Daily Lumina News 092823

News and information should be available in ways that enable everyone, regardless of background, education level, household income, or profession, to influence what happens. People need a sense of confidence that things can change—and that they can make a real difference.
A national initiative called Press Forward is working to make that happen with an infusion of more than $500 million over the next five years in local news organizations and the networks that support and grow them.

Seventeen low-enrollment undergraduate majors at Miami University in Ohio, many of which are in the humanities, have been directed to reinvent themselves, potentially by merging with other programs.
While one state over, West Virginia University has undertaken program cuts criticized by its faculty for being top-down and drastic, Miami administrators are eyeing a much more moderate reform. But their plan signals that, for many colleges, predictions of needed belt tightening ahead are starting to become reality.

At a time when Americans joke about how bad they are at math, employers and others are raising new alarms about America’s poor math performance. They say it's a threat to the nation’s economic prosperity, global competitiveness, and national security.
This reality is prompting some colleges and universities to create programs and partnerships that encourage more young people to learn—and love—math.

Eight colleges in Ohio have been experimenting with a pilot project called the Ohio College Comeback Compact that aims to re-enroll students whose debts left them with “stranded credits." At first glance, it may not seem like a winning formula. Of 9,109 eligible students, 156 re-enrolled during the 2022-23 academic year.
But in this case, a single number really doesn’t tell the whole story.

More Hispanic students are seeking educational opportunities after high school, with a notable upswing over the past decade in the percentage of those who earn degrees. But the pandemic brought unfortunate setbacks to Hispanic enrollment, says a new study, along with other alarming hurdles.
For many Hispanic students, those hurdles include feelings of being discriminated against, harassed, and disrespected at their institutions and in short-term credential programs.

Lorain Community College was founded in part to help fill the manufacturing workforce in northeast Ohio. But, as the steel industry declined, the manufacturing jobs it was training students for became limited.
President Marcia Ballinger says the school didn’t panic. It pivoted, shifting course offerings from automotive parts to circuit boards. Today, the school is being lauded as an example of how community colleges should evolve with, and build on, their local economies.