“As a result, the university has not agreed to the terms outlined in the draft proposal but instead submitted a Statement of Principles to the Department of Education,” he added.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education proposed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine universities across the country.
The proposal would require participating institutions to revise their grading systems, international student enrollment policies, and other academic practices in exchange for preferential access to federal grants and benefits.
The University of Arizona had joined Brown University, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, and the University of Virginia in declining the proposal.
Also read: Hero abroad, villain at home, Americans resist dictator Trump
Meanwhile, the University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University had yet to announce their decisions.
“The university has not agreed to the terms outlined in the draft proposal,” Garimella wrote in a carefully crafted message, adding that the compact contained elements that “deserve thoughtful consideration as our national higher education system could benefit from reforms that have been much too slow to develop,” and claiming that Arizona already had implemented several of them itself.
In a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Garimella indicated that the university found “much common ground with the ideas your administration is advancing on changes that would benefit American higher education and our nation at large,” and he submitted a Statement of Principles to the Department of Education that said the university shares “your vision of continuing to strengthen our higher education system for the betterment of the country – a vision rooted in a merit-based pursuit of excellence that directly or indirectly benefits all Americans.”
Still, Garimella maintained that “a federal research funding system based on anything other than merit would weaken the world’s preeminent engine for innovation, advancement of technology, and solutions to many of our nation’s most profound challenges. We seek no special treatment and believe in our ability to compete for federally funded research strictly on merit.”
Xinhua/NAN/Forbes
