Pitt climbed in the National Academy of Inventors’ global patent ranking; PittWire, February 12, 2026

 PittWire ; Pitt climbed in the National Academy of Inventors’ global patent ranking

"The University of Pittsburgh climbed two spots on the list of the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents, according to the most recent list issued by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Pitt innovators were issued 107 U.S. patents in 2025 for a No. 26 ranking, up from No. 28 in 2024, when they were issued 102 patents.

Released annually by the NAI since 2013, the Top 100 Worldwide Universities List spotlights the universities holding U.S. utility patents to showcase the important research and innovation taking place within academic institutions.

Nine institutions outside the U.S. and several multicampus statewide university systems were among those ranked ahead of Pitt.

“Pitt’s climb in the NAI patent ranking underscores the determination of our faculty and student innovators to turn research into real-world impact,” said Evan Facher, vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship and associate dean for commercial translation at the School of Medicine. “Our innovators are submitting discoveries to the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at a record pace, and securing intellectual property is a crucial step in translating those breakthroughs into technologies that improve lives.”

In the last fiscal year, Pitt innovators had their intellectual property licensed or optioned 137 times, including the formation of 15 startup companies, with technologies ranging from AI platforms for diagnosing macular degeneration, aortic aneurysms and ear infections, to a gene therapy to treat hearing loss, and more."

Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’; The New York Times, February 4, 2026

Vimal Patel , The New York Times; Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’

Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain.

"College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves."

Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

Michael C. Bender, Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard 

Hours after The Times reported that President Trump had lowered the bar for a deal, he denied backtracking and made new threats against Harvard.

"President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university, according to four people briefed on the matter.

Harvard has been the top target in Mr. Trump’s sweeping campaign to exert more control over higher education. Hard-liners in his administration had wanted Harvard to write a check to the U.S. Treasury as part of a deal to address claims that university officials mishandled antisemitism, The New York Times previously reported. But Harvard, wary of backlash from liberal students and faculty, has rejected the idea.

Trump administration officials have indicated in recent days that the president no longer expects such a payment, according to the Harvard and Trump officials briefed on the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

But shortly before midnight, six hours after The Times reported that Mr. Trump had backtracked, he claimed the story was wrong and attacked The Times and Harvard. He said he was now seeking $1 billion “in damages” from Harvard and that the administration’s investigations of Harvard should now be criminal."

Florida Universities Have Partnered With ICE, Stoking Anxiety Among Students; The New York Times, January 30, 2026

Vimal Patel, The New York Times; Florida Universities Have Partnered With ICE, Stoking Anxiety Among Students

"An unusual agreement between many Florida universities and federal immigration officials has caused a new wave of anxiety among students, as immigration raids around the country have swept up thousands and ignited protests.

The agreements give university police departments, after training from ICE, authority to conduct immigration enforcement and access to databases to check immigration status. It remains unclear to what extent university police departments have worked with ICE in practice."

Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy; The Texas Tribune, January 15, 2026

JESSICA PRIEST , The Texas Tribune; Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy

"Texas A&M University canceled a graduate ethics course three days after the semester began, saying Professor Leonard Bright did not provide enough information to let administrators determine if the course meets new standards for discussing race and gender. 

Bright disputes that characterization.

The decision is distinct from earlier course changes at Texas A&M as the class had already met once before administrators canceled it."

University of Rochester's incoming head librarian looks to adapt to AI; WXXI, January 2, 2026

Noelle E. C. Evans, WXXI; University of Rochester's incoming head librarian looks to adapt to AI

"A new head librarian at the University of Rochester is preparing to take on a growing challenge — adapting to generative artificial intelligence.

Tim McGeary takes on the position of university librarian and dean of libraries on March 1. He is currently associate librarian for digital strategies and technology at Duke University, where he’s witnessed AI challenges firsthand...

“(The university’s digital repository) was dealing with an unforeseen consequence of its own success: By making (university) research freely available to anyone, it had actually made it less accessible to everyone,” Jamie Washington wrote for the campus online news source, UDaily.

That balance between open access and protecting students, researchers and publishers from potential harms from AI is a space of major disruption, McGeary said.

"If they're doing this to us, we have open systems, what are they possibly doing to those partners we have in the publishing space?" McGeary asked. "We've already seen some of the larger AI companies have to be in court because they have acquired content in ways that are not legal.”

In the past 25 years, he said he’s seen how university libraries have evolved with changing technology; they've had to reinvent how they serve research and scholarship. So in a way, this is another iteration of those challenges, he said."

Grand Forks man files trademark for “Fighting Sioux” nickname; Valley News Live, December 23, 2025

 Devin Fry, Valley News Live; Grand Forks man files trademark for “Fighting Sioux” nickname

"A Grand Forks man has applied to trademark the former nickname for the University of North Dakota. 

According to public documents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Tyler Wilson filed the application for the “Fighting Sioux” nickname back in May...

The university says it strongly disputes the trademark claim and is working to resolve the issue with Wilson...

The “Fighting Sioux” nickname, which UND had used as its identity since 1930, was retired in 2012 following years of pressure from the NCAA. They have been the Fighting Hawks since 2015."

Court seems dubious of billion-dollar judgment for copyright infringement; SCOTUSblog, December 2, 2025

Ronald Mann, SCOTUSblog; Court seems dubious of billion-dollar judgment for copyright infringement

 "My basic reaction to the argument is that the justices would be uncomfortable with accepting the broadest version of the arguments that Cox has presented to it (that the ISP is protected absent an affirmative act of malfeasance), but Sony’s position seems so unpalatable to them that a majority is most unlikely to coalesce around anything that is not a firm rejection of the lower court’s ruling against Cox. I wouldn’t expect that ruling to come soon, but I don’t think there is much doubt about what it will say."

College Students Flock to a New Major: A.I.; The New York Times, December 1, 2025

Natasha Singer, The New York Times; College Students Flock to a New Major: A.I.

"Artificial intelligence is the hot new college major...

Now interest in understanding, using and learning how to build A.I. technologies is soaring, and schools are racing to meet rising student and industry demand.

Over the last two years, dozens of U.S. universities and colleges have announced new A.I. departments, majors, minors, courses, interdisciplinary concentrations and other programs.

In 2022, for instance, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a major called “A.I. and decision-making.” Students in the program learn to develop A.I. systems and study how technologies like robots interact with humans and the environment. This year, nearly 330 students are enrolled in the program — making A.I. the second-largest major at M.I.T. after computer science.

“Students who prefer to work with data to address problems find themselves more drawn to an A.I. major,” said Asu Ozdaglar, the deputy dean of academics at the M.I.T. Schwarzman College of Computing. Students interested in applying A.I. in fields like biology and health care are also flocking to the new major, she added."

Is unauthorized artificial intelligence use in law school an honor code violation?; ABA Journal, November 4, 2025

JULIANNE HILL, ABA Journal; Is unauthorized artificial intelligence use in law school an honor code violation?

"With generative artificial intelligence’s growing availability and acceptance into students’ workflow, some law schools are wondering whether unauthorized AI use should be an honor code violation—something that could potentially trip up aspiring lawyers in the character and fitness portion of the bar licensure process...

Lack of clarity

The problem stems from unclear AI policies within law schools and universities, says Daniel W. Linna Jr., a senior lecturer and the director of law and technology initiatives at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Illinois.

These cases “illustrate why these policies are problematic,” says Linna, a 2018 Journal Legal Rebel.

The vast majority of policies that Linna has seen at law schools don’t draw firm lines between what is and what isn’t acceptable...

“We don’t have a good means of policing this,” Linna says. “What if someone is wrongly accused and or maybe even makes innocent mistakes? This should really force law schools to reconsider what we’re trying to accomplish with these policies and whether we’re doing more harm than good.”...

Along with clear AI policies, says Kellye Testy, the executive director and CEO of the Association of American Law Schools, the solution includes solid ethical training for law students to use AI before entering the workplace, where comfort with the tool will be expected."

Student cheating dominates talk of generative AI in higher ed, but universities and tech companies face ethical issues too; The Conversation, November 17, 2025

Jeffrey C. Dixon, Professor of Sociology, College of the Holy Cross , The Conversation; Student cheating dominates talk of generative AI in higher ed, but universities and tech companies face ethical issues too

"Debates about generative artificial intelligence on college campuses have largely centered on student cheating. But focusing on cheating overlooks a larger set of ethical concerns that higher education institutions face, from the use of copyrighted material in large language models to student privacy.

As a sociologist who teaches about AI and studies the impact of this technology on work, I am well acquainted with research on the rise of AI and its social consequences. And when one looks at ethical questions from multiple perspectives – those of students, higher education institutions and technology companies – it is clear that the burden of responsible AI use should not fall entirely on students’ shoulders.

I argue that responsibility, more generally, begins with the companies behind this technology and needs to be shouldered by higher education institutions themselves."

8 HBCUs share in $387M donation spree from MacKenzie Scott; Higher Ed Dive, November 5, 2025

Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive; 8 HBCUs share in $387M donation spree from MacKenzie Scott

"In 2019, the same year Scott divorced Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, she signed the Giving Pledge, a pact directed at the world’s wealthiest people to donate more than half their wealth.

“I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” Scott, one of the richest women in the world, wrote in her pledge statement at the time. “And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

She still has quite a ways to go. As of this week, Bloomberg estimated Scott’s net worth at $42 billion — up from $39.4 billion last November.

Scott is now in the midst of another significant round of donations, and the notably private donor acknowledged the attention it would attract in a rare online statement last month.

“When my next cycle of gifts is posted to my database online, the dollar total will likely be reported in the news,” she said in an Oct. 15 blog post. But she characterized that amount as “a vanishingly tiny fraction” of the hundreds of billions of dollars in annual charitable giving in the U.S. each year “that we don’t read about online or hear about on the nightly news.”

Her most recent spate of HBCU donations include:

• $80 million to Howard University, in Washington, D.C.
• $63 million to Morgan State University, in Maryland.
• $50 million to Virginia State University.
• $42 million to Alcorn State University, in Mississippi.
• $38 million to Spelman College, in Georgia.
• $38 million to Clark Atlanta University, in Georgia.
• $38 million to Alabama State University.
• $38 million to The University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Scott also donated $70 million in September to UNCF, the largest private scholarship provider for minority students in the U.S. The organization, which counts 37 private HBCUs as members, said the money would go to bolstering the long-term financial health of those colleges.

In 2020, Scott donated over $800 million to colleges, focusing much of the funding on HBCUs. In addition to their high-dollar value, her gifts stood out because they were unrestricted, and she did not appear to have a personal relationship with the recipients.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education found that unrestricted contributions to surveyed colleges increased by nearly a third in fiscal 2021 compared to the year before, attributing much of that growth to Scott.

By early 2023, she had donated at least $1.5 billion to roughly six dozen colleges, with an emphasis on minority-serving institutions like HBCUs.

Foundations disproportionately give less to HBCUs compared to similar non-HBCUs, and public HBCUs have historically been underfunded by the government."

Big Tech Makes Cal State Its A.I. Training Ground; The New York Times, October 26, 2025

 Natasha Singer

Visuals by Philip Cheung

, The New York Times ; Big Tech Makes Cal State Its A.I. Training Ground

"Cal State, the largest U.S. university system with 460,000 students, recently embarked on a public-private campaign — with corporate titans including Amazon, OpenAI and Nvidia — to position the school as the nation’s “first and largest A.I.-empowered” university. One central goal is to make generative A.I. tools, which can produce humanlike texts and images, available across the school’s 22 campuses. Cal State also wants to embed chatbots in teaching and learning, and prepare students for “increasingly A.I.-driven”careers.

As part of the effort, the university is paying OpenAI $16.9 million to provide ChatGPT Edu, the company’s tool for schools, to more than half a million students and staff — which OpenAI heralded as the world’s largest rollout of ChatGPT to date. Cal State also set up an A.I. committee, whose members include representatives from a dozen large tech companies, to help identify the skills California employers need and improve students’ career opportunities."

All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding; The New York Times, October 20, 2025

Alan Blinder, The New York Times; All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding

"Seven of the nine universities that the White House initially approached about a plan to steer more federal money toward schools aligned with President Trump’s priorities have refused to endorse the proposal.

On Monday evening, an eighth signaled that it had reservations about it.

Only one, the University of Texas, suggested it might be open to signing on quickly."

Universities Are Standing Up to Trump; The New York Times, October 17, 2025

Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Universities Are Standing Up to Trump

"For months, his campaign faced only sporadic resistance. But over the last week, Brown University, M.I.T., the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California have all rebuffed the White House’s push to give preferential funding treatment to schools that show fealty to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Brown’s decision, in particular, is a case study of how the White House may have misjudged its own strength and academia’s nerve, especially once one of Mr. Trump’s top aides said that the nine schools initially chosen to consider the proposal were “good actors,” or could be...

Previously, Harvard had been the only school to defy the Trump administration so openly, refusing a list of demands intrusive enough that even some of the university’s critics said the school had no feasible choice but to balk. Harvard sued soon after and won a crucial ruling last month.

The schools that have rejected the government’s compact may very well be risking Washington’s wrath since Mr. Trump has proved willing to attack the federal funding of schools that his administration disfavors. But the compact represents both an effort to immunize the administration’s efforts from court challenges and to take its ambitions well beyond a single school.

The demands also reach farther, with conditions that include accepting “that academic freedom is not absolute” and pledging to potentially shut down “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”"

More college students are using AI for class. Their professors aren't far behind; NPR, October 7, 2025

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, NPR; More college students are using AI for class. Their professors aren't far behind

"More college students are using AI chatbots to help them with their studies. But data recently released by an AI company shows they're aren't the only ones using the technology."

Republican Praises School for Turning Down Trump ‘Bribe’; The Daily Beast, October 12, 2025

 Will Neal , The Daily Beast; Republican Praises School for Turning Down Trump ‘Bribe’

"“The surest way to screw up the world’s best technical school is to let feds tell them how to run it,” Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie wrote on X. “Congrats to my alma mater for turning down a bribe to let the executive branch dictate what happens on its campus. A lot of things are wrong in [the U.S.], but MIT is not one of them.”"

MIT is first school to reject Trump administration's agenda in exchange for funding benefits; NBC News, October 10, 2025

Kimmy Yam, NBC News ; MIT is first school to reject Trump administration's agenda in exchange for funding benefits

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday became the first school to reject an offer of federal funds in exchange for agreeing to the Trump administration's education agenda.

MIT disagreed with a number of aspects of the administration's proposal, which was sent to nine major universities last week, arguing that it would restrict the university's freedom of expression and independence, Sally Kornbluth, president of the Cambridge-based school, wrote in a letter Friday to the Department of Education.

“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences,” Kornbluth wrote. “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”"

US universities must reject Trump’s ‘compact’. It is full of traps; The Guardian, October 7, 2025

Jan-Werner Müller , The Guardian; US universities must reject Trump’s ‘compact’. It is full of traps

"As with other aspects of Donald Trump’s emerging mafia state, there is no guarantee that those bending the knee will not be bullied again. The government can always come back to universities and accuse them of having violated the agreement (still too many courses in victimhood studies; still too much “violence” – as defined by bureaucrats – vis-a-vis someone’s cherished ideas). The government will also encourage donors to claim back their cash. Since the compact’s criteria are exceedingly vague, those who take the offer will probably overdo compliance.

At the risk of sounding like one of those dreadful self-styled victims: universities are fragile institutions. Many American ones are excellent precisely because people trust each other and cooperate successfully without over-regulation (some Europeans can tell you what it means to be subject to constant assessments – and how a Soviet-style bureaucracy constantly distracts from research and teaching). Of course there is always plenty of academic infighting, but what the Trumpists are doing is consciously trying to create divisions by setting potential Trump administration collaborators against those determined to resist it. As has become apparent with other autocrats’ assaults on universities, even if institutions escape (sometimes literally, as they have to relocate to other countries) the worst, much damage has been done. This is why the nine universities should not only reject the compact, but also publicly explain what is wrong with it (otherwise they will be immediately charged with wanting to protect their tuition-racket, helping foreigners and “importing radicalism” to undermine American greatness).

Precisely because they have been losing court cases over free speech and visas for foreign students, Trumpists now seek to entrap universities in a deal that effectively removes the protections of federal law and gives the administration arbitrary power over them. The carrots serve to lure institutions of higher learning into a dark alley where, rather than just waiting with a big stick, the government can put a gun to their heads at any time."

Colleges weigh whether to sign onto Trump plan or forgo federal benefits; The Washington Post, October 3, 2025

Susan Svrluga

, 

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel

 and 

Emily Davies

, The Washington Post; Colleges weigh whether to sign onto Trump plan or forgo federal benefits

"The Trump administration this week offered a select group of universities the opportunity to score priority access for federal funding, prompting an enthusiastic and swift response from a university leader in Texas, who called it “an honor.”

But the other schools that received the 10-page proposal Wednesday night were largely silent Thursday, as they considered the wide-ranging conservative terms that some experts warned would trample on free-speech rights and threaten finances and academic freedom at top universities.

The Washington Post first reported this week that the White House intended to launch a campaign to bring colleges into compliance with Trump’s ideological priorities by offering a competitive advantage to those that sign on...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) threatened Thursday to yank billions of dollars’ worth of funding from any school in the state that signed onto the agreement, writing on social media that the state would not “BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM.”...

White House officials signaled last week that they intended to launch a campaign to bring colleges into compliance with Trump’s ideological priorities."