FROM INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION regarding the resignation of the University of Virginia president: Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University, said, “Ryan’s resignation is a ‘major blow’ to the independence of American institutions. It is a sign that major public research universities are substantially controlled by a political party whose primary goal is to further its partisan agenda and will stop at nothing to bring the independence of higher education to heel. It undercuts both the integrity of academic communities as self-governing based on the judgment of expert professionals and the traditional accountability that public universities have to their states via formal and established governance mechanisms.” Read more here.