International students have suddenly been thrust into “an environment of fear” because of dramatic and confusing federal policy changes.

The Department of Education has been gutted.

And the Trump administration is threatening elite universities with dire cuts to their federal grant funding. If they do not stand up to him, they will not be able to maintain their academic freedom.

The norms I have long taken for granted in higher education are in limbo, and this impacts my students and me, thus far only in small ways. For example, the federal government used to be a reliable, centralized source of data about universities. But now that the Department of Education’s staff has been cut in half, will data collection make their list of priorities?

This is an extremely nerdy thing to be worried about, I know, but if the National Center for Education Statistics dissolves, it will be more difficult for my students and me to find valuable information about the universities we are researching.

We don’t know how things are going to shake out with data collection, with the standoff between universities and the Trump administration, and with everything else in higher education.

It is disorienting and destabilizing, but here’s the thing: I’m still doing the same stuff as before with my students, as are my colleagues. The college process has not been thrust into chaos, even though there are some big changes afoot.

During any period of upheaval, one of the most wild things, every time, is how much things stay the same.

The other day, I checked out my professional organization’s listserv expecting this to be the vibe,

but people were talking about the most mundane topics.

Which teacher is best for a student to ask for a letter of recommendation? What are best practices for putting together a creative writing portfolio?

All the while, our institutions seem to be crumbling around us!

The duality of humankind!

It feels like we are living in two worlds simultaneously.

One of them is the room on fire, and the other is everything we’re carrying over from before the fire spread. The two worlds will eventually converge, but thus far they have not.

We don’t know exactly how the current political landscape is going to end up changing the college process. But I’ll be here with you as we figure it out.