Former president of Spelman College Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum has authored a book that focuses on the current challenges leaders face in higher education.
“Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times,” sheds light on the issues plaguing higher education and Tatum’s reflections on how we can resolve them, based on leading Spelman for 13 years.
Tatum left before the instability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, but her journey was far from peril-free. As a trailblazing Black woman in a field typically dominated by white men, Tatum also led Spelman during the Great Recession and market crash of 2008, and other stressful incidents for students — like when there was an active shooter on campus.
Now on her recent book tour, she sat down with WABE’s “Morning Edition” to discuss the journey of her career, and to answer questions on what she calls the current “assault on higher education” and what it means for America’s future. Tatum says the pressure has grown so severe that the average tenure of university presidents has fallen to less than six years.
But in her book, Tatum argues that American universities hold the key to addressing a growing ignorance and division that threaten our society — if bold and courageous leaders step up.
A growing number of universities, academic institutions and scholarly bodies around the world are cutting links with Israeli academia amid claims that it is complicit in the Israeli government’s actions towards Palestinians.
In response, a growing number of academic bodies are now distancing themselves from Israeli institutions. Last year the Federal University of Ceará in Brazil cancelled an innovation summit with an Israeli university, while a host of universities across Norway, Belgium and Spain have cut ties with Israeli institutions. Others, including Trinity College Dublin, followed suit this summer.
While not all those taking action support a general academic boycott, the movement reflects concerns over links within Israel between academia, the military and the government.
Venki Ramakrishnan expressed mixed feelings about the idea of boycotts. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Guardian
However, few institutions in the UK, France and Germany have announced they are cutting links Israeli academia, with Universities UK (UUK) saying it does not support an academic boycott.
“As a representative body, Universities UK has a longstanding public position of being committed to the free exchange of ideas, regardless of nationality or location. As such we do not endorse blanket academic boycotts, as this would represent an infringement of academic freedom,” a UUK spokesperson said. Likewise, the Royal Society has stated that it opposes academic boycotts.
The Nobel laureate and former president of the Royal Society Venki Ramakrishnan told the Guardian he has mixed feelings about boycotts.
“On the one hand, the Israeli government’s approach to Gaza has been hugely disproportionate, harming civilians, including young children, in the thousands,” he said.
“On the other hand, most Israeli academics I know, including several I count as my friends, detest Netanyahu and his government. A boycott of this would penalise those who are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, and who in fact are very sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians.”
The Israeli historian Ilan Pappé said the boycotts would show Israeli academia that there were consequences to the country’s conduct. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian
The Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappé disputed that many academics are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. “If it were so, I would have seen them among the few hundreds [of] brave Israelis who demonstrate against the war because it is a genocide, not because it fails to bring back the hostages (demonstrations that [are] regarded [as] illegal in Israel),” he said, adding that the vast majority of Israeli academics do not refuse to serve in the country’s army.
“They provide courses and degrees to the secret service, police and are agencies of the government that are oppressing daily the Palestinians,” he said.
On the academic boycott, Pappé said: “[It] is a very harsh and tough, albeit necessary, conversation with the Israeli academic institutions, illuminating for them their responsibility and for being an organic part of an oppressive system. A reality that has been going on for 77 years and the Israeli academia is now told that there is price tag attached to such a conduct.”
Ghassan Soleiman Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow, said that students and academics across the UK have pushed for academic boycotts of Israel, but are being blocked by the governing bodies of universities.
As a result, he said, researchers are taking unofficial action.
“The moral outrage about what the Israelis are doing is leading more and more academics to take personal decisions, not to have joint projects with Israelis,” he said.
Whether the severing of academic ties has had any impact on researchers in Israel, or the Netanyahu government, is a matter of debate, with some sources within Israeli academia stating it is not affecting their research or links with longstanding collaborators.
What’s more, blocks on research funding could be very problematic, both for Israeli universities and the country as a whole, given the Israeli economy is heavily based on science and technology.
Such fears are very real: since 2021 Israel has received a net sum of €875.9m (£740.4m) from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme for scientific research. However, in July the European Commission proposed partially suspending Israel from Horizon Europe.
“The proposal will affect Israeli entities participating in the EIC Accelerator, targeting startups and SMEs [small and medium enterprises] with disruptive innovations and emerging technologies that have a potential dual use, for example in cybersecurity, drones, and artificial intelligence,” said the EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier.
At present, the suspension looks unlikely, with 10 member states arguing it is better to keep a dialogue open with Israel. But concerns remain that Israel could be blocked from the successor to Horizon Europe, which is set to begin in 2028.
Adam said there are signs academic actions are cutting through, noting in May 2024 the Israeli government allocated €22m (£19m) specifically to combat the Palestinian-led academic boycott, while Israel’s share of EU research funding has fallen.
Last Thursday it was revealed that of the 478 early-career researchers selected by the European Research Council to receive its 2025 starting grants as part of the Horizon Europe programme, just 10 are in Israel, compared with 30 of 494 grantees the year before.
Should the money stop flowing and prestigious collaborations dry up, there is also concern that researchers will leave Israel, potentially never to return, fuelling a “brain drain” that is already a concern in medicine.
While Israeli researchers told the Guardian academia is the wrong target for boycotts, and some experts say on its own an academic boycott will not be effective, others maintain the approach is a powerful tool.
“The threat of academic boycott is sufficient to push the Israeli government into ending this genocide,” said Abu-Sittah.
Social media misinformation about the contraceptive pill is encouraging women to view it so negatively that many give it up, a study has found.
Researchers have identified myths spread on TikTok and other social media platforms as a key driver of users suffering side-effects that are real but psychological in origin. It is called the “nocebo effect”, the opposite of the better-known placebo effect.
Experiencing it is closely linked to anxiety, depression and fatigue, with experts saying people become “wary of anything that they believe might make [the conditions] worse”. This, in turn, spurs on the effect.
It has been seen with other medicines, but the study, by psychologists at Sheffield University, is the first to link the syndrome with use of the pill, which has fallen sharply.
The pill remains the most popular form of contraception in England, but the proportion of women who access NHS sexual health services and use the pill as their form of birth control fell from 39% in 2020-21 to 28% in 2023-24.
Sexual health experts believe the decline in uptake, and the fact that two-thirds of women who use it stop doing so within two years, is a major reason why the number of abortions in England and Wales has risen sharply in recent years and hit an all-time high of 251,377 in 2022 – 17% up on the previous year.
NHS bosses are worried about the role of influencers on TikTok and YouTube, who have posted content that warns women against using the pill and advocate using “natural” birth control instead.
For example, one has claimed that the pill “robs us of our health” because of “common” side-effects including an alleged heightened risk of thyroid problems, blood clots and strokes.
Dr Rebecca Webster and Lorna Reid, the co-authors of the study, found that the “nocebo effect” involved four psychological factors that were associated with women having a negative experience of the pill. They were:
An expectation at the outset that the pill will be harmful.
Low confidence in how medicines are developed.
A belief that medicines are overused and harmful.
A belief that they are sensitive to medicines.
“The evidence suggests that many of the commonly reported side-effects of hormonal contraception are a result of psychological, or nocebo, response to the act of taking oral contraceptives,” Webster said.
“Despite these being psychological in origin, it’s important to understand that these are very real experiences for women, often affecting their decision to continue taking the pill.”
The authors wrote: “Medicine-related beliefs were associated with increased experience of oral contraceptive side-effects, demonstrating the potential role that nocebo-related factors may have in impacting oral contraceptive side-effect experience.”
Their findings were based on a study of 275 women aged 18-45 who had used the pill over the previous 18 months. Almost all – 266 (97%) – experienced at least one side-effect while doing so.
They found that women’s expectations that they would have a negative experience of the pill from the outset often proved self-fulfilling. But negative messaging about the pill in the media and a belief that medicines are harmful or over-used raised the risk of them reacting badly to it.
“I think since Covid there’s the anti-facts, anti-big pharma rhetoric coming out on social media. I think that’s had an effect”, said Dr Janet Barter, the president of the College of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, which represents sexual health specialists.
“But I think also we know that a lot of young people are suffering with their mental health, with either depression or particularly anxiety. So they’re likely to be very wary of anything that they believe might make that worse.”
Brook, a large sexual health services provider, also blamed online misinformation for helping to create the “nocebo effect” the researchers identified.
“Young people in particular are influenced by what they see and hear about contraception. People in our clinics are increasingly expressing concern about hormonal contraception due to things they have heard on social media”, said Laua Domegan, Brook’s head of nursing.
“Common myths include that the pill will make you gain weight, will impact your long-term fertility or even affect the kinds of people you are attracted to.”
Misinformation about the pill was gaining traction because health professionals did not give women enough information about contraception and also because schools did not include enough about it in sex and relationships classes, she added. More “honest conversations” were needed, she said.
However, Webster and Reid argue in their paper, published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, that because many women’s bad reactions to the pill are psychological in origin, that “psychological interventions” – such as challenging negative beliefs about medication – could be used to cut side-effects and keep them using the pill.
