Annie Andrews, the senator-elect from South Carolina, is a pediatrics professor at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Among winners of Tuesday’s midterm elections were dozens of candidates, on both the federal and state level, with higher education ties. One of the most prominent is Abdul El-Sayed, the senator-elect for Michigan who has made waves this election cycle. Before entering politics, El-Sayed briefly worked as an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University; he left because he didn’t feel his research was making a tangible impact, according to a 2016 alumni profile.
Other victors include current and former professors, adjunct instructors, university staff and even one former employee of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. In many cases, those candidates helped power the blue wave that flipped dozens of seats from Republican to Democrat this election.
That could bode well for the higher education sector, particularly after the Trump administration has cut research funds, put new restrictions on international students, capped student loans and investigated colleges for what the administration see as discrimination against white and Asian students. Numerous Republican-led state governments have followed an even more aggressive playbook, reducing tenure protections and encroaching on academic freedom.
Source: Inside Higher Ed — Read the full article on the original site ↗