Success in Our New Realities: DEI in Universities

1951 American Legion Magazine cover

A magazine cover from the McCarthy era (Source: Sarah Lawrence archives)

Since the takeover of the new administration in the US, on January 20th, many institutions, including businesses, government offices, and universities have removed DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and ESG (environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and corporate governance), from their websites, mission statements, and declared objectives. This blog is focused on DEI in universities; next week’s blog will be focused on ESG in businesses. Both will have a major impact on our collective future.

Last week’s blog argued that using growth as the only indicator of success and failure is problematic on many levels. The government should be focused on trying to create a better future for all it governs. The emphasis in last week’s blog was on growth and DEI in the current global environment where the demographic makeup in many countries is shifting. It was proposed that growth/capita might be a better indicator than GDP.

DEI, which is now the target of hostility and division, is more complex—whether in a business, government, or university setting. Many pursue it and fight for it because it is the right thing to do. Others say that such a pursuit is detrimental to the basic mission of any institution: curbing future growth for businesses, limiting students’ preparation for a successful postgraduate future, and hampering individual and collective safety.

Meanwhile, President Trump wants to dismantle the federal Department of Education:

The Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would kick off the process of eliminating the Department of Education, the latest move by President Donald Trump to swiftly carry out his campaign promises, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

The move would come in two parts, the sources said. The order would direct the secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action.

Trump would also push for Congress to pass legislation to end the department, as those working on the order acknowledge that shuttering the department would require Congress’ involvement.

This would be a milestone in abolishing the federal nature of the US. However, on this issue, the Constitution will probably not act as a savior:

Defining a Federal Right to Education

Much ink and many hours of court cases have been dedicated to defining, clarifying, and debating the particulars of current Constitutional guarantees, such as the rights to speak freely, bear arms, receiving due process, etc. However, even among legal experts, there’s no singular definition for the idea of a “federal right to education.” To summarize some of the past court cases and movements advocating for it, we might define a federal right to education as:

The right of all American children to a high-quality, equal education regardless of race, income, location, etc., guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution

As of 2021, the U.S. Constitution and its amendments do not specifically mention education, which is why (per the Tenth Amendment) the states are in charge of providing and regulating schooling. A federal right to education could be added to the Constitution via ratifying a new amendment. However, most attempts at enshrining this right have come through the court system.

The most notable court case regarding a federal right to education came about in 1973, when a suit out of Texas made its way to the Supreme Court. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez(Open Link in new tab), parents from the low-income, predominately Hispanic Edgewood district argued that it was discriminatory for their schools to receive only $37 per pupil while the wealthier Alamo Heights neighborhood received $413 per student. A three-judge panel in Texas agreed with the parents and went a step further by calling education a fundamental right, citing the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, when the State of Texas appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices delivered a 5–4 decision overturning the Texas judges’ words. The majority opinion asserted that Texas had not violated its constitution and that education is not a fundamental right.

The anti-DEI push and idea of abolishing the federal role in education trigger many (post-WWII generations) memories of the McCarthy era:

Is repression on campuses today worse than during McCarthyism? It’s a claim that’s increasingly made, on both the right and the left. Samuel Abrams, a Sarah Lawrence professor and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently concluded that “intellectual life today on campus is worse than the McCarthy era,” an assessment that was promptly echoed by a New York Sun headline.

Liberals have likewise argued that there is a “new campus McCarthyism” caused by conservative forces. Historian Ellen Schrecker, the foremost expert on academic freedom during McCarthyism and author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (1986), invoked the McCarthy analogy in response to recent right-wing attacks on academe: “It’s worse than McCarthyism. The red scare of the 1950s marginalized dissent and chilled the nation’s campuses, but it did not interfere with such matters as curriculum or classroom teaching.”

However, some research is being done that suggests DEI (in hiring faculty and staff, for instance) is compatible with the basic mission of universities to educate students. Research shows that students learn better from people who look like them:

Studies show that students do, indeed, benefit from teachers who look like them. Black students who have even one black teacher by third grade are 13 percent more likely to enroll in college, according to research from Johns Hopkins University and American University. These same researchers also found that the positive “role model effect” of having a teacher who looks like you was especially beneficial for low-income young Black men, who are 39 percent less likely to dropout of high school if they had at least one black teacher in elementary school. Other research has found that students also benefit from attending schools led by principals of color.

Students are universities’ clients. The inclusion of DEI in managing learning institutions is compatible with the basic mission of universities. Next week’s blog will expand this same argument to businesses keeping ESG.

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Success and Failure in the New Realities: Targeted Growth, DEI, and the Future

Field of sunflowers with quote "Growth is the only evidence of life. The opposite is true too. Stagnation is the first step to your grave" - John O'Leary(Source: quotefancy)

The three targets mentioned in the title have great deal in common. One of the common attributes is that all three are targets of our new administration. This blog will address growth and DEI; next week’s blog will address the future and the roles that these elements play in academic environments.

Growth

As the caption in the photo above suggests, sunflowers must either grow or die. We are better and therefore have more options!

John Cochrane’s thesis from the 2016 election, that growth is the solution for all our ills, has some issues:

Just in the past few months, we’ve looked at problems like retirement, energy pricespolitical chaos, zero interest ratesnegative interest ratesChina’s economyterrorismunemploymentinflationpensions, healthcarerefugees, and the Federal Reserve.

Whew—so many problems. There’s, however, a single solution to all of them, and it’s called growth.

John Cochrane, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote a paper on economic growth last year [2015] as part of a project to design presidential debate questions. Sadly, the candidates chose to talk about other issues such as finger length and personal energy levels, but Cochrane’s paper is still useful.

John Cochrane is not alone. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase Manhattan, in an interview with CNBC, could be heard repeating “growth is the only solution” for every question thrown at him. For a world with a constantly growing population and matching growth in resources (including land), they might be right. For our planet, they are not. We have finite resources (including land). We must be smarter than the sunflowers at the top of this blog. Let’s focus on Jamie Dimon’s territory, Chase Manhattan, a branch of the largest bank in the US. I am a Chase client. In addition to having a simple checking account and a savings account, they are also investing some of my money in markets for growth. When they invest my money, they create a risk profile for me to figure out the risk/reward that I will be comfortable with. If growth is the only criterion for success, however, I am not aware of a similar document that is instituted on a company level.

Below is an AI (through Google) description of Chase’s compensation profile and that of Jamie Dimon:

JPMorgan Chase’s compensation policy for executives includes a base salary, incentives, and long-term incentive awards. The Compensation & Management Development Committee evaluates executives and determines their compensation. The Board of Directors then ratifies the compensation.

Compensation components

        • Base salary: The annual salary paid to an executive
        • Incentives: Performance-based compensation, such as bonuses and stock options
        • Long-term incentive awards: Stock options, grants, and other awards that are intended to align the interests of executives with shareholders

Compensation process

  1. The Compensation & Management Development Committee approves compensation goals and objectives
  2. The committee evaluates executives based on those goals and objectives
  3. The committee determines compensation for executives
  4. The Board of Directors ratifies the compensation

Compensation examples

        • In 2024, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s compensation was $39 million, which included a $1.5 million base salary and $37.5 million in incentives.
        • Other senior executives at JPMorgan Chase saw their compensation increase by 4–21% in 2024.

It is basically assumed that the part of the compensation aligned with shareholders is the growth of the stock.

Chase is in the category of a “too big to fail” bank. Here is how AI defines that:

The “too big to fail” (TBTF) policy is a theory that some financial institutions are so large and interconnected that their failure would be disastrous for the economy. The policy suggests that the government should support these institutions if they face potential failure.

The government regulates the finances of such banks to try to prevent such catastrophic failures. Our government is now declaring that our society is over-regulated. It remains to be seen what will happen to TBTF institutions.

Economic growth is today’s yardstick for the success or failure of governments. In democratic countries, voters are translating their countries’ economic growth into their personal well-being. It will be interesting to see how this translation works as the global population shrinks. The population pyramids are shifting to show a larger percentage of older people, who need an increasing amount of support. Most of the developed world is now in this situation. Changing the criteria for economic success to growth per capita (GDP/capita) rather than overall GDP will not completely solve the problem of measuring accurately but it will be a step in the right direction.

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)

DEI is now directly under attack by the new US government. The stated reasoning for the attack, which resonates with many, is that policies should not be racialized. The thought is that economic gains, in terms of employment and salaries, are zero-sum activities (normalized to growth) and advantages to some translate into disadvantages to others. The argument is that such distributions of advantage should not be based on race. However, DEI is not limited to the economic sphere; a significant element has to do with education. Five days after President Trump’s inauguration, the following story was published:

Trump’s anti-DEI order yanks Air Force video on first Black pilots

WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s order halting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has led the Air Force to suspend course instruction on a documentary about the first Black airmen in the U.S. military, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, a U.S. official said on Saturday.

The famed Black aviators included 450 pilots who fought overseas in segregated units during World War Two. Their success in combat helped pave the way for President Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces in 1948.

About a day later, the following piece was published in the NYT by David French: 

How a German Thinker Explains MAGA Morality

There’s a difference, however, between yielding to temptation and developing an alternative morality. And what we’ve been witnessing in the last decade is millions of Americans constructing a different moral superstructure. And while it is certainly notable and powerful in Trumpism, it is not exclusive to Trumpism.

A good way to understand this terrible political morality is to read Carl Schmitt, a German political theorist who joined the Nazi Party after Hitler became chancellor. I want to be careful here — I am not arguing that millions of Americans are suddenly Schmittians, acolytes of one of the fascist regime’s favorite political theorists. The vast majority of Americans have no idea who he is. Nor would they accept all of his ideas.

Not many Americans know who Carl Schmitt was, but many Americans have heard about the reception that Jesse Owens got in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Three years after 1936, the Germans invaded Poland, the Holocaust started, most of my family was murdered, and I was moved to Bergen-Belsen with some of my remaining family. The total global number of casualties exceeded 50 million.

A day after David French published his piece on Carl Schmitt, another piece was published in the NYT on the activities of Elon Musk in Germany:

Musk Says Germany Has ‘Too Much of a Focus on Past Guilt’

Elon Musk told a gathering of the hard-right Alternative for Germany party this weekend that the country has “too much of a focus on past guilt,” an apparent effort to wipe away the long shadow of the Nazis that has influenced generations of Germans to quarantine extreme political parties from public life.

“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything” Mr. Musk said in a short video that was broadcast to thousands of party members in the eastern city of Halle.

Halle is about 110 miles (179km) from Bergen-Belsen. In two months, I will be traveling to this “neighborhood” to celebrate the liberation of the camp by the British army and my liberation by the American army.

A few days later, another piece published by the NYT announced more recent anti-DEI activity:

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump signed two executive orders. One was a 2,400-word behemoth focused mainly on race, gender and American history. It seeks to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities or teaching about concepts such as structural racism, “white privilege” and “unconscious bias,” by threatening their federal funding.

The order also promotes “patriotic” education that depicts the American founding as “unifying, inspiring and ennobling” while explaining how the United States “has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.”

Below are the states in the US that require Holocaust Studies (again, AI):

Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin.

I talked about my family experiences in the Holocaust in four of these states (and more that are not listed). For me, a policy that allows talks about the Holocaust but not talks about “structural racism,” “white [or Aryan] privilege,” or “unconscious bias” is more than problematic.

In the next blog, I will try to tie the concepts of growth, DEI, and the future to the function of higher ed and preparing students for future functionalities. We will see that university campuses are a much more functional environment to integrate these themes than Chase bank, which I have explored here. The proper way to explore businesses in this context is to include ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) in the discussion.

Stay tuned!

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Cherry Picking of Future Realities

(Source: 11trees)

A week or so ago (Sunday, January 19th), a day before President Trump’s inauguration, I woke up, ate my breakfast, opened my daily paper, and was immediately exposed to major changes in ongoing global events:

  • the inauguration
  • the start of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with the release of three young hostages who were captured on October 7, 2023
  • the shutting down of TikTok, followed by its almost immediate return
  • the prediction of a large snow storm (around 5”) where I live (NYC), which resulted in a much lower level (1 – 2”)
  • the approach of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (yesterday, Monday, January 27th)

Save for the fluctuations in the snow and TikTok, which I do not use, I have a direct or indirect stake in all of these events, and I care very much about the reality that they represent. Every aspect of the realities that I mentioned is complex and is being addressed by many. But one can take a bird’s eye view and address the connections in terms of “good for us” or “bad for us.” Two articles in the opinion section of the NYT are good examples of this approach.

Cherry picking was addressed before on this blog (see September 17, 2019, and January 19, 2022); however, these blogs were much narrower in scope. This time, a week after the inauguration, the concept is much more consequential. Cherry picking can often be beneficial, especially when it is followed by actions that amplify the “good” parts and try to decrease the “bad” parts. One example of “good” would be negative energy pricing models. They are good for energy consumers but not so good for energy producers, so they cannot last. They amplify the need to improve the grid in a way that will facilitate the transportation of excess energy to places where the high energy demand makes it too expensive. An example of the “bad” part would be President Trump’s call to “drill baby, drill” on the same day that he was traveling to California to see the impacts of the deadly fires in LA and a day after he traveled to North Carolina to inspect the recent flood there. Both trips took place with the full knowledge that climate change strongly amplified the impacts of the two events. There is also no scientific debate that the fossil fuels he wants to drill for are responsible for human-caused climate change.

Below are my takes on the NYT opinion pieces representative of the “good” and “bad” that I was exposed to that Sunday:

The “bad” for us – Ezra Klein:

Now Is the Time of Monsters

Donald Trump is returning, artificial intelligence is maturing, the planet is warming, and the global fertility rate is collapsing.

To look at any of these stories in isolation is to miss what they collectively represent: the unsteady, unpredictable emergence of a different world. Much that we took for granted over the last 50 years — from the climate to birthrates to political institutions — is breaking down; movements and technologies that seek to upend the next 50 years are breaking through.

If somebody is referring to reality in terms of “monsters,” there shouldn’t be any doubt about his opinion about the reality that he is describing.

I wrote about elements of three of his “monsters” last summer (August 20, 2024) in my post “The Olympics in Terms of Global Trends”:

The 5 trends include computer access, electricity access, fertility, carbon emissions, and estimated number of nuclear warheads. All five trends are anthropogenic (generated by us humans). All five have a major impact on our lives and all of them started in my lifetime. Each trend has a set of complex impacts, with both destructive and positive potential. The impact they have on our lives is projected to increase.

As we can see, there are some differences between Klein’s “monsters” and my trends. Klein also misses the biggest monster on my list: the threat of nuclear war. This threat has recently been voiced by Russia more often than ever. Maps of US vulnerabilities to such attacks have also been shown regularly. Another trend on my list that is missing from Klein’s list is that of accelerated global electrification, without which the AI “monster” mentioned by Klein could not have come about. In my list of the trends that are mentioned by Klein, AI is just an important consequence of global digitization, whose benefits and harms are much more nuanced and balanced than just AI.

The “good” for us opinion in the NYT came with an apology that the author, Nicholas Kristof, cannot currently see much good in his surrounding reality. This is quoted below:

Even This Year Is the Best Time Ever to Be Alive

Around the beginning of each year, I customarily write a column about how we’ve just had the “best year ever” in the long history of humanity.

This annual eruption of exuberance outrages some readers who see it as disrespectful of all the tragedies around us. Others welcome it as a reminder that even in our messed-up world, many trends are still going right.

So this year I heard from readers asking: Where’s your “best year ever” column?

To be honest, I didn’t have the heart to write it. I was dispirited by the suffering of children in Gaza, by the atrocities and famine in Sudan, by the wildfires in Los Angeles and what they portend and by a December trip to Madagascar, where I saw toddlers starving because of a drought probably exacerbated by climate change. And then a felon I consider unstable and a threat to democracy is about to move into the White House.

Yet, just as some readers wanted reassurance, so did I. Precisely because I felt blue, I wanted to read a column putting grim news in perspective. It has become apparent that the only way I am going to read such a column is if I write it first — so here goes.

However, Kristof does manage to find some positives from last year. He lists a few things, of which I am quoting 4:

        • And 2024 appears to have been the year in which the smallest percentage of children died since the dawn of humanity.
        • Likewise, consider extreme poverty, defined as having less than $2.15 per day, adjusted for inflation. Historically, most human beings lived in extreme poverty, but the share has been plummeting— and in 2024 reached a new low of about 8.5 percent of the world’s people.
        • Now we’re approaching 90 percent literacy worldwide, and the number of literate people is rising by more than 12 million each year. Every three seconds, another person becomes literate.
        • Scientists have newly developed the first antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia in decades, and a vaccine against a form of breast cancer may enter Phase 2 trials this year. And with semaglutide medications, Americans are now becoming thinner, on average, each year rather than fatter, with far-reaching health consequences.

The title of Kristof’s piece needs to be directly compared with the aspiration of our newly re-elected president, who attracted many of us with the promise to “Make America Great Again”  (MAGA). There is no exact reference for the time we would be returning to “again.”

Trump has used President William McKinley’s administration (1897-1901) as a marker  in some examples and even suggested that the tallest mountain in the US (Alaska), whose name reverted to its local Denali in 1975, should again bear McKinley’s name.

As it happens, Netflix is now showing “American Primeval”:

Western television miniseries created and written by Mark L. Smith and directed by Peter Berg. Starring Taylor Kitsch and Betty Gilpin, the series is set in 1857 during the Utah War.

The show has become very popular. However, I don’t think that many Americans would be delighted to go back to the way of life of the mid-19th century shown in the series.

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Assessment of Higher Education

(Source: Reddit)

Last week’s blog was focused on some of the actions that colleges are taking to counter the  recent decline in enrollment. The key entry on that blog was not the final steps that some colleges find themselves having to take as a result of the declining resources (such as closing the colleges, closing programs with low enrollment, joining other schools, etc.). Instead (or in addition), I was interested in the way they are changing their targets to a different student audience. This sentiment was expressed in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the following two paragraphs:

Colleges typically prioritize those who are preparing to enter the workforce, teaching them what they’ll need to know in order to thrive in a working society. But, what about those already in the workforce? Those left behind by sudden changes in technology and changing labor expectations? Historically, universities have prioritized educating those between 18- and 24-years-old.

But, the needs of the workforce change over time. This is especially true in an age where AI and automation are making inroads into every industry. It’s time colleges adapt with the workforce. And upskilling may be the answer — whether that comes in the form of micro credentialing, skills-based training, or whatever else.

The recommendation originates from the accelerating decrease in the global fertility rate, the reliance on immigration for growth (at least in rich countries), and the resulting changes in the age distribution of the work force. The need is summarized by AI (through Google) in the following way:

The average number of careers changes a person will make during their working life is 5–7. This is due to an increasing number of career options, and 30% of the workforce changes jobs every year.

The number of jobs changes a person makes decreases with age:

        • 18–24: People change jobs an average of 5.7 times
        • 25–34: People change jobs an average of 2.4 times
        • 35–44: People change jobs an average of 2.9 times
        • 45–52: People change jobs an average of 1.9 times

What adds to the difficulty for such changes is the inherent tension in today’s higher ed institutions between fluctuating enrollment, budget, and faculty tenure. The present situation at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, demonstrates the issue:

Chancellor Mark Mone revealed the layoffs in a letter sent Monday to faculty and staff.

The job cuts come after the UW System said it will close its campuses in Waukesha and Washington counties.

In addition to the layoffs, Mone recommended shutting down UW-Milwaukee’s College of General Studies and its three academic departments: Arts & Humanities, Math & Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Business.

“I am deeply saddened by this scenario and wish it were not occurring. However, proceeding with the proposal is aligned with our mission and is the most responsible decision for UWM’s future,” Mone said in the letter.

The UW Board of Regents must approve the cuts.

This blog will be posted one day after President Trump is inaugurated. Many expect a fast-changing four years. This blog is trying to examine how universities adapt to fast-changing realities—a process that will be interesting to follow. For background, you can see my previous writing on the topic; just put “changing realities” into the search box and focus on colleges. You can start with the blogs from May 2023 that focused on strategic plans for climate change. Now, we are facing broader horizons, including changes in fertility and mass digitization, along with AI and quantum computing. Many of these changes are global; many will likely be affected by the new administration following Trump’s inauguration.

The most sensitive part of the higher education sector—and therefore that most likely to be impacted by the new administration—is the accreditation sector (Trump’s Vision for College Accreditation Could Shake Up the Sector):

Overhauling higher-education accreditation could be on the agenda for conservative lawmakers and policy mavens now that Donald J. Trump has been re-elected president.

Trump and his allies have floated a number of changes, such as barring accreditors from requiring that colleges adhere to diversity, equity, and inclusion standards. Republicans have also proposed creating new accrediting agencies that promote conservative values and allowing state governments to take on the role of accreditors.

Colleges have to be accredited for their students to be eligible for federal student aid, such as loans issued by the Education Department and Pell Grants for students from low-income families. That role as a gatekeeper of federal dollars has put accreditors in the crosshairs of groups across the ideological spectrum that see the organizations as a barrier to change and improvement.

Below is a summary of the governance in my state (NY) that controls accreditation policies:

Oversight of degree-granting institutions in the United States is often thought of as the responsibility of a triad comprising state agencies, nongovernmental accrediting bodies, and the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). All degree-granting institutions that have a physical presence in New York must have authorization from the Board of Regents to operate as a college or university. This applies to both New York institutions and those based out-of-state. The State Education Department reviews, approves, and registers all individual programs of study leading to degrees and credit-bearing certificates according to standards of academic quality in the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education. Together, Regents authorization to confer degrees and State Education Department program registration make up the mandatory State approval process.

During my career as a college professor, I oversaw the assessments in my department, Physics. I am now a retired Professor Emeritus and hope to continue being of some use in this area. For more details on the expected and needed changes in higher education, I will focus on my school, the City University of New York (CUNY) as an example. CUNY is a federated university that prides itself on being the largest urban university in the US. Figure 1, at the top of this blog, shows the various colleges that are affiliated with CUNY. I have used CUNY as an example extensively in the 12 or so years that that I have been writing this blog. For almost 50 years, I was a member of two colleges: Brooklyn College, which is shown on the figure above, and the CUNY Graduate Center, which is not shown. Most public universities in the US are federated universities that spread geographically and whose missions are to serve a broad spectrum of state citizens. Many of the CUNY examples that will be used here apply to many other schools.

The agency that oversees CUNY’s accreditation is the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). CUNY’s affiliation with MSCHE is summarized below:

CUNY colleges, as well as the Graduate School and University Center, receive their institutional accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE or Middle States). MSCHE examines each institution as a whole, rather than specific programs within institutions.

The standards that the accreditation commission uses also change constantly. The most recent set is in MSCHE’s Fourteenth Edition.

Every one of the colleges affiliated with CUNY is assessed independently by the same commission. The accreditation commission bases its judgment mainly on self-assessments. AI (through Google) defines school assessment in the following way:

The assessment process is twofold — measuring student outcomes and an institution’s ability to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to start meaningful careers. In return for holding students to a high standard, institutions receive actionable data to inform future improvements.

MSCHE accredits its schools every 10 years. Most of the work is based on a periodic self-study report that the schools produce. Below, I am giving the table of contents of the most recent self-study report from Brooklyn College. The hierarchical structure of the federated schools is covered in the reports of the participating colleges. The assessment of student learning is an integral part of the syllabus that needs approval by the Faculty Council. General Education, which consists of about 25% of the curriculum, is managed on a university level, again, anchored on common student learning. The Self-Study is a long document that is transparent to students and faculty. Go through this index to find what is of concern and what is not.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary……………………………………….1

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………5

I.1 Overview of Brooklyn College…………………… 5

I.1.1 Trends in Enrollment…………………………….. 8

I.1.2 Faculty and Staff ………………………… 9

I.1.3 Trends in Affordability and Student Success ………………………………………………………… 12

I.2 Significant Changes and Challenges Since the 2009 Self-Study ……………………………………. 12

I.2.1 Leadership ………………………………. 12

I.2.2 Academic Affairs Organizational Structure ………………………………………………………….. 13

I.2.3 New Strategic Plan ……………………………… 14

I.2.4 Significant Curricular Changes ……………. 15

I.2.5 Facilities…………………………………………….. 15

I.3 Brooklyn College’s Recent MSCHE History ………………………………………………………………….. 16

I.4 The 2016-2019 Self-Study Process……………. 17

I.5 Organization of this Report …………………….18

CHAPTER 1………………………………………………….19

1.1 Introduction ………………………………………….. 19

1.2 Mission …………………………………………………. 19

1.2.1 Mission Development: Strategic Planning Process ……………………………………………………… 20

1.2.2 Alignment with CUNY………………………….. 21

1.2.3 Awareness of Mission Statement …………. 22

1.3 Quality of a Brooklyn College Education …. 22

1.4 Diversity of the Brooklyn College Community …………………………………………………………… 23

1.5 Affordability of a Brooklyn College Education …………………………………………………………… 24

1.6 Integration with Community …………….. 26

1.7 Supporting the Mission…………………… 27

1.8 Recommendations Aligned with the College’s Strategic Plan ………………………………………. 27

CHAPTER 2 ………………………………………………. 28

2.1 Introduction …………………………………………. 28

iii

2.2 Ethical Conduct, Intellectual Freedom, Freedom of Expression, and Respect for Intellectual

Property ……………………………………………………. 28

2.3 Creating a Climate of Respect ………………… 29

2.4 General Policies that Govern Students, Faculty, and Staff ………………………………………. 30

2.5 Policies Governing the Student Experience ………………………………………………………………….. 31

2.6 Faculty Personnel Policies ……………………… 33

2.6.1 Promotion and Tenure/Certificate of Continuous Employment (CCE) …………………… 34

2.6.2 Professional Development …………………… 35

2.6.3 Faculty Complaints and Grievances Procedures ………………………………………………… 35

2.7 Staff Personnel Policies …………………………. 35

2.7.1 Staff Career Advancement/Professional Development …………………………………………….. 36

2.7.2 Staff Complaints and Grievances ………… 36

2.8 Recommendations Aligned with the College’s Strategic Plan ……………………………………………. 36

CHAPTER 3 ……………………………………………….. 37

3.1 Introduction …………………………………………. 37

3.2 Academic Program Offerings ………………… 37

3.3 Faculty ………………………………………………… 39

3.3.1 Faculty Qualifications and Diversity ……. 40

3.3.2 Faculty Qualifications and Assessment ………………………………………………………………….. 41

3.4 General Education ………………………………… 44

3.5 Graduate Education ……………………………… 48

3.6 Academic Support ………………………………… 48

3.6.1 Academic Services and Resources…………………………………………………… 48

3.6.2 Support for Specialized Student Groups ………………………………………………………………….. 49

3.7 Recommendations Aligned with the College’s Strategic Plan …………………………………………….. 51

CHAPTER 4 ……………………………………………….. 52

4.1 Introduction………………………………………….. 52

4.2 Admissions, Retention and Graduation ….. 52

4.2.1 Momentum ………………………………………… 53

4.2.2 Retention and Graduation ………………….. 55

4.3 Student Information and Records ………….. 58

4.4 Adequacy and Accessibility of Web-Based Information ………………………………………………. 59

4.5 Access to Face-to-Face Support ……………… 60

4.6 Adequacy of Co-Curricular and Extra-Curricular Activities …………………………………… 62

4.7 Adequacy of Staff in Student Support Areas …………………………………………………………………. 64

4.8 Recommendations Regarding Standard IV and Strategic Plan Alignment ……………………… 64

CHAPTER 5 ……………………………………………….. 65

5.1 Introduction ………………………………………….. 65

5.2 Current Status of Assessment at Brooklyn College: Linkages Among Educational Goals and

Programs ………………………………………………….. 65

5.2.1 Overview of Educational Goals, Interrelationships, Alignment with Mission …. 66

5.2.2 Organization of Assessment ………………… 66

5.2.3 Systematic Assessment, Preparation of Students, and Sustainability ……………………….. 68

5.2.4 Supporting and Sustaining Assessment and Communicating Results to Stakeholders ……… 72

5.3 Using Assessment Results for the Improvement of Educational Effectiveness …… 73

5.4 Periodic Assessment of the Effectiveness of Assessment ………………………………………………… 80

5.5 Success of Graduates …………………………….. 80

5.6 Recommendations Aligned with the College’s Strategic Plan ……………………………………………. 82

CHAPTER 6 ………………………………………………. 83

6.1 Introduction …………………………………………. 83

6.2 Linkages among Institutional Objectives, Assessment, Planning and Resource Allocation . 83

6.3 General CUNY Budget Allocation Process for Senior Colleges …………………………………………… 85

6.3.1 Overview of the Brooklyn College Tax Levy Budget ………………………………………………………. 86

6.4 The Financial Planning and Budget Process ………………………………………………………………….. 87

6.4.1 Operating Budget Planning Processes …………………………………………………………………. 87

6.4.2 Capital Budget Planning …………………….. 89

6.4.3 Technology Budget Planning ………………. 89

6.4.4 Fiscal and Human Resources ……………… 90

6.5 Alternative Sources of Funding and Revenue ………………………………………………………………….. 91

6.5.1 Income Funds Reimbursable (IFR) ………. 91

6.5.2 Non-Tax Levy ……………………………………. 92

6.5.3 Auxiliary Enterprise Corporation (AEC) …………………………………………………………………. 92

v

6.5.4 Brooklyn College Foundation (BCF)………………………………………………………… 92

6.5.5 CUNY Research Foundation (RF) ……….. 92

6.6 Improvements to Administrative Processes ………………………………………………………………….. 93

6.6.1 College Facilities ………………………………… 93

6.6.2 Improving the Procurement Department ………………………………………………………………….. 94

6.7 Annual Audits ………………………………………. 95

6.8 Recommendations Aligned with the College’s Strategic Plan ……………………………………………. 95

CHAPTER 7 ……………………………………………….. 97

7.1 Introduction ………………………………………….. 97

7.2 Governance ………………………………………….. 97

7.2.1 Changes to Local Governance and Bylaws ………………………………………………………………….. 99

7.3 Administration ……………………………………… 99

7.3.1 Implementation of a Five-School Structure ………………………………………………………………… 100

7.3.2 Technology to Support Administration in the Delivery of Services to Students ……………. 102

7.3.3 Assessment of the College President, College Leadership and Administration …………………. 104

7.4 Recommendations Aligned with the College’s Strategic Plan …………………………………………… 105

If you look at the mission statement (page 19), you will get to another long document that takes you to the Strategic Plan. Since Brooklyn College is part of CUNY, both its mission and strategic plan are aligned with CUNY’s. In these documents, you will have an easy time finding the word “excellence.” However, it’s a bit harder to find the word “future” or references to how graduates are adapting to the changing realities that confront them. Future blogs will focus on these important issues.

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How Universities React

(Source: Lauren Pyke, The Daily Tar Heel)

Last week’s blog returned to the issue of declining global enrollment in universities. I looked specifically at the impacts of the ongoing trend of declining global fertility, with a focus on the US. This declining enrollment has major consequences for the economic viability of many schools. Such threats require action. The question that was raised in last week’s blog was what schools should do in response to these trends.

I will start the discussion with an AI (through Google) response:

When facing declining enrollments, schools typically respond by: consolidating or closing underutilized schools, cutting programs or staff, seeking new student populations through marketing and outreach, reviewing budgets to find efficiencies, and engaging with the community to understand the reasons behind the decline and address concerns; in extreme cases, they might even consider merging with other institutions to maintain financial stability.

The first option is obviously for an institution to close its doors:

American higher education is in crisis.

This year, some two dozen colleges shut their doors and more are forecast to close in 2025, CNBC reports. According to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, as many as 80 colleges and universities are expected to close in the next five years.

That working paper from the Fed based its analysis on a massive dataset of college and university information from 2002 to 2023, which predicted future closures through a model using machine learning. It found that of the 100 riskiest institutions it assessed, 84 closed within a three-year period. Researchers then predicted the likelihood of future closures, factoring in a 15% decline in enrollment between 2025 and 2029.

Many colleges are struggling financially as enrollment falls, the result of skyrocketing tuition costs and students questioning if the degree is even worth the hefty price tag.

The second option is to go through college activities and find out which courses students like and which ones have difficulty attracting students. Since in most universities’ curricula the faculty determines which courses are needed to fulfill degree requirements, it is beneficial to go over the list of degrees that the university offers. This is exactly what the University of Connecticut recently did (Another Public Flagship May Cut Dozens of Majors):

Faculty members at the University of Connecticut worry that dozens of majors could face elimination as part of a review of low-enrollment programs — a process that began amid a significant budget deficit.

The Details

Christopher Vials, an English professor at UConn’s flagship campus in Storrs and president of its American Association of University Professors chapter, said 70 majors were identified as having failed to meet a threshold of 100 student completions over the last five years.

Faculty members found out about the review in May when the provost’s office asked departments with low-enrollment programs to complete an evaluation report that Vials characterized as tasking them to “justify their continued existence.”

“It is anticipated that the end result for the review of low-completion programs will result in the closure of some programs,” Anne D’alleva, the provost, and Gladis Kersaint, the vice provost for academic affairs, wrote in a memo to all academic deans.

Majors like philosophy, women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and animal science are on the chopping block. With the exception of Spanish, every program within the university’s literatures, cultures, and languages department is under review. The department, which houses nine majors, is seemingly divided on its next step, as it postponed a vote on Wednesday on whether it should move forward with the provost’s review or preemptively merge its majors into one or two programs, Vials said.

Almost all universities operate under the stressful tension between fluctuating enrollment, budget, and faculty tenure. A recent example from Wisconsin is shown below:

Chancellor Mark Mone revealed the layoffs in a letter sent Monday to faculty and staff.

The job cuts come after the UW System said it will close its campuses in Waukesha and Washington counties.

In addition to the layoffs, Mone recommended shutting down UW-Milwaukee’s College of General Studies and its three academic departments: Arts & Humanities, Math & Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Business.

“I am deeply saddened by this scenario and wish it were not occurring. However, proceeding with the proposal is aligned with our mission and is the most responsible decision for UWM’s future,” Mone said in the letter.

The UW Board of Regents must approve the cuts.

University mergers are another option. One can find a few examples in a piece from Forbes that distinguished between the closing of mainly for-profit public universities and mergers in mainly public universities:

When we turn to public colleges and universities, the picture looks different. It’s a truism to note that public colleges don’t shut their doors that frequently. Just four did from 2013–14, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (although Higher Ed Dive suggests the number is much higher).

Mergers is likely how consolidation will impact public colleges and universities—particularly regional schools in areas of lower or declining population. And indeed, consolidation has already been occurring—so much so that it’s sometimes hard to keep track.

The University System of Georgia has gone from 35 institutions to 26.

In 2017–18, the University of Wisconsin System consolidated its 13 two-year college campuses into seven of its comprehensive universities. UW Platteville at Richland, UW Milwaukee at Washington County, UW Oshkosh at Fond du Lac, UW Green Bay at Marinette, UW Milwaukee at Waukesha, and UW Oshkosh at Fox Cities have all effectively closed over the past couple years—even though they don’t count in official statistics, as this Inside Higher Ed piece makes clear. More consolidation conversations are taking place in the state.

Pennsylvania is merging six of its Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education institutions into two universities.

In Maine, the system didn’t technically merge or consolidate, but instead moved to a “unified accreditation” for the system. Which, yes, means that the System’s seven main campuses now operate under the same accreditation.

In 2023, Connecticut’s 12 community colleges merged into one.

In Louisiana, eight technical and community colleges merged campuses.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is trying to find out if such college responses are consistent with higher education’s objective of preparing students for post-graduation life by introducing the term of upskilling:

Colleges typically prioritize those who are preparing to enter the workforce, teaching them what they’ll need to know in order to thrive in a working society. But, what about those already in the workforce? Those left behind by sudden changes in technology and changing labor expectations? Historically, universities have prioritized educating those between 18- and 24-years-old.

But, the needs of the workforce change over time. This is especially true in an age where AI and automation are making inroads into every industry. It’s time colleges adapt with the workforce. And upskilling may be the answer — whether that comes in the form of microcredentialing, skills-based training, or whatever else.

Google is again helpful in clarifying terms:

“Upskilling: A New Frontier for Higher Ed” refers to the growing trend where universities and colleges are actively developing and offering programs specifically designed to equip students and working professionals with in-demand skills needed for the modern workforce, often focusing on shorter, more flexible learning pathways to address the rapidly evolving job market, going beyond traditional degree programs to provide targeted skill development.

All of this is taking place as a background for what is now a challenging time for college presidents trying to coexist with changing political priorities as well as addressing global conflicts and internal polarization that are likely to grow with the coming change in government.

In the next blog, I will continue to discuss these tensions, with an increasing emphasis on multilevel assessments that are now gaining importance in school accreditation.

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Back to Campus

Previous blogs on the decline in college enrollment (May 30th, October 25th, and October 31, 2023) were inspired by my teaching experience. I am returning to this issue from the broader perspective with a focus on the US. This blog is focused on the data; next week’s blog will focus on changes that colleges need to make to try to adapt to our changing reality. The recent enrollment decline, separated by gender, is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – College enrollment rates (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics via The Week)

Forbes’ analysis shows some specifics about very recent changes:

Enrollment of 18-year-old college freshmen decreased by 5% this fall compared to last year, and now the focus is turning to understanding why the decline occurred and how it can be reversed.

The drop-off is a sharp turnaround from last year’s growth in freshman enrollment according to a new analysis, commissioned by the National College Attainment Network.

The analysis by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center is a follow-up to its earlier report released in October that showed a 5% drop in freshmen overall and a 6% drop in 18-year-olds at the same time there was an overall 3% year-over-year increase in undergraduate students.

Overall, enrollment of 18-year-old freshmen was down 5% compared to last year, when it increased 3%. The decline was widespread, occurring in 46 states.

The enrollment decline was sharpest for white students (-10%), followed closely by multiracial students (-8.3%) and Black students (-8.2%). Asian (-5.7%) and Latino/a (-2.1%) students experienced smaller declines.

A few days later, Forbes tried to emphasize some of the consequences of these changes:

Annual college closures are likely to increase above their current rate if the anticipated decline in higher education enrollment transpires, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia working paper released this month.

Using these data, the researchers compared the accuracy of various statistical models in identifying those institutions that eventually closed. Because public institutions rarely close, the analysis was restricted to private for-profit and nonprofit two-year and four-year schools.

The best model — one that used machine learning and was able to compensate for the missing data that plagues many prediction formulas — revealed that of the 100 institutions it assessed to be at most financial risk, 84 had closed within a three-year time span.

Recent news about changes in the global population, with demographic changes in the US, is given below:

WASHINGTON — The world population increased by more than 71 million people in 2024 and will be 8.09 billion people on New Year’s Day, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Monday.

The 0.9% increase in 2024 was a slight slowdown from 2023, when the world population grew by 75 million people. In January 2025, 4.2 births and 2.0 deaths were expected worldwide every second, according to the estimates.

The United States grew by 2.6 million people in 2024, and the U.S. population on New Year’s Day will be 341 million people, according to the Census Bureau.

The United States was expected to have one birth every 9 seconds and one death every 9.4 seconds in January 2025. International migration was expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 23.2 seconds. The combination of births, deaths and net international migration will increase the U.S. population by one person every 21.2 seconds, the Census Bureau said. So far in the 2020s, the U.S. population has grown by almost 9.7 million people, a 2.9% growth rate. In the 2010s, the U.S. grew by 7.4%, which was the lowest rate since the 1930s.

Changes in the makeup of the US workforce by generation are shown in Figure 2:

graph: workforce by age & generation

Figure 2 – Workforce by age and generation 2006-2026

As was mentioned in earlier blogs, the fertility rate in the US is declining sharply, yet the population is still growing. The main process that feeds this population growth is immigration. The dynamics of these two processes are clearly shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 – Population estimates (Source: US Census)

College enrollment is mainly made up of Generation Z students. The declining fertility rate ensures that the fraction of incoming freshmen will also decline. Figure 4 shows the changes in the age distribution of newly arrived immigrants; their age is sharply increasing. This dynamic is summarized in a report by the ICEF Monitor (International Consultants for Education and Fares), a summary of which is given below):

Short on time? Here are the highlights:

  • US colleges are facing a smaller pool of young domestic students due to demographics and changing views on the importance of higher education

  • The total number of domestic high school graduates is expected to peak in 2025 and then decline steadily through 2041

  • New approaches are necessary to mitigate risk and appeal to new target audiences, including an increased emphasis on international recruitment

Graph examines the share of new immigrants who are of working-age (defined as 16 to 64).

Figure 4 – The share of new immigrants who are of working-age (defined as 16 to 64) (Source: Center for Immigration Studies)

A broader outline of the college enrollment situation is provided by AI (through Google):

Many colleges are cutting majors and programs to reduce costs and make ends meet. This includes:

  • Rural universities

Universities that serve rural students are disproportionately affected by these cuts. For example, West Virginia University eliminated 28 undergraduate and graduate majors and programs, including most foreign languages.

  • Budget challenges

Colleges are facing budget challenges due to a number of factors, including:

  • Fewer high school graduates going straight to college
  • Rising operational costs
  • The end of federal COVID relief money
  • Enrollment decline

College enrollment declined during the pandemic, and officials had hoped enrollment would recover to pre-COVID levels. However, enrollment figures have not recovered.

  • Financial aid application overhaul

The federal government’s overhaul of its financial aid application has complicated the situation.

Major restrictions are another way colleges can limit the number of students who can enroll in a particular major. These restrictions can include requiring students to meet GPA requirements, participate in an interview, or submit a competitive application. These restrictions can create barriers for students who are less-privileged.

While large-scale cuts to majors in the years during and since the Covid-19 pandemic have gotten some attention, what many have in common has been largely overlooked: They’re disproportionately happening at universities that serve rural students or are in largely rural states.

One remedy that schools are increasingly turning to is the reexamination of the number of majors that they are offering. In the next blog I will try to go deeper into this issue.

Less than two weeks after this blog, the new Trump administration will come to power and will try to implement one of its main promises – to significantly reduce immigration. There are already significant disagreements among the followers of the new administration about the future of the H-1B visa, which is given to some of the best qualified foreign nationals. Many from outside the US mark this program as a brain drain—especially for developing countries; they will probably not be sorry to see this program curtailed. Almost all the recipients of these visas are college graduates, so curtailing these visas will not have a major impact on student enrollment but it might have an impact on faculty recruitment. Its impact on the economy remains unknown. I will try to follow this discussion.

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Happy New Year! Achieving a Brighter, Sustainable Future

photo of NYC sunset

Figure 1 – A bright future

With the winter holidays, the coming new year, and the approaching inauguration of the Trump administration, last week’s blog was focused on longer-term global trends that can lead either to destruction or to a bright, sustainable future that I labeled the modern Garden of Eden. The focus of that blog was five global trends that started around the end of WWII and are currently accelerating. They include climate change, nuclear energy, fertility changes, global electrification, and the digitization of humanity.

Last week’s blog promised that “Some of the efforts to get us to the Garden of Eden will be outlined in the next blog.”  This blog will be posted on New Year’s Eve, which is usually a time to be positive and optimistic, so I will focus on our present efforts to achieve a bright, sustainable future. Hopefully, if these efforts continue with some success, they will lead us out of destruction and into our modern Garden of Eden, with more than 8 billion happy people living in a human-created reality that is synchronized with our cosmological reality. In terms of prospects for a beneficial, far-reaching future, there are large differences in the five trends. With nuclear energy, in my opinion, the prospect of destructive military applications outweighs the foreseeable benefits. The wish that was expressed in last week’s blog for fertility changes was that they become independent of economic considerations. In other words, in an ideal world, the rate would be determined solely by the desire for children. Present trends of global electrification and global digitization will, most likely, result in full global penetration. That leaves climate change and our current efforts to replace fossil fuel energy with sustainable sources.

My photograph of the sunset, with dark clouds above New York City, can act as a symbolic outline of my wishes (sunrise might have been more appropriate but I didn’t have good enough example and most people without a good knowledge of the details of NYC cannot distinguish between the two in a photo). Not surprisingly, most of the details of our present efforts to reach a brighter, more sustainable future will be focused on the global effort to mitigate climate change through an energy transition. Some specifics are listed below:

  1. Efforts towards a fusion-based grid scale operation:

On top of the effort to pursue sustainable energy resources is the search for economic fusion sources. Previous blogs (June 8, 2021, December 12, 2017) discussed the science and some of the difficulties. Figure 2 shows the growth in the number of companies that have joined the effort.

Bar graph of companies pursuing fusion energy, from 1990-2020

Figure 2 – The number of companies pursuing fusion energy over time (Source: Fusion Energy Base)

The present effort is promising enough to start exploring the distribution of the energy released through the electric grid:

WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a private company spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, plans what it calls the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant in Virginia, to generate power by the early 2030s, the company said on Tuesday.

The project, if successful, could revolutionize the global energy industry by tapping into a virtually limitless power source, similar to that which fuels the stars.

The progress is happening so fast that last week’s blog tries to make the case that conservation of energy does not apply – a circular economy is a must!

  1. Expansion of research and the development of new energy sources.

A good example is the attempts to use geothermal energy from deep inside the Earth:

Geothermal energy has enabled Finland to decarbonise its industries and reduce hydrocarbon import costs, making it an example for the whole world to emulate. Volcanoes exist in many parts of the world, but few allow safe and viable drilling with the technology we currently possess, so their implementation is still far from accessible.

However, CGG, a firm specialising in geophysical sciences and their implementation in new technologies, claims that they would be able to exploit geothermal energy at great sea depths to extract the heat that escapes between tectonic plates. The idea would be to install offshore geothermal plants equipped with a new 20-kilometre borehole developed by the MIT start-up.

The project proposes to install a plant in the North Sea, where conditions are similar to those found in Finland but extend over an area of about 65,000 square kilometres. There are geological fissures and igneous rocks there that could generate energy for 20 million years by extracting just 0.1% of the existing heat, with cheaper facilities and a stable supply.

  1. Scale-up of solar energy

The magnitude of the scale-up is shown below:

Photovoltaic (PV) installations are a leading technology for generating green electricity and reducing carbon emissions. Roofing highways with solar panels offers a new opportunity for PV development, but its potential of global deployment and associated socio-economic impacts have not been investigated. Here, we combine solar PV output modeling with the global highway distribution and levelized cost of electricity to estimate the potential and economic feasibility of deploying highway PV systems worldwide. We also quantify its co-benefits of reducing CO2 equivalent emissions and traffic losses (road traffic deaths and socio-economic burdens). Our analysis reveals a potential for generating 17.58 PWh yr−1 of electricity, of which nearly 56% can be realized at a cost below US$100 MWh−1. Achieving the full highway PV potential could offset 28.78% (28.21%–29.1%) of the global total carbon emissions in 2018, prevent approximately 0.15 million road traffic deaths, and reduce US$0.43 ± 0.16 trillion socio-economic burdens per year. Highway PV projects could bring a net return of about US$14.42 ± 4.04 trillion over a 25-year lifetime. To exploit the full potential of highway PV, countries with various income levels must strengthen cooperation and balance the multiple socio-economic co-benefits.

One good example of scaling up the use of solar cells is the move to cover roads with the devices (see “Solar Roads: Driving into the Future” from February 18, 2020).

A groundbreaking proposal suggests that 52 billion solar panels could soon line the American highway network. This ambitious initiative has been put forward by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Geosciences, and Columbia University, aiming to transform major global highways with solar energy integration.

  1. Smaller scale experimenting can bring large dividends:

Mercedes-Benz has shared what it describes as an “exclusive insight into research activities and future technologies,” showcasing several innovations currently under feasibility testing.

The innovations span a range of concepts, from augmented reality glasses to alternatives to leather, made from recycled plastic and biotechnologically produced materials.

Other developments include a regenerative brake integrated into the engine and transmission unit of electric cars, which is virtually maintenance-free and wear-free, as well as drive batteries regulated at the cell level.

Among the innovations is a “solar paint,” a PV coating designed for vehicle power generation. This coating consists of “innovative solar modules” just 5 micrometers thick, applied seamlessly to the car body like a wafer-thin paste.

  1. Legal actions that can accelerate the transition. Two examples, one from a local US state court and the other from a case in front of the International Criminal Court can serve as examples:

NYT: North Carolina Town Sues Duke Energy Over Climate Change

A North Carolina town filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Duke Energy, one of the nation’s largest utility companies, of deceiving the public about climate change and contributing to the warming of the planet.

The mayor and City Council of Carrboro, a town next to Chapel Hill, said in its lawsuit in North Carolina Superior Court that Duke Energy had known for decades that its operations contributed to the climate crisis but failed to curb its emissions of greenhouse gases. Instead, the lawsuit argues, the company increased its use of fossil fuels, often in disadvantaged communities.

NYT: What Can the World’s Top Court Do About Climate Change?

The International Court of Justice will begin hearing arguments on Monday in a major case on how international laws can be used to protect the climate as global warming accelerates. It is the first time that the court, which is the United Nations’ highest judicial body, has taken up the climate issue, and a key issue at play is whether big polluters can be sued for failing to slow down climate change.

The court, a 15-judge body in The Hague that deals with disputes among nations, is holding the hearings over the next two weeks in response to a request submitted last year by the United Nations General Assembly.

The General Assembly asked the court to give its opinion on two questions: What obligations do governments have under international law to protect the Earth’s climate system from greenhouse gases? And what are the “legal consequences” if governments have failed in their obligations and “caused significant harm”?

Happy New Year, everyone!

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Happy Holidays to the Planet!

(Source: Pinterest)​

Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa all start on the same day this year. Ramadan starts a few months later (March 11th, the birthday of my ex-wife). In a diverse city like NYC, many of us greet each other with “Happy holidays!” Following my habits, I will expand these individual wishes to collective wishes for global humanity. The new year is a time of wishes and predictions for our future.

Probably the most famous monologue that many of us carry in our heads starts with “To be or not to be: that is the question.” It’s the opening line of a monologue spoken by Hamlet in act III, scene 1, of William Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy, Hamlet (I was required to memorize the speech in high school in Israel). From my present perspective about the coming new year, a generalization of this line from our personal fates to the fate of humanity seems to be in order. The “not to be” part could properly be translated to life extinction. After all, as far as we know, we are alone in this vast universe. The prognosis for extinction is growing. I will mention two related articles here. One is from over 10 years ago and discusses a report to the Club of Rome:

According to a new peer-reviewed scientific report, industrial civilisation is likely to deplete its low-cost mineral resources within the next century, with debilitating impacts for the global economy and key infrastructures within the coming decade.

The study, the 33rd report to the Club of Rome, is authored by Prof Ugo Bardi of the University of Florence’s Earth Sciences Department, and includes contributions from a wide range of senior scientists across relevant disciplines.

The Club of Rome is a Swiss-based global think tank consisting of current and former heads of state, UN bureaucrats, government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists and business leaders.

Its first report in 1972, The Limits to Growth, was conducted by a scientific team at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT), and warned that limited availability of natural resources relative to rising costs would undermine continued economic growth by around the second decade of the 21st century.

The other article, which quotes from Stephen Hawking, gives the planet a few more decades:

NASA has recently raised alarms about the existential threats facing Earth, bringing into focus the predictions made by physicist Stephen Hawking prior to his death in 2018. Though the space agency has not endorsed Hawking’s specific timeline of Earth’s demise, it has echoed concerns about the dangers of global warming, overconsumption of energy, and other threats to humanity’s survival. As the climate crisis worsens, the world is left wondering: how close are we to the catastrophic fate Hawking envisioned?

One of the most famous physicists of our time, Stephen Hawking, became increasingly concerned about the future of humanity in his final years. In the 2018 documentary The Search for a New Earth, Hawking outlined a dire prediction for the year 2600. He warned that unless significant changes were made to how humans live, Earth could turn into “a gigantic ball of fire.” Hawking attributed this disastrous scenario to global warming, climate change, and the greenhouse effect, which he saw as the main drivers behind the planet’s eventual collapse.

Back to Hamlet, these predictions fall under the “not to be” part of his monologue. What falls under the “to be” part is more complicated.  My “to be” is a sustainable Garden of Eden before the snake came to poison us. The biblical concept of the Garden of Eden has occupied famed artists, children everywhere, and many people in between. An example is shown at the top of the blog and the Pinterest link underneath has a large collection of other depictions. Aside from Adam and Eve, there are no people and no items that indicate even a trace of civilization. The picture shows plenty of vegetables and a bird. The many other examples in the attached link include all kinds of animals. It is for us to determine what a Garden of Eden would look like with more than 8 billion people—especially with more than half of them living in cities with all of the accessories that human society has constructed.

One thing is for sure: there is no time limit on a collective Garden of Eden, so it must be sustainable. What needs to be done to reach such a goal is complex and I don’t make a claim to even draw a picture of such a world. However, throughout the blog, I have paid special attention to five recent global trends that are younger than me, meaning that they started after WWII. These include climate change, nuclear energy, the fertility crisis, global electrification, and the digitization of humanity (see the August 20, 2024 blog, which includes a table with the most recent values of these trends in the 10 largest countries that count for more than 50% of the global population). I will outline where I want to see these trends in my collective global Garden of Eden. Some of the efforts to get us there will be outlined in the next blog.

  1. Conservation of energy does not apply – a circular economy is a must!

For obvious reasons that were outlined in previous blogs, successful achievements in the global energy transition to replace fossil fuels will lead us to dependence on sustainable energy that will be fueled directly or indirectly by solar and fusion energy. If fusion energy becomes our main source of energy, we will become a binary star system where the conservation of energy becomes less crucial than it is currently. In that case, our planet’s lifetime will stop being anthropogenic (dependent on us). The remaining internal lifetime of our sun (defined by the availability of hydrogen in its core) is about 5 billion years. The external lifetime (defined by collision with other cosmological objects) will be shorter and more unpredictable.

  1. Limits to fertility – globally disconnect it from economic considerations

Most of the reasons for global changes in fertility rates are anchored on economics. High fertility is based on the need to support previous generations, high infant mortality, and the unavailability of birth control. Declining fertility below the replacement rate depends largely on solving those issues and having women be equal partners in education, attainment, and work. As far as I know, we haven’t yet found fertility rates that are only based on the wish to have children, independent of economic considerations. The placement of equilibrium fertility, relative to replacement, will determine the future of the population in our ideal world. Growth will need to be replaced as the only criterion for success.

  1. Global electrification

Without this, global digitization (4) and global energy conversion (1), cannot be achieved.

  1. Robotics to accommodate labor needs (AI and digitization are part of this)

I have finished reading Yuval Noah Harari’s new book, “Nexus,” a review of which I am posting  here.  The book is from the perspective of a historian and philosopher on the future of global digitization that leads to AI and quantum computing in everyday life. The perspectives on the same issues of a futurist with great credentials in this area is summarized below:

At the heart of Kurzweil’s vision is the concept of the Singularity, the point at which artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence and catalyze a profound shift in how we live. He predicts that by 2045, we will have reached this milestone, and in the decade leading up to it, transformative technological advances will reshape nearly every aspect of life.

One of the most exciting aspects of this transformation is Kurzweil’s belief in the integration of AI with human biology. He imagines a future where nanotechnology allows for “virtual neural layers” that link our brains directly to the cloud. This, he argues, will vastly expand our cognitive abilities, enabling us to think in ways that today seem unimaginable. “We’ll be able to think in entirely new ways,” he writes, envisioning a time when creativity and innovation flourish at unprecedented rates.

  1. Elimination of the use of nuclear energy for military applications

This is self-explanatory.

The key to even dreaming about a collective Garden of Eden is to develop a democratic global government with sovereignty on global issues. This should include all the tools that federated nations currently have (courts, police, binding laws, etc..) with restrictions to be applied only to global issues. As it stands, the only institution that currently has some semblance of this role is the UN, which was created at the same time as the other global trends mentioned above. Unlike the other trends, however, it is static in terms of impact and it is not sovereign. More about all of this in future blogs.

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What we need to achieve by 2030

(Source: JD Supra)

Last week’s blog included the following paragraph:

President-elect Trump’s current attitude on climate change is not much different from his 2016 attitude (see the March 14, 2017 blog). He withdrew from the Paris Agreement as soon as he could. The US rejoined the Agreement immediately after the Biden administration took over, four years later. In his recent election campaign, he promised again to withdraw from the Agreement as soon as possible. However, the Paris Agreement is now “history,” and reversing the US commitment to changing its energy sources away from fossil fuels will be much more complicated.

The question that still stands is whether or not a repeated rejection of the Paris Agreement nullifies all the related commitments that the US has made. 2030 was set as a milestone on the way to the global energy supply’s midcentury zero carbon target. The top figure of this blog summarizes those commitments in terms of the projected emissions through 2030. The details are included with the commitments of most other countries in a UN document titled “The United States of America Nationally Determined Contributions: Reducing Greenhouse Gases in the United States: A 2030 Emissions Target,” which was submitted in 2022. It is summarized in the two paragraphs below:

This submission communicates the United States’ nationally determined contribution (NDC) in line with Article 4 of the Paris Agreement.  The Paris Agreement establishes a goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2o C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature to 1.5o C.   Climate change is an existential threat and demands bold action.  Solutions exist today to reduce emissions rapidly while supporting economic growth and improving quality of life.  Addressing the climate crisis requires scaling the many solutions we already have, while investing in innovation to improve and broaden the set of solutions, enabling multiple pathways to reach global net zero emissions.    After a careful process involving analysis and consultation across the United States federal government and with leaders in state, local, and tribal governments, the United States is setting an economy-wide target of reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels in 2030. The National Climate Advisor developed this NDC in consultation with the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, and it was approved by President Joseph R. Biden Jr..

Deploying zero-carbon solutions in the United States will create good jobs and improve the health of our families and communities.  Local air pollution reductions that come along with reaching this goal will avoid tens of thousands of premature deaths by 2030.  The United States is committed to standing with the workers and communities too often left behind — people and places that have suffered as a result of economic and energy shifts – and creating well-paid employment in the low carbon economy. The United States reaffirms its commitment to the creation of decent work and quality jobs as an integral part of its efforts to combat climate change.  The United States will work to ensure that our firms and workers are not put at an unfair competitive disadvantage and cooperate with allies and partners that are committed to fighting climate change.  As appropriate, and consistent with domestic approaches to reduce United States greenhouse gas emissions, this includes consideration of carbon border adjustments in relation to carbon-intensive goods.

A recent publication in Bloomberg summarizes the state of the global energy transition needed to reach the 2030 targets. It lists the following topics as checkpoints for how current progress matches up to crucial 2030 targets:

I will expand below on the global progress in four out of the 9 areas that Bloomberg outlines:

Renewables

More than 130 nations agreed at COP28 in Dubai last year to triple the deployment of renewable energy by 2030. The International Energy Agency estimates that solar capacity increased about 40-fold between 2010 and 2023, as wind power expanded around six-fold. But as COP29 gets underway in Azerbaijan this week even that dizzying pace of deployment isn’t sufficient to ensure the world hits its target.

Get Big Tech to Net Zero

Promises by the world’s biggest technology companies to aggressively cut emissions — including pledges by Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc. to hit net zero by 2030 — are being upended by the rise of artificial intelligence. While Bill Gates and others believe the technology will ultimately deliver better solutions to accelerate climate action, the need for energy-hungry data processing capacity is delaying progress in the shorter term.

Biodiversity

The first round of United Nations talks to assess progress since the Kunming-Montreal pact was signed in 2022 fell apart earlier this month in Colombia after nations failed to agree on how to raise more funds for nature. Parties at the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference nonetheless managed to agree on a new process to identify marine areas most in need of protection — a development that’s expected to spur progress toward meeting the goal.

Banks

Major banks need to improve the flow of sustainable finance

A recent publication by Yale Climate Connection makes the cautious statement that we are approaching an irreversible global turning point in the energy transition, toward carbon-free emissions:

While global emissions have yet to reach a clear “peak” – the point at which carbon pollution stops rising and eventually shifts to a consistent decline – there are signs that this turning point could be on the horizon. The rapid deployment of clean technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs) may help accelerate this shift, although much faster progress will be needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

These global trends have urgent implications for our climate, economies, and ecosystems. To understand what’s behind this year’s record highs and what they signal

The guarded optimism in the Yale publication faces a clear test with the coming second term of the Trump administration. I have chosen two publications that address this. One is from Rick Perry, who served as the Energy Secretary during the first Trump presidency. He suggests that unlike in his first term, President Trump will not try to take the US out of the energy transition, but instead, will try to be the president of “all of the above.” Below are the key paragraphs that outline this approach:

NPR: Under Trump, an ‘all of the above’ energy policy is poised for a comeback

President-elect Donald Trump talks a lot about “unleashing American energy” — specifically oil, which he likes to call “liquid gold.”

And based on his nominees for key energy posts, there’s every indication that a Trump administration 2.0 will actively promote oil and natural gas.

Trump wants to ‘Drill, baby, drill.’ What does that mean for climate concerns?

But another phrase is popping up a lot right now in Republican circles: “All of the above.” Trump’s pick for “energy czar,” who has a history of supporting both oil and renewables, has been described as an “all-of-the-above energy governor.” A key Republican in Congress hopes that Chris Wright, Trump’s choice to be the new secretary of energy and a believer in fracking, nuclear and geothermal energy, will support “an all-of-the-above energy policy.” Statement after statementstory after story. Even the summer before the election, the phrase was reportedly the talk of the Republican National Convention.

From the Austin American Statesman:

We cannot just walk away from renewables, but we can adopt an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy incorporating renewable and nonrenewable resources. This approach includes the responsible development of energy sources such as wind, solar, oil, natural gas and coal.

As governor of Texas, I championed wind power, making Texas the largest wind energy producer in the nation. I led the development of the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) program, a $7 billion investment in infrastructure that brought wind power from rural West Texas to major cities. The program created thousands of jobs, lowered electricity rates and reduced emissions.

Furthermore, during my tenure as Energy Secretary under President Trump, we pursued a genuine “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. We led the world in oil and gas production, achieved energy independence and simultaneously reduced carbon emissions. This was accomplished not by favoring one energy source over another but by maximizing all our resources — including nuclear power, which remains a zero-emission source of reliable energy.

With the next two blogs, I will try to celebrate the upcoming new year with my description of a “happy ending” of our global sustainability strides that would include much more than an energy transition.

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State of the Energy Transition: Part 2

 (Source: Grist, Amelia Bates)

Last week’s blog showed the continuing accelerated rise of average global temperature along with the continuing rise of global carbon emissions, in spite of the fact that the average carbon emissions of developing countries is starting to decrease. Many of us are now asking what the coming Trump administration’s response will be to this reality. Announcements of the leadership within the coming administration are almost complete, although the Senate’s advise and consent role in the process will start only after the new year. The NYT prognosis of the climate policies of the coming administration is summarized in the following article:

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet choices and key advisers run the gamut from people who acknowledge the threat of climate change to those who deny the scientific consensus that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are dangerously heating the planet.

But virtually all support Mr. Trump’s plan to extract more oil and gas and erase environmental rules, which would exacerbate global warming. And some who once acknowledged the problem now downplay the danger.

The individual quotes of the candidates look like they have been cherry-picked to highlight confusion, but the general trend is apparent.

President-elect Trump’s current attitude on climate change is not much different from his 2016 attitude (see the March 14, 2017 blog). He withdrew from the Paris Agreement as soon as he could. The US rejoined the Agreement immediately after the Biden administration took over, four years later. In his recent election campaign, he promised again to withdraw from the Agreement as soon as possible. However, the Paris Agreement is now “history,” and reversing the US commitment to changing its energy sources away from fossil fuels will be much more complicated. The following publication describes the present role that renewable resources are playing and the rate at which their role is increasing in the US energy use:

During the first three quarters of 2024, renewables increased their output by almost 9% year-over-year, and solar is still leading the charge, reports the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Solar’s massive growth

According to the EIA’s “Electric Power Monthly” report, which includes data through September 2024, solar power generation (including both utility-scale and rooftop installations) shot up by 25.9% compared to the first nine months of 2023.

Utility-scale solar grew even faster – up 30.1% – while small-scale solar (mostly rooftop) increased by 16.2%. Combined, solar contributed more than 7% of the total electricity generated in the US so far this year.

Zooming in on September, utility-scale solar generation grew by a whopping 29% compared to September 2023, and rooftop solar climbed by 14.2%. Combined, solar generated 7.5% of the nation’s electricity that month.

Last week’s blog described the state of the transition in the 10 “best” and “worst” states in the transition in terms of progress made. It also described the gain in employment in many states as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden administration’s main energy transformation legislation. Many winners of this transformation are Republican-controlled states.

However, the mixed messages will not be confined to environmental issues and will touch many of president-elect Trump’s promises. The list of the pre-election promises was summarized in an earlier blog (November 12, 2024) titled “Resilience.”

The first issue on this list was immigration, with Trump’s promise to seal” the southern border, and launch what he calls “the largest deportation program in American history,” invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. 

However, the US farm groups, centered in rural areas that were major contributors to Trump’s election victory, are now asking for special exemptions:

WASHINGTON, Nov 25 (Reuters) – U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally.

So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan.

Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.

Immigration is also playing a role in President-elect Trump’s “relaxed” attitude to climate change and other environmental issues that have directly resulted in the global increase of environmental refugees that were discussed in previous blogs (see April 3, April 10, 2018, and January 28, 2020).

The tension in rural areas extends beyond agriculture. One good example is Virginia:

If Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly are aligned on one thing, it’s their enthusiasm for bringing more data centers to the commonwealth. Where they part ways is in how to provide enough electricity to power them. Youngkin and most Republican legislators advocate for an “all of the above” approach that includes fossil gas as well as renewables; Democrats are committed to staying the course on the transition to zero-carbon energy, with a near-term emphasis on low-cost solar.

Data centers are making the transition harder, but so is local resistance to building solar. General Assembly members mostly understand the connection, leading to a lively debate in last year’s legislative session over whether to override some local permit denials for solar projects – and if so, how to ensure the localities still have some say. Though none of the legislative proposals moved forward last year, the topic has become a central one for the recently revamped Committee on Electric Utility Regulation (CEUR).

In January, the General Assembly is likely to consider legislation to override local solar permit denials in some cases, such as last year’s HB636 from Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, or another approach that would break the solar logjam. It remains to be seen, however,  whether legislators will take any action on data centers.

Another factor is Elon Musk, considered by some to be the richest man in the world, with equity estimated at $350B. He was, perhaps, the most important contributor to the Trump election victory. Yet, Tesla, one of his main sources of wealth, was also one of the main beneficiaries of President Biden’s IRA legislation; one of the industries most aided by the IRA was electric cars. The State of California has just introduced its own electric car tax credit, in case the federal government cancels them:

California will step in and provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if President-elect Donald J. Trump ends the $7,500 federal E.V. tax credit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday.

“We will intervene if the Trump administration eliminates the federal tax credit, doubling down on our commitment to clean air and green jobs in California,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”

Mr. Newsom’s proposal comes as California officials gird for an extended battle with the incoming Trump administration over environmental policy, immigration and other issues. As he did during his first term, Mr. Trump is expected to try once again to block California’s authority to set auto emissions limits that are stricter than federal standards.

Tesla would likely be excluded from new California EV tax credits, the governor’s office said:

Nov 25 (Reuters) – Tesla’s (TSLA.O), opens new tab electric vehicles likely would not qualify for California’s new state tax credits under a proposal in the works if President-elect Donald Trump scraps the federal tax credit for EV purchases, Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said on Monday.

Tesla shares closed down 4% to $338.59 and fell another 1.2% in after hours trading.

Trump’s transition team is considering eliminating the federal tax credit of $7,500 for EV purchases, Reuters reported this month.

Will all of this keep Musk “in line”?

Another commitment that will come under serious pressure is the extension of the 2017 tax cuts, of which major parts are about to expire next year.

Republicans Ponder: What if the Trump Tax Cuts Cost Nothing?

Some in the party are considering alternative ways of assessing the federal budget as they prepare to extend temporary tax cuts passed in 2017.

What counts as a tax cut? That is the question on the minds of many Republicans on Capitol Hill these days as they consider how far — and how fast — they can cut taxes again. The wonky ways of measuring the federal budget are shaping up to be central to the debate. Forcing the issue is the end of many of the tax cuts Republicans passed in 2017. Without any action by Congress next year, taxes would go up for most Americans, as provisions like lower marginal income rates and a larger standard deduction expired. Republicans want to protect their handiwork and extend the tax cuts before they lapse.

The 2026 November elections will be the first reckoning of the coming tensions.

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