Teaching and Learning
Re-Engaging Students in an Age of Distraction (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, June 26, 2025): Why students tune out – and how to change that.
Meet Students Where They Are? Maybe Not (Mark Horowitz, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 25, 2025): Lax standards will void the value of a college education.
How One College Library Plans to Cut Through the AI Hype (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, June 25, 2025): As higher ed institutions embrace generative artificial intelligence tools, Stony Brook University’s library is spearheading efforts to help students and faculty learn how to use them in an ethical, responsible way.
AI to the Rescue (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2025): It’s an all-purpose study tool — and it’s changing students’ relationships with professors and peers.
Academic Integrity in Large and Asynchronous Courses (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2025): Maintaining academic integrity in the age of generative AI is a headache for all professors. But those who teach large-enrollment and asynchronous courses are in a particularly challenging spot. If you teach hundreds of students, you’re limited to assignments and assessments that can be graded relatively quickly.
Integrating Systems Thinking to Enhance Liberal Arts Curriculum through Learner-Centered Teaching (Bellam Sreenivasulu, Faculty Focus, June 23, 2025): Systems thinking and learning-centered teaching are two approaches that, when integrated, can significantly enrich the liberal arts educational experience.
Can We Turn the Page? (Marilyn Cooper, Liberal Education, Spring 2025): Educators struggle to address a sharp decline in reading.
AI Aura: Exploring AI’s Presence: Its Influence, and role in education and society. (Grinnell College): A platform for exploring the intersections between AI, society, education, and the architecture of thought itself. Founded in May 2025, and led by Drs. Eliott, Purcell, and Rodriguez, AI Aura moves through the pathways of pedagogy, cognition, and scholarship with a liberal arts ethos, challenging surface narratives, and asking what kinds of epistemic tensions and transformations it demands, enables, or quietly dissolves.
Academic Freedom, DEI, Admissions, and Speech
‘We’re Losing Our Home.’ UC Shutters DEI Programs, Departments in Response to New Ohio Law (Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer, June 24, 2025): The University of Cincinnati shuttered its diversity, equity and inclusion programs June 24 in response to a Republican-led change in Ohio law that banned such programs and threatened to withhold money from schools that fail to comply.
New Ohio Higher Education Law Banning Diversity Efforts and Faculty Strikes Takes Effect This Week (Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal, June 23, 2025): The biggest short term effect higher education institutions are seeing from S.B. 1 having a hard time attracting quality candidates — ranging from full-time faculty to graduate student positions, said Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio Conference of AAUP.
‘A Banner Year for Censorship’: More States Are Restricting Classroom Discussions on Race and Gender (Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2025): Conservative lawmakers say professors are indoctrinating students with liberal ideas. In a series of lawsuits, professors argue vaguely worded laws violate their First Amendment rights.
Academic Freedom Was Already Limited at U.S. Service Academies. Then Came Trump (Ryan Quinn, June 23, 2025): Officials are restricting education about diversity and criticism of the U.S. It’s an erosion of rights within the institutions training America’s future military officers.
Texas Governor Signs Bill to Limit Expressive Activity on Campuses (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, June 23, 2025): Students and free speech advocates argue that the bill is too vague and goes too far in its efforts to “prevent unnecessary disruption and to ensure campus safety.”
The War on DEI Enters the Classroom (Rick Seltzer, June 23, 2025): More than a dozen states have passed laws that reach into the classroom. Conservative supporters say the new laws are needed to keep liberal professors from imposing their biases on students and pursuing activist agendas.
Universities in the Crosshairs
All the Ways the Trump Administration Is Going After Colleges and Universities (Elissa Nadworny, June 10, 2025): The latest developments are part of a broad attempt, now playing out on several fronts, by the administration to reshape academia and force higher education into alignment with the president’s political agenda.
Judge Blocks a Trump Effort to Prevent International Students at Harvard (Stephanie Saul and Alan Blinder, June 20, 2025): The decision came after a hearing where a lawyer for Harvard accused the Trump administration of McCarthy-like tactics and irregular and improper treatment.
International Students and Scholars
Could New Social-Media Screening Creating a Student-Visa Bottleneck? (Karin Fischer, June 23, 2025): The government’s requirement that international students make their accounts public has caused confusion and concern.
Extra Credit Reading
A Military-Ethics Professor Resigns in Protest (Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, June 25, 2025): Over the course of several months, Pauline Shanks Kaurin concluded that she no longer had the academic freedom necessary for doing her job.
The US Department of Education Is Far Behind On Producing Key Statistics (Dominique J. Baker, June 25, 2025): The Department of Education missed its June 1 deadline to release the full Condition of Education report, instead publishing a limited version following public attention.
What Will Be Left of Higher Ed in Four Years? (Brendan Cantwell, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 18, 2025): The Trump administration’s moves are impoverishing the sector.
Future Imperfect
Effort to Repeal Ohio Ban on College DEI Programs, Faculty Strikes Falls Short (Julie Carr Smyth, AP, June 26, 2025): A petition drive seeking the repeal of a recent Ohio law banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as faculty strikes at public colleges and universities has fallen short of the signatures needed to place it before voters, organizers announced Thursday.
HBCU’s Reel as Trump Cuts Black-Focused Grants: “This Is Our Existence” (Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 25, 2025): HBCUs’ mission-driven effort to serve Black communities could now result in severe budget cuts under Trump’s crusade against DEI. It’s all a big misunderstanding, advocates say.
Texas Governor Signs Law Giving Presidents Control of Faculty Senates (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, June 24, 2025): Senate Bill 37 says that only an institution’s governing board can create a faculty council or senate.
Texas Directs Public Universities to Identify Undocumented Students (Sneha Dey, Texas Tribune, June 23, 2025): The directive comes after a court rescinded undocumented students’ eligibility for in-state tuition. It’s unclear what information schools might ask from students and how their immigration data will be protected.
Future Conferences
AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium (Connecticut College, October 17-19, 2025): Visit their website for more detailed information and to submit proposals.