Teaching and Learning
An Overlooked Way Professors Can Be Role Models (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 18, 2024): Revealing unseen parts of their identities could help science instructors show students what’s possible for them, a researcher says.
Interview with a Leader for Behavior Interventions in Trauma-Informed Pedagogy (Marty Huitt, Learning Scientists, April 18, 2024): Huitt is a champion of the BIST Model, a transformative, trauma-informed approach that centers on nurturing a shared belief system among educators, one that prioritizes compassion and consistency in care for all students.
Study Shows Grading by Alphabetical Order Hurts Fairness (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, April 18, 2024): A study by the University of Michigan, which analyzed more than 30 million assessment records from the Wolverine State’s flagship from 2014 to 2022, shows that students whose last names start with W, X,Y and Z received grades that were approximately 0.6 points lower than their peers whose names begin with A, B and C.
How to Give Your Students Better Feedback with Technology (Holly Fiock and Heather Garcia, Chronicle of Higher Education): Part of the Chronicle’s “Advice Guide” publications.
All Things AI
There and Back Again (Lew Ludwig, Mathematical Association of America): Ludwig’s columns on AI which, as he writes, aims “to demystify the complexities and showcase the practical, sometimes unexpected, ways in which AI can enhance our pedagogical practices, hoping to inspire and guide fellow educators on their own quests in the digital age.”
AI Can Transform the Classroom Just Like the Calculator (Michael M. Crow, Nicole K. Mayberry, Ted Mitchell, and Derrick Anderson, Scientific American, April 17, 2024): AI can better education, not threaten it, if we learn some lessons from the adoption of the calculator into the classroom.
Religious Institutions Embrace AI as an Educational Tool (Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed, April 16, 2024): Despite widespread concerns about AI among secular and nonsecular institutions, religious colleges are treating generative AI as a tool for lessons that go beyond academics and also focus on the whole person.
Making Progress Against ChatGPT (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, April 19, 2024): It can be hard to see progress, but I have tangible (anecdotal) evidence.
Are We Asking the Wrong Questions About ChatGPT? (J.T. Torres and Adam Nemeroff, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 15, 2024): Stop agonizing about your syllabus policy and start helping students use AI to extend, not replace, their thinking.
The AI Revolution is Crushing Thousands of Languages (Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, April 12, 2024): English is the internet’s primary tongue – a fact that may have unexpected consequences as generative AI becomes central to daily life.
Free Speech and Academic Freedom: Once More into the House (of Representatives)
Columbia University was in the hot seat this week, with hearings in the House of Representatives and an aftermath played out on campus. Here are some articles.
Columbia Leaders Grilled at Antisemitism Hearing Over Faculty Comments (Nicholas Fandos and Sharon Otterman, New York Times, April 17, 2024). A blow- by-blow account as it happened.
Columbia President Weathers Grilling Over Campus Antisemitism (Katherine Knott and Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, April 18, 2024): Wednesday’s heavily hyped hearing didn’t deliver a raft of damaging viral moments. But Columbia professors came under withering scrutiny that’s likely just begun.
Over 100 Arrested at Columbia After Pro-Palestinian Protest (Sharon Otterman and Alan Blinder, New York Times, April 18, 2024): The university called in the police to empty an encampment of demonstrators. But students have vowed to stay, no matter the consequences.
At Heated Congressional Hearing, Lawmakers Scrutinize Columbia U.’s Response to Campus Antisemitism (Maggie Hicks, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 2024): President Nemat (Minouche) Shafik said the university has cracked down on both students and faculty. Politicians argued there was still “a significant amount of work to be done.”
How Faculty Discipline Played a Key Role in the Congressional Hearing on Columbia U. (Sarah Brown, Sonel Cutler, and Alecia Taylor, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 2024): In the hearing, on Columbia’s response to alleged antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests, lawmakers asked its president whether professors would be punished for comments on the war.
Republicans Wanted a Crackdown on Israel’s Critics. Columbia Obliged (Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, April 18, 2024): By bending over backward to be agreeable, Shafik emerged from the four-hour grilling largely unscathed. All that’s been damaged is Columbia’s guarantee of academic freedom. [See as well the article by Adrienne Lu at the Chronicle of Higher Education, April 18, 2024): Columbia Told Congress It Would Crack Down on Student Protests. Now It Has.]
Columbia President Accused of Dishonest Testimony, Throwing Professors ‘Under the Bus’ (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, April 19, 2024): Minouche Shafik denounced antisemitism more forcefully than past Ivy League presidents in Wednesday’s hearing, but Republicans who questioned her still aren’t satisfied. And some faculty members are alarmed.
The Antisemitism Hearing Forgot About Academic Freedom (Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2024): From the point of view of academic freedom, the difference between Professor Joseph Massad’s essay and Law Professor Katherine Franke’s attack on a particular class of students, as defined by nationality, is essential.
5 Things to Know About Today’s [April 16] Antisemitism Hearing (Maggie Hicks, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 2024): Since the last disastrous confrontation between Ivy League presidents and congressmen, a lot has changed. Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, detailed her likely presentation to Congress in an article in the Wall Street Journal (Columbia University President: What I Plan to Tell Congress Tomorrow, April 16, 2024): “Antisemitism and calls for genocide have no place at a university. My priority has been the safety and security of our community, but that leaves plenty of room for robust disagreement and debate.”
University of Southern California Cancels Valedictorian’s Speech Over Safety. But Critics Call It Censorship (Alecia Taylor, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 16, 2024): The university this month picked a Muslim American student as its valedictorian, but now says she will not speak at its May commencement. [See, as well, A Tenured Professor Was Removed from the Classroom Over a Pro-Palestine Essay (Kate Hidalgo Bellows, April 15, 2024).]
Punishments Rise as Student Protests Escalate (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, April 15, 2024): Exasperated and under intense scrutiny, some college administrators are increasingly punishing student activists with suspensions, expulsions and arrests.
‘Get Rid of the Zionists Here’ (Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 12, 2024): Erwin Chemerinsky, the law dean at UC-Berkeley, confronts student protesters in his own backyard.
DEI Issues
Abolish DEI Statements (Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, April 18, 2024): Assessing a debate about a controversial hiring practice.
‘A Pawn in a Game’: Why Texas A&M’s Lone Black Professor of Nursing Called It Quits (Erin Gretzinger, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 2024): This is what it feels like to be in the cross hairs of the campaign against DEI.
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI (Erin Gretzinger and Maggie Hicks, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 15, 2024): The Chronicle has documented actions taken on dozens of campuses to alter or eliminate jobs, offices, hiring practices, and programs amid mounting political pressure to end identity-conscious recruitment and retention of minority staff and students.
Dozens of Campuses Shed or Alter DEI Efforts as Political Pressure Mounts (Maggie Hicks, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 15, 2024): A Chronicle analysis finds that at least 116 college campuses have responded, and in an uneven way.
Standardized Admissions Testing
In Return to Tests, Don’t Forgo Disability Equity (Dwight Richardson Kelly, Inside Higher Ed, April 15, 2024): As colleges reinstate standardized testing requirements, they must consider students with learning disabilities.
Extra Credit Reading
New Title IX Rules Are Out. Here’s What You Need to Know (Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, April 19, 2024): Designed to protect college and university students and employees from sex-based harassment and sexual violence, the regulations will overhaul how institutions respond to reports of sexual misconduct, among other changes.
Why the World Still Needs Immanuel Kant (Susan Neiman, New York Times, April 17, 2024): Unlike in Europe, few in the United States will be celebrating the philosopher’s 300th birthday. But Kant’s writing shows that a free, just and moral life is possible — and that’s relevant everywhere.
The Man Who Died for the Liberal Arts (David M. Shribman, The Atlantic, April 15, 2024): In 1942, aboard ship and heading for war, a young sailor – my uncle – wrote a letter home, describing and defining the principles he was fighting for.
On the Bookshelf
Louis Guard and Joyce Jacobsen, All the Campus Lawyers: Litigation, Regulation, and the New Era of Higher Education (Harvard). Q&A with the authors by Susan H. Greenberg, Inside Higher Ed, April 16, 2024.
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)