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To the staff and readers of The Trail,    We are Tacoma residents and researchers with the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the rights of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim peoples in East Turkistan, also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, through research-based advocacy.    Recent reporting in the Tacoma News Tribune detailed a week-long trip by a seven-member Tacoma delegation to China, where local officials met with municipal leaders and participated in events marking the 55th anniversary of “Ping Pong Diplomacy.” According to spokesperson Maria...

Response to Letter to the Editor from AFAM 399: Public Scholarship in The Trail: To the Editor-in-Chief, Staff, and Readers of The Trail: Thank you for the opportunity to share information in response to the letter to the Editor by the Spring 2026 AFAM 399: Public Scholarship class, which expresses concerns about the process to appoint our incoming interim vice president for institutional equity and diversity. As I shared in my campus message on January 27, 2026, I made the decision to suspend the search for our next vice president...

Letters to the editor serve as a vital contribution to campus conversations, which The Trail aims to facilitate. The views they articulate belong to the authors alone, and publication of letters to the editor does not represent an endorsement of those views by The Trail or any of its contributors.  To the staff and readers of The Trail, We, the Spring 2026 AFAM 399: Public Scholarship class, are writing in response to this semester’s search process for the new Vice President of Institutional Equity and Diversity (VPIED). Through our course,...

University of Puget Sound student engaging in organic chemistry research. Photo credit: Sy Bean.   Some of the Trump Administration’s most salient attacks on higher education have come in the form of funding cuts to research and fellowship programs. According to U.S. News and World Report, Trump has threatened to file lawsuits or cut funding to more than 60 universities. The administration has cut over $2 billion from major research programs at Ivy League colleges, and the Office of Management and Budget plans to cut funding in 2025 for 22 programs...

   President Isiaah Crawford shared with the campus community at the end of the previous academic year that enrollment for the 2025 incoming class was “falling short of our initial goal.” Enrollment for the class of 2029 was lower than last year, following a downward trend that began in 2018 and saw its largest drop in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, 380 first-time college students enrolled, which is 50 students fewer and 12% smaller than last year’s incoming class. A decade ago, enrollment for first-time...