Afternoon Update: Yale names Maurie McInnis, head of Stony Brook U., as its new president

U. of California strike expands; New College of Florida students face penalties for booing; Northeastern and Marymount Manhattan merge; and more. ADVERTISEMENT [Afternoon Update Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. LEADERSHIP [Yale Names Maurie McInnis, Head of Stony Brook U., as Its New President]( After a nine-month search that coincided with protests over the Israel-Hamas war, the Ivy League university chose the president of the State University of New York campus, who is also a Yale trustee. McInnis, a cultural historian who will be Yale’s first non-interim female president, was previously provost of the University of Texas at Austin. She takes office on July 1. (Yale Daily News) ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | OPINION [The Cynicism of Institutional ‘Neutrality’]( By Anton Ford [STORY IMAGE]( Colleges have already taken a side in the Gaza conflict. LATITUDES [China Has Become a Global Research Powerhouse. But Its Scientific Standing May Be Inflated.]( By Karin Fischer [STORY IMAGE]( Plus, a new effort to revive the China Initiative. ADVICE [Obituaries of Historians Show What We Value, and It’s Not Teaching]( By Peter Burkholder and Lendol G. Calder [STORY IMAGE]( A study of eulogies underscores what academics think is important in a faculty career. CAMPUS UNREST I [U. of California Academic Workers Expand Strike to 2 More Campuses]( The walkout, over the university system’s punitive response on some campuses to pro-Palestinian protesters, [began last week]( at UC-Santa Cruz, and has now spread to UCLA and UC-Davis. The strikers, some 14,000 graduate-student instructors and researchers, could cause chaos as the spring term winds down. The UC system says the strike is illegal. (CalMatters, The Chronicle) CAMPUS UNREST II [New College of Florida Will Punish Student Protesters Following Boos at Commencement]( The public college’s president, Richard Corcoran, a former Republican speaker of the state House, said the protesters could have their degrees withheld until they apologized or took classes in civil discourse. They could also be suspended or expelled. The college has been a [focus]( of [protests]( since a [conservative takeover]( last year [engineered]( by Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Chronicle) CONSOLIDATION [Merger With Small College in Manhattan Gives Northeastern U. a Foothold in New York]( The Boston-based university will absorb Marymount Manhattan College into its network, which has campuses in London, Silicon Valley, and Toronto. The college said it had sought the deal because falling enrollment, rising costs, and annual deficits since 2020 had made its future unsustainable. Its 85 full-time faculty members will be considered for jobs under the merger. (The New York Times) CAMPUS SAFETY [U. of Michigan Police Officer’s Suspension Violated First Amendment, Jury Finds]( William Ashford, an officer on the university’s Dearborn campus, said he was suspended in 2019 for accusing the campus’s police chief and others of inaction on a student’s complaint that she had been sexually assaulted by a professor. A jury in Detroit last week found in favor of Ashford and awarded him more than $300,000. (The Ann Arbor News) GLOBAL RESEARCH [U. of Florida Worker and Students Implicated in Plot to Ship Drugs and Toxins to China]( In the illegal, multimillion-dollar scheme investigated by the U.S. Justice Department, the university researcher and students helped to fraudulently buy thousands of biochemical samples for a campus laboratory that were then sent to China over a seven-year period. 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