Teaching and Learning
Cultivating Critical Teaching Behaviors (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, February 27, 2025): If you’re looking for an entry point into critical teaching behaviors, start by reflecting on your teaching (46-minute podcast).
Beyond Syllabus Week: Creative Strategies to Engage Students from Day One (Joanne Ricevuto, Faculty Focus, February 26, 2025): Five effective strategies to encourage students not only to read the syllabus but to enjoy exploring what your class has to offer and what to expect throughout the semester.
What’s Up with Grade Inflation? (Jack Stripling, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 25, 2025): Our collective obsession with college students’ grades might say more about us than them.
Engaging Students in Collaborative Research and Writing Through Positive Psychology, Student Wellness, and Generative AI Integration (Courtney Plotts, Faculty Focus, February 24, 2025): During a two-week module on positive psychology, the author wanted students to experience research and writing as positive and engaging activities. She floated the idea of co-authoring an article on student wellness from their perspective, incorporating the responsible use of AI, fostering a passion for research, and ensuring that the process was enjoyable.
College English Classrooms Should Be Slow (Luke Vines, Inside Higher Ed, February 21, 2025): We need to give students the time to do their best reading and thinking.
How to Learn Students’ Names (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, February 20, 2025): A conversation with Michelle Miller shares about her book, A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024) (48-minute podcast).
All Things AI
Expert Thinking and AI (Part 1) (Althea Need Kaminske, Learning Scientists, February 20, 2025): The author expresses her “belief that AI is a tool and as such it is neither inherently good nor bad. As a tool it can be used or misused. I just have the unsettling suspicion that what is being labeled as AI isn’t always AI, at least not in the way you think it is, and even if it is AI, it might not always be the right tool for the job.”
The Artificial Intelligence Disclosure (AID) Framework: An Introduction (Karl D. Weaver, College and Research Libraries News, November 2024): A guide for helping students disclose AI use in their work.
DEI and the Challenge to Higher Ed
Trump Is Targeting DEI in Higher Ed. But What Does He Mean? (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, February 27, 2025): Colleges are supposed to comply with the administration’s recent guidance by the end of the week. But it’s hard to tell which activities the White House actually opposes.
A Lawless Attack on Diversity (Ray Li, Inside Higher Ed, February 27, 2025): The Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter is not supported by established case law or sound legal reasoning.
The Department of Education Threatens to Pull the Plug on Colleges (Sonja B. Starr, New York Times, February 26, 2025): The DoE threatens to defund colleges and universities that continue to teach or promote certain ideas about race that the department deems unacceptable. This is wrong and dangerous.
Lawsuit Challenges Ed. Dept’s Authority to Ban Diversity Programs, Alter Teaching on Race (Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 26, 2025): The Office of Civil Rights’ guidance would have a “devastating” effect on professors’ efforts to provide viewpoint diversity and equal opportunity in the classroom, the plaintiffs argue.
The DEI Hills Higher Ed Is Willing to Die On (Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2025): The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has demanded colleges rid themselves of race-conscious practices and programming. What will institutions fight to defend?
A Dear Colleague Letter in Defense of DEI (Shaun Harper, Inside Higher Ed, February 21, 2025): The author identifies 11 specific actions higher ed institutions can take to uphold their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Academic Freedom and Speech on Campus
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (John K. Wilson, Inside Higher Ed, February 27, 2025): The Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter was one of the worst attacks on academic freedom by the government in American history.
Universities Need to Defend Themselves, Not Remain Neutral (Brian Rosenberg, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 25, 2025): Silence is not an option.
Carleton College President Says Federal ‘Dear Colleague’ Letters Are an ‘Effort to Intimidate Colleges’ (Tom Crann and Gretchen Brown, MPR News, February 25, 2025): “The letter itself says in its own wording that it doesn’t have the status of law. It simply outlines the administration’s view of how they would plan to regard colleges that take part in these actions.”
Hands Off Higher Ed! (Jeremy C. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 24, 2025): The sector is at war. It’s time to fight harder.
Standing Up to the New Segregationists (Subini Annamma and David Stovall, Inside Higher Ed, February 24, 2025): In rushing to comply with Trump’s executive actions, universities support a segregationist agenda.
Education Policy in the New Administration
Opposition to Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” Letter (American Council of Education, February 25, 2025): ACE and 68 other higher-ed groups asked it to withdraw guidance telling campuses to snuff out any activities that consider race.
Extra Credit Reading
Lorraine Krall McCrary, “Conversation as Political Education,” Perspectives on Political Science 53:3 (2024). MCrary, a colleague at Wabash, writes: “Teaching political theory in a liberal arts classroom helped me see dialogue throughout the history of political thought. I realized—through the practice of dialogue and conversation in the classroom—that dialogue can prepare teachers and students for citizenship. The skills that are necessary for politics—the frankness, good will (and self-control), knowledge, listening, and respect for particularity—can be developed and practiced in the classroom. And our world of polarized politics needs this conversation that respects difference now more than ever.” (NOTE: You should be able to access this article through your college library.)
Survey Shows Voters Not Keen to Slash Education Department Funding (Susan H. Greenberg, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2025): A clear majority of voters supports preserving or increasing funding for the Department of Education, according to a new poll from Morning Consult.
Ohio Bathroom Law Targeting Transgender Students Has Brought Internal Strife to Some Campuses (Geoff Mulvihill, AP, February 23, 2025): Navigating the law has become a challenge, especially at colleges like Antioch and Oberlin, campuses built on a bedrock of idealism and protest where many see the law as part of a wider attack on transgender students.
The Great Resegregation (Adam Sewer, The Atlantic, February 22, 2025): Because giving all Americans equal access to elite higher education is a step toward broader societal integration, such efforts must be shut down. To this end, conservative groups are suing colleges claiming that the fact that their incoming classes have become more diverse rather than less is evidence of reverse discrimination.
The Secret That Colleges Should Stop Keeping (Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic, February 20, 2025): Despite ever-higher sticker prices, the real cost of getting a degree has been going down.
A College President Offers a Class in Standing Up to Trump (Perry Bacon Jr., Washington Post, February 18, 2025): Wesleyan University’s president is advocating for values in higher education while others stay silent.
The Slow Death of the University (Terry Eagleton, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 6, 2015): An archival article still worth the read.
How Higher Education Works (Chronicle of Higher Education): CHE conducted a national survey of administrators, faculty, and staff — asking questions about their working conditions, their burnout, and what keeps them going in their jobs. Series of articles here.
Future Imperfect
Has Trump Made the U.S. a No-Go Zone for Foreign Academics? (Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 26, 2025): For overseas scholars whose work and lives intersect with the United States, there are questions about whether this country will continue to be a fruitful place for collaboration and if they should travel here for research, conferences, and other academic work.
Under Pressure, CUNY Removes Palestine Scholar Job Posting (Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, February 26, 2025): System leaders took down a job posting for a Palestinian studies professor at Governor Hochul’s insistence. Faculty say it’s an unprecedented breach of academic autonomy.
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)