Looking ahead:
Another World is Possible: A Global Racial and Social Justice Summit: Call for Presenters: Please join us on February 13-16, 2025, for an in-person Global Racial and Social Justice summit at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The conference is being sponsored by the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom at Antioch College. Further information here.
Teaching and Learning
Helping Neurodiverse Students Learn Through New Classroom Design (Michael Tyre, Inside Higher Ed, September 20, 2024): The author offers some insights into how architects and administrators can work together to create better learning environments for everyone.
Writing Should Be Hard (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, September 20, 2024): That’s what makes it fun.
Could These Courses Help Students Make the Most of College? (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 19, 2024): Discusses whether new courses meant to help students both academically and in terms of their well-being, courses such as “Thriving in the Classroom and Beyond,” taught by Rachel White at Hamilton College, can make a difference for student success in college.
Free Expression and Inclusion: A Guide for Discussion Organizers and Facilitators (AAC&U and Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, rev. 2024): A downloadable guide answer the question: How do we create campus learning environments where both ideas and people thrive?
Against Argument (Scott Parker, Inside Higher Ed, September 19, 2024): By focusing on it in class, students may better understand different perspectives on an issue, but will they also lose sight of their own?
Minding the Perception Gap in College Math Classrooms and Beyond (Sheila Tabanli, Inside Higher Ed, September 18, 2024): Three instructional strategies that instructors can integrate into courses to create a community of learners focused on compassion and connection.
People Don’t Read Instructions (Tony’s Teaching Tips, September 18, 2024): How to be strategic about providing instructions to students.
How Can Professors Learn Students’ Names? (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 17, 2024): A scholar of memory shares her process. [You might also want to read an older article, Pronouncing Students’ Names Correctly Is Important: Here’s How, Fernanda Zamudio-Suarez, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 12, 2022).]
On the Predictability of Grades (Chris Smith, Inside Higher Ed, September 17, 2024): If something does not change, grades will lose all meaning.
Increasing Student Motivation Through Assignment Choice (Christine Harrington, Inside Higher Ed, September 17, 2024): Offering options helps make them more affirming and meaningful, which ultimately increases student learning.
All Things AI
To Teach Students to Use AI, Teach Philosophy (Adam Zweber, Inside Higher Ed, September 18, 2024): Few can use artificial intelligence without wondering whether it is conscious. Fewer still fail to question the many ethical issues it raises. These questions about mind and morality are reasons enough to justify widespread emphasis on philosophy in education. But philosophy has an additional educational benefit: It can teach students how to use AI effectively.
Stressing Pedagogical Principles Over AI Promises (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, September 19, 2024): A discussion with John Warner (43-minute podcast).
When Should College Students Use AI? They’re Not Sure (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, September 16, 2024): Data from Inside Higher Ed’s 2024 Student Voice survey shows that three in 10 students are not clear on when they’re permitted to use generative artificial intelligence in their coursework. Higher ed experts say AI policies should be led by faculty members, considering institutional values.
The Monthly Spark Talk: Crafting Assessments that Matter in an AI World (Lisa Blue, Eastern Kentucky University): 59-minute YouTube video with a set of handouts.
Mental Health Issues
Helicopter U. (Fortesa Latifi, Slate, September 16, 2024): How it feels to be a college student whose parents can’t let go.
Speech Issues and the Academy
Colleges Say GOP Bill to Protect Free Speech Would Do the Opposite (Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed, September 20, 2024): The House passed legislation Thursday that could make it more difficult for public colleges to enforce new protest policies.
New Policies Suppress Pro-Palestinian Speech (Radhika Sainath, Inside Higher Ed, September 16, 2024): The author argues that the rewriting of policies to restrict protests over Gaza will have dire consequences for campus speech.
A pair of articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education: The Palestine Exception’s Creeping Threat to Academic Freedom (Nathan Brown, September 17): Policies at Concordia University exemplify the new campus repression, and How Anti-Zionism Captured the Campus Left (Robert S. Huddleston, September 17, 2024): And yes, the protests are sometimes antisemitic.
Affirmative Action
Yale, Princeton and Duke Are Questioned Over Decline in Asian Students (Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, September 17, 2024): The legal group that won a Supreme Court case that ended race-based college admissions suggested it might sue schools where the percentage of Asian students fell.
Diversity Dilemmas (Chronicle of Higher Education): Can colleges build their reputation as a place where everyone, no matter their identity, can flourish? A collection of articles from the Chronicle.
Campus Protests Policies
Navigating Campus Protests: University Leadership in the Era of Polarized Activism (Mylien Doung,Keith Welker, Mary Aviles, Ketura Elie, and Caroline Mehl, Constructive Dialogue, September 17, 2024): Free, downloadable report offers “five key ingredients to successfully navigate campus protests.”
Inside Columbia’s Surveillance and Disciplinary Operations for Student Protesters (Sarah Huddleston and Maya Stahl, Columbia Spectator, September 12, 2024): The authors describe the many ways Columbia and Barnard have employed surveillance measures to identify and discipline dozens of students accused of violating University policies for participating in campus protests over the war in Gaza.
Extra Credit Reading (and Listening)
The End of the Academy? (Mark A. Boyer, Inside Higher Ed, September 19, 2024): The right exists within a space of institutionalized power, while most of the left has less such power. But whether we focus on the illiberal left or the MAGA right, both sides seek to suppress intellectual dialogue. They exclude and silence those with whom they disagree.
Professors at the Protest (Jack Stripling, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 17, 2024): Why have faculty joined in student-led protests against the war in Israel and Gaza? A crackdown at Indiana U. offers some answers. (26-minute podcast)
Ask for a Ladder (Timothy Burke, Eight By Seven, September 13, 2024): Burke considers the conceptual underpinnings of various rules changes at universities: rules concerning academic integrity, illegal activity, and protest and expression, among others.
Future Imperfect
Colleges in Springfield Rocked By Trump’s Lie (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, September 17, 2024): Wittenberg University and Clark State College have moved classes online for the week as dishonest rumors about migrants circulate and bomb threats reach campus.
On the Bookshelf
Nicholas Lemann, Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing (Princeton, 2024). Q&A with the author at How the SAT Shaped College Admissions (Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed, September 16, 2024). See, as well, a review by Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman, To Test or Not to Test (Inside Higher Ed, September 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)