Teaching and Learning
AI-Powered Teaching: Practical Tools for Community College Faculty (David E. Balch, Faculty Focus, March 31, 2025): Some evidence-based strategies for faculty to integrate AI effectively.
Governor Signs Ban on DEI in Ohio Public Colleges Despite Opposition by Students and Teachers (Julie Carr Smyth, AP, March 28, 2025): The American Historical Association, American Civil Liberties Union, the American Association of University Professors, Ohio’s two largest K-12 teachers’ unions and Democrats all called on DeWine to reject Senate Bill 1, which also will prohibit faculty strikes and limit classroom discussion.
Notetaking Formats (Althea Need Kaminske, Learning Scientists, March 28,2025 [originally posted December 1, 2023]: What makes notes good or effective depends on the goals you have for the notes.
AI Can’t Do Student Peer Review (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, March 28, 2025): Automation can make many good things possible, but let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t.
Supporting Students in Uncertain Times (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, March 28, 2025): American University in Washington, D.C., implemented new initiatives to address student anxieties regarding changes at the federal level, including support groups and a resource website.
AI Skeptic Creates Chatbot to Help Teachers Design Courses (Greg Toppo, The 74, March 27, 2025): The open-source tool could help open the prohibitive world of instructional design to everyday educators.
The Students Who Help Teach Their Peers (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 21, 2025): How undergraduate learning assistants make large-enrollment courses feel more human.
Higher Education and the Trump Administration:
As in the past weeks, the news about higher education, and the impact of many Trump Administration policies, has come fast and furious. Here are some of the articles that you may want to catch up on or simply store for later reference:
Universities in the Crosshairs
Nearly Half of Princeton U.’s Federal Funding Has Reportedly Been Frozen by the Trump Administration (Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1, 2025): The university appears to be the next target in a campaign to go after higher education for allegedly failing to suppress campus antisemitism.
Trump’s Illegal War on the University of Pennsylvania (David Cole, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1, 2025): The administration’s punishment over transgender sports policies is plainly unjustified.
Trump Administration to Review Billions in Federal Funding to Harvard (Dhruv T. Patel and Grace E. Yoon, Harvard Crimson, March 31, 2025): “While Harvard’s recent actions to curb institutionalized antisemitism — though long overdue — are welcome, there is much more that the university must do to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars,” Josh Gruenbaum, a senior official at the General Services Administration, said in a statement. [Our Resolve – Harvard’s response]
New Columbia President Attacked by Stefanik Over 2023 Text Message (Sharon Otterman, New York Times, March 31, 2025): Representative Elise Stefanik is after another Columbia president.
‘Canary in the Coalmine of Totalitarianism’: How Columbia Went from a Home for Edward Said to a Punching Bag for Trump (Alice Speri, Guardian, March 29, 2025): The university had a history of being a home for cutting-edge discourse on Palestine – until it capitulated to the administration’s demands.
Columbia’s President Steps Aside for New Leadership at Embattled University (Guardian, March28, 2025): Interim president Katrina Armstrong to transfer to medical center with appointment of board of trustees co-chair Claire Shipman.
International Scholars and Students
Smashing the Student Visa System (Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, April 3, 2025): The Trump administration is upending the student visa bureaucracy to deport foreign students. University officials are struggling to keep up.
What We Know About the College Activists Detained by Federal Agents (Karina Tsui, CNN, April 31, 2025): Nearly a dozen known students and faculty members at colleges across the country have been detained by federal agents amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which on college campuses, has taken aim at pro-Palestinian student activists and Israel critics.
Freedom is Suspended on College Campuses (Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 31, 2025): The snatching of students by immigration officials spells the end, at least for now, of free speech.
University of Minnesota Graduate Student Detained by ICE, School Says (Nick Lentz and Ubah Ali, WCCO News, March 29, 2025): According to the university’s federal immigration policies, its public safety departments do not enforce federal immigration laws, and officers do not ask about an individual’s immigration status.
The Pro-Israel Group That Led to Rumeysa Ozturk’s Arrest (Nia Prater, New York Intelligencer, March 28, 2025): Canary Mission has a history of putting activists on the Trump administration’s radar.
Rubio Boasts of Canceling More than 300 Visas over Pro-Palestine Protests (Joseph Gedeon, Guardian, March 27, 2025): Secretary of state called those with revoked visas ‘lunatics’ as video shows masked immigration officers sweeping people off streets.
Trump Administration and Higher Education: Academic Freedom, DEI, and Speech
Trump Administration Eyes Colleges’ Ability to Enroll Foreign Students (Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 2, 2025): The threat to pull colleges’ federal student-visa authorization is another escalation of President Trump’s crackdown on both immigration and campus protest. And much like the abrupt revocation of the visas of international-student activists in recent days, the decertification plan could barrel past norms and safeguards, disregarding established rules and processes.
Who Is on Trump’s Antisemitism Task Force? (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, April 2, 2025): Members of the panel include cabinet secretaries, several lawyers, a former Fox News contributor and a private equity investor.
Trump Policies Push 75% of Scientists to Consider Leaving U.S. (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, April 1, 2025): Survey conducted by Nature suggests most American researchers are considering jobs abroad.
Ohio and Kentucky Ban DEI, Reduce Tenure Protections (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, April 1, 2025): Ohio and Kentucky joined the list of states where Republican-controlled legislatures have adopted new laws targeting DEI or regulating higher education in ways many faculty oppose. The Buckeye State also banned faculty strikes.
Silence Isn’t a Strategy: Academic Leaders Must Resist Assault on Higher Ed (Michael H. Gavin, Truthout, March 31, 2025): Capitulating to the assault on higher education will only bring more attacks.
Colleges Face a Prisoner’s Dilemma (David Asch, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 31, 2025): If we don’t band together, we’ll all get skewered alone.
Senate Republicans Put Colleges ‘On Notice’ Over Campus Antisemitism (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, March 28, 2025): The hearing, held Thursday by Senate Republicans, focused primarily on steps taken by the Trump administration to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests. Democrats continued to criticize the president.
‘No Noncitizen Professor at My Institution Can Speak About Politics Ever Again’ (Nell Gluckman, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2025): Why Jason Stanley, a scholar of fascism, is leaving Yale for Canada.
Stanford, Cal and UCLA Investigated in Trump’s Anti-DEI Campaign (Jocelyn Gecker, AP, March 27, 2025): U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed the department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate whether the schools’ policies comply with the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action in college admissions, the department said in a statement.
University of Michigan Closes DEI Offices and Stops Strategic Pan After Trump Order (Kim Kozlowski and Hannah Mackay, The Detroit News, March 27, 2025): The University of Michigan is immediately shutting down two offices and an effort dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion, and shifting the resources to other student programs, university officials said Thursday, after the Trump administration had threatened to cut off funding.
Trump-Inflicted Funding Cuts Could Lead to Overworked Faculty and Staff, Larger Class Sizes (Adrienne Lu, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 25, 2025): Many employees were already burned out when the government took aim at several revenue streams colleges heavily rely on.
Extra Credit Reading
Who Actually Runs Columbia University? (Arjun Appaduai and Sheldon Pollock, Guardian, April 1, 2025): Trustees aren’t academics – and they’re often political wolves in sheep’s clothing. We need reform to save the American university as we know it.
We’ve Forgotten What College Is For (Scott Parker, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 28, 2025): It’s for probing the human conditions, not lining up a good internship.
Protest Policy Guidance for Colleges & Universities (Council on American-Islamic Relations, March 27, 2025): Protect students’ right to protest – especially Muslim, Palestinian, Arab, Jewish & allied voices – without fear of surveillance, retaliation, or censorship.
Critics See Trump Attacks on the ‘Black Smithsonian’ as an Effort to Sanitize Racism in US History (Bill Barrow, AP, March 29, 2025): Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders sharply rebuked Trump on Friday for his order, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” They argued that his executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration’s latest move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have shaped the nation’s story.
Museums and Parks Must Remove Some Items Related to Race and Gender: Executive Order (Michelle Stoddart, Katherine Faulders, Sachel Scott, and Will Steakin, ABC News, March 27, 2025): Examples given by the order include an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum called “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” which the order claimed “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct.”
Future Imperfect
400 Books Removed from Naval Academy Library (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, April 3, 2025): The U.S. Naval Academy has culled 400 books deemed to promote to diversity, equity and/or inclusion from its library at the insistence of the Trump administration. The list included a biography of Jackie Robinson, and Einstein on Race and Racism.
‘Whiplash’: Ohio Republicans Press MAGA Agenda in Barrage of Culture War Bills (Patrick O’Donnell, The 74, April 1, 2025): State’s GOP supermajority zeroes in on gender identity, bathrooms, hormones, and diversity and inclusion.
NYU Canceled Talk on USAID Cuts for Being ‘Anti-Governmental,’ Doctor Says (Anna Betts, Guardian, March 31, 2025): University called Dr Joanne Liu, ex-head of Doctors Without Borders, after planning to speak on Gaza and federal cuts. [See, as well, Scholar Warns of Chilling Speech in Higher Ed after NYU Canceled Her Presentation.]
Trump’s “Pro-Hamas” Purge Could Block Foreign Students from Colleges (Marc Caputo, Axios, March 27, 2025): The Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are “pro-Hamas.”
Utah College Courses Will Focus on Western Civilization and ‘Rise of Christianity’ After Gov. Cox Signs Controversial Bill (Courtney Tanner, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 25, 2025): Utah State University will start a pilot program to overhaul general education curriculum with the new focus. That’s expected to be expanded to schools statewide by 2029.
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)