Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mitra Naseh, Assistant Professor of Migration, Washington University in St. Louis

Thousands of Afghans living in the United States face an uncertain future after a federal appeals court ruled on July 21, 2025, that the Trump administration can end a humanitarian relief program that provided them work permits and protection from deportation.

The program, temporary protected status, known as TPS, grants legal status to people from certain foreign countries who are already in the U.S. and have fled armed conflict or natural disasters. It’s usually granted for 18 months, with an option of an extension.

About 8,000 Afghans and 7,900 Cameroonians benefiting from this humanitarian protection were affected by the May 2025 decision from the administration to terminate TPS.

Afghans in the U.S. first received TPS in 2022, after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in late 2021.

The Taliban enforce a repressive interpretation of Islamic law that includes banning women and girls from attending school or working outside their home. The Taliban emerged in the early 1990s and controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. They were overthrown after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 but regained control in 2021 after the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.

In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security extended TPS for Afghans through 2025, as the conditions that triggered the initial designation – namely, armed conflict in Afghanistan – were deemed to be ongoing.

In May 2025, however, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced the termination of TPS for Afghans, stating that Afghanistan no longer poses a threat to the safety of its nationals abroad and that Afghan nationals can safely return to their country.

“We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation,” Noem said in May 2025. “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country.”

Most Afghans who have arrived in the U.S. since 2021 share a fear of persecution by the Taliban. That includes people who worked for the former government, advocated for women’s rights or worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

As a migration policy scholar, I believe the cancellation of TPS for these Afghans won’t lead to voluntary repatriation, as the fear of persecution by the Taliban remains a serious concern for many. Instead, it will likely force thousands of people into unlawful residency in the U.S. That, in turn, would not only leave thousands at risk of deportation but limit their employment opportunities in the U.S. and keep them from financially supporting the families they left behind in Afghanistan.

US asylum process

Unlawful U.S. residency can disqualify Afghans from accessing benefits such as Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal program that provides cash assistance and support services to low-income families with children.

For Afghan TPS holders without any other pending legal status – such as asylum claims, for example – the termination also means the loss of work authorization, as their employment authorization document was tied to having TPS. This can cut off thousands of Afghans from financial stability, according to the nonprofit group Global Refuge.

Many Afghans are likely to seek alternative legal pathways to remain in the U.S., most commonly through the already underresourced asylum process. For these people, the outlook looks daunting. Filing an asylum application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services means joining an unprecedented backlog.

At the end of 2024, nearly 1.5 million asylum applications were pending with USCIS, according to the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy organization. Most applicants faced estimated wait times of up to six years for a decision.

Asylum applicants are allowed to remain in the U.S. while their application is pending. And they can apply for work authorization, but only after the asylum application has been pending for at least 150 days. However, the work authorization is not issued until a minimum of 180 days has passed since filing for asylum.

So Afghan nationals applying for asylum following the TPS termination face a mandatory six-month period without legal work authorization. This period can stretch even longer, depending on how long it takes applicants to retain an attorney and complete the complex application process.

Financial lifelines

Like many forcibly displaced populations, Afghans often arrive in the U.S. with extremely limited financial resources.

Forced migration is typically abrupt and unplanned, leaving little opportunity to liquidate assets or withdraw funds. The small amount of cash or valuables that this population manages to carry is often just enough to reach immediate safety.

Against this background, the ability to work is a critical issue for Afghans in the U.S. Most Afghans in the U.S. are also supporting older parents and immediate or extended family members in Afghanistan, according to unpublished research I’m conducting with my colleagues, Proscovia Nabunya and Nhial Tutlam. This makes timely access to legal employment not only a matter of survival for themselves but also a lifeline for loved ones left behind.

TPS was never intended as a long-term solution. And the number of Afghan nationals who held it as their sole legal status in the U.S. was relatively small – estimated at around 8,000 – compared with the over 180,000 Afghans who have arrived in the U.S. since 2021.

What is more concerning for Afghans in the U.S., however, are the government’s assertions surrounding the termination of TPS for this group. If the U.S. government now maintains that Afghanistan is safe for return, it raises concerns about how this stance may influence the adjudication of Afghan asylum claims.

Although most Afghan asylum applications are grounded in a combination of factors – fears based on nationality, ethnicity, religion and political opinion – labeling Afghanistan as safe for return could undermine claims that rely on nationality as a central basis for protection.

Mitra Naseh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Afghans in US face uncertainty after the cancellation of their humanitarian relief – https://theconversation.com/afghans-in-us-face-uncertainty-after-the-cancellation-of-their-humanitarian-relief-261627

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Laura Madokoro, Associate Professor of History, Carleton University

Sanctuary cities in the United States, which limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, have drawn the ire of President Donald Trump during both of his administrations.

Border czar Tom Homan said in July 2025 that the Trump administration would target sanctuary cities across the country and “flood the zone” with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue deportation goals.

I am a historian of migration. I have found that the concept of sanctuary takes many forms, from gestures of kindness and advocacy to more formal approaches such as churches protecting migrants at risk of arrest and deportation.

In the U.S., sanctuary city policies have historically been designed to support undocumented immigrants and refugees, especially those facing deportation. Ordinances based on these policies are often used by local authorities to signal the need for substantive immigration reform.

New public sanctuary policies

Today’s sanctuary practices, and the federal targeting of sanctuary cities, are largely the result of the way sanctuary took shape across the U.S. in the 1980s.

During this period, churches, city officials and activists assisted migrants fleeing the violent conditions created by U.S. proxy wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

In the early 1980s, migrants arriving in the U.S. confronted restrictive asylum processes. To a large extent, this was the result of the Reagan administration’s refusal to acknowledge the extent of human rights violations perpetrated by U.S.-supported regimes in Central America.

In 1984, the federal government approved less than 3% of U.S. asylum claims by applicants who had fled El Salvador and Guatemala. By comparison, asylum claims were approved for over 30% – and in some cases, 60% – of refugees from Iran, Afghanistan and Poland.

In response, U.S. activists and church and city leaders began to advocate on behalf of refugees from Central America. They sought to effect change at home and abroad, eventually coalescing into what became known as the Sanctuary Movement.

This largely decentralized coalition focused on protecting refugees by providing safe housing, often in churches, and advocating for their right to seek asylum. And they engaged in public outreach to raise awareness about the conditions in Central America and the U.S. government’s role in conflicts there.

The goal was to change U.S. policy. As one sanctuary worker in Texas said in 1985, according to accounts compiled at the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin: “Sanctuary offers a way, by which folks can, number one, be safe from the fear of death, and, number two, speak out as to what is really going on in Central America.”

The Sanctuary Movement also led to organized visits to the U.S.-Mexico border to witness the ways in which migrants were being treated by U.S. immigration officials. In Texas between 1983 and 1985, for instance, people were invited to document the activities of immigration officials at Port Isabel Detention Center.

Members of the Sanctuary Movement also shared some of the horrors they learned about from missionaries and refugees arriving from Central America, according to accounts in the Benson Latin American Collection.

As a member of the Rio Grande Border Witness group conveyed, according to records preserved in the Benson Latin American Collection, there were repeated stories out of Central America “of women being raped and stabbed” and “of fathers being murdered in front of their families.”

As awareness about violence in Central America increased, more people and congregations in the U.S. became involved in the Sanctuary Movement. At its peak in 1986, the movement included 300 churches that endorsed sanctuary for Central American migrants and the principles underpinning the Sanctuary Movement.

Public and symbolic

It was during this peak that U.S. cities first began making sanctuary declarations and later passed binding ordinances.

In 1985, Berkeley, California, which had previously declared itself a sanctuary city for conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War, made one of the first sanctuary city declarations on behalf of refugees from Central America. Its resolution reaffirmed the city’s “support for the principle of sanctuary and for those groups which engage in this time-honored tradition of humanitarian assistance.”

City officials said that no city employee would “violate the established sanctuaries by assisting in investigations, public or clandestine, by engaging in or assisting with arrests for alleged violation of immigration laws by the refugees in the sanctuaries or by those offering sanctuary.”

Cities such as San Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico, followed with declarations or binding ordinances. These initiatives were often specifically crafted for migrants from Central America and contained critiques of U.S. foreign policy and asylum policy.

A 1989 San Francisco ordinance, which is still in effect, was inspired by the notion that the U.S. had special obligations to the citizens of El Salvador and Guatemala because of its role in the conflicts there.

There was powerful rhetoric and symbolism in the sanctuary city resolutions passed in the 1980s. This holds true for the present, as sanctuary declarations and policies have become increasingly polarizing in today’s political climate.

Moreover, as I note in my own work, public acts of sanctuary can come at a cost, often at the expense of the very people they are meant to help. In an effort to raise public awareness and sympathy, those in need of refuge often have their most harrowing moments laid bare for public consumption.

The Sanctuary Movement that began in the 1980s, in part to protest U.S. support for repressive governments, has endured for more than 40 years as an expression of concern for and solidarity with immigrants who come to the U.S.

The question now is how the movement will evolve in the face of the Trump administration’s threats.

Some sanctuary city leaders, such as Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, have responded by pointing to the value of policies that foster community trust and help keep all residents safe. How other leaders and communities respond remains to be seen.

Laura Madokoro receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Fonds de Recherches de Québec Société et Culture (FRQSC).

– ref. Sanctuary cities in the US were born in the 1980s as Central American refugees fled civil wars – https://theconversation.com/sanctuary-cities-in-the-us-were-born-in-the-1980s-as-central-american-refugees-fled-civil-wars-257718

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Faith Kearns, Scientist and Director of Research Communication for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative, Arizona State University

As wildfire crews battled the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in July 2025, the air turned toxic.

A chlorine gas leak had erupted from the park’s water treatment facility as the building burned, forcing firefighters to pull back. The water treatment facility is part of a system that draws water from a fragile spring. It’s the only water source and system for the park facilities on both rims, including visitor lodging and park service housing.

The fire also damaged some of the area’s water pipes and equipment, leaving fire crews to rely on a fleet of large water trucks to haul in water and raising concerns about contamination risks to the water system itself.

By mid-August, Dragon Bravo was a “megafire,” having burned over 140,000 acres, and was one of the largest fires in Arizona history. It had destroyed more than 70 structures, including the iconic Grand Canyon Lodge, and sent smoke across the region.

Wildfires like this are increasingly affecting water supplies across the U.S. and creating a compounding crisis that experts in water, utilities and emergency management are only beginning to wrestle with.

A pattern across the West

Before 2017, when the Tubbs Fire burned through neighborhoods on the edge of Santa Rosa, California, most research on the nexus of wildfire and water had focused on issues such as drought and how climate change effects ecosystems.

The Tubbs Fire destroyed thousands of buildings and also melted plastic water pipes. After the fire, a resident’s complaint about the taste and odor of tap water led to the discovery that the fire’s damage had introduced contaminants including benzene, a carcinogen, into parts of the public water system.

It quickly became obvious that the damage discovered at the Tubbs Fire was not unique.

Similar damage and pollutants were discovered in another California water system after the 2018 Camp Fire destroyed much of Paradise, a town of over 25,000 people.

The list of incidents goes on.

In southern Oregon, the 2020 Almeda Fire damaged water pipes in buildings, leaving water to flow freely. That contributed to low system pressure just when people fighting the fire needed the water.

In Colorado, the 2021 Marshall Fire burned through urban water lines, damaging six public drinking-water systems along with more than 1,000 structures in the Boulder suburbs. All six systems lost power, which in some cases led to a loss of water pressure, hampering firefighting.

As firefighters worked on the Marshall Fire, water system operators raced to keep water flowing and contaminants from being transported into the water systems. But tests still detected chemical contamination, including benzene, in parts of the systems a few weeks later.

Then, in January 2025, the Los Angeles fires supercharged concerns about water and wildfire. As firefighters raced to put out multiple fires, hydrants ran dry in some parts of the region, while others at higher elevations depressurized. Ultimately, over 16,000 structures were damaged, leading to insured losses estimated to be as high as US$45 billion.

Water infrastructure is not merely collateral damage during wildfires – it is now a central concern.

It also raises the question: What can residents, first responders and decision-makers reasonably expect from water systems that weren’t designed with today’s disasters in mind?

Addressing the growing fire and water challenge

While no two water systems or fires are the same, nearly every water system component, ranging from storage tanks to pipelines to treatment plants, is susceptible to damage.

The Grand Canyon’s Roaring Springs system exemplifies the complexity and fragility of older systems. It supplies water to both rims of the park through a decades-old network of gravity-fed pipes and tunnels and includes the water treatment facility where firefighters were forced to retreat because of the chlorine leak.

Many water systems have vulnerable points within or near flammable wildlands, such as exposed pump houses that are crucial for pulling water from lower elevations to where it is needed.

In addition, hazardous materials such as chlorine or ammonia may be stored on-site and require special considerations in high fire risk areas. Staff capacity is often limited; some small utilities depend on a single operator, and budgets may be too constrained to modernize aging infrastructure or implement fire mitigation measures.

As climate change intensifies wildfire seasons, these vulnerabilities can become disaster risks that require making water infrastructure a more integral part of fighting and preparing for wildfires.

Ways to help everyone prepare

As a researcher with Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, I have been working with colleagues and fire and water systems experts on strategies to help communities and fire and water managers prepare.

Here are a few important lessons:

• Prioritizing fire-resistant construction, better shielding of chemicals and, in some cases, decentralizing water systems can help protect critical facilities, particularly in high-risk zones. Having backup power supplies, mobile treatment systems and alternate water sources are essential to provide more security in the face of a wildfire.

• Emergency command protocols and interagency coordination are most effective when they include water utilities as essential partners in all phases of emergency response, from planning to response to recovery. Fire crews and water operators can also benefit from joint training in emergency response, especially when system failure could hinder firefighting itself.

• Longer term, protecting upstream watersheds from severe fire by thinning forests and using controlled burns, along with erosion control measures, can help maintain water quality and reduce water pollution in the aftermath of fires.

• Smaller and more isolated systems, particularly in tribal or low-income communities, often need assistance to plan or implement new measures. These systems may require technical assistance, and regional support hubs could support communities with additional resources, including personnel and equipment, so they can respond quickly when crises strike.

Looking ahead

The Dragon Bravo Fire isn’t just a wildfire story, it’s also a water story, and it signals a larger, emerging challenge across the West. As fire seasons expand in size and complexity, the overlap between fire and water will only grow.

The Grand Canyon fire offers a stark illustration of how wildfire can escalate into a multifaceted infrastructure crisis: Fire can damage water infrastructure, which in turn limits firefighting capabilities and stresses water supplies.

The question is not whether this will happen again. It’s how prepared communities will be when it does.

Faith Kearns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Grand Canyon’s Dragon Bravo megafire shows the growing wildfire threat to water systems – https://theconversation.com/grand-canyons-dragon-bravo-megafire-shows-the-growing-wildfire-threat-to-water-systems-263104

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jennifer L. Steele, Professor of Education, American University

For the past half-century, the jobs that have commanded the greatest earnings have increasingly concentrated on knowledge work, especially in science and technology.

Now with the spread of generative artificial intelligence, that may no longer be true. Employers are beginning to report their intent to replace certain white-collar jobs with AI. This raises questions over whether the economy will need as many creative and analytic workers, such as computer programmers, or support as many entry-level knowledge economy jobs.

This shift matters not just for workers but for K-12 teachers, who are accustomed to preparing students for white-collar work. Families, too, are concerned about the skills their children will need in an economy infused with generative AI.

As a professor of education policy who has studied AI’s effect on jobs and a former K-12 teacher, I think the answer for teachers and families lies in understanding what AI cannot – and perhaps will not – be able to do.

Prior waves of automation replaced routine and manual jobs, boosting the earnings advantage of cognitively demanding work. But generative AI is different. It excels at pattern-matching in ways that allow it to simulate human coding, writing, drawing and data analysis, leaving the lower rungs of these occupations vulnerable to automation.

On the other hand, because its output mimics patterns in existing data, generative AI has a harder time handling complicated reasoning tasks, much less complex problems whose answers depend on many unknowns. Moreover, it has no understanding of how humans think and feel.

This means that the “soft skills” – attributes that allow people to interact well with others and to be attuned their own emotional states – are likely to be ascendant. That’s because they are integral to solving complex problems and working with people. Though soft skills such as conscientiousness and agreeableness are considered to be personality traits, research suggests these are emotional tools that can be taught.

Teaching emotional awareness

The good news is that soft skills can be taught in tandem with traditional subjects such as math and reading – those areas for which teachers are held accountable – using techniques teachers already know.

For example, teachers often ask students to submit “exit tickets” as they depart the classroom at the end of a lesson. These are brief, written reflections or questions about the concepts students just learned.

Exit tickets can also be used to help students burnish their emotional and social skills along with their academic learning. In practice, teachers can give prompts that focus on moments of intellectual bravery, emotional regulation or interpersonal understanding, such as:

• Write about a time when you helped someone today.
• Tell me about someone who was kind to you today. How were they kind?
• Describe a time this week when you learned something that seemed very hard. How did you do it?

The point of the task is not just to boost students’ mood or engagement, though these are great byproducts. The goal is to help students realize that their emotional responses to external circumstances fall within their control. Enhanced awareness of their own emotions predicts children’s ability to manage frustration, to perceive and anticipate the emotions of others and to work smoothly with other people. All of these are vital workplace skills that will likely become more valuable with the rise of generative AI.

Teaching problem-solving

Teachers can also have students practice solving messy problems whose answers are not known. For example, as elementary students learn to calculate perimeters, areas or volumes, they can work in groups to find the measurements of objects around the school, including large or oddly shaped items. Teachers can prompt students to reflect not just on the correctness of their answers but on how they framed and approached each problem.

Real-world problem-solving, also known as authentic assessment, can be taught in any discipline, with examples that include:

• Testing the soil slopes and moisture levels on school grounds and proposing landscaping solutions.
• Creating and pilot-testing video campaigns for social causes.
• Reimagining how history might have played out if leaders had made different choices, and considering policy implications for today.

Teaching children to unpack complexity helps them understand the difference between seeking textbook answers versus testing possibilities when the best option is unknown. Solving novel, complex problems will continue to befuddle AI, not only because there are many steps and unknowns, but also because AI lacks our spatial and emotional understanding of the world. Even in the long term, countless variables that humans instinctively grasp will be difficult for computers to intuit.

Protecting slow learning

The technology complaint I hear most often from teachers is that students are having generative AI do their work for them. This happens not because students are deceptive or evil but because humans are self-regulating creatures. We take shortcuts on tasks that seem dull or too daunting in order to prioritize tasks that feel more rewarding.

But when students are building new skills, delegating work to AI is a huge mistake. By making slow things fast, AI undermines learning, because effort is needed to learn hard things.

For this reason, I think teachers must protect the classroom as a place where basic skills are learned slowly, alongside other students. For many lessons, this will mean harking back to the days before computers, in which students wrote assignments by hand or presented their work orally, learning to anticipate and respond to different viewpoints. If students are permitted to use digital automation tools, they should be prompted to reflect on how they used them, what they learned from them and which skills they weren’t able to practice – such as spelling, long division or bibliography formatting – when they delegated work to the tool.

The soft skill to rule them all

The truth is no one knows exactly what will happen to workers in an AI-enabled economy. People disagree about the skills AI will complement or replace. But the skills that underpin modern technology, such as math and reading, will likely continue to matter, as will the intra- and interpersonal skills that make us distinctly human.

Perhaps the most important skill schools can teach children today is the self-awareness to prioritize learning over shortcuts, and to refrain from delegating work to machines until they know how to do it themselves. It will also become even more important to be able to work with others in order to unpack hard problems.

An AI-enabled society will not be a society in which complex problems simply disappear. Even as the labor market reorders itself, I believe opportunities will abound for those who can work well with others to tackle the great challenges that lie ahead.

Jennifer L. Steele does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Kids need soft skills in the age of AI, but what does this mean for schools? – https://theconversation.com/kids-need-soft-skills-in-the-age-of-ai-but-what-does-this-mean-for-schools-261518

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Prachi Gala, Associate Professor of Marketing, Kennesaw State University

Faculty hiring freezes. Department budget cuts. Declining public trust. Across the United States, higher education is navigating one of its most challenging periods in decades.

Yet, quietly, something else is happening: More universities are adding chief marketing officers, or CMOs, to their top management teams.

From flagship universities to small regional colleges, public universities are increasingly hiring high-level marketing executives to oversee branding, enrollment campaigns and public communications.

Why is this happening now? And is it paying off?

As a marketing professor who researches leadership structures, I recently co-authored one of the first major studies on CMOs in higher education, along with my colleagues Aisha Ghimire and Cong Feng. In the paper, which is under review at the European Journal of Marketing, we examined thousands of data points from 167 public universities from 2010 to 2021. Our goal was to see whether having a chief marketing officer actually affected performance.

Attracting more students, if not more donations

We found that having a chief marketing officer is linked to a significant boost in enrollment. On average, student enrollment rose by 1.6% more at schools that had chief marketing officers than at those that didn’t.

That may not sound like much, but in a competitive environment where many schools are struggling to maintain their numbers, even small gains can mean millions of dollars in tuition revenue. In this context, CMOs appear to help universities better understand prospective students, fine-tune recruitment messages and coordinate outreach across multiple channels – from social media to targeted advertising.

However, when it comes to endowment growth – the other big financial lever for universities – we found no overall positive effect. In fact, in some cases, having a CMO was linked to worse performance. For example, universities whose chief marketing officers held MBAs saw their endowments grow more slowly, or even shrink, over time. The same was true of universities that brought in CMOs from outside the institution.

This doesn’t mean these executives were bad at their jobs. Instead, it suggests that traditional corporate marketing experience doesn’t always translate neatly into the relationship-building that fuels giving in higher education.

Messaging matters more in a turbulent market

If higher education were coasting along, the rise of CMOs might seem like a luxury. But the timing tells a different story.

Since 2010, U.S. colleges and universities have faced declining enrollment, particularly among undergraduates. Public universities alone saw enrollment drop 4% in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these trends – enrollment has never fully recovered – and many states have slashed public funding for higher education. Adding to the pressure, experts expect to see fewer exchange students studying at U.S. universities in the near future.

In this environment, the ability to explain the value of higher education – and a particular institution – has never been more important. Colleges and universities hire CMOs to do exactly that: define and communicate the mission, brand and unique benefits of the university to the public.

Public universities, unlike elite private institutions such as Harvard or Princeton, cannot rely solely on prestige to attract applicants and donors. They compete not only with each other but with private colleges, for-profit institutions and online programs. For them, marketing is a matter of survival.

Inside the new higher ed marketing playbook

When most people think of university marketing, they imagine glossy brochures or billboards during college football season. While those still exist, much of the work is now highly targeted and data-driven.

A CMO might oversee digital ad campaigns aimed at specific students, or lead market research to identify what prospective students want from a degree. They may also handle crisis communications, alumni messaging and internal storytelling to boost morale and cohesion.

At some universities, marketing teams operate almost like internal agencies, serving multiple colleges, research centers and outreach programs. This level of coordination can be especially valuable in large, decentralized institutions where departments historically created their own messaging in isolation.

The rise of CMOs in higher education is not without controversy. Critics argue that growing executive teams — while faculty and other instructors face cuts – signals misplaced priorities. Some faculty worry that marketing language can oversimplify complex academic missions or shift a school’s focus toward revenue generation at the expense of scholarship.

The road ahead: Matching leaders to missions

Our research underscores that CMOs are most effective in specific domains, such as enrollment growth. They are not a one-size-fits-all solution for every challenge a university faces. And certain hiring decisions – such as prioritizing corporate experience over deep institutional knowledge – we believe, may have unintended consequences for fundraising.

This suggests universities need to be clear about why they’re hiring chief marketing officers and how they’ll integrate them into leadership. Without alignment between the CMO’s expertise and the institution’s strategic goals, the role risks becoming symbolic rather than meaningful.

The trend toward hiring CMOs is likely to continue, especially among public universities competing for a shrinking pool of students and constrained state and federal funding. But our findings suggest that simply adding a marketing executive is not enough. Success depends on matching the right leader to the institution’s needs and supporting them with resources, cross-campus cooperation and a clear mandate.

For some schools, that may mean seeking CMOs with deep experience in higher education advancement rather than corporate branding. For others, it may involve building stronger bridges between marketing and enrollment management, academic affairs and fundraising efforts.

The rise of CMOs isn’t a silver bullet for higher education’s enrollment and funding challenges. But it’s a sign that universities are rethinking how they present themselves to the world – and in today’s competitive, skeptical environment, that might be one of the most important strategic conversations they can have.

Prachi Gala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why universities are hiring more chief marketing officers – even as budgets shrink – https://theconversation.com/why-universities-are-hiring-more-chief-marketing-officers-even-as-budgets-shrink-262007

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Louis Tay, Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Purdue University

Many employers are demanding more from workers these days, pushing them to log as many hours as possible.

Google, for example, told all its employees that they should expect to spend 60 or more hours in the office every week. Some tech companies are demanding 12-hour days, six days a week from their new hires.

More job applicants in health care, engineering and consulting have been told to expect long hours than previously demanded due to a weak job market.

On the other hand, companies such as Cisco, Booz Allen Hamilton and Intuit have earned a reputation of supporting a strong work-life balance, according to Glassdoor employee ratings.

To promote work-life balance, they offer flexible work options, give workers tips on setting boundaries and provide benefits to promote mental and physical well-being, including mindfulness and meditation training and personal coaching outside of work.

As a psychologist who studies workplace performance and well-being, I’ve seen abundant evidence that overworking employees can actually make them less productive. Instead, research shows that when employees have the time and space to lead a fulfilling life outside work, such as being free to spend time with their families or pursue creative hobbies, it improves their performance on the job.

Falling prey to the ‘focusing illusion’

For example, a team of researchers reviewed 70 studies looking at how managers support workers’ family lives. They found that when supervisors show consideration for workers’ personal roles as a family member, including providing help to workers and modeling work-family balance, those employees are more loyal and helpful on the job and are also less likely to think about quitting.

Another study found that workers who could take on creative projects outside of work became more creative at work, regardless of their own personalities. This was true even for workers who didn’t consider themselves to be very creative to start with, which suggests it was the workplace culture that really made a difference.

When employers become obsessed with their workers’ productivity, they can get hung up on tracking immediate goals such as the number of emails sent or sales calls made. But they tend to neglect other vital aspects of employees’ lives that, perhaps somewhat ironically, sustain long-term productivity.

Daniel Kahneman, the late psychologist whose research team won a Nobel Prize in economics, called this common misconception the “focusing illusion.”

In this case, many employers underestimate the hidden costs of making people work more hours than they can muster while maintaining some semblance of work-life balance.

Among them are mental health problems, burnout and high turnover rates. In other words, overly demanding policies can ultimately hinder the performance employers want to see.

Taking it from Simone Biles

Many top performers recognize the value of work while also valuing the time spent away from it.

“At the end of the day we’re human too,” said Simone Biles, who is widely considered the best gymnast on record. “We have to protect our mind and body, rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do.”

Elite athletes like Biles require time away from the spotlight to recuperate and hone their skills.

Others who are at the top of their professions turn to hobbies to recharge their batteries. Albert Einstein’s passion for playing the violin and piano was not merely a diversion from physics – it was instrumental to the famous and widely beloved scientist’s groundbreaking scientific insights.

Einstein’s second wife, Elsa Einstein, observed that he took short breaks to play music when he was thinking about his scientific theories.

Taking a break

I’ve reviewed hundreds of studies that show leisure time isn’t a luxury − it fulfills key psychological needs.

Taking longer and more frequent breaks from your job than your workaholic boss might like can help you get more rest, recover from work-related stress and increase your sense of mastery and autonomy.

That’s because when employees find fulfillment outside of work they tend to become better at their jobs, making their employers more likely to thrive.

That’s what a team of researchers found when they studied the workforce at a large city hospital in the U.S. Employees who thought their bosses supported their family life were happier with their jobs, more loyal and less likely to quit.

Unsurprisingly, the happier, more supported workers also gave their supervisors higher ratings.

Researchers who studied the daily leisure activities of 100 Dutch teachers found that when the educators could take some of their time off to relax and engage in hobbies outside work, they felt better and had an easier time coping with the demands of their job the next day.

Another study of German emergency service workers found that not having enough fun over the weekend, such as socializing with friends and relatives, can undermine job performance the following week.

Finding the hidden costs of overwork

The mental health consequences of overwork, spending too many hours on the job or getting mentally or physically exhausted by your work are significant and measurable.

According to the World Health Organization, working more than 55 hours per week is associated with a 35% higher risk of having a stroke and a 17% higher risk of developing heart disease.

Working too many hours can also contribute to burnout, a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by long-term work stress. The World Health Organization officially recognizes burnout as a work-related health hazard.

A Gallup analysis conducted in March 2025 found that even employees who are engaged at work, meaning that they are highly committed, connected and enthusiastic about what they do for a living, are twice as likely to burn out if they log more than 45 hours a week on the job.

Burnout can be very costly for employers, ranging anywhere from US$4,000 to $20,000 per employee each year. These numbers are calculated from the average hourly salaries of employees and based on the impact of burnout on aspects such as missed workdays and reduced productivity at work. That means a company with 1,000 workers could lose around $4 million every year due to burnout.

Ultimately, employers that overwork their workers have high turnover rates.

One study found that the onset of mandatory overtime for South Korean nurses made more of them decide to quit their jobs.

Similarly, a national study of over 17,000 U.S.-based nurses found that when they worked longer hours, turnover increased. This pattern is evident in many other professions besides health care, such as finance and transportation.

Seeing turnover increase

Conservative estimates of the cost of turnover for employers ranges from 1.5 to two times an employee’s annual salary. This includes the costs of hiring, onboarding and training new employees. Critically, there are also hidden costs that are harder to estimate, such as losing the departed employee’s institutional knowledge and unique connections.

Over time, making workers work extra hours can undercut an employer’s performance and threaten its viability.

Abundant evidence indicates that supporting employees’ aspirations for happier and more meaningful lives within the workplace and beyond leaves workers and their employers alike better off.

Louis Tay is affiliated with ExpiWell, a mobile-first tech startup that enables researchers to capture momentary experiences of people.

– ref. When workers’ lives outside work are more fulfilling, it benefits employers too – https://theconversation.com/when-workers-lives-outside-work-are-more-fulfilling-it-benefits-employers-too-260772

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Anna Kirkland, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Michigan

For almost 40 years, people who suspect they’ve been harmed by a vaccine have been able to turn to a little-known system called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program – often simply called the vaccine court.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a critic of the vaccine court, calling it “biased” against compensating people, slow and unfair. He has said that he wants to “revolutionize” or “fix” this system.

I’m a scholar of law, health and medicine. I investigated the history, politics and debates about the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in my book “Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury.”

Although vaccines are extensively tested and monitored, and are both overwhelmingly safe for the vast majority of people and extremely cost-effective, some people will experience a harmful reaction to a vaccine. The vaccine court establishes a way to figure out who those people are and to provide justice to them.

Having studied the vaccine court for 15 years, I agree that it could use some fixing. But changing it dramatically will be difficult and potentially damaging to public health.

Deciphering vaccine injuries

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is essentially a process that enables doctors, lawyers, patients, parents and government officials to determine who deserves compensation for a legitimate vaccine injury.

It was established in 1986 by an act of Congress to solve a specific social problem: possible vaccine injuries to children from the whole-cell pertussis vaccine. That vaccine, which was discontinued in the U.S. in the 1990s, could cause alarming side effects like prolonged crying and convulsions. Parents sued vaccine manufacturers, and some stopped producing vaccines.

Congress was worried that lawsuits would collapse the country’s vaccine supply, allowing diseases to make a comeback. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 created the vaccine court process and shielded vaccine manufacturers from these lawsuits.

Here’s how it works: A person who feels they have experienced a vaccine-related injury files a claim to be heard by a legal official called a special master in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The Health and Human Services secretary is named as the defendant and is represented by Department of Justice attorneys.

Doctors who work for HHS evaluate the medical records and make a recommendation about whether they think the vaccine caused the person’s medical problem. Some agreed-upon vaccine injuries are listed for automatic compensation, while other outcomes that are scientifically contested go through a hearing to determine if the vaccine caused the problem.

Awards come from a trust fund, built up through a 75-cent excise tax on each dose of covered vaccine sold. Petitioners’ attorneys who specialize in vaccine injury claims are paid by the trust fund, whether they win or lose.

Some updates are needed

Much has changed in the decades since Congress wrote the law, but Congress has not enacted updates to keep up.

For instance, the law supplies only eight special masters to hear all the cases, but the caseload has risen dramatically as more vaccines have been covered by the law. It set a damages cap of US$250,000 in 1986 but did not account for inflation. The statute of limitations for an injury is three years, but in my research, I found many people file too late and miss their chance.

When the law was written, it only covered vaccines recommended for children. In 2023, the program expanded to include vaccines for pregnant women. Vaccines just for adults, like shingles, are not covered. COVID-19 vaccine claims go to another system for emergency countermeasures vaccines that has been widely criticized. These vaccines could be added to the program, as lawyers who bring claims there have advocated.

These reform ideas are “friendly amendments” with bipartisan support. Kennedy has mentioned some of them, too.

A complex system is hard to revolutionize

Kennedy hasn’t publicly stated enough details about his plan for the vaccine court to reveal the changes he intends to make. The first and least disruptive course of action would be to ask Congress to pass the bipartisan reforms noted above.

But some of his comments suggest he may seek to dismantle it, not fix it. None of his options are straightforward, however, and consequences are hard to predict.

Straight up changing the vaccine court’s structure would probably be the most difficult path. It requires Congress to amend the 1986 law that set it up and President Donald Trump to sign the legislation. Passing the bill to dismantle it requires the same process. Either direction involves all the difficulties of getting a contentious bill through Congress. Even the “friendly amendments” are hard – a 2021 bill to fix the vaccine court was introduced but failed to advance.

However, there are several less direct possibilities.

Adding autism to the injuries list

Kennedy has long supported discredited claims about harms from vaccines, but the vaccine court has been a bulwark against claims that lack mainstream scientific support. For example, the vaccine court held a yearslong court process from 2002 to 2010 and found that autism was not a vaccine injury. The autism trials drew on 50 expert reports, 939 medical articles and 28 experts testifying on the record. The special masters deciding the cases found that none of the causation hypotheses put forward to connect autism and vaccines were reliable as medical or scientific theories.

Much of Kennedy’s ire is directed at the special masters, who he claims “prioritize the solvency” of the system “over their duty to compensate victims.” But the special masters do not work for him. Rather, they are appointed by a majority of the judges in the Court of Federal Claims for four-year terms – and those judges themselves have 15-year terms. Kennedy cannot legally remove any of them in the middle of their service to install new judges who share his views.

Given that, he may seek to put conditions like autism on the list of presumed vaccine injuries, in effect overturning the special masters’ decisions. Revising the list of recognized injuries to add ones without medical evidence is within Kennedy’s powers, but it would still be difficult. It requires a long administrative process with feedback from an advisory committee and the public. Such revisions have historically been controversial, and are usually linked to major scientific reviews of their validity.

Public health and medical groups are already mobilized against Kennedy’s vaccine policy moves. If he failed to follow legally required procedures while adding new injuries to the list, he could be sued to stop the changes.

Targeting vaccine manufacturers

Kennedy could also lean on his newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to withdraw recommendations for certain vaccines, which would also remove them from eligibility in the vaccine compensation court. Lawsuits against manufacturers could then go straight to regular courts. On Aug. 14, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services may have taken a step in this direction by announcing the revival of a childhood vaccine safety task force in response to a lawsuit by anti-vaccine activists.

Kennedy has also supported legislation that would allow claims currently heard in vaccine court to go to regular courts. These drastic reforms could essentially dismantle the vaccine court.

People claiming vaccine injuries could hope to win damages through personal injury lawsuits in the civil justice system instead of vaccine court, perhaps by convincing a jury or getting a settlement. These types of settlements were what prompted the creation of the vaccine court in the first place. But these lawsuits could be hard to win. There is a higher bar for scientific evidence in regular courts than in vaccine court, and plaintiffs would have to sue large corporations rather than file a government claim.

Raising the idea of reforming the vaccine court has provoked strong reactions across the many groups with a stake in the program. It is a complex system with multiple constituents, and Kennedy’s approaches so far pull in different directions. The push to revolutionize it will test the strength of its complex design, but the vaccine court may yet hold up.

Anna Kirkland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. RFK Jr.’s plans to overhaul ‘vaccine court’ system would face legal and scientific challenges – https://theconversation.com/rfk-jr-s-plans-to-overhaul-vaccine-court-system-would-face-legal-and-scientific-challenges-261451

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Joshua Kellogg, Assistant Professor of Natural Product Chemistry, Penn State

Imagine you purchase a bag of gummies labeled nootropic – a term used to describe substances that claim to enhance mental ability and function, or “smart drugs.” However, within hours of consuming them, your heart starts racing, you’re nauseated and vomiting. Then you begin convulsing and have a seizure, resulting in a trip to the hospital.

You certainly did not expect to have such a severe reaction to an over-the-counter edible product, which is available online and in herbal and vape shops nationwide. What happened?

So-called “microdosing” of mushrooms has been on the rise over the past few years, accompanying a shift in local policy in some areas and increasing research into its potential benefits for mood and mental health. Microdosing involves the ingestion of small quantities of psychoactive mushrooms, less than a regular dose and not in sufficient quantities to induce a “trip” or psychedelic experience, but to boost mood, creativity, concentration or productivity.

Psychedelic mushrooms are illegal at the federal level, restricted as a “Schedule 1” substance by the Food and Drug Administration, though some states and local municipalities have begun the process of decriminalizing the possession of these mushrooms.

This greater acceptance of mushrooms and psychedelics has led to a growing market for edible products containing non-hallucinogenic mushroom species that are appearing on the shelf at grocery stores, vape shops, even gas stations, with claims that these products improve mental function.

To meet demand, manufacturers are also turning to other types of mushrooms – including both psychoactive and non-psychedelic – some of which are potentially more toxic. But key pieces of information are often missing for consumers to make informed decisions about which products to consume.

I am a natural product scientist at Pennsylvania State University, where my lab specializes in understanding the molecules found in plants, mushrooms and other natural resources and how they can benefit or harm human health. Our team actively researches these small molecules to uncover how they can address infectious and chronic diseases, but also monitors them for toxic or adverse effects on human health.

While nootropic products have potential to boost health, there can be little transparency surrounding many commercial mushroom products, which can have dangerous consequences.

Chemistry and toxicology of psychoactive mushrooms

The main psychoactive components of traditional “magic” mushrooms, found in the genus Psilocybe, are psilocybin and psilocin. These two small molecules are alkaloids that activate receptors in the brain to trigger the main psychoactive effects of magic mushrooms.

Both psilocybin and psilocin have a high therapeutic index – meaning they are generally nontoxic in humans because the amount that must be ingested to be fatal or dangerous is more than 500 times the dose at which it has been shown to be therapeutically effective. Therefore, psilocybin-containing mushrooms are generally considered to have a low potential for acute toxicity in humans, to the point where it is believed to be nearly impossible to achieve a toxic dose from oral consumption.

Demand breeds diversification in mushroom sourcing

With the growth in popularity of psychedelic mushrooms, companies have been looking for ways to meet consumer demand. And in some cases, this has meant finding mushrooms that do not contain psilocybin and are therefore not restricted by the FDA. The result has been an increase in products that come without legal entanglements, which means there are products that can contain other types of mushrooms, including lions mane, chaga, reishi, maitake and a genus of mushrooms called Amanita, which can be hallucinogenic.

Amanita mushrooms are the quintessential white-flecked, red-capped toadstools – the stereotypical image of a mushroom. These fungi contain very different compounds compared to the Psilocybe mushrooms, such as muscarine and ibotenic acid. These compounds function differently in the brain and, while also capable of producing psychedelic experiences, are generally considered to be more toxic.

Nootropic and other mushroom products are often found as edibles, including chocolates and gummies. However, there is little enforcement surrounding the ingredient labeling of such dietary supplements; products that have a proprietary blend of ingredients generally do not have to report individual ingredients to the species level. This protects trade secrets regarding unique blends of ingredients, but it can also obscure the actual composition of some edible nootropic and microdosing products. And this can have dangerous consequences.

Increasing adverse effects

The explosion of nootropic mushroom products has led to a wide variety of products on the market that potentially contain wildly differing levels of mushrooms, many times containing blends of multiple mushroom species. And with little reporting guidelines in effect, it can be hard to know exactly what you’re taking.

One case study in Virginia involved five people who were hospitalized after they ingested gummies from different nootropic brands that were labeled to contain muscarine, muscimol and ibotenic acid, all compounds found in Amanita mushrooms.

A follow-up analysis of locally available gummy brands that contained “mushroom nootropic” ingredients revealed the presence of psilocybin, but also caffeine, the stimulant ephedrine and mitragynin, a potential painkiller found in Southeast Asian plant products like kratom. None of these ingredients were listed on the product label. Therefore, the cocktail of mushrooms and substances that these people were exposed to was not necessarily reflected on the label at the time of purchase.

The increase in use of other, potentially toxic, mushrooms in over-the-counter products has been reflected in reported poisoning cases in the United States. In 2016, out of more than 6,400 mushroom-related poisoning cases in the U.S., only 45 were Amanita mushrooms.

In the past few years since certain states began decriminalizing psilocybin, the U.S. has seen an increase in calls and reports to poison control centers of people feeling nauseous and experiencing vomiting, seizures, cardiovascular symptoms and other adverse effects after ingesting edible mushroom products such as chocolates and gummies. This prompted a multistate investigation beginning in 2023 that uncovered over 180 cases in 34 states of people who had ingested a particular brand of mushroom-based edibles, Diamond Shruumz.

A 2024 recall required that stores remove these products from their shelves. And in late 2024, the FDA put out a letter to warn consumers and manufacturers of the dangers associated with Amanita mushrooms, saying they “do not meet the Generally Recognized As Safe, or GRAS, standard and that Amanita mushrooms are unapproved food additives.” Despite this warning, such products are still available from producers.

Even when a product is labeled with the relevant ingredients, mushrooms are notoriously easy to misidentify when collected. Numerous mushroom species have similar shapes, colors and habits.

But, despite their visual similarities, these different mushrooms can have drastically different chemistry and toxicity. This even plagues foragers of culinary mushrooms, with hundreds of emergency department visits due to fungal misidentification every year in the U.S.

There is little current regulation or oversight for species identification in dietary supplements or over-the-counter mushroom edible products, leaving consumers at the mercy of producers to accurately list all raw products and ingredients on the product label.

Joshua Kellogg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The growing fad of ‘microdosing’ mushrooms is leading to an uptick in poison control center calls and emergency room visits – https://theconversation.com/the-growing-fad-of-microdosing-mushrooms-is-leading-to-an-uptick-in-poison-control-center-calls-and-emergency-room-visits-252866