The University of Denver is aiming to become a global hub for scholarship on the Holocaust, abuses of power, racism, hatred and antisemitism, with a goal of spurring other universities to do the same.
DU leaders said they’ll announce the school’s first endowed professorship in Holocaust and antisemitism studies at a gathering in the state Capitol with Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The professorship represents “a permanent commitment not only to remembrance but to making Denver a global hub for thoughtful Holocaust education and applied scholarship that helps future generations foster social change,” DU Provost Elizabeth Loboa said in a statement.
Polis and survivors of the Holocaust — Colorado residents Osi Sladek and Barbara Steinmetz — will commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp.
At the noon event, Sladek is expected to read from his memoir, which recounts his escape from persecution into the Tatra mountains along Slovakia’s border with Poland. He later served in the Israeli Army and became a folk singer in California before settling in Denver. The Denver Young Artists Orchestra and DeVotchKa’sTom Hagerman will perform music by Sladek’s father using his violin.
Steinmetz fled Europe on a boat that carried her to the Dominican Republic, where she found refuge. She’ll share a “Letter to the Future.”
DU officials over the past two years have been working on this project, said Adam Rovner, an English professor who directs DU’s Center for Judaic Studies, within the College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
“We just think it is simply important that we remain vigilant in our society to guard against abuses of power and racism, hatred, and antisemitism,” Rovner said. “We think this position is much-needed at DU and in higher education.”
One purpose of studying manifestations of antisemitism in the 20th century “is so that people can consider the contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, and decide based on scholarly rigor whether there are threats to Jewish people and other groups,” Rovner said.
Over the past three years, he faced students during the war by Israel, a Jewish nation, against people in Gaza amid pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities around the nation, including encampments at DU and on the Auraria campus.
In DU’s classrooms, he saw “wonderful students” whose “open discussions” continued “through the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7 and even through Israel’s retaliation,” Rovner said. “Students come here because they want to learn and understand, not because they have already made up their minds based on a meme on TikTok,” he said.
A visiting professor will launch DU’s ramped-up studies, thanks to an initial donation of around $500,000. DU officials said they’ll be working with additional donors to fully fund the endowment and establish a permanent position.
The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority is offering a scholarship to Hawai‘i high school seniors interested in getting a higher education in tourism management.
The Hawai‘i Tourism Ho‘oilina Scholarship is a four-year scholarship that provides $12,000 a year toward a Bachelor of Science in travel industry management at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Shidler College of Business.
The scholarship will be awarded to five incoming University of Hawai‘i freshmen this year, majoring in travel industry management. Money will cover a portion of the cost for tuition over four years.
“We are investing in kama‘āina talent who will help strengthen Hawai‘i’s visitor industry workforce by keeping it infused with Hawai‘i’s values,” said Caroline Anderson, interim president and CEO of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority. “We’re proud to be part of their support system so they can build successful careers here at home.”
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Since its creation in 2019, the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority has invested more than $1 million to provide tuition assistance for the next generation of travel industry professionals and to perpetuate Hawaiian culture within the visitor industry, according to a news release from the state agency.
Scholarship requirements include enrolling as a full-time student in UH Mānoa’s Travel Industry Management program, maintaining a 3.0 cumulative grade point average, completing four Hawaiian culture courses, completing at least one upper-level destination management and stewardship course, committing to 200 hours of community service over the four-year period and participating in a 200-hour internship to gain visitor industry experience.
This year, the fight over free expression in American higher education reached a troubling milestone. According to data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, efforts to censor speech on college campuses hit record highs and across multiple fronts – and most succeeded.
Let’s start with the raw numbers. In 2025, FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire, Students Under Fire, and Campus Deplatforming databases collectively tracked:
525 attempts to sanction scholars for their speech, more than one a day, with 460 of them resulting in punishment.
273 attempts to punish students for expression, more than five a week, with 176 of these attempts succeeding.
160 attempts to deplatform speakers, about three each week, with 99 of them succeeding.
That’s 958 censorship attempts in total, nearly three per day on campuses across the country. For comparison, FIRE’s next highest total was 477 two years ago.
The 525 scholar sanction attempts are the highest ever recorded in FIRE’s database, which spans from 2000 to the present. Even when a large-scale incident at the U.S. Naval Academy is treated as just a single entry, the 2025 total still breaks records.
Twenty-nine scholars were fired, including 18 who were terminated since September for social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Student sanction attempts also hit a new high, and deplatforming efforts – our records date back to 1998 – rank third all-time, behind 2023 and 2024.
The problem is actually worse because FIRE’s data undercounts the true scale of campus censorship. Why? The data rely on publicly available information, and an unknown number of incidents, especially those that may involve quiet administrative pressure, never make the public record.
Some critics argue that the total number of incidents is small compared to the roughly 4,000 colleges in the country. But this argument collapses under scrutiny. While there are technically thousands of institutions labeled as “colleges” or “universities,” roughly 600 of them educate about 80% of undergraduates enrolled at not-for-profit four-year schools. Many of the rest of these “colleges” and “universities” are highly specialized or vocational programs. This includes a number of beauty academies, truck-driving schools, and similar institutions – in other words, campuses that aren’t at the heart of the free speech debate.
These censorship campaigns aren’t coming from only one side of the political spectrum. FIRE’s data shows, for instance, that liberal students are punished for pro-Palestinian activism, conservative faculty are targeted for controversial opinions on gender or race, and speaking events featuring all points of view are targeted for cancellation. The two most targeted student groups on campus? Students for Justice in Palestine and Turning Point USA. If that doesn’t make this point clear, nothing will.
The common denominator across these censorship campaigns is not ideology – it’s intolerance.
So where do we go from here?
We need courage: from faculty, from students, and especially from administrators. It’s easy to defend speech when it’s popular. It’s harder when the ideas are offensive or inconvenient. But that’s when it matters most.
Even more urgently, higher education needs a cultural reset. Universities must recommit to the idea that exposure to ideas and speech that one dislikes or finds offensive is not “violence.” That principle is essential for democracy, not just for universities.
This year’s record number of campus censorship attempts should be a wake-up call for campus administrators. For decades, many allowed a culture of censorship to fester, dismissing concerns as overblown, isolated, or a politically motivated myth. Now, with governors, state legislatures, members of Congress, and even the White House moving aggressively to police campus expression, some administrators are finally pushing back. But this push–back from administrators doesn’t seem principled. Instead, it seems more like an attempt to shield their institutions from outside political interference.
That’s not leadership. It’s damage control. And it’s what got higher education into this mess in the first place.
If university leaders want to reclaim their role as stewards of free inquiry, they cannot act just when governmental pressure threatens their autonomy. They also need to be steadfast when internal intolerance threatens their mission. A true commitment to academic freedom means defending expression even when it’s unpopular or offensive. That’s the price of intellectual integrity in a free society.
Sean Stevens, Ph.D., is FIRE’s chief research advisor. He was previously director of research at Heterodox Academy.
Universities are rapidly expanding A.I. programs as students seek skills that can withstand an increasingly automated future. Photo by: Jumping Rocks/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
When Chris Callison-Burch first started teaching an A.I. course at the University of Pennsylvania in2018, his inaugural class had about 100 students. Seven years later, enrollment has swelled to roughly 400—excluding another 250 students attending remotely and an additional 100 to 200 on the waiting list. The professor now teaches in the largest classroom on campus. If his course grew any bigger, he’d need to move into the school’s sports stadium.
“I would love to think that’s all because I’m a dynamic lecturer,” Callison-Burch told Observer. “But it’s really a testament to the popularity of the field.”
Demand for A.I. courses and degrees has soared across higher education as the technology plays an increasingly central role in daily life and begins to encroach on once-popular fields like computer science. Amid uncertainty about the future of the labor market, students are seeking to prepare for an A.I.-dominated economy by immersing themselves in the field.
Universities have followed suit. Schools like Carnegie Mellon and Purdue University are among a number offering undergraduate or graduate degrees in A.I., a trend expected to accelerate in the coming years. The University of Pennsylvania recently became the first Ivy League school to offer both undergraduate and graduate A.I. programs. Its graduate curriculum includes courses in natural language processing and machine learning, in addition to required classes on technology ethics and the broader legal landscape.
The demand is widespread. The University of Buffalo’s A.I. master’s program enrolled 103 students last year, up from just five in its inaugural 2020 cohort. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undergraduate enrollment in A.I. has jumped from 37 students in 2022 to more than 300. Miami Dade College has seen a 75 percent increase in enrollment in its A.I. programs since 2022, while its other programs have remained relatively steady aside from a “slight decrease in computer science,” the school told Observer.
Callison-Burch, who also serves as faculty director of Penn’s online A.I. master’s program, has noticed a similar decline. “There’s an interesting trend at the moment where it looks like computer science enrollment is dipping,” he said, pointing to increased A.I.-powered automation across the field. More than 60 percent of undergraduate computing programs saw a decline in employment for the 2025-2026 year compared to the year prior, according to a recent report from the Computing Research Association.
That decline comes as A.I. reshapes some of the professions most exposed to its advances. In fields like coding, early-career workers have already experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment, according to an August research paper from Stanford.
Yann LeCun, Meta’s former chief A.I. scientist, advises young people to become adept at learning itself, as their job is “almost certainly going to change” over time. “My suggestion is to take courses on topics that are fundamental and have a long shelf life,” he told Observer via email, pointing to mathematics, physics and engineering as core areas of focus.
It’s not just students grappling with these shifts. Callison-Burch noted that professors, too, are trying to adapt and determine how best to integrate A.I. into their classrooms. One thing, he said, is certain: the technology will only become more pervasive. That makes it all the more important for young people to familiarize themselves with its tools.
Even so, he acknowledged that predicting how A.I. will reshape the labor market remains extraordinarily difficult, making it hard for students to bet confidently on any one path. “I don’t think there’s an easy way of picking something that’s going to be future-proof, when we can’t yet see that future,” he said.
Northwell Health, 1-800-Flowers.com and Nassau University Medical Center named new CEOs in 2025.
Leadership transitions were announced at major nonprofits including Long Island Cares and Family Service League.
Law firms Rivkin Radler and Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman unveiled new managing partners.
Stony Brook University welcomed Andrea Goldsmith as its seventh president.
Long Island organizations saw a change of the guard in 2025, as veteran leaders announced they were stepping down and seasoned executives began to take the reins. From healthcare to law, retail, and beyond, new leaders are helping to shape the next chapter of the region’s business landscape. Here’s a look back at some of those notable leadership transitions.
Michael Dowling and Dr. John D’Angelo. / Credit: Lee Weissman/Northwell Health
Michael Dowling, who served as president and chief executive of Northwell Health for more than 23 years, became CEO emeritus, focusing on teaching and public health, on Oct. 1. Dr. John D’Angelo, the health system’s former executive vice president, was appointed Northwell’s president and CEO after a nationwide search.
Dowling called it an “extraordinary privilege” to lead the health system, helping it grow to 28 hospitals and 104,000 staff members. D’Angelo said he was “humbled and honored” to succeed Dowling, and stand “committed to build” on Dowling’s “unparalleled legacy.”
Jim McCann
In May, Jim McCann announced he was stepping down as CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com, but would remain active in the company as executive chairman. Adolfo Villagomez–who most recently served as CEO of Progress Residential, a private owner and operator of single-family rental homes across more than 40 U.S. markets–began his role as CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com in May.
“Adolfo is the first person outside the McCann family to take on this role— something I did not take lightly,” McCann added. “From our very first conversation, I recognized in him not only extraordinary business acumen, but also a deep passion and a genuine commitment to partnership with myself and our leadership team. This is a unique and impactful moment for our company, and I’m proud to enter this next chapter of our journey.” Villagomez said “I cannot wait to hit the ground running with Jim and the leadership team to help grow the business dramatically in the years ahead.”
Paule Pachter said in June that he was retiring as CEO and president of Long Island Cares – the Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank, headquartered in Hauppauge, after leading the organization for 17 years. Katherine Fritz, the organization’s vice president for development and communication, was named Long Island Cares new president and CEO.
Courtesy of Long Island Cares, Inc. – The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank
Fritz was the “unanimous choice to guide Long Island through the food-insecurity crisis,” according to Long Island Cares. Pachter, now president emeritus, serves in an advisory role, and called his time at the organization “the most rewarding and productive period of my 46-year history of working in the nonprofit human services sector on Long Island.”
Karen Boorshtein said in June that she will step down as president and CEO of Family Service League on March 31, 2026, having led the organization for more than 15 years. “It has been a privilege to work alongside such a talented and committed team and to partner with community leaders and stakeholders who believe in the power of support, dignity and opportunity for all,” she said.
A successor has not yet been announced.
Evan Krinick and Barry Levy / Courtesy of Rivkin Radler
New leadership was announced in September at Rivkin Radler, a law firm headquartered in Uniondale, effective Feb. 1. That’s when Barry Levy will lead the firm as its new managing partner. He will succeed Evan Krinick, who, having led the firm since 2013, will remain active at Rivkin Radler, representing clients and participating in management initiatives.
“It has been a privilege to be the managing partner of this great organization,” Krinick said. “After more than 12 years as managing partner, it is time to hand the reins to another partner.” Levy said he was “truly honored” by his partners’ confidence in his ability to lead the firm forward.” He added that “working under Evan’s leadership over the past 12 years has served as a tremendous blueprint in terms of continuing to grow the firm while maintaining its unique culture.”
Thomas Stokes was appointed permanent CEO of Nassau University Medical Center in December, effective in January. The veteran healthcare leader — who at the time of the announcement served as chief financial officer of Weill Cornell Medicine and vice president for finance at Cornell University—will run Nassau County’s only public safety-net hospital, which is operated by Nassau Health Care Corporation.
Board Chair Stuart Rabinowitz said Stokes’ “arrival strengthens a system that has already made important strides—increasing revenue, improving operations and reducing costs,” adding that “there is still work ahead.” Stokes said that serving “the people of Nassau County is deeply meaningful to me, and I’m ready to get to work.”
Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, a law firm whose locations include East Meadow and Hauppauge, announced new leadership in December. Partners Brendan DeRiggi and Jaspreet Mayall are now co-managing partners, responsible for overseeing the firm’s growth and operations. Howard Stein, who has served as the firm’s managing partner, is now chair of the firm, focusing on advancing its long-term vision, strategic planning and key client relationships.
“This is an exciting moment for our firm,” Stein said. “I am honored to assume the role of chair and confident that with Brendan and Jaspreet as co-managing partners, we will continue to drive innovation, deepen client relationships and invest in our people.” DeRiggi said that their “shared vision will help advance the firm’s strategic priorities.” Mayall said he is “committed to building on our strengths and fostering a mindset of excellence across the firm.”
Andrea Goldsmith, State University of New York
Andrea Goldsmith began her tenure on Aug. 1 as Stony Brook University’s seventh president. Goldsmith previously served as dean of engineering and applied science at Princeton University, where she had served as a researcher in engineering, technology company founder and faculty member. Goldsmith holds 38 patents in wireless technology, and served in roles at Stanford University and Caltech. Stony Brook’s previous president, Maurie McInnis, left to lead Yale University.
SUNY Chancellor John King Jr. said Goldsmith’s “experience as an academic, dean and researcher–as well as an innovator and entrepreneur–will serve our students, faculty, staff, and the campus community well.” Goldsmith called it “an honor to join Stony Brook University–a champion of excellent, affordable education that will launch students into very successful careers and lives as citizens of the world.”
Scholarships target first-year students with economic need and are renewable for up to four years
First awardee plans to pursue a career in medicine
A Westbury-based company is investing $400,000 to fund 10 four-year scholarships, up to $40,000 each, for students from Westbury or New Cassel attending SUNY Old Westbury, the university announced Monday.
Deer Park Recycling, a provider of scrap metal recycling, is creating the Jeffrey M. Sissons Memorial Scholarship Fund through a donation to the Old Westbury College Foundation, Inc. The donation was given by Anthony Sissons to honor the life, career and philanthropic legacy of his father, the company’s founder who died in 2024.
“These scholarships were something my father and I discussed often,” Anthony Sissons said about the new scholarship.
“Along with his work career, my father offered support to the community our company calls home, but he did it quietly and without recognition,” Sissons said. “With these scholarships, we are able to put his name on a program that reflects his values of hard work, generosity and community support.”
The scholarship is designed to support high-achieving students and provides funding for tuition, fees and other university-related expenses.
New awards will be given in the fall to one first-year student enrolling full-time who demonstrates economic need but does not otherwise qualify for financial aid. The scholarship may be renewed annually for up to three additional years, provided the student remains enrolled and maintains a GPA of 2.7 or higher.
“Philanthropic investment where we live and work is key to lifting up our communities and the friends and neighbors who live there,” University President Timothy Sams said in the news release.
“The Sissons scholarship fund represents well the history of quiet caring that Jeffrey Sissons showed across his life and career,” Sams added. “His legacy now continues on by making higher education available to the best and brightest from Westbury and New Cassel.”
The college foundation’s Board of Trustees Chair Nora Bassett said in the news release that this “remarkable gift will open doors for deserving young people who dream of going to college but may lack the financial means. We are honored to carry forward the memory of Jeffrey Sissons through the success of these scholars.”
The university announced on Monday that the first scholarship awardee is Alexa Santiago Munoz, a first-year biochemistry major from New Cassel who hopes to become a physician, but was wary about taking on debt.
“This scholarship is helping me build a future as a doctor that I hope will improve the lives of those who come from communities like mine,” Santiago Munoz said in the news release. “I am already thinking about ways to make sure I open doors for others the way this opportunity opened a door for me.”
As AI increasingly automates technical tasks across industries, students’ long-term career success will rely less on technical skills alone and more on durable skills or professional skills, often referred to as soft skills. These include empathy, resilience, collaboration, and ethical reasoning–skills that machines can’t replicate.
This critical need is outlined in Future-Proofing Students: Professional Skills in the Age of AI, a new report from Acuity Insights. Drawing on a broad body of academic and market research, the report provides an analysis of how institutions can better prepare students with the professional skills most critical in an AI-driven world.
Key findings from the report:
75 percent of long-term job success is attributed to professional skills, not technical expertise.
Over 25 percent of executives say they won’t hire recent graduates due to lack of durable skills.
COVID-19 disrupted professional skill development, leaving many students underprepared for collaboration, communication, and professional norms.
Eight essential durable skills must be intentionally developed for students to thrive in an AI-driven workplace.
“Technical skills may open the door, but it’s human skills like empathy and resilience that endure over time and lead to a fruitful and rewarding career,” says Matt Holland, CEO at Acuity Insights. “As AI reshapes the workforce, it has become critical for higher education to take the lead in preparing students with these skills that will define their long-term success.”
The eight critical durable skills include:
Empathy
Teamwork
Communication
Motivation
Resilience
Ethical reasoning
Problem solving
Self-awareness
These competencies don’t expire with technology–they grow stronger over time, helping graduates adapt, lead, and thrive in an AI-driven world.
The report also outlines practical strategies for institutions, including assessing non-academic skills at admissions using Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs), and shares recommendations on embedding professional skills development throughout curricula and forming partnerships that bridge AI literacy with interpersonal and ethical reasoning.
The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into the University of California at Berkeley Tuesday over violence that erupted earlier this month at protests outside an event organized by conservative group Turning Point USA.
The department said it will investigate whether UC Berkeley violated the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, a federal law that requires colleges and universities that receive federal financial aid to record and report campus crime data.
The announcement comes as UC Berkeley also faces a Department of Justice investigation into the university’s handling of the event and protests, which resulted in at least four arrests and left one person injured after being struck in the head by a thrown object. Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that promotes conservative values on high school and college campuses, was co-founded by Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot in September during a tour stop at a university in Utah.
“Just two months after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was brutally assassinated on a college campus, UC Berkeley allowed a protest of a Turning Point USA event on its grounds to turn unruly and violent, jeopardizing the safety of its students and staff,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement Tuesday.
She said the department is reviewing UC Berkeley’s procedures to ensure that it maintains campus safety and security.
“This is not about students’ First Amendment rights to protest peacefully. This is about ensuring accurate and transparent reporting of crime statistics to the campus community and guaranteeing that every student can safely participate in educational programs and activities,” McMahon said. “The department will vigorously investigate this matter to ensure that a recipient of federal funding is not allowing its students to be at risk.”
In a statement Tuesday, UC Berkeley said the university has “an unwavering commitment” to abide by the laws and will cooperate with the investigations, as well as continue to host speakers and events representing a variety of viewpoints “in a safe and respectful manner.”
The university said the campus provided public reports about two violent crimes that happened that evening — a fistfight over an attempted robbery and the person hit by a thrown object.
“The campus administration went to great lengths to support the First Amendment rights of all by deploying a large number of police officers from multiple jurisdictions and a large number of contracted private security personnel,” the university said Tuesday. “The campus also closed adjoining buildings and cordoned off part of the campus in order to prevent criminal activity, keep the peace, and ensure the event was not disrupted by protests.”
The Education Department’s office of Federal Student Aid will lead the investigation. It gave UC Berkeley 30 days to provide copies of the school’s annual security report, all incidents of crime from 2022-2024, all arrests made by law enforcement and referrals for disciplinary action against students or employees disclosed in the annual security report, daily crime logs from 2022-2025 and several other reports.
In 2020, UC Berkeley was fined $2.35 million for failing to comply with the Clery Act after a six-year federal review revealed thousands of crime incidents were misclassified — the majority of which were related to liquor, drug and weapons violations. UC Berkeley said the campus had referred students for disciplinary proceedings but wrongly classified the violations — many involving minors in possession of alcohol in residence halls — as a campus policy violation rather than a law violation, as required under the Clery Act.
The Department of Education’s investigation — started in July 2014 — also found a range of issues including failure to comply with sexual violence policies and procedures, failure to maintain accurate and complete daily crime logs, failure to disclose accurate hate crime statistics and failure to issue emergency notifications. UC Berkeley entered into a settlement agreement with the Education Department in 2020 and acknowledged that the campus had made “many administrative errors in the past,” but said it has taken aggressive steps toward improvement.
The Education Department’s investigation said the university failed to notify students of any violence until an hour after protests began to escalate — a delay the department said could have compromised community members’ safety. In a response to the department, UC Berkeley said the finding was based on an incorrect timeline of events and that it had alerted the community immediately after learning the protest had become violent.
LIA elects seven new board members from major Long Island institutions.
New members represent higher education, research, defense and accounting.
Leaders elected to help bolster economic growth and competitiveness.
LIA says new voices will support innovation and small-business success.
The Long Island Association recently elected seven new members to its Board of Directors. The new board members serve in higher education, accounting services, scientific research and defense manufacturing, bringing expertise in their fields.
These members, all from organizations that were already represented on the board, were elected to support the LIA’s mission to advance regional economic and business development.
“We are excited to welcome these accomplished and knowledgeable leaders to the LIA Board of Directors,” Lawrence Waldman, chairman of the LIA, said in a news release about the board members.
“Their leadership and industry expertise will bring fresh perspectives and help guide our mission to strengthen Long Island’s competitiveness and economic resilience,” he added.
The board members include Dr. Jerry Balentine, president of New York Institute of Technology, with a campus in Old Westbury; Damon Brady, product line director of BAE Systems, with locations in Greenlawn; Andrea Goldsmith, president of Stony Brook University; John Hill, interim director of Brookhaven National Laboratory; Craig Savell, managing principal of the New York metro region of Baker Tilly, which includes offices in Uniondale and Melville; Christopher Storm, interim president of president of Adelphi University, whose main campus is in Garden City; and Jerry Ward, office managing partner of Ernst & Young, with a location in Jericho.
The LIA’s Board of Directors comprises “a cross-section of our region’s leading industries and institutions, and these new voices will contribute to the LIA’s efforts to ensure a thriving economy,” Matt Cohen, president and chief executive of the LIA, said in the news release.
“The work of the new board members at their respective companies and organizations is critical to both the growth of our innovation economy and success of small businesses, and we look forward to having their input as we advocate for a prosperous Long Island,” he said.
When viewers first see her, Rose, a Native American woman in her 60s, is inside her second-hand shop in the town of Derry, Maine, in 1962.
She speaks with another character about the woman’s son. The scene ends with Rose staring after the woman with an unreadable expression.
The role of Rose in “It: Welcome to Derry” is more than the next acting gig for UC Riverside professor Kimberly Guerrero.
It’s another important step by a Native American actor in a Hollywood that has seen few significant Native characters in movies and TV shows.
UC Riverside professor Kimberly Guerrero portrays Rose in “It: Welcome to Derry,” an HBO Max series. (Courtesy of Brooke Palmer/HBO)
UC Riverside professor Kimberly Guerrero, left, is seen with Taylour Paige in “It: Welcome to Derry,” a new HBO Max series. (Courtesy of Brooke Palmer/HBO)
Kimberly Guerrero, a UC Riverside professor, plays Rose in “It: Welcome to Derry.” (Courtesy of Brooke Palmer/HBO)
UC Riverside professor Kimberly Guerrero attends the Los Angeles premiere of the HBO Max series “It: Welcome to Derry” at Warner Bros. Studios on Oct. 20, 2025, in Burbank. (Courtesy of Araya Doheny/Getty Images for HBO)
UC Riverside professor Kimberly Guerrero attends the Los Angeles premiere of the HBO Max series “It: Welcome to Derry” at Warner Bros. Studios on Oct. 20, 2025, in Burbank. (Courtesy of Araya Doheny/Getty Images for HBO)
Kimberly Guerrero, a UC Riverside professor, seen Aug. 3, 2023, has a role in “It: Welcome to Derry,” a series on HBO Max. (Courtesy of Stan Lim, UC Riverside)
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UC Riverside professor Kimberly Guerrero portrays Rose in “It: Welcome to Derry,” an HBO Max series. (Courtesy of Brooke Palmer/HBO)
For example, a 2023 USC study found that 1% of roles in top-grossing films over a 16-year period had Native American characters. Less than a quarter of them were speaking roles.
Guerrero said that, looking back at cinema through the decades, there was little Native representation — and what there was wasn’t written by Native Americans or directed by them.
Guerrero, an actor, screenwriter, producer, director and UCR professor of acting and screenwriting, is doing her part to change that.
Guerrero plays Rose, a reoccurring character in the HBO Max series that is a prequel to Stephen King‘s 1986 horror novel “It,” which has been translated to film.
She said it was a powerful opportunity for her to stand in Rose’s shoes.
The character has lived in her ancestral home in Maine all her life and is deeply linked to the history and songs of her people, Guerrero said.
“Somebody that is so intimately and powerfully connected to the land, to the water, to the air, to those who have gone before her and understanding her place in the world,” Guerrero said. “… There was an ease with playing her.”
At this point, viewers have seen the creature It, later known as Pennywise the Clown, a shape-shifting monster that has been on earth for millennia and feeds on humans in 27-year cycles. Rose, a member of the local tribe, is living through her third encounter with the creature.
Guerrero, born in Oklahoma in 1967, is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and of Salish-Kootenai descent, a 2023 UCR news release states.
Guerrero’s most well-known role came in the 1990s as Jerry’s Native American girlfriend on “Seinfeld.” In 2020, things changed when she played Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller in the Gloria Steinem biopic “The Glorias.” In 2021, she played Auntie B. in Reservation Dogs, a TV show about four Native American teens in Oklahoma.
Guerrero’s love of acting started well before she appeared on television. And she noticed the lack of diversity in the industry well before then as well.
As a child, a moment that stood out for Guerrero was watching “The Brady Bunch” at a time when the portrayal of her people was very much “cowboys and Indians,” she said.
In a popular story arc, the Brady family visits the Grand Canyon and meets a Native American boy, Jimmy Pocaya, played by Michele Campo, she said.
“It was just so liberating for me as a kid who didn’t really see anybody that looked like me on television,” Guerrero said.
The character was cool, she said, and talked like a normal kid. It was something she’d not seen before.
The study examined speaking or named characters in movies to understand how Native American roles were portrayed on screen. It found that less than one-quarter of 1% of all speaking roles went to Native American characters and that Native American roles did not exceed 1% of roles available in the 16 years studied.
During that time, there was one film in which a Native actor had a leading role. Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of all Native American speaking characters were inconsequential to the plot, and a third filled secondary roles, the study found.
When Native American characters did appear, more often than not they were male, at 77%. Women characters comprised 23%. In 1,581 movies of the 1,600 examined, there were no women with speaking roles. Sometimes their characters didn’t even have names.
Many shows have moved away from leaning into blatant stereotypes and characters are more well-rounded and better represented. But it is still not perfect, he said.
Shows such as “Reservation Dogs,” a 2021 comedy series “blew the lid off it” and there has been a surge in Native film companies, directors and actors in the past 10 years.
Guerrero entered the industry in the 1990s after graduating from UCLA. Coming out of college, she said casting agents didn’t know what to do with her. She filled a particular “niche” as a Native American woman.
Things had progressed and characters were given more depth when she came into the industry, Guerrero said. One huge “watershed moment” came after the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” starring and directed by Kevin Costner. The film employed Native American actors such as Graham Greene and Rodney Grant.
“There was some really cool things happening,” Guerrero said. “The Indigenous people that I was playing were really kind of fleshed-out human beings.”
Things were moving in a positive direction, she said. At the end of the 1990s, things changed.
“Then, all of a sudden, the door closed so hard, so profoundly,” Guerrero said.
Guerrero went back to school in the 2010s. She attended UCR, earned a master of fine arts and became a professor in 2017. Guerrero said a pivotal moment was the 2016 Standing Rock protests that fought against an oil pipeline through Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lands in North Dakota.
Millions of people watched the standoff in real time. Suddenly, it was not about explaining that Native people belonged in contemporary settings and that let the proverbial horse out of the barn, she said.
“I think you have a global audience that wants to see more Indigenous representation and not just, like, slotted into shows where we kind of make sense,” Guerrero said.
The Stephen King universe is influenced by Native history, Guerrero said. The author’s influence from growing up in Maine has given a foundation to many of his tales, something she said was an exciting part about being on the show.
“I think it’s a perfect time, you know, in Native American Heritage Month just to gently … kind of reflect on the world and the people and the cultures and the beautiful rich stories that were here before America was America,” Guerrero said.
“And that is part of American history.”
Episodes of “It: Welcome to Derry,” are being released on Sundays through Sunday, Dec. 14.
Incoming undergraduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill could see a tuition and fee increase beginning next year, for the first time in nearly a decade.
North Carolina State University is also proposing tuition increases for all of its students as public universities deal with expected budget cuts from North Carolina lawmakers.
The UNC board of trustees will meet this week to consider a proposal to raise tuition for resident undergraduate students by 3%, the maximum allowable under state law. The change would go into effect for the class that matriculates in 2026. Current students wouldn’t see a tuition increase.
The 3% increase would raise tuition by $211 per year at UNC. Along with a proposed $53 fee increase for a new recreation and wellness center, UNC resident undergrads would pay $9,360 in tuition and fees per year.
Resident undergraduate tuition at UNC-Chapel Hill has been flat since the fall of 2017 as it has at other public schools in the UNC System. The university is routinely ranked among the best values among public universities in the nation.
“I’m opposed to the tuition increase on in-state students,” trustee Jim Blaine told WRAL.
The proposal includes a 10% increase for non-resident tuition. If approved, nonresident undergraduates would pay $49,601 in tuition and fees. UNC would still rank behind peer institutions such as the flagship public universities in Michigan, Virginia and California. But the Increase would put UNC higher than Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and others.
The proposal wouldn’t increase tuition for graduate students, but it seeks to include increases for students in the schools of government, law and pharmacy.
The proposal includes a 7% increase for fees for residential halls and an average 3.9% increase for meal plans.
The trustees will consider the increases at Wednesday’s budget, finance and infrastructure committee. The full board meets Thursday in Chapel Hill.
If approved by the trustees, the tuition and fee rates would be submitted to the UNC System Board of Governors for review and approval early next year. The Board of Governors oversee all of the state’s public universities. But tuition decisions are made on a campus-by-campus basis.
NC State University’s board of trustees also meets Thursday and Friday, and it will consider a 3% across-the-board tuition increase on all students — undergraduate and graduate, resident and nonresident. Current resident undergrads wouldn’t be impacted. Tuition would rise by $196 per year for the incoming cohort of resident undergraduates.
The tuition increases for all students would generate an additional $7.7 million with most of the money going toward improved quality and accessibility, according to the university.
NORTH MANKATO — Beatriz Rivera wanted to do more than just survive.
As a first-generation college student attending South Central College, Rivera’s path to higher education began with her family’s journey from Mexico, where her mother left school after the third grade to work on her family ranch, before moving to the United States at age 16.
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NORTH MANKATO — Beatriz Rivera wanted to do more than just survive.
As a first-generation college student attending South Central College, Rivera’s path to higher education began with her family’s journey from Mexico, where her mother left school after the third grade to work on her family ranch, before moving to the United States at age 16.
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Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
NORTH MANKATO — Beatriz Rivera wanted to do more than just survive.
As a first-generation college student attending South Central College, Rivera’s path to higher education began with her family’s journey from Mexico, where her mother left school after the third grade to work on her family ranch, before moving to the United States at age 16.
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San Jose continues to fail to improve animal shelter services to the community.
A scathing city audit of one year ago has failed to deliver measurable results. The city still fails to provide low-cost public spay and neuter, nor is outreach to rescue groups or trap-neuter-return a priority. The San Jose animal welfare community continues to be ignored.
In response to a number of ethics complaints that I filed regarding staff who have mismanaged SJACC, I was told by a deputy city manager that the “city is experiencing increased communication and complaints from you that is distracting staff from important work.”
This “Ivory Tower” attitude of entitlement, lack of ownership and accountability by city leaders funded by taxpayer money is clearly troubling — especially given that the budget for SJACS has increased to $17.5 million while performance and services have declined.
On this last No Kings Day, we stood along El Camino Real, a few yards from an inflated brown bear holding a “Resist” sign. During our time at the curb, at least half a dozen protesters in frog costumes passed behind us.
That evening, we joined a march through downtown Palo Alto led by a penguin, under the benevolent eye of an inflated frog who bounced at the edge of each crosswalk as we passed.
Later, I realized: On the first No Kings Day in June, the left reclaimed the American flag as a symbol of our commitment to democracy. Last Saturday, we reclaimed the frog as a symbol of life and joy, a counter to the alt-right’s misappropriation of Pepe as a racist meme.
Susan Luttner Palo Alto
Students shouldn’t worry about ICE raids
It is heartbreaking to see the pain and suffering so many families are experiencing. People are forced to live in constant fear that they won’t make it home to their families after a long day of underpaid work.
Despite having worked their whole lives and being positive members of our community, they are labeled as illegal aliens and criminals. So many Latino students are faced with even more anxiety and stress as they are forced to prepare in case their parents are deported. Children who have parents who have been deported are also at risk of developing depression and not doing well academically.
Students should be able to focus on school without having to worry about themselves or their family members being deported. Immigrants pay taxes even though they are not eligible to receive any benefits. Immigrants are an essential part of our society.
Wendy Martinez San Jose
Colleges must increase mental health services
College can be one of the most exciting yet most challenging times in a young person’s life. Between academic pressure, financial stress and the transition to adulthood, many students quietly struggle with anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges. Unfortunately, on many campuses, the demand for counseling services far exceeds the number of available counselors.
Adding more counselors, peer-support programs and wellness activities such as mindfulness workshops, stress-relief events or support groups can make a real difference. These don’t just help students in crisis; they also promote emotional resilience and well-being.
No students should have to wait weeks for an appointment when they’re struggling. By expanding counseling staff and providing accessible mental health programs, colleges can show that they truly care about their students’ success — both academically and personally.
Mireya Ramirez San Jose
Speak up to stop Trump’s wrecking ball
The wrecking ball is in full swing.
Aid to starving countries from USAID is gone; convicted criminals serving their full sentence is gone; civil discourse is gone; the dignified Oval Office is gone, replaced with ostentatious gold everywhere; the East Wing of the White House is gone. The list goes on and on. Will the freedom we all cherish be next?
It’s not about America first. It’s about Donald Trump first; always has been and always will be. These are sad times for America. Only we can stop the wrecking ball. Make your voice heard and vote.
Pat Toby San Jose
Trump’s future plans bode ill for Democrats
The Trump administration, having already commenced the process of desensitizing Americans to military presence in major cities, possibly in preparation for declaring martial law in the event that other measures fail to keep them in power, is perhaps now doing the same, foreshadowing the domestic use of lethality against opponents.
They strategically selected a most unsympathetic group, “foreign drug traffickers,” labeling them as “terrorists” justifying “armed conflict” to creatively legitimize lethal attack and commence the desensitization process for making it acceptable to kill anyone they desire to label as a “terrorist” with no proffered legitimate evidence, oversight or accountability. Thus far, the president’s domestic critics have only been subject to punitive attacks by government agencies, including the Department of Justice, funding elimination and civil suits. But it is noteworthy that Stephen Miller, one of the administration’s top white supremacist henchmen, has ominously described the Democratic Party as fomenting left-wing domestic “terrorism.”
In an April 11, 2025, letter to Harvard University President Alan Garber and Harvard Corporation Lead Member Penny Pritzker, Trump administration officials from the General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education outlined terms of an agreement between the administration and the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. The multi-pronged proposal raised two major questions: Were the government’s complaints against Harvard justified? And did enforcing its demands for reform fall within federal government’s limited powers?
The Trump administration observed that the U.S. government “has invested in” Harvard because the nation benefits from the university’s “scholarly discovery and academic excellence.” However, the letter stressed, “an investment is not an entitlement.” Because “Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment,” the administration requested the university to undertake substantial reforms or lose federal funding.
In particular, the April 11 letter called on Harvard to practice merit-based hiring and admissions; recruit and admit international students committed to America’s founding principles and constitutional traditions; stop university programs and faculty from promulgating antisemitism; discontinue diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI); enforce student-discipline policies; establish reliable whistle-blower reporting and protection procedures; and create institutional mechanisms to facilitate transparent cooperation with the government.
The Trump administration’s most controversial demand involved steps to enhance “viewpoint diversity” throughout Harvard. “By August 2025,” the administration’s letter specified, “the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.” Guided by the audit’s findings, the government would require Harvard to eliminate “ideological litmus tests” in admissions and hiring, and to achieve viewpoint diversity in the university’s departments, fields, and teaching units.
Critics accused the Trump administration of overreaching. Even distinguished conservatives who advocate viewpoint diversity objected on free-speech and limited-government grounds to the intrusive oversight that the Trump administration sought over the mix of opinions and perspectives at Harvard.
In “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity,” published this fall in Academe (the quarterly magazine of the American Association of University Professors), Lisa Siraganian adopted a strikingly different criticism of the Trump administration. Her criticism was also surprising coming from a chair in humanities and professor in the department of comparative thought and literature at Johns Hopkins University, and JHU-AAUP chapter president.
Siraganian neither maintains that universities already adequately feature viewpoint diversity nor does she press the case that the Trump administration overstepped constitutional and statutory boundaries by endeavoring to supervise viewpoint diversity on campus. Rather, she argues that viewpoint diversity is undesirable in higher education because it conflicts with the university’s mission.
Siraganian anticipates that friends of viewpoint diversity will invoke John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” to counter her rejection of viewpoint diversity “in any of its guises.” In his 19th-century classic, Mill offers deft observations about human fallibility and corrigibility and adduces seminal historical examples of the persecution of heterodox figures. These inform his argument that the encounter with competing opinions advances the quest for knowledge because “very few have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial” to progress in understanding without testing their views against those who think differently.
Despite repudiating wholesale the case for cherishing diverse opinions – Mill himself emphasizes dissenting opinions – Siraganian, with a touch of bravado, appeals to the professed Millian dispositions of viewpoint-diversity’s defenders. They, she asserts, “should be open to responding to and refuting” her seven theses. Accordingly, she challenges those who disagree with her “to defend their convictions openly, fearlessly, and logically.”
Challenge accepted.
Siraganian’s first thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity functions in direct opposition to the pursuit of truth, the principal aim of academia.” Citing the playful literary scholar Stanley Fish, she contends in all seriousness that “the pursuit of truth and the value of different opinions” not only “do not work together seamlessly,” which is true, but also that “they are directly opposed,” which is mistaken. Yes, as Siraganian notes, the science is largely settled – at least for now – on DNA structure. Then again, the contentious debates about viewpoint diversity do not generally concern elementary aspects of the natural sciences but rather usually revolve around the humanities and social sciences. And that’s for good reason. Like the natural sciences, the humanities and social sciences rest on and discover facts. But the natural sciences are decidedly closer to mathematics, in which, as Mill in “On Liberty” observes, “there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question.” In contrast, as the great English liberal explains at length, in ethics, politics, and religion there is typically much to be said on the many sides of their hard and enduring questions.
Siraganian’s second thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity can work only as an instrumental value.” She’s right that viewpoint diversity serves as a means to an end. That, however, is no more an argument against viewpoint diversity than it is an argument against valuing the learning of Greek as instrumental to understanding Plato. She further objects that viewpoint diversity is summoned in support of two competing university goals – seeking truth and forming good citizens. The former depends on acquisition of technical knowledge and questioning ruthlessly, while the latter, in the United States, involves gaining an appreciation of, and cultivating the virtues that support, freedom, democracy, and American constitutional government. Yet far from undermining the claims of viewpoint diversity, its importance to both seeking truth and forming good citizens underscores viewpoint diversity’s versatility and doubles its value.
Siraganian’s third thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity assumes a partisan goal based on unproven assumptions.” Contrary to her insouciant assurances that there is little or no reason to suppose that universities have excluded conservative scholars and ideas – and notwithstanding her sly insinuation that conservatism amounts to QAnon – evidence abounds of such exclusion and of the damage it has done to scholarship and teaching. For example, in 2024 in “Beyond Academic Sectarianism,” Siraganian’s Johns Hopkins University colleague, political scientist Steven Teles, examined how the paucity of conservatives scholars has resulted in the decline of scholarship and teaching in vital topics that progressives tend to neglect and disparage. These include American political ideas and institutions, and diplomatic, military, and religious history. A 2024 Foundation on Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) survey provides additional evidence that universities have constructed censorious progressive monocultures. And a July 2025 working paper by professors Jon A. Shields, Yuval Avner, and Stephanie Muravchik demonstrates the drastic left-wing slant of college syllabi on contentious issues. Two of the coauthors discussed their findings in an August Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Evidence Backs Trump on High-Ed’s Bias.”
Siraganian’s fourth thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity undermines disciplinary and specialized knowledge and standards as well as the autonomy of academic reasoning and scholarship.” She again observes that debate has ended about DNA structure. But inquiry into and arguments about human nature, justice, virtue, regimes, citizenship, friendship, romantic love, family, the soul, and God differ from inquiry into and arguments about molecules. That’s in part because molecules do not have opinions, much less divergent opinions about good and bad, right and wrong, noble and base.
Siraganian’s fifth thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity is incoherent.” This, though, does not follow from the key observation she offers in support of the thesis. She rightly maintains that background assumptions about what constitutes a sound argument and a well-ordered university limit the range of viewpoint diversity on campus. To identify an idea’s or a practice’s limitations, however, does not to refute it but rather clarifies it.
Siraganian’s sixth thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity has already been used, both in the United States and abroad, to attack higher education and stifle academic freedom.” On occasion it has. But on occasion science has been used to justify eugenics, enlightenment has been invoked to subjugate peoples, and tenured professors have been known to enforce ideological conformity on students and untenured faculty. Abuses of science, enlightenment, and academic authority discredit the abuser, not the thing abused.
Siraganian’s seventh thesis states, “Viewpoint diversity is an argument made in bad faith.” Sometimes it is. But Siraganian ignores or suppresses the substantial evidence that universities ignore or suppress empirical data, rational arguments, and research paradigms that conflict with – and stymie and shun scholars who depart from – progressive pieties. This represents a failure of scholarly inquiry and moral imagination on her part, and a betrayal of what she herself regards as the university’s principal mission, which is pursuit of the truth.
Siraganian could have avoided these numerous miscues of reason and rhetoric by studying the arguments on the other side of the question. If she had had better opportunities to run her categorical pronouncements by colleagues – in her department, university, and disciplines – with perspectives that differ from her own, perhaps she might have discovered the weaknesses afflicting her opinions and the strengths contained in theirs.
What goes for the attack on viewpoint diversity goes also for its promotion.
The Trump administration would do well in its justified efforts to encourage viewpoint diversity on campus to consider views on the other side of the question, particularly arguments concerning the federal government’s limited role in managing opinions and perspectives at the nation’s wayward universities.
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter. His new book is “Explaining Israel: The Jewish State, the Middle East, and America.”
Cupertino’s De Anza College in Cupertino has been named a Pathway Champion for 2025 for its efforts in ensuring that students are on the path to transfer to a four-year university.
The Campaign for College Opportunity, a statewide research and advocacy group, awarded De Anza top rankings among California community colleges for student success in completing transfer-level math and English in academic year 2023-24. De Anza ranked third in the state for students completing transfer-level math (78.8%) within one year. The community college also ranked second in the state for Black students completing transfer-level English within one year of enrolling in their courses (82.6%).
De Anza earned similar recognition from the group in 2024, when it ranked second statewide in two categories for the 2022-23 academic year: students completing transfer-level math within one year (81.4%) and students completing transfer-level English within one year (81.2%).
The nonprofit compiles the rankings to recognize community colleges that are helping students reach their goals through “equitable course placement practices,” following the passage of state legislation in 2018 requiring community colleges to move away from traditional placement methods that led many students to spend time in remedial courses before they could take transfer-level math and English.
In response to that legislation, De Anza developed new assessment practices, curriculum and other services that support students in completing those college-level courses.
Tavern Talk
The Cupertino Historical Society and Museum is holding its next Tavern Talk on Nov. 12, 6-8 p.m., at Florentine’s Trattoria to celebrate the restaurant’s 61st anniversary and talk about its first location in Cupertino.
Florentine’s Trattoria is now located at 14510 Big Basin Way #11 in Saratoga. Tavern Talk tickets are $25 at http://bit.ly/4nlzcbg.
LOWELL — U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 national rankings of top colleges and universities again this year give high marks to UMass Lowell for the education and economic value it provides to students.
The media outlet, best known for consumer advice and news analysis, places UMass Lowell at No. 11 in Massachusetts for its “Best Colleges” ranking of higher-educational institutions defined as national universities. Such institutions offer a full range of undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs and produce groundbreaking research.
U.S. News also lists UMass Lowell as the No. 1 “best value school” in the Bay State and No. 92 in the country, up 105 spots from last year.
“UMass Lowell delivers a world-class education that is accessible and affordable while helping students succeed today and throughout their careers. We’re proud to be No. 1 among ‘best value schools’ in Massachusetts and No. 92 in the U.S. — rankings that reflect our strong return on investment and emphasis on career-connected experience,” said UMass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen.
The rankings come just months after UMass Lowell was named a Carnegie Research 1 university, a prestigious designation used to identify the nation’s top research institutions.
In acknowledging the university’s leadership in scholarship and economic value, the rankings also reflect UMass Lowell’s commitment to the region’s economic vitality through the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor. Now underway, the initiative envisions a 1.2-million square-foot mixed-use development on and beyond UMass Lowell’s campus that includes offices and research labs, housing, retail businesses and entertainment destinations. The ecosystem is providing UMass Lowell students with paid career experiences at LINC member organizations.
For its 2026 assessments, U.S. News & World Report evaluated nearly 1,700 higher-education institutions. To determine UMass Lowell’s place on the Best Colleges list, the media outlet used 17 key measures of academic quality including student retention and graduation rates, financial resources provided per student, faculty to student ratio, number of full-time faculty and amount of published research.
To determine the “best value” ranking, the outlet additionally examined the 2024-2025 net cost of attendance for an out-of-state student who received the average level of need-based scholarship or grant aid. The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal. Only schools ranked in or near the top half of their categories are included, as U.S. News considers the most significant values to be among colleges that are above average academically, according to the media outlet.
A Los Angeles jury has awarded $6 million to a former Cal State San Bernardino administrator who alleged she was subjected to “severe or pervasive” gender harassment that her attorneys claim is systemic across the Cal State system.
Attorney Courtney Abrams, who represented Anissa Rogers, the former associate dean at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus, said in a statement that the jury award Monday, Oct. 20, represented “a resounding rejection of CSU’s long-running denials of gender bias within its ranks.”
“Dr. Rogers stood up not only for herself, but also the other women who have been subjected to gender-based double-standards within the Cal State system,” Abrams said following the three-week trial before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter.
Problem ‘systemic’
Rogers and Clare Weber, the former vice provost at the Palm Desert campus, sued Cal State San Bernardino President Tomas Morales, Jake Zhu, the former dean of the Palm Desert campus, and the Board of Trustees of the California State University system, which comprises 23 campuses statewide and is the largest four-year public university system in the United States, employing nearly 56,000 faculty and staff.
DAVID BAUMAN — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cal State San Bernardino President Tomas Morales, on Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2016.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2023, alleged a pattern and practice of discrimination and sexual harassment against female employees in the CSU system in violation of the state’s Equal Pay Act. Rogers and Weber claim they were either forced to resign or fired for speaking out against mistreatment of and pay disparity for female employees.
“This case exposed what women inside Cal State have been saying for years: the mistreatment of women within the Cal State system is not just a series of one-off incidents; the problem is systemic and structural,” said Andrew Friedman of Helmer Friedman, an attorney who represented Rogers in the lawsuit.
In an email Tuesday, Oct. 21, CSUSB spokesman Alan Llavore said: “We were disappointed by the verdict reached by the jury (Monday) morning, and we will be reviewing our options to assess next steps.” He declined further comment.
Officials at the California State University Office of the Chancellor in Long Beach also declined to comment.
Forced out
Rogers, who was hired as associate dean at the Palm Desert campus in August 2019, alleged in the lawsuit that on Oct. 15, 2021, she fielded multiple complaints from female employees who attended a “coffee with the dean” meeting Zhu hosted in which two male department heads berated a female administrator for about a half-hour. Zhu allegedly witnessed the conduct but did nothing.
Rogers confronted Zhu about what happened the same day after hearing about it from the other employees who attended the meeting. Zhu, according to the lawsuit, subsequently targeted Rogers for termination, pretextually complaining about vacation time she took and for attending an event at her daughter’s college that he initially approved.
On Jan. 1, 2022, Rogers, according to the lawsuit, was “constructively terminated” when she was forced to resign her position.
Evidence presented at trial showed that in addition to Rogers, several other current and former CSUSB employees brought forth complaints that Zhu treated women worse than men, but neither the university’s human resources department nor its Title IX offices ever launched an investigation into the allegations, said David deRubertis of The deRubertis Law Firm in Studio City, who served as the lead trial attorney for Rogers.
Weber alleges in the lawsuit that she wrote to Morales in July 2022 raising concerns that female vice provosts at the university were being paid less than their male counterparts. She said she was one of the lowest paid vice provosts in the CSU system, despite her large assignment portfolio. She called the alleged practice “highly offensive, totally discriminatory, and retaliatory.”
Weber, according to the lawsuit, asked Morales to put an end to the alleged practice and requested an investigation into her concerns. The next day she was fired.
Zhu retires
Two months after Rogers and Weber filed their lawsuit, CSUSB announced Zhu was retiring, commending him for, among other things, being “instrumental in moving the Palm Desert campus forward” and growing the campus to meet the needs of students in the Coachella Valley.
Zhu testified during trial that his retirement was unrelated to the lawsuit, and that he wanted to take care of his ailing mother and spend more time with his children, who were getting older, deRubertis said.
He said evidence at trial showed that allegations of female employee mistreatment by Zhu were brought up during a faculty meeting at the Palm Desert campus on Sept. 20, 2022, and that CSUSB Provost Rafik Mohamed and Morales already were planning to replace him due to so-called “leadership issues” before Zhu decided to retire.
Problems ignored
DeRubertis argued during trial that the gender-based mistreatment of Rogers was “an inevitable result” after CSUSB ignored a climate survey suggesting a culture of fear, intimidation, gender-based mistreatment and bullying at the university. The survey recommended that the university adopt an anti-bullying policy and an audit of HR practices and policies.
Morales acknowledged during trial that neither recommendation was implemented, deRubertis said.
The no-confidence vote and faculty senate resolution was a point of contention in the lawsuit, which described the resolution as “scathing.” It noted that within there years of Morales’ appointment as university president, 89% of the faculty, staff and administrators who were surveyed reported that the climate had become worse, and that Morales had failed to implement the bulk of the recommended changes.
“President Morales continues to be unwilling to acknowledge the severity of the problems of fear and distrust among employees,” according to the lawsuit.
Weber’s case, which was separated from Rogers’ case at trial, is expected to go to a jury next year.
JACKSON, Miss., October 21, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) Honor Society and the Phi Theta Kappa Foundation are pleased to announce the appointment of Amanda Karpinski Gorman as its new Executive Director following a national search. A proud PTK alumna and former International President, Karpinski Gorman brings her deep connection to the organization and passion for empowering community college students like her to this leadership role.
Karpinski Gorman’s journey with Phi Theta Kappa began at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, where she experienced firsthand the transformational power of PTK’s mission.
“As a Phi Theta Kappa alum, I know firsthand how life-changing this organization can be,” Karpinski Gorman said. “PTK gave me more than a scholarship-it gave me confidence, community, and a sense of purpose that continues to guide me today. Now, I have the incredible responsibility and privilege of helping provide those same opportunities to the next generation of scholars and leaders.”
After completing her associate degree, Karpinski Gorman earned an undergraduate degree in English and a Master’s in Public Administration from Rutgers University. She is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at Mississippi State University, centered around Community College Leadership.
Karpinski Gorman has served PTK in numerous capacities over the years, including International President and Student Representative to the Board of Directors, where she helped implement the organization’s first constitutional update in more than a century. Karpinski Gorman later served as the Alumni Representative on the Phi Theta Kappa Board of Directors. Most recently, she has led the Foundation as Interim Executive Director, strengthening individual and corporate giving, and donor engagement that expand scholarships, programs and student support.
Prior to joining the PTK Foundation, Amanda served in key roles across New Jersey, including as Commissioner Aide to Bergen County Commissioner Mary Amoroso, Regional Political Director for Governor Phil Murphy’s re-election campaign, Chief of Staff to Assemblywoman Shama Haider, and Public Information Officer for the Bergen County Executive’s Office.
As Executive Director, Karpinski Gorman will lead the Foundation’s efforts to grow philanthropic partnerships and ensure that PTK members have access to the same life-changing opportunities that she had. Her vision centers on empowering alumni, elevating the impact of giving, and expanding the Foundation’s reach to benefit even more students worldwide.
“I have had the privilege of working alongside Amanda for the past decade,” said PTK President and CEO, Dr. Lynn Tincher-Ladner. “She is a remarkable example of PTK’s mission in action. Amanda’s energy, authenticity, and deep understanding of the PTK experience make her the perfect leader to guide the Foundation into its next chapter.”
Karpinski Gorman lives in New Jersey with her husband, Conor, and their dog, Sadie.
About Phi Theta Kappa
Phi Theta Kappa is the first national honor society recognizing the academic achievement of students at associate degree-granting colleges and helping them to grow as scholars and leaders. Recognized by the American Association of Community Colleges as the official honor society for two-year colleges, PTK is made up of more than 4.4 million members and nearly 1,250 chapters in 11 countries, with approximately 220,000 active members in the nation’s colleges. Learn more at ptk.org.
