Category: Featured

3 Questions for MIT’s Luke Hobson

Luke Hobson does it all. He is not only assistant director of instructional design for MIT xPRO and a lecturer at the University of Miami’s School of Education and Human Development, but Luke also writes books, hosts a podcast, blogs, publishes a newsletter, creates videos on YouTube and seems to know everyone in our field.

I asked if Luke would be willing to step away from all these commitments and projects to answer my questions, and he graciously agreed.

Q: How did your career progress from an individual learning design contributor to advancing into a leadership role at your institution, as well as a thought leader and creator in the learning, technology and design space? What advice do you have for others in our field looking to increase their campus and national impact?

A: I have a bit of an obsession within our field. I still find it remarkable that, for a living, I get to care about designing learning experiences. Funny enough, I had no idea this field even existed until I met an instructional designer back in 2013. As soon as I learned that this was a career, I went all in. That obsessive mentality stayed with me when I became a contributor at Northeastern University and later at MIT. I wanted to find every possible way to create the most effective and meaningful kinds of courses and programs.

Through all of my seldom successes and many, many failures, I learned a thing or two along the way, and I decided to start sharing these stories online. It began with answering questions in Facebook groups, which eventually turned into a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a book and more. What I discovered through sharing these moments is that I developed a love for teaching about instructional design. This led me to pursue a leadership role at MIT and to build a team of instructional designers. It also led me to teach in the University of Miami’s online Ed.D. program. Being able to teach future leaders in learning science has been an incredibly rewarding experience.

The best piece of advice I can give is to share. Share everything. Share your wins. Share your losses. Share your moments of glory. Share the times you fall flat on your face. People appreciate transparency. That’s how I built my brand online and my presence at MIT. I didn’t realize how much of an impact I was having until multiple faculty members mentioned following me on LinkedIn and asked how they could hire an instructional designer for their team. It’s been amazing to see the growth of IDs here from when I first started to now.

Another step you can take today is to build your network. Dig the well before you’re thirsty. You mentioned how it seems like I know everyone in our field and I chuckled, thinking back to when I didn’t know a soul in instructional design. The pandemic opened my eyes: Everyone was stuck at home and on Zoom, so I took advantage of that. I reached out to people on LinkedIn for virtual coffee chats, invited them on my podcast, gave webinars for universities and companies, and more. All of this was to get to know people. If you want to make an impact, you can’t do it alone. You need the support of others, and there is no better community than the learning nerds.

Q: Your Ed.D. is in educational leadership. Please tell us about your program and how completing a terminal degree in this field has impacted your career. For our community of nonfaculty educators—learning nerds—what are your recommendations around pursuing a doctorate while working?

A: I’m thankful that I had a truly fantastic Ed.D. experience. I have to give all the credit in the world to Dr. Peg Ford for what she built at Southern New Hampshire University. I was on the fence about pursuing this degree, but after speaking with current students at the time, I felt like it was the right place for me. The program was built on a core foundation of a cohort-based model and forging strong bonds with fellow members. Dr. Ford understood the perils and curve balls life throws your way when you’re pursuing a doctorate and how easily those challenges can land you in A.B.D. limbo. It didn’t take long to see she was absolutely right. Our cohort faced major life events—losing loved ones, taking on new roles, having children, relocating to new cities and more. Through it all, we stuck together.

What I appreciated most about my Ed.D. in educational leadership was the range of educators I met. From business professors to special education teachers, from deans to superintendents, I had the opportunity to hear a wide variety of perspectives on education and what it means to support students and fellow educators. I was introduced to the good, the bad and the ugly. By taking in all of those voices, I was able to apply their teachings and life lessons to my own learning experiences. That program shaped me into the educator I am today.

What I find most surprising is that I now teach in an online Ed.D. program in applied learning sciences at the University of Miami. I often share with my students the same message about sticking together as a cohort and how those bonds will carry them through. While Dr. Ford is no longer associated with SNHU’s program, my dissertation chair, Dr. Audrey Rodgers, is now leading it. I recently had the chance to speak with current students, and it’s amazing to see how much the program has grown since I graduated.

Here’s what I wish I knew before pursuing a doctorate: It’s absolutely possible to do, but it will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. There’s a reason why only a small fraction of the population holds the title of doctor. No matter which school you attend, it’s going to be difficult. But in my opinion, it’s worth it. I knew I wanted to work in academia, and after speaking with a few colleagues, they all advised me to go back to grad school. Every role I wanted in the future required either an Ed.D. or a Ph.D., so it was the logical choice.

With all that said, the first step in your journey as a working professional should be finding the right program for your needs. Not all programs are created equal. After all, you’re about to commit at least three to seven years of your life to this institution, so it’s important to choose wisely. Do your due diligence. Contact the institution and ask as many questions as you want. Watch program webinars. Find currently enrolled students on LinkedIn and ask for a quick chat about their experience. Connect with faculty and administrators. Read online reviews. Go the extra mile before starting this journey.

Once you’ve found the right program for your goals, my best advice is to set up a system that works for your life. Your schedule has to shift to make space for classwork, research, lectures, readings and everything else. For me, this meant starting my days earlier. I found myself constantly distracted during the day, so I decided to wake up before everyone else. Surprisingly, it worked. Once you find a system that fits, it needs to become sacred and a top priority. I also relied heavily on the Pomodoro technique to stay focused and on track. If you haven’t used the “study with me” videos on YouTube, you’re missing out. Whatever helps you get into a state of flow is going to be key.

And I know your question was about going back to school while working, but honestly, work wasn’t the hardest part of my academic journey. For me, it was family and my social life. Work will always be there. But when you start missing family functions, birthdays and social events, it’s tough. I essentially became a hermit during the final stretch of my dissertation. That was the only way I could stay focused and meet my goals.

Q: The growth of online programs has increased the demand for learning designers. There is concern within our profession that in the (near) future, AI will be able to do much of the work that learning designers have traditionally done. How worried should learning designers be and what can they do to ensure they are not replaced by AI?

A: Ah yes, the million-dollar question. What’s funny is that I’ve been designing AI courses long before the generative AI boom, and I could’ve never predicted that AI would find its way into our space. In health care, medication discovery or 3-D printing? Sure. But instructional design? That thought never crossed my mind. Yet here we are.

Let’s break down your question a bit, starting with the concern around AI. You’re going to see this come in waves. A new breakthrough will happen, there will be mass pandemonium online and, within a few weeks, it fades. AI tools will continue to evolve and become more helpful, but someone still has to drive the bus. AI can’t do everything for you. I think that’s where many decision-makers are getting confused. Everyone is trying to add AI into their products, but do people actually want those features? The answer is often no.

AI can be helpful for kick-starting ideas. But if you’re a student and you find out that your entire course was generated by AI and not created by a human, you’d likely be furious.

A great source of insight on this is Reddit. You’ll find post after post from students deeply concerned about how AI is being used, whether by classmates or even by professors. LLMs tend to have a certain tone and style. It’s hard to describe exactly, but the writing often feels off. Unnatural. AI isn’t magical, even though that’s exactly how marketers are presenting it. LLMs work by predicting patterns based on data and trying to say the next most probable thing to please the user. In many cases, this doesn’t add up.

Now, on to the second part of your question: What can instructional designers do to ensure they’re not replaced?

We do what we’ve always done. We learn. Become the most knowledgeable person on your team when it comes to the ins and outs of AI. For many, AI still feels like a black box, and that’s understandable. But if you know which tool serves which purpose and how to use these tools to enhance your designs, ensure accessibility, create flexible learning pathways, transform content into different formats and generate compelling visuals, you’ll be far ahead of the curve.

As you experiment, you’ll also encounter the limits of these tools. And when you see where AI stumbles, you’ll feel much more secure about your place in this evolving landscape. It’s not there yet. And getting an entire industry to adopt something at scale, especially something as complex as AI, is a massive undertaking.

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November 11, 2025
Trump Gutted ED’s Civil Rights Office. Could States Step Up?

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which is supposed to protect students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, age and disability status, isn’t what it once was.

The Trump administration laid off nearly half the staff in March, shuttered seven of its 12 regional offices, shifted the hollowed-out agency’s focus to new priorities (including keeping transgender women out of women’s sports) and then reportedly terminated more employees amid the ongoing shutdown.

Philadelphia was among the cities that lost its OCR regional office in the first round of layoffs. Lindsey Williams, a Pennsylvania state senator who serves as minority chair of the Senate Education Committee, said the region’s cases now go to Atlanta, “where they may or may not be heard.”

To fill this void, Williams, a Democrat, announced she will file legislation to establish an Office of Civil Rights within the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The bill has yet to be written, but Williams said she wants to “create new authorities for the Pennsylvania Department of Education to investigate and enforce federal civil rights violations.” She noted, “There may be opportunity as well to strengthen our state laws in this regard.”

“We’re looking at all of it to see what we can do,” she said, “because we haven’t been here before.”

Students facing discrimination across the country now have far fewer staff in the federal Education Department OCR who can respond to their complaints. The agency had a large backlog of cases even before President Trump retook office, and then it dismissed thousands of complaints in the spring. Some advocates have expressed particular concern about OCR’s current capacity to process complaints of disability discrimination.

And those left at OCR appear to be applying a conservative interpretation of civil rights law that doesn’t recognize transgender students’ gender identity. The Trump-era OCR has actively targeted institutions for allowing trans women in women’s sports. It’s also focused on ending programs and practices that specifically benefit minorities, to the exclusion of whites.

Civil rights advocates are calling for states to step up.

“We cannot stop what is happening at the federal level,” Williams said. “There’s plenty of lawsuits that are trying … but, in the meantime, what do we as a state do?”

One of those ongoing suits, filed by the Victim Rights Law Center and two parents in April, alleges that shrinking OCR harms students from protected classes. It argues that the federal OCR cuts left “a hollowed-out organization incapable of performing its statutorily mandated functions,” adding that “without judicial intervention, the system will exist in name only.” But that intervention may not work in students’ favor—judges have issued preliminary injunctions, but the Supreme Court has, so far, allowed the Education Department layoffs to continue.

Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the Transgender Law Center and a Pennsylvania resident, said, “States need to be picking up some of the slack.”

“If more states with Democratic leaders started to propose such offices or legislation or money, it would likely create a bigger conversation,” Chestnut said.

He noted that during the Obama administration, the federal government sued North Carolina over its controversial law banning trans people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity. But that’s not something the Trump administration would do. Chestnut said some states are now saying—and more should be saying—“OK, you won’t do your job, so we’ll do your job for you.”

Beth Gellman-Beer, who was director of the Philadelphia regional office of the federal OCR before the Trump administration laid her off, said she doesn’t know of other states creating a new state-level agency like the one that’s been proposed in Pennsylvania. Even there, Republicans control the state Senate, and the legislation isn’t certain to pass. She said other state legislatures “should be really thinking about this and taking immediate steps to build out some kind of civil rights unit to help students in their state.”

Some states already have their own agencies that protect civil rights in higher ed, Gellman-Beer said, including the existing Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. But she said these entities “are traditionally severely understaffed and don’t have the resources and relied heavily on OCR.”

Chad Dion Lassiter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, agreed with Gellman-Beer’s assessment of commissions like his. Lassiter said he feels “sheer exuberance” over the proposed legislation—which he said would be even greater if the new Office of Civil Rights were created in his agency.

“Give us 20 additional staff and we’ll do the work,” Lassiter said. Ideally, 15 would be investigators in his agency’s education division and five would be attorneys, he said.

“Each state that has a human relations commission should have an educational component,” he said. “Fund these commissions.”

Gellman-Beer said the only true fix is to restore a federal OCR—because even if some states do step up, students’ rights will be contingent on where they live.

“It used to be, under the model prior to this administration, that the promise for equal educational opportunity was across the board,” she said.

Unequal Rights Across States

For a student going before a state-level OCR in a state that doesn’t recognize their identity, the process could be as fruitless as seeking help from the Trump-era federal OCR. The Movement Advancement Project, which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, says 27 states have laws banning trans students from participating in sports matching their gender identity. Such laws don’t all affect postsecondary students, but they often do, the organization said.

Nicholas Hite, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, which advocates for LGBTQ+ people in court, said the federal OCR was supposed to provide a single, consistent application of federal legal protections. Now, he said, “that just isn’t happening—they’re just refusing to do it.”

“If we’re relying on states to be the enforcement mechanism, we’ve created this patchwork where each state is going to take their own approach,” Hite said.

Universities in states with laws recognizing trans students’ rights have to decide whether to comply with those laws or with the Trump administration’s approach. The administration, using massive cuts to federal research funding, forced concessions from the University of Pennsylvania for allowing a trans woman to compete in women’s sports. But Scott Lewis—a co-founder of the Association of Title IX Administrators and managing partner of TNG Consulting, which advises higher ed institutions on civil rights issues—said so far he’s seen blue-state universities handling discrimination complaints like they did before Trump retook office.

Lassiter, of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, said, “It’s important for people to know you still have protections under the state.” But protections for trans students can be unclear.

His agency enforces state laws protecting students against discrimination based on gender identity, but wouldn’t directly answer whether that means it would order a university to allow a trans woman to play on a woman’s sports team. Lassiter said his agency avoids “cultural wars.”

Students facing discrimination of all sorts can still sue under federal civil rights law in lieu of seeking help from the federal OCR or any state version of that agency. But personal lawsuits can be expensive.

Williams, the Pennsylvania state senator, noted that lawsuits may also not wrap up by the time a student graduates. Gellman-Beer, the former federal OCR employee, said they also often lead to individual remedies for a victim, rather than “systemic interventions to make sure that the problem doesn’t occur again for other students.” That was the kind of broad solution the federal OCR could achieve, she said.

Hite welcomed people whose rights are being infringed, or who are concerned about others’ rights, to reach out to Lambda Legal. He noted the federal OCR did much of its work through negotiating with universities to fix issues, rather than pursuing litigation. If the federal OCR is no longer doing these negotiations, the burden is placed on students and parents to sue to uphold their own rights—while an added cost of litigation is also placed on universities, he said.

Lewis said that if the Trump administration continues its trajectory, people who don’t feel they’re being served at the federal level will go to the state level.

“If the federal government won’t do it,” he said, “the states are going to be left to do it.”

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November 11, 2025
Federal Policy Changes Impact Student Veterans (opinion)

Every year on Veterans Day, we pause to honor those who have served our country—but our gratitude must extend beyond a single day of reflection. One of the most powerful ways to repay veterans’ service is through education, a goal long supported by the general public and Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Student veterans bring leadership, discipline and unique experiences to college campuses; their postsecondary success strengthens both our communities and economies.

Yet despite their proven academic potential and deep motivation to earn a degree, too many veterans face unnecessary barriers to completing college. At Ithaka S+R, we’ve reported on the value of enrolling and supporting student veterans and the unique challenges these students face in getting to and through higher education, for several years running. From underresourced institutions to opaque transfer processes and predatory recruitment practices, these obstacles result in lower bachelor’s degree attainment among veterans compared to their civilian peers.

Right now, policy and appropriations decisions (including the current government shutdown) could undermine the progress the country has made in providing educational opportunities for our veterans. As we celebrate Veterans Day, it’s time for higher education leaders and policymakers to renew their commitment to supporting those who’ve served. Here are three developing situations that we’re monitoring for their potential impact on student veterans.

Cuts to Veterans Upward Bound

Veterans Upward Bound is a federally funded TRIO program focused on precollege, college transition and college success support for veterans. Started in 1972, the program now supports more than 8,000 veterans looking to enroll in or return to college by providing academic instruction, tutoring and counseling. There are 60-plus programs nationally, run by individual colleges and universities. The programs have proven highly effective: Participants are 42 percent more likely than their peers to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.

There is significant uncertainty about whether the federal government will sustain the current and future funding for these Veterans Upward Bound programs. The federal government delayed payment for the majority of TRIO programs this fall, including all Veterans Upward Bound programs. The funding delay came on the heels of proposals to decrease, or even eliminate completely, TRIO programs in next year’s federal budget. The Department of Education got a head start this year, canceling many thousands of dollars in already-allocated funding for TRIO programs, including for VUB programs, in mid-September. Although some of that funding has since been restored, the uncertainty leaves many programs struggling to plan for the year ahead.

VA Staffing Cuts and GI Bill Processing Times

Enrolled student veterans rely on the federal government for the processing of their GI Bill funds. The combination of staffing cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the recent federal government shutdown has created delays, confusion and, ultimately, financial stress for student veterans.

This summer, student veterans and campus advisers reported that benefit eligibility determinations and payments for the GI Bill took three times longer than previously because of understaffing and increased administrative errors. This meant that housing and textbook payments were delayed, which led to some student veterans missing the start of classes (and, in more severe cases, dropping or stopping out).

The situation has worsened since the federal government shut down on Oct. 1. Although education benefits themselves are primarily funded through advance appropriations and thus can continue to be paid out, critical support services have ceased operation during the shutdown. The VA’s GI Bill phone hotline, which many rely on for questions about eligibility, payments and school certification, is closed. Regional VA offices, which normally handle in-person assistance, are also closed. Not only do these closures create challenges in the current moment, but resulting processing delays will result in a backlog even after the government reopens.

For student veterans on fixed schedules, with tight budgets and in transitional life phases, the time and energy to deal with unsettled paperwork add up to real risks for academic progress and financial stability.

Measuring Student Veteran Success

The uncertainty of federal support for student veterans comes at a time when there is shrinking programmatic and rhetorical support for students that higher education has historically struggled to welcome. Veterans are increasingly more likely to belong to other underrepresented groups, such as racial minorities and adult learners, so the challenges they face in accessing and affording higher education may be multiplied.

The states, systems and institutions interested in continuing to serve student veterans are also facing immense challenges as they confront federal policy changes that have downstream financial impacts, such as changes to graduate student loans and the decline in international student enrollment. While these challenges make it even more imperative for institutions to enroll a wider range of students, including student veterans, there is simultaneously increased difficulty in doing so.

Investing in veteran-specific admissions strategies and academic advising, providing efficient credit transfer mechanisms, and tracking postcollege outcomes are initiatives that can help boost student veteran success. The full scope of that success, however, remains elusive, as the data landscape for student veterans remains fragmented and incomplete. Alongside institutional efforts to ensure success, regional and national efforts are needed to more fully understand how many new veterans could benefit from enrolling in higher education each year and in what degree programs they are most interested. To truly understand the scope of the impact of the federal budget and staffing cuts and how other parts of higher education can help fill that breach and prioritize veterans’ enrollment, it is essential to know more about the size and scope of the potential student veteran population we are looking to serve.

Conclusion

As federal uncertainty grows, from cuts to Veterans Upward Bound programs to delays in GI Bill processing, and the shutdown drags on, student veterans risk being left behind just when they need institutional support most. At the same time, colleges face shrinking budgets and shifting demographics that make it harder to serve those who’ve already given so much.

But these challenges also present an opportunity for stakeholders throughout higher education to refocus on veterans. By investing in veteran-specific recruitment, advising and data collection efforts, institutions, states and veteran-serving organizations can open doors to a new generation of leaders ready to contribute to their campuses and communities.

The promise of higher education for veterans should not only depend on bureaucratic stability or federal budget cycles; it requires a collective effort from within and beyond the field of higher education. This Veterans Day and every day after, let’s recommit to ensuring that those who served our nation have every chance to succeed in the classroom and beyond.

Emily Schwartz is a principal of bachelor’s attainment at the nonprofit Ithaka S+R, which conducts research and offers strategic advice on student access and success, among other topics related to higher education and research. Michael Fried is a senior researcher and Daniel Braun is senior development and operations specialist, both at Ithaka S+R.

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November 11, 2025
Faculty Lead AI Usage Conversations on College Campuses

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, higher education as a sector has grappled with the role large language models and generative artificial intelligence tools can and should play in students’ lives.

A recent survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that nearly all college students say they know how and when to use AI for their coursework, which they attribute largely to faculty instruction or syllabus language.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they know when to use AI, with the share of those saying they don’t shrinking from 31 percent in spring 2024 to 13 percent in August 2025.

The greatest share of respondents (41 percent) said they know when to use AI because their professors include statements in their syllabi explaining appropriate and inappropriate AI use. An additional 35 percent said they know because their instructors have addressed it in class.

“It’s good news that students feel like they understand the basic ground rules for when AI is appropriate,” said Dylan Ruediger, principal for the research enterprise at Ithaka S+R. “It suggests that there are some real benefits to having faculty be the primary point of contact for information about what practices around AI should look like.”

The data points to a trend in higher education to move away from a top-down approach of organizing AI policies to a more decentralized approach, allowing faculty to be experts in their subjects.

“I think that faculty should have wide latitudes to teach their courses how they see fit. Trusting them to understand what’s pedagogically appropriate for their ways of teaching and within their discipline” is a smart place to start, Ruediger said.

The challenge becomes how to create campuswide priorities for workforce development that ensure all students, regardless of major program, can engage in AI as a career tool and understand academic integrity expectations.

Student Perspectives

While the survey points to institutional efforts to integrate AI into the curriculum, some students remain unaware or unsure of when they can use AI tools. Only 17 percent of students said they are aware of appropriate AI use cases because their institution has published a policy on the subject, whereas 25 percent said they know when to use AI because they’ve researched the topic themselves.

Ruediger hypothesizes that some students learn about AI tools and their uses from peers in addition to their own research.

Some demographic groups were less likely than others to be aware of appropriate AI use on campus, signaling disparities in who’s receiving this information. Nearly one-quarter of adult learners (aged 25 or older) said they don’t  know how or when to use AI for coursework, compared to 10 percent of their traditional-aged peers. Similarly, two-year college students were less likely to say they are aware of appropriate use cases (20 percent) than their four-year peers (10 percent).

Students working full-time (19 percent) or those who had dropped out for a semester (20 percent) were also more likely to say they don’t know when to use AI.

While decentralizing AI policies and giving autonomy to faculty members can better serve academic freedom and AI applications, having clearly outlined and widely available policies also benefits students.

“There is a scenario here where [AI] rules are left somewhat informal and inconsistent that ends up giving an advantage to students who have more cultural capital or are better positioned to understand hidden curricular issues,” Ruediger said.

In a survey of provosts and chief academic officers this fall, Inside Higher Ed found that one in five provosts said their institution is taking an intentionally hands-off approach to regulating AI use, with no formal governance or policies about AI. Fourteen percent of respondents indicated their institution has established a comprehensive AI governance policy or institutional strategy, but the greatest share said they are still developing policies.

A handful of students also indicated they have no interest in ever using AI.

In 2024, 2 percent of Student Voice survey respondents (n=93) wrote in “other” responses to the question, “Do you have a clear sense of when, how or whether to use generative artificial intelligence to help with your coursework?” More than half of those responses—55—expressed distrust, disdain or disagreement with the use of generative AI. That view appears to be growing; this year, 3 percent of respondents (n=138) wrote free responses, and 113 comments opposed AI use in college for ethical or personal reasons.

 “I hate AI we should never ever ever use it,” wrote one second-year student at a community college in Wyoming. “It’s terrible for the environment. People who use AI lack critical thinking skills and just use AI as a cop out.”

The Institutional Perspective

A separate survey fielded by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that more than half of student success administrators (55 percent) reported that their institution is “somewhat effective” at helping students understand how, when and whether to use generative AI tools in academic settings. (“Somewhat effective” is defined as “there being some structured efforts, but guidance is not consistent or comprehensive.”)

More than one-third (36 percent) reported their institution is not very effective—meaning they offer limited guidance and many students rely on informal or independent learning—and 2 percent said their institution is “very effective,” or that students receive clear guidance across multiple channels.

Ithaka S+R published its own study this spring, which found that the average instructor had at least experimented with using AI in classroom activities. According to Inside Higher Ed’s most recent survey of provosts, two-thirds of respondents said their institution offers professional development for faculty on AI or integrating AI into the curriculum.

Engaging Students in AI

Some colleges and universities have taken measures to ensure all students are aware of ethical AI use cases.

Indiana University created an online course, GenAI 101, for anyone with a campus login to earn a certificate denoting they’ve learned about practical applications for AI tools, ethical considerations of using those tools and how to fact-check content produced by AI.

This year the University of Mary Washington offered students a one-credit online summer course on how to use generative AI tools, which covered academic integrity, professional development applications and how to evaluate AI output.

The State University of New York system identified AI as a core competency to be included in all general education courses for undergraduates. All classes that fulfill the information literacy competency requirement will include a lesson on AI ethics and literacy starting fall 2026.

Touro University is requiring all faculty members to include an AI statement in their syllabi by next spring, Shlomo Argamon, associate provost for artificial intelligence, told Inside Higher Ed in a podcast episode. The university also has an official AI policy that serves as the default if faculty do not have more or less restrictive policies.

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November 11, 2025
Universities as infrastructures of support: making the Solent Film Office happen
UK universities are under mounting financial pressure. Join HEPI and King’s College London Policy Institute today at 1pm for a webinar on how universities balance relatively stable but underfunded income streams against higher-margin but volatile sources. Register now. We look forward to seeing you there.

This blog was kindly authored by Dr Roy Hanney, Associate Professor at Southampton Solent University.

The launch of the new Solent and South Hampshire Regional Film Office marks a major step forward for the region’s creative economy. Funded by Solent Growth Partners and driven by a consortium of local authorities and cultural development agencies, the film office will provide a single point of contact for productions, market the region as a go-to location for filming and open up new opportunities for local businesses and talent.

Behind the scenes of this development is a quieter story – one of research, knowledge exchange, and the often-unseen role universities play in helping ideas like this one take root and grow.

From research to impact

The idea of a regional film office did not emerge overnight. It was first identified in research carried out at Southampton Solent University as part of a Research, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (RIKE) project between 2020 and 2021. It was a response to priorities set out in key strategy documents – including the Creative Network South Creative Industries Declaration and Arts Council England’s cultural strategy for Portsmouth – both of which highlighted the need for stronger infrastructure to support the creative economy.

The RIKE project gathered evidence, brought together stakeholders, and produced a Theory of Change report for the screen industries in the Solent region. Among its recommendations was the establishment of a regional film office – not simply as an administrative function, but as a vital piece of creative infrastructure: connecting talent pipelines, supporting independent productions, promoting the region internationally, and providing a business case for sustained investment.

This research provided the evidential basis for further strategic conversations through a series of Screen Industries Cluster meetings hosted in partnership with Fareham College, Creative Network South, and the Southern Policy Centre. These gatherings brought local authorities, policymakers, production companies, and cultural organisations into the same room to test ideas, compare models, and make informed decisions about what would help build our region’s creative economy.

By December 2024, the Solent Screen Support Feasibility Study was launched, presenting a collaborative roadmap for a film office and confirming broad support across councils, cultural agencies, and regional development bodies.

The enabling role of universities

Universities are anchor institutions and, at every stage of this journey, Southampton Solent University played an important role of enablement. It’s often unseen, but it’s by no means any less key. And, by supporting my involvement in this project as part of my research and knowledge exchange remit, the University has created the conditions for academic insight to inform policy and practice.

This is a subtle but essential contribution. Universities are uniquely placed to:
- Provide research-led evidence that turns ideas into persuasive business cases.
- Convene cross-sector conversations by offering neutral space and credibility.
- Sustain continuity across the long timelines of public sector change.
- Support thought leadership by connecting academic expertise with industry needs.
The Solent Film Office is not a “university project” — it is a collaborative achievement led by local authorities and funded by Solent Growth Partners. Yet, it is also fair to say that without the groundwork of university research and facilitation, the momentum to make it happen may not have been sustained.

A shared regional asset

With FilmFixer now appointed to establish and operate the new agency, the Solent Film Office is set to work across nine local authority areas, providing a one-stop shop for production companies, marketing the region as a filming destination, and unlocking opportunities for skills development and local business engagement.

For our university, the benefits are many and varied. Students will have access to an industry landscape that is better coordinated and more visible. Academics can continue to collaborate with policymakers and industry to shape sustainable growth. As a region, we stand to capture a greater share of the economic and cultural value generated by film and television production.

Regional development? Universities are key

The story of the Solent Film Office illustrates something bigger about the role of universities in regional development. Universities are not only educators and research producers. They are also infrastructures of support: institutions that provide the long-term stability, intellectual resources, and convening power necessary to get important initiatives off the ground.

Infrastructures are rarely noticed until they are missing. In this case, the research, networks, and continuity provided by Solent have been crucial in helping partners move from strategy documents to a real, funded institution. The film office will stand as a visible achievement, and Solent’s contribution has been embedded in the process that made it possible.

The success of the Solent Film Office reminds us that universities are not just ivory towers, but anchor institutions embedded in place. They provide the connective tissue that enables ideas to become reality. Sometimes, that makes all the difference.
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November 11, 2025
Undergraduate enrollment on track to increase for third straight year
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Dive Brief:
- Undergraduate enrollment is on track to grow 2.4% year over year this fall, driving a 2% overall rise in higher education enrollment, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. This marks the third year in a row of undergraduate enrollment growth.
- Graduate enrollment stayed largely level — up 0.1% compared to the year prior. Enrollment in master’s programs, which host almost two-thirds of this fall’s graduate students, declined by 0.6%. Conversely, doctoral-level programs saw a 1.1% increase in students.
- The clearinghouse also found that students’ choice of studies is shifting. Enrollment in computer and information sciences dropped this fall — ranging from a 5.8% decline at two-year institutions to a 15% nosedive in graduate programs — while numbers of health and trade majors rose.
Dive Insight:

Enrollment increased in both shorter-term programs and those that prepare students to work in the trades, the clearinghouse found.

Two-year institutions saw a 8.3% year-over-year enrollment increase in engineering technologies and technicians programs this fall. Mechanic and repair technologies and technicians majors also grew 10.4% at those institutions.

And enrollment rose 6.6% in undergraduate certificates and 3.1% in associate programs. Bachelor’s degrees, in comparison, saw a smaller year-over-year enrollment increase of 1.2%.

On a call with reporters Monday, Matthew Holsapple, the clearinghouse’s senior director of research, stressed that the organization did not conduct student interviews or collect data about their enrollment motivations.

But when asked if the decline in computer science enrollment was a side effect of the proliferation of artificial intelligence, he acknowledged that researchers “have seen the same news reports that you all have seen about challenges in the field,” such as AI-related layoffs in technology sectors.

“I assume students are also seeing that, and they’re using that kind of information to make their decisions,” Holsapple said.

Like last year, community colleges once again came out the winner among institutional types this fall. Public two-year colleges saw 4% annual enrollment growth. That’s compared to 1.9% growth at public four-year institutions and 0.9% at four-year private nonprofits.

“Students continue to gravitate towards vocational certificates and associate degrees, leaving less momentum for growth among bachelors’ seekers,” Doug Shapiro, the clearinghouse’s executive director, said in a statement.

Tuesday’s preliminary data is based on some 8.5 million students at just under half of the U.S. postsecondary institutions that report to the clearinghouse. The report marks the organization’s first preliminary enrollment dispatch since announcing a striking methodology error early this year.

In January, the clearinghouse said an undisclosed number of its preliminary enrollment reports had mistakenly counted some first-year college students as dual-enrolled students, who are high school students also taking college classes. That preliminary enrollment report series, called Stay Informed, began in 2020.

As a result, its preliminary fall 2024 findings incorrectly found that first-year enrollment had declined 5% — when it actually rose 5.5%.

Holsapple said Monday that the clearinghouse did not include dual enrollment data in Tuesday’s report. It‘s the first of the group’s new preliminary enrollment series, called Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights. In a release, it said the report has “enhanced methodology, clarified reporting structure, and better connections between preliminary and final data.”

The clearinghouse plans to release its final fall enrollment report in mid-January.
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November 11, 2025
How to build smarter partnerships and become digitally mature
Across higher education, the conversation about digital transformation has shifted from connection to capability. Most universities are digitally connected, yet few are digitally mature

The challenge for 2026 and beyond is not whether institutions use technology, but whether their systems and partnerships enable people and processes to work together to strengthen institutional capacity, learner outcomes, and agility.

Boundless Learning’s 2025 Higher Education Technology and Strategy Survey underscored this transition: 95 per cent of leaders said education management partners are appealing, and one in three described them as extremely so. Yet preferences are changing: modular, fee-for-service models now outpace traditional revenue-sharing arrangements, signalling a desire for flexibility and control.

Leaders also identified their top digital priorities: innovation enablement (53 per cent), streamlined faculty workflows (52 per cent), and integrated analytics (49 per cent). In other words, universities are no longer chasing the next platform; they want systems that think.

Why systems thinking matters

That idea is central to Suha Tamim’s workAnalyzing the Complexities of Online Education Systems: A Systems Thinking Perspective. Tamim frames online education as a dynamic ecosystem in which a change in one area, such as technology, pedagogy, or management, ripples through the whole. She argues that institutions need a “systems-level” view connecting the macro (strategy), meso (infrastructure and management), and micro (teaching and learning) layers.

Seen this way, technology decisions become design choices that shape the culture and operations of the institution. Adopting a new platform is not just an IT project; it influences governance, academic workload, and the student experience. The goal is alignment across those levels so that each reinforces the other.

Boundless Learning’s Learning Experience Suite (LXS) embodies this approach. Rather than adding another application into an already crowded environment, LXS helps institutions orchestrate existing systems; linking learning management, analytics, and support functions into a cohesive, secure, learner-centred framework. It is a practical application of systems thinking: connecting data flows, surfacing insights, and simplifying faculty and learner experiences within one integrated ecosystem.

From outsourcing to empowering

The shift toward integration also reflects how universities engage external partners. Jeffrey Sun, Heather Turner, and Robert Cermak, in the American Journal of Distance Education, describe four main reasons universities outsource online programme management:
1. Responding quickly to competitive pressures
2. Accessing upfront capital
3. Filling capability gaps
4. Learning and scaling in-house
Their College Curation Strategy Framework shows that institutions partner with external providers not just to cut costs, but to build strategic capacity. Yet the traditional online programme management (OPM) model anchored in long-term revenue-share contracts has drawn criticism for limited transparency and loss of institutional control.

Our own data suggest that this critique is reshaping practice. Universities are moving from outsourcing to empowerment: seeking education-management partners who enhance internal capability rather than replace it. This evolution from OPMs to Education Management Partners (EMPs) marks a decisive turn toward collaborative, capacity-building relationships.

The Learning Experience Suite fits squarely within this new model. It is not an outsourced service but a connective layer that enables institutions to manage their digital ecosystems with greater visibility and confidence, while benefiting from enterprise-grade integration and security. It exemplifies partnership as a mechanism for capability development, a move from vendor management to shared strategic growth.

From fragmentation to fluency

Many institutions remain caught in what might be called digital fragmentation. According to our survey, nearly half of leaders cite data silos, disconnected platforms, and inconsistent learner experiences as obstacles to progress. These are not isolated technical issues; they are systemic barriers that affect pedagogy, governance, and institutional trust.

Tamim’s framework describes such misalignment as a state of “disequilibrium.” Overcoming it requires coordinated action across levels, strategic clarity from leadership, adaptive management structures, and interoperable tools that make integration intuitive. The objective is to move from digital accumulation to digital fluency: an environment where technology amplifies, rather than fragments, institutional purpose.

Learning Experience Suite was designed precisely to address this. By connecting data across systems, enabling real-time analytics, and ensuring accessibility through a mobile-first design, it allows institutions to build coherence and confidence in their digital operations.

Building partnerships

The next phase of higher education technology will be defined not by the tools universities choose but by the quality of their partnerships. As scholars like Sun have cautioned, outsourcing core academic functions without transparency can erode autonomy. Conversely, partnerships grounded in shared governance, open data, and aligned values can strengthen the academic mission.

For Boundless Learning, this is the central opportunity of the coming decade: to reimagine partnership as co-evolution. Universities, platforms, and providers function best as interconnected actors within a wider learning system, each contributing expertise to advance learner success and institutional resilience.

When viewed through a systems lens, the key question is no longer whether universities should outsource, but how they orchestrate. The challenge is to combine the right mix of internal capability, external expertise, and interoperable technology to achieve measurable impact.

That, ultimately, is what digital maturity requires and what the Learning Experience Suite was designed to deliver.
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November 11, 2025
What does specialisation for a university mean in a defence-led economy?

Every Monday at 11.30am, a siren echoes across Plymouth.

It’s the routine test signal to take cover in the event of a nuclear incident and a haunting sound that reminds us that Devonport dockyard – western Europe’s largest naval base, and the area’s biggest employer – dominates the edge of our city.

It’s also a timely signal that Plymouth is entering a new era of defence-driven growth – and the University of Plymouth is right in the middle of it.

Being special

The words specialism and specialist appear frequently in the Government’s recent Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper. So, what moves do we make, here in Plymouth, and what does our approach suggest for the higher education sector more broadly?

As I begin my second year as vice chancellor, I’ve seen Plymouth shift from a city with potential to one with purpose – shaped by maritime defence, marine autonomy, and national security. The city is one of five places allocated a Defence Growth Deal, alongside Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and South Yorkshire. The newly formed “Team Plymouth” is bidding for a share of the £250 million in funding announced alongside that, and has been also designated as the UK’s National Centre for Marine Autonomy. And all of this is within a context where £4.4 billion is being invested into Devonport over the next ten years in support of our national deterrence and assurance of our maritime infrastructure upon which our freedoms depend, with the promises of further billions in the decades to come.

But this isn’t just about submarines. It’s about how the city’s largest university steps up – not only because investment in defence research and development is good news for us (see the politics of universities, defence, and R&D spending), but because there is a national and international imperative to protect our seas. We have a role to play – and, I would suggest, a duty – in delivering the skills, innovation, and dual-use technologies needed to do this better and faster than others.

Our university is globally recognised for its work in all things marine and maritime – notably in sciences and engineering – but our offer also spans subject areas from the arts, humanities and a business school, through to providing national resilience of a different kind via our faculty of health (including both medicine and dentistry) which holds more than 40 per cent of our students. Civic specialisation doesn’t mean that only part of the university needs to step up. This opportunity is not just about engineers; every discipline has its role to play in ensuring we support and deliver a rich array of graduates and researchers.

The future of defence

Defence has changed significantly since the Russian invasion into Ukraine back in February 2022, and international conflict is the current mother of invention. The need for autonomous devices on and under the sea, and the pace of innovation, demands diverse skill sets: creatives, technologists, business leaders, psychologists, project managers and more. And, as our city grows through the “defence dividend”, there will be new jobs, higher aspirations, reduced inequality, improved health, better housing, a more vibrant culture, and stronger communities. Along with this will be a demand for artists, historians, lawyers, doctors, nurses, dentists and more.

But there is some jeopardy, and colleagues are asking reasonable questions. Is this a distraction, just when we need to continue to be extra-focused and vigilant about being a well-run, efficient university offering students the best possible experience?

Compared with strategic shifts universities have made in the past, this one feels like a well-founded decision. Devonport isn’t going anywhere. CASD runs until at least 2070. Defence funding is long-term and strategic – unlike some other sources we’ve all banked on that have since disappeared (remember the Global Challenges Research Fund?). Furthermore, we’re not abandoning our legacy of innovation in areas like microplastic pollution, trans-cranial ultrasound, and sustainability. If defence is the bow wave, then behind it can be a flotilla of other opportunities.

The White Paper asks us to specialise; we’ve done it before (for example marine sciences, offshore renewable energy) and will do it again. But we also serve the South West of England. We have won three Queen’s Anniversary Prizes, and colleagues often proudly cite the 1994 award for partnering with further education providers and widening access to education in a scattered rural community. To stop doing that kind of work because we disinvested from some disciplines where there is demand would be a mistake. Specialism must be balanced with serving our communities in Devon, Cornwall and the wider region.

Right place right time

We’re the right university in the right city at the right time. Plymouth has been leading the way in tackling maritime cybersecurity for years. But now we’re at the centre of the UK’s marine autonomy agenda, we need to grow. And there are big questions to answer: how many graduates will be needed, in what disciplines, taught in what mode, and at what level? How do we work across HE and FE to build clearer, more exciting pathways for 16 and 17-year-olds into jobs in defence and other sectors, or retraining and upskilling adults who want to progress or change their careers? Getting the views of businesses, the Ministry of Defence and others, then sharing intelligence across the education sector will be vital to helping us make the best decisions.

Some vice chancellors have had to navigate sensitive situations around the defence industry on campus, with links to defence businesses being scrutinised. I am sure that will happen here, and we will have the discussion – we are a university and welcome debate. But maritime defence has been in Plymouth’s DNA for generations, as a naval port of vital strategic importance. Also, the technologies we develop have more than one application – one person’s defence alert system is another’s environmental monitoring equipment.

We need to move fast, because others outside the UK will. And we are up for it. If Cranfield is our nation’s defence aerospace university, Plymouth is poised to become its marine autonomy counterpart.

The stakes are high – not just because of financial pressures on universities, but because this challenge is about the UK’s security, on and under the sea. And it’s about how universities like Plymouth adapt to a new kind of industrial strategy.

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November 11, 2025
“The New Mayor of New York CIty” on Zoom (CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies)

The New Mayor of New York City:

A Post-Election Debrief

A City Works Media Roundtable moderated by Laura Flanders

Thursday, November 13

1:00pm – 2:30pm

Virtual-only via Zoom. Free and open to all.

Click here to register.

Please register to access virtual event info and reminders.

(slucuny.swoogo.com/13November2025/register)

Guest Speakers:

Claudia Irizarry Aponte – Labor and Work Reporter, THE CITY; Faculty, CUNY Newmark School of Journalism

Liza Featherstone – Columnist, Jacobin and The New Republic; Contributing Writer, The Nation

Amir Khafagy – Senior Labor Reporter, Documented

Maya King – Politics Reporter, The New York Times

Moderator:

Laura Flanders – Host, Laura Flanders & Friends; Host, City Works

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November 10, 2025
Snipers, censorship, and unaccountability: Indiana University’s free speech crisis

“I had a sniper gun pointed at me when trying to defend a protest that was in compliance with school policies.”

TAKE ACTION

The student who wrote that line in FIRE’s annual free speech survey wasn’t using a metaphor. They were describing a spring afternoon in 2024 at Indiana University’s Dunn Meadow — a campus green with a lineage of protest dating to the anti-apartheid “shantytowns” of the 1980s — when officers with rifles took positions on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union over the heads of student protesters. Indiana State Police later confirmed they had positioned officers “with sniper capabilities” on rooftops.

The night before, administrators had convened an ad hoc meeting that rewrote IU’s Outdoor Spaces policy to require approval for structures that had long been permitted. By morning, a peaceful protest was recast as a policy violation. By noon, state police had taken a “closed sniper position” above the lawn.

Police arrested dozens of students and faculty over two days, and many received one‑year campus bans later challenged in court. Ultimately, the Monroe County Prosecutor’s office dropped the “constitutionally dubious” charges. FIRE wrote IU leadership objecting to the eleventh‑hour policy change and the resulting crackdown, warning IU that manipulating rules to curtail disfavored protest is incompatible with a public university’s First Amendment obligations.

For a university whose motto celebrates “light and truth,” the optics were unmissable: IU had turned its own tradition of protest into grounds for punishment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an isolated incident, but a warning for what would follow.

Act now: Condemn Indiana University’s censorship of student media

Indiana University fired its student media adviser for refusing to censor the student paper, then banned the paper’s print edition.

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The atmosphere that spring clarified what faculty had been saying in whispered discontent for years: academic freedom and shared governance were being treated as obstacles to be managed. On April 16, 2024, nearly 1,000 faculty came together for an unprecedented meeting where 93% of those present voted no confidence in IU’s leadership. At the time, FIRE noted that the no‑confidence movement explicitly cited encroachments on academic freedom and viewpoint discrimination concerns.

One flashpoint was the university’s handling of associate professor Abdulkader Sinno, suspended from teaching and advising in December 2023 after a dispute over a room reservation — the registered student group he had advised being none other than the Palestine Solidarity Committee. FIRE went on record with a reminder that public universities must not punish faculty for facilitating student expression or for the viewpoints associated with that expression.

Another flashpoint was art. In December 2023, IU’s Eskenazi Museum abruptly canceled a long‑planned retrospective of Palestinian‑American painter Samia Halaby, notifying the artist her work would no longer be shown in a terse letter curtailing three years of preparation. IU invoked concerns about security and the “integrity of the exhibit.” But as FIRE explained, public institutions cannot cancel art because the artist’s politics are unpopular or because controversy is inconvenient.

Meanwhile, cancellations migrated into other corners of campus life. In January 2025, the IU School of Medicine canceled its LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference, initially offering only a bare note on the website. Administrators later cited pending legislation as the reason. One invited keynote speaker, journalist Chris Geidner, publicly confirmed the cancellation. As FIRE frequently reminds universities, preemptively shutting down academic programming due to political headwinds chills debate and undermines academic freedom. Universities exist to give ideas a platform, not to turn them away.

IU’s Israel-Palestine-related cancellations didn’t run in only one political direction, either. In March 2024, IU officials urged IU Hillel to postpone an event with Mosab Hassan Yousef, a prominent pro‑Israel activist and Hamas critic, citing security threats. Instead of securing the event, IU “postponed” it, but apparently never rescheduled.

By the publication of FIRE’s 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, the numbers matched the mood. Indiana University ranked 255th out of 257 institutions surveyed, making it the worst‑ranked public university in America, with bottom‑tier scores in openness, administrative support, and comfort expressing ideas. Roughly one in four IU students reported discipline or threats of discipline for their expression, and nearly three‑quarters of faculty said the administration does not protect academic freedom.

This fall, IU’s crackdown reached the newsroom. Student editors at the Indiana Daily Student ran two straightforward, newsworthy pieces: one on IU’s suspension of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, another on IU’s abysmal free‑speech ranking. Students say Media School Dean David Tolchinsky pressed them to suppress the coverage. When they refused, the university ordered the paper’s print edition halted just before homecoming.

Control at an editorially independent student paper belongs to the students, not to administrators.

When Jim Rodenbush, the director of student media, declined to enforce content restrictions, he was fired. FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative immediately wrote IU on Oct. 16, condemning the firing as apparent retaliation and the print‑ban directive as unconstitutional censorship by a public university. The students’ response captured the stakes: an image of an empty newspaper rack on campus captioned with a single word in block letters, “CENSORED.”

IU has since reversed the print shutdown amid national outcry and a federal lawsuit filed by Rodenbush. The chancellor has authorized IDS to print through June 30, 2026, within budget parameters. FIRE’s position remains: Control at an editorially independent student paper belongs to the students, not to administrators.

Seen together — the midnight rule change at Dunn Meadow, the snipers on the roof, the faculty’s 93% vote of no confidence, the sanctioning of a professor for defending a student group’s right to meet, the cancellation of an artist’s exhibit, the quiet erasure of a healthcare conference, the postponement of a controversial speaker under the elastic banner of security, and finally the order to stop the presses — it is clear Indiana University has a crisis on its hands. This is a campus where students practice self‑silencing to survive the semester, where faculty measure every sentence against the week’s political weather, where the oxygen of inquiry thins until only the safest words remain.

Today — Monday, Nov. 10 — FIRE answers in one forum the university can’t control: the public square. Our first billboard went up in Bloomington this morning. It’s stark — black, white, and FIRE red — and it names the problem plainly, pointing readers to see the record for themselves.

IU has a chance here to do the right thing, but if they don’t, more boards will follow, put up in places where IU’s leaders, alumni, and visitors will pass them on their way to games and meetings and flights. The point is not spectacle but accountability: to hold a mirror up to a public university that has tried, repeatedly, to dodge the image it has made for itself.

The first billboard in FIRE’s campaign, installed in Bloomington on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025

FIRE doesn’t launch campaigns like this to score points. We’re launching this campaign because IU, a taxpayer‑funded institution, has betrayed its public duty, believing it doesn’t need to answer to the Constitution or the consequences of ignoring the First Amendment.

Any university that posts sharpshooters over a peaceful protest, cancels art for its connotations, shutters a conference because of its politics, and then turns around and tells student journalists they can’t print the truth about any one of these stories hasn’t merely lost its way. It has chosen a different map — one that trades the honest noise of debate for the chilling silence of control. That’s not how we do things in America.

What the hell is going on at Indiana University?

Indiana University just banned its student paper for reporting its awful free speech ranking. You literally can’t make this up.

Read More

The rifles are gone from the roof now, but the memory of their presence is as much a part of Dunn Meadow as the grass. The empty newspaper racks may soon be refilled, but national headlines about a campus with no newspaper endure like a warning label.

Indiana University’s leaders have a choice to make.

They can continue to censor and pretend it’s not a problem. Or, they can acknowledge what these last 20 months have made obvious and begin to repair what fear has fractured. They can ensure student and faculty speech is not micromanaged, that journalists report without preclearance, that art hangs because it is art, and that a university’s purpose is not to avoid controversy but to teach, especially when the debate is loud and the issue is of great public importance.

We’re calling on IU to issue a public statement acknowledging its violations of students’ and faculty members’ free speech rights and to meet with FIRE’s experts to begin improving its ranking. Reinstating Rodenbush would also be a meaningful first step in demonstrating that IU is serious about addressing its free speech problems.

Until then, we’ll keep telling this story where it cannot be edited away — on screens, on pages, and, starting today, on the unmissable canvases that rise beside Indiana’s roads.

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November 10, 2025