THE University of Pennsylvania The last academic year found itself in Ground Zero for the controversy on the treatment of anti -Semitism on university campuses, even seeing the resignation of its president.
From now on, Ivy League University is zero for the conversation on challenges threatening higher education – from policy to surpassing members of the board of directors at the cost and concerns about the value of a diploma.
In the First of the three forums Created by the Senate of the Faculty of Penn, the leaders of higher education discussed in bold and frightening terms of the impact of the new presidential administration, the failures of the academics and what to do on both.
“Find out more: As a Rutgers Center conference cancels, colleges reflect on other Trump orders involving immigration, research funding
“We are on the front line of a war against civil society by the new administration,” said Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University in Connecticut on Thursday at the 90 -minute event on the Penn campus. “These are rich guys trying to make their way. You know something about it in Penn. You have billionaires Who are used to throwing their weight, and they did it here. And now they do it all over the country. »»
‘A witch hunt’
His comments came the same week as President Donald Trump Executive decor delivered Targeting the efforts of diversity, equity and inclusion, the financing of university research, international students who engage in pro-Palestinian events and undocumented students.
Irene Mulvey, former former president of the American Association of University Professors, warned of the increase in government intrusion into the classroom and censorship, noting the “witch hunt” which occurred in 2023 When several presidents of college, including the president of the pitch, Liz Magill, were called to testify before a committee of the Congress on the treatment of anti -Semitism on the campus. Magill resigned a few days later After a tumult on his testimony and a criticism campaign led by the investment capital giant and the Wharton donor Marc Rowan.
“Although the intrusions are not new, these attacks are at a new level and they are ideological,” said Mulvey, a mathematician. “Before, they were often separate individual teachers. Now, these are fields of object of opposing opposing study on the basis of the ideology preferred by the ruling party. It’s not American.
Roth, Mulvey and John Sexton, emeritus president of the University of New York – a private research university – and the third panelist, said that educators must establish relations and coalitions, and teachers and administrations must work together Despite the differences and fight for academic freedom and open expression.
“Find out more: Researchers at risk in their own country find a new house in Penn
“These are trans people and immigrants today, and it’s horrible,” said Roth, a history scholarship holder who directed Wesleyan, a private liberal arts college since 2007. “But they will need From someone else.
And this also means standing to the members of the board of directors who wish to go beyond, the panelists said.
Sexton, a legal scholar who directed Nyu from 2002 to 2015, said that at the start of his mandate, a donor threatened to withdraw a donation of $ 500 million if he authorized former President Bill Clinton on campus .
“I said,” I’m really sorry, we will manage without the $ 500 million, “said Sexton. “If you are not willing to do that … It’s over.”
“Find out more: Penn’s donors’ backlash raises questions about the quantity of influence that philanthropists should have
Mulvey called on the Trump administration against Dei “heartbreaking”.
“Dei efforts are an attempt to promulgate racial justice,” she said. “The efforts to get rid of Dei’s efforts are attempts to recover from the prejudices of the past and to erase any progress that we have made to become a multiracial democracy.”
She said that the colleges should continue the work, “whether it said at the door or not.”
Mulvey also stressed the importance of having international students on campuses, enriching and progressing the sciences of the nation.
“It would be a huge loss if they weren’t there,” she said.
“An atmosphere of condescension”
But the panelists, who addressed an audience who understood the acting president of Penn, J. Larry Jameson, and the president emeritus Amy Gutmann, also said that there was a lot of room for the criticism of teaching education superior, and that the academic world must recognize and resolve it.
“Higher education,” said Roth, “was allowed, in particular in elite institutions like this and mine, to promote an atmosphere of condescension and a monoculture of political homogeneity which is a bad wrong for our students and our research. ”
Mulvey has called the cost, saying that higher education has been underfunded for too long and must be accessible.
“We must find a way to communicate more effectively what we do well, while being reactive to the criticisms that indicate the ways we can undress,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, communication teacher and director of the public policies of public policies ‘Annenberg, which moderates the panel.
Eric Feldman, President of the Senate of the Faculty, said that the idea behind the series of events – the second will be on February 26 on the cost and the third April 9 on the future of higher education – was to look The drop in public confidence in colleges and universities and see what could be done. It was planned long before the presidential election, he said.
“The elections have just put a lourain underline and an exclamation point around the importance of the problem,” he said in an interview before the event.
But this confidence shift started well before the elections, he noted. The educators, he said, must “think for a long time of criticism, where they come from, and if and how they can help us do better some of the things we do.”