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
Reaching Generation Why (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 26, 2024): Discusses strategies some professors are using to successfully motivate their students.
Effective Learning Strategies Depend on Prior Knowledge (Cindy Nebel, The Learning Scientist, September 26, 2024): When it comes to knowledge, the rich really do get richer. When we take in new information, it gets linked to what we already know. So, if we have more prior knowledge in an area or we can understand new information in the context of what we already know, we are more likely to understand it and to retrieve it later on.
Need Advice on Campus Conflict? Call the Help Desk (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, September 26, 2024): The American Association of Colleges and Universities has launched a resource to advise educators on how to tone down vitriol and foster constructive dialogue.
Do Colleges Provide Too Many Disability Accommodations? (Alan Levinovitz, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 25, 2024): Higher ed’s maximally inclusive approach hurts those it attempts to help.
How to Rebuild a Broken Connection With Students (Kristi Rudenga, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 25, 2024): What to do when they aren’t responding to your tried-and-true strategies.
Socio-Emotional Readiness of College Students Is On the Decline (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, September 25, 2024): The COVID-19 pandemic impacted interpersonal skills as well as students’ academics, according to research from EAB.
What to Do When Everybody Fails? (Tony’s Teaching Tips, September 25, 2024): Or, to put it a different way, how to assess your assessments when everyone’s grades are low?
How Much Do Students Really Read? (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, September 25, 2024): Students are turning to YouTube, podcasts and ChatGPT-crafted summaries rather than actually reading their assignments for class. Professors are unsure how to adapt.
Teach the Conflicts (Mark Edmundson, The American Scholar, September 19, 2024): It’s natural – and right – to foster disagreement in the classroom. [You might want to refer back to an article from last week: 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?]
‘In Pursuit’: The Power of Epistemic Humility (Elizabeth H. Bradley and Jonathon S. Kahn, Inside Higher Ed, August 28, 2024): Is the breakdown of dialogue on campus in part a reflection of how we teach?
Two older articles on digital distractions (tip o’ the hat to Lew Ludwig): The Thumb Swipe: What Are Phones in Class Doing to Learning? (Regan A. R. Gurung, The Teaching Professor, March 4, 2024) and Devices in the Classroom (Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard), with a variety of recommendations, including their main one: distraction, not the device, is the problem.
The #AHR Syllabus Project (American Historical Review): A collection of free teaching modules features 8 modules, freely available through the AHR’s website, on such topics as: Historical Podcasts in the Classroom; Teaching History with Video Games; Material Culture in the History Classroom; and Testimony and the Study of the Holocaust.
All Things AI
Teaching Effectively with ChatGPT (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, September 26, 2024): Dan Levy and Angela Pérez on how to teach using AI (49-minute podcast).
Sending the Wrong Message to Students on AI (George Cusack, Inside Higher Ed, September 26, 2024): According to the author, a new student guide to AI is emblematic of an approach that prioritizes career advantage over deeper questions. [The guide in question is the recently released AI-U: A Student Guide to Navigating College in the Artificial Intelligence Era put out by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and Elon University.]
Mental Health Issues
The Summer 2024 issue of Liberal Education, published by the AAC&U, is focused on the Mental Health Crisis. Among the articles: Mental Health: What Works? (Ken Budd): How colleges and universities are rising to the challenge of supporting students emotionally and psychologically.
Speech Issues and the Academy
Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech (Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, September 26, 2024): Maura Finkelstein was terminated by Mulenberg College for reposting on her Instagram account.
Penn Professor Amy Wax Punished for ‘Derogatory’ Statements but Won’t Lose Job (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, September 24, 2024): After years of a disciplinary procedure, the lightning-rod law professor accused of “incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic actions and statements” is now being punished.
University of California Faces Unfair Labor Charge Alleging Free Speech Suppression (Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, September 20 2024): Several faculty groups accuse the system of chilling academic instruction and retaliating against those who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
Affirmative Action
Colleges Are Reporting Post-Affirmative Action Data. Be Careful Interpreting It (Aatish Bhatia, New York Times, September 27, 2024): Many use different formulas to calculate racial makeup, and it’s not obvious there’s a “right” way.
At U. of Wisconsin, Underrepresented Students of Color Were Half as Likely to Be Accepted This Year (Declan Bradley, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 24, 2024): The data paints an unusually detailed picture of a selective college’s first cycle without race-conscious admissions.
Can a College Class Still Be Diverse? (Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker, September 21, 2024): Schools are testing how much they can shape the racial outcomes of admissions without being accused of practicing affirmative action.
Campus Protests Policies
Pro-Palestinian Activists Shut Down a Campus Job Fair. One Student’s Punishment Could Get Him Deported (Garrett Shanley, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 24, 2024): Cornell University has vowed to suspend more than 100 students — a striking example of how colleges are ratcheting up pressure on protesters this fall.
Pro-Palestine International Students Says He Faces Deportation After Second Suspension (Gabriel Muñoz, Cornell Daily Sun, September 23, 2024): He was suspended in the spring for helping organize the pro-Palestine encampment on the Arts Quad. Now, Momodou Taal, an international graduate student from the United Kingdom, says he faces “effectively being deported by the weekend” after the University sent him an email on Monday informing him of a second suspension.
MSU [Michigan State University] Places Warning on Exhibit Featuring Puerto Rican Artists and Pro-Palestinian Sentiments (Michelle Jokisch Polo, WKAR 90.5, September 20, 2024): An exhibit featuring the work of Puerto Rican artists at the Michigan State University Broad Art Museum is now showing with a disclaimer calling some of the work “controversial” for its connections to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
Northwestern Cancels Classes of Professor Cited During Gaza Protest (Monica Eng, Axios, September 18, 2024): Northwestern University has canceled professor Steven Thrasher’s journalism classes while he says he’s being investigated for his use of “social media” and “objectivity,” as first reported by the Daily Northwestern.
Extra Credit Reading
It’s Time for a New Pell Grant (Laura Hamilton, Christian Michael Smith, and Charlie Eaton, Chronicle of Higher Education (September 24, 2024): A supplemental grant that focuses on family wealth could transform our system.
Have Americans Actually Lost Faith in Higher Education? (Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed, September 24, 2024): A policy brief from New America argues the answer is no and that media organizations have oversimplified the results of public perception polls. [You might want to read this along with Squeezed from Both Sides (Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 24, 2024): Why is neither party happy with higher education?
What Higher Ed Will Look Like in 10 Years (Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 23, 2024): A free report from CHE explores how colleges can prepare for the challenges to come in the decade ahead.
Ohio Universities’ ‘Intellectual Diversity’ Centers: Where Are They And Who Runs Them? (Sheridan Hendrix, The Columbus Dispatch, September 22, 2024): The Ohio legislature allocated $24 million to establish “intellectual diversity” centers at five Ohio public universities meant to support teaching and research of American constitutional order and society.
A Princeton Professor’s Advice to Young Conservatives (Robert P. George, New York Times, September 22, 2024): Don’t hide and don’t be silent, but remember that as a university student you are one of the luckiest — most privileged — people on the planet. So do not think of yourself as a victim.
Rhetoric and Records Shape the Presidential Race (Rick Seltzer, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 2024): Hyperbolic assertions about the stakes obscure the actual forces that are poised to shape higher education’s future: complex interactions between candidates, their favored policies, evolving political coalitions, a changing knowledge economy, and evolving student demographics.
Future Imperfect
New Laws in 27 States Could Keep Students from Voting (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, September 27, 2024): Among the laws that have the greatest impact on students are voter ID laws like Ohio’s and proof-of-citizenship requirements such as Indiana’s.
US Public Schools Banned 10,000 Books in Most Recent Academic Year (Gloria Oladipo, Guardian, September 23, 2024): Survey by PEN America suggests bans nearly tripled nationwide from previous year’s figure.
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)