Weekly Briefing: Columbia U.'s president resigns

Plus, why some faculty members at one college prefer closure to drastic cuts. ADVERTISEMENT [Weekly Briefing Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. Months after her Capitol Hill grilling, Columbia U.'s president resigns - After a protest-plagued fall semester, Columbia University’s president is out. Nemat (Minouche) Shafik said she would [step down]( this week. Though Shafik led Columbia for just over a year, her brief presidency encapsulated a chaotic time in higher education. Shafik was one of several Ivy League presidents grilled by congressional lawmakers last year about student protests after Hamas’s attack on Israel. [Our Sarah Brown and Andy Thomason have the story](. - At this college, proposed budget cuts are so deep that some faculty members prefer a closure. Facing serious financial problems, Wittenburg University’s president and board proposed eliminating 60 percent of full-time faculty members and a quarter of noninstructional staffers. After the cuts, the institution would rely more on online course-sharing. Some faculty members say this drastic change would shortchange students who enrolled expecting a different experience at the Ohio liberal-arts college. Some argue that closing the campus may be a better alternative. [Our Eric Kelderman reports](. - As an eight-day protest shut down a university, emails reveal how administrators and faculty argued about what to do. Days after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a campus building this spring, California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt shut down the campus for the rest of the semester. During the eight-day occupation that covered two buildings, administrators and the faculty had their own conflict. Our Kate Hidalgo Bellows reported on hundreds of emails obtained through a public records request that show a faculty that largely felt administrators did not understand the student body, and college leaders who believed instructors were getting in the way of ending the protest. [Read the story here](. - Can Pope Francis save the humanities? In [a papal letter]( issued last month, Pope Francis wrote about “the value of reading novels and poems as part of one’s path to personal maturity.” Though his letter first addresses the spiritual training of priests and others called to holy orders in the Roman Catholic Church, he quickly expanded his reach to include “all Christians.” [In the latest Review newsletter]( our Len Gutkin posits that could be good news for the humanities. - What you’re reading. Last week, [this advice story]( outlining ways to improve your first day of class attracted the most readers. SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. ADVERTISEMENT Lagniappe - Read. A judge offered an Ohio woman who threw a Chipotle bowl in a fast-food worker’s face the option to reduce her 90-day prison sentence if she worked in fast food for two months. [Here’s a story]( about that sentencing and the greater questions it raises, like: What happens when our economy aims to make our lives easier by removing people and interactions? Then, how do we interact? (Grub Street, New York) - Listen. For fans and novices of jazz music, here’s Mary Lou Williams’s [Black Christ of the Andes]( (St. Martin de Porres). (YouTube) - Watch. The 2023 film La Chimera, about a group of Italian grave robbers, is now available to stream on Hulu. Don’t let the macabre subject matter turn you off. It’s really a movie [about magical realism](. 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