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

SUNY Expands Local News Collaborations for Student Learning (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, August 28, 2025): The Institute for Local News provides journalism students with work experience and supports civil engagement.

Math Is Out, Cake Is In: Introducing Students to Rubrics (Faculty Focus, August 27, 2025): Many students, particularly first-years, don’t understand the value of rubrics.

Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis (Clay Shirky, New York Times, August 26, 2025): Learning is a change in long-term memory; that’s the biological correlate of what we do in the classroom. Now that most mental effort tied to writing is optional, we need new ways to require the work necessary for learning.

Half of College Students Say Their Mental Health is ‘Fair’ to ‘Terrible,’ Survey Finds (Higher Ed Dive, August 26, 2025): These issues may impact their trajectory, with large shares of learners reporting that they’re considering reducing their classload, transferring or dropping out.

An AI Tool Says It Can Predict Students’ Grades on Assignments. Instructors Are Skeptical (Aisha Baiocchi, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 26, 2025): The “AI Grader” from Grammarly bases its evaluations on rubrics and syllabi submitted by students, as well as “publicly available instructor information.”

Young People See Math Skills as Nonessential. How Can Higher Ed Help? (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, August 25, 2025): Thirty-eight percent of young adults think math is very important in their work life; fewer believe it’s important in their personal life.

On the AHA AI Guidelines (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, August 22, 2025): A great document to start a conversation, but off the mark for the conversation we need to be having.

Here’s What Happened When I Made My College Students Put Away Their Phones (Ezekiel J. Emanuel, New York Times, August 21, 2025): With nothing else changed, course reviews went up dramatically.

How Do You Manage Class Time When Students Are Unprepared? (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 21, 2025): Is the only option to require less work out of class? McMurtrie asks some faculty.

A Different Way to Think About AI and Assessment (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, August 21, 2025): A 44-minute podcast with Danny Liu.

FIRST DAY OF CLASS

Paul Hanstedt (Faculty Focus, August 23, 2024): On the First Day of Classes, Begin with Intrigue.

Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation offers a variety of suggestions for “The First Day of Class.” You’ll find them here. And Tony’s Teaching Tips offers two more: Improving Your Next Syllabus (Dec 2024) and Zhuzhing Up Your Syllabus (Aug 2024)

HIGHER ED IN TODAY’S WORLD

Trump Administration Plans to Limit How Long Foreign Students Can Study in the US (Rebecca Carballo, Politico, August 27, 2025): Foreign students have been allowed to stay in the country for as long as they were full-time students making progress in their degrees.

Grant Delays Threaten Cultural and Language Studies Programs (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, August 25, 2025): Expected funding for National Resource Centers, which are dedicated to language and area studies education, never came through this summer. Experts worry this could spell disaster for the already-struggling fields.

Harvard Is Making Changes Trump Officials Want, Even Without a Deal (Stephanie Saul, New York Times, August 23, 2025): In some cases, students and faculty members worry, the new, Trump-inspired policies may interfere with the freedom of expression that is central to the university’s mission.

Haverford College Faces Education Department Investigation into Antisemitism (Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, August 21, 2025): The probe into the Pennsylvania liberal arts college is only the latest in a string from the Trump administration as it seeks to crack down on higher education.

EXTRA CREDIT READING

How to Get Through the Year, and Maybe Even Thrive (Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 27, 2025): Four ways to nurture academic well-being in these uniquely challenging times.

The Book That Explained the University to Itself (Scott Spillman, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 25, 2025): Laurence Veysey’s 1965 tome remains the most incisive portrait of higher education.

The Typical College Student Is Not Who You Think (Alan Blinder and Steven Rich, New York Times, August 25, 2025): As a fight over the future of elite higher education consumes university leaders and politicians, most college students live in a very different world with very different challenges.

Divided We Fall (Adrianna Kezar and Susan Elrod, Inside Higher Ed, August 26, 2025): To effectively confront external threats to higher ed, campus leaders will need to address an internal one: the faculty-administration divide

What 30 Years of Campus Racial Climate Research Can Teach Higher Ed (Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, August 25, 2025): Three decades of research on campus climate for students of color shows that little about their experience has changed. The authors of a recent paper hope further research can help.

How to Save the American University (Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson, Guardian, August 24, 2025): As Trump threatens funding and public trust plummets, US schools are in the fight of a lifetime. This is how they can survive – with their souls intact.

Education Department Quietly Removes Rules for Teaching English Learners (Laura Meckler and Justine McDaniel, Washington Post, August 20, 2025: The move is an acceleration of President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring English the country’s “official language.”.

Student Arrivals to US Continue to Plummet, with Asia Hit Especially Hard (K. Oanh Ha, Bloomberg, August 19, 2025): Total arrivals on student visas decreased 28%, the biggest monthly drop so far this year.

EVENTS AROUND THE 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.

Editor: Steven Volk ([email protected])

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