Weekly Briefing: What should you really worry about?

The 2020 Trends Report will prompt you to think about solutions to your toughest higher-ed questions. [Weekly Briefing] What issues should you really worry about? [Image] [deliormanli]( for iStock By Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz Sometimes it feels like college administrators are staring at the Magic 8 Ball, asking it questions and hoping to land on the right answers. They ask, “Will my college survive? Can we poach students from other colleges? How can we keep students and faculty members safe?” ADVERTISEMENT [advertisement]( Consider The Chronicle’s sixth-annual Trends Report your icosahedron, or 20-faced polygon, on the inside of the fortune-telling toy. This newsletter has previewed two stories from the report this month, but now the whole magic globe is yours to read. The report will help prompt you and your colleagues to find your solutions to these questions, with stories about the forces bearing down on colleges, and insights into how some of them are responding. - Will my college make it? For years, experts have predicted disruptions in higher education that will lead to scores of college closures. Such predictions have been mostly speculative. Now, a group of experts is using data and different formulas to forecast a college’s survival or demise. Is this a good idea? Can a college be assessed like a Fortune 500 company? [Our Scott Carlson reports.]( - What’s next for the #MeToo movement? Two years ago, the #MeToo movement took hold in almost every industry, including higher education. Today victims of sexual assault on campus are more likely to come forward, and be believed. Those changes have also created momentum. Students, concerned faculty members, and other allies have lists of demands for college administrators. Mainly, and most challengingly, they want institutions to evolve from punishing harassment to fostering a culture that prevents it. Can colleges keep up? [Read Emma Pettit’s story.]( - All's fair in college admissions? The rules of competition in college admissions have relaxed, at the same time that enrollment managers are scrambling to keep their numbers up. More institutions are mimicking the hard-sell tactics of corporations, like offering students opportunities to enter “sweepstakes” and giving students different deadlines. The difference is that colleges aren’t trying to get you to buy a shiny new product. They want to enroll more students — sometimes even the competition’s students. Can this be pulled off fairly without prolonging students’ uncertainty? It’s complicated, [reports Eric Hoover](. - Many new Ph.D. holders won’t land academic jobs. How should universities best train their graduate students? You’ve seen the dismal numbers, and your students have, too. In many fields, especially in the humanities, the production of Ph.D.s outpaces available academic careers or research positions. A nonacademic trajectory has become more or less a norm for students studying literature and history. Professors and students now want to rewrite the rules of Ph.D. programs to better prepare their graduates and show the public that studying the humanities still has social value. [Marc Parry has the story](. - Why are college lawyers working overtime? Last year, we saw several shocking court decisions and settlements that showed just how much colleges can legally be responsible for. Institutions may be liable for the behavior of students, faculty members, and administrators. And other institutional changes, like closures and mergers, not to mention a looming economic recession, have university general-counsel offices scrambling. [Alex Kafka writes]( about why your college’s lawyers will only get busier. Take a look at the 2020 Trends Report in its entirety [here](. Best of the rest. [Image] Robyn Beck, AFP via Getty Images - When colleges partner with banks to teach students about financial literacy, [what guardrails should be put in place]( to protect impressionable students? - Regents at Texas Southern University voted on Thursday [to repeal a bylaw]( that gave them the ability to fire campus employees. Our Lindsay Ellis [was the first to report]( on the controversial power earlier this month. Accountability journalism at work. Lagniappe. [Image] Amazon - ✏️ Learn. Why does it feel like the corporate world speaks another language? [Here’s a funny, and sometimes necessary, translation]( from Corporatespeak to English. - 📚 Read. Last weekend, I finished the novel Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis. [The book]( about a teenage girl who, like most teenagers, is bored, but her observations, charm, and off-beat circumstances (looking for Ukrainan dwarfs on a Oaxacan beach) make boredom dreamy. I cannot recommend it enough. - 🎧 Listen. Casper, a start-up that delivers mattresses to customers’ doors, revolutionized the bed business. But its business model is coming back to bite it. The Wall Street Journal podcast “[The Journal]( explains how and why the competition for mattresses has changed in recent years. - 📺 Watch. The artist Bob Ross painted more than 1,000 landscapes for his television program. [Where did all the paintings go]( See you next Saturday. Cheers, –- Fernanda Subscribe Today The Chronicle’s award-winning journalism challenges conventional wisdom, holds academic leaders accountable, and empowers you to do your job better — and it’s your support that makes our work possible. [Subscribe Today]( This Week's Top Reads Leadership & Governance [Texas Southern Board Nixes a Far-Reaching Power to Fire After Chronicle Reporting]( The change follows alerts that the board’s new bylaws, which were passed in October, posed a “grave risk.” But the regents kept a similar authority on the books. (PREMIUM) ADVERTISEMENT [advertisement]( Paid for and Created by Planon [Defining Campus Management System Requirements for a Campus of the Future]( As college staff members juggle new priorities like technology initiatives, campus beautification, and more, budgets get tighter and hard decisions must be made. Teaching [When Banks Pay for College Students to Learn About Money]( Some universities use commercial banks’ experts, materials, and funding to teach students financial literacy. What rules an institution sets for such arrangements depends on which one you ask. (PREMIUM) Paid for and Created by University of Sydney [Why Revisiting the Great Barrier Reef’s Past Could Protect Its Future]( New research at the University of Sydney is uncovering how the Great Barrier Reef’s past responses to changes in the climate can help us better understand its capacity to react to and survive future cataclysmic events. Latest Jobs Visit [ChronicleVitae.com]( to view the latest jobs in higher education. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Sign up]( for other newsletters, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2020 [The Chronicle of Higher Education]( 1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037 [The Chronicle of Higher Education](