he could and went to about six this season.
He said he was disappointed about the allegations, which he said are “ultimately what becomes a reflection of our university from the outside looking in.”
Larrañaga said he agreed with the decision to cancel the season and expects it will take a long time to rebuild the men’s basketball program, but he said it’s important that it’s done right.
“I just hope the administration responsible for that rebuild really makes an effort and takes the time to ensure that someone is put in place for the team and the program that best reflects the community and the campus and all the university. There’s a lot of people really invested in this program and have a lot of pride in the university,” he said.
When Glynis Fitzgerald was named the College of Saint Mary’s first new president in 26 years last November, the Roman Catholic women’s college seemed to be set to continue the work of the outgoing president, who was widely credited with helping to grow enrollment and pull the Nebraska institution out of deep debt.
Rick Jeffries, vice chair of the Saint Mary’s Board of Trustees, gushed about the selection of Fitzgerald on Twitter and described her as “a courageous, compassionate leader” who would carry the 100-year-old college “and its vital mission into its next 100 years.”
But less than three months later, the college is again searching for a president after Fitzgerald reneged on taking the job and decided to stay with her current employer, Alvernia University, a Catholic university in Reading, Pa., which recently announced she would become the university’s eighth president.
Declining a top position after previously accepting it is an unusual move in academe, given the limited opportunities to become a college president. And doing so not only raises eyebrows, but it can also raise questions about the candidate’s ethics and professional integrity.
“I’ve heard of people doing that once or twice, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” said Lucy Leske, a senior partner with executive search firm WittKieffer, which was not involved in the leadership transition at either college.
“I don’t want to say they’re doing anything unethical,” Leske said. “There could be many reasons why a candidate might change their mind.”
Fitzgerald changed her mind after board members at Alvernia learned late last month that the institution’s current president, John Loyack, wanted to “transition out” of the role, Gregg Shemanski, chairman of Alvernia’s Board of Trustees, said in an email.
Shemanski said board members had “fully supported Dr. Fitzgerald’s intentions to depart the university” and noted that Fitzgerald had “been transparent about her ambitions” to become a college president since arriving in 2019.
Fitzgerald said by phone that she wants “to be able to continue the very strong work” she’s done as senior vice president and provost alongside Loyack, who will shift to a new chief executive officer role. Fitzgerald will begin serving as president-elect today and will formally become president on July 1.
Shemanski said the decision to promote Fitzgerald was unanticipated at the time of her hiring by Saint Mary’s.
“The fact is, Dr. Fitzgerald has made significant improvements for our university, and when presented with this unforeseen opportunity, she couldn’t pass on the ability to finish the work she had started,” Shemanski said in an email.
He noted that her acceptance of the job at Saint Mary’s “did not influence the decision to open the dialogue for the transition plan.” The board’s priority was “to sustain the remarkable growth and success we’ve experienced as a university over the past four years under John’s leadership,” he said, and Fitzgerald “was presented at that time as an ideal candidate for the position of president.”
Leske said it’s not unusual for an institution to look inward to find its next leader and promote from within, even when that person has sought out leadership positions elsewhere.
“That happens a lot,” she said.
Susan Resneck Pierce, a former college president and current consultant to universities, said in an email that while boards of trustees “traditionally” have favored national searches, “some boards now see the value in appointing someone with a positive track record who knows the campus rather than spending months if not much of an academic year doing a search.”
Hiring someone from outside often means they will “spend months if not her/his entire first year getting to know the campus,” she said.
Although it’s relatively rare for someone who has been selected as a university president to pull out after accepting the position, it does happen. For example, in 2021, the reported top pick for president of the University of South Carolina, Mung Chiang, backed out within hours of being named in a published report. South Carolina never officially announced his selection. Chiang, at that time an engineering dean at Purdue University, cited a “focus on family and on current responsibilities at my home institution” for his change of heart. He was named Purdue’s next president six months later.
Fitzgerald, 51, said she had no reason to think the president’s job at Alvernia would open up when she applied for the job at Saint Mary’s.
“Our president was in a contract that carried through 2027,” she said.
Loyack’s shift was not announced as a retirement but rather stepping into a role “to continue community and philanthropic activities for the university.”
Fitzgerald will become the first female lay leader at Alvernia and the first woman to lead the institution in over 30 years. She said she opted to stay at Alvernia without even knowing what her salary would be.
“Financially is not my motivation here,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said growing up outside of Niagara Falls, N.Y., she dreamed of attending Niagara University, a Catholic institution. But she was a first-generation college student, and the tuition costs seemed out of reach. She attended a public college instead, Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, now known as PennWest Edinboro.
She said the belief that attending a Catholic college poses a major financial hurdle remains pervasive today. “It’s part of my mission” for others to see “Catholic education as a possibility for their families,” she said.
Fitzgerald praised Saint Mary’s and the current president, Maryanne Stevens, who has led the campus since 1996.
“It’s a wonderful place, led by a terrific president who has developed a range of programs that certainly addresses the needs of Omaha, and it would have been my honor to carry on in her tradition and continue the vision of the Sisters of Mercy,” she said.
The Saint Mary’s Board of Trustees “will consider a number of interim and longer-range measures” to fill the president position, Jeffries, the board vice chair, said in an email.
“We are optimistic, given the very high quality of candidates we attracted in our search, that we will find someone terrific to lead us into our next 100 years.”
Jeffries called Fitzgerald “a talented leader,” adding that “we are glad we met her.”
When Glynis Fitzgerald was named the College of Saint Mary’s first new president in 26 years last November, the Roman Catholic women’s college seemed to be set to continue the work of the outgoing president, who was widely credited with helping to grow enrollment and pull the Nebraska institution out of deep debt.
Rick Jeffries, vice chair of the Saint Mary’s Board of Trustees, gushed about the selection of Fitzgerald on Twitter and described her as “a courageous, compassionate leader” who would carry the 100-year-old college “and its vital mission into its next 100 years.”
But less than three months later, the college is again searching for a president after Fitzgerald reneged on taking the job and decided to stay with her current employer, Alvernia University, a Catholic university in Reading, Pa., which recently announced she would become the university’s eighth president.
Declining a top position after previously accepting it is an unusual move in academe, given the limited opportunities to become a college president. And doing so not only raises eyebrows, but it can also raise questions about the candidate’s ethics and professional integrity.
“I’ve heard of people doing that once or twice, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” said Lucy Leske, a senior partner with executive search firm WittKieffer, which was not involved in the leadership transition at either college.
“I don’t want to say they’re doing anything unethical,” Leske said. “There could be many reasons why a candidate might change their mind.”
Fitzgerald changed her mind after board members at Alvernia learned late last month that the institution’s current president, John Loyack, wanted to “transition out” of the role, Gregg Shemanski, chairman of Alvernia’s Board of Trustees, said in an email.
Shemanski said board members had “fully supported Dr. Fitzgerald’s intentions to depart the university” and noted that Fitzgerald had “been transparent about her ambitions” to become a college president since arriving in 2019.
Fitzgerald said by phone that she wants “to be able to continue the very strong work” she’s done as senior vice president and provost alongside Loyack, who will shift to a new chief executive officer role. Fitzgerald will begin serving as president-elect today and will formally become president on July 1.
Shemanski said the decision to promote Fitzgerald was unanticipated at the time of her hiring by Saint Mary’s.
“The fact is, Dr. Fitzgerald has made significant improvements for our university, and when presented with this unforeseen opportunity, she couldn’t pass on the ability to finish the work she had started,” Shemanski said in an email.
He noted that her acceptance of the job at Saint Mary’s “did not influence the decision to open the dialogue for the transition plan.” The board’s priority was “to sustain the remarkable growth and success we’ve experienced as a university over the past four years under John’s leadership,” he said, and Fitzgerald “was presented at that time as an ideal candidate for the position of president.”
Leske said it’s not unusual for an institution to look inward to find its next leader and promote from within, even when that person has sought out leadership positions elsewhere.
“That happens a lot,” she said.
Susan Resneck Pierce, a former college president and current consultant to universities, said in an email that while boards of trustees “traditionally” have favored national searches, “some boards now see the value in appointing someone with a positive track record who knows the campus rather than spending months if not much of an academic year doing a search.”
Hiring someone from outside often means they will “spend months if not her/his entire first year getting to know the campus,” she said.
Although it’s relatively rare for someone who has been selected as a university president to pull out after accepting the position, it does happen. For example, in 2021, the reported top pick for president of the University of South Carolina, Mung Chiang, backed out within hours of being named in a published report. South Carolina never officially announced his selection. Chiang, at that time an engineering dean at Purdue University, cited a “focus on family and on current responsibilities at my home institution” for his change of heart. He was named Purdue’s next president six months later.
Fitzgerald, 51, said she had no reason to think the president’s job at Alvernia would open up when she applied for the job at Saint Mary’s.
“Our president was in a contract that carried through 2027,” she said.
Loyack’s shift was not announced as a retirement but rather stepping into a role “to continue community and philanthropic activities for the university.”
Fitzgerald will become the first female lay leader at Alvernia and the first woman to lead the institution in over 30 years. She said she opted to stay at Alvernia without even knowing what her salary would be.
“Financially is not my motivation here,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said growing up outside of Niagara Falls, N.Y., she dreamed of attending Niagara University, a Catholic institution. But she was a first-generation college student, and the tuition costs seemed out of reach. She attended a public college instead, Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, now known as PennWest Edinboro.
She said the belief that attending a Catholic college poses a major financial hurdle remains pervasive today. “It’s part of my mission” for others to see “Catholic education as a possibility for their families,” she said.
Fitzgerald praised Saint Mary’s and the current president, Maryanne Stevens, who has led the campus since 1996.
“It’s a wonderful place, led by a terrific president who has developed a range of programs that certainly addresses the needs of Omaha, and it would have been my honor to carry on in her tradition and continue the vision of the Sisters of Mercy,” she said.
The Saint Mary’s Board of Trustees “will consider a number of interim and longer-range measures” to fill the president position, Jeffries, the board vice chair, said in an email.
“We are optimistic, given the very high quality of candidates we attracted in our search, that we will find someone terrific to lead us into our next 100 years.”
Jeffries called Fitzgerald “a talented leader,” adding that “we are glad we met her.”
Colleges and universities can commit their land or endowment funds to kick-start local affordable-housing efforts, according to a report released today by the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.
Students and employees of colleges in the Washington, D.C., region are part of an increasing percentage of the population facing “unsustainable rent burdens,” the report states.
“The problem of housing affordability has grown to a point where institutions that anchor the well-being of communities have to be part of the solution, even if they have not traditionally played a role in the housing market,” Eric Maribojoc, one of the study’s authors and executive director at the Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship at the George Mason University School of Business, said in a press release about the report.
The report outlines options for how universities can provide capital for projects, including through partnerships with what are known as community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, which are organizations that offer services to economically struggling communities and get special U.S. Treasury Department–backed certification.
“Institutions of higher education can partner with local CDFIs to secure institutional credit ratings, if required, for investments from college and university endowments to fund subsidized loans for affordable housing projects,” states the report.
Among other options, colleges could “enter into a public-private partnership (P3) with a private housing developer to finance and build affordable on-campus housing” for students and employees, the report states.
“As the largest collective non-Federal employers in the region, and serving hundreds of thousands of students, it is imperative that we seek innovative, collaborative new approaches to increasing affordable housing,” Andrew Flagel, president and CEO of the consortium, said in the press release.
Financial support from the Amazon Housing Equity Fund made the study possible, according to the consortium, which includes 18 college or university members.
Colleges and universities can commit their land or endowment funds to kick-start local affordable-housing efforts, according to a report released today by the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.
Students and employees of colleges in the Washington, D.C., region are part of an increasing percentage of the population facing “unsustainable rent burdens,” the report states.
“The problem of housing affordability has grown to a point where institutions that anchor the well-being of communities have to be part of the solution, even if they have not traditionally played a role in the housing market,” Eric Maribojoc, one of the study’s authors and executive director at the Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship at the George Mason University School of Business, said in a press release about the report.
The report outlines options for how universities can provide capital for projects, including through partnerships with what are known as community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, which are organizations that offer services to economically struggling communities and get special U.S. Treasury Department–backed certification.
“Institutions of higher education can partner with local CDFIs to secure institutional credit ratings, if required, for investments from college and university endowments to fund subsidized loans for affordable housing projects,” states the report.
Among other options, colleges could “enter into a public-private partnership (P3) with a private housing developer to finance and build affordable on-campus housing” for students and employees, the report states.
“As the largest collective non-Federal employers in the region, and serving hundreds of thousands of students, it is imperative that we seek innovative, collaborative new approaches to increasing affordable housing,” Andrew Flagel, president and CEO of the consortium, said in the press release.
Financial support from the Amazon Housing Equity Fund made the study possible, according to the consortium, which includes 18 college or university members.
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