Latest news with #BrownUniversity
New York Times
2 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Can Donors Fill the Major Budget Holes That Colleges Face Under Trump?
The T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard has not been disguising its plight. 'With Harvard's federal funding frozen, we are relying on philanthropy to power our research and support our educational programs,' the school's donation website says. 'Your ongoing engagement is vital to keeping our mission on track.' The Trump administration's decision to block billions of dollars in research money to certain colleges is forcing administrators and their fund-raising teams to scrounge for cash. As schools across the country contemplate layoffs, lab shutdowns and other drastic steps, they are weighing how much the gaps can be plugged by private philanthropy — and how pointedly political their pleas for donations ought to be. A handful are wagering that the financial rewards of trying to leverage donors' concerns about the federal cuts will outweigh the risk of antagonizing the White House. In an April 30 note to alumni, Christina H. Paxson, the president of Brown University, said about three dozen of its grants and contracts had already been canceled, and that the government had stopped funding many research grants. She said news reports stated that the Trump administration had threatened an additional $510 million in grants and contracts to the university. The moves, she wrote, represented 'a significant threat to Brown's financial sustainability.' She urged alumni to lobby lawmakers about the issue, and included links for making donations to the university, including to support research whose federal funding was canceled or delayed. (Brown said data was not yet available for release about whether giving had increased as a result.) Many other institutions have opted for more caution. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and a former leader of Occidental College, suggested that some schools may be worried about turning off right-leaning donors who may agree with President Trump's opinion that academia has tilted too far to the left. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
House committee demands Brown University hand over memos on student behind DOGE-style email
EXCLUSIVE - The House Judiciary Committee is asking the president of Brown University to hand over all internal memos related to a student who sent a DOGE-style email who subsequently faced disciplinary hearings and had his private information leaked. "We are concerned that Brown's decision to file disciplinary charges against Mr. Shieh and hold a misconduct hearing may serve to suppress free speech and discourage others from coming forward and asking questions related to Brown's rising costs," the Thursday letter from the House Judiciary Committee to Brown University President Christina Paxson said. Alex Shieh, a rising junior who was cleared of wrongdoing by the university on May 14, had previously angered school officials by sending a DOGE-like email to non-faculty employees identifying himself as a journalist for The Brown Spectator and asking them what they do all day to try to determine why the school's tuition has gotten so expensive. The letter, signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wisc., chairman of the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, seeks to understand Brown's "rationale for attempting to silence a student raising questions about how student and taxpayer dollars are being used." The Brown Spectator, which has a board of three people, including Shieh, was revived this year after it ceased publication in 2014. The board members faced a disciplinary hearing on May 7 over allegations that they violated Brown University's name, licensing and trademark policies. Shieh previously told Fox News Digital that other campus publications also use the school's name, including "The Brown Daily Herald," another student-run nonprofit newspaper. Shieh and the Spectator faced scrutiny from the university after Shieh, during free weekends in March, began investigating positions he deemed redundant after reviewing 3,805 non-faculty employees who worked at Brown and emailing them to ask, "What do you do all day?" Shieh used AI to try to determine what Brown employees did and why the school, which costs nearly $96,000 a year, was so expensive. When creating his database, he formatted it to identify three particular jobs: "DEI jobs, redundant jobs, and bulls--t jobs." He said that he wanted to investigate DEI because of President Donald Trump's executive orders addressing DEI policies, and his administration threatening to withhold federal funds to universities who employ them. The goal was to get as much data as possible to improve his research. Only 20 of the 3,805 people emailed responded, with many of the responses being profane and hostile, and Shieh's Social Security number was subsequently leaked. On June 4, Shieh testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust for a hearing entitled, "The Elite Universities Cartel: A History of Anticompetitive Collusion Inflating the Cost of Higher Education." The House Judiciary Committee is asking that Paxson, Brown's president, provide all documents and communications between Brown's employees pertaining to Shieh's "investigative inquiry, Brown University's subsequent investigation of Mr. Shieh, Brown University's decision to file disciplinary charges against Mr. Shieh, or Brown University's adjudication of Mr. Shieh's charges." The committee is also asking for all information related to what they call the "unauthorized disclosure of Mr. Shieh's personally identifiable information." "Brown University's decision to file disciplinary charges against students like Alex Shieh, simply for looking into the school's bloated bureaucracy and rising tuition costs, is a clear act of retaliation," Fitzgerald, who signed the letter, told Fox News Digital in a statement. "The Committee shares serious concerns about this troubling response and remains committed to conducting rigorous oversight into whether Brown University and other Ivy League institutions are engaging in anticompetitive pricing practices." In a statement, Brian Clark, vice president for News and Strategic Campus Communications told Fox News Digital that the university "has been cooperating with extensive requests for information from the U.S. House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary since the initial inquiry arrived in April, demonstrating that we have and continue to make decisions on tuition and financial aid independently as part of our commitment to making sure that no student's family socioeconomic circumstances prevent them from accessing the benefits of a Brown education." Clark added, "We'll continue to provide any responses to follow-up requests directly to the committees."
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dapper Michael Douglas, 80, is joined by his chic daughter Carys, 22, as they step out together in Menorca after her graduation
Michael Douglas was joined by his daughter Carys Zeta Douglas as they attended the Sant Joan festivities together in Menorca on Monday. The Hollywood icon, 80, looked typically dapper in a Panama hat and a blue shirt, which he wore with a pair of navy trousers. Michael, who was also sporting a pair of stylish dark sunglasses, proudly walked beside his daughter through the streets of Ciudadela. Meanwhile, Carys, who recently graduated from Brown University, looked chic in a black summer dress and chic shades. The daughter of Michael and Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones wore her brunette locks in a half up half down do and carried a snakeskin print bag. The Sant Joan Festival is a vibrant, traditional celebration held annually on June 23 and 24 with religious origins, featuring a mix of equestrian displays, lively parades, and communal festivities. Earlier this month, Carys was showered with love and support from her famous parents as she graduated from Brown University in Rhode Island. The graduate took to Instagram to share more snaps from her big day, which featured an emotional moment with her mother Catherine, 55, and a sweet shot with her dad. Carys looked radiant as she posed in her cap and gown layered over a chic white dress. In one adorable photograph, she was seen with tears of joy as she embraced her mother. Reposting the image, Catherine shared: 'Says it all really. Love you Carys.' Catherine also reposted a fun snap of Carys sat in the boot of their car as she quipped: 'graduate on board'. Carys' carousel of snaps was captioned: 'Thank you thank you thank you @brownu @watsoninstitute'. Catherine was quick to comment, posting: 'So proud of you. What a milestone. Congratulations sweetheart ❤️'. Last week, the Wednesday actress shared her own photographs from the ceremony, including a sweet one of herself and Michael kissing Carys on both cheeks. Catherine captioned the picture: 'The night before graduation!!!! We are both such proud parents right now!! It's only just begun!!' The proud actress mum went on to share several Instagram stories on Sunday, including footage of their daughter in her graduation robes. Catherine and Carys also held hands for a sweet moment where they kissed each other again on the cheek. The occasion, which saw Carys obtain a degree in Film and International Relations from the prestigious Ivy League school, was also celebrated with a carrot cake. Last October, Michael shared snaps with his daughter Carys as he visited her at college. Proud Michael posted a heartwarming picture on Instagram at the time, posing with his daughter against a beautiful autumn backdrop on campus. He captioned the post: 'Visiting my daughter Carys at school on a fall Sunday!,' alongside a heart emoji. Carys was quick to comment as she penned: 'I had the best time with you Dadda.' Catherine and Michael share two children together, Carys, and her brother Dylan, 24, and they are both following in the acting footsteps of their famous parents. Acting is a prominent part of Michael's family background; he is the son of legendary actor Kirk Douglas and actress Diana Dill. While Dylan has a short resume on IMDb, he still remains in the spotlight - he hosts Young American with Dylan Douglas, a 'Gen Z powered political talk show.' Cary's IMDb only has four credits thus far but her work includes the short film Shell and working as a second assistant director on the short August. Catherine and Carys also held hands for a sweet moment where they kissed each other again on the cheek The now-graduate's latest film, another short called F*ck That Guy, headed to the PROOF Film Festival in Los Angeles and saw Spike Lee serve as an executive producer. In 2021, Catherine revealed both Carys and Dylan are determined to get into acting. Catherine said on The Drew Barrymore Show: 'Their love of the craft of acting is so strong that even when their brains are doing politics and history in school, their passion is acting. 'And they've never done anything professional, but they would like to go into acting.' Carys has even been warned by her father that if she pursues a career in Hollywood she will always be referred to as 'the daughter of.'
Observer
7 days ago
- Health
- Observer
This is easy to solve
Middle East peace, climate change, Ukraine — if Sisyphus were assigned one of today's global problems, he'd plead to be returned to rock rolling. So let's focus for a moment on a global challenge that we can actually solve: starvation. I suspect that some Americans — perhaps including President Donald Trump — want to slash humanitarian aid because they think problems like starvation are intractable. Absolutely wrong! We have nifty, elegant and cheap solutions to global hunger. Consider something really simple: deworming. I'm travelling through West Africa on my annual win-a-trip journey, in which I take a university student along on a reporting trip and every day we see children plagued by worms that aggravate their malnutrition. Nutrients go to their parasites, not to them. While worms are worthy antagonists — a female worm can lay 200,000 eggs in a day — aid agencies can deworm a child for less than $1 a year. This makes them stronger, less anemic and more likely to attend school. Researchers have even found higher lifetime earnings. In the US, we spend considerable sums deworming pets; every year I spend $170 deworming my dog, Connie Kuvasz Kristof. Yet deworming the world's children has never been as high a priority as deworming pets in the West, so we tolerate a situation in which 1 billion children worldwide carry worms. My win-a-trip winner, Sofia Barnett of Brown University and I are reminded in every village we visit of the toll of hunger. Malnutrition leaves more than one-fifth of children worldwide stunted, countless millions cognitively impaired and vast numbers (especially menstruating women and girls) weak from anemia. Malnutrition is a factor in 45 per cent of child deaths worldwide. A health worker weighs a baby at a clinic in Bombali District, Sierra Leone. NYT file photo Yet we also see how these deaths can be inexpensively prevented. In one Sierra Leone clinic, we met a 13-month-old boy, Abukamara, with sores and stick limbs from severe malnutrition. His mother, Mariatu Fornah, invited us to her village deep in the bush. The family is impoverished and struggling. The parents and four children share a mattress in a thatch-roof mud-brick hut with no electricity, and no one in the family had eaten that day, even though it was early afternoon. Fornah is doing what she can. She spent her entire savings of $3 and traded away a dress to get a traditional herb remedy for Abukamara, and she made the long trek to the clinic to get help. And there she found it — in the form of a miracle peanut paste. The clinic gave her a supply of the peanut paste, one foil packet a day and it will almost certainly restore Abukamara. This peanut paste contains protein, micronutrients and everything a child's body needs, plus it tastes good and costs just $1 per child per day. Known by the brand name Plumpy'Nut or the ungainly abbreviation RUTF, for ready-to-use therapeutic food, it has saved millions of children's lives over the years. Trump's closure of the United States Agency for International Development led to the cancellation of orders for RUTF and 185,535 boxes of it are piled up in the warehouse of Edesia Nutrition, according to the firm's founder and CEO, There are other inexpensive nutritional steps that could save many lives and some are astonishingly low-tech. Optimal breastfeeding could save up to 800,000 lives a year, The Lancet estimated, with no need for trucks, warehouses or refrigeration. Vitamin A supplementation would save lives, as would food fortification (adding nutrients to common foods). Promoting orange-flesh sweet potatoes over white-flesh ones would help, because orange ones have a precursor of vitamin A. Encouraging healthier crops like beans and millet rich with iron, rather than, say, cassava would help as well. Investments in nutrition — along with others in vaccines and in treating diarrhea, pneumonia and other ailments — help explain why fewer than half as many children die before the age of 5 now as in 2000. Yet after leading the world in fighting malnutrition, the US may be surrendering the field. America used to be the world's leading backer of nutrition, but the US government did not even send a formal delegation to the 2025 Nutrition for Growth summit, a conference held every four years. The US was expected to host the next summit, but now that's not clear. In my journalistic career, I've seen children dying from bullets, malaria, cholera and simple diarrhea, but perhaps the hardest to watch are kids who are starving. Their bodies have sores that don't heal, their hair falls out and their skin peels. By that point, even nourishing food doesn't always bring them back. What is most eerie is that such children don't cry or protest; they are impassive, with blank faces. That's because the body is fighting to keep the organs functioning and refuses to waste energy on tears or protests. Their heads don't move, but their eyes follow us silently, presumably wondering if we will care enough to ease their pain. Mr. Trump, will we? — The New York Times
Bloomberg
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Universities Win Order Voiding Agency's 15% Research Cost Cap
Brown and Cornell universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several other US schools won a federal court order striking down a National Science Foundation cap on indirect cost rates for government-funded research. Judge Indira Talwani struck down the cap on Friday, finding it 'arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the law,' granting summary judgment to the suing schools plus the Association of American Universities, and denying that relief to the government.
