Dear Readers: Time for a break as the holidays near and the calendar flips to a new year. The NOTW will next return on January 10. We wish you a peaceful and relaxing holiday season and send you our most fervent hopes for a good year to come.
Teaching and Learning
Why Generation Z Gives These Professors Hope (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 19, 2024): Today’s students are challenging to teach. They can also be inspiring, if you know what makes them tick.
How Faculty End Their Courses (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 19, 2024): Some examples from a few colleagues.
Rules of Engagement (Mary Anne Lewis Cusato, Inside Higher Ed, December 18, 2024): Four principles and practices to foster community and focus in the classroom.
Improving Your Next Syllabus (Tony’s Teaching Tips/Patreon, December 18, 2024): Classroom culture exists in many places: it’s what you do in the classroom, the materials you distribute to students, the readings, etc. However, an important first impression for many students entering your physical or online classroom is the syllabus.
Semester Without End: An Idea Resurrected (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, December 18, 2024): Encouraging students to follow the evolving developments and topics in their classes through news blogs.
To Dial Down Campus Tensions, Colleges Teach the Art of Conversation (Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, December 14, 2024): Dialogue is an essential part of college. As anger over the war in the Middle East has brought upheaval to campuses, it has also become a key way schools try to reduce conflict.
When Only First Place Matters (Marilyn Cooper, Liberal Education/AAC&U, Summer 2024): An interview with philosopher Michael Sandel on how the age of constant striving is hurting students’ mental health and education.
All Things AI
Designing for Justice (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, December 19, 2024): An interview (41 min. podcast) with Rajiv Jhangiani on developing a framework for ethical educational technology to ensure that new tools that are procured are not going to reinforce systemic biases.
How Will AI Influence Higher Ed in 2025? (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, December 19, 2024): No one knows for sure, but here are the predictions of 7 experts.
After the Election: Consequences for Higher Ed
‘No! Here’s What We Stand For’: Western Mass. [Mount Holyoke] College Leader Urges Higher Ed to Stand Up to Trump (Karen Brown, WGBH, December 18, 2024): “To basically comply with things that are not within our values simply because we feel a threat of investigation is something that we should not be doing as the higher education community,” Mount Holyoke President Danielle Holley commented.
A Nation Divided (Lynn Pasquerella, Liberal Education/AAC&U, Fall 2024): Why American higher education must reaffirm its democratic purposes.
Garber Privately Tells Faculty That Harvard Must Rethink Messaging After GOP Victory (Tilly R. Robinson, Harvard Crimson, December 13, 2024): Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said the turn against higher education in Washington posed a greater threat to the University than anything in recent memory.
Linda McMahon Nominated for Secretary of Education
Is Higher Ed Ready to Be Bodyslammed? (Ryan Craig, Inside Higher Ed, December 18, 2024): Linda McMahon is set to wrestle higher education.
Affirmative Action and DEI
In Sweeping Action, Idaho’s Education Board Bans ‘DEI Ideology’ on College Campuses (Jasper Smith, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 18, 2024): “DEI ideology” is defined as any approach that prioritizes race, sexual orientation, religion, or gender identity over “individual merit.”
Western Accreditor Decides Against Dropping DEI Language (Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, December 17, 2024): The Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Senior College and University Commission has decided against any change.
DEI Bans Flourished in 2024. Politicians Aren’t Finished (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, December 16, 2024): Six states passed new anti-DEI laws this year, leading institutions to change hiring practices, close DEI offices and end DEI trainings. Look for more in 2025.
We’ve Been Tracking Colleges’ Dismantling of DEI for 8 Months. Here’s What We’ve Found (Declan Bradley, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 13, 2024): While many changes have been made as a result of state-level directives, more colleges are eliminating diversity offices and staff even when they aren’t required to do so.
Academic Freedom and Speech on Campus
House Antisemitism Probe Demands Stronger Federal Oversight of Colleges (Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, December 19, 2024): The 43-page report accused some colleges of failing to prevent antisemitism and the U.S. Department of Education of not imposing “real consequences.”
Extra Credit Reading
Failure and the Human Condition (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, December 20, 2024): How the humanities can help us to process and cope with failure, frustration, disappointment and life’s inevitable setbacks.
Student Voice 2024: The Top 10 Findings (Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, December 19, 2024): From what professors can do to boost students’ academic success to how confident students are about their futures, here’s what you need to know from Inside Higher Ed’s Student Voice 2024 survey cycle as you prepare to support student success in 2025.
Higher Ed’s Distorted Sorting Mechanism (Scott Carlson, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 18, 2024): A response to David Brooks’s essay in The Atlantic on “How the Ivy League Broke America.”
How a Staffing Shortage Can Make Special Education Jobs More Dangerous (Camille Phillips, December 5, 2024): Instructional assistants who staff special education positions are often paid less than $16 an hour.
Treasure Troves (Mike De Socio, Liberal Education/AAC&U, Fall 2024): Campus museums and collections offer a wealth of learning and community engagement opportunities.
Future Imperfect
Florida’s Nakedly Ideological Attack on Gen Ed (Jeremy C. Young and Amy B. Reid, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 19, 2024). The authors respond to Professors Ruined Gen Ed. Florida Is Fixing It (Mark Bauerlein and Scott Yenor, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 16, 2024).
House Passes Bill to Create Anti-Communism Education for High Schoolers (Ray Bogan, Straight Arrow News, December 12, 2024): Critics point out that the bill narrowly pertains only to communism, not “how fascism and other ideologies” sought to strip people of their rights and freedoms.
On the Bookshelf
Elizabeth A. Norell, The Present Professor: Authenticity and Transformational Teaching (Oklahoma University Press, 2024): Reviewed by John Warner (Being Present, Inside Higher Ed, December 19, 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)