Rick Seltzer
Inside Higher Ed
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Past articles by Rick:
Florida State Picks Harvard Vice Provost as President
Florida State University’s Board of Trustees chose the vice provost for research at Harvard University as Florida State’s next president, ending a controversial search that had included as a candidate Florida’s former House of Representatives speaker, who is also the state's current education commissioner. Trustees chose Richard McCullough, Florida State announced Monday. → Read More
Lafayette College hires College Advising Corps founder and CEO
Lafayette College steps out of the box by choosing College Advising Corps leader as its next president. The hire comes as the private college seeks to ramp up financial aid and grow its student body. → Read More
George Washington president Thomas LeBlanc retiring in 2022
Thomas LeBlanc will retire at the end of his five-year contract in 2022 after taking criticism related to diversity on campus and plans to shrink the student body, but support for his handling of the pandemic. → Read More
Hartford President Leaves Commencement After Jeers
Gregory Woodward, the president of the University of Hartford in Connecticut, left a commencement ceremony this weekend after being booed following the institution’s decision to leave Division I athletics for Division III. Woodward left a commencement ceremony for the university’s College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions, the Hartford Courant reported. He departed → Read More
UT Austin: Play ‘Eyes of Texas’ or Join Newly Created Band
The University of Texas at Austin will require members of its Longhorn Band and Longhorn Pep Band to play its alma mater -- which was first played at a minstrel show where performers likely appeared in blackface -- and the university will create a second marching band in 2022 that will not play its alma mater or fight song. UT Austin has yet to name the new band, which will be → Read More
Merger Talks Begin Between Long-Standing Seminaries in Pa.
Moravian College and Seminary and the Lancaster Theological Seminary are exploring merger options, the two institutions in Pennsylvania announced yesterday. The discussions are nonbinding. They are focused on providing “an ecumenical theological education on multiple campuses,” according to information about the talks posted by Lancaster Theological Seminary. The talks include → Read More
Trey Falwell No Longer Liberty VP
Trey Falwell, the son of former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., is no longer a vice president at the evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Va. A Liberty spokesman told Politico that Trey Falwell is no longer a university employee after a move occurring this week. The spokesman did not provide additional details or answer questions about whether other → Read More
Reworking Budget, Arkansas Fort-Smith Drops From 5 to 3 Colleges
The University of Arkansas Fort Smith plans significant changes intended to add up to cost savings of more than $1 million, including cutting the number of colleges it operates, ending some programs and no longer using some facilities. Terisa Riley, the institution’s chancellor, announced the changes Monday in an email, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A → Read More
Cuts Hit Faculty, Philosophy at Western Oregon
Western Oregon University has notified some faculty members of layoffs amid cost-cutting efforts that include the elimination of its philosophy major and minor, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. The public university in Monmouth, in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, plans to lay off four tenured professors in the cuts, which will also affect the equivalent of 11 nontenured → Read More
Union Survey Slams Pennsylvania University Merger Plans
The union representing faculty members and coaches across the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, yesterday released a survey of its members finding little buy-in to plans to merge operations at several institutions. “APSCUF’s survey results show a disconnect between the narratives that exist → Read More
Mills Faculty Members Seek Talks After Closure Announced
Faculty members at Mills College are seeking more engagement in the wake of the private women’s college announcing last month that because of financial challenges it will stop enrolling new first-year undergraduates and instead seek to create an institute focused in part on women’s leadership. A group of faculty members at the college is calling on the Mills Board of Trustees → Read More
International Enrollment Drop to Hit Higher Ed's Credit for Years
The U.S. higher education sector will feel a revenue hit for several years from a low number of international students enrolling in colleges and universities this fall, according to a report issued last week by Moody’s Investors Service. The development has a negative impact on the sector’s credit profile, according to the bond ratings agency. International student enrollments → Read More
Soros Pledges $500M to Bard Endowment
Financier George Soros has pledged a $500 million endowment to Bard College, the liberal arts college in New York’s Hudson Valley announced Thursday. The pledge stands to more than double Bard’s endowment, which was valued at $220.8 million last summer. Soros’s pledge is structured as a challenge grant as Bard seeks to raise $1 billion over five years. Bard will receive the → Read More
President Retained After Capitol Riot Comments Upset Faculty
Western Colorado University’s Board of Trustees issued a statement of support for the university’s president, Greg Salsbury, weeks after the university’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution asking for new leadership. The Faculty Senate passed its resolution Feb. 22 following controversial comments from Salsbury about the January attack on the U.S. Capitol that temporarily → Read More
IRS Warns of Scam Targeting .Edu Email Addresses
The Internal Revenue Service is warning about a tax refund scam from IRS impersonators who are targeting those who work at colleges and universities, as well as their students. People with email addresses ending in .edu have been reporting email phishing attempts in recent weeks. The attempts appear to target staff members and students at all types of institutions -- public, → Read More
UC Berkeley Starting First-Year Program on Mills Campus
The University of California, Berkeley, is starting a yearlong program in Oakland at the private, nonprofit Mills College campus for 200 first-year Berkeley students. Called UC Berkeley Changemaker in Oakland, the program will be made up of 150 incoming students from Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science and 50 from its Rausser College of Natural Resources. Berkeley → Read More
Bennett College Outlines New Direction
Bennett College’s Board of Trustees last weekend approved a new strategic direction that provides some insight into the historically Black women’s college’s plans for the future after a financial crisis and struggle with its longtime accreditor. → Read More
Moody's Raises Higher Ed Outlook to Stable
Moody’s Investors Service raised its outlook for the U.S. higher education sector from negative to stable Monday, pointing to improved revenue potential for colleges and universities over the next year to year and a half. The improvement is fueled in part by tuition and auxiliary revenue standing to gain should prospects for a widespread return to on-campus and in-person → Read More
Santa Clara University President Placed on Leave
The president of Santa Clara University, the Reverend Kevin O’Brien, is on leave pending an investigation. According to a notice from the chair of the university’s Board of Trustees, the university was informed that the Jesuit Provincial Office “recently received accounts that Father O’Brien exhibited behaviors in adult settings, consisting primarily of conversations, which → Read More
Colleges, McKinsey and Strada Start Task Force on Higher Education and Opportunity
The leaders of three dozen colleges and universities plus global consulting giant McKinsey & Co. and Strada Education Network, a nonprofit focused on the education-to-employment pipeline, announced a new group Monday called the Taskforce on Higher Education and Opportunity. Motivation for the group comes from the global pandemic, income inequality and the way the world of work → Read More