From the Waves III sculpture featuring a multitude of world languages near Chambers to the OLAS/PASA House on Patterson Court, international representation on Davidson College campus is apparent to the naked eye. Boasting over 15 culture and ethnic clubs on campus as well as providing study abroad opportunities through the Dean Rusk International Studies Program, Davidson clearly advertises and utilizes its international connections and student body to the benefit of itself and its students.
With all of these facts in mind, the international applicant to Davidson might then readily reach the conclusion that the College would support them in any way possible. When push comes to shove, however, Davidson’s current administrative actions seem to assert the negative.
One in ten Davidson students are international students, having arrived on an F-1 visa specifically designed to grant academic students temporary status in the United States. That visa carries with it strict restrictions, including not being able to work for any form of compensation outside of two specific authorizations: the Optional Practical Training authorization (OPT), and the Curricular Practical Training authorization (CPT). OPT authorizes F-1 visa holders to work in the United States for an additional 12 months after graduation, while CPT authorizes F-1 students to engage in work-adjacent experiences “that [are] an integral part of an established curriculum.”
At Davidson, CPT authorizations allowed for international students to gain work experience through internships, fellowships, and summer jobs — work experience that kept Davidson graduates competitive with students from other top universities. That same competitiveness is paraded on Davidson’s website, which boasts a 72% participation rate in research or internships on its website. Now, those opportunities have been heavily curtailed for international students, and in all previously authorized cases, retroactively rescinded.
On August 12, the office for Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) released a broadcast message reminding school officials that they are personally liable when they approve I-20 documents for international students. Within 24 hours, Davidson College and University of California, Berkeley were the first to immediately pause all CPT authorizations immediately. Two weeks and a second broadcast later, over 100 universities and liberal arts colleges have since followed in pausing or tightening CPT authorizations.
Beyond merely pausing CPT, however, Davidson went on to cancel existing CPT authorizations for the Fall 2026 semester — an unprecedented step that few other aforementioned universities have yet to take. Paired with the second broadcast message clarifying the regulatory definitions of ‘integral to education’ within CPT statutes, it is unclear what the new timeline is with regards to formally updating College policy on experiential learning credits for CPT-valid experiences.
Under previous administrations, the requirement that CPT be an “integral part of an established curriculum” was broadly interpreted to be satisfied through work experiences that, through an established part of the academic curriculum, granted academic credit to the student with the CPT. Davidson’s version of that was XPL199, a class described by its course description as “[enabling] students to engage in personal, professional, cultural and academically relevant experiences for academic credit.”
These broadcasts have achieved a possible intended purpose: shocking schools into a legal retreat away from their previous positions on CPT authorizations. This move, analyzed in context of the Department of Homeland Security’s previous attempt to rescind Harvard’s SEVP certificate — the authorization that allows institutions to enroll international students — seems designed to grant the Justice Department a new vector of attack at institutions of higher education. In light of Project 2025 educational reform goals, further restriction of F-1 visas would therefore help in stemming the flow of H-1B visa workers, many of whom are applying from an F-1 visa.
So where, then, is the institutional outcry against this new restrictive interpretation? When It appears that institutions of higher education, including Davidson, are more concerned with their legal wellbeing than the academic and career prospects of its international students — choosing to stay out of this fight and keep its head down rather than stand up for its international community.
Sure, when Davidson College was under threat of seeing its endowment tax increase from 1.4% to 7%, we saw lobbyists jump into overtime to carve out a class size exception of 5,000 students, under which Davidson and other colleges wouldn’t have to pay any additional tax. We even saw our trump card be played: a message of support from President Doug Hicks!
And yet, for the student body on campus? Not a word, outside of privately circulated memos detailing how exactly every international student’s plans of gaining work experience would be cut. In a time where words are cheap, not even a peep out the administration says volumes about where its priorities lie. Where numerous other schools have released publicly available updates on their respective office websites, Davidson has stayed radio silent, risking uninformed decision-making from both current students and potential future applicants.
As it appears, one of President Hick’s favorite ways to praise the College is to compare it to its peers and conclude that we as an institution stand head and shoulders above the rest. And yet where Skidmore College and Grinnell College have each released public notices on their webpages, Davidson has not. While there is neither question about the generosity of our alums, nor the strength of our academics, there are many as to the quality of Davidson’s so-called ‘leadership’ in the public space. Leadership is not silent, nor is it subtle. Where the international community has no recourse and no options, Davidson’s flavor of leadership must be loud, must be obvious.
Beyond Davidson’s apparent hypocrisy demonstrated through its lack of any public communication in the face of its Commitment to Freedom of Expression, perhaps the worst of its crimes are its hesitancy to inform international applicants in the Class of 2031 about these policy updates updates to internal CPT policy. While the Admissions Office has responded to individual queries regarding CPT policy, there has yet to be any public announcement anywhere. This is not merely an operational inefficiency inherent to all administrations, but rather a deliberate wait-and-see strategy that hedges Davidson’s legal security against critical information that international students deserve to know. As of the time of this article’s publication, there have been no updates whatsoever to any publicly available page on Davidson’s website.
An administrative oversight at its best, and a calculated moral failing at its worst, Davidson must make immediate amends such that the incoming class does not get caught up in the political crossfire that is the current administration’s war on higher education. Whether this comes in the form of updates to its website, a public memo to all applicants, or an open letter to the Davidson community, nothing less than full transparency on the College’s stance will suffice.
It is understandable that matters of policy interpretation, as is this CPT update, are much less vulnerable to litigation than the aforementioned tax code change — so much so that the College’s preferred action is inaction. But as the optics stand, one may prefer the interpretation that Davidson only protects the students’ interests so far as the College’s financial interests are concerned.
In an era where Davidson has been so quick to pride itself as a leader among its educational equals, it has backed it up by being among the first liberal arts colleges in the United States to communicate CPT policy changes to enrolled students. But simply altering policy to protect against legal attacks isn’t enough. Where clarity and truth have been cheapened so, Davidson College cannot afford to stay silent. But until then, Davidson’s actions only echo its self-interest — with no mention of the noble ideals it claims to stand for.
And that is a damning indictment of Davidson’s values indeed.
