CTL Event

What brings you joy in your work? As a new academic year begins, how do you plan to maintain your work/life balance?  What is one small thing you do each week to care for your well-being?

These questions are more important than ever as faculty face increasing demands and the risk of burnout. We invite you to join us for a practical and energizing online session: You Deserve Joy! Strategies to Avoid Burnout and Enhance Well-Being led by Alice Teall, Senior Director of Wellness at Kenyon College September 10th at Noon (EDT). 

In this session, we will explore the cognitive and physiological roots of burnout and well-being, and learn evidence-based strategies to restore meaning, strengthen resilience, and enhance joy in your professional life.  Practices such as gratitude, goal reflection, and connection-building will be shared as simple tools to support your personal and professional flourishing. 

Dr. Alice Teall is the senior director of wellness at Kenyon, where she oversees the Health Services, Counseling Services and Health Promotion teams at the Cox Health and Counseling Center. Passionate about fostering a thriving campus community, Teall leads innovative wellness initiatives, supports services that empower students, and promotes strategies to enhance the well-being of students, faculty and staff.

Register HERE for this virtual event on Wednesday, September 10th at Noon (EDT).  A link will be emailed one day prior.  The session will be recorded.

We look forward to seeing you and beginning the year with a renewed commitment to joy and well-being.

Teaching and Learning

Speed Checks (Matt Reed, Inside Higher Ed, August 21, 2025): When to interrupt a student heading down a path to failure.

AI Can Facilitate Mastery Learning in Higher Education (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, August 20, 2025): What if higher education moved beyond rigid calendars and assembly-line teaching to AI-powered, mastery-based learning where every student truly understands the material before moving forward?

4 Ways to Adjust Your Prose Style for a Public Audience (James M. Lang, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 19, 2025): What kind of teacher do you want to be for your nonexpert readers?

To Get Students Reading, Let Them Pick the Texts (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 14, 2025): Suggestions from Mary Isbell, author of the freely downloadable text, Searching for Wonder: Teaching Literature with Student-Selected Texts.

Beyond the Tool: Why True AI Literacy Is About Critical Thinking, Not Prompting (Michael G. Wagner, The Augmented Educator, August 12, 2025): How to cultivate a critical, cultural, and human-centered approach to AI in the classroom.

First Day of Class

6 Ideas to Perk Up Your First Day of Class (Kristi Rudenga, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 5, 2024): How to start the semester in ways that will pay off for the rest of the course.

How to Teach a Good First Day of Class (James Lang, Chronicle of Higher Education): An oldie but goodie advice guide.

Higher Ed and the Trump Administration

More Barriers on the Horizon for International Students (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, August 20, 2025): Advocates worry the Trump administration is planning to end a long-standing policy that allows international students to stay in the U.S. until their studies are complete.

The Troubling Lines That Columbia Is Drawing (Eyal Press, New Yorker, August 18, 2025): By adopting an overly broad and controversial definition of antisemitism, the university is putting both academic freedom and its Jewish students at risk.

Federal Judge Declares Education Department’s Attempt to Bar Diversity Programs Unlawful (Juan Perez Jr and Rebecca Carballo, Politico, August 14, 2025): The Trump administration is permitted to have its policy positions, the judge wrote, but “it must do so within the procedural bounds Congress has outlined. And it may not do so at the expense of constitutional rights.”

‘Just Disappeared’ (Camila Gomez, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 14, 2025): Trump’s immigration crackdown is imperiling college access for undocumented students.

White House Uses Back Door to Axe Approved Funds for Exchange Programs (Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 14, 2025): The “irregular” process cancels spending for global-education programs already greenlit by Congress.

Extra Credit Reading

The Test-Optional Conundrum (Greta Hsu and Amanda J. Sharkey, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 20, 2025): For many colleges, the policy shift was merely symbolic.

Education Department Ends Federal Work-Study Jobs that Support Voting (Susan Carpenter, Spectrum News, August 19, 2025): College and university students will no longer be able to hold jobs that help with voting as part of Federal Work-Study program.

Our Graduates’ Successes: What the Data Tells Us About the Value of Women’s and Gender Studies Degrees (Carrie N. Baker, Michele Tracy Berger, Christa Craven, and Jane Hobson, Ms. Magazine, August 18, 2025): The authors, including Christa Craven of the College of Wooster, describe the value of critical interdisciplinary programs. They are offering a related webinar on August 22, 1:00-2:30 PM Eastern, which is free and open to the public. Click here to register; Zoom link will be sent upon registration.

Faculty Are Not the Enemy (Graham Wright and Leonard Saxe, Inside Higher Ed, August 18, 2025): Research suggests the fight against antisemitism would be better served by treating faculty as allies, not antagonists.

College Students Have Already Changed Forever (Ian Bogost, Atlantic, August 17, 2025): Members of the class of 2026 have had access to AI since they were freshmen. Almost all of them are using it to do their work.

The Strange History of University Autonomy – and Why We Need It More Than Ever (Adam Sitze, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 15, 2025): Academic freedom from the Middle Ages to apartheid South Africa to now.

‘Integral to What it Means to Be an American’: College Students on Free Expression (PEN America, August 11, 2025): Interviews with 11 undergraduate students from universities around the country.

Events Around GLCA  – All are welcome!

“Contemporary Attacks on Academic Freedom: Historical and Comparative Perspectives,” a talk by Eve Darian-Smith, Global and International Studies professor from UC Irvine, sponsored by the College of Wooster, September 3, 7:30 PM (Eastern) in person (Gault Recital Hall) or live-stream. This is the first in a series of three events as part of Wooster’s Democracy and Academic Freedom Forum.

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 ([email protected]) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.

Steven Volk ([email protected]), Editor

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
  
   Lew Ludwig ([email protected])    Colleen Monahan Smith ([email protected])

Teaching and Learning

Beyond Behaviorism: Why Motivation Matters (Katie Muenks and Carlton Fong, Inside Higher Ed, August 13, 2025): Understanding the science behind motivation is crucial for supporting student learning.

Online Learning: Past the Tipping Point (Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, August 13, 2025): Twin surveys of chief online learning officers highlight the gap between student expectations and institutional maturity when it comes to online education.

AI in the Classroom: Panic, Possibility, and the Pedagogy in Between (Demian Hommel, Faculty Focus, August 13, 2025): The gulf between those working to integrate AI into their teaching and those swearing off its use entirely is growing wider by the month. It’s not just about comfort with technology; it’s about pedagogical identity, ethics, trust, and the role of higher education in a rapidly changing world. 

Resources for Creating/Revising Your Syllabus (Center for Learning and Teaching, Denison): a one-pager with links to resources for creating/revising your syllabus from Denison.

Study: Eliminating Testing Requirements Can Boost Student Diversity (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, August 12, 2025): The percentage of underrepresented minority students increased in some cases after universities stopped requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores, according to a study published Monday in the American Sociological Review.  

Students Are Using ChatGPT to Write Their Personal Essays Now (Ellen O’Connell Whittet, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11, 2025): AI can replicate the shape of a narrative, but not the struggle that makes it meaningful.

Why Faculty Hold the Keys to Higher Ed’s AI Digital Transformation (Aviva Legatt, Forbes, August 10, 2025): With AI, the stakes are cognitive—determining how future leaders will think, decide, and solve problems. If institutions approach AI as a bolt-on feature rather than a faculty-driven transformation, they risk outsourcing not just content delivery but the very definition of academic rigor.

Diversity Training Is Out. Dialogue Workshops Are In (Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 7, 2025): Campuses are increasingly offering programming on fostering constructive dialogue. One president sees the change as “a future for the work of equity and inclusion.”

Higher Ed and the Trump Administration

Trump Administration ‘Chipping Away’ at Undocumented Student Protections (Inside Higher Ed, August 14, 2025): Dreamers and their advocates say the Trump administration has launched a multifront attack on DACA and benefits historically extended to noncitizens.

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda (Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11, 2025): The federal government is reshaping its relationship with the nation’s colleges. Here’s the latest.

Gender Data Would Be Off-Limits Under Proposed NIH Policy (Stephanie M. Lee, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 12, 2025): A draft rule would bar scientists funded by the agency from collecting data about gender identity, following other steps the administration has taken to restrict research on LGBT topics.

Fearing Deportation, International Students Go Silent at California’s Universities (Emewodesh Eshete, Cal Matters, August 8, 2025): After hundreds of international students lost their status this spring, then regained it following lawsuits, the uncertainty of it happening again has created fear. Some students say they’ve changed the routes they take on campus, the topics they research, and what they post on social media.

Extra Credit Reading

They’re Killing the Humanities on Purpose (Eric Adler, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 13, 2025): The crisis is not one of resources but of values.

Events Around GLCA  – All are welcome!

The College of Wooster is hosting a series of speaker this fall on Democracy and Academic Freedom supported by the Office of the President, Department of Philosophy, Lindner Endowment, and Bell Distinguished Lectureship in Law.  Live streaming and updates about the event throughout the series will be found here. 

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 7:30 p.m.: Eve Darian-Smith opens the series with “Contemporary Attacks on Academic Freedom: Historical and Comparative Perspectives,” a talk addressing attacks on colleges across the United States and similar attacks now occurring around the world.

Wednesday, Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m.: Jamal Greene, Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, will deliver the annual Constitution Day and Bell Distinguished Lectureship in Law, titled “The Art of the Deal: Free Speech in the Age of Trump.”

Wednesday, Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m.: Robert Talisse, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, delivers the Annual Lindner Lecture in Ethics, titled “Academic Freedom and Academic Responsibility.”

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 ([email protected]) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.

Steven Volk ([email protected]), Editor

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
  
   Lew Ludwig ([email protected])    
Colleen Monahan Smith ([email protected])

Pick Three: No time for all the articles? Here are three you might want to read.

AI in the University: From Generative Assistant to Autonomous Agent (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, August 5, 2025): This fall we are moving into the agentic generation of artificial intelligence.

Strategies for Changing Students’ Relationship with Reading (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 7, 2025): Supiano shares one English professor’s strategies for changing her students’ relationship with reading.

Trump Issues Directives on College Admissions Data and Research Grants (Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, August 7, 2025): Together, the orders set up the administration to exert more control over who institutions enroll and which grants are funded.

Teaching and Learning

Research: Equity Gaps in Academic Advising (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, August 8, 2025): A study of academic advising finds that historically marginalized groups are less likely to see improvements in time to graduation or GPA after meeting with an adviser compared with their white peers.

Teaching About Class in a Post-DEI Era (Sothy Eng, Inside Higher Ed, August 8, 2025): A simple sticky note activity can jump-start classroom conversations about a difficult topic.

What the Humanities Can Teach Us about Climate Change (Roy Scranton, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 6, 2025): We can’t save the world. But we can learn how to live in it.

New Assessment Tool Will Measure Higher Ed’s Impact on Student Flourishing (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, August 6, 2025): The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard will survey learners to gauge how colleges and universities influence their character growth, development and thriving.

Life vs. Education: The Empath Edition (Kenneth E. Scott, Faculty Focus, August 4, 2025): Empathy theories explore how we understand and respond to the emotions and experiences of others. Researchers might refer to this last statement as phenomenological, or the lived experiences of individuals. I simply call it helping students where they are.

Teaching with Technology

GPT-5: It Just Does Stuff (Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing Substack, August 7, 2025): Putting the AI in charge.

Understanding Value of Learning Fuels ChatGPT’s Study Mode (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, August 7, 2025): Instead of generating immediate answers, OpenAI’s new Study Mode for ChatGPT acts more like a tutor, firing off questions, hints, self-reflection prompts and quizzes that are tailored to the user and informed by their past chat history.

Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam (Kattie Day Good, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 6, 2025): In an age of AI, we need to return to handwritten assignments.

Reimagining Humanities to Make Them AI Proof (Jessica Grose, New York Times, August 6, 2025): Through a combination of oral examinations, one-on-one discussions, community engagement and in-class projects, the professors the author spoke with are revitalizing the experience of humanities for 21st-century students.

Beyond Digital Literacy: Cultivating ‘Meta AI’ Skills in Students and Faculty (Kelly Ahuna, Faculty Focus, August 6, 2025): Generative artificial intelligence cannot be viewed as just another technology “tool.” Its breadth of use is unlike any prior technological development. Unfettered and uncritical use of generative AI by students will certainly affect learning gains and outcomes.

Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education (American Historical Association, August 5, 2025): the AHA’s Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence in History Education developed 14 foundational principles to assist educators and administrators.

5 College Students. 5 Views on Generative AI (Michael Theis and Carmen Mendoza, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 31, 2025): Five college students share how they use generative AI and how they think it will shape higher education’s future.

Academic Freedom and the Trump Administration

Trump Administration Freezes $584m in Grants for ‘Life-Saving Research’ at UCLA (Guardian staff, Guardian, August 6, 2025): School is first public university whose funding is targeted by White House over allegations of civil rights violations.

Columbia and Brown to Disclose Admissions and Race Data in Trump Deal (Sharon Otterman and Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, August 5, 2025): A widely overlooked part of a settlement with the two universities could profoundly alter how elite schools determine who gets accepted.

Columbia’s Gaslighting (Jennifer Ruth, Inside Higher Ed, August 4, 2025): Columbia’s deal reaffirms rather than challenges a narrative of widespread antisemitism, while reinforcing the ongoing erasure of Palestinians.

When the Legislature Kills Your Department (Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 4, 2025): Republican lawmakers have a new obsession: academic-program review.

With Grant Cuts, DOJ and Trump Are Pressuring UCLA to Make Deal (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, August 4, 2025): Like it did for prestigious private universities, the administration has cut off federal grants for UCLA, alleging it failed to address antisemitism. The UC system must tell the DOJ by today whether it wants to negotiate.

I Spent Decades at Columbia. I’m Withdrawing My Fall Course Due to Its Deal with Trump (Rashid Khalidi, The Guardian, August 1, 2025): The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible.

Under Pressure from Trump, the Accreditor Overseeing Harvard Proposes Nixing DEI Standards (Eric Kelderman, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 1, 2025): The New England Commission of Higher Education, which accredits more than 200 colleges, was specifically targeted by the administration.

Trump Tightens Reins on Foreign Students in Multifront Immigration Crackdown on Universities (Lexi Lonas Cochran, The Hill, July 29, 2025): President Trump is making it harder and harder for international students and immigrants to pursue higher education in the U.S.  

Extra Credit Reading

Moral Wounds (Mays Imad, Inside Higher Ed, August 5, 2025): As higher ed confronts a crisis of values, we must name, witness and transcend moral injury.

Trump Went to War With the Ivies. Community Colleges Are Being Hit (Ben Austen, New York Times, August 4, 2025): Measures intended to punish elite universities are inflicting collateral damage on the nation’s two-year colleges, which educate 40 percent of all undergraduates.

On the Bookshelf

SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai, Matt Daily, and Layla Garrigues, How First-Generation Students Navigate Higher Education through an Embrace of Their Multiple Identities (Routledge 2025) – review article by Sara Weissman in Inside Higher Ed (August 6, 2025).

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 ([email protected]) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.

Steven Volk ([email protected]), Editor

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
   Lew Ludwig ([email protected])    
Colleen Monahan Smith ([email protected])