Daily Lumina News 111620

Many colleges have signaled to their professors that, come spring, they will be expected to ramp up their in-person instruction. The reason? An on-campus learning experience is critical to their students’ success. That success also is important for keeping enrollments up.
But instructors may not share the same sentiment. They point out that the latest spike in COVID-19 cases has dangerously strained hospitals, and that many students are not sticklers for social-distancing. They say the benefits of in-person teaching are not worth putting employees, their families, and others at risk.

The visibility of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) is at a high. The political ascension of Kamala D. Harris—who will become the first HBCU graduate to serve as vice president—and the presidential campaign have raised their profile, while calls for racial justice following nationwide protests have delivered record donations and other outpourings of support.
Historically Black schools have been marginalized and disenfranchised for generations and now face added financial pressures brought on by the pandemic. As the country reckons with its legacy of structural inequality, higher education leaders wonder whether that reckoning will result in lasting financial support and inclusion for the nation’s 100-plus historically Black schools.

Sometimes, a layoff can be just the thing to inspire a career change.
Leaders at local colleges and workforce programs say that’s occurring in South Florida, where thousands of locals lost their jobs due to the economic fallout of COVID-19. With the help of short-term courses and state-supported training programs, many are using the downturn as an opportunity to learn skills that could catapult them into a new career.

Home is just 20 minutes from campus for Brianna Sislo-Scutta, a third-year student at the University of Minnesota. But this semester is different. Because of COVID-19, she's stayed away, afraid she might get her parents sick.
Coronavirus cases are surging throughout the country at exactly the same time college students are nearing Thanksgiving break and, for many, the end of their first semester. Going home is a lot more complicated this year. So how do students navigate the transition without bringing the virus with them?

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has presented an education agenda that is starkly different from the Trump era, beginning with a far more cautious approach to school reopenings.
The new administration also is likely to prioritize the immense backlog of loan forgiveness claims that the Trump administration allowed to pile up—plus the mass denials of assistance that the department has issued to students who claim they were cheated by their colleges, according to officials familiar with the plans.

In many states, regional public universities are the workhorses of higher education systems. Overall, the 400-plus regional public universities across the U.S. educate some 40 percent of all American undergraduates. But often they're stuck in the middle between better known public flagship universities and community colleges. After years of declining state revenues, and in some states declining enrollments, many have arrived at a crossroads.
Dan Greenstein, the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, talks about his plan to remake the Pennsylvania system, as well as why similar institutions elsewhere need to recapture their affordability edge.