Teaching and Learning
Teaching as an Expression of Care (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13, 2024): “Too often we think of engagement as this transactional thing where if instructors ‘give’ active learning they will ’get’ engagement in return,” Michael McCreary, an educational developer at Goucher College, wrote in a recent post on LinkedIn. But engagement strategies only work if students “feel like you genuinely care about them as whole human beings, not as one-dimensional ‘learners.’”
Intersectionality, Power, and Pedagogy (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, June 13, 2024): 45-minute podcast in which Clarissa Sorensen Unruh shares her thoughts about intersectionality, power, and pedagogy.
Promoting Far Transfer in Medical Education: An Experiment (Megan Sumeracki, Learning Scientist, June 13, 2024): Transfer, as in the ability to use or apply knowledge outside of school in other contexts. This article describes an experiment investigating which combination of certain learning strategies lead to greater levels of transfer.
Why Grade Complaints Are Misunderstood (Rebekah Peeples, Inside Higher Ed, June 11, 2024): Students are not solely to blame.
Positive Partnership: Building Real Projects for Real Life Skills (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, June 11, 2024): Classroom-based experiences can help students gain hands-on work experiences and establish themselves as professionals, as well as benefit outside partners.
All Things AI
Memo to Faculty: AI Is Not Your Friend (Scott Latham, Inside Higher Ed, June 14, 2024): The time to resist is now, the author writes.
Professors Ask: Are We Just Grading Robots? (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13, 2024): Some are riding the AI wave. Others feel like they’re drowning.
No, AI Should Not Be a Student’s Co-Pilot (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, June 13, 2024): Treating AI as a co-pilot is tempting, but in learning, the bigger temptation is for student to use it as a subcontractor, and that’s not good.
AI and the Death of Student Writing (Lisa Lieberman, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 7, 2024): The move away from true hands-on scholarship feels tragic.
Campus Protests Continue
Congressional Hearings:
Colleges in Republicans’ Crosshairs Enroll Only a Sliver of U.S. College Students (Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, June 10, 2024): Only about one percent of U.S. undergraduates attend the 12 mostly elite, mostly private institutions under Congressional scrutiny. But conservatives are casting them as emblematic of higher education writ large.
House Education Committee Threatens to Subpoena Northwestern (Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, June 10, 2024): Representative Virginia Foxx accused Northwestern President Michael Schill of obstructing the committee’s investigation and providing evasive and misleading testimony at a May 23 hearing.
News of the ongoing student protests:
Cal State LA Protesters Occupy Building With President Inside (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, June 14, 2024): Protesters eventually dispersed early Thursday morning; no arrests were made but authorities declared the building a crime scene.
27 Protesters Arrested after Pro-Palestinian Encampments Formed on UCLA Campus, University Says (Jillian Sykes, Holly Yan and Taylor Romine, CNN, June 11, 2024): Numerous individuals injured, included those arrested and police personnel.
Eight Protesters Arrested at UC Santa Cruz, University Says (Derrick Ow, KION 46 News Channel, June 11, 2024): A spokesperson said that four of the eight are facing an additional charge of refusing a directive to disperse.
The Harvard Graduating Students Denied Their Degrees Over Palestine Protest (Abid Hussain, AlJazeera, June 9, 2024): The decision by Harvard to delay degrees for 13 students for one year has caused outrage at the university and a mass walkout from its graduation ceremony.
Protesters Who Occupied President’s Office Receive Felony Charges (Greta Reich, Cameron Duran and Caroline Chen, The Stanford Daily, June 7, 2024): Thirteen individuals, including 12 protesters and a Daily reporter were charged with felony burglary.
Further analysis, responses, and context:
University Presidents Should Study How Democracy Works (Noëlle McAfee, Scientific American, June 13, 2024): A philosophy department chair arrested at a campus protest offers university presidents a lesson in democracy.
Free Speech and Academic Freedom
Protecting Free Speech, Promoting Free Inquiry (Rajiv Vinnakota, Inside Higher Ed, June 10, 2024): Recommendations for campus leaders as they prepare for student protests to resume this fall.
DEI
Is This the End for Mandatory D.E.I. Statements? (Jeremy W. Peters, New York Times, June 6, 2024): Harvard and M.I.T. no longer require applicants for teaching jobs to explain how they would serve underrepresented groups. Other schools may follow.
Future Imperfect
Judge Blocks Biden Administration from Enforcing New Protections for LGBTQ+ Students in 4 GOP-Led States (Devan Cole, CNN, June 13, 2024): The preliminary injunction issued Thursday by US District Judge Terry Doughty prevents the Biden administration from implementing the new protections – which are set to take effect August 1 – in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.
A Florida School District Banned a Book about Banned Books (Praveena Somasundaram, The Washington Post, June 13, 2024): The Indian River County school district banned Alan Gratz’s Ban This Book (Macmillan, 2017), about a fourth-grader determined ro return titles to her school’s shelves.
A Climate of Fear Comes for Scholarship (Andrew Koppelman, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2024): Intimidation at Columbia and Harvard is an ominous sign of things to come.
Extra Credit Reading
The Roots of Anti-University Rhetoric (Bradford Vivian, Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2024): The growing anti-university sentiment can be traced to pro-authoritarian movements abroad.
Workshops and Webinars
The Antioch Writers’ Workshop returns to its original home campus this summer, July 8-12, with authors Dr. Feroz Rather (fiction workshop on writing place and displacement), Rebecca Kuder (generative writing practice), and Robin Littell (flash fiction) offering morning seminars, afternoon meetings, with additional evening events and readings. Discounts offered to GLCA faculty, and day passes are available. More information: https://antiochcollege.edu/2024-antioch-writers-workshop/
Save the Date: Strategies to Support Student Mental Health in the Classroom, August 14 (Noon, EDT), Presented by Angie Roles and Jan Miyake of Oberlin College. Registration information coming soon.
Have a short article or some news related to teaching and learning at your institution that you’d like to share with colleagues? Send your contribution along to us. Also, please email Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.
Steven Volk (steven.volk@oberlin.edu), Editor
GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
Lew Ludwig (ludwigl@denison.edu)
Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org)