Presidential Opinion

Patricia McGuire, President, Trinity Washington University writes: Ironically, the faith leaders were there because of their claims to “pro life” leadership. They hailed the nomination of Judge Barrett as their great victory at the intersection of politics and religion. Their behavior was the opposite of favoring life, however, as their flouting of public-health rules invited infection. Pastors going maskless on Saturday can hardly preach about the sanctity of life on Sunday.

Walter Kimbrough, President, Dillard University writes: While a number of scholars and pundits strongly disagreed with campuses that planned to open in the fall, some institutions had populations who needed to be on campus, and for some students, even in a pandemic, being on campus was safer than being at home. For Dillard, 85% of our students who participated in a UNCF survey on fall 2020 opening indicated they wanted some ability to have an on-campus experience. Their answers to open-ended questions, and their direct appeals via email, made our planning easy. We had to open.

Paul Pribbenow, President, Augsburg University writes: As the traditional academic year begins, colleges and universities are in the news (“K-12 school guidance darkens as college students bring more coronavirus cases,” Pioneer Press, Sept. 10). And the news is not good, full of dire warnings about student behavior, online learning, unhappy faculty and staff. In fact, the news and public opinion about higher education seems to foretell failure in the midst of this pandemic.

In this conversation, Michael J. Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, in Texas, and Sarah Brown, a senior reporter at The Chronicle, were joined by several scholars and administrators, including Kennedy, to discuss how the national reckoning over racial injustice intersects with academic life. The discussion also covered how higher ed’s structural problems can harm Black professors and communities, and how colleges can diversify their faculties. Fred A. Bonner II, author of a 2004 Chronicle Review article on the experience of Black faculty members at predominantly white institutions, is a professor of educational leadership and counseling at Prairie View A&M University. Darrick Hamilton is a professor of economics and urban policy and director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Stratification, and Political Economy at the New School. Tracey E. Hucks, a scholar of Africana studies, is provost and dean of the faculty at Colgate University. And Marcia Chatelain, who recently wrote in The Chronicle Review about how colleges have co-opted Black students’ protests, is a professor of history at Georgetown University.

Margee Ensign, President, Dickinson College writes: As president of one of the first colleges in the U.S. to announce a remote fall semester, I’ve been asked by many — students, parents, faculty, alumni, media: How did we come to that difficult decision, and why?