Great Lakes Colleges Association, Strengthening Education in the Tradition of the Liberal Arts
Menu

News of the Week – October 16, 2026
This week’s issue is curated by Amy Jo Stavnezer. Amy Jo is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at The College of Wooster.

Teaching & Learning

The problem with grades (Jessamyn Neuhaus, Ashley Cambareri & Cole Bailey, Tea for Teaching podcast, Aug 26. 2026). This podcast, again, asks us to consider the goals of traditional grading systems. The experts discuss the benefits of alterative grading, how they might help students focus more on learning than grades, and also invite students to share their experiences with different grading systems.

How Nicholas Ferroni is rewriting his classroom for human connection (Nicholas Ferroni,  School of Practice podcast, Aug 25, 2026). As a high school teacher, Ferroni discusses how he is trying, bit by bit, to take his classroom back to “before technology” days. This discussion aligns well with many recent posts on returning to oral exams, blue book exams, and digital free spaces that are popping up on many campuses. His message is completely applicable for college educators.

Career Readiness Needs an Architecture, Not an Add-On (James Devaney, Inside Higher Ed, Oct 15, 2026) Is your campus talking about career/world readiness, durable/transferable skills and a student population that knows how to relate those things to their future?  Mine is.  This article reminds us that readiness can, and should, come in a variety of forms, experiences and class years.

Self-Help opportunities, as we are nearly at mid-semester and you might be tired

How to be a realistic optimist (Mark Williamson, Action for Happiness, Sept 30, 2026). In this editorial, of sorts, the author invites us to find ways each day to see goodness around us, but also recognizes the reality of forced optimism.  By combining these ideas, he suggests options for being a realistic optimist by being real in the process of finding the good.  Might be a nice read for a small pick-me-up at this crunch time of the semester.

Who are you when you teach? (Elysia Sokolenko & Matthew Arnold, Times Higher Education, Oct 14, 2026). “As we cultivate our educator identity, we lay the foundation for the transition from being a professional who teaches to a teaching professional.” The authors ask us to consider how our educator and non-educator lives align and how we might consider blending our identities with a set of 3 recommendations to consider.

Why care for faculty and staff in higher education is critical (Tracie Addy, Care in the Academy, Apr 13, 2026). Addy shares with us her experiences in needing and building care structures in higher education institutions. Perhaps some of her ideas can spark needed change for you, your department or division, or even your whole college. 

NEXT WEEK:  CTL Event with Lindsay Masland  

Over the past few years, college instructors have been surprised, confused, and occasionally outraged by the students who show up in our classrooms. Lamentations over missing skills, low attendance rates, and disappointing work quality are centerstage in many pedagogical discussions. Not surprisingly, the recommended antidote is to double down on the use of student-centered teaching.  In the quest to be student-centered, though, we can end up making choices that can overwhelm us with their unsustainability.  Does this sound familiar?  If so, join us:  

A Permission Slip to Say No:
Sustainable Teaching in Unsustainable Conditions
with Lindsay Masland

Lindsay is the Executive Director for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Student Success and a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Appalachian State University.   Register HERE for the event on Thursday, October 22, 2026 at Noon EST.  

GLCA/GLAA Students Participate in Athens Democracy Forum (pictured below)

For the 10th year, the GLCA/GLAA had the opportunity to bring an all-star student delegation to participate in the Athens Democracy Forum Sept 29-Oct 1, 2026.  Students interviewed journalists, scholars, leaders of NGOs, politicians and others and produced videos that were shown during the Forum.

Front Row (L-R):  Maria Eduarda Arêdes Brasil de Mendonça (Saint Mary’s College), Prince David Dwamena (Allegheny College), Daria Minhas (American University of Paris), Sofia Stefanova Mihaylova (American University of Paris), Sayoko Yamada (International Christian University), Leylany Rivera (Saint Mary’s College), Rise Saiki (International Christian University), María Alejandra Núñez Padilla (University San Francisco de Quito)

Back Row (L-R):  Noufil Asif (Albion College), Yogesh Kumar Gupta (Allegheny College), Inderias Samson (Forman Christian College), Karam Ezzeddin (American College of Greece), Clarady Brooks (Oberlin College), Sara Filali (Al Akhawayn University), Willona Asare Ayesu (The College of Wooster), Rhennystella Anthony Wankya (Franklin University Switzerland), Madeleine Barbar (Kenyon College), Rebeca Silva Sucilla (Franklin University Switzerland), Thelma Reyes (Hope College), Nour Al-Tzaratli (American College of Greece), Jenny Yakarta Perez Alejandres (Earlham College), Eshaa Setty (FLAME University)

Thank you to the American College of Greece for the warm hospitality! The first two pictures above are from the student’s visit to the Acropolis and the last is on site at the Forum in the Athens Conservatoire.  

Editor:  Colleen Monahan Smith, GLCA, [email protected]

News of the Week – October 2, 2026

This week’s issue is curated by Amy Jo Stavnezer. Amy Jo is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at The College of Wooster.

Teaching & Learning
Don’t Wave the White Flag on Reading Just Yet (Austin Sarat, Inside Higher Ed, Aug 7, 2026)  Austin Sarat suggests that we stop assuming students know that reading is a good thing, and being frustrated when they don’t do it, and instead help them build not only the skill but an understanding of what that skill provides.

Are Office Hours Pointless? (Tim Franz & Lauren Vicker, Inside Higher Ed, Aug 26, 2026)  Here the authors argue that office hours can still be successful and helpful, if we alter our practices a bit to better meet our students where they are.  They provide 5 easy to incorporate suggestions to make students feel more welcome and, hopefully, to increase their use of this important opportunity.

What Five Years of Listening to Students Taught Us About Learning (Amanda Ervin interviews Chris Gallagher, Kristi Girdharry and Kevin Smith, Dead Ideas in Teaching and Leanring Podcast, September 17, 2026).  This podcast welcomes three faculty who overview the research they present in their recent book Getting Learning Right. They discuss what a group of undergraduates do know about learning, opportunities, and experiences and also how gathering this knowledge helped these faculty shift their own pedagogical practices.

Trending Tips – Alternative Assessments 
Still considering alternative ways to assess knowledge, critical thinking, and understanding outside of a written exam or paper? Try some of these ideas that follow-up on the Return of the Oral Exam post from 9/18 NoTW

The Teaching Newsletter (Beth McMurtie, Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept 24, 2026)  Discussion, Graded presents a clear application of scaffolding peer engagement and communication which then becomes a small group graded discussion twice in the semester. While the group is talking, the professor is assessing: professionalism, understanding of the course material, and critical engagement.

The Teaching Newsletter (Beth McMurtie, Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept 10, 2026)  This post draws together several benefits and implementation strategies for oral exam. Examples come from a variety of fields and additional resources are embedded.

I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think (Joe Cruz, NYTimes, Sept 29, 2026).  In this opinion piece, Joe Cruz argues that we might do better to return to oral exams to truly assess what a student understands and how they are able think and reason. He recognizes the impact of AI, believes that we can work with it, and suggests that writing assignment provide a convenient grading mechanism for faculty, but that it might not be the best was to assess thinking.

Tidbits

Short snippets by AAC&U Liberal Education editors to inspire, engage and maybe bring a smile.  Good Morning (Summer 2026) provides personal notes on what wakes educators up and motivates them every day; a moment of Snoop Dogg Affirmations, anyone?

Free to Imagine (Spring 2026) asks what you would do if barriers magically disappeared. There are some aspirational, if lofty, ideas here that could really make a difference. Wondering how we could implement just one part.

When Delight is the Goal (Winter 2026) offers simple ideas to excite students in their learning.If you like these ideas, take a look at this Edutopia piece as well.

Editor:  Colleen Monahan Smith, GLCA, [email protected]

News of the Week – September 18, 2026

This week’s issue is curated by Jen Adams. Jen is the Assistant Dean for Academic Projects and Chair/Professor of Communication and Theatre at DePauw University.                                                       

Teaching & Learning

The Return of the Oral Exam (Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2, 2026): Prompted by concerns about AI, faculty are rediscovering oral examinations, and finding that they can encourage deeper learning, authentic assessment, and stronger faculty-student interaction.

Teaching Controversial Topics When Information is Incomplete (Ahlam Lee, Inside Higher Ed, September 15, 2026): Offers practical strategies for helping students move beyond emotional reactions to unfolding controversies by slowing down discussion, examining bias, distinguishing among types of claims, and expanding context before reaching conclusions.

The Power of Prequestioning (Michelle D. Miller, R3 Newsletter, September 8, 2026): Drawing on recent research in cognitive psychology, Miller explores how asking students questions before they encounter new material can focus attention and improve learning, offering faculty a simple, low-stakes strategy for helping students engage with challenging readings.

Student Connection & Belonging in the Classroom

Learning and Being: Building Belonging Through Relational Teaching Practices (Brianne Morettini, Belonging, July 14, 2026): Examines how relational teaching practices, including seeking student input, demonstrating care, and treating students as co-creators of the learning experience, can foster students’ sense of belonging, well-being, and engagement in the classroom.

Belonging Should Not Mean Only That Students Feel Welcome (Sunah Cho, Times Higher Education Campus, September 14, 2026): Drawing on universal design for learning, Cho offers practical ways to move beyond simply making students feel welcome toward creating classrooms where all students can participate meaningfully in the learning experience.

The Liberal Arts in Practice

How the Liberal Arts Became Countercultural (and Essential) in the Age of AI (Deseree Probasco, Jason Gulya, and Bethany Smith, EDUCAUSE Shop Talk, June 1, 2026): Explores how liberal arts capacities such as critical thinking, curiosity, imagination, and the ability to translate between technical and nontechnical worlds become increasingly valuable in an age shaped by artificial intelligence.

Memorable Teaching Doesn’t Just Transfer Knowledge – It Transforms Perspective  (Andrew Gipe-Lazarou, Times Higher Education Campus, September 15, 2026): Explores how authentic learning experiences can move students beyond disciplinary knowledge toward deeper perspective, professional judgment, and a stronger sense of responsibility.    

GLCA is hiring!

The GLCA is hiring a Senior Program Director to help lead collaborative academic and administrative initiatives across our thirteen liberal arts colleges. This hybrid role is an opportunity for an experienced faculty or faculty-adjacent administrator to convene faculty and academic leaders, strengthen professional development and leadership programs, and help institutions respond creatively to a changing higher education landscape. Review of applications begins October 30, 2026.  More information about the position and the application process can be found here.

 

Editor:  Colleen Monahan Smith, GLCA, [email protected]

This week’s issue is curated by Zachary Adams.  Zach is the Assistant Director, Center for Teaching and Learning and Instruction Specialist at Hope College.

Dear Colleagues:  The NOTW is heading off for its summer break and will return in August.  This semester, we moved to an every-other-week format with guest curators from across the GLCA.  What did you think?  Let me know!   Wishing you all a joy filled summer! 

Teaching & Learning

Bringing Learning to Life with ThingLink (Georgette Kluiters & Ally Fleischer, The Teaching Professor, April 13, 2026): ThingLink lets faculty turn static images, videos, and 360-degree media into interactive course materials with clickable hotspots for text, links, audio, and quizzes. Kluiters and Fleischer offer cross-disciplinary examples, making this a practical tool to explore before fall. Free account required to read.

Teaching Toward Slow Hope (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, March 11, 2026): Warner interviews Douglas Haynes, whose new book connects place-based, community-rooted learning to a basic question prompted by pandemic-era burnout: What is college for?

Grading That Feels Good (Molly Gutilla, Alyson Huff, Mark Hussey & Jess Rushing, Grading for Growth, May 4, 2026): Four faculty ask whether alternative grading made them like their jobs more. Their answer is yes: specs-based and outcomes-based approaches reduced end-of-term stress, improved student relationships, and better aligned grading with their reasons for teaching. Published on the Grading for Growth Substack, edited by Robert Talbert and David Clark at Grand Valley State University.

Surviving Peak Higher Ed with Bryan Alexander (Derek Bruff, Intentional Teaching Podcast, May 5, 2026): Bryan Alexander joins Derek Bruff to discuss enrollment contraction, campus closures, faculty implications, and what AI may or may not change.

Why Civil Discourse Powers New Levels of Engagement (Alcino Donadel, University Business, May 13, 2026): Pandemic-era students often arrive on campus without practice navigating disagreement. This piece profiles institutions using structured civil dialogue programs to rebuild those skills in low-stakes settings, with benefits that extend well beyond the political into critical thinking, communication, and career readiness.

Tech-ish

Maintaining Academic Integrity in the Age of AI (Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Kansas): A free faculty resource with syllabus language, policy frameworks, and guidance for student conversations about generative AI. Useful as a working document for fall course prep.

2026 Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence: Human Wisdom for the Age of AI (Elon University, AAC&U & The Princeton Review, 2026): This free guide helps students build human capabilities that remain essential in an AI-rich world: curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, ethical reasoning, and relational skills. Institutions may share, distribute, and adapt it under a Creative Commons license.

Book Recommendation

Purpose and Joy: Pursuing a Meaningful Career in Christian Higher Education (Dr. Elisabeth E. Lefebvre & Dr. Kristin VanEyk, ACU Press, June 2, 2026): Essays by and for faculty navigating promotion, leadership, research, sabbath rest, and vocation in Christian higher education. GLCA connection: co-author Kristin VanEyk is Assistant Professor of English Education at Hope College. Pre-order now; releases June 2.

Editor:  Colleen Monahan Smith, GLCA, [email protected]

News of the Week – May 1, 2026

This week’s issue is curated by Zachary Adams.  Zach is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the Center for Teaching & Learning at Hope College

Teaching & Learning

Grade Inflation Is Called a Crisis. The Real Problem Is Deeper Than That. (Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2026): McMurtrie examines the tension many faculty are feeling as students arrive with weaker academic preparation while institutional and evaluative pressures make it harder to hold firm lines.

The COPE Method for Assisting Struggling Students. (Dr. Jaime Davis and Maria Lyon, Faculty Focus, April 6, 2026): A useful article for faculty who want earlier and lighter-touch ways to support students before small problems become bigger ones.

What I Learned from Giving 71 Oral Exams in 12 Days. (Jason Linn, Faculty Focus, April 20, 2026): Linn highlights their experiments with oral exams in lower-division history courses and found that they created opportunities for immediate feedback, more personal assessment, and richer academic conversation. Free.

The Students Who Won’t Use AI. (Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Education Teaching Newsletter, April 16, 2026): A look into the students who remain skeptical, cautious, or resistant to AI use as found in a Gallup-Lumina survey.

Podcast Pick & Book Recommendation

Reimagining Grading with Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley (Derek Bruff, Intentional Teaching, February 24, 2026): A grounded conversation about grading reform, barriers to change, and how centers for teaching and learning can help faculty rethink grading practices.

The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes (Flower Darby, University of Oklahoma Press, April 21, 2026): A timely spring pick for readers thinking about motivation, rapport, and course climate in digital learning spaces.

Tech-ish

Make Learning Accessible to All in Higher Education. (Luke Searle, Times Higher Education Campus, April 16, 2026): Searle focuses on digital accessibility in higher education and argues that accessibility should be built into teaching and learning design from the start, not treated as an afterthought.

Editor:  Colleen Monahan Smith, GLCA, [email protected]

News of the Week – April 3, 2026

This week’s issue is curated by Stephanie Strand.  Stephanie is an Associate Professor of Biology,  Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The College of Wooster. 

Teaching and Learning

Throwback: Rigor: (David Clark and Robert Talbert of Grading for Growth;  March 30, 2026) The term rigor is often used to describe courses, yet definitions of rigor vary.  This post discusses some of the challenges associated with the term and how we might get at some of the assumptions of rigor by using alternative grading systems.

In-class Writing with James Seitz (Intentional Teaching Podcast: Episode 85, March 10, 2026). Derek Bruff of the Intentional Teaching Podcast interviews University of Virginia English Professor Jim Seitz.  As stated in the episode description Jim “has moved the writing his students do into the classroom. This move is a response to generative AI’s disruption of writing instruction, yes, but it’s also the latest in a series of teaching choices Jim has made to teach his students writing as a way of thinking and to change their relationship with writing.

“Blips” of Knowledge Reduce Accuracy and Increase Confidence (written by Cindy Nibel, The Learning Scientists Blog, March 2026). Does a “blip” of knowledge (in a brief summary for example) make people overconfident about what they know?  And if so (and in the age of many “blips of knowledge”, what are the implications for teaching and learning? 

Instructor Talk and Student Belonging in Introductory Biology: Not all Talk Matters and Relationships Very by Student Identity (Benjamin D. Jackson et. Al; CBE Life Sciences Vol. 25, No. 2). I recently attended the American Association of Colleges and Universities Transforming STEM Conference.  The authors of this paper led a session at the conference about the research studying “non-content instructor talk” in the classroom.  While this research was done in the context of STEM education, I believe it is worth thinking about how the findings could apply to other disciplinary areas. 

Tidbits

Why College Graduates Feel Betrayed (Noam Scheiber; New York Times, March 26, 2026) As graduation seasons approaches, encourage those students who are entering the job market to begin the career search early and to make good use of the resources available at their institutions to help them with the process.

When Faculty Stop Showing Up (David DeMatthews, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 20, 2026)  Faculty engagement on campus has changed, and it may be impacting the student experience.

10 Books for the Evidence-based Professor (by Benjamin Pacini, Inside Higher Ed, February 25, 2026)  I love a book list, and this list of ten books about evidence-based teaching practices is a good one.   If you are thinking about engaging in some professional development reading over the summer or are looking for a book to read and discuss with colleagues, this list might be a good place to start.

Around the GLCA

Plato’s Symposium “Read-A-Thon”: A Stand for Academic Freedom at DePauw – The DePauw

On March 11, supporters of academic freedom filled Meharry Hall for a “Read-A-Thon” of “The Symposium” by Plato. 20 readers recited various sections of “The Symposium,” braving the heat of East College to publicly oppose censorship in higher education. The Read-A-Thon was organized by Professors of English David Alvarez and Harry Brown, along with Professor of Philosophy Jennifer Everett; the event was co-sponsored by the Departments of Art, Art History, Classical Studies, Communication and Theatre, English, German Studies, Global French Studies and Political Science.

According to Alvarez, the organizers were “inspired by Dr. White’s championing of academic freedom at DePauw.” In his opening remarks at the Read-A-Thon, he again emphasized Dr. White’s mission to have DePauw “shine brightly as a beacon for the liberal arts and sciences.”

Read more here:  Plato’s Symposium “Read-A-Thon”: A Stand for Academic Freedom at DePauw – The DePauw