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])