Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning asking the question:  Can the lecture be saved?  Claire Major, a professor of higher education administration at the University of Alabama, says yes but spicing it up a bit helps.  Here is the article:

“Do you feel guilty when you lecture? Perhaps you’re afraid that you’re shortchanging students. That, instead, you should be flipping your classroom and getting “active” through group exercises. But really, aren’t there times when you just want to tell your students what they need to know?

Fear no more. Claire Major is here to tell you that lecturing is fine. In fact, it’s often crucial to a successful class. The key, says Major, a professor of higher education administration at the University of Alabama, is to make it interactive.

In the “pedagogical cage match” between lecturing and active learning, says Major, who speaks and writes frequently about teaching, the traditional lecture loses out because it is often misunderstood. Most professors don’t pontificate from the moment class starts to the minute it ends, but lecturing is often portrayed that way.

“I think people are tired of lecture being slammed so hard,” she says. “The way articles are positioned: ‘Active learning wins.’ ‘Lectures are unfair or unethical.’ Well, what kind of lecture are you talking about?”

In reality, she says, instructors often break up their lectures with other activities. The key to successful lecturing, says Major, is to design activities that reinforce what students learn through the lecture, and encourage them to apply it. Hence the term she likes to use: interactive lecturing.

I first heard Major speak at the Teaching Professor annual conference earlier this year, where she described how to structure an interactive lecture. The room was packed: Clearly her message has touched a nerve among instructors. I followed up by phone last month to ask her to elaborate on some of her ideas.

Major describes her own teaching style as one she developed through trial, error, and a lot of reading. Like many academics when they first start out, she didn’t know a whole lot about teaching. But as a “windshield warrior” whose early days were spent at a range of institutions — two- and four-year, public and private — Major started to assemble strategies that kept students engaged and learning. You can find some of her techniques in this chart.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy, Major finds it helpful to group her techniques into three categories, and makes sure she gets to all three during each class.

• Bookends are used to begin and end class. At the start, for example, you might ask students to write a note to an imaginary classmate who missed the last class, summarizing what was covered.This helps them recall and synthesize information and primes them to learn.
• Overlays encourage students to pay attention during the lecture portion of class. You might hand out a worksheet with a series of questions they can answer by listening to your talk.
• Interleaves are used to help students apply what they just learned. The common think-pair-share exercise, in which students gather in small groups to answer a question individually and share their answers, encourages them to use and reframe information, which they are then more likely to remember.

Major, who teaches graduate students these days, gives examples from her own work. In one three-hour class, she says, she may do the following in this order:

1. Give students a partial sentence that prompts them to predict part of her upcoming lecture.
2. Lecture with guided notes. Students are given a handout summarizing key points in the lecture, but with blank spaces that they need to fill in as they go along.
3. Ask students to write a one-sentence summary of what they just heard.
4. Provide or ask for a real-world application of a point made during the lecture.
5. Lecture with guided notes.
6. Use a lecture wrapper. Ask students to summarize the most important points of the lecture, then review those summaries together. (You can also ask students what they found most confusing and review that as well.)

Major also advises faculty members to avoid packing in too many activities. A class should not feel like a forced march. “You need some quiet time and some thought,” she says. “Even silence, which I know can be uncomfortable at times but can be pretty powerful.”

Also, not all activities are created equal. The dreaded icebreaker is not really active learning. Nor is a free-for-all discussion. Some structure and clear goals are necessary. “I think, What do I want them to walk away with?” Major says, about how she plans out each class. “Then I figure out the best way to get there.”

Major hopes her strategies will help reduce the anxiety faculty members often feel around active learning, while also acknowledging the value of the lecture.

“Telling faculty to drop everything and use active learning all the time just doesn’t work.” But if they can augment lectures with some of these active-learning strategies, she says, “they’re going to be more comfortable with the results.”

For more tips on active lecturing, Major and her frequent collaborator, Elizabeth F. Barkley, a professor of music history at Foothill College, have put together short videos at their K. Patricia Cross Academy.”

Good advice.  Variety is the key in teaching!

Tony

Kurt Volker, a former special envoy to Ukraine, leaving after a closed-door interview with House investigators 

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press and other news media are reporting this morning that top U.S. diplomats encouraged Ukraine’s newly elected president to conduct an investigation linked to Joe Biden’s family in return for a high-profile visit to Washington with President Donald Trump. It soon escalated into what one feared was a “crazy” swap that risked vital U.S. military aid.  That’s according to a cache of text messages released yesterday by House investigators following a 10-hour interview with one of the diplomats, Kurt Volker, who stepped down as special envoy to Ukraine amid the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. As reported:

“The pages lay out the raw contours of a potential quid-pro-quo exchange — Trump gets his political investigation of a top Democratic rival in return for some price to be paid by the new Ukraine leader — now at the heart of the House investigation.

The text messages convey a distinct campaign among the three diplomats, who — apparently against some of their stated better judgment — appear to be trying to help Ukraine reset its relationship with Trump by pushing his interest in investigating his Democratic rival and the 2016 election.

Volker, in a text message on the morning of a planned July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote: “Heard from White House — Assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / “get to the bottom of what happened” in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”

An adviser to the Ukrainian president appeared to go along with the proposal, which entailed investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company where Joe Biden’s son Hunter served on the board.

“Phone call went well,” wrote Andrey Yermak in a text to Volker later that day after the two presidents spoke. Yermak suggested several dates when Trump and Zerenskiy could meet in September.

But all that planning started to unravel when Zelenskiy’s aide tried to lock in a date for the Trump meeting before putting out the statement on the investigations.

“Once we have a date we will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of US-UKRAINE relationship , including among other things Burisma and election meddling in investigations,” Yermak wrote two weeks later.

“Sounds great!” texted Volker.

Volker and the two other diplomats _ William “Bill” Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union _ discussed the statement Zelenskiy would issue in support of the investigation. As the negotiations progressed, Sondland said Trump “really wants the deliverable.”

Then, Trump put a hold on $250 million in military assistance to Ukraine, which was depending on the funds as part of its defense against Russia.

“Need to talk with you,” Yermak wrote to Volker.

Taylor, the seasoned top diplomat in the Ukrainian embassy, conveyed his concerns and questioned whether the money was being withheld until Ukraine agreed to Trump’s demand.

“Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” he wrote.

“This is my nightmare scenario,” Taylor texted his colleagues days later. Taylor said that by withholding the Ukrainian assistance, “we have already shaken their faith in us.”

Your browser does not support the HTML tag. Try viewing this in a modern browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer 9 or later.

A series of text messages released by House investigators as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

House Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine matter after a government whistleblower disclosed Trump’s call with Zelenskiy and the push to have a foreign government interfere in U.S. elections by digging up dirt on Biden.

As a Democratic front-runner, Biden could be Trump’s opponent in the 2020 presidential election. Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani have tried, without evidence, to implicate Biden and his son Hunter in the kind of corruption that has long plagued Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma at the same time his father was leading the Obama administration’s diplomatic dealings with Kyiv. Though the timing raised concerns among anti-corruption advocates, there has been no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son.

Trump and Giuliani have also promoted an alternative theory of 2016 election interference, which puts Ukraine, not Russia, at the center, at odds with the 2017 findings of the U.S. intelligence community and special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report.

Trump has said his call with Zelenskiy was “perfect” and portrays the impeachment inquiry as a sham.

The text messages released Thursday show that within a month of the call, Trump has canceled the visit with Zelenskiy, sending the diplomats into an effort to salvage a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence or possibly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

What followed was the scramble, and finger-pointing, to apparently fix what had been launched.

Taylor told Sondland he was “counting on you to be right,” and Sondland snapped back, “Bill, I never said I was right.”

Sondland early on had texted that he wanted to get the conversation started with Ukraine “irrespective of the pretext” because he was “worried about the alternative.” Now, he was saying, they have identified the best path forward, and “let’s hope it works.”

Taylor then texted, “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

After a more than four-hour pause, Sondland texted Taylor that he was incorrect, and wrote that Trump “has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind.”

He also wrote, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”

In releasing the exchanges Thursday, the Democratic committee chairmen said they are “still only a subset of the full body of the materials” provided by Volker, which they hope to make public later.”

A lot of there here!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As a member of Congress, Mike Pompeo drove the Republican inquiry into the killing of a United States ambassador in Benghazi, Libya, and made clear there was no place for politics in American diplomacy. Nor, he said, would he tolerate “dithering” by an Obama administration State Department that he called “deeply obstructive of getting the American people the facts that they needed.”  A New York Times article examines Pompeo’s behavior now that he is a target of a congressional investigation in the Trump/Ukraine scandal.  Here is an excerpt.

“Now, as secretary of state, Mr. Pompeo is facing a political crisis that directly challenges his leadership of the department he once excoriated. He is accused by House Democrats of blocking their impeachment inquiry by resisting the release of information to Congress that may shed light on the Trump administration’s shadow foreign policy with Ukraine.

And career diplomats, some of whom blame the Trump administration for dismembering the Foreign Service and undercutting American diplomacy, are expected to be among the first witnesses telling their stories to Congress during its inquiry.

“In many ways this seems to be a situation where he’s reaping what he sowed,” said Derek Chollet, the executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund, who served in both the State and Defense Departments under President Barack Obama.”

Another Trump hypocrite!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning that presents the views of five college administrators about the state of student enrollments.  Each administrator gives her/his perspective but all agree that there is concern for the future especially for small, private colleges with modest endowments.  Here is summary from one of the pieces written  by Jon Boeckenstedt, vice provost for enrollment management at Oregon State University.

“Fundamentally, colleges are the same: We measure quality by easily quantifiable inputs, not by more nebulous outputs; we take stock of the opinions of consumer magazines and newspapers more than of knowledgeable educators; we refuse to let competitors surpass us. If students once saw real differences between Carleton, Grinnell, and Oberlin, those distinctions faded as the sector became commoditized. It is no wonder that applications are skyrocketing, yield rates are falling, predictive models are failing us, discounts are rising, and — yes — colleges of some renown are starting to close.

In retrospect, 2007 seems to have been the tipping point, the final warning that we were on a collision course with reality. Tuition increases have slowed a bit since then but are still increasing faster than inflation and are exacerbated by flat or decreasing family incomes.

We are facing a crisis in enrollment, but it’s not just an enrollment challenge. Instead, it requires the attention of every member of every university community coming together to think less about our own self-interest and more about the common good of our institutions and society. Big public universities and well-endowed private colleges with powerful brands are safe for the near future — or so it seemed until a few recent announcements that make even the most optimistic of us wonder.

The big question: Can we begin to get back in shape, or will our collective complacency finally do us in?”

The USDOE IPEDS data provided above indicate that postsecondary enrollments are flat and may even show a small increase in the years through 2026.  While the total enrollment projection is probably accurate, it will be very uneven for different regions of the country and for the different higher education sectors.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime advocate of government whistleblower protections, sharply rebuked President Donald Trump and his allies yesterday by voicing support for the Ukraine whistleblower.  As reported by various media.

“This person appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected,” Grassley, said in a statement released by his office. “We should always work to respect whistleblowers’ requests for confidentiality.”

Trump and his allies have repeatedly maligned the anonymous intelligence community whistleblower’s motives in recent days as the House impeachment inquiry intensifies. Over the weekend, the president accused the person of “spying” on him and suggested the whistleblower’s sources ought to be executed. He also told reporters on Monday “we’re trying to find out” the person’s identity.

Lawyers representing the whistleblower have expressed concern for their client’s safety, stressing the person is entitled to anonymity under the law.

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have been trying to undermine the whistleblower’s complaint, which alleged Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate 2020 election rival Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter. They echoed the White House’s own talking points in arguing the whistleblower isn’t a real whistleblower because the person did not witness the president’s actions firsthand.

“The definition of a whistleblower is somebody who has firsthand knowledge of a situation. So I think that we are giving too much credence, or at least credit, to someone who does not meet the definition of a whistleblower,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) told reporters last week.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) agreed, saying Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “We’re not going to try the president of the United States on hearsay.”

But Grassley, who sees nothing wrong with Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president referenced in the whistleblower’s complaint, seemed to undercut both points. He urged everyone not to make “judgments or pronouncements without hearing from the whistleblower first and carefully following up on the facts,” cautioning that speculation about their identity by “politicians or media commentators” doesn’t serve the country’s interests.

He also pushed back against claims made by his GOP colleagues about the complaint, which was deemed credible by both Trump’s director of national intelligence and the intelligence community inspector general.

“The distinctions being drawn between first- and second-hand knowledge aren’t legal ones,” Grassley said. “It’s just not part of whistleblower protection law or any agency policy. Complaints based on second-hand information should not be rejected out of hand, but they do require additional leg work to get at the facts and evaluate the claim’s credibility.”

The Iowa Republican has spent decades advocating on behalf of whistleblowers. In 2015, he co-founded the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus to raise awareness for the need for protection against retaliation of private sector and government employees who call attention to wrongdoing.

Grassley is the first Republican member of the group to speak out in defense of the whistleblower. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), another member of the caucus, said that what really concerned him was that the whistleblower complaint was leaked in the first place.

“I’m a big supporter of whistleblower protection. Who should not be protected is whoever leaked this. If this whistleblower leaked this, then [that person] does not deserve [whistleblower] protections,” Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week.

News of the whistleblower’s complaint first broke last month after Trump’s Justice Department blocked intelligence officials from giving it to Congress, as required by law. The DOJ decision was not made public until after the complaint was released.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another member of the caucus who has praised whistleblowers for having the courage to speak out, told reporters last week he was “trying to figure out whether or not the person who is called the whistleblower is actually a whistleblower as described by the statute.” The North Carolina Republican is facing a primary challenge ahead of his reelection bid next year.

Stephen Kohn, a top whistleblower attorney, called Republican complaints about secondhand information in the Ukraine complaint “completely distorted.”

“For example, someone overhears a conversation about committing a murder or robbery. You can report that conversation, even though you never witnessed the crime. That conversation is important evidence inasmuch as it can provide law enforcement with the ‘tip’ needed to investigate or solve a crime. This happens every day,” Kohn said.”

A Republican shows some courage in calling out Trump.  Hooray!

Tony

GM Closing Plants and Laying Off Factory Workers

Dear Commons Community,

Very weak economic indicators in the manufacturing sector of the American economy sent shivers through Wall Street yesterday.  The slowdown is being attributed in part to the trade war with China as concerns over a recession mount.  As reported by Bloomberg and the New York Times.

“Manufacturing accounts for just 11 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, but it is often seen as an economic harbinger. Stocks fell on Wall Street after the release of the report, from the Institute for Supply Management, with the S&P 500 index closing down 0.7 percent.

“It was a pretty ugly report,” said Greg Daco, chief United States economist at Oxford Economics. “The headwinds that have been battering the global economy are washing up on U.S. shores.”

The institute’s manufacturing index was at 49.1 for August, down from 51.2 in July. Anything below 50 is considered a sign of contraction. The index is based on a survey of purchasing and supply managers.

Economists had expected the index to show a slight gain for August, making the drop all the more surprising and leaving the index at its lowest level since January 2016.

Several other recent indicators have suggested economic weakness. On Wall Street, short-term bond yields now exceed the return offered by longer-term notes, a sign a recession could be coming.

The institute’s survey is essentially a measure of business confidence. The latest figure echoed a University of Michigan survey released last week that showed the biggest drop in consumer confidence since 2012.

The Federal Reserve has taken note of the economic softening. The central bank in July cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in a decade, and it is expected to cut rates again when policymakers meet in two weeks.

In a news release, the institute quoted several executives who attributed their anxieties to tariffs imposed on Chinese imports by the Trump administration. On Sunday, the United States placed a new 15 percent tariff on thousands of Chinese products, including some food and clothing items.

 “While business is strong, there is an undercurrent of fear and alarm regarding the trade wars and a potential recession,” an unidentified executive with a chemical products company is quoted as saying. A computer and electronic products manager told the institute that “tariffs continue to be a strain on the supply chain and the economy over all.”

The Trump administration’s tariffs have affected many factory owners who depend on overseas suppliers for components and raw materials. And with Beijing imposing retaliatory tariffs on American goods, many manufacturers reliant on sales to China are feeling pain as well. All of this makes manufacturers more vulnerable to trade tensions than service-economy companies.”

If the economy worsens, Trump can kiss any chance of re-election in 2020 good-bye!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, a U.S. district judge sided with Harvard at the conclusion of a court case in which a group of Asian-Americans asserted that the school’s admissions department discriminated against them.

Judge Allison Burroughs issued her decision, stating that though Harvard’s admission process is “not perfect,” she will not “dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better.” She also noted that “ensuring diversity at Harvard relies, in part, on race conscious admissions.”  

The challengers, Students for Fair Admissions, argued that Harvard’s practice of affirmative action and their “personal” rating system sets the bar higher for Asian-American students than other groups. 

“Students for Fair Admissions is disappointed that the court has upheld Harvard’s discriminatory admissions policies,” Edward Blum, the group’s president, said in a statement. “We believe that the documents, emails, data analysis and depositions SFFA presented at trial compellingly revealed Harvard’s systematic discrimination against Asian-American applicants.”

In the event that Judge Burroughs’s ruling is appealed, the case will be taken to the Supreme Court and will likely lead to a renewed national conversation around the future of race-conscious admissions. Some affirmative action advocates fear that if this case is elevated further, the practice of deliberately diversifying college campuses — which has historically been essential in combating the harmful legacy of racial injustice in America — could be eliminated.

If appealed and with the given conservative make-up of the US Supreme Court, this case can indeed have serious ramifications for affirmative action throughout the country.

Tony

NOTE:  After my post above, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an in-depth article about this decision. 

Dear Commons Community,

Conservative commentator William Kristol has an op-ed in today’s New York Times entitled, Republicans Don’t Have to Nominate Trump in 2020 that makes the case that the GOP can do better than Trump.  Here is an excerpt.

“Republicans have had their differences these past few years. Most have supported President Trump; a few have not. Some of the president’s supporters have been enthusiastic; many have not. Some of the reluctant Trump supporters have expressed reservations at certain times; many have not.

But with the revelations of the last week, and the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry, we are at a new moment. This is obviously the case for Republicans in Congress, who will have to vote on impeachment and perhaps on conviction. They have a unique part to play in this drama; the rest of us are merely observers or advisers. All we can really now ask of members of Congress is to keep an open mind and to evaluate the facts as they emerge…

…Republican elected officials and former elected officials, Republican activists and donors, appointees of this administration and of former Republican administrations — bear a weighty responsibility. They can support Donald Trump, and put a stamp of approval on his tenure in office. They can keep quiet, a stamp of approval of its own sort. Or they can step up and act for the honor of their party and the good of their country.”

Sage advice for Republicans but do they have the guts to follow it.  I think not!  They are filled with maintaining power no matter what even if it means four more years of this embarrassment of a president.

The full op-ed is below.

Tony

——————————————————————————————

New York Times

Republicans Don’t Have to Nominate Trump in 2020

William Kristol

October 1, 2019

Republicans have had their differences these past few years. Most have supported President Trump; a few have not. Some of the president’s supporters have been enthusiastic; many have not. Some of the reluctant Trump supporters have expressed reservations at certain times; many have not.

But with the revelations of the last week, and the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry, we are at a new moment. This is obviously the case for Republicans in Congress, who will have to vote on impeachment and perhaps on conviction. They have a unique part to play in this drama; the rest of us are merely observers or advisers. All we can really now ask of members of Congress is to keep an open mind and to evaluate the facts as they emerge.

But we already have learned enough to know that the government whistle-blower is correct to say “that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.” We know this latest instance is part of a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. We may not yet know whether removal from the office to which President Trump was elected is warranted. But surely we know enough to judge that Mr. Trump does not deserve renomination for that office for an additional four years.

The Republican Party faces a binary choice. It either will or will not renominate Donald Trump in 2020. (And if President Trump is removed as a consequence of impeachment and conviction, or if he resigns, the G.O.P. either will or will not nominate as its standard-bearer a newly sworn-in Mike Pence, who will have been at Mr. Trump’s side for his entire administration and has been a fervent defender of the president.)

The 2020 Republican nomination is an open question. It is a decision of great consequence on which all Republicans have a say, and all have a responsibility. Republican leaders in particular — Republican elected officials and former elected officials, Republican activists and donors, appointees of this administration and of former Republican administrations — bear a weighty responsibility. They can support Donald Trump, and put a stamp of approval on his tenure in office. They can keep quiet, a stamp of approval of its own sort. Or they can step up and act for the honor of their party and the good of their country.

There are currently three announced Republican challengers to Donald Trump. Republican leaders could in various ways support one or all three of them. There are also other Republicans who might well be stronger candidates for the nomination and who may well be more qualified to serve as president. Those individuals could be encouraged by colleagues, activists and donors, privately or publicly, to run — and they could be offered support if they do.

And may I say directly to those Republicans who could run: You have a unique chance to act for your party and your country. You can play a role in overcoming the shame and stain of the past three years, and in the reformation of a once great party. Win or lose, you will go down in the history books as a man or woman of honor.

The Republican Party has surely discovered over the past few years the wisdom of Virgil: “The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way.”

But Republican leaders of conscience and courage now have an unusual moment “to return, and view the cheerful skies,” as Virgil put it. “In this the task and mighty labor lies.”

Dear Commons Community,

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a bill allowing college athletes to hire agents and sign endorsement deals, setting the stage for a clash with the NCAA and potentially reshaping college athletics entirely.  As reported  by The Huffington Post.

“The first of its kind Fair Pay to Play Act is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023, against the urging of the NCAA Board of Governors.

In a Sept. 11 letter to Newsom, the board predicted the legislation would “wipe out the distinction between college and professional athletics.” California schools might be banned from NCAA-sanctioned competitions over the “unfair recruiting advantage” offered by the bill, the group warned.

Newsom wasn’t persuaded. 

“Colleges reap billions from student athletes but block them from earning a single dollar,” he said in a statement Monday. “That’s a bankrupt model.”

The governor signed the bill surrounded by athletes who advocated for the measure’s adoption. That included Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, three-time WNBA champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist Diana Taurasi, and retired NBA star Ed O’Bannon, whose 2009 lawsuit against the NCAA presented the first real legal challenge to the pay structure this new law hopes to change.

Newsom said the new law presents “a major problem for the NCAA.”

“It’s going to initiate dozens of other states to introduce similar legislation,” he predicted, “and it’s going to change college sports for the better by having now the interest, finally, of the athletes on par with the interest of the other institutions. Now, we’re rebalancing that power arrangement.”

The NCAA criticized the decision Monday, warning a state-by-state approach to regulation will create a “patchwork of different laws” instead of a unified and fair set of rules.

“We will consider next steps in California while our members move forward with ongoing efforts to make adjustments to NCAA name, image and likeness rules that are both realistic in modern society and tied to higher education,” the organization said.

Maryland, North Carolina, Washington and Colorado have all considered similar laws that would allow student athletes to profit off their likenesses. 

“Public universities, at the end of the day, should be looking out for the interest of their students, more than the interests of the NCAA,” Maryland Del. Brooke Lierman (D) told Stateline earlier this year.

“State legislatures charter and have control over the public universities,” she said. “If schools themselves feel they can’t stand up to the NCAA, then legislatures have to do it.”

This is a major issue for the NCAA and will dominate college athletics for the next several years as other states consider similar legislation.

Tony