Latest news with #HarvardCrimson
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Why does Trump keep saying Harvard teaches remedial math?
The White House has an expanding list of complaints about Harvard. Among them: a puzzling claim that Harvard kids can't do math. 'Did you see that, where the students can't add two and two and they go to Harvard?" President Trump said on May 23 during an Oval Office briefing. It isn't just Trump. The rumor that Harvard's admission standards have slipped so far they are teaching 'remedial math" has ricocheted across social media to Washington. Two federal agencies, in official correspondence, have echoed it, one even suggesting Harvard is teaching 'middle school math." Something doesn't compute. Harvard's lowest math course is college-level calculus, and their students? Overall, they are something of arithmetic aficionados. Most undergraduates have taken four years of high-school math. The median math SAT score for incoming Harvard students has been 750 or higher over the past decade, in at least the 95th percentile for students nationwide. 'The narrative…it just is so disconnected from what's happening in the classroom," said Brendan Kelly, Harvard's director of introductory math. How did this idea multiply? Tracing this requires a few twists and turns. Last fall, Harvard expanded its entry-level math offerings, with a new version of its introductory calculus course that meets five days a week instead of the usual four. Students are given a skills test to determine whether they need the extended course, Kelly said. The extra time each week is devoted to reviewing algebra skills to make the calculus more accessible, Kelly said. The No. 1 challenge for students in calculus is command of algebra because the knowledge has sometimes faded, he added. 'The extra support will target foundational skills in algebra, geometry, and quantitative reasoning that will help you unlock success," the class description says. The Harvard Crimson student newspaper wrote an article about the new offering in September, saying that it was 'aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills," without noting that it is a calculus course. Fast forward to March 18, when Marc Porter Magee, the head of an educational advocacy organization, posted the Crimson article on X, writing: 'Meanwhile, for the first time in its history Harvard has been forced to offer a remedial algebra course to its undergrads." The post racked up 1.1 million views. And thus, a new idea, that Harvard teaches remedial math, entered the equation. (Remedial math is generally thought of as basic instruction necessary before students can take college-level courses.) The idea bounced around the internet and made its way to the Trump administration. The president has voiced it twice from the White House. While signing education-related executive orders on April 23, Trump declared from the Oval Office: 'I hear all about certain great schools and then we read where they're going to teach people basic math, math that we could all do very easily, but they can't do." Why, he asked, are people getting into places such as Harvard without being able to do math, while some students who are at the top of their class can't get into the best schools? Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was with him, replied that it comes down to meritocracy, and that 'we have to look harder at those universities that aren't enforcing that." McMahon doubled down a few weeks later in a blistering letter sent to Harvard informing the university that it shouldn't apply for any future federal grants because none would be forthcoming. 'This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing 'remedial math' program for undergraduates," McMahon wrote in the May 5 letter. 'Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this 'acclaimed university'? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected?" Then, on Tuesday, Josh Gruenbaum, an official with the General Services Administration, circulated a letter to federal agencies telling them to review and potentially cancel any remaining Harvard contracts. The letter mentioned the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court case that banned affirmative action at Harvard and other universities. 'Harvard has shown no indication of reforming their admissions process—to the contrary, Harvard now has to offer a remedial math course, which has been described as 'middle school math,' for incoming freshmen," Gruenbaum wrote. Harvard's Kelly said that while the pandemic led to skills gaps among the university's students—a phenomenon that occurred across the U.S., according to national benchmark tests—they still have high math knowledge. About 20 students enrolled in the five-day-a-week section this semester, Kelly said. The section requires the same exams as the standard introductory calculus. 'It is not remedial math. It is a college-level calculus class," he said. Magee—who wrote the X post—suggested in an interview Friday that he was making a similar point, that the pandemic led to even universities with 3.6% acceptance rates seeing students with less solid math skills than in the past. Students who were freshmen at Harvard last fall would have been finishing eighth grade when the pandemic hit. As for how the Trump administration ran with the 'remedial math" concept he launched, Magee says: 'You don't get to choose what goes viral." Write to Sara Randazzo at
International Business Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- International Business Times
Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Ban on Enrolling Foreign Students at Harvard in Crushing Blow to Trump Admin
A U.S. District Court Judge has ruled that the federal government isn't allowed to make any permanent changes to Harvard University's student visa program. U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs said on Thursday that she will order the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department not to make any changes to Harvard's student visa program. "I want to maintain the status quo," Burroughs said, supporting the idea of allowing Harvard to resume accepting international students and visa holders and urged both parties to work out a deal to temporarily lift the freeze on the student's visa program, CNN reported as the details were still being hashed out in court. Another Setback for Trump "It doesn't need to be draconian, but I want to make sure it's worded in such a way that nothing changes," Burroughs said. Harvard's lead attorney, Ian Gershengorn, added that he wants to ensure no "shenanigans" to take place once the order is in place. Hours before the intense legal clash began, the administration filed a legal notice giving Harvard 30 days to defend its right to continue admitting foreign students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. On Wednesday, President Trump said that Harvard should cut its international student population by half to help "make Harvard great again," setting a cap of 15 percent compared to the current 27.2 percent of international enrollees. "We have people who want to go to Harvard and other schools, [but] they can't get in because we have foreign students there," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. Trump has also warned that Harvard could lose roughly $3.3 billion in federal funding if it doesn't comply with certain demands aimed at curbing antisemitism on campus. He even suggested redirecting that money to vocational schools instead. Harvard at the Center of Controversy Meanwhile, just six miles from a courtroom hearing on the matter, Harvard held its 2025 commencement ceremony. University President Alan Garber, who has pledged to "stand firm" in the dispute with the administration, was cheered as he greeted the crowd of nearly 32,000 gathered in Harvard Yard. The graduation ceremony was prepped with several anti-Israel and anti-Trump remarks and protests. According to the Harvard Crimson, around 50 protesters lined Massachusetts Avenue holding signs with messages like "support students punished for opposing genocide" and "stop arming Israel." During the graduation ceremony, a brief confrontation broke out between campus police and two people who unfurled a banner that read "there are no universities left in Gaza" on the steps of Widener Library. The Harvard Crimson described the scene as "heated." Police confiscated the banner, and one of the protesters was heard shouting, "give me my flag back" at an officer. It remains unclear whether the people involved had any official ties to Harvard. Elsewhere on campus, another protest banner was hung from a second-story window of Sever Hall. It read, "Harvard divest from genocide in Gaza" in bold black and red letters. A small group of graduates in their caps and gowns near the building turned to take pictures of the banner before campus police quickly took it down. According to the report, three university officials went into the building to try to identify who was responsible, but they were unsuccessful.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Harvard revokes professor's tenure in rare move amid data manipulation allegations
Print Close By Pilar Arias Published May 28, 2025 Harvard University has revoked the tenure of Francesca Gino, a professor of business administration, who was accused of data fraud. Gino has been fighting the allegations for almost four years, The Harvard Crimson reports. The student newspaper says Gino was well-known for studying honesty and ethical behavior before she was accused of manipulating observations to support her hypotheses. "This is the first time it has occurred in recent decades," a Harvard spokesperson told Fox News Digital via email regarding the tenure being revoked. Prior to losing academic protection, Gino fought for two years to keep her position at the Ivy League school. In 2018 and 2019, she was the fifth-highest paid employee at the prestigious school, receiving more than $1 million in compensation each year, The Harvard Crimson reported. HARVARD PRESIDENT URGES THE SCHOOL TO ADDRESS LACK OF CONSERVATIVES ON CAMPUS Gino had authored over 140 scholarly papers and won numerous awards prior to coming under scrutiny by scholars who questioned her data in a series of blog posts published on Data Colada. "In 2021, we and a team of anonymous researchers examined a number of studies co-authored by Gino, because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data," the blog reads. "We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently (in 2020)." HOW FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PLANS TO END SCHOOL YEAR FOLLOWING DEADLY SHOOTING The blog's authors shared their concerns with Harvard Business School in the fall of 2021. Gino, who filed a lawsuit against the blog authors and Harvard, according to The Hill, with parts of the lawsuit still ongoing. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP She last publicly declared her innocence on her website. "I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result. I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period," she wrote. Fox News Digital made attempts to reach Gino for comment, but did not immediately hear back. Print Close URL
Mint
5 days ago
- Politics
- Mint
Does the president want to fix Harvard or destroy it?
Donald Trump has made the Harvard man his whipping boy, and academia certainly had it coming. Still, what is the president's objective? The administration announced Tuesday that it is seeking to cancel all remaining federal contracts with the school, which are worth an estimated $100 million. That's on top of the billions of dollars in grants to Harvard that Mr. Trump has already frozen. He's also threatened to revoke the university's tax-exempt status and wants to increase the levy on its $53 billion endowment. In a social-media post on Memorial Day, the president mused about rescinding $3 billion in grant money awarded to Harvard for scientific and engineering research and redirecting it to trade schools. But to what end? Does Mr. Trump think trade schools have the infrastructure and resources to do the research done at Harvard? The president is upset that Harvard and other elite institutions didn't do enough to protect Jewish students on their campuses who were being harassed and intimidated by anti-Israel demonstrators. He's likewise annoyed by the leftward political tilt of academia, where social-justice advocacy is dominant and competing perspectives are discouraged and seldom engaged. Those are fair criticisms, but they don't give Mr. Trump license to trample over academic freedom and First Amendment rights, or to tell private universities whom they can hire and what they can teach. Mr. Trump's recent move to bar Harvard from enrolling foreign students is as shortsighted and counterproductive as his effort to disrupt research projects. Citing a need to protect Jewish students, the Department of Homeland Security announced last week that Harvard is losing its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which allows international students to attend U.S. colleges. 'Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a press release. A federal judge has issued a restraining order that temporarily halts the administration's foreign-student ban, and anyone who cares about higher education should hope the White House drops the issue. Mr. Trump accuses Harvard of withholding the names of its international students. 'They refuse to tell us who the people are," he told reporters. But the federal government already has that information. As the Harvard Crimson explained, schools that accept students on foreign visas 'report extensive records to the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System database, including names, places of birth, and countries of origin." The administration wants additional information on foreign students, including protest activities, but Harvard says that goes beyond what the law requires and raises privacy concerns. The problem is that the government's demands are overly broad and almost certainly pretextual. Compliance is near-impossible because the administration has already determined that Harvard is to be punished. What's less clear is what Mr. Trump hopes to accomplish by inflicting as much pain as possible on one of the world's most prestigious universities. Is the goal to fix what's wrong with higher education—and much needs fixing—or to destroy it? Mr. Trump likes to talk about his crackdown on illegal immigration, and he deserves high praise for fulfilling his campaign promise to restore order on the southern border. The president also complains, however, about companies that hire foreign nationals who are here lawfully, suggesting that he has a problem with immigrant workers regardless of their legal status. Citing a memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Politico reported Tuesday that the administration might soon require 'all foreign students applying to study in the United States to undergo social media vetting." In preparation, it is 'ordering U.S. embassies and consular sections to pause scheduling new interviews for such student visa applicants." For the White House, banning foreign students could be another way to reduce legal immigration. If that's the goal, Mr. Trump should understand the trade-offs. One of the reasons that U.S. higher education is the gold standard is the presence of international students. A disproportionately high number of doctorates at American universities are awarded to foreign students—especially in the more demanding fields of science, mathematics and engineering. 'International students accounted for more than 40 percent of the roughly 500,000 doctoral degrees awarded by U.S. universities between 2000 and 2019," according to the Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Mumbai and Beijing—by way of Harvard and other elite schools—supply the talent that keeps our high-tech sector competitive. These are among the best minds in the world, and they want to live and work in America. They boost employment and productivity. They generate wealth. Nothing is gained by forcing our leading universities to turn them away.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A physician who advocates for the power of human touch over technology will deliver Harvard's commencement speech
Doctors interact with patients, in many cases, when they are feeling their worst – so, how they talk to those patients during such a vulnerable time matters. That's the philosophy of Abraham Verghese, the bestselling author, Stanford professor, and infectious disease doctor who will address students at Harvard University's 374th Commencement this week. Verghese will be the first physician to give Harvard's commencement speech since 1996, according to the school's student-run newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. That year, Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and former director of the National Institutes of Health, told graduates that supporting science was a shared human responsibility. 'He has pursued excellence across disciplines with an intensity surpassed only by his humanity, which shines brilliantly through his works of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as his work as a clinician and teacher,' said Harvard President Alan M. Garber about Verghese in the university's commencement announcement. In previous years, graduates have heard from many accomplished speakers: Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa, Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg and media mogul Oprah Winfrey. While the 69-year-old may not be a household name, Verghese is a prominent physician. His journey has taken him across the United States, healing patients through medicine and reaching people through literature, including his 2023 novel 'The Covenant of Water.' Verghese declined to be interviewed for this story, but wrote on social media he was 'deeply honored' to have been invited to Harvard by Garber, who was previously one of his colleagues at the Stanford School of Medicine. Harvard's invitation to Verghese, comes at a time of significant uncertainty at the Ivy League school amid its ongoing clashes with the Trump administration over academic freedom, federal funding, campus oversight and most recently, a ban on the enrollment of international students. For many years, Verghese has advocated for strengthening the physician-patient connection and bedside skills. He joined the Stanford School of Medicine in 2007 as a professor and is currently, vice chair for the Theory & Practice of Medicine program. He also founded an interdisciplinary center at Stanford focused on the human experience in medicine and Stanford Medicine 25, an initiative designed to foster bedside exam skills for professionals. For Verghese, the most important innovation in medicine is 'the power of the human hand to touch, to comfort, to diagnose, and to bring about treatment,' according to his 2011 TED Talk in Edinburgh, Scotland. Technology is impacting the interactions b etween patients and doctors because hospital rounds often center around data and images on a computer, far away from the actual patient, Verghese said during the TED Talk. 'The ritual of one individual coming to another and telling them things that they would not tell their preacher or rabbi, and then, incredibly, on top of that, disrobing and allowing touch, I would submit to you that that is a ritual of exceeding importance,' Verghese said. 'And if you short change that ritual by not undressing the patient, by listening with your stethoscope on top of the nightgown, by not doing a complete exam, you have bypassed on the opportunity to seal the patient-physician relationship.' Through Presence, an interdisciplinary center at Stanford, and Stanford Medicine 25, Verghese hopes to educate future medical professionals on bedside medicine, harnessing technology for the human experience as well as studying and advocating for the patient-physician relationship. Verghese has drawn from his personal experiences in three continents to fuel the type of educator and writer he has become today. He was born in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa to expatriate Indian parents, who were both educators, and grew up there as the country was ruled by Emperor Haile Selassie. He started medical school in Ethiopia but fled the country when Selassie was toppled by a violent military dictatorship in the 1970s, Verghese wrote in The Guardian. Verghese reunited with his parents in New Jersey, where they had previously moved. There, he began working as a hospital orderly, which ultimately inspired him to return to his family's homeland and become a physician. 'Looking back, that was the best medical education I could have had, because I saw what happened to the patient in the 23 hours and 58 minutes the doctors were not in the room,' Verghese shared in an interview with a medical journal about his time as an orderly. Once he graduated from medical school in India, Verghese returned to the US and completed his residency at a hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at the former Boston City Hospital in Massachusetts in the mid-1980s. During his time in rural east Tennessee, Verghese had a front row seat to the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic. That experience 'humbled' him and changed the way he saw his practice, he said in an interview with the American Society of Hematology's magazine, ASH Clinical News. 'We learned what it meant to heal when we could not cure,' he told the magazine. 'We realized how much our presence and caring mattered. A cure wasn't within our reach, but we were making a profound difference by indicating to the patient that we would be there, that we were not running away.' And despite being able to do so little for his patients, who battled a disease with no treatment, he focused on providing them comfort and doing so filled him with purpose. After witnessing so much loss and health care workers' burnout during the AIDS epidemic, Verghese has said becoming a writer became 'a matter of self-preservation.' In 1990, the physician pressed pause on medicine to focus on his writing and attended the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, according to his website. After earning his master's degree in Iowa, Verghese moved to El Paso, Texas, where he was a professor of medicine and chief of the division of infectious diseases at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center for 11 years. During that time, he would spend his evenings writing, he told Palo Alto Online. 'Writing became my escape from the pressures of being an infectious disease clinician, ' he told ASH Clinical News. 'Other people might have played golf or something, but for me it was writing,' he added. In his first novel 'My Own Country: A Doctor's Story,' Verghese pulled back the curtain on his own experiences and the meaningful, personal relationships he formed during the AIDS epidemic. The 1994 book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and listed as one of Time magazine's best books of the year. Verghese has written several other award-winning titles, including 'The Tennis Partner,' 'Cutting for Stone,' and most recently, 'The Covenant of Water,' which is a New York Times bestseller, a Oprah's Book Club pick and was named one of former president Barack Obama's favorite books of 2023. 'In my work as a writer, I have always tried to convey the notion that medicine is a uniquely human, person-to-person endeavor,' Verghese has said about his writing. 'In my view, it is a ministry with a calling.' His family, notably his grandmothers, influenced 'The Covenant of Water,' he said during a 2023 talk at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The novel is set in Kerala, south India, and follows three generations of a family looking for answers about a secret. 'Both my grandmothers were, in their own way, quietly heroic women,' he said during the talk. 'They had real life tragedies that they somehow weathered and they went on because of their faith.' Verghese has received many accolades for his work, including the 2014 Heinz Award – which highlights individuals making contributions to the arts, the economy and the environment – the 2015 National Humanities Medal, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023. 'Dr. Verghese's widely acclaimed writings touch the heart and inform the soul, giving people of all walks of life a true understanding of what it is to heal the whole person - not just physically, but emotionally,' Teresa Heinz, chair of the Heinz Family Foundation, said in a news release at the time. While Harvard students will have to wait to hear his speech, Verghese previously addressed graduating students at the Stanford School of Medicine, where he implored them to let their innate intelligence guide them through the future.
