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  • On AI, We Reap What We Sow (opinion)

    On AI, We Reap What We Sow (opinion)

    I teach a first-year seminar. We call the course Education and the Good Life. The goal of the class is to engage students in a 15-week conversation. We talk about how they can make the most of their courses and our campus, with an eye toward the question of how the college experience can create an approach toward the world that lasts their whole life. In that spirit, last fall, I gave students an example of how I spend my time.

    In class, I shared a set of drafts of a poem that appeared in my most recent collection. One by one, I projected versions of the poem onto a screen. I drew attention to the red ink slashing through unwanted words. I pointed out how I added, struck, added, struck and then re-added a comma. I boasted about my careful use of my favorite punctuation mark—the delightfully overlong em dash. In the end, I shared all 32 drafts of the poem, from conception to published work. When I stopped, a student in the front row quipped, “That doesn’t seem efficient.” In response, I quoted Annie Dillard—“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”—and I talked about the concept of “craft.” I suggested that a committed craftsperson produces work, but that in important ways, and for the reason Dillard suggests, the work also produces them. In the end, the time we spend on our projects makes us who we are.

    I asked the class to think about the time they give to writing assignments. I encouraged them to think about the minutes and the hours that they carve out of their schedules to read and then to write. I told them, “These are investments, not just in the creation of something to turn in on a deadline, but rather, investments in your humanity.” I explained, “When you give yourself time to use your faculties, you end up changing the dimensions of your mind.” I said, “You’re changing yourself.” Then I mused about how a college graduate is a certain kind of person, and how the process of earning a degree is largely a process of becoming.

    My students are smart. They understand social conventions. They know how to act, so they humored me. They nodded their heads, even though I detected facial expressions formed with a noticeable twist of “maybe that is how it worked in your generation.” Without saying the words, they made a point. History matters.

    In addition to my work on campus, I serve as a member of the Higher Learning Commission’s peer-review corps. Once or twice a year for the past 22 years, I have studied and visited colleges for the sake of ensuring the quality of their operations. When I joined the corps, in the early 2000s, the HLC held a leadership role in the nationwide assessment movement. The assessment of what students submit as their work, and by proxy what they know and what they can do, had become the benchmark by which we judge our institutions and accredit them. Because the question of whom students become during an education is harder to answer, and because the methods to answer such questions are out of necessity qualitative, we left those concerns aside while we moved, as a country, toward documenting the easily measurable, but narrowly defined, cognitive outcomes of the college experience.

    In the early 2000s, the heightened focus on the assessment of learning outcomes dovetailed with what were then advances in technology. Web-based platforms, still described as “learning management systems,” made it possible to assess students’ abilities at a distance, anytime, anywhere and under nearly any circumstance. The new, single-minded focus on the cognitive outcomes of higher education burgeoned alongside efforts to legitimize the new online institutions that had removed time in place as a component of schooling. In effect, our message was that we take stock of our success by measuring the end product of education, as opposed to the process of becoming educated. Students are smart. They quietly noted our priorities.

    Enter AI. Today we live in an era in which students can feed a prompt into an automated prose generator and, in seconds, have a viable draft of a writing assignment. What are they supposed to think? We’ve spent three decades acting like outcomes assessments are the only things we value. As for questions about how or where or with whom people engage in the process of becoming educated, our general approach has been, “These are not things that we like to know about.”

    Consider our focus on outcomes in another sphere of human development: athletics. Assume for a moment that you are a cyclist. I am confident that technocrats will soon create a bot capable of riding a bicycle. On a day when life presents you with too much to do, and you can’t find time to ride, would it seem reasonable to send a bot out in your stead? I hope that sounds absurd. During most of the time that we give to athletics, the outcome is not the point. In cycling, on most days, the point is not that a bicycle was ridden. The point is that you rode a bicycle.

    The craft of writing and the art of performing music share a set of similarities. Both demand engagement, practice and the exercise of creativity. The difference is that writing practices, outside of occasional public readings, tend to unfold in solitude, whereas a musical performance is, by nature, a social event. Imagine yourself as a student of the violin. At the end of the semester, during your final recital, would it seem reasonable to bring in a Bluetooth speaker, cue up a music streaming service to a song that you’ve been practicing and hit the play button? Of course not. The point is not that a song was played in the recital hall. The point is that you played the song.

    In the era of AI, student disengagement looms like a fog on our campuses, from libraries to studios and laboratories. Our best data on undergraduate engagement suggests that members of Generation Z are reading less. When pressed with assignments that require deep thought, time on task and earnestness, students tend to see technology as a means to maximize efficiency. Should we blame them? We spent years building systems and assessments designed to sidestep questions about the nature of the process students move through on the way to earning degrees.

    Through our actions, preferences and even accreditation, we built a set of values that suggest the finish line is what matters. We tend to see the route that we take to arrive there as irrelevant. Every campus I have ever visited staffs an office dedicated to the measurement of cognitive learning outcomes. I have yet to find a similar office aimed at understanding the quality, character or broad-ranging impact of the processes that students engage in during the course of an education.

    I would say it’s past time that we started to give the process of becoming educated our attention. But in at least some quarters, we have long-standing and holistic studies of the college experience. In 1991, Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini wrote the first of what became a three-volume set, published at roughly 10-year intervals: How College Affects Students. Alongside a chapter on verbal, quantitative and subject matter competence, each edition of the book contains sections on psycho-social change, attitudes and values, and moral development. We should see the AI era as providing us with a reason, and an opportunity, to expand our interests to include an analysis of the broadly formative processes involved in education, as opposed to focusing solely on narrow sets of outcomes. Fortunately, if we find the will to turn our curiosity toward questions about the quality of the time that we ask students to invest in their education, or the kinds of people that college graduates become, there is a well-developed body of literature waiting to guide our efforts.

    My first-year seminar includes an end-of-the-semester Saturday retreat. A local museum hosts the event. We take a tour in the morning, then students give presentations throughout the afternoon. The day represents more than just another class meeting. It’s a celebration. We make it a potluck, and the table we use features an impressive array of dishes: snacks, desserts, salads and crocks full of chili and soup.

    This past year, at the end of the day, I stood at the table with three students as we were preparing to leave. I happened to point out that half of the contributions brought to the potluck were handmade. The others were store-bought. The handmade dishes were nearly gone, while the efficiently prepared, mass-produced cookies and salads still sat in their plastic containers.

    One of the students said, “Hmm.” Then she added, “It’s not just ingredients on a table.” She went on, “How is something made? Who makes it? What kind of time do they spend?” She said, “That stuff matters.”

    I smiled and told her I agreed.

    Chad Hanson serves as a member of the faculty in sociology and religion at Casper College in Wyoming.

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  • The first multi-university group arrives

    The first multi-university group arrives

    The University of Greenwich and the University of Kent have this morning announced the intention to form a multi-university group.

    The aim is for the London and South East University Group – as it’s provisionally to be known, though this will be subject to consultation – to be established in time for the 2026–27 academic year.

    The plan on the student-facing side is for each university’s identity to be preserved – with applications, and degree awards, kept separate – behind the scenes, the “super-university” (as the press release puts it) will have a unified governing body, academic board, and executive team, and a single vice chancellor: Greenwich’s Jane Harrington. Staff at both universities are expected to transfer across to the newly merged university – legally, there will be one entity, but the two “brands” will still exist as trading arms.

    Merger by numbers

    Going by 2023–24 student numbers, the new “super-university” would have 46,885 registered students (29,695 at Greenwich, 17,190 at Kent), around the same size as the University of Manchester. It would employ 2,550 academic staff (currently 1,245 at Greenwich, 1,305 at Kent), roughly equivalent in size to Manchester Metropolitan University.

    It would offer, based on the current UCAS database, an astonishing 442 full time undergraduate courses (281 at Greenwich, 171 at Kent) – 70  more than the University of Manchester. A glance across portfolios sees some interesting congruences. Kent has a medical school, Greenwich has a nursing school and a teacher training offer. Both are strong in law, computer science, business, engineering, and psychology. Greenwich has more of an offer in the arts and tourism, Kent in the hard sciences.

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    The University of Kent has an established reputation for research in social policy and social work, and in law – although the largest single concentration of research active staff is in business and management studies. Greenwich also has a research concentration in business, but overall it has a less strong research portfolio.

    Financially speaking, we’re talking about a “super-university” with nearly £598m of income (Greenwich £329m, Kent £268m): that’s a little less than Newcastle University. Expenditure of £569m (Greenwich £302m, Kent £266m) is in the University of Warwick ballpark.

    While there have been a number of recent higher education mergers – ARU with Writtle, and City St George’s, in particular – the size and scale, along with the much-anticipated deployment of a multi-university model for the first time, mark this news as something of a watershed moment for the English sector.

    Universities UK’s efficiency and transformation taskforce has been for some time highlighting the sector’s interest in something comparable to multi-academy trust structures in schools – while also noting the “relatively limited experience” that the sector possesses in navigating such arrangements. This is about to change – the two universities’ description of the intended union as “a blueprint for other institutions to follow” is likely prescient.

    Two become one

    We might also note here that such a model is by no means limited to only two universities operating under one umbrella. The conversations behind the scenes over the last couple of years have been for groups spanning multiple universities and it’s not hard to see how others in the region might want to – or somehow be compelled to – join this group once it’s up and running. Starting with two, however, is a logical choice given the scale and complexity of that exercise alone. The government will be watching closely and hoping it works, so that they can propose the model elsewhere, particularly if it staves off the risk of institutional failure. Local politicians will also be watching closely as a potentially massive new institution emerges, which could have far-reaching local consequences for better and worse.

    One of the eye-catching aspects of today’s announcement is that of leadership – it has already been settled that there is to be one vice chancellor, one board and one senior team. Most mergers and collaborations in HE in recent times have failed before they have even started because of disagreement about which person should sit in the big chair. Being able to embrace this merger process free of that thorny question gives the exercise a much greater chance of success from the outset.

    Of course, collaboration between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent is not new. Since 2004 the two universities have jointly run the Medway School of Pharmacy in Chatham Dockyard, a joint endeavour that has grown into a multi-disciplinary campus shared between the Greenwich, Kent, and Canterbury Christ Church University. These two decades of practical experience will be an invaluable resource to draw on as these plans move closer to implementation.

    Just the beginning?

    Aside from the potential for other institutions to join the group, the announcement is clearly the start of a long-term process. Despite staff and students coming together into the newly merged university, student pathways and decision-making processes will inevitably be tied to the old institutions and subject areas – and this is difficult to change midstream. If the merger is successful, then these identities could eventually end up disappearing or at least moving to the background, as natural opportunities for integration and efficiencies are sought to be realised by the board and leadership team.

    Such talk will no doubt be unsettling for staff at both Kent and Greenwich, who will wonder for how long their jobs will be needed, particularly where they have a like-for-like counterpart on the other side. The consultations about their futures will need to be thorough and sensitive.

    And enormous questions of REF submissions, TEF awards, data, DAPs and more will now also need to be worked through.

    For now we watch as a new institution takes shape.

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  • The leadership challenges embedded in the 2025 OECD report, Education at a Glance

    The leadership challenges embedded in the 2025 OECD report, Education at a Glance

    • Yesterday, HEPI and Cambridge University Press and Assessment jointly hosted the UK launch of the OECD’s Education at a Glance. You can see the OECD’s slides here.
    • Here we publish a response to the OECD from Professor Sir Chris Husbands, who is a former Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University and also former Chair of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Panel. Chris is a Trustee of HEPI and spoke at the launch.

    There is one line in the 2025 OECD Education at a Glance report which should be in bright flashing lights for this and all governments. The supporting data is on page 112 of the main report. It is this: Individuals with greater educational attainment generally face a lower risk of unemployment and earn higher wages. Race, gender, deprivation, place, subjects studied all impact outcomes in different ways, but the overall conclusion is clear, and in his HEPI briefing on the report, the OECD’s chief analyst Andreas Schleicher got the summary down to just two words: education pays.

    The 2025 OECD Education at a Glance report comes in at 541 pages, and the annual appearance of the report has made it the definitive guide to education system performance and policy dynamics all around the world: in the now familiar graphs of compelling clarity, and crisp text judgements, the OECD team have made themselves indispensable to institutional leaders, policy analysts and decision makers.

    This year’s report has a specific focus on tertiary education, which in OECD terms includes, but stretches a bit further than, higher education. There are some familiar and unsurprising themes in the 2025 report, but they are nonetheless important for being set out so clearly. A few key findings stood out for me, all of them speaking clearly to the English and UK policy agendas.

    First, advantages are inherited: those who have at least one tertiary-educated parent are more than twice as likely to attain a tertiary qualification than those whose parents have below upper secondary attainment, though the gap is smaller in the UK than elsewhere (p.56).

    Secondly, life is getting tougher for those without qualifications: the employment rate for young adults without upper secondary qualifications fell by 6 points since 2019, and by 9 points for men (pp.82-3).

    Thirdly, at the same it’s getting better for the better qualified: the nearly one-in-six with a Master’s degree have higher employment rates and earnings than those with an undergraduate degree (p48).

    Fourthly, education is losing the battle for public funding as the costs of health, pensions and defence rise: between 2015 and 2022, government spending on education declined from nearly 11% of budgets to just over 10% (p.278).

    And fifthly, despite that decline, R&D is strengthening to drive growth and competitiveness. Where it is highest, government drives it: in the UK, Israel and Switzerland, government R&D expenditure is more than twice private expenditure (p.329).

    There is more fine-grained analysis about English higher education. England, on the OECD data, is an outlier in important respects.

    First: English HE is well-funded by comparison with the OECD, whatever it feels like in the sector just now.  The finding is important: total tertiary expenditure per student, including R&D, is $35,000, among the highest in the OECD and 65% above the average (p.327). 

    Secondly, however, in the UK government tertiary expenditure is $8,000, 48% below the OECD average (p.331). This is a result of high tuition fees:  undergraduate fees are three times the OECD average.

    The third way in which England is an outlier is that access to higher education and completion rates within it are high – fourteen percentage points above the OECD average (p.246): access to higher education is far more a consequence of maintenance support than fee levels, but high fee levels almost certainly disincentivise non-completion. Finally, while there is a gap between economic returns to science and technology disciplines on the one hand and arts and humanities on the other in all OECD countries, the gap is much higher in the UK than in almost all other countries (p.111). 

    Putting all this together poses some knotty challenges. England has a successful, relatively accessible higher education system, but one which is very expensive when budgets for education are getting tighter. And this is happening when the economic returns to high levels of qualification are strengthening: masters and doctoral graduates enjoy higher returns than those with undergraduate degrees, while the least qualified face more intense difficulties. These challenges go beyond the voluminous data in Education at a Glance.

    First, and painful for English higher education, the challenge is not simply the level of current funding, but funding in relation to what is a high-cost operating and delivery model. That model secures strong results in terms of access for disadvantaged students and high completion rates, but it is relatively inflexible. It’s unclear whether a lower-cost and potentially more flexible operating model would put some of the successes of the English system at risk.

    Secondly, it is the economic, social and increasingly political costs of the plight of the lowest attaining young people, and especially young males without qualifications, which is attracting political attention. If money is tight, it’s more likely to go towards that problem, and the London government’s decision to move skills funding into the Department of Work and Pensions appears to be a signal of intent.

    These are the leadership challenges which emerge from this year’s report: how to reshape our successful HE system so that its strengths remain, but it can be more responsive and flexible. It needs to adapt to a changing labour market and to a society in which division and inequality are being reinforced with greater ferocity.

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  • How To Teach With AI Transparency Statements – Faculty Focus

    How To Teach With AI Transparency Statements – Faculty Focus

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  • Senators ask VCs to justify $1m salaries – Campus Review

    Senators ask VCs to justify $1m salaries – Campus Review

    An Inquiry into the quality of university governance has asked the vice-chancellors of universities who are cutting staff why they are paid up to $1 million per year.

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  • What Australia can learn from UK unis – Campus Review

    What Australia can learn from UK unis – Campus Review

    It’s not often we get invited to deep dive into the workings of other universities, even less so when they’re on the other side of the world.

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  • UTS defends decision to cut courses – Campus Review

    UTS defends decision to cut courses – Campus Review

    The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has given evidence to a federal senate inquiry that probed how cutting education and public health courses aligns with its public mission.

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  • Academic coaching is data-driven support for students in the dark

    Academic coaching is data-driven support for students in the dark

    Universities offer a wide range of support to students – lecturers’ office hours, personal tutors, study skills advisors, peer-mentoring officers, mental health and wellbeing specialists, and more.

    But even with these services in place, some students still feel they are falling through the cracks.

    Why? One of the most common pieces of student feedback might offer a clue – “I wish I had known you and come to you earlier”.

    Within the existing system, most forms of support rely on students to take the first step – to reach out, refer themselves, or report a problem.

    But not all students can or will: some are unsure who to turn to, others worry about being judged, and many feel too overwhelmed to even begin. These are the students who often disappear from view – not because support does not exist, but because they cannot access it in time.

    Meanwhile, academics are stretched thin by competing research and teaching demands, and support teams – brilliant though they are – can only respond once a student enters this enquiry-response support system.

    Systematic support that requires courage

    As a result, students struggling silently often go unnoticed: for those “students in the dark”, there is often no obvious red flag for support services to act on until it is too late.

    NSS data in recent years reveal a clear pattern of student dissatisfaction with support around feedback and independent study, indicating a growing concern and demand for help outside the classroom.

    While the existing framework works well for those confident and proactive students, without more inclusive and personalised mechanisms in place, we risk missing the very group who would benefit most from early, student-centred support.

    This is where academic coaching comes in. One of its most distinctive features is that it uses data not as an outcome, but as a starting point. At Buckinghamshire New University, Academic Coaches work with an ecosystem of live data – attendance patterns, assessment outcomes, and engagement time with the VLE – collaborating closely with data intelligence and student experience teams to turn these signals into timely action.

    While our academic coaching model is still in its early phase, we have developed simulated student personae based on common disengagement patterns and feedback from colleagues. These hypothetical profiles help us shape our early intervention strategies and continuously polish our academic coaching model.

    For example, “Joseph”, a first-year undergraduate (level 4) commuter student, stops logging into the VLE midway through the term. Their engagement drops from above cohort average to zero and stays that way for a week. In the current system, this might pass unnoticed.

    But through live data monitoring, we can spot this shift and reach out – not to reprimand but to check in with empathy. Having been through the student years, many of us know, and even still remember, what it is like to feel overwhelmed, isolated, or simply lost in a new environment. The academic coaching model allows us to offer a gentle point of re-entry with either academic or pastoral support.

    One thing to clarify – data alone does not diagnose the problem – but it does help identify when something has changed. It flags patterns that suggest a student might be struggling silently, giving us the opportunity to intervene before there is a formal cause for concern. From there, we Academic Coaches reach out with an attentive touch: not with a warning, but with an invitation.

    This is what makes the model both scalable and targeted. Instead of waiting for students to self-refer or relying on word of mouth, we can direct time and support where it is likely to matter most – early, quietly, and personally.

    Most importantly, academic coaching does not reduce students to data points. It uses data to ask the right questions and to guide an appropriate response. Why has this student disengaged? Perhaps something in their life has changed.

    Our role is to notice this change and offer timely and empathetic support, or simply a listening ear, before the struggle becomes overwhelming. It is a model that recognises the earlier we notice and act, the greater the impact will be. Sometimes, the most effective student support begins not with a request, but with a well-timed email in the student’s inbox.

    Firefighting? Future-proofing

    The academic coaching model is not just about individual students – it is about rethinking how this sector approaches student support at a time of mounting pressure. As UK higher education institutions face financial constraints, rising demand, and increasing complexity in students’ needs, academic coaching offers a student-centred and cost-effective intervention.

    It does not replace personal tutors or other academic or wellbeing services – instead, it complements them by stepping in earlier and guiding students toward appropriate support before a crisis hits.

    This model also helps relieve pressure on overstretched academic staff by providing a clearly defined, short-term role focused on proactive engagement – shifting the approach from reactive firefighting to preventative care.

    Fundamentally, academic coaching addresses a structural gap: some students start their university life already at a disadvantage – unsure how to fit into this new learning environment or make use of available support services to become independent learners – and the current system often makes it harder for them to catch up.

    While the existing framework tends to favour confident and well-connected students, academic coaching helps rebalance the system by creating a more equitable pathway into support – one that is data-driven yet recognises and respects each student’s uniqueness. In a sector that urgently needs to do more with less, academic coaching is not just a compassionate gesture, but a future-facing venture.

    That said, academic coaching is not a silver bullet and it will not solve every problem or reach every student. From our discussions with colleagues and institutional counterparts, one of the biggest challenges identified – after using data to flag students – is actually getting them on board with the conversation.

    Like all interventions, academic coaching needs proper investment, training, interdepartmental cooperation, clear role boundaries, and a scalable framework for evaluating impact.

    But it is a timely, student-centred response to a gap that traditional structures often miss – a role designed to notice what is not being said, to act on early warning signs, and to offer students a safe place to re-engage.

    As resources tighten and expectations grow, university leadership must invest in smarter, more sensible forms of support. Academic coaching offers not just an added layer – it is a reimagining of how we gently guide students back on track before they drift too far from it.

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  • Virginia Democrats Accuse GMU Rector of Conflict of Interest

    Virginia Democrats Accuse GMU Rector of Conflict of Interest

    George Mason University is facing multiple investigations related to its diversity, equity and inclusion practices, which the Trump administration has said violate federal civil rights laws.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Robert Knopes/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images | Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post/Getty Images

    Virginia Democrats want George Mason University board rector Charles Stimson to recuse himself from federal investigations into the university as well as discussions about the university president’s future, saying that his role at the Heritage Foundation, which recently released a report critical of GMU, presents a conflict of interest.

    The letter comes almost two weeks after a state Senate committee blocked 14 gubernatorial appointments to university boards, including six at GMU, which left the Board of Visitors without a quorum. The letter also follows the Heritage report that accused GMU of attempting to hide diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Stimson has had several jobs at Heritage, where he’s currently deputy director of the organization’s legal and judicial studies center.

    The Trump administration has accused GMU of engaging in discriminatory hiring practices and implementing “unlawful DEI policies” and has opened several investigations into the university.

    However, GMU president Gregory Washington has stood his ground, arguing that the federal government rushed the investigation and disputing its findings while rejecting calls to personally apologize. Now, as GMU’s Board of Visitors is stuck without a quorum while a legal challenge over the appointments plays out, state Democrats are seeking to neutralize Stimson in his role as rector.

    A Call for Recusal

    Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell and other top Democrats in the Senate, L. Louise Lucas and Mamie E. Locke, specifically took issue with the Heritage report’s call to “withhold federal taxpayer funds from universities that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” which the Education Department accused GMU of doing. State Democrats argued that Stimson’s employer is essentially seeking to harm the university.

    “This creates an untenable ethical conflict where your employer’s published position is diametrically opposed to your duties as Rector,” the lawmakers wrote to Stimson.

    (Stimson is one of multiple university board members appointed by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin with distinctly right-wing profiles, including some with ties to conservative think tanks, the Trump administration, GOP megadonors and former Republican politicians, Inside Higher Ed found earlier this year.)

    State Democrats also raised concerns over how he became rector.

    “The appearance of impropriety is compounded by the fact that your selection as Rector reportedly occurred only after direct intervention by Governor Youngkin, raising questions about whether your Heritage Foundation affiliation influenced that appointment,” the Democrats wrote.

    Given what they view as a conflict of interest, the three Democratic leaders called on Stimson to recuse himself “from all Board of Visitors deliberations, discussions, and votes” involving Washington’s employment status or performance evaluations, GMU responses to federal DEI investigations or compliance concerns, GMU funding strategies and university DEI policies.

    “If you cannot commit to this recusal, I believe the appropriate course would be your resignation as Rector to eliminate this conflict entirely,” Surovell and the other Democrats wrote to Stimson while calling on him to respond “outlining the specific steps you will take to address this conflict.”

    Neither GMU officials nor Stimson responded to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    Youngkin accused Democrats of trying to undermine university boards.

    “Virginia’s progressive left elected officials are trying to paralyze the governing boards of Virginia’s colleges and universities by using despicable bullying and intimidation tactics,” Youngkin wrote in a post on X.

    Faculty Support

    As Washington, GMU’s first Black president, has found himself in the Trump administration’s cross hairs and fighting back, board support has been a constant question. Rumors of Washington’s expected firing swirled in July, but the Board of Visitors kept him on the job.

    George Mason faculty have also rallied around the embattled president, with dozens of professors, students and others protesting outside the July meeting. GMU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors applauded the senators’ letter on Tuesday.

    “We believe that Mr. Stimson has failed to fulfill his fiduciary duties and has repeatedly exceeded his proper authority as Rector of the Board of Visitors. His conflicting leadership role at the Heritage Foundation and his repeated attempts to overreach his authority threaten the foundation of Virginia’s largest public university, endangering its governance, stability, and future,” the GMU-AAUP Executive Committee wrote in an email to members.

    The local AAUP chapter struck a sharper tone than Virginia’s Senate leadership, alleging that Stimson has “usurped GMU President Gregory Washington’s authority to manage the university’s responses to federal investigations, contrary to the president’s delegated authority established in the [Board of Visitors’] Bylaws.”

    GMU-AAUP also echoed the call for Stimson to recuse himself from certain board duties.

    “If Rector Stimson cannot commit to this recusal, we join Senators Surovell, Lucas, and Locke in calling for his resignation as Rector to eliminate this conflict entirely,” the organization wrote. “The independence, integrity, and future of George Mason University depend on nothing less.”

    The group previously voted no confidence in the Board of Visitors in July.

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  • Scholarship, Not Ideology, Guides Civics Curricula

    Scholarship, Not Ideology, Guides Civics Curricula

    To the editor,

    I write in response to Ryan Quinn’s recent article (“The Battle for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’” Sept. 2, 2025) on the new civic center at Utah State University, which mandates general education courses on Western civilization. In his words: “Utah’s Legislature created a civic center at Utah State University committed to ‘viewpoint diversity and civil discourse’ … Those courses must include three that engage with ‘primary texts predominantly from Western civilization,’ such as ancient Israel, Greece or early Christianity. There’s no mention of Islam.”

    Well, there’s no mention of Shintoism, Confucianism or Buddhism, either, but I fail to see what’s puzzling about excluding Islam from a “Western civilization” curriculum. Islam’s primary texts played no part in the political construction of the West. Quinn’s implied request is analogous to demanding that a curriculum devoted to Aztec or Inca civilization include the Bible simply because Spain invaded, conquered, subjugated and colonized those societies. 

    As a matter of civics, the distinction between the Islamic world and the West is foundational and elementary. It is recognized historically and intellectually by all who have studied the West’s construction.

    Most Americans—and by extension, our education systems—naturally focus on their own historical and cultural heritage. We’re in the United States; courses here typically reflect what shaped this nation: Greco-Roman republicanism, state Christianity and Enlightenment ideals. People are curious how and why our country got to where it is. If we taught in Iran, China or elsewhere, the focus would reflect their heritage—not ours.

    This isn’t a value judgment. It’s just a fact. As odd as it sounds, the United States was conceived as a reactivation of the Roman Republic 1,800 years after it came to an abrupt halt. The Founders live action role played as ancient Romans in their writings. It’s strange, but that’s precisely why it fascinates students. So these texts are not political baggage; they’re intriguing questions of origin and identity.

     The question here isn’t moral judgment or wishful thinking. It’s scholarly clarity. Let’s demand substance, not ideology.

    Mike Fontaine is a professor of classics at Cornell University.

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