Leveraging AI Tools for Your Research: AI in Action interactive workshop with Lew Ludwig, co-director of the CTL, Friday, May 9th at Noon EDT.
With the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) powering generative AI, scholars now have access to a wave of innovative applications tailored for specific academic tasks – from literature reviews and writing support to data analysis, visualization, and coding. In this session, we will explore several powerful tools designed for academic research, including Consensus, SciSpace, Gemini Advanced and Manus, with practical demonstrations of their applications.
By the end of the session, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how these LLM-driven applications can enhance your research. No previous experience with AI is necessary – this session builds on fundamentals while introducing more specialized tools. Join us to discover how these advanced applications can streamline your academic workflow and inspire creative solutions to your research challenges.
Register HERE (link/calendar invite will be emailed one day before event). This session will not be recorded. We look forward to seeing you Friday, May 9 at Noon EDT (click here to confirm your time zone).
Teaching and Learning
Urgent Need for AI Literacy (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2025): As we approach May, alarm bells are ringing for all colleges and universities to ensure that AI literacy programs have been completed by learners who plan to enter the job market this year and in the future.
3 Laws for Curriculum Design in an AI Age (Anoshua Chaudhuri and Jennifer Trainor, Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2025): A framework for curricular decisions.
Harnessing the Haters (Elisha Lim, Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2025): Do your students think you’re a neo-Marxist feminist indoctrinator? Here are some assignments intended to pull politically disaffected students back in.
Why Students Stick It Out (Chase Young and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, Inside Higher Ed, April 29, 2025): The authors’ survey suggests that factors within faculty members’ control can have a big influence on whether students drop a course.
Using Peer Networks to Integrate AI Literacy into Liberal Arts (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 24, 2025): In a course called “Becoming Human,” one professor of anthropology shows students, step by step, how to develop effective prompts that define what they want AI to do, supplying it with the right background and examples to get the most from it.
Improving Multiple-Choice Retrieval Practice (Cindy Nebel, Learning Scientists, April 24, 2025): The author reviews a series of experiments that extends previous research by having students provide justifications for their MC answers
How to Keep Our Brains Sharp (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, April 24, 2025): Therese Huston on what we know from brain science and how it can impact pedagogical approaches (45-minute podcast).
Higher Education and the Trump Administration:
Trump’s 100-Day War on Higher Ed (Liam Knox and Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2025): In his first few months in office, the president attacked higher education with dizzying frequency, confronting colleges and unraveling decades of federal policy. The authors look at 10 ways the administration has upended higher education so far.
Academic Freedom, DEI, Admissions, and Speech
‘It’s Punishment for the Sake of Punishment’ (Katherine Mangan and Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 28, 2025): The administration appears to be bypassing most of the procedural steps required of civil-rights probes, lawyers say.
Three Judges, Including Two Trump Appointees, Rule Against the Department of Education’s Anti-DEI Policy (Tierney Sneed, Kristin Chapman, and Shania Shelton, CNN, April 24, 2025): The policy was slammed as “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” likely violating the First Amendment.
Universities in the Crosshairs
Across 500 Pages, Harvard Task Force Reports Detail Hostility on Campus and Urge Broad Policy Changes (William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus, Harvard Crimson, April 29, 2025): Harvard’s twin task forces on combating bias toward Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian affiliates released their long-awaited reports on Tuesday afternoon — describing an atmosphere of fear and exclusion, as well as deep divisions over curricula, protests, and the scope of academic freedom.
International Students and Scholars
Feds Reveal How Immigration Squad Targeted Thousands of Foreign Students (Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Politico, April 29, 2025): More than 20 ICE officials and contractors cross-referenced 1.3 million names of foreign students through a federal database that tracks encounters with law enforcement.
More Florida Colleges Sign ICE Agreements (Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, April 29, 2025): At least 15 campus police departments in Florida are seeking immigration enforcement powers. ICE has already approved eight institutions as active partners.
What ICE’s Latest Detention of an Academic Means for American Higher Ed (Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 28, 2025): Last month, an Indian national and Georgetown postdoc named Badar Khan Suri was apprehended by immigration officials outside of his Virginia home and taken to a detention facility in Texas, where he remains.
How a Trump Administration Crackdown on Foreign Students Unraveled (Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Politico, April 25, 2025): The Trump administration acknowledged that it started terminating records after linking the federal student-visa database with FBI files that list encounters of varying significance with law-enforcement officers.
International Students Who Lost Their Immigration Status Will Have It Restored, Government Says (Nell Gluckman, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2025): The abrupt change comes after students at campuses across the country saw their status canceled and feared they might not be able to stay in the country.
Extra Credit Reading
How Things Fell Apart at the U. of Pennsylvania After the Antisemitism Hearing (Francie Diep, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 30, 2025): A new book by the former chair of Penn’s Board of Trustees offers an inside look at the drama and big-donor influence that led to his resignation and that of the university’s president.
Is AI Enhancing Education or Replacing It? (Clay Shirky, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 29, 2025): Technology should facilitate learning, not substitute for it.
Three Competing Visions Drive Trump’s Higher-Ed Policy (James Kvaal, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 29, 2025): Will Elon Musk, Virginia Foxx, or Christopher Rufo prevail?
Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence? (D. Graham Burnett, New Yorker, April 26, 2025): Maybe not as we’ve known them. But, in the ruins of the old curriculum, something vital is stirring.
Why Judges Blocked the Trump Admin’s School DEI Crackdown (Cory Turner, NPR, April 26, 2025): Three federal judges, in Maryland, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C., ruled Thursday that the Trump administration had overstepped when it ordered the nation’s schools to stop all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs as well as classroom teaching the administration might consider discriminatory.
Higher Ed Is Adrift (Kevin R. McClure, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2025): While colleges duck and cover, their employees feel angry and abandoned.
Future Imperfect
Indiana Budget Bill Contains Sweeping Higher Ed Changes (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2025): When Republicans revealed the legislation last week, new provisions requiring faculty to post syllabi and face “productivity” reviews had appeared. The bill quickly passed.
National Science Foundation Eliminates Hundreds of Grants Day After Director Resigns (Riley Beggin, USA Today, April 26, 2025): Approximately 700 scientific research projects funded through the National Science Foundation were canceled on April 25.
Trump Just Made It Even More Difficult to Accuse Colleges of Systemic Sexism and Racism (Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2025): The president would end the use of disparate-impact liability — a legal concept that allows individuals to claim race-neutral and sex-neutral policies as discriminatory if they disproportionately harm certain groups or result in significant disparities.
Barnard College Staff Alarmed by Federal Survey Asking If They’re Jewish (Jake Offenhartz, AP, April 24, 2025): “That the government is putting together lists of Jews, ostensibly as part of a campaign to fight antisemitism, is really chilling,” Nara Milanich, a Barnard history professor, said. “As a historian, I have to say it feels a little uncomfortable.”
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)