Daily Lumina News 060523

Leena Varona plans to graduate from Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York next week with an associate degree in liberal arts. Her path to graduation hasn't been the quick, direct route she imagined it would be when she first enrolled in 2019.
So what—or better yet, who—helped push Varona, 48, over the finish line? After counseling, Varona credits many of her professors with believing in her even when she didn’t.

As a first-generation student of color, JP Flores credits much of his academic success to his ability to attend Occidental College, a small, private college in Southern California with what he describes as an inclusive culture. “It changed the trajectory of my life,” Flores notes.
That trajectory might have been very different if Occidental had been barred from using affirmative action in admissions—a situation that could become reality this summer if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the practice in two widely watched cases.

Pressure from politically appointed members of governing boards has long been an issue for public universities in many states where boards, faculty, and administrations have sparred over priorities. And debates over curriculum have occurred for generations.
But having state leaders working to fight national culture wars on campus and codify their vision for higher education into law is a new reality for many academics.

Why are two colleges—the University of Northwestern, in St. Paul, and Crown College, in St. Bonifacius—suing their state over a change to its dual-enrollment program? The fight mostly boils down to this: whether high-school students have the right to take college courses, supported by state funds, at the campus of their choice—regardless of their faith.
The bigger picture, experts say, involves recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and a series of similar standoffs nationwide over the rights of religious institutions.

As part of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to eliminate barriers to higher education, 125,000 graduating high school seniors will soon receive automatic acceptance letters from the State University of New York.
Nationwide, college enrollment has noticeably lagged since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a significant number of students decided against a four-year degree in favor of joining the workforce or completing a certificate program without the hefty price tag or zoom screen. But a downturn in enrollment was in the works long before 2020.

Sara Martinez is one of the estimated millions of child-care providers known as family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) caregivers, which represents the most common type of non-parental child care in the United States.
While FFNs are the largest group of caregivers in the country, it is a job that many in the field refer to as “invisible” in the already historically overlooked child-care workforce.