In this week’s roundup:
Some students are returning to campus even as colleges plan for possible re-closures, how universities are handling tuition this fall and the University of Arizona inks a deal for rapid online expansion.
Stay tuned for our weekly roundup on what trends we're seeing across institutions, how individual colleges and universities are responding to them and what national policy changes are affecting higher ed.
Week of July 29 - August 5
- Campus move-in days look very different as college students begin arriving back on campus to new requirements for testing, travel quarantines and strict social distancing rules.
- But in some places, faculty — and especially staff — are feeling left out of the reopening planning.
- As a condition of returning to campus, students are being asked to sign liability waivers and “informed consent” agreements. Education advocacy organizations continue to ask Congress for liability protection from “excessive and speculative lawsuits arising from the pandemic.”
- Some campuses have been resuming campus tours, even as many campuses remain empty.
- As institutions cautiously reopen their campuses, they’re also deciding what factors would determine whether to close them again.
- A new survey from the Association of American Colleges and Universities found more college leaders were considering across-the-board budget cuts and staff layoffs this summer than at the start of the pandemic.
- The pandemic has highlighted funding and resource inequities, forcing HBCUs to make tough decisions to continue to educate their unique populations.
- Meanwhile, the financial crisis triggered by the pandemic is fueling the long-standing debate over the cost and value of higher education.
- Student athletes at several Pac-12 institutions formed a coalition to sit out of upcoming football practices and games if safety concerns are not addressed.
- In acquisition news, the University of Arizona acquired Ashford University, an online university with nearly 35,000 students, to create the new nonprofit University of Arizona Global Campus. Not everyone on the Arizona faculty was pleased.
- The University of Buffalo announced it would change the names of four campus locations that previously honored local and national figures who supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, claimed people as property or openly expressed racist views.
