MINNEAPOLIS -- The pandemic has brought a host of disparities for Black Americans, and college enrollment could be among them. A Minnesota advocacy group says the health crisis might add to existing barriers facing students in the region.

The latest findings from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show summer college enrollment for Black undergrad students dropped by more than 8% in the United States. Jonathan McNicholes, state chair of Students United, a nonprofit that advocates for students in Minnesota's state university system, said there's already anecdotal evidence of Black students being affected by the crisis.

"I know a few of my friends who have dropped out or who have taken more gaps in their education in order to work more and wait for the pandemic to subside, to know if they are going to be able to effectively continue their education," he said.

He said Black student enrollment across state schools already is significantly low, and a report this year from the Education Trust gave the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities a failing grade in this area. That report looked at 2017 numbers. The school has said it has made improvements since that time.

While summer classes might not be as crucial when compared with other semesters, McNicholes and others have said, they anticipate these gaps extending into the fall. He said that would make it even harder for many Black students to resume their college careers, if they take a pause.

"You start growing your life to a spot that it's harder to return to higher education," he said. "It's harder to become a student after you have these commitments in your life."

He said students of color don't often have the same level of resources as their white counterparts, which could keep them in the workforce rather than returning to school. McNicholes said he hopes this convinces more policymakers and schools to take steps to reduce the cost of higher education.

The national enrollment report is online at nscresearchcenter.org, and the enrollment grade report is at edtrust.org.


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With just over a month before Indiana university students return, a new law affecting college professor tenures is in full effect.

The law targets public universities, mandating diversity committees to review faculty, administration, and policies on "cultural and intellectual diversity."

Professors must undergo reviews every five years. Trustees are required to accept complaints if professors fail to meet criteria related to free inquiry, expression, and intellectual diversity, though specifics are not detailed.

Ball State University student Michaela Ayeh said the law promotes bigotry.

"This is a prime example of Board of Trustee and government overreach, restriction of academic freedom and censorship," said Ayeh. "This bill is exemplary of the racism, homophobia, sexism, classes of ableism and other bigoted ideologies that bigots harbor."

Proponents say the law gives the board the ability to determine whether faculty are eligible for tenure or promotion depending on their performance in promoting intellectual diversity every five years.

State Sen. Spencer Deery - R-West Lafayette - helped author the bill. He argued it addresses concerns of ideological bias in universities.

"Pew Research Foundation actually researched this of why do you lack trust in our institutions of higher education," said Deery. "The number one issue for Republican respondents was professors pushing political views irrelevant to the classroom."

Some scholars are concerned with how their speech will be restricted because their positions are now on the line.

Some of the pushback claims the law encourages conformity, and may discourage professors from engaging in topics that run the risk of violating what they deem is vague criteria.




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Montana has been granted $41 million to create a training and education program for new jobs in the high-tech sector.

The Headwaters Hub is part of a larger federal program designed to build the U.S. workforce in key areas, including artificial intelligence and photonics.

The U.S. Department of Commerce says Montana's rugged terrain, vast road system and largely rural setting make it the perfect place to train people in photonic remote-sensing systems, which use light to generate energy.

Headwaters Hub Executive Director Tim Van Reken said the focus will be on training people in Montana's new "innovation corridor" to learn the technology behind the systems.

"That runs from Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, up through Butte up through Missoula and up into the Flathead through Kalispell," said Van Reken. "So, it is all of the metropolitan-micropolitan areas along that corridor, and all of the rural and tribal areas in between."

Van Reken said in addition to developing this cutting-edge technology, the Headwaters Hub could generate as many as ten-thousand jobs in Montana over a decade - and create new avenues of employment for the state's large Indigenous population.

The University of Montana, Montana State and Salish Kootenai College will be involved in the hub - but Van Reken said those won't be the only places students can learn, and most won't have to travel far to take classes.

"Montana is a big, distributed, wide-open space," said Van Reken. "We want to make sure that, as much as we can, we're having the training be close to home so that folks can get the training they need and prepare for jobs while still managing their day-to-day lives."

Nearly 200 applicants competed for funding for 31 tech hubs, which stretch across rural and urban areas in 32 states and Puerto Rico.

New Mexico teachers educating young people about climate change don't want them to feel hopeless - and they've developed an educational curriculum to match that outlook.

Fiana Shapiro, environmental education instructional coordinator for the Sandia Mountain Natural History Center, part of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, said young people recognize that climate change is going to shape their futures - where they live, their vocation and quality of life. As part of the 350 New Mexico Climate Education Committee, Shapiro has helped develop Climate Hope, a middle-school climate curriculum.

"Most students know what it is, know some basics about it - they might know how it's connected to drought and even dryness," she said, "not necessarily a whole lot beyond that - but it really does depend on the school."

The 350 project has piloted the education curriculum in a handful of Albuquerque middle-school classrooms and held a recent teacher workshop to help them prepare lesson plans.

New Mexico has been hit by major forest fires followed by flooding this summer resulting in deaths, and the destruction of at least 500 homes.

In addition to adapting to a warming world, Shapiro said young people need climate education in order to develop green skills and understand what's needed to combat climate change - starting with reduction and eventual elimination of fossil fuels and including conservation of water and the thinning of forests. In order to engage, she believes kids need to know what's happening in New Mexico and around the world, "and that there are things that are being done already, and that can be done.

"We don't want to leave them with the idea of doom and gloom and everything's going wrong and that's it," she said. "We want to leave them with the idea that there are things that can be done and there's things they can do."

She said the four-lesson curriculum includes information about climate justice - the fact that people contributing the least to climate change are often the most affected.