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
Year of AI Exploration at Oberlin (Carmen Ambar, Oberlin College, September 3, 2025): Oberlin’s president lays out a year of activities exploring the impact of AI on all aspects of campus teaching, learning, and work.
‘I Did Feel Seen’ (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2, 2025): How creating ways to meet students individually can help them buy into a course.
How Are Instructors Talking About AI in Their Syllabi? (Sarah Huddelston, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2, 2025): Most colleges don’t have a campuswide policy, leaving the crafting of such statements up to individual faculty members.
A Teaching Mantra for the New Year (Jeffrey Nesteruk, Inside Higher Ed, September 2, 2025): Be clear; be engaging; be honest; be kind.
Conflict as Curriculum (Theo Scheer, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 28, 2025): Caveh Zahedi’s course asks students to film their most uncomfortable moments.
Interleaving Is Less Effective When Taking Notes (Cindy Nebel, Learning Scientists, August 28, 2025): Interleaving refers to the strategy of mixing up the order in which material is reviewed or practiced instead of blocking materials. This works particularly well when learning new categories of items that are difficult to distinguish, but not so much when taking notes.
How AI Is Changing – Not ‘Killing’ – College (Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, August 29, 2025): Key findings from Inside Higher Ed’s student survey on generative AI show that using the evolving technology hasn’t diminished the value of college in their view, but it could affect their critical thinking skills.
The Update Desk (Niles Mattier, Inside Higher Ed, August 29, 2025): A simple five-minute practice can build community in the college classroom.
Toward Socially Just Teaching Across Disciplines (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, August 28, 2025): A 42-minute discussion with Bryan Dewsbury.
Three Syllabus Tweaks Inspired by a Surprise Day Off That Will Give You – and Your Students – More Space to Breathe This Fall (Brielle Harbin, Notes from a Work Friend, August 13, 2025): Harbin describes a practice that allows her the power of pausing on purpose.
Learning Curve is a new podcast about AI and education curated by Jeffrey R. Young, a freelancer with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Hechinger Report, and others.
Interdisciplinary Co-Teaching and Community-Engaged Learning: Integrating Community Case Studies to Teach Ethics, Justice, and Grassroots Leadership (Ziwei Qi, Lori Kniffin, and Samuel Byer, Currents in Teaching and Learning, August 2025: Pgs. 69-83.
Higher Ed in Today’s World
Ohio State Bans Land Acknowledgements (Emma Whitford, Inside Higher Ed, September 3, 2025): Statements that recognize the indigenous people who originally lived on the university’s land are banned from syllabi and class materials and cannot be spoken aloud classroom unless they are directly tied to the course, such as in a class about the history of American Indigenous peoples.
Judge Rules Harvard Funding Freeze Illegal (Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed, September 3, 2025): A federal judge said the Trump administration violated the institution’s First Amendment rights when it froze billions of dollars in research grants.
The Battle for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’ (Ryan Quinn, Inside Higher Ed, September 2, 2025): Conservatives in and outside of higher ed have long argued that universities lack their perspectives. But empowered Republicans are now deploying tools including legislation and funding threats to force higher ed to incorporate more right-leaning views.
Extra Credit Reading
American College Student Freedom, Progress and Flourishing Survey (North Dakota State University, September 2, 2025): Survey reveals college students conflicting views on free speech, social media, and state of the world.
I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education (Ashanty Rosario, The Atlantic, September 3, 2025): The end of critical thinking in the classroom.
Higher Ed Has a Bigger Problem Than Trump (E. Thomas Finan, The Atlantic, September 1, 2025): Universities should see the president’s interventions as a wake-up call, not the root of their troubles.
The Perverse Consequences of the Easy A (Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic, August 28, 2025): In the era of grade inflation, students at top colleges are more stressed than ever.
The Mindset Lists (Tom McBride, August 17, 2025): The Unofficial Beloit Zeitgeist List – for the class of 2029.
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])