Making America Grate Again

Global Higher Ed in Changing Times
Inside Higher Ed

WASHINGTON -- How can colleges seize control of their international strategies at a time when international student enrollments are falling at many American colleges and when federal immigration policies and public attitudes may be working against institutions’ internationalization goals?
. . .
     Jill Welch, deputy executive director for public policy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said she would add another "P" to the discussion -- the political. Advocates for international education have been deeply concerned by some of the visa and immigration policies pursued by the Trump administration, including changes to how “unlawful presence” is calculated for international students, new restrictions on the duration of visas for Chinese nationals studying for advanced degrees in certain high-tech fields and the travel ban, which continues to restrict entry to the U.S. for nationals of multiple Muslim-majority countries.
     The Trump administration has also signaled its intent to at some point overhaul programs that let international students stay in the U.S. to work after graduation, and at one point reportedly considered a proposal to ban students from China from coming to the U.S. altogether….

Trump’s New Order on Visas Could Make American Colleges Less Appealing Overseas
CHE

     Yet again a Trump-administration executive order has the potential to roil American campuses and their recruitment of international students.
     President Trump on Tuesday signed a measure that would target fraud and abuse in overseas guest-worker programs and increase federal oversight of the H-1B visa program for highly skilled foreigners.
     Higher education ranks third behind technology-related occupations as the largest industry sponsor of recipients of H-1B visas. But colleges’ chief concern is not likely to be the visa holders — typically, professors, researchers, and postdocs — on their payrolls.
     Rather, the order could have an impact on American colleges’ recruitment of students from abroad. For many international students, the opportunity to stay in the United States, even temporarily, after graduation and gain work experience is almost as valuable as an American degree itself. Any policy that might erect hurdles on the pathway from college to work could depress international enrollments….

Welcome back!

Friday night music

When I was a little kid, I noticed jazz. To me, these guys were jazz

Trump World funnies

In Orange County, a Republican Fortress Turns Democratic
New York Times
By Adam Nagourney and Robert Gebeloff
• Dec. 31, 2018

     …The Democratic capture of four Republican-held congressional seats in Orange County in November — more than half the seven congressional seats Democrats won from Republicans in California — toppled what had long been a fortress of conservative Republicanism. The sweep stunned party leaders, among them Paul D. Ryan, the outgoing House speaker. Even Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor-elect of California, won the county where Richard M. Nixon was born.
     But the results reflected what has been a nearly 40-year rise in the number of immigrants, nonwhite residents and college graduates that has transformed this iconic American suburb into a Democratic outpost, highlighted in a Times analysis of demographic data going back to 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected president….

Young whippersnappers

   Met with an old friend last night. Hadn't seen him for years. We'd always shared a near fanatical love of music. In the old days—30 years ago—each of us would introduce the other to beloved music, old and new. It was great.
   Last night he acknowledged that, in recent years, he just stopped listening to new music, that he only listens to the old stuff.
   That's a shame, I thought. There's so much great new music out there—though I mostly fail trying to keep up. So I sent him a list of links to some newish music that I managed to hear, including one song by Car Seat Headrest, a band led by a young whippersnapper with quite a future, I think.
   Here the Headrests do one of their own plus Neil Young's great "Powderfinger," which is from the 70s, I think. (I was a grad student, house-sitting in Laguna Beach, when that came out. I remember it like it was yesterday.)
   Hail, hail, whippersnappers!

A Seventies Xmas Eve (@ the homestead, and for the last time)

From my Philco radio, 1972

In college, I listened a lot to Mott the Hoople—and the Kinks. Saw the latter there (at UCI). School Boys in Disgrace!

     On Xmas Eve, my bro's kids came in, like a land invasion. Soon, Adam played jazz on one of the old guitars—God, he's good!—and Sarah played Mozart on the shitty, old piano. The twins—they were rocking' some Hershey's chocolate, feet tapping, eyes darting. 
     Natalie had forgotten to bring her sax. Dang!
     Yeah, from the two ends of the old Bauer homestead, Adam and Sarah played—mostly at the same time! Noisy but good. Even Ma smiled, eyes closed, in her wheel chair in the corner.
     At one point, out of the blue, Sarah started playing Bohemian Rhapsody, and even Jan noticed and strained to hear. 
     Magic filled the house. I felt that, somehow, we had all somehow converged on 1975, my 1975, when I listened (much too closely) to Mott the Hoople—and, yes, even to Freddie M. and the boys.
     An' these kids! They're just full of surprises!
     Long live rock & Xmas Eve

Memphis, 1975 - another favorite musical moment in time; Big Star's 3rd

Everybody, it seems, loves BR, one way or another