Section of Molecular Medicine | Wake Forest School of Medicine

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The Section of Molecular Medicine focuses on performing cutting-edge research in cellular and molecular mechanisms of human disease and supports graduate and postgraduate level educational programs within the Department of Internal Medicine.

A major goal of the section is to serve as a nidus for translational research by providing an environment where clinical and basic science faculty interact to make new discoveries and to educate future scientists.

The section consists of 24 primary faculty members and two emeritus faculty members who use cellular and molecular approaches to gain a better understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying acute and chronic human conditions, including sepsis, arthritis, atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, fatty liver, and cancer.

Molecular Medicine faculty collaborate on forward (disease/phenotype -> molecule) and reverse (molecule mutation/deletion -> disease phenotype) translational research to bidirectionally link new molecule discovery to disease pathogenesis using state-of-the-art omics (transcription, epigenetics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics) and gene editing/deletion/overexpression technologies.

The Molecular Medicine Section is the academic home for the Molecular Medicine and Translational Science (MMTS) graduate program, one of the largest biomedical sciences graduate programs at Wake Forest University. MMTS offers PhD and MS training for BS, MD and DVM students. The section also provides laboratory research training and education in translational research for medical students, residents and postdoctoral fellows, including subspecialty fellows in the Department of Internal Medicine. A seminar series and journal club are held weekly as part of the training program in MMTS.

We invite you to explore our department and contact us with any questions you may have.

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Section of Molecular Medicine | Wake Forest School of Medicine

Unlocking the Secrets of Brown Fat – Michigan Medicine

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In recent years, brown fat has garnered attention as the so-called good fat that can protect against obesity and its associated health risks, like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Two separate major studies, one led by Liangyou Rui, Ph.D. and one by Ling Qi, Ph.D., both with the department of molecular & integrative physiology, help explain brown fats properties.

Located in small pockets throughout the body, most mammals use brown fat (and its closely related cousin beige fat) to stay warm. In mice and humans, if you have more brown or beige fat, you are more protected from metabolic disease, says Rui, the Louis G. D'Alecy Collegiate Professor of physiology at U-M Medical School, whose lab studies the molecular and physiological mechanisms of obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease. In a new study published in Nature Communications, Rui, first author Lin Jiang, Ph.D., and their colleagues reveal a pathway by which the hormone leptin contributes to weight loss.

Leptin regulates body weight by controlling appetite and energy expenditure, but exactly how has been a mystery. What is known, says Rui, is that leptin activates brown and beige fat. The new study elucidates a molecular accelerator of leptin action in the brain called Sh2b1. His team has found that Sh2b1 in the hypothalamus, an important brain region controlling body temperature and hunger among other functions, promotes the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system sends signals to brown and beige fat to activate it, thus maintaining body weight and metabolism.

The team demonstrated this proof-of-principle by creating two mouse models. Mice that lacked the Sh2b1 gene in the leptin receptor neurons had an incredibly reduced sympathetic drive to the brown and beige fat and reduced capability to promote energy expenditure, says Rui. This reduced the ability of brown fat to be metabolized into heat, lowering the mices core body temperature. Whats more, the mice also developed obesity, insulin resistance and a fatty liver. In contrast, mice with extra expression of Sh2b1 in their brains were protected from obesity.

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No one knew that Sh2b1 in the brain controls the sympathetic nervous system or was required for leptin to activate brown fat to increase energy expenditure, notes Rui. As for how this finding could be applied to humans, he says the hope is to eventually find a way to increase expression of Sh2b1 or its ability to enhance leptin signaling and fat burning.

Other U-M authors contributing to this paper include: Haoran Su, Xiaoyin Wu, Hong Shen, Min-Hyun Kim, Yuan Li, Martin G. Myers Jr, and Chung Owyang.

Brown fat gets its color from high amounts of iron-containing mitochondria, unlike the standard white fat linked to obesity. A team led by Qi, a professor of molecular & integrative physiology and internal medicine at U-M Medical School has been studying how mitochondria, the power plant of the cell, and another cellular structure called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which is involved in the production of proteins and lipids, interact inside brown fat cells.

In particular, theyve studied the role of a protein complex involved in a process called ER-associated protein degradation, or ERAD. Simply put, ERAD is the process of removing and destroying misfolded proteins, like taking out the trash out of the ER.

Everyone thought that ERAD was just part of the general cellular response when cells are undergoing ER stress, says Qi. Weve shown over the past six years that it plays a fundamental role in health and disease.

In a new study, published in Science, Qi along with first authors Zhangsen Zhou, Ph.D., Mauricio Torres, Ph.D., and their colleagues demonstrate how an ERAD protein complex affects the proper function of mitochondria.

Typically, the ER and mitochondria have ongoing interaction at touch points called mitochondria-associated membranes. These points of contact mark areas for mitochondria to divide for the production of new mitochondria and for the exchange of other molecules such as lipids and calcium. The ER forms tubules that surround the mitochondria to get them ready for division.

Using state of the art 3D imaging, the researchers discovered what happens to mitochondria in brown fat that are missing part of an ERAD protein complex, called Sel1L-Hrd1, when exposed to cold.

When you delete this complex in brown adipocytes, the mitochondria become elongated and enlarged, says Qi. The 3D image enabled them to view a previously unrecognized interaction between the mitochondria and the ER, with the mitochondria wrapping in a U-shape around the ER tubules.

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When the mice were placed in a cold environment, the ends of the outer membrane of the mitochondria folded back on itself, eventually fusing and completely enveloping the ER tubules. The result, says Qi, are abnormally large, misshapen, dysfunctional mitochondria.

We showed that these mitochondria dont function normally and the mice become cold sensitive, their body temperature dropping very quickly, says Qi. In other words, without this ERAD protein complex, the brown fat is not being used to generate heat. Under a microscope, this dysfunctional brown fat had larger droplets of lipids than brown fat from mice with the protein complex intact.

This is highly unexpected. The results here fundamentally change our understanding of ER-mitochondrial communication and further demonstrate the importance of an ER degradation complex in cell biology.

This paper also includes contributions from the following U-M authors: Christopher Halbrook, Franoise Van den Bergh, Rachel B. Reinert, Siwen Wang, Yingying Luo, Allen H. Hunter, Thomas H. Sanderson, Aaron Taylor, Costas A. Lyssiotis, Jun Wu and Daniel A. Beard.

Papers cited:

Leptin receptor-expressing neuron Sh2b1 supports sympathetic nervous system and protects against obesity and metabolic disease, Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15328-3

Endoplasmic reticulumassociated degradation regulates mitochondrial dynamics in brown adipocytes, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.aay2494

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Unlocking the Secrets of Brown Fat - Michigan Medicine

What Does Our Body Temperature Say About Our Health? – The New York Times

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Such a substantial change in average temperature over a fairly short period of history could have other, unforeseeable impacts. Parsonnet points out that there are more microbial organisms in us than there are human cells, which creates a complex ecosystem. And like a human-size version of climate change, were seeing probably a change in our ecosystem thats associated with this drop in temperature. Yet were only beginning to understand all the ways temperature influences that ecosystem to help determine how we function.

Our body temperature is controlled by the hypothalamus, which acts as a thermostat, keeping the temperature of vital organs fairly constant. (Its this core temperature that a thermometer approximates.) Temperature sensors in nerve endings, which produce the sensation of being hot or cold, prompt the hypothalamus to initiate adjustments like shivering to warm up or sweating to cool down. At any given time, your skin might be 10 degrees cooler or warmer than your core. And that difference and thus how much energy the body has to expend to keep the core stable seems to affect how the immune system functions. For instance, in 2013 Elizabeth Repasky of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-authors reported in P.N.A.S. that raising the room temperature improved the ability of laboratory mice to fight off cancer after they got it. Repasky and others are also experimenting with heating tumor cells to kill them or make them more susceptible to chemotherapy. Already, certain abdominal cancers are treated with hot chemotherapy, in which the drug is heated to 103 degrees, which has been shown to increase how much of it is absorbed by cancer cells. Separately, the heat from a fever may help fight infection, because, as Mark Dewhirst, an emeritus professor of radiation oncology at the Duke University School of Medicine, puts it, a lot of bacteria and other pathogens dont fare well at elevated temperatures.

Scientists struggle, though, to explain how a cooler average body temperature has been associated with longevity. A lower metabolic rate, and thus a lower temperature, has been linked to a longer life span in experimental settings with reduced calorie intake, when the body slows to conserve energy. But Bruno Conti, a professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, and colleagues have also found that mice genetically engineered to have a body temperature a half-degree lower than average lived longer than ordinary mice, even if they ate as much as they wanted. What other effects this has on an organism is unknown. For instance, he says, a brain at a lower temperature might not function as well.

At the same time, other bodily systems might benefit from being cooler. H. Craig Heller, a biology professor at Stanford, and colleagues have shown that muscle fatigue is caused by heat, which they believe triggers a temperature-sensitive enzyme that acts as a safety valve, stopping the production of chemicals that power muscle contractions in order to prevent the tissue from burning up. When Heller cools muscle during physical activity using special gloves that chill blood as it moves through the hands, the muscle just keeps on going, he says. Ive had freshmen doing more than 800 push-ups.

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What Does Our Body Temperature Say About Our Health? - The New York Times

We are running out of money, don’t have jobs: Several Indians stuck in Ireland seek to return home – Mumbai Mirror

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With Ireland imposing a lockdown in a bid to stem the spread of the coronavirus, hundreds of Indian nationals stuck in the country are seeking to return home.

Ireland has put restrictions to slow down the rate of admission to intensive care units as the number of positive cases increased over 2200 with 22 deaths.

The coronavirus has brought life to a near standstill in almost every part of the world. The virus, which has originated in central China's Hubei Province has claimed more than 20,000 lives so far and continues to adversely affect more than 150 countries globally.

Like Sukanya, several other Indian nationals in Dublin and other parts of Ireland are running out of money to help themselves as they are not eligible for any compensation from the Irish government. Most of them are staying in the country on a job-seeking visa.

Speaking to Mumbai Mirror Online, she says, "I had left my previous part-time job a while ago to look for a better one. I had interviews scheduled after a lot of effort and time, and finally, things were seeming hopeful. However, due to the current situation, all my interviews and recruitment got canceled. I am left unemployed."

"I am not eligible for any sort of compensation or payment from the Irish government. I can't find a job as no companies are recruiting anymore," she said, adding, "The rent and cost of living are very high here, and I am struggling to manage. I am afraid that I am going to exhaust all my savings."

No! This piece is not about social distancing, hand washing, wearing masks, etc. Not because these arent important. But because by now these have been drilled into you. The epidemic is closing in. What we saw on TV few weeks back, I now see being enacted in hospitals in Mumbai.

"I am running out of money to support myself. I don't have a job. I also have to pay rent. I have applied for a pandemic unemployment payment, but I have not heard anything from the government. My family is already worried. I can't even ask my father who is old to send me money," says Singh.

Singh says that the Modi-led government should have given them at least a week's time to return before suspending flight operations. "The Air India plane is bringing back Indians from other parts. I request the government to make arrangements for us. I am ready to get quarantined at my own expense. At least I will be home."

A woman with a scarf wrapped around her face as a precautionary measure against covid-19, walks along past a closed-down store in Dublin. Photo: Reuters

One of the major concerns for most of the students who are studying and doing a part-time job are paying rent as they have no work to support themselves in the lockdown.

Hariharan S, a resident from Navi Mumbai has recently completed his studies from Trinity College and has been doing a part-time job, but now he too is worried about making ends meet.

"Now, I am working part-time. But no one is hiring permanently in my sector (Pharmaceutical). I am struggling financially and emotionally. Paying rent is a major concern. If the rent is made affordable and if we get some financial support, it can help us."

Protecting lives and livelihoods, ensuring food security, enhancing testing and health infrastructure and readying to rev up the post-virus economy.

Some Indian nationals also say that they feel unsafe as the locals are not taking things seriously and the number of cases are increasing. They also claimed that no medical shops have sanitizers and masks are available at only a few shops.

Nirav Vichare, a resident of Mumbai who is in Dublin for his MBA Project Management says, "It doesn't feel safe right now than being at home in India. Several people have appealed to the Indian Embassy to arrange some flights to take us back. Whereas we are all worried and avoiding going out because people here are not taking anything seriously."

Vichare also appealed to Indians to stay at home and cooperate with the government to eradicate the virus.

Meanwhile, in a video message to the Indian community, Indian Ambassador Sandeep Kumar has said, "Covid-19 is an unprecedented crisis, which requires collective community action and exceptional civic responsibility. I appeal to all members to strictly adhere to the national policy guidelines which are for our security.

He also said that they have formed community support groups in partnership with key members representing diverse fields who have volunteered to assist the local community.

"We all have a part to play in rising to this challenge," he said in a tweet.

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We are running out of money, don't have jobs: Several Indians stuck in Ireland seek to return home - Mumbai Mirror

Social media companies are taking steps to tamp down coronavirus misinformation but they can do more – Middletown Press

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(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Bhaskar Chakravorti, Tufts University

(THE CONVERSATION) As we practice social distancing, our embrace of social media gets only tighter. The major social media platforms have emerged as the critical information purveyors for influencing the choices people make during the expanding pandemic. Theres also reason for worry: the World Health Organization is concerned about an infodemic, a glut of accurate and inaccurate information about COVID-19.

The social media companies have been pilloried in recent years for practicing surveillance capitalism and being a societal menace. The pandemic could be their moment of redemption. How are they rising to this challenge?

Surprisingly, Facebook, which had earned the reputation of being the least trusted tech company in recent years, has led with the strongest, most consistent actions during the unfolding COVID-19 crisis. Twitter and Google-owned YouTube have taken steps as well to stem the tide of misinformation. Yet, all three could do better.

As an economist who tracks digital technologys use worldwide at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, Ive identified three important ways to evaluate the companies responses to the pandemic. Are they informing while simultaneously curtailing misinformation? Are they enforcing responsible advertising policies? And are they providing helpful data to public health authorities without compromising privacy?

Tackling the infodemic

Social media companies can block, demote or elevate posts. According to Facebook, the average user sees only 10% of their News Feed and the platforms determine what users see by reordering how stories appear. This means demoting and elevating posts could be as essential as blocking them outright.

Blocking is the most difficult decision because it bumps up against First Amendment rights. Facebook, in particular, has recently been criticized for its unwillingness to block false political ads. But Facebook has had the most clear-cut policy on COVID-19 misinformation. It relies on third-party fact-checkers and health authorities flagging problematic content, and removes posts that fail the tests. It also blocks or restricts hashtags that spread misinformation on its sister platform, Instagram.

Twitter and YouTube have taken less decisive positions. Twitter says it has acted to protect against malicious behaviors. Del Harvey, Twitters vice president of trust and safety, told Axios that the company will remove any pockets of smaller coordinated attempts to distort or inorganically influence the conversation. YouTube removes videos claiming to prevent infections. However, neither company has a transparent blocking policy founded on solid fact-checking.

While all three platforms are demoting problematic content and elevating content from authoritative sources, the absence of consistent fact-checking standards has created a gray area where misinformation can slip through, particularly for Twitter. Panic-producing tweets claimed prematurely that New York was under lockdown, and bots or fake accounts have slipped in rumors.

Even the principle of deferring to authoritative sources can cause problems. For example, the widely read @realDonaldTrump has tweeted misinformation. Influential figures who are not officially designated authoritative sources have also managed to circulate misinformation. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted a false assertion about the coronavirus to 32 million followers and Twitter has declined to remove his tweet. John McAfee, founder of the eponymous security solutions company, also tweeted a false assertion about the coronavirus. That tweet was removed but not before it had been widely shared.

Harnessing influence for good

Besides blocking and re-ordering posts, the social media companies must also ask how people are experiencing their platforms and interpreting the information they encounter there. Social media platforms are meticulously designed to anticipate the users experience, hold their attention and influence actions. Its essential that the companies apply similar techniques to influence positive behavior in response to COVID-19.

Consider some examples across each of the three platforms of failing to influence positive behaviors by ignoring the user experience.

For Facebook users, private messaging is, increasingly, a key source of social influence and information about the coronavirus. Because these groups often bring together more trusted networks family, friends, classmates there is a greater risk that people will turn to them during anxious times and become susceptible to misinformation. Facebook-owned Messenger and WhatsApp both closed platforms in contrast to Twitter are of particular concern since the companys ability to monitor content on these platforms is still limited.

For Twitter, its essential to track influencers, or people with many followers. Content shared by these users has greater impact and ought to pass through additional filters.

YouTube has taken the approach of pairing misleading coronavirus content with a link to an alternative authoritative source, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or World Health Organization. This juxtaposition can have the opposite of the intended effect. A video from a non-authoritative individual appears with the CDC or WHO logo beneath it, which could unintentionally give viewers the impression that those public health authorities have approved the videos.

Responsible advertising

There is money to be made from ads offering products related to the outbreak. However, some of those ads are not in the public interest. Facebook set a standard by banning ads for medical face masks and Google followed suit, as did Twitter.

All three companies have offered free ads to appropriate public health and nonprofit organizations. Facebook has offered unlimited ads to the WHO, while Google has made a similar but less open-ended offer and Twitter offers Ads for Good credits to fact-checking nonprofit organizations and health information disseminators.

There have been some policy reversals. YouTube initially blocked ads meant to profit from content related to COVID-19, but then allowed some ads that follow the companys guidelines.

Overall, the companies have responded to the crisis, but their policies on ads vary, have changed and have left loopholes: Users could still see ads for face masks served by Google even after it had officially banned them. Clearer industry-wide principles and firm policies can help keep businesses and people from exploiting the outbreak for commercial gain.

Data to track the outbreak

Social media can be a source of essential data for mapping the spread of the disease and managing it. The key is that the companies protect user privacy, recognize the limits of data analysis and not oversell it. Geographic information systems that build on data from social media and other sources have already become key to mapping the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Facebook is collaborating with researchers at Harvard and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan by sharing data about peoples movements stripped of identifying information and high-resolution population density maps.

Search and location data on YouTube and its parent, Google, are invaluable trend-trackers. Google hasnt offered its trends analyses for COVID-19 in any systematic manner to date, perhaps out of reluctance because of the failure of an earlier Google Trends program that attempted to predict the paths of transmission of influenza and completely missed the peak of the 2013 flu season.

Think with Google, the companys current data analytics service for marketers, offers a powerful example of insights that can be gleaned from Googles data. It could help with projects for contact tracing and social distancing compliance, provided its done in a way that respects user privacy. For example, as users locations are tagged along with their posts, the people theyve met and the places theyve been can help determine whether people on the whole or in a location are complying with public health safety orders and guidelines.

Moreover, data shared by companies stripped of identifying information could be used by independent researchers. For example, researchers could use Facebook-owned Instagram and CrowdTangle to correlate travelers movements to COVID-19 hotspots with user conversations to locate sources of transmission. Research teams I direct have been analyzing coronavirus-related Twitter hashtags to identify the primary misinformation sources to detect patterns.

The expanding footprint of the pandemic and its consequences are evolving quickly. To their credit, the social media companies have attempted to respond quickly as well. Yet, they can do more. This could be their time to rebuild trust with the public and with regulators, but the window to make the right choices is narrow. Their own futures and the futures of millions may depend on it.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read our newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/social-media-companies-are-taking-steps-to-tamp-down-coronavirus-misinformation-but-they-can-do-more-133335.

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Social media companies are taking steps to tamp down coronavirus misinformation but they can do more - Middletown Press

European Aerospace Industry Makes Medical Equipment In Fight Against Coronavirus – Forbes

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Aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce and European airframer Airbus are part of a consortium that ... [+] will start producing up to 10,000 medical ventilators for coronavirus patients in the UK. Photographer: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg

Aircraft production might be slowing down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the aerospace industry however is not resting on its laurels and is using its supply chains and technological know-how to help increase the production of much-needed medical supplies. European plane maker Airbus, Arrow Electronics, BAE Systems, GKN Aerospace, Meggitt, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Smiths Group, and Thales are all part of a consortium that on Monday was awarded a contract by the UK government to produce10,000 medical ventilators for coronavirus patients.

The grouping, named VentilatorChallengeUK, was formed recently in response to Prime Minister Boris Johnsons calls for the countrys businesses to step in and help meet rising demand for life-saving equipment. In contrast to the U.S., where President Donald Trump on Friday officially invoked the Defense Production Act to force General Motors to manufacture thousands of ventilators, most of the projects involving the aerospace sector in Europe are born from the industrys own initiatives. The participants in VentilatorChallengeUKwhich besides aerospace firms includes also industrial, technology and engineering businesses from the automotive (such as Ford and Formula One teams Mercedes, McLaren and Williams) and medical sectors"have taken many of their people from key company projects to do this and serve the national need, noted the consortium.

Rolls-Royce has a crucial role to play in the fight against Covid-19, said Craig Askew, the UK engine makers Executive Vice President of Control Systems. We are proud to be playing our part in a consortium dedicated to scaling up production of much-needed ventilators and will be focused on working at full-speed to provide devices which can help save lives.

Over the past week, the consortium has investigated production of a range of ventilator design options to meet a high-level specification for a Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System (RMVS) developed by the UKshealthcare products regulatory agency. The medical regulator has been involved throughout and is expected to quickly sign off on an agreed new design after the final audit, according to VentilatorChallengeUK.

The consortium is now working to start production of this design, which is based on existing technologies and can be assembled from materials and parts in current production. In parallel, the group will provide another producer of medical ventilators with additional manufacturing support and assembly facilities in order to scale up production of a second existing ventilator design which has full regulatory approval.

GKN, whose technologies are used in business jets, single-aisle and widebody aircraft and fifth-generation fighter aircraft, will establish a new assembly plant and Rolls-Royce will set up a supply chain to feed in materials as quickly as possible. The engine makers team dedicated to the ventilator project includes controls, valve and pump specialists who normally work in its Controls business in Solihull, near Birmingham, and commercial, procurement and programme management specialists usually based in its Derby campus. Rolls-Royce said is expects the team to grow significantly in the coming days and are also using resources in the U.S., so that we can work around the clock.

In Germany, the Deutsches Zentrum fr Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) said Monday it has successfully tested the conversion of its 3D printers so the models can now manufacture medical protective equipment during the Coronavirus crisis. The retrofit was prompted by a request from the European Commission for assistance in the production of urgently needed medical equipment, specifically the production of protective masks and valves for respirators using 3D printing.

DLR said is currently assessing its 3D printer capabilities, noting that the performance varies depending on the type of printer. Its most powerful printers can produce up to 10 protective masks or 15 valves for ventilators per day but by networking institutes and facilities, it will be possible to produce larger quantities. The certification and approval of the products produced by DLR for medical use is in progress, the research body said.

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European Aerospace Industry Makes Medical Equipment In Fight Against Coronavirus - Forbes

The World Market for Aerospace Materials, 2020 – Japan & India Attracting Investors to Set Up Production Facilities due to the Ease of…

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Dublin, March 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Aerospace Material - Global Market Outlook (2018-2027)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Aerospace Material market accounted for $18.89 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $38.08 billion by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 8.1% during the forecast period.

Some of the key factors influencing market growth include an increase in demand for lightweight and fuel-efficient aircraft, the rise in spending power and air passenger traffic and the introduction of new domestic and international routes. However, a limited range of material options owing to complex requirements is restricting market growth.

Amongst type, composite materials are the most extensively used type segment of the aerospace materials after aluminium. The wide use of composites in aerospace materials offers several advantages over traditional materials, such as low weight, increased manufacturing productivity (processing speeds), lower VOC emissions, and better corrosion resistance, among others. Increasing applications in new generation aircraft and rising environmental concerns offer significant growth opportunities for composites in the aircraft manufacturing industry.

By Geography, Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period. Countries in this region, such as China, Japan, and India are witnessing a significant increase in the use of aerospace materials. This increase can be attributed to the growing aerospace industry, which is driving the demand for aerospace materials in the region. Japan and India are attracting investors to set up production facilities because of the ease of availability of raw materials and labour at a lower price. The increasing air traffic and a number of low-cost carriers in the region are expected to lead to an increase in the demand for new aircraft in the region.

Some of the key players in the global aerospace material market are 3M, Solvay Sa, BASF SE, SABIC, PPG Industries Inc., Toray Industries, Inc., AkzoNobel N.V., Teijin Limited, Alcoa Corporation, DuPont, Rochling, Arkema Group, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Huntsman International LLC, Hexcel Corporation, Koninklijke Ten Cate NV, Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd., and Tata Advanced Materials Limited.

What the report offers:

Key Topics Covered

1 Executive Summary

2 Preface

3 Market Trend Analysis3.1 Introduction3.2 Drivers3.3 Restraints3.4 Opportunities3.5 Threats3.6 Application Analysis3.7 End User Analysis3.8 Emerging Markets3.9 Futuristic Market Scenario

4 Porters Five Force Analysis4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers4.2 Bargaining power of buyers4.3 Threat of substitutes4.4 Threat of new entrants4.5 Competitive rivalry

5 Global Aerospace Material Market, By Aircraft Type5.1 Introduction5.2 Small Wide Body5.3 Single Aisle5.4 Medium Wide Body5.5 Regional Jets5.6 Large Wide Body

6 Global Aerospace Material Market, By Type6.1 Introduction6.2 Structural6.2.1 Composite Materials6.2.1.1 Resin6.2.1.1.1 Phenolic6.2.1.1.2 Thermoplastics6.2.1.1.3 Epoxy6.2.1.1.4 Polyimides6.2.1.1.5 Polyester6.2.1.2 Fiber6.2.1.2.1 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)6.2.1.2.2 Metal Matrix Composites (MMC)6.2.1.2.3 Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics6.2.1.2.4 Aramid Fiber-Based6.2.1.2.5 Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastics6.2.2 Plastics6.2.2.1 Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA)6.2.2.2 Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS)6.2.2.3 Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)6.2.2.4 Polyether Ether Ketone (PEEK)6.2.2.5 Polycarbonates (PC)6.2.3 Metals6.2.3.1 Steel Alloys6.2.3.2 Titanium Alloys6.2.3.3 Aluminum Alloys6.2.3.4 Super Alloys6.3 Non-structural6.3.1 Foams6.3.1.1 Specialty Foams6.3.1.2 Polyurethane6.3.1.3 Polyethylene6.3.2 Coatings6.3.3 Adhesives6.3.3.1 Polyurethane6.3.3.2 Silicone

7 Global Aerospace Material Market, By Application7.1 Introduction7.2 Exterior7.2.1 Air Frame7.2.2 Windows & Windshield7.2.3 Propulsion System7.2.4 Tail & Fin7.3 Interior7.3.1 Interior Panels7.3.2 Passenger Seating7.3.3 Galley

8 Global Aerospace Material Market, By End User8.1 Introduction8.2 Business, General and Personal Aviation8.3 Military & Defence Aircraft8.4 Space Vehicles8.5 Rotorcraft8.6 Commercial Aircraft8.7 Helicopters8.7.1 Civil Helicopter8.7.2 Military Helicopter

9 Global Aerospace Material Market, By Geography9.1 Introduction9.2 North America9.2.1 US9.2.2 Canada9.2.3 Mexico9.3 Europe9.3.1 Germany9.3.2 UK9.3.3 Italy9.3.4 France9.3.5 Spain9.3.6 Rest of Europe9.4 Asia Pacific9.4.1 Japan9.4.2 China9.4.3 India9.4.4 Australia9.4.5 New Zealand9.4.6 South Korea9.4.7 Rest of Asia Pacific9.5 South America9.5.1 Argentina9.5.2 Brazil9.5.3 Chile9.5.4 Rest of South America9.6 Middle East & Africa9.6.1 Saudi Arabia9.6.2 UAE9.6.3 Qatar9.6.4 South Africa9.6.5 Rest of Middle East & Africa

10 Key Developments10.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures10.2 Acquisitions & Mergers10.3 New Product Launch10.4 Expansions10.5 Other Key Strategies

11 Company Profiling11.1 3M11.2 Solvay S.A.11.3 BASF SE11.4 SABIC11.5 PPG Industries Inc.11.6 Toray Industries, Inc.11.7 AkzoNobel N.V.11.8 Teijin Limited11.9 Alcoa Corporation11.10 DuPont11.11 Rochling11.12 Arkema Group11.13 Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation11.14 Henkel AG & Co. KGaA11.15 Huntsman International LLC11.16 Hexcel Corporation11.17 Koninklijke Ten Cate N.V.11.18 Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd.11.19 Tata Advanced Materials Limited

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/id6zdl

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Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.comFor E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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The World Market for Aerospace Materials, 2020 - Japan & India Attracting Investors to Set Up Production Facilities due to the Ease of...

Mesa, Arizona’s Launch from Aerospace to All Things Tech – Innovation & Tech Today

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You could say the city of Mesa, Arizona enjoyed a great July 2019. It went something like this:

Most cities would consider this a six-month, or even a year-long, period. Economic Development Director William Jabjiniak sees it as the latest in years of big business and technology gains, with plenty of work ahead for a city that has long been a vital base of operations for Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Textron Aviation and other aerospace industry titans.

William Jabjiniak

Mesa has always been strong in aerospace, he said. Now as we build on that strength, how do we merge technology with aerospace, bring in new forms of technology, and take advantage of innovations in healthcare, and so forth? We feel weve got a strong story to tell, but anytime you can bring these Fortune 50 companies to light within your community, it tells a bigger and better story.

Spurred by constant new business and tech development, and the corresponding growth of office, industrial, and tech parks plus well-planned home developments Mesa grew by 10,000 people in 2018 to its current population of 511,000. Jabjiniak projected it will grow by an average of 8,000 people annually through the mid-2020s.

The citys advantages are great. The sun shines 320 days per year, guaranteeing great outdoor testing conditions. Two major airports service the city, with more and more office, manufacturing, and tech space blossoming around them. At 140 square miles, a huge space, Mesa still has plenty of room to grow.

Mesa is racing ahead into the 2020s with an eye on the young and future workforce. The number one issue when you grow like this wheres the workforce coming from? Jabjiniak said. The city has partnered with Arizona State to respond to this. Were working with ASU on adding a downtown campus in Mesa that links directly to ASUs main campus in Tempe. Theyre going to build a $63 million facility to deliver tech programs augmented reality, artificial intelligence with 3D design, virtual reality, medical, and aerospace.

Were really focusing on young people by cultivating and advancing new technologies, and entrepreneurship through LaunchPoint, our business incubator/accelerator. One company, Urbix Resources, came in with local roots, took space here, and has raised more than $3 million in funding.

One project tying together all priorities is an old Air Force research lab, now Arizona Laboratories for Security & Defense Research. AZ Labs is not a typical research lab, nor open to the public. The cybersecurity training and capability development lab is highly classified, using the same type of SCIF rooms used to view classified documents in the Pentagon. They also work with sensitive contracts, research and engineering projects, prototype evaluations, experiments, and much more.

We now can partner with educational institutions, large and active with their own cyber areas, Jabjiniak said. We can provide a trained workforce. We offer hands-on training to be used by companies and the world there are so many unfilled positions in cybersecurity, and such a need. Were inviting educational institutions to partner with the city in this secure environment.

The citys presence is growing in multiple tech and business sectors, from driverless cars to wearables, next-gen aerospace to education, VR and AI to new technologies to advanced manufacturing. We continue to get involved in a new sector, commercialization of space, through AQST Space Systems and others, Jabjiniak said.

Two major components are Class A office space, and residential developments wrapped in green space. In 2019, the city announced Gallery Park, a 400,000 sq.ft. Class A office space development near the airport; and Union, a 1.35 million sq. ft. development in northwest Mesa.

New in town is Waymo, the driverless car manufacturer. After spending years on the other side of the valley, in neighboring Chandler, Waymos vehicles will be seen on test roads from their new Mesa complex.

People really see us as much more affordable and appealing, in many ways, than the Bay Area, Jabjiniak said. Weve planned and worked for this for all 12 years Ive been here, and continue to plan ahead.

Most certainly, with the month of July 2019 framed as an example of how it looks when everything comes together.

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Mesa, Arizona's Launch from Aerospace to All Things Tech - Innovation & Tech Today

Aerospace Coatings Market Analysis and Industry Forecast 2020-2025 AkzoNobel, Henkel, Mankiewicz, Ionbond, Zircotec, PPG Industries – The Fuel Fox

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Aerospace Coatings Markethas recently added by Qurate Research to its vast repository. This intelligence report includes investigations based on Current scenarios, Historical records, and future predictions. This includes factors such as market size, market share, market segmentation, significant growth drivers, market competition, different aspects impacting economic cycles in the market, demand, expected business up-downs, changing customer sentiments, key companies operating in the Aerospace Coatings Market, SWOT analysis has been used to understand the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and threats in front of the businesses. Thus, helping the companies to understand the threats and challenges in front of the businesses. Aerospace Coatings Market is showing steady growth and CAGR is expected to improve during the forecast period.

Prominent Players Profiled in the Report are

AkzoNobelHenkelMankiewiczIonbondZircotecPPG IndustriesHohman Plating & ManufacturingSherwin-WilliamsHentzen CoatingsGKN AerospaceArgosy InternationalExovaAerospace Coatings International

Market by TypeQuick-drying PaintsDrying PaintsSpecial Paints

Market by ApplicationOriginal Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO)

The Aerospace Coatings market report includes comprehensive information about the markets major competitors, including various organizations, companies, associations, suppliers and manufacturers competing for production, supply, sales, revenue generation, and after-sales performance expectations. The bargaining power of numerous vendors and buyers have also been included in the research report

Aerospace Coatings Market Region Coverage (Regional Production, Demand & Forecast by Countries etc.):

Key Question Answered in Report.

Overview of the chapters analysing the global Aerospace Coatings Market in detail:

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Aerospace Coatings Market Analysis and Industry Forecast 2020-2025 AkzoNobel, Henkel, Mankiewicz, Ionbond, Zircotec, PPG Industries - The Fuel Fox

ePlane, the B2B sourcing and BI platform for aerospace parts and repair, raises $9M – TechCrunch

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ePlane, described as a B2B sourcing and business intelligence platform for the aerospace parts and repair market, has raised $9 million in funding. The round is led by Japanese trading and investing company Marubeni Corporation, along with a number of previous investors.

Founded in 2016 and launched fully in 2018, ePlane has built to let users trade aircraft parts, locate repair services, and improve supply chain bottlenecks and reduce costs. The idea is that by throwing tech at the problem, including an online marketplace covering buying, selling, repairing, loaning, and exchanging aircraft parts many inefficiencies within the aerospace parts and repair market can be eradicated.

For example, the platforms Autopilot feature claims to use an AI algorithm to match buyers and sellers based on needs, available inventory, past transactions, and required timeframe. It then automatically sends requests for quotes (RFQs) to appropriate sellers, therefore eliminating the need to send each request manually.

More broadly, ePlanes platform digitizes the procurement process, syncing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and custom inventories, to ensure that inventories are most up to date in real time.

The aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) market is said to be large, too, totalling $80 billion globally. ePlane says the market is expected to grow to $116 billion by 2029, and therefore is prime for its B2B sourcing platform.

To that end, Im told the aviation industry is already embracing Cyprus-headquartered ePlane. The startup is now receiving over $50 million in monthly demand from over 4,000 major companies in the aerospace industry.

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ePlane, the B2B sourcing and BI platform for aerospace parts and repair, raises $9M - TechCrunch

Solvay and SGL Carbon partner to create new aerospace composites – EPPM

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Combining mechanical performance and cost efficiency, a new generation of prepregs for aircraft parts is under development through collaboration between Solvay and leading Germany-based carbon fibre producerSGL Carbon.

The necessity to curb emissions and reduce weight is a pressing requirement that is only set to put increasing pressure on theaerospaceindustry. But this is a slow and lengthy process, partly due to the cost of the composite materials needed to make primary structure airplane parts.

Its with this problem in mind that Solvays business unit Composite Materials entered aJoint Development Agreement (JDA)with SGL Carbon.

Solvay Product manager Frank Nickisch said: They had new carbon fibre developments to present, and we found their performances were very interesting, so we started discussing a collaboration.

The idea was to combine the lower cost of large-tow CF (produced with a much higher number of filaments in this case, 50K instead of the standard 12K or 24K therefore with a higher throughput) with a mechanical performance profile that can meet the needs of the aerospace industry.

Nickisch added: Its more difficult to obtain demanding mechanical performance with a larger tow carbon fibre, but thats what we aim to do by optimising the interaction between the carbon fibre and the resin system. Thats where the novelty of this product resides.

Developing new CF composite materials is the target of this high level collaboration.

Aerospace manufacturers are now initiating the screening process of these new composite materials in order to use them in one of their programmes.

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Solvay and SGL Carbon partner to create new aerospace composites - EPPM

Why Shares of Boeing and Commercial Aerospace Suppliers Are Soaring Today – Motley Fool

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What happened

Shares of Boeing (NYSE:BA) jumped 19% at the open, and traded up more than 13% in late morning, on growing optimism for a government stimulus package that would provide some relief to the troubled commercial aerospace sector. CEO David Calhoun appeared on CNBCthis morning to talk up the need to support the industry, and also said Boeing remains on track to get its troubled 737 MAX airborne again by mid-year.

The positive talk gave the entire commercial aerospace sector a lift, with shares of major Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:SPR) up 20% and shares of TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG), United Technologies (NYSE:UTX), Heico (NYSE:HEI), and Textron (NYSE:TXT) all opening up double digits.

Shares of Raytheon (NYSE:RTN), a defense-focused company nearing an all-stock merger with United Technologies, traded up in tandem with UTX's gains.

Airlines have been battered by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, with travel demand all but evaporating. The carriers have responded by cutting flights and grounding planes, raising serious questions about near-term demand for new Boeing jets as well as for spare parts normally used to keep those planes flying.

On Monday Boeing said it was shutting down its Puget Sound operations for two weeks, where much of its commercial manufacturing is located. Spirit AeroSystems, a one-time Boeing subsidiary that makes the fuselages for many Boeing jets, followed with its own two-week suspension on Tuesday morning.

Image source: Getty Images.

The situation has led Boeing to seek at least $60 billion in government aid for itself and its suppliers. Boeing said it would use any liquidity support to make payments to suppliers to maintain the health of its supply chain for the time when demand returns.

That aid was far from certain a week ago, but markets are rallying on Tuesday on improved dialog among lawmakers in Washington that has investors optimistic a bailout package including relief for hard-hit sectors will get done.

Aerospace stocks are also likely moving higher on Calhoun's optimism about the 737 Max. The plane was expected to be a best seller for Boeing and its suppliers, before it was grounded.

A stimulus package is a step in the right direction, but whether government help comes or not, commercial aerospace appears headed for an extended slowdown. Air traffic seems unlikely to rebound overnight once the pandemic is contained, and airlines are unlikely to rush planes back into service or commit to aggressively adding to their fleet any time soon.

But even if the businesses, and the stocks, aren't likely to rebound overnight, perhaps we are nearing a bottom. Heading into Tuesday's trading Boeing and Spirit Aero shares were both down more than 67%, and Heico, UTX, TransDigm, and Textron have all lost about half their value. Even if a recession is coming, that's likely overdone.

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Why Shares of Boeing and Commercial Aerospace Suppliers Are Soaring Today - Motley Fool

Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group protecting people in critical situations – Cambridge Network

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The company, headquartered in Cambridge, currently builds, services and maintains a wide range of military equipment for armed forces across the world, much of which is forming a significant part of their respective governments Coronavirus response planning.

Perhaps most notable is the iconic C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, which thanks to its versatility, is so often the go-to platform for humanitarian missions. Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group currently maintains C-130 fleets for many global air forces, including the Royal Air Force, and is already seeing growing demand for availability as nations gear up to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chief Executive Officer Alistair McPhee comments: We are always incredibly proud of the work that we do to protect people in critical situations and that has never been more relevant than right now.

Multiple customers have already been using their C-130 fleet to carry out medevac repatriation missions and deploying them to get supplies to remote areas.

We are also anticipating more demand for medical equipment and deployable infrastructure as armed forces are called upon to support the capacity needs of health services across the globe.

It is vitally important that we are able to stand ready to help in whatever capacity we can over the weeks and months ahead and I really want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the team, in particular our frontline employees, who are doing an amazing job in very difficult circumstances to make sure we dont and wont let our customers down.

Image: An RAF C-130 Hercules loaded with cargo

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Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group protecting people in critical situations - Cambridge Network

15-year-old researcher: Slovakia is far behind other countries in aerospace research – The Slovak Spectator

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Jakub Nagy has invented the picoballoon. What is it and what is it good for?

It is an awesome feeling that something you have constructed is successfully cruising around the planet, says the 15-year-old researcher who wants to popularise aerospace research in Slovakia.

TSS: What is a picoballoon and how does it work?

Jakub Nagy (JN): Picoballoon is an ultralight stratospheric probe. Its a tiny electronic device which integrates a microcomputer, sensors, a GPS unit and a transmitter. All of it weighs just around 15 grams. The probe transmits meteorological and scientific measurements during its flight. My flights lasted for more than a week and my probes ended their journey in Iran, the republic of Dagestan, Cyprus and Belarus. Its possible to carry out much longer flights and even ones around the whole planet. Im now developing much smaller probes, lighter than 5 grams, which would be capable of this. Im cooperating on this project with the Slovak Organisation for Space Activities, as well as other sponsors.

TSS: Why have you chosen to focus on a picoballoon of all things?

JN: At the beginning, it was just a simple challenge. Its extremely complicated to construct a device so small yet so durable and powerful. But later on, this project helped me popularise SOSA and science in general. Now Im trying to take things one step further and arrange cooperation with universities and other research institutions. Also, it is an awesome feeling that something you have constructed is successfully cruising across the planet. Im also thinking about selling a kit for electronics enthusiasts like me, to be able to construct and fly their own picoballoons.

TSS: You are way younger than most of your collaborators. How does that affect your relationship with them?

JN: Everyone is really nice to me and many professionals help me with problems, which Im very grateful for. Sometimes, I even feel positively discriminated due to my age. Because, lets be real, it sounds different when a middle-aged scientist with a PhD accomplishes something and when basically just a child accomplishes a similar thing.

29. Mar 2020 at 18:00 |Soa Otajoviov

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15-year-old researcher: Slovakia is far behind other countries in aerospace research - The Slovak Spectator

Aerospace Service Robotics Market 2020 | Business Outlook, Revenue, Trends and Forecasts 2025 | Dassault Aviation, Israel Aerospace, AeroVironment,…

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Aerospace Service Robotics Market 2020 report share informative data figures as well as important insights regarding some of the market component which is considered to be future course architects for the market. This includes factors such as market size, market share, market segmentation, significant growth drivers, market competition, different aspects impacting economic cycles in the market, demand, expected business up-downs, changing customer sentiments, key companies operating in the Aerospace Service Robotics Market, etc. In order to deliver a complete understanding of the global market, the report also shares some of the useful details regarding regional as well as significant domestic markets. The report presents a 360-degree overview and SWOT analysis of the competitive landscape of the industries.

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Dassault Aviation, Israel Aerospace, AeroVironment, European Aeronautic Defence and Space, Advanced Robotics, BlueBotics, MacDonald Dettwiler Space, Von Hoerner & Sulger, Universal Robots

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Handle aircraft orders backlog, Efficient aircraft production processes, others

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Unmanned Aircraft Service Robotics, Spacecraft Service Robotics, Satellite Service Robotics

Aerospace Service Robotics Market Region Mainly Focusing:

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Demand and Supply and Effectiveness Aerospace Service Robotics report moreover gives support, Production, Consumption and (Export and Import).

Major Points Covered in Table of Contents:

Aerospace Service Robotics Market OverviewGlobal Aerospace Service Robotics Market Competition by ManufacturersGlobal Aerospace Service Robotics Production Market Share by RegionsGlobal Aerospace Service Robotics Consumption by RegionsGlobal Aerospace Service Robotics Production, Revenue, Price Trend by TypeGlobal Aerospace Service Robotics Market Analysis by ApplicationsCompany Profiles and Key Figures in Aerospace Service Robotics BusinessAerospace Service Robotics Manufacturing Cost AnalysisMarketing Channel, Distributors, and CustomersMarket DynamicsGlobal Aerospace Service Robotics Market ForecastResearch Findings and ConclusionMethodology and Data Source

In a word, the Aerospace Service Robotics Market report provides major statistics on the state of the Aerospace Service Robotics industry with a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market. At the end, Aerospace Service Robotics Market Report delivers a conclusion which includes Research Findings, Market Size Evaluation, Global Market Share, Consumer Needs along with Customer Preference Change, Data Source. These factors will raise the growth of the business overall.

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Aerospace firm reveals how it launched into tackling the coronavirus crisis – Punchline Gloucester

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When your business is a major player in the world-wide sector of aerospace engineering there is no escaping the impact of the coronavirus.

We asked French engineering giant Safran how it was managing in an industry where the prompt movement of parts from its Staverton base to mainland Europe is key to its operations.

While we chose to focus on how it was keeping production and maintenance moving, the firm's response shows where its priorities lay - with its staff.

We copied it below in full not just because we thought it was interesting and insightful, but because it shows the scale of the upheaval being experienced by firms of all shapes and sizes - no one is immune from the crisis.

"Safran is committed to help prevent the further spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19), with a focus on protecting the health of our employees.

"On March 18, Safran suspended production in countries most affected by the COVID-19 virus to allow it to step up cleaning and disinfection operations in addition to existing procedures.

"On Monday, March 23, production is resuming gradually in those countries. Work has been reorganized to incorporate the most stringent health and safety guidelines for employees.

"The same measures are taken in all Safran locations worldwide, in order to ensure that they continue with their business activities or adapt them to meet the needs of our customers, in complete compliance with their national government's guidance on the coronavirus.

"Safran has recommended that employees telecommute if their job allows (no constraints related to equipment or physical presence).

"Following school closures in certain countries/zones, measures have been implemented for employees who have to stay at home to care for their children, following the compensation terms in each country."

Safran employs an estimated 1,500 staff in Gloucestershire where it operates its specialist landing gear division and maintenance business.

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Aerospace firm reveals how it launched into tackling the coronavirus crisis - Punchline Gloucester

The 2020 Survey of College and University Student Affairs Officers – Inside Higher Ed

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Student affairs officers have full agendas on college campuses, as they're often the point person for issues around such inflammatory issues as sexual violence, race relations and free speech. But those issues don't appear anywhere near the top when student affairs leaders are asked which issues dominate their time. The topics that do: student mental health, cited by 94percent, and student well-being, by 91percent. All other issues lagged well behind.

This is from the first-ever Inside Higher Ed survey of student affairs leaders, conducted by Gallup. The survey was conducted from Jan.16 to Feb.12, before the coronavirus left most campuses without students. The survey included answers from only one person per institution, with coding to allow for comparisons by sector.

Among the other findings:

What They Spent Their Time On

When student affairs officers were asked which issues "you have paid a significant amount of attention to in the past year," the answers were mostly similar for public and private nonprofit institutions, with the exception of spending time on hunger and homeless, where public institutions were more likely to answer yes than privates, 73 to 31percent. The public side was strengthened by community colleges, at 78percent.

Mental Health

Half of student affairs leaders say they think about student mental health "a great deal." Thepercentages were highest at public doctoral institutions (68percent) and private baccalaureate colleges (66percent), and lowest at community colleges (36percent).

Asked to rate the mental health of students, only 1percent of student affairs leaders said that it was excellent. Thirty-fourpercent said that it was good, 58percent fair and 8percent poor. Seventypercent of officials at private baccalaureate institutions and 74percent at public doctoral institutions said their students' mental health was either fair or poor.

Consider these two figures -- on the volume of visits to campus mental heath professionals and on the number of students receiving prescription medicine in the last five years. Both show substantial gains.

Volume of Visits to See Mental Health Professionals in the Last Five Years

Volume of Students on Campus Receiving Prescription Medication for Mental Health Issues

One issue students have complained about at many colleges concerns limits placed on the number of times a student can see a mental health professional on campus. Half of those at public colleges have such limits, and 46percent of private colleges have such limits.

The respondents -- at public and private colleges alike -- also expressed concern about the impact of students' mental health issues on mental health professionals.

Last year, the head of counseling at the University of Pennsylvania died by suicide; he had complained about the demands of the job.

Of respondents to the survey, 37percent said they were very concerned about the impact of student mental health issues on the mental health of those who treat them, and 45percent were somewhat concerned.

The survey found colleges to be split on the use of outside providers for mental health. Forty-sevenpercent said they do -- with a higherpercentage at public (51percent) than at private institutions (39percent).

But those that do use them are at least somewhat satisfied. Thirtypercent of respondents said they were very satisfied, and 61percent were somewhat satisfied.

Kevin Kruger, president of NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, said via email that he was "not surprised" by the data on mental health.

"We see incidents of self-reported depressive episodes increasing year over year for adolescent boys and girls. These young people end up on our college campuses. It is the reality of the increases we are seeing that has resulted in a major reinvestment in health promotion and prevention efforts on campus. There is a clear understanding on campus that the long-term solutions must include population-level wellness and well-being initiatives in addition to therapeutic interventions."

Race Relations

The survey asked a series of questions about race relations, similar to those asked in a recent poll of college presidents.

Both sets of officials were asked to assess the state of race relations in higher education nationally and on their own campuses, and the surveys found student affairs to be more skeptical in both cases. Both student affairs leaders and college presidents were more likely to see problems in American higher education at large than on their campuses.

How Are Race Relations on Your Campus?

How Are Race Relations in Higher Education?

But despite this view, 31percent of student affairs leaders said their institution has done a lot to support diversity and inclusion on campus, at 48percent said it done something to promote diversity and inclusion.

One question on the survey asked the student affairs leaders how various groups of students at their college are treated. The very best off, they said, were white students. Minority students -- and conservative students -- did not do as well.

How Student Groups Are Treated

Kruger said that "college campuses across the country struggle with racial climate issues -- particularly at predominantly white institutions. Student affairs vice presidents see these issues on an individual level in their interactions with students across all races and ethnicities. College presidents may see a healthier climate as measured by fewer protests, but student affairs professionals are more likely to hear the stories that students of color experience in their daily lives. These can be the big stories of racism that make the news -- but often are found in the daily interactions student of color experience in the classroom, in their residence hall or simply walking through the campus. That only 54percent of [the respondents] have a positive view of race relations on campus is indicative of the significant work that needs to be done on this critical issue."

One of the most controversial issues in student affairs is free speech on campus. Seventy-eightpercent of student affairs leaders believe their campus is excellent or good "as a place where students can express their ideas and opinions freely." Public institutions were more likely than private institutions to answer that way.

Student affairs leaders also believe -- but narrowly -- that their campuses host speakers representing a range of political viewpoints.

Campuses and Free Speech

Some of the most contentious issues surrounding campus speech are whether students understand why free speech is important on campus, and the punishments (if any) for those who disrupt free speech.

Colleges generally bar students from protesting a speaker in a way that would disrupt speech, but permit protests that don't. For example, at many colleges there would be no consequence for protesting a speaker outside the designated venue, but some colleges would punish interrupting or shouting down a speaker.

The answers reveal strong disagreement among the student affairs leaders.

Free Speech Issues

Another issue that has consumed student affairs leaders on many campuses is sexual assault. The Trump administration is expected -- perhaps in coming days -- to propose substantial changes to the federal rules spelling out colleges' responsibilities in preventing and dealing with sexual assault.

The answers on this issue were split: large majorities said that higher education must improve the way it responds to issues of sexual assault, but they asserted that their institutions handle sexual assault allegations appropriately.

Sexual Assault

Low-Income Students

While there have always been homeless and hungry students on campuses, the issue has gained considerable attention in recent years.

Nonetheless, only a minority of colleges know how many of their students are either homeless or food insecure. Thirty-fourpercent of respondents said their college attempts to measure the share of students who are homeless. (The figure was 48percent at community colleges.) A higherpercentage -- 47percent -- said their college measures thepercentage of students who are food insecure.

Homeless and Hungry Students

Colleges were also asked if they provide certain things to students who are homeless or food insecure.

The survey also included a series of questions on issues facing colleges.

On the issue of monitoring students' social media accounts, only 14percent said that their college monitors students accounts. But thepercentage was higher at private institutions (17percent) than at public institutions.

Student affairs leaders agreed (barely) that the needs of residential students dominate their agendas. And only a minority of student affairs leaders agreed that students' career services expectations are unreasonable.

Student affairs leaders also were asked to respond to the statement "My president has enough knowledge of student affairs issues that when he or she makes a decision, it is the right one."

Twenty-onepercent strongly agreed, while 37percent agreed, 23percent were neutral, 11percent disagreed and 7percent strongly disagreed. At community colleges, 30percent of the student affairs leaders strongly agreed.

Kruger of NASPA said about this finding, "Virtually every vice president of student affairs who has served in their role for more than 10 years would say that their role is qualitatively different than it was even five years ago. The reality is that the issues, problems and challenges of the modern campus are significantly different than they were when most members of the presidents cabinet themselves were students. This can create a kind of lag in decision making that is grounded in an understanding of what is happening on campus today.

"For example, the protests we have seen on campus the last five years caught many campuses by surprise. Where student affairs staff would have seen the increase in activism among this newer group of students increasing over the years. Finally, it is almost in the student affairs ethos to make their work seem effortless and to quietly manage the ongoing challenges and crises on campus. Most respondents try to keep these issues from rising up the presidents desk -- which on the one hand is a good instinct, but can also lead to the kind of disconnect the survey data suggests."

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The 2020 Survey of College and University Student Affairs Officers - Inside Higher Ed

Women’s activism in Pakistan: Limits on freedom of choice, speech, and visibility in the public sphere – Atlantic Council

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Women chant slogans as they take part in Aurat March, Urdu for Women's March, in Sukkur, Pakistan March 8, 2020. REUTERS/Yasir Ali

International Womens Day on March 8 marked Pakistans third annual multi-city Aurat March or womens march. As the Aurat March grows in popularity each year, it has also faced increasing criticism from religious parties like the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Party of Islamic Scholars, JUI-F), and well as ordinary citizens disapproving of the March participants demand: gender equality-based social change. In a stark display of the limits on free speech in the country, the marchs slogan mera jism, meri marzi, sparked national debate. A translation of the US pro-choice womens liberation mantra my body, my choice, the slogan was a voice of transnational solidarity with womens movements throughout the world, especially the heavily social media documented 2017 Womens March in the United Statesthe biggest single-day protest march in US history. This slogan, appearing on a placard in the 2019 Aurat March, also is intended to spark the necessary discussion on the place of women in Pakistani society. In the Pakistani context, however, critics see both the march and slogans like my body, my choice as vulgar imports of a liberal, foreign culture. This perceived liberalism, for conservative defenders of nationalism-infused morality, is seen as funded by appendages of the West and as a challenge to the fabric of Pakistans culture and societywhich is largely rooted in Islam and conservative South Asian values.

This said, the slogan was met with resounding backlash for other reasons. The appropriation of a reproductive rights slogan to signal support for womens bodily autonomy was deemed to be a profane sentiment by many critics. Orthodox clerics like Faiz Muhammad of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Party of Islamic Scholars, JUI-F ) argued that Mera jism, or my body, violates the belief that ones body belongs to God alone, while meri marzi or my choice, suggests that one should institute freedom of choice in matters of their own bodies, potentially over social and religious norms. In Islam, devout Muslims are expected to act only in submission to God, following sacrosanct rules about corporeal actions in both public and private. Hence, orthodox followers find it sacrilegious and a threat to society when womensocially expected to be relegated to the private spherepublicly claim the right to do as they please with their own bodies.

This perceived obscenity was oneof the reasons a handful of conservatives brought petitions before the HighCourt in the major cities of Lahore and Islamabad, seekingto prohibit the 2020 Aurat March from taking place there. The petitions were rejectedby the courts days before the march, but a counterprotest formed in the capitalcity of Islamabad called Haya March or Modesty March, where certain protestors threw sticksand stones at Aurat March participants. Despite these attacks, the Aurat Marchwas well attended in the cities of Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi, and itsparticipants far outnumbered those at the counter-movement.

However, Aurat Marchers are notthe only ones in the fight for gender justice, womens rights, and a place inthe public sphere. For the third year in a row, March organizers recognized Pakistanisocial media celebrity Qandeel Baloch, who passed away in 2016 at the hands ofher brother in a so-called honor-killing. Qandeel, a part-time model andactress, found fame in 2013 after her Pakistan Idol audition was mocked and sheresponded to the judges jabs about her performance on her Facebook account. Herunabashed and witty personality led her to be named one of the ten most Googled people in Pakistan,with hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers. Qandeel went viral in the spring of 2016, when she offered to perform a strip tease for Pakistanicricket player Shahid Afridi, on the condition that the Pakistani team beat theIndian team in the 2016 T20 World Cup. So outrageous was this proposed act ofbodily autonomy by a Pakistani woman that Qandeel was invited onto talk shows, includingone on news channel Neo TV, where themorality of this proposed act was questioned by cleric Mufti Qavi.

Just like the slogan mera jism, meri marzi,Qandeel was criticized for acting in a manner contrary to conservativePakistani culture. Not only does sensually revealing ones body to the public goagainst Islamic principles surrounding modesty, but immodest women threaten thevery nationalism that rests on such gendered internal hegemony.Pakistani nationalism, then, is a language through which gender hierarchies arejustified, and in turn, one privileging masculine prowess and politicalexpression. InJune 2016, Qavi was captured in one of Qandeels video-selfies, in whatappeared to be the closed quarters of a hotel with no one else in sight. Qandeel recorded herself sitting next to Qavi and even wore his hat in a mannersuggesting an intimacy that questioned Qavis religious authority, despite hisclaims that the interactions with Qandeel were innocent. By being physicallypresent with Qandeel alone, Qavi went against the very religious principlessurrounding gender segregation he preaches. Qandeels socially unacceptablebehavior threatened to damage Qavis reputation and, a few weeks later, led toher death at the hands of her own brother. Qandeels do-it-yourself activism notonly pushed the boundaries on the extent to which the average Pakistani womanmay participate in the public sphere, but it also redesigned the publicspheremelding the private sphere with the public sphere through social media.

Yet, as witnessed with thebacklash from the recent Aurat March, the struggle for womensvisibility in the public sphere is far from over. In October 2019, TikTokstar Hareem Shah, aprivileged young woman from the conservative city of Peshawar, went viral forrecording a video of herself in the Foreign Office of Pakistan. The video showed hersitting in a space reserved for political leadersprompting questionsabout how she had access to such an official space.Moreover, coming from a young woman who had typically posted herself singingand engaging in everyday activities like going to the gym, her presence in thisformal political setting elicited public discomfort about an ordinary womansbodily autonomy and presence in the Pakistani public sphere.

This discomfort surrounding Hareems Foreign Office video is an extension of the restrictive norms on womens visibility in the Pakistani public sphere. Hence, while protestors carry mera jism, meri marzi placards alluding to bodily autonomy, the crux of this contentious debate does not just hang on freedom of choice. It demands a broader conversation about societal acceptance of womens visibility in the public sphere and role in politics more broadly. Until Pakistani women are seen as full citizens of the state, and not just national subjects, such seemingly apolitical visual expression will continue to provoke much needed rights-based deliberation.

Zainab Alam (@_zainab_alam) is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Rutgers University, where her research focuses on digital democracy in South Asia.

Tue, Nov 26, 2019

Libya experts frequently call for greater inclusion of civil society and local governance leaders in peace-building efforts in order for the peace process to be more representative of ordinary Libyans. And yet, Libyan womens powerful role in civil society and the fact that they make up half of the population of ordinary Libyans is often overlooked.

MENASourcebyEmily Burchfield

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Women's activism in Pakistan: Limits on freedom of choice, speech, and visibility in the public sphere - Atlantic Council

How the Right Went Far-Right – The American Prospect

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Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation

By Andrew Marantz

Viking

During the postWorld War II era, anti-democratic extremist movements faded into political irrelevance in the Western democracies. Nazis became a subject for comedies and historical movies, communists ceased to inspire either fear or hope, and while some violent groups emerged on the fringes, they were no electoral threat. The mass media effectively quarantined extremists on both the right and the left. As long as broadcasters and the major newspapers and magazines regulated who could speak to the general public, a liberal government could maintain near-absolute free-speech rights without much to worry about. The practical reality was that extremists could reach only a limited audience, and that through their own outlets. They also had an incentive to moderate their views to gain entre into mainstream channels.

In the United States, both the conservative media and the Republican Party helped keep a lid on right-wing extremism from the end of the McCarthy era in the 1950s to the early 2000s. Through his magazine National Review, the editor, columnist, and TV host William F. Buckley set limits on respectable conservatism, consigning kooks, anti-Semites, and outright racists to the outer darkness. The Republican leadership observed the same political norms, while the liberal press and the Democratic Party denied a platform to the fringe left.

Those old norms and boundary-setting practices have now broken down on the right. No single source accounts for the surge in right-wing extremism in the United States or Europe. Rising numbers of immigrants and other minorities have triggered a panic among many native-born whites about lost dominance. Some men have reacted angrily against womens equality, while shrinking industrial employment and widening income inequality have hit less-educated workers particularly hard.

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As these pressures have increased, the internet and social media have opened up new channels for previously marginalized forms of expression. Opening up new channels was exactly the hope of the internets championsat least, it was a hope when they envisioned only benign effects. The rise of right-wing extremism together with online media now suggests the two are connected, but it is an open question as to whether the change in media is a primary cause of the political shift or just a historical coincidence.

The relationship between right-wing extremism and online media is at the heart of Antisocial, Andrew Marantzs new book about what he calls the hijacking of the American conversation. A reporter for The New Yorker, Marantz began delving into two worlds in 2014 and 2015. He followed the online world of neofascists, attended events they organized, and interviewed those who were willing to talk with him. Meanwhile, he also reported on the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley whose companies were simultaneously undermining professional journalism and providing a platform for the circulation of conspiracy theories, disinformation, hate speech, and nihilism. The online extremists, Marantz argues, have brought about a shift in Americans moral vocabulary, a term he borrows from the philosopher Richard Rorty. To change how we talk is to change who we are, Marantz writes, summing up the thesis of his book.

Antisocial weaves back and forth between the netherworld of the right and the dreamworld of the techno-utopians in the years leading up to and immediately following the 2016 U.S. election. The strongest chapters profile the demi-celebrities of the alt-right. As a Jewish reporter from a liberal magazine, Marantz is not an obvious candidate to gain the confidence of neofascists. But he has an impressive talent for drawing them out, and his portraits attend to the complexities of their life stories and the nuances of their opinions. Marantz leaves no doubt, however, about his own view of the alt-right and the responsibilities of journalists: The plain fact was the alt-right was a racist movement full of creeps and liars. If a newspapers house style didnt allow its reporters to say so, at least by implication, then the house style was preventing its reporters from telling the truth.

As Marantz describes them, the white nationalists, masculinists, and other elements of the alt-right were metamedia insurgents interested chiefly in catalyzing conflict. They took for granted that the old institutions ought to be burned to the ground, and they used the tools at their disposalnew media, especially social mediato light as many matches as possible. As they expanded their online presence, they tailored their memes to the medium. On Facebook, they posted countersignal memes to shock normies out of their complacency. On Twitter, they trolled mainstream journalists, hoping to capture wider attention. On sites such as Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan, they felt free to be more overtly vile and started calling themselves fashy or fash-ist, sometimes baiting normies by claiming that Hitler did nothing wrong.

In the old world of mass media, extremists had an incentive to temper their views to gain access to the mainstream, but now the incentives have been reversed.

The online alt-right, together with the presidential candidate they decided to champion, Donald Trump, played a key role in making white nationalist ideas part of the national conversation. Until 2016, the two major parties and national media reflected a broad consensusat least in rhetoric, if not in actual policythat America was a nation where immigrants were welcome and people of all races and religions were equal. When Republicans played the race card, they did so obliquely in deference to the consensus. Under George W. Bush, the Republican establishment was still pushing immigration reform, while the party was increasingly in opposition to legislation and succeeded in blocking it.

But a few on the far right called for Republicans to go further. They assailed the Narrative, their term for the dominant liberal ideas about racial and gender equality. Marantz highlights the role of Steve Sailer, an opinion writer who had been arguing since the early 2000s that Republicans should openly cast themselves as a white-identity party, enact pro-white policies, and take aggressive action against immigration, including the repeal of birthright citizenship. Others on the right called this the Sailer strategy. Social media gave Sailer and like-minded hereticsmany of whom Buckley had banished to the fringes of the movement years earliernew ways of disseminating their views that were more powerful than what was appearing in a print magazine like National Review.

Much of Marantzs story describes how more traditional right-wingers moved further right and brought others along with them. In 2012, a group that had previously supported the libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul started a blog called The Right Stuff, describing themselves as post-libertarian before adopting the term alt-right. As a result of the rising numbers of immigrants, they argued, libertarianism wouldnt be enough to stop the replacement of whites; stronger measures were necessary. The Right Stuffs arch, antic, floridly offensive tone, Marantz writes, attracted a growing cohort of disaffected young men who often referred to the blog as a key part of a libertarian-to-far-right pipeline, a path by which normies could advance, through a series of epiphanies, toward full radicalization.

Some of these right-wingers went all the way to out-and-proud fascism. Richard Spencer, who coined the term alternative right in 2008, advocated the creation of a white ethnostate on the North American continent, to be achieved through peaceful ethnic cleansing. At an alt-right conference just after Trumps election, Spencer declared, Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory. This last phrase, the literal translation of Sieg heil, led some members of the audience to rise with Nazi salutes. When the leaders of a movement call for peaceful ethnic cleansing, it ought not to be surprising that one of their followers decides to do it the old-fashioned way. In October 2018, just before killing 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the murderer posted a cartoon on a right-wing social media site with the caption The libertarian-to-far-right pipeline is a real thing.

Before he became Trumps campaign strategist, Steve Bannon, publisher of the web tabloid Breitbart News, said of his own site, Were the platform for the alt-right. Later, though, the association became toxic, and Bannon and others who were anxious about the company they were keeping then relabeled their position as civic nationalism rather than ethnonationalism. In the United States, however, civic nationalism has long been associated with the liberal, pluralist view that embraces ethnic diversity and immigration and insists that American citizenship and identity demand only adherence to the nations civic principles. Bannon and others in his circle were trying to appropriate the term for a movement that sought to reverse immigration and citizenship policies that have treated nonwhites as equals.

The normalization of white nationalism on the right and the growth of online media helped prepare the way for Trumps election. With his disregard for the truth and incendiary use of social media both as a candidate and as president, Trump has been the pivotal and emblematic figure in this political transformation. Repeatedly over the previous decades, as far back as 1987, he failed to get any traction when he floated the idea of running for president. The mainstream news media did not take him seriously, and his views and even his party affiliation werent clear. In 1999, he mentioned Oprah Winfrey as a possible running mate when he suggested he might run for president the next year.

In 2011, Trump again tried to stir up support for a presidential campaign, but as Marantz points out, he initially had nothing to command peoples attentionno news hook, no controversy, no meme with momentum. Then he turned to two far-right figures, Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi from World Net Daily, a right-wing online site that had played a central role in promoting the lie that Obama came from Kenya and his Hawaiian birth certificate was a forgery. Seizing on the myth about Obamas birth, Trump generated the political attention he had always craved, though once again he decided against a presidential run. But Marantz is right that the episode had an obvious lesson: the more incendiary your message, and the more loudly and forcefully you repeated it, the more attention you could get.

Marantzs view of the online media revolves around this central point: Messages that pack a high emotional punch go viral, while low-arousal messages do not. The viral power of emotionally arousing messages is clearly part of the explanation for why extremism has flourished online at a historical moment when native-born whites, particularly men, have felt they are losing control. In the old world of mass media, extremists had an incentive to temper their views to gain access to the mainstream, but now the incentives have been reversed. High-voltage lies flourish in the environment created by social media. Not only are there no editorial gatekeepers; the platforms algorithms have amplified messages that generate user engagement, which high-arousal racist lies unquestionably do.

Whats missing from Marantzs account, however, is the critical role of Fox, Breitbart, and other major right-wing media organizations that have developed over the past quarter-century. The new mass media of the right and social media work in tandem. Social media were supposed to create wider public participation, and for better or worse thats what we have on the right: a system of participatory propaganda (as some analysts have begun to call it), involving both media with large audiences and legions of lesser influencers.

When the major social media companies began in the early 2000s, their founders did not see themselves as having any responsibility for the content on their sites. The culture of the tech industry has long had an affinity for libertarian ideas that provide a ready justification for a hands-off policy. An absolutist view of free speech has also been economically advantageous for the companies because it relieves them of any obligation to hire the employees that would be needed to monitor all the content users post.

But since 2016, the revelations about the complicity of the tech industry in spreading disinformation have forced the platforms to make adjustments. Reddit serves as Marantzs chief case study in the techno-utopians retreat from free-speech absolutism. Founded in 2005, the company hosts forums (subreddits) for virtually unlimited and unrestrained posting of opinions, images, and other content. According to one of its founders, Steve Huffman, the site was built around the principle of No editors. The people are the editors. In its early days, it sold T-shirts with the slogan Freedom from the press.

When Marantz visited its offices in San Francisco in October 2017, Reddit had a million subreddits and was the fourth-highest-traffic site in the United States after Google, Facebook, and YouTube. Huffman, now the ceo, had become alarmed about the presence of neofascist activists on the site. Just a few weeks earlier, white supremacists had marched in Charlottesville, Virginia.

After some deliberation, Reddit slightly modified its existing policy against encouraging or inciting violence, adding language enjoining participants not to glorify or call for physical harm against an individual or a group of people or the abuse of animals. Marantz was invited to observe a group of Reddit employees as they sat around a table eating snacks and making decisions about which subreddits to ban109 of them that day, such as r/KillAllJews and r/KilltheJews as well as r/SexWithDogs. But the scene Marantz describes only raises more questions: How were those subreddits accepted in the first place? What others with equally noxious content survived because they had less explicit names? Is it even possible for a company with a million forums to exercise responsible control?

Social media companies have created new and powerful means of political communication without the traditions of editorial responsibility that in liberal democracies have helped make the media into partners of democracy. The companies have now taken some steps to limit the damage they have been doing. Facebook has taken down billions of fake accounts and recently adopted measures against coordinated inauthentic behavior to counteract disinformation campaigns by both domestic sources and foreign governments. But it has also declined to block lies in political advertising.

The techno-utopians promised disruption, and they have delivered it. What they havent delivered is the ability to prevent that disruption from undermining liberal democratic institutions. The online media havent produced the right-wing surge all by themselves, and Marantzs book doesnt persuade me that the online right-wing extremists have changed who Americans are by changing how we talk. But the changes in media and politics have shown us something about what the United States can become. Fascism is a real and present danger in America. Everything we do now politically has to take that into account.

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How the Right Went Far-Right - The American Prospect

As New York closes in on budget negotiations, funders weary of new reporting proposal – Jewish Insider

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As nonprofits struggle amid the economic impact of the current COVID-19 crisis, they may soon be facing an additional stumbling block, in the form of an increase in state-mandated donor transparency requirements.

As governments around the world race to address the pandemic, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is racking up praise for his leadership in the state that is currently the American epicenter of the health crisis. Amid daily press briefings and constant calls to Washington, Cuomo is continuing to negotiate with the legislature to balance and approve the state budget before the April 1 deadline.

It is an unofficial tradition in New York State for the budget process to be wielded by the governor as a policy-making tool. The current global crisis has allowed many policy proposals currently under negotiation to fly under the radar, and the governors rising prominence has made it even more politically challenging for the legislature.

Included in the budget is a clause that will drastically increase transparency demands for donations to nonprofits. The proposed legislation attached to the budget focuses on restricted donations related to lobbying-related expenses, as well as general donations from major funders. This proposal, if approved in the final budget, would make public the names of anyone who donates more than $5,000 and the amount given. The clause would apply to organizations with more than $250,000 in gross revenue.

The proposal requires organizations that solicit donations and file taxes in New York State with the State Attorney Generals Charities Bureau to file the entirety of their tax forms with the Department of Taxation and Finance. The tax department would then make the filings, known as 990s, available on its website. Recent 990 tax forms for nonprofits are already available from the Charities Bureau, the IRS or through third-party services. Under the proposed legislation, the Schedule B section of tax filings which lists the names and addresses of donors of more than $5,000 and is generally redacted in public databases would now be made fully public.

Jewish Funders Network President and CEO Andrs Spokoiny estimates that there is approximately $110 billion in Jewish philanthropic assets in the U.S., with about $3-4 billion in total Jewish donations each year. Spokoiny said both numbers were rough estimates due in part to the difficulty in defining what counts as Jewish giving.

Spokoiny, whose organization represents roughly 2,500 major funders, said there are a number of legitimate reasons that donors want to remain anonymous. Sometimes, he said, the rationale involves upholding Jewish values, while other times it is a strategic move as part of a larger philanthropy plan.

Spokoiny said he is not opposed to increased transparency in principle, but he is worried about the unintended consequences of such proposals especially amid the coronavirus crisis. We are entering into a time that is going to require a lot of philanthropy, he said. I understand the logic, but the main need of policy now is to incentivize philanthropy, not make it harder for folks to give.

The proposed budget also includes a clause that would require additional reporting when a 501(c)(3) organization makes a contribution of $10,000 or more to a 501(c)(4) organization for lobbying purposes.

The two proposals are seen by many as another attempt by Cuomo to enact an ethics law that was introduced in 2016 but struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York in September. The ruling in Citizens Union Of The City Of New York v. The Attorney General of the State of New York, noted that there is no question that public disclosure of donor identities burdens the First Amendment rights to free speech and free association.

Retired lawyer Alan Rothstein, who sits on the board of Citizens Union, a good-government group that promotes reform of the New York City and State government, was involved in the original lawsuit against the 2016 legislation. Rothstein, who co-chairs the groups policy committee, opposes the new proposal. He slammed the clause addressing additional reporting, noting that it does not cure the constitutional problems of the 2016 law struck down by courts, and imposes an inappropriate burden on nonprofit organizations.

Rothstein is less concerned about the disclosures required for donations to 501(c)(4) organizations, pointing out that lobbying efforts already require detailed reports and disclosure. More concerning, Rothstein says, is when a charitable organization isnt related to lobbying, [the clause] would prohibit charitable organizations from getting the funds they need to do their work.

Citizens Union is not alone in opposing the lobbying reporting clause the group was part of a coalition of 142 nonprofits that released a legislative memo expressing their opposition, calling the new law unconstitutional. The memos signatories included the Jewish Federations of North America, UJA Federation of New York, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

A spokesperson for Cuomo told JI: The public has a right to know who is backing these organizations so voters can better understand the sources for their positions and make decisions with full knowledge of the facts. Everyone supports transparency until it shows up at their own front door.

If this section of the budget proposal becomes law, sources behind major donations may still not become public, according to Spokoiny. He told JI that major donors who value their privacy can still employ workarounds, including using Donor-Advised Funds, to make anonymous gifts. The richer you are, he said, the more workarounds youre going to have.

Whether this portion of the budget proposal will become law and stand up to inevitable judicial scrutiny remains to be seen. Rothstein said its too early to tell if the legislation will again be challenged in the courts. Before any of that can happen, the governor and the legislature will first need to pass the budget ahead of Wednesday the start of the next fiscal year.

The author is a recruitment associate at Encounter.

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As New York closes in on budget negotiations, funders weary of new reporting proposal - Jewish Insider