We Heard You!

Thanks for your thoughtful responses to the NOTW survey.  We are delighted that readers find NOTW to be a valuable, trusted, and well-curated source of teaching and learning ideas.  We also appreciate your constructive suggestions to make the newsletter stronger: you would like to see more GLCA-focused stories, more practical teaching ideas, and occasional thematic or discipline-based issues. 

After today, we will pause and on January 9, 2026 we will launch a refreshed NOTW shaped by your insights, including piloting bi-weekly publication and having GLCA guest editors and curators. 

Thanks for reading NOTW and for supporting the teaching and learning community across small liberal arts colleges.  

Teaching and Learning

Comparing Wikipedia, Traditional Encyclopedias, and Generative AI: The Wikipedia Assignment as Tool for Student Information Literacies (Katherine Holt,  Aileen Dunham Professorship in History, The College of Wooster, WikiEdu, November 14, 2025):  Holt blogs about a class exercise having students compare historical information provided in Wikipedia, library encyclopedias, and Generative AI queries as an approach to build their information literacy.

What’s Happening to Reading? (season 1; episode 3; Teaching@Tufts: The Podcast, Julye 23, 2025):  Hosts Carie Cardamone and Heather Dwyer welcome guest Jean Otsuki, who brings expertise in English literature, to explore why students seem to be struggling more with assigned reading, and what factors might be at play.

How AI Is Changing Higher Education (Chronicle of Higher Ed, November 5, 2025):  The technology is reshaping every aspect of university life. Fifteen scholars on what happens next.

Teaching: Why professors are using AI in course design (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Ed, November 20, 2025)

Lessons From a Conversation About AI, Future of Higher Ed (James DeVaney, Inside Higher Ed, November 19, 2025): Five lessons from a conversation about AI and the future of higher education.

Extra Credit Reading

Life as a Middle Manager: Responsibility Without Authority (Vicki L. Baker, Chronicle of Higher Ed, October 28, 2025):  Advice from Vicki Baker, professor and chair of economics and management at Albion College, on how to start fixing a system that sets up midlevel leaders to fail. 

College is still worth it, even with student debt, but we can do better (Guangli Zhang, Jason Jabbari, Mathieu Despard, Xueying Mei, Yung Chun, and Stephen Roll, Brookings, November 3, 2025)

How to Start Strong as a New Enrollment Leader (Angel B. Pérez and Ken Anselment, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 22, 2025): Here’s a roadmap for navigating seven key moments that will define your early tenure.

7 basic science discoveries that changed the world (Michael Marshall, Nature, October 29, 2025):  Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

Editor: Colleen Monahan Smith ([email protected])

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