\n\tCompiled by SUSAN JONES<\/p>\n
\n\tInstitutional members of six higher education associations \u2014 including the Association of American Universities, of which Pitt is a member \u2014\u00a0 will now have until April 24 to\u00a0submit extensive applicant and admissions data<\/a>\u00a0broken down by race and sex to the U.S. Department of Education, a federal judge ruled.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe judge\u00a0also allowed each of those groups and colleges to join a legal challenge to the Education Department\u2019s new survey for colleges.\u00a0Seventeen Democratic attorneys general, but not Pennsylvania\u2019s, have\u00a0sued the Education Department<\/a>\u00a0over the data collection, arguing that the agency has disregarded\u00a0the \u201conerous burden\u201d it places on colleges and didn\u2019t follow the proper steps when rolling it out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 16<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tKentucky\u2019s Republican-controlled General Assembly overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear\u2019s veto this week to pass legislation that could make it easier for the state\u2019s public colleges to fire faculty members over financial concerns.\u00a0Under HB 490<\/a>, public colleges will be able to terminate faculty members for \u201cbona fide financial reasons,\u201d which include financial exigency, low enrollment in academic offerings, or a mismatch between costs and revenues in a department, program or major.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTexas Tech University\u2019s plans to phase out and\u00a0eventually close all programs \u201ccentered on\u201d sexual orientation and gender identity<\/a>\u00a0also prohibit students from creating \u201cdegree-culminating\u201d research or theses on such topics, according to a recent memo from university leadership.<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 15<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe Trump administration called on the First Circuit to reinstate its roughly $2.7 billion freeze on Harvard\u2019s research funding, arguing that it acted within its authority when it terminated the University\u2019s grants, the Harvard Crimson reported<\/a>. In a 160-page brief, federal lawyers laid out their most comprehensive defense yet of the funding cuts, contending that agencies can revoke support based on shifting \u201cagency priorities\u201d \u2014 including concerns about antisemitism \u2014 even outside the formal enforcement process required under Title VI. The filing asks the court to overturn a September ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who found the administration\u2019s actions unconstitutional and ordered the funding restored.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tAmerican colleges and universities bear significant responsibility for plunging public trust in higher education, a Yale University committee suggested in a report. High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education\u2019s worthiness. Yale is considering major changes to its admissions, cost, grading and other areas in a sweeping effort to combat the stark erosion of trust in higher education. Maurie McInnis, the school\u2019s president,\u00a0told the campus community<\/a>\u00a0that the university would ensure people can take intellectual risks at Yale, confront grade inflation and redirect more money to teaching and research, among other changes.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSonny Perdue announced his intention to retire<\/a>\u00a0and step down after four years as leader of the University System of Georgia. USG\u2019s board said it will launch a national search for Perdue\u2019s replacement with support from former state higher ed leaders and an executive search firm. Perdue will stay on as\u00a0chancellor until his successor is named.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tClose to 90 degree programs at Ohio\u2019s public universities are being cut as a result of\u00a0Senate Bill 1<\/a>, which requires universities to scrap any undergraduate degree programs with fewer than five graduates per year for three straight years, the\u00a0Ohio Capital Journal reports<\/a>. Kent State University had the highest number of programs being cut: 19, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tKent Syverud, who was\u00a0slated to become president of the University of Michigan<\/a>\u00a0in May, has announced he will no longer take the job following a diagnosis of brain cancer. Syverud, an alumnus and former faculty member, will serve as a special advisor to the Board of Regents and a professor of law\u00a0while he undergoes treatment<\/a>. The Board of Regents must now restart the search for a permanent leader; UM has been without a seated president for nearly a year following the\u00a0departure of Santa Ono<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 14<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe University of Pennsylvania has formally appealed a federal judge\u2019s March 31 ruling<\/a> enforcing a subpoena from the EEOC, which seek information about Jewish faculty and staff as part of its investigation of allegations of antisemitism on college campuses. Penn also has asked the district court to pause enforcement of that order during the appeal.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tHampshire College announced that following \u201cyears of sustained effort to secure the college\u2019s financial future,\u201d the Massachusetts institution announced that it will shut down permanently in December, when its fall 2026 semester ends.\u00a0The private liberal arts college will not bring in any new students this fall and will refund deposits for those who were already admitted. But it will teach courses and provide services for current students through the fall term.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tGifts to U.S. colleges rose to an estimated $78.8 billion in fiscal 2025,\u00a0a 4% year-over-year increase, according to the latest annual study from the\u00a0Council for Advancement and Support of Education<\/a>.\u00a0Although the increase was \u201cjust enough to keep up with inflation,\u201d\u00a0the growth reflects \u201ccontinued trust that donors place in educational institutions,\u201d CASE said in its report.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 13<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tAlabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation that would allow the removal of tenured faculty and limit the authority of faculty-led governing bodies, effective October, 1819News.com reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tHarvard University\u00a0filed a motion<\/a>\u00a0claiming the Trump administration\u2019s recent antisemitism lawsuit is a rehashing of a case the university already won. In the memorandum, Harvard\u2019s attorneys asked the Massachusetts District Court to transfer the suit from federal judge Richard Stearns to federal judge Allison Burroughs. Burroughs presided over Harvard v. HHS, a similar case brought by Harvard to challenge the Trump administration\u2019s freezing of federal funding over antisemitism concerns. Court rules dictate the related cases be assigned to the same judge.<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 11<\/p>\n \n\tA\u00a0report from Shorelight<\/a>, an international education firm, on F-1\u00a0visa refusals showed that denials reached a decade high of 35\u00a0percent worldwide in 2025, exceeding the previous peak in 2020. Those refusals were mainly concentrated in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 10<\/p>\n \n\tSyracuse University is offering about 175 faculty members\u00a0early retirement packages<\/a>, according to a message last week to faculty from Provost Lois Agnew.\u00a0The buyout program is for faculty who have worked at Syracuse for at least 35 years or who teach in programs slated for closure or that have low enrollment.\u00a0Eligible faculty will have until mid-May to opt in, and those who do would retire in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 9<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe Texas Tech University System\u00a0plans to close all academic programs\u00a0focused on\u00a0sexual orientation and gender identity<\/a>, according to a memo from Chancellor Brandon Creighton\u00a0to the system\u2019s five institutional leaders.\u00a0Creighton\u2019s memo establishes a course policy that requires \u201crecognition of only two human sexes and strictly prohibits the endorsement of a gender spectrum or fluid gender identities as empirical biological science.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIowa State University leaders are looking to\u00a0shut down 10 degree programs<\/a>\u00a0under a state-mandated review of low-enrollment programs.\u00a0University officials also recommended consolidating or merging another 13 degrees with other programs.\u00a0Fifteen others received two-year extensions so university leaders can assess workforce and student demand before reviewing them again.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 8<\/p>\n \n\tKansas Gov.\u00a0Laura Kelly signed legislation<\/a> that will prohibit the state\u2019s public colleges from requiring students to take \u201cDEI-CRT\u201d courses, a move that critics warn could censor classroom instruction.\u00a0 The legislation is part of a wave of bills targeting college classroom instruction related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory, a decades-old academic framework that in part teaches that racism is systemic.\u00a0 While the legislation leaves \u201cDEI-CRT\u201d courses undefined,\u00a0it mandates the Kansas Board of Regents to adopt a definition by the end of July<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 7<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe Universities of Wisconsin board of regents voted unanimously to fire the president of the 25-campus system, Jay Rothman, at the end of a half-hour meeting. Rothman, who has led the system for almost four years, has been under pressure to resign, but he refused to do so and went public last week with the board\u2019s campaign to get rid of him \u2014 saying he had been given no reason and that the board had threatened to fire him if he did not step down.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore than 2,000 mathematicians have\u00a0signed a petition<\/a>\u00a0calling on the International Mathematics Union to move its quadrennial conference \u2014 scheduled to take place in Philadelphia in July \u2014 outside the United States, Inside Higher Education reported<\/a>. The signatories cite a number of concerns, including the United States\u2019 ongoing war on Iran and the risk that foreign scholars may be profiled and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they travel to the conference.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTribal college advocates expressed concern after the U.S. Department of Interior\u00a0proposed nixing<\/a>\u00a0more than $150\u00a0million for tribal colleges, universities and postsecondary programs as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0fiscal year 2027 budget<\/a>\u00a0request. The department\u00a0recommended<\/a>\u00a0a similar cut to the funds last year, but Congress didn\u2019t agree to do so.<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 6<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe Department of Education announced that it has formally terminated several Obama and Biden-era resolution agreements designed to ensure transgender students had equal access to facilities and protections against discrimination, The EDU Ledger reported<\/a>. The administration has explicitly moved to rescind the interpretation that Title IX\u2019s prohibition of “discrimination on the basis of sex” includes gender identity. In a significant shift, the Education Department stated that the federal government will now recognize only two biological sexes \u2014 male and female \u2014 and characterized previous protections as a “radical transgender agenda.” The department also announced that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will no longer monitor or enforce existing transgender-inclusive settlements.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe\u00a0U.S. Department of Education\u00a0released draft regulations<\/a>\u00a0 to overhaul the accreditation system, including by easing the pathway for new accreditors to form and requiring agencies to have standards requiring intellectual diversity among faculty.\u00a0The draft was released ahead of negotiated rulemaking, a process that brings together groups in the higher education sector to hash out policy changes, which began this week.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tBoston University announced it will temporarily stop removing signs and Pride flags from campus buildings following a growing community backlash, WGBH reported<\/a>. In an email to Boston University community members, President Melissa Gilliam apologized for the practice saying it disproportionately affected people in the LGBTQIA+ community. \u201cI am deeply sorry,\u2019\u2019 she wrote in the email. \u201cIssues of speech can be complicated, but our institutional values are not. Let me be unequivocal: LGBTQIA+ students, faculty, and staff are an essential part of Boston University. You belong here and are needed here.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 2<\/p>\n \n\tRutgers University\u00a0is the subject of a class-action lawsuit by an alumnus and former judge, who argues that the university \u201chas squandered tens of millions in taxpayer funding\u201d through \u201cwasteful spending, lack of oversight, and other gross negligence\u201d in supporting its athletics program,\u00a0NJ.com<\/a>\u00a0reported. Hector Rodriguez alleges in his suit that Rutgers has incurred a $516-million debt since it joined the Big Ten in 2014, which \u201cconstitutes a systemic misuse of public resources undertaken without meaningful oversight, without legislative authorization, and without a credible plan for fiscal sustainability.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAPRIL 1<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIndiana\u2019s public colleges are shedding or consolidating about 580 academic programs following a review by the\u00a0Indiana Commission for Higher Education<\/a>\u00a0under a 2025 state law aiming to cull offerings that graduate low numbers of students.\u00a0Of those, roughly 370 programs are being merged or consolidated, while the remaining 210 are being suspended or eliminated. The programs represent roughly a quarter of all academic offerings across Indiana\u2019s public colleges.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tPenn State faculty began voting April 1 on whether to unionize. If approved, Penn State Faculty Alliance (PSFA), affiliated with SEIU Local 668, would cover around 5,600 faculty. This includes tenure-stream, non-tenure-stream and part-time faculty \u2014 excluding the College of Medicine and the Applied Research Laboratory \u2014 at the State College and Commonwealth campuses. The results of the election will be announced in May.<\/p>\n \n\tMARCH<\/p>\n \n\tAdministrators at Vermont State University are\u00a0under fire<\/a>\u00a0for cutting faculty and staff positions in the name of \u201crestructuring\u201d while at the same time expanding the number of administrators and giving them hefty raises. A March 2026 letter from faculty and staff union leaders notes that while their full-time staff positions have decreased by 26 percent (115 positions) and unionized faculty positions have decreased by 30 percent (70 positions), non-union, full-time upper-level administrative positions have grown by 41 percent (38 positions), according to EDU Ledger<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tSusan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu<\/a> or 724-244-4042.<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHave a story idea or news to share?\u00a0Share<\/a>\u00a0it with the University Times.<\/p>\n