Open Campus

Colorado public colleges and universities plan similar support they created in 2016 to help immigrant students get to and through college.

Open Campus' College Inside, led by the indefatigable Charlotte West is the only higher education-focused publication distributed directly to the people who are incarcerated. My work benefits from the this highly niche journalism - and I would bet that yours does, too. Many of the partnerships with local media result in stories from the inside being published in the mainstream press. This provides a crucial counterweight to longstanding narratives requiring correction. Consider donating to Open Campus this month to ensure this vital work continues.

One of the coolest parts of my job at Open Campus is working with talented writers and artists living on the inside, including Alvin Smith. This fall, we commissioned Alvin to create a piece of art that answered the question: What does it mean to be inspired inside? His work, titled “Reaching Back,” illustrates the importance of leaving a legacy for those who come behind. As a lifer in Michigan, Alvin was long excluded from education inside. After years behind bars, he was transferred to a facility where Hope College and Western Theological Seminary jointly offer a bachelor’s degree. He is on track to earn his degree in 2025 as part of the program’s first graduating class. When he was describing his artwork, Alvin wrote that the Hope-Western Prison Education Program has a strong emphasis on caring for others. And that, he said, “has equipped us to share the knowledge we gain with those of us who still are denied access to higher education in prisons.” You can support my work with incarcerated writers and artists like Alvin by making a donation this #GivingTuesday. Donations to Open Campus are being matched up to $1,000 per individual and up to $50,000 in total through December 31. And for the first time, Open Campus is offering a thank-you gift to subscribers to my newsletter, College Inside. Donors who make a one-time gift of $75 or more (or $10 or more per month) will receive a mug printed with Alvin’s work. https://lnkd.in/guXrJwVh

I know there are lots of nonprofit news orgs in your inbox and on your feeds this #GivingTuesday, but I'd love to tell you why this one - Open Campus - is important to me! Working with this team truly helps my career in all kinds of ways. There's the financial support, tbh, as they help to cover my salary. That alone is a big deal, since higher ed's a typically overlooked beat in most local newsrooms. But I also get all kinds of help on daily basis from my OC editors, including thoughtful discussions about story ideas, workshopping headlines, and general guidance to become a subject-level expert. Much of my confidence as a higher ed reporter stems from their continued encouragement. I really believe this all adds up to more nuanced reporting that helps to better inform my community and holds institutions accountable. We're entering our fifth (!) year of working together, and honestly, I feel like the real, meaty work I want to do with my career is just getting started! I'd love to see the network continue to expand so more reporters nationwide can get this type of support. Please consider donating below! ⬇️

Support higher ed reporting in Puerto Rico, where we're working with Centro de Periodismo Investigativo to add a full-time person to the beat. https://lnkd.in/et9CQzG

Higher ed shapes the future of every community in America. That’s why we're putting people on the beat in local newsrooms across the country. Help us continue to do this important work. During our year-end fundraising campaign, donations to Open Campus are matched up to $1,000 per person. donorbox.org/open-campus

We're excited to work with Centro de Periodismo Investigativo to add a full-time reporter dedicated to covering higher ed and the role of the University of Puerto Rico in the island's future. Since 1903, the university has served as a crucial tool for social mobility, which is especially important in Puerto Rico, which has the highest poverty rate among U.S. states and territories. With CPI, we plan to shed light on the challenges facing the university in fulfilling this role and keep the government accountable for upholding the university’s mission to support and uplift future generations. This Giving Tuesday, please consider supporting this coverage: https://lnkd.in/eXrBfGiP

Our Open Campus network reporters are the reason we’re able to tell higher ed’s local story. This Thanksgiving week, I’d like to share why I’m so grateful for them. Through their reporting, I’m constantly learning new things about our country and how higher ed is shaping it, community by community. About the training challenges facing the wind industry in Texas’ Permian Basin. About what it means to live in a Mississippi Delta county where just 42 adults have a college degree and there’s no public school of any kind. About Indianapolis’ lost Black neighborhood, which Indiana University systematically acquired in the 1960s. Working with our local reporters is a joy — and the camaraderie we’ve built is no small thing in the realm of remote work. It’s often delightfully quirky. Chatting about the source who abruptly cut off an interview to wrestle an alligator or the college president who adores salmon fish and chips. And it’s inspiring, too. They are curious, dedicated, and generous with us and with one another. But my gratitude is not really about me. Our local reporters are transforming how higher ed is covered in this country. And their work on the beat every day means that people in more than a dozen communities across the country are learning more, too, about the colleges that matter most to them: the ones that are close to home. So thanks, Shomial Ahmad, Brianna Atkinson, Haidee Chu, Jonathan Custodio, Sneha Dey, Miranda Dunlap, Adam Echelman, Maddy Franklin, Jason Gonzales, Ian Hodgson, Divya Kumar, Kate McGee, Molly Minta, Amy Morona, Danny Perez, Lisa Kurian Philip, & Claire Rafford (and also Colleen Murphy & Kayleigh Skinner, who keep the network running)! (To keep up with the highlights of their reporting, sign up for our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eRtUXu8)

Student activists and faculty members at the University of Chicago say college leaders have gone back on a commitment they made months ago to establish a special initiative to host scholars impacted by violence in Gaza. University officials say they have made efforts to accommodate scholars from the region through an existing program, and one scholar from the West Bank is on campus now. Administrators signed off on the agreement on May 4 as a precondition for student protesters to enter into negotiations to resolve the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, according to emails reviewed by WBEZ. In those emails, UChicago’s provost, Katherine Baicker, committed to publicly announce a “Gaza Scholars at Risk” initiative and hire up to eight visiting professors for one-year appointments. According to the emails exchanged between the provost and a faculty member, the new initiative would be established irrespective of the outcome of negotiations and would benefit academics impacted by the war in Gaza “facing direct risk in the form of threat of arrest/imprisonment and/or general risk from an active conflict.” To get the effort off the ground, the provost pledged to appoint a Gaza Scholars at Risk faculty committee made up of experts on the region who could help identify and assist eligible applicants. Six months later, none of those commitments have been fulfilled, said Christopher Iacovetti, a graduate student at the school who took part in negotiations with administrators in May. Read more from Lisa Kurian Philip for WBEZ Chicago:

Thankful to see my byline appear in The Washington Post today! The headline of this piece centers cuts impacting rural students and colleges, but the story later turns to regional public universities. That's where my reporting from Youngstown State University comes in. I'm pretty bullish about the importance of covering the Youngstown States of the world. Looking at the successes, challenges, tensions, and everything in-between at Ohio's regional institutions (a list that also includes places such as Cleveland State and the University of Toledo) is my very favorite thing to report and write about. These are the places really impacting our state, its residents, and our collective futures. + big, biiig thanks to my team at Open Campus for this opportunity! This story includes reporting from my colleagues Molly Minta in Mississippi and Brianna Atkinson in North Carolina. It was co-published with the Post and The Hechinger Report. And a special shoutout to our editor extraordinaire Colleen Murphy who guided this story across multiple newsrooms, reporters, and editors for several months!