Dear Commons Community,

New York’s Comptroller gave his weekly update on the state’s economy yesterday and it isn’t pretty.  He commented that:

“The current public health and economic crisis we are facing as a state, nation and world is something we have never dealt with before and it will continue to impact our state and local finances for the foreseeable future. Now more than ever we need partnership and communication between all levels of government. I renew my call for the federal government to provide financial assistance to the states and communities hit hard by COVID-19.

By the numbers:

• Local sales tax collections dropped over 32% in May.
• April NYS tax receipts were $8.16 billion less than anticipated.
• The unemployment rate was 14.5% in April.

He concluded by stating that:  “Despite the grim outlook, I remain optimistic for our future. We are New York Tough and I believe our resilience, as a state and nation, will pull us through these challenging times.”

We pray he is right!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Dr. Ashish Jha, Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, in interview with CNN and USA Today, predicted that “”sometime in September, we’re going to cross 200,000 deaths, and we still won’t be done…This pandemic is going to be with us until next spring or summer when we have a vaccine. This is not faded.”  Looking ahead to the rest of the summer, Jha explained that if the current number of coronavirus deaths per day in the U.S. — between 800 and 1,000 — stays the same, roughly 25,000 to 30,000 people will continue to die every month. 

In sum, the United States is not out of the woods yet regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Below  is an article courtesy of USA Today on Jha’s interview.  Above is current data on the spread of coronavirus among the top ten countries in the world.  The United States has had by far the most cases and most deaths.

Tony

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Coronavirus deaths could reach 200,000 by early fall, Harvard doctor warns!

Maura Hohman

June 11, 2020

With more states easing restrictions after the coronavirus lockdown, the U.S. recently surpassed 2 million cases of COVID-19, prompting public health experts to worry about a second wave of the virus.

In 21 states, cases spiked over the past week, NBC News’ Erin McLaughlin reported. New Mexico and Florida have seen a 40% increase, and in Utah and Arkansas, which never instituted statewide stay-at-home orders, cases are up 60%. Officials in Arizona, where cases have risen 93%, have urged hospitals to activate their emergency plans.

In light of the new numbers, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called the coronavirus pandemic his “worst nightmare … Like oh, my goodness, when is it going to end?” he said. “It really is very complicated. So we’re just at almost the beginning of really understanding.”

While some people, including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, have speculated that these growing numbers are due to more widespread testing, Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told TODAY on Thursday that this theory doesn’t explain the rise in hospitalizations in at least nine states.

“That’s coming from just more people getting sick and needing hospital care,” he said. “We’ve been so behind in our testing approach for months that we were missing most of the cases out there … As testing’s gotten better, we’ve identified more cases. Testing is a part of the story but certainly doesn’t explain the whole thing.”

The “concerning” numbers, as Jha described them, come about two weeks after Memorial Day, “and this is what we’re worried about,” he said. “I’d hoped that (because) people are spending more time outside … that we would not see such a big increase so fast, but it’s more concerning than I’d hoped.”

Asked whether nationwide protests over police brutality and racial injustice are contributing to these increases, Jha said he thinks they’re “going to fuel more cases” and stressed the importance of protestors wearing masks.

“I’ve seen some protests where most people are wearing masks, others where they’re not,” he said. “It’s really critical that people wear masks because we think, as the data’s coming in, that can really help a lot.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the summer, Jha explained that if the current number of coronavirus deaths per day in the U.S. — between 800 and 1,000 — stays the same, roughly 25,000 to 30,000 people will continue to die every month.

Because the current total of U.S. coronavirus deaths is around 113,000, that means “sometime in September, we’re going to cross 200,000, and we still won’t be done,” Jha said. “This pandemic is going to be with us until next spring or summer when we have a vaccine. This is not faded.”

He continued: “We don’t have to live with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying. We do have to get people to wear masks. We do have to do as much social distancing as possible. And while we’ve gotten better on testing, we’re nowhere near where we need to be … We really need the federal government to step in and decide that it doesn’t want to have hundreds of thousands of Americans dying and help states ramp up testing and tracing. That’s the other piece of this that’s still missing.”

Addressing the possibility of another lockdown, he said, “The longer we wait, the harder it is to avoid … We basically ignored the virus for all of February and a good chunk of March, and then we had to shut down. My point is, let’s not do that again.”

“Let’s do everything in our power to get the virus under control,” he continued. “I think we can, we absolutely can. I don’t want a lockdown. Nobody does.”

The key, though, is to be “proactive,” Jha said. “If we just act like the virus isn’t there … we’re going to be confronting a much uglier reality, and I don’t want to do that.”

Dear Commons Community,

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a video keynote address to the National Defense University Class of 2020 Graduates, said it was mistake for him to have been at Lafayette Square last week during President Trump’s photo-op.  He also stated that it was a mistake for the military to be involved in domestic politics.  The full video is above.  Milley’s comments about Lafayette Square begins at about the 9:50 mark.  He also made powerful statements about the death of George Floyd (3:00 mark) and peaceful protests (4:30 mark.)

It took courage for him to record this.  I hope he did not put his position in jeopardy.

Tony

NOTE:  After this posting was made, it was reported by NBC News that Milley had contemplated resigning from the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of his participation in the photo-op.

Dear Commons Community,

Rebecca Kolins Givan, associate professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, and  vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, had an op-ed last week, commenting on how our colleges and universities are responding to the budget crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic. She is making a call to education leaders that they put people first in all of their decision making.  Entitled, Will the university that survives have been worth saving, the piece argues for colleges to stick to their values and not take just the easy cost-cutting approaches.  She also makes a plea that colleges consider the health and safety of their students and faculty.  Below is her entire op-ed.

Tony

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Will the University That Survives Have Been Worth Saving?

Rebecca Kolins Givan

June 2, 2020

As colleges face the dual challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and a dire financial situation, our responses will reveal the true values and priorities of higher education — and how committed we are to them. The terms of the debate have already been drawn by figures like Paul N. Friga, whose “strategic” prescription for how to handle this crisis presents a cold, analytics-driven approach that purports to ensure maximum return on investment. In a similar vein, Brown University’s president, Christine Paxson, made a much-debated argument for reopening in the fall. It was more about the imperative to collect tuition revenue than about protecting the health of those who work and study at universities.

As we in higher education consider how to best navigate these and other compounding crises — severe budget challenges from uncertainty around enrollment, stock-market volatility affecting endowments, the potential loss of housing-and-dining fees as a source of revenue to support other areas of the university, and sweeping cuts in state appropriations — we should lead with our values, and our values should lead us. If our core values are sacrificed to save our universities through a single-minded focus on maximizing revenue, will the institutions that emerge have been worth saving?

Our response to the crisis today may finally kill off the best of what remained of the universities of yesterday.

For the past few years, responsibility-centered management (RCM) has been the budget model of choice in higher education. Units and activities of the university — colleges, research centers, academic departments — are classified as “responsibility centers,” each required to generate sufficient revenue to cover its expenses. They do this primarily through enrollment, creating a strong incentive to offer large, broadly appealing courses with minimal workloads and maximal grades. Other core programs and services, whether libraries or counseling services, are classified as “costs,” their value reduced to something that can be measured on a budget spreadsheet. That designation is used as a hatchet, as if they were an expendable burden rather than essential to the university’s mission.

RCM is, then, a system of values that prioritizes infighting and manufactured scarcity to extract an additional buck more than collaboration and a commitment to mutually beneficial decision-making that puts lives and learning first. Under that “eat what you kill” model, units (“responsibility centers”) compete with one another — it’s a cutthroat game of zero sum. One more student in an Arabic class means one less student in a math course, and the two departments are required to treat each other as mortal enemies. Courses taught at less than full capacity are categorized as wasteful, rather than essential elements of a robust, diverse curriculum. Thus, with RCM providing the cover, administrators can claim that cuts in (formerly) essential programs were unavoidable, because the budget tells us so. Missouri Western State University, for instance, recently announced that it would no longer offer majors in history or English, a public statement that it is no longer a university that offers a robust, well-rounded liberal education.

Under this managerial regime, even deans and program chairs with the most high-minded values are forced to choose between wretched options. The values baked into the system all but require increased use of precarious, contingent faculty members; when an adjunct professor teaches a large, popular class, the program has a little more breathing room to fund faculty research or admit one more doctoral student. Even within the current reality of financial constraints and limited resources, it’s still possible to consider a much broader set of areas to cut. There’s no inherent reason that programs should have to choose between resources for research and secure, properly compensated faculty, but the budgeting philosophy makes these tradeoffs, as opposed to other options, seem inevitable.

We’ve faced recessions and funding cuts before, but the scale of this crisis may be unprecedented. Our widely accepted budget models provide tools for dealing with shrinking budgets, but these tools force managers into austerity-driven mind-sets that put the quest for revenue above the mission of higher education and the people whom that mission is meant to serve.

We have been going down this path for a long time, but our response to the crisis of today may finally kill off the best of what remained of the universities of yesterday. If our methods for conducting higher-ed triage prioritize fidelity to this heartless, intracompetitive model that removes all humanity — and, likely, the humanities as such — from the university, what will survive besides the lowest-cost, highest-revenue programs? If the university completes its transformation into whatever the spreadsheets and analytics tell it to be, if its mission is reduced to work-force-training and extracting tuition from students (who will work for years to pay off the debt they took on for the privilege), then continuing to call such institutions “universities” will be a cruel joke.

Once the foundation of liberal education is gone, it is unlikely ever to return.

What’s needed instead is a people-centered management approach to decision-making, even amid budget cuts, if we are going to survive this crisis and preserve the essential promise of higher education. While faculty and staff members are losing their jobs, those of us hanging on are being asked to fight to keep our universities afloat. But universities that exhibit a callous disregard for all who work in them are not universities worth fighting for.

We need an approach to administration that first embraces the highest mission of the university, and then determines financial priorities based on the fulfillment of that mission. Such an approach would require a commitment to:

A robust, broad curriculum. The pandemic is a reminder to those who forgot that humanity benefits from art, literature, critical thinking, and analysis. If universities pare down course offerings, eliminating smaller classes in favor of ever larger lectures or courses that provide only job-related skills, society will be all the poorer for it. Once the foundation of liberal education is gone, it is unlikely ever to return.

Accessibility and affordability. Whether through a nationwide free-college program, significantly increased Pell Grants, or broadly available loan forgiveness, if higher education is to be accessible to students during the coming recession, the federal government must use stimulus funds to support access to college.

A commitment to equity and diversity. When decisions about hiring freezes, layoffs, and retrenchment are made without regard to who benefits, who loses, and how those decisions express who belongs in our community, we all suffer. We must ensure that our faculty ranks look more like the students we serve, rather than letting diversity initiatives fall by the wayside because they don’t lead directly to increased revenue.

Fair employment for those who do the work of the university. Every fiscal crisis has been used as an opportunity to increase the precarity of those performing the campus’s essential work, whether cooks and cleaners or adjunct faculty members. Universities have a responsibility to treat all employees with dignity and respect. That means fair wages, access to affordable health care, and job security, even (especially) in uncertain times. If payroll cuts are needed, start at the top, not the bottom.

Responsible citizenship in our cities and towns. Universities should consider how their actions affect the cities, towns, and communities they’re embedded in (and have a responsibility to). They should provide good jobs to local community members and make decisions about real estate and construction that do not displace working-class residents.

At this moment of difficult decisions, university leaders are faced with a choice: Will they move forward with integrity and moral courage, aspiring to the best of higher education? Or will they hide behind the shield of responsibility-centered management, pitting us against one another and betraying our greater purpose?

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article describing that furloughs, layoffs and other cost-cutting job actions have begun to take place at colleges and universities due to the coronavirus pandemic.  The end of the academic year has institutions preparing for an uncertain future and anticipating further financial upheaval in the fall and beyond. 

Plans are surfacing, with details still to come. But what’s already clear is that faculty and staff members are experiencing the brunt of the impact. Furloughs and layoffs are underway at various institutions, with more expected. The size of higher education’s work force will shrink as hiring is frozen while institutions take on new duties.  Untenured and adjunct faculty, and other contingent employees are at greatest risk.

The employees who are left will face the challenge of trying to navigate classrooms, offices, and other parts of campus in line with public-health standards. Many have already expressed reluctance to return to their institutions in the fall.

Here are three observations mentioned in the article.

• Colleges have announced more than 250 employment-related actions since the pandemic unfolded. The tally is dominated by furloughs, though some colleges have carried out more than one kind of action against employees.
• The largest share of layoffs and contract nonrenewals is happening at public colleges, whose state appropriations are in jeopardy because of the coronavirus’s impact on the economy.
• The age of many postsecondary instructional staff members puts them at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus. Roughly one in three are 55 and older.

If there is a second or third wave of the pandemic, the fiscal pain will be much more severe.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnists, Gail Collins and Bret Stephens, do a question and answer with each other about Joe Biden’s options for a vice presidential running mate.  They consider possibilities like Elizabeth Warren, Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris and others.  Their bottom line is that Biden has to pick anyone who can help save us from The Donald.  The entire piece is below.

Tony

————————————————————————-

Save Us from Trump 2.0

By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens

Gail Collins: Bret, last week you predicted that Amy Klobuchar’s history as a Minneapolis prosecutor would cut her out of the vice-presidential competition. And that Elizabeth Warren might wind up getting the nod.

Bret Stephens: Alas.

Gail: Well, your scenario does look plausible. And I remember in conversations of yore you absolutely ruled out ever voting for Warren. Didn’t you threaten to write in someone like Franklin Pierce if she was on the ballot?

Bret: Either him or Groucho Marx.

Gail: So where does that leave you? Wasting a vote that could help oust Donald Trump? Or supporting a Warren vice presidency tied to a presidential nominee who’d be 78 when he entered office?

Bret: No question, I’d vote Biden-Warren. If the republic could survive Henry Wallace and Spiro Agnew as vice president, we should be OK with Warren. And yes, I realize that, more than in most campaigns, the vice-presidential spot really matters this time around.

Gail: Wow, the world is turning.

Bret: That said, Warren also has some negatives that Biden will have to consider carefully before choosing her. She generated a lot of buzz but came in third in her own state’s primary this year. She is admired intensely by many of the same people who adored Hillary Clinton — but disliked widely for some of the same reasons people hated Hillary, including a perception of being an out-of-touch liberal with a bad habit of bending the truth about her past. Her campaign charisma could eclipse Biden’s, which will make him look comparatively small and stale, while also providing a foil for Trump and his supporters. And, if she wins the vice presidency, a Republican governor will choose her replacement, something that could make a big difference if there’s a narrow split in the Senate.

But who’s on your radar, Gail?

Gail: I’d like to see Warren get the nod. She’s qualified, she’s smart, she’s rational. I know you think she’s too far left. Obviously that’s not a problem for me. But she’s practical and if she ever did become president, she’d press for programs she could get through Congress.

Maybe most important, she really does keep growing, which is not something you see a whole lot of in top-line senior politicians. And she seems to be enjoying herself more and more.

All works great for me. And in November she could energize younger voters who might be inclined to snooze past a Biden vote.

Who’s on your post-Klobuchar roster?

Bret: Is Marianne Williamson off the list? I’m kidding, but her comment at one of last year’s debates about all the “dark psychic forces” really seems to describe what 2020 has been like.

Gail: Forgot that. Chalk up a point for Marianne.

Bret: More seriously, I think he should avoid some of the obvious names out there, like Stacey Abrams, who has never held any sort of high government office, despite her background as a legislative leader, or Kamala Harris, another former prosecutor who ran a terrible campaign, and go for someone like Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, who could appeal to middle-of-the-road voters, especially in the Midwest. And, honestly, I wish Biden hadn’t boxed himself in by declaring in advance that his running mate would be a woman. There are a lot of good male candidates I can think of, too.

Gail: I was happy with Biden’s promise to put a woman on his ticket. The history of discrimination against women in politics — especially when it comes to executive offices — is long and bleak. The only one who ever got a major party nomination was the wife of a former president.

Given that there are a ton of excellent, qualified women available, this is just something we ought to see.

Bret: But about something else you just said: I know Elizabeth Warren isn’t too far left for you. Is there anyone in the Democratic field who is?

Gail: Not in terms of aspirations. I’m all for using tax and social policy to close a bit of the gap between the ridiculously wealthy top one percent and the masses of struggling families who need more government support.

But I want to see the party rally behind a platform that the Republicans can’t twist around to scare average voters. For instance, Medicare for All means lots of different things to different people. For some it just means making sure everybody is able to get good health coverage at a price they can afford. For others, it means a socialized system that wipes out private health insurance. That idea unnerves the many Americans who like the insurance they get at work. So I didn’t think it made sense to nominate a candidate like Bernie Sanders who made it the centerpiece of his campaign.

We’re both still on the Anybody But Donald team, right?

Bret: Well, I suppose that if Joe Stalin rose from the dead and got the Democratic nomination, I’d have to rethink my A.B.D. membership. But otherwise, yes. Trump is to our nation’s agonies what salt is to a wound. He is to our collective intelligence what a frying pan is to an egg. He is to the interests of a better world what a lemon is to the cause of hot milk.

Gail: Well, you definitely aren’t going to need to study the League of Women Voters position papers before you go into the voting booth.

Here’s the thing I keep hearing from worried readers, What if Trump loses the election and refuses to go away? I was wondering if retired Gen. Jim Mattis’s sudden denunciation of the president was in any way a message to the military to be prepared for that kind of crisis.

Bret: Possible but unlikely. I think some of my friends on the left underrate the honest, impartial patriotism and sense of civic duty of the overwhelming majority of service members, and of the officers who lead them. I don’t know if you’ve seen the memo that was sent to the entire military by Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “As members of the Joint Force — comprised of all races, colors and creeds — you embody the ideals of our Constitution,” he wrote. “Please remind all of our troops and leaders that we will uphold the values of our nation.” Magnificent.

In other words, if Trump tries to override the results of the election, he’ll fail.

Gail: I agree. Can’t imagine that isn’t being quietly talked about in military circles.

Bret: My bigger worry is a “hanging chad” scenario where the margins are razor thin, Trump claims fraud, and the Supreme Court gets to decide the outcome. If that’s what happens, there’s no telling how it plays out, but I’d recommend reading Thucydides’ description of the civil war in Corcyra.

Gail: Hey, wasn’t there an uncertain-outcome election in 2000? And I seem to remember the Supreme Court issuing a decision that seemed decidedly … political. The reason there wasn’t real civic uproar was Al Gore’s determination to keep the peace and follow the process.

Do not see Donald Trump behaving like Al Gore. Ever. About anything.

But I like your last warning. Maybe we can make “Remember Thucydides!” a campaign watchword. Or “Steer Clear of Corcyra.”

Bret: Maybe “Save Us From the Donald” would do the trick.

Dear Commons Community,

Faculty around the country are beginning to debate whether they teach online or face-to-face in the fall in those states  where officials are allowing the colleges the option. The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning describing this situation at several colleges.  Here is an excerpt of the debate that is going on at Notre Dame.

“In announcing its plans to resume in-person instruction as of August 10, the University of Notre Dame became one of the first major institutions to answer the question on higher education’s collective mind: How will we approach the fall semester? Weeks after that announcement, Notre Dame’s president, John I. Jenkins, doubled down on the importance of face-to-face education in a New York Times op-ed, writing that “the mark of a healthy society is its willingness to bear burdens and take risks for the education and well-being of its young.”

But in doing so, Jenkins and the administration raised a second, equally thorny question: What if faculty members don’t want to take those risks? That’s the concern shared by 140 Notre Dame faculty members who have signed a petition asserting that “all faculty members should be allowed to make their own prudential judgments about whether to teach in-person classes.”

At Notre Dame and colleges across the nation, faculty members argue that they’re not being given a say in a decision that could have consequences crucial to their own health and livelihoods. Even on campuses where administrators have solicited faculty members’ thoughts about a return to face-to-face education — often through surveys asking about how they’d prefer to teach their fall classes — those efforts have generated a backlash. The way administrators try to gauge faculty opinion, many instructors say, feels coercive.

In South Bend, the plan is clear: “The university expects faculty to be available for in-person classes, unless an individual’s circumstance results in an exception,” Paul J. Browne, Notre Dame’s vice president for public affairs and communications, told The Chronicle in an email.

Eileen Hunt Botting, a professor of political science who signed the faculty petition, took issue with that stance. “This is a matter of civil rights and social justice,” she said. “Faculty members are not soldiers. Faculty members are, first and foremost, civilians, and civilians with basic civil rights to protect their lives and their health in the workplace.”

Health and safety may not be the only reasons that faculty members opt not to return to the classroom this fall. John Duffy, who directs the University Writing Program at Notre Dame and signed the petition, said courses like his are “incompatible with recommended social-distancing practices” and would be better suited pedagogically to online instruction.

Faculty members who are parents and whose children’s schools will move online for the fall may face extra child-care responsibilities, especially if class sessions extend into evenings and weekends to allow classrooms to be cleaned, said Karen B. Graubart, an associate professor of history at Notre Dame who signed the petition.

“I’m not refusing to teach face to face, but I want to have a conversation about what that would look like for me,” she said. She got her wish — at least in part — when the dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters asked department chairs to survey their faculty members’ fall preferences with a “nonbinding straw poll.”

Graubart’s chair shared the results for the history department, which revealed that more than half of the faculty members there were willing to teach either in-person or using a combination of in-person and remote instruction. Graubart said a “fairly small percentage” expressed a preference for fully online teaching.

Faculty members at Notre Dame can fill out a COVID-19 Reasonable Accommodation Request Form to request permission to work remotely, explained a letter sent Monday night by provost Thomas G. Burish, provost-elect Marie Lynn Miranda and executive vice president Shannon B. Cullinan. The form, like several others reviewed by The Chronicle, asks faculty and staff members to disclose if they belong to one of the populations that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified as being at high risk for Covid-19.

Respondents are asked to indicate if they are “requesting an accommodation because you are 65 years old or older.” They can check boxes for underlying conditions such as cardiac problems, chronic lung disease, diabetes, and severe obesity. (The university also requires faculty and staff members to submit medical documentation for such conditions.) Respondents can check another box to request accommodations for online teaching if they have a family member who is at risk, and an “Other” field allows for written responses.”

The Chronicle article goes on to discuss examples at other institutions such as Vanderbilt and Yale.

The issue of fear for one’s personal safety if required to teach face-to-face even if social distancing is practice, has to be taken seriously.  There certainly can be a legal liability if one becomes infected with Covid-19.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A major issue is evolving with the Democratic Party over what to call an overhaul of police departments around the country in response to protest marchers chants to “defund the police” in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.  Without a doubt, much of the country supports reforms but the Democrats need to be careful how they word this.  Joe Biden tried yesterday to balance protesters’ calls for a law enforcement overhaul while not alienating moderate voters.  He staked out a careful position in support of law enforcement reform but not defunding police departments, rebutting a new Republican attack line as he tries to harness growing activism against systemic racism while not alienating protesters or more moderate voters.  As reported by The New York Times.

In the face of continuing protest marches calling Mr. Biden’s campaign said in a statement that he “hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change” and that he “supports the urgent need for reform.” But a campaign spokesman, Andrew Bates, said flatly that Mr. Biden was opposed to cutting police funding and believed more spending was necessary to help improve law enforcement and community policing.

Mr. Biden’s effort to address the calls of protesters while supporting law enforcement comes after gruesome videos and energetic protests have quickly reshaped public opinion about racial discrimination, seemingly opening a substantial window for new policies that could bring far-reaching change to law-enforcement agencies long accused of racially discriminatory practices. But there are already signs of division between activists who are eager to dismantle police departments and congressional Democrats who favor a less drastic overhaul of law enforcement.

President Trump’s campaign and leading Republicans have sought to drive a wedge between the immediate-but-incremental calls for change among elected Democrats and the more sweeping demands that protesters are calling for in places like Minneapolis, where the death of Mr. Floyd after police officers pinned him down has prompted worldwide calls for racial justice.  

Mr. Trump, for his part, has not endorsed any new changes to policing procedures or funding. On Monday, he met with law enforcement officials at the White House and praised them, saying virtually all police officers were “great, great people” and boasting on Twitter that crime was low nationwide.

The debate within the Democratic Party was on plain display on Monday, as congressional leaders unveiled a broad legislative program on policing, including new limits on the use of lethal force and on the legal protections afforded to officers accused of misconduct. Only hours before, progressives at the municipal level in Minneapolis pledged on Sunday to take apart the city’s long-troubled Police Department and rebuild it altogether.

Asked by the CBS host Norah O’Donnell on Monday if he supported defunding the police, Mr. Biden answered: “No, I don’t support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness.”

Mr. Biden’s position — a stance on policing that another prominent Democrat, Bill Clinton, might have summed up as “mend it, don’t end it” — aligned him far more closely with lawmakers in Washington than with activists and left-wing lawmakers at the municipal level. His approach drew wide support from Democratic Party officials and a number of civil rights leaders, as well as politicians in the swing states likeliest to decide the general election.”

I think this is a wise move on the part of Biden to consider reforms but to stay away from words like “dismantle” or “defund”.  He indeed risks alienating moderate voters and would give Trump and his supporters a wedge issue that would attract a lot of attention and votes.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Calbright College, California’s fully online community college may close if the State Legislature has its way.  Last week, California’s Assembly and Senate leaders moved to eliminate the college while officials from Governor Gavin Newsom’s office and the Community College’s Chancellor’s Office indicated that Calbright should remain open.  The college, which opened in October, has faced criticism and courted controversy since it was first proposed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017. The college was seen as a bold initiative to serve adult and underemployed populations of students working part time or stuck in positions that don’t pay a living wage. The college presently enrolls 523 students.  The Legislature has already reached an agreement on the state budget that includes defunding Calbright and redirecting more than $100 million to support other needs in the 115-campus community college system.   As reported by  EdSource.

“I want to see the most bang for our buck, and we certainly weren’t getting that from Calbright,” said Assemblyman Jose Medina, who is chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. “And given the economic crisis from the coronavirus, the state doesn’t have the money. It’s time to shut that program down completely … The money saved can be better used in other places.”

A Legislative Analyst’s report on the May budget revision estimated that eliminating Calbright would save about $137 million, including $20 million in operating costs for next year and taking back $117 million in unspent funds. The study called for Calbright’s abolishment and noted it “has a very high cost per student, is currently unaccredited and largely duplicates programs at other colleges.”

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for Governor Newsom’s Department of Finance, said that while the Legislature has reached an agreement, discussions will continue with the governor’s office on a range of budget issues.

“The May revision reflects continued funding for Calbright, which is well-positioned to provide students searching for additional opportunities to improve their economic mobility through self-paced programs that can enable students to quickly earn industry-recognized credentials,” Palmer said. “The importance of distance learning opportunities in the current Covid-19 environment makes an even more compelling case for continuing support.”

According to an Assembly report on the proposed budget, Calbright’s board of trustees would have to develop a closure plan by December.

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley said eliminating Calbright from the state’s budget is “shortsighted.”

“I appreciate the pickle and the challenge the Legislature finds itself in,” he said, to EdSource’s This Week in California Education podcast.

“I don’t believe that it is wise to cannibalize one college to support the others. It’s important for us as a state to see the importance of having all of the colleges supported while understanding that they all have to be cut.”

Oakley said Calbright can help the state understand how it “can change the way we deliver education, particularly to working adults. Given that we have nearly 5 million or so unemployed Californians, I think it’s critically important.”

Taylor Huckaby, a spokesman for the college, said Calbright is part of Newsom’s initiative for expanding skill-based training, especially now as economic conditions worsen.

“To shutter a school with this specific mission – to reach people who are not currently being served – would be a mistake,” he said. “The actions we take now will either undermine our recovery or ensure it.”

Calbright’s critics, however, believe that reallocating money from the online college to the other 114 community colleges would better serve the state’s economy and help more adults and non-traditional students looking for these programs.”

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  There are major political bodies on each side of the controversy.  Calbright surely was a bold move when it was proposed three years ago but in the current fiscal crisis that California (and many states find themselves), it might not survive.

Tony

NOTE:  My colleague, Fred Lane, alerted me to this Calbright College story.

Dear Commons Community,

The University of Alaska’s Board of Regents voted on Friday to eliminate 39 academic departments and reduce or merge five more due to shrinking enrollments, diminishing state funds, and spreading Covid-19 cases.

The decision came one day after the board voted to move ahead with a study of whether to consolidate its three separately accredited universities into two. The regents will examine the pros and cons of merging the University of Alaska Southeast, in Juneau, into the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. A report is due to the regents by mid-October.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

I am afraid we will  see more consolidations in higher education in the years to come!

Tony