Tag: Events

AI Can Facilitate Mastery Learning in Higher Education
Learning in contemporary higher education is rooted deeply in calendars and time rather than mastery of the topic of the learning. With an inflexible semester or quarter calendar and an often-inflexible schedule and length of meeting times, learners are marched through the system in the orderly method of an assembly line.

As long as I have taught at the university level, beginning in the early 1970s, I have questioned this approach that puts time scheduling ahead of depth of learning. It seems to put teaching schedules ahead of learning outcomes. I must confess that over the decades, I have been an easy touch for an incomplete for a student who encountered some unforeseen life disruption or simply took on more than she or he could handle during the semester. My philosophy has been and still is that what is learned is more important than whether it was accomplished in eight weeks, 16 weeks or even longer.

I am not alone in that view. Back in the 1960s, one of learning’s highly recognized scholars, Benjamin Bloom, probed this very issue: “Bloom’s Learning for Mastery (LFM) strategy evolved and was later on implemented in primary and secondary school settings.” Meanwhile, psychologist Fred Keller developed his Personalized System of Instruction focused on five key principles:
Students should be allowed to work at their own pace.

Students should achieve at least 90 percent accuracy on the assessment before moving to the next lesson.

Lessons should be considered as “vehicles of motivation.”

Teachers and students should consider using written communication in textbooks and study guides.

Teachers and students should get closer through repeated testing, immediate scoring, continuous tutoring and progress tracking.
These five principles cannot be easily integrated into classes that march forward with a rigid class calendar based on three 50-minute class meetings for 15 weeks! However, recent technological developments have opened the door to reinventing higher education from the assembly-line model to an online, asynchronous, tutor-enhanced, mastery-based learning model.

To understand the differences between traditional teaching and mastery learning, one can best describe that our current practices place an emphasis on time-based teaching, while in mastery learning, the emphasis is, as the name suggests, on learning. Note that in Keller’s PSI approach, the goal is 90 percent or better learning as evidenced through frequent assessments required to move forward to the next module in the class.

The PSI stresses personalized scaffolding of learning and evidence of mastery throughout the course, whereas our current common mode of delivery views the class as a whole rather than recognizing differences in background and learning by individuals. Inevitably, the current approach penalizes students for unintended, unrecognized shortcomings in understanding caused by any of a number of circumstances, such as prior knowledge deficits in some aspect of that which they are studying, poorly taught prerequisite or assumed previously taken classes, unanticipated life interventions, or some other inability to learn essential class concepts that had not been anticipated in the development and design of the class.

If, instead, we were to create personalized learning intervention opportunities at every step of the way that are designed to be responsive to the needs of individual learners on a minimum of learning 90 percent of every module, we could ensure a minimum of mastery of 90 percent of the materials in every class.

Artificial intelligence employed in an asynchronous or blended online class opens the pathway to mastery learning. An instructor can experiment with this process by folding this prompt into one or two modules of a class. Released by There’s an AI for That (TAAFT) it is a free and openly available prompt that can be inserted into any of the major frontier models, such as Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude. Titled Precision Learning Companion, the prompt is introduced:

“This prompt turns AI into an ultra-detailed, dynamic personal tutor that doesn’t just quiz, it teaches deeply, layer by layer, until the user genuinely masters the material. It’s built to adapt in real time, constantly diagnosing knowledge gaps, and never moving forward without full comprehension. Every answer, right or wrong, triggers a structured, narrative-style breakdown explaining the what, why, how, and broader context, ensuring true understanding. The AI is designed to feel like having a supportive but meticulous mentor who scaffolds learning: progressively challenging the user if they perform well, slowing down and simplifying if they struggle, and always reinforcing psychological safety through encouragement. It uses textually described visual aids, memory tricks, real-world examples, and step-by-step remediation when needed. Mastery, not speed, is the goal.”

I encourage readers to test this out, to examine more closely the impact of using AI to deliver learning opportunities. It took me less than two minutes to get my module up and running:
1. I copied and pasted the page-long prompt from the TAAFT.Notion site into Claude 4 for test purposes and pressed enter.
2. I entered the topic as “human eye anatomy” (of course you can enter any topic that you might cover in a week or so in your current class schedule).
3. I was then launched into a congenial conversation with the AI module that probed deeply into my knowledge of the topic in a pleasant and reinforcing way.
4. I must admit that I was so engaged that I didn’t stop for more than an hour.
You can begin by testing it on yourself and perhaps a colleague, teaching assistant or another willing participant. Choose a relevant topic. I chose “physiology of the human eye,” which was a basic module in all of the many Communication Technology classes I offered. I found the AI module to be accurate, comprehensive, reinforcing and clear. If you find that it shows promise, you might choose to use it in one of your classes. Invite your instructional designer to join in a discussion of how this might best be used in your classes. Note how it personalizes instruction for learners by sharing additional information, readings and related learning opportunities to backfill areas that learners who may be deficient in background and need context to relate to the course. You can ask learners to share a copy of the exchanges. They may also share brief reactions on the quality and usefulness of the interaction with AI.

Over time, with the help of your instructional designer, you may want to go fully into mastery learning, ensuring that every student in your classes masters the material at a 90 percent level. In some cases, you may need to be flexible with offering incompletes to provide time for those who need to complete the additional material triggered by submission of wrong answers.

I always had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach when I submitted a C, D or F as a final grade. I felt that I had failed my student. However, I had a full classroom and there was not enough time or opportunity to provide individualized attention to each student. Perhaps the new generation of university instructors who partner with AI assistants will enjoy the confidence that all their learners will master the topic of the class with the help of AI. No learner will be left behind, and none will be victims of the assembly-line model of teaching in higher education.
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August 20, 2025
More Barriers on the Horizon for International Students

The potential policy changes could give international students another hoop to jump through, further burdening consulates and embassies.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | tarras79/iStock/Getty Images

The Trump administration is planning to limit how long international students can remain in the U.S., likely mirroring a plan proposed at the end of Trump’s first term with the same name, advocacy groups and immigration attorneys say.

The regulations are expected to replace “duration of status,” a 1991 rule that allows international students to remain in the country as long as they are enrolled at a college or university. In 2020, the administration proposed limiting that time to just four years—a period shorter than most Ph.D. programs and shorter than the average student takes to complete a bachelor’s degree—though it would have allowed students to apply for extensions. Students from certain countries, including those the administration said were state sponsors of terrorism and those with high overstay rates, would have been afforded just two years.

That rule was withdrawn after President Joe Biden entered office. But the Trump administration is poised to propose it once again, based on a submission to the Office of Management and Budget. The Department of Homeland Security has yet to release details about the potential change, but a pending rule change with the same name as the 2020 proposal was sent to OMB in late June and approved Aug. 7. However, according to OMB’s website, the rule is now under review once again for unknown reasons. Neither OMB nor DHS responded to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment. Until OMB signs off, DHS can’t publicly release the plan and take public comments.

The anticipated proposal comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on international students, which included the sudden and unexplained terminations of students’ records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System, the database that tracks international students, in March and April. The administration has also taken steps to make it more difficult for prospective students to receive F-1 visas, including reviewing all applicants’ social media profiles.

Incoming international students, meanwhile, are struggling with long delays for visa interviews as a result of federal layoffs and a pause in student visa appointments this spring, leading to concerns that international enrollment could drop this fall semester. Changing duration of status, advocates say, would only gum up the works even more, giving international students another hoop to jump through and further burdening consulates and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“This is not just one particular proposed rule or change in policy; it fits within a number of policy changes that we’ve experienced throughout the past eight months that the administration has been in control,” said Jill Allen Murray, deputy executive director for public policy at NAFSA, the association for international education professionals. “Many of those interact with each other and make it much more difficult for international students to take the steps that are necessary to come to the United States and study, and this would be yet another challenge for students.”

A ‘Regulated Population’

Why is the administration looking to eliminate duration of stay? If its reasoning is the same as in 2020, it is aiming to reduce fraud and visa overstays.

International students are indeed one of very few nonimmigrant categories allowed to stay in the U.S. indefinitely, giving them special flexibility so they can finish their studies. But Samira Pardanani, associate vice president of international education and global engagement at Shoreline College, argued that doesn’t mean there’s any reason to believe duration of status leads students to be more likely to overstay.

“This is a very, very regulated population … there’s a lot of follow-up schools do with regards to helping students maintain their status, and there are a lot of record-keeping and reporting requirements for schools,” Pardanani said. “Duration of status is something that has been, in my opinion, working well.”

Murray also noted that the F-1 visa overstay rate reported by the government is not necessarily reliable, by DHS’s own admission.

Another policy aimed at streamlining the visa process for nonimmigrant visitors, including international students, is also on the chopping block. On Sept. 2, the Trump administration will end interview waivers for many nonimmigrant groups, including international students. Those waivers, which started during the COVID-19 pandemic, allow certain individuals whose visas have expired but who have maintained their lawful nonimmigrant status to renew their visas without an in-person consular interview.

The duration of a visa depends on the country and can range from a few months to several years. Thanks to interview waivers, an international Ph.D. student whose visa had expired could visit home in the summer, easily renew their visa without an in-person appointment and return the next semester without issue. But now, they would have to return to the consulate in their country even for a routine visa renewal.

Pardanani said she did not think the elimination of interview waivers was inherently problematic, but “right now, when there’s already a lot of visa backlogs and students are not getting visa appointments … it’s going to have a deeper impact in students and on universities and colleges.”

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August 20, 2025
No One Is Gaslighting You

In response to my column last week about “the myth of antisemitism at Harvard,” I received an email claiming, “Your argument is deeply antisemitic and morally bankrupt,” and adding, “Accusing victims of fabricating their own abuse to serve hidden agenda [sic] is gaslighting.”

When I call antisemitism a “myth” at Harvard, I’m not denying the real, terrible experiences some people have. The myth of antisemitism—like the “Myth of Political Correctness” I wrote about decades ago—means that the bigger stories told are often based on real incidents but still promote a false, simplistic narrative. There are too many real cases of antisemitism, just as there are too many real cases of anti-Palestinian or Islamophobic bias. But universities are not guilty of antisemitic discrimination if they allow free expression of hateful ideas.

However, I don’t want to repeat my arguments about what institutional discrimination means and why Harvard isn’t guilty of it. Instead, I want to focus on the common abuse of the term “gaslighting” to denounce our enemies.

The truth is, no one is gaslighting anybody. No one is trying to drive you crazy with lies. No one cares enough about you to do that. And the more we see “gaslighting” everywhere around us, the weaker our intellectual arguments will become.

“Gaslighting” is a term that comes from the world of fiction. It’s a fantasy—first a play in 1938 by British playwright Patrick Hamilton, then two movies in the early 1940s. The Victorian-era plot of Gaslight involves an evil husband trying to steal from his wife (Ingrid Bergman) by driving her crazy—dimming the gas lights and denying that anything is wrong.

The term “gaslight” was fairly obscure until the 2010s, but it exploded in popularity, becoming Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2022 and a popular word for a culture swimming in conspiracy theories. When you gaslight, you’re not just getting debatable facts wrong. You’re not even intentionally lying to win an argument. No, gaslighting refers to someone who is trolling us, telling an outlandish lie so outrageous that it’s designed to drive us crazy.

“Gaslighting” is a term that turns us all into villains or victims and discourages intellectual discourse. The concept of gaslighting also encourages people to hide in their ideological silos. After all, if a gaslighter is just trying to drive you crazy with lies, the solution is to refuse to listen to them. Any engagement with a gaslighter is giving them what they want.

Gaslighting is also an outgrowth of our therapeutic culture, using this term for interpersonal psychological manipulation to describe intellectual debates. But it has a destructive impact when translated to universities and intellectual life.

So is gaslighting ever real? Perhaps the most famous example of gaslighting theory is what Steve Bannon once admitted: “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” But even Bannon’s technique falls short of gaslighting. Bannon ultimately doesn’t care if he drives liberals crazy (even if he enjoys it)—he’s adapting an old tactic of competitive debate where you make so many claims that you win because your opponent can’t respond to every one of them. Overloading a media system of fact-checking with an endless parade of lies has become a key technique of Donald Trump’s presidency. But the goal is distraction, not gaslighting. The true target is the gullible mark in the middle who can be manipulated, not the progressive who is driven crazy by watching reality denied on a daily basis as democracy dims.

Our intellectual discussions will suffer when we assume that everyone we encounter is a political hack like Bannon, intent on lying to win. When we insult our critics rather than engaging with their arguments, everybody suffers.

When we imagine gaslighting behind every argument, we begin to develop the same sense of paranoia as Ingrid Bergman’s character. Debates are no longer sincere exchanges of ideas, but battles with gaslighting enemies who want to destroy you. When someone is out to get you, paranoia is an understandable response. In intellectual debates, the paranoia of seeing gaslighting everywhere has a deeply corrosive effect.

Using the term “gaslighting” is an extreme type of ad hominem argument. Instead of refuting claims, you dismiss your opponent as intentionally lying for purely evil motives. It’s time for us to stop dismissing our opponents for “gaslighting” and to start engaging with and analyzing the merits of their arguments.

John K. Wilson was a 2019–20 fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and is the author of eight books, including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies (Routledge, 2008), and his forthcoming book The Attack on Academia. He can be reached at [email protected], or letters to the editor can be sent to [email protected].

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August 20, 2025
ED Clamps Down on Student Voting Work

Students at the University of Pittsburgh participated in 2024 election activities.

Aaron Jackendoff/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Department of Education released guidance Tuesday discouraging colleges from using Federal Work-Study funds to pay students to work on voter registration efforts and other activities it deems political.

The department announced the change to work study provisions in a Dear Colleague letter signed by acting assistant ED secretary Christopher McCaghren.

“Jobs involving partisan or nonpartisan voter registration, voter assistance at a polling place or through a voter hotline, or serving as a poll worker—whether this takes place on or off campus—involve political activity because these activities support the process of voting which is a quintessential political activity whereby voters formally support partisan or nonpartisan political candidates by casting ballots,” McCaghren wrote.

He emphasized in the letter that ED “encourages institutions to employ students in jobs that align with real-world work experience related to a student’s course of study whenever possible.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon echoed that sentiment in a Tuesday social media post, writing that the department is “done funding political activism on college campuses!” She added, “Under the Trump Administration, taxpayer dollars will be used to prepare students for the workforce.”

McCaghren’s letter also warned colleges about “aiding and abetting voter fraud.”

While institutions are required to make a “good faith effort to distribute voter registration forms to students,” they should refrain from distributing such materials to students they believe are ineligible to vote in state or federal elections, according to the letter.

The move comes as President Donald Trump has announced plans to overhaul how elections are conducted before the upcoming midterms next year, including barring certain voting machines and mail-in voting, though he does not have the authority to make such changes.

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August 19, 2025
Why Revenue Sharing Is a Bad Deal (opinion)

For many decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association preserved student athletes’ amateur status by prohibiting their ability to profit off their name, image or likeness (NIL). As a former Division I compliance coordinator, I often felt the NCAA’s amateurism policies went too far—denying student athletes the right to earn money like other college students, such as by running their own sports camps.

But now the courts have turned the NCAA’s concept of amateurism on its head with the approval in June of a $2.8 billion athlete compensation settlement, which will be shared by student athletes who previously missed out on the opportunity to make money from their NIL. This historic deal between Division I athletes, the NCAA and the Division I Power 5 conferences—the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC—has also made revenue sharing with current student athletes a reality.

Athletes at top football and basketball programs may be celebrating this financial victory, which allows institutions to share up to $20.5 million each year with student athletes—money generated from media, tickets, concessions and donations.

But many coaches who recruit them—along with professors like me, who teach them—believe that paying college athletes for their athletic ability will hurt college sports. That’s because doing so professionalizes college athletes in a way that hurts other students and sports over all and compromises the institution’s academic mission.

And while some student athletes stand to benefit from the new system, most won’t. Many universities will use the 75-15-5-5 model, meaning that 75 percent of the revenue would be distributed to football, 15 percent to men’s basketball, 5 percent to women’s basketball and 5 percent to all other sports.

Paying players will also change the spirit of college sports. Although the concept of amateurism has been a joke in college athletics for a long time—particularly in revenue-generating sports—a pay-for-play system would further move the emphasis away from educational goals and toward commercial ones. As one big-time head football coach described it to me, “As soon as you start paying a player, they become in some ways their [university’s] employees. It’s not amateurism anymore.”

On many campuses, a separation already exists between student athletes and nonathletes, which some believe is due to student athletes’ perceived privilege. According to one Division I women’s basketball coach I spoke to, implementing revenue sharing will only increase that divide. Student athletes receiving five- or six-figure salaries to play for their institutions will be incentivized to devote more time to their sport, leaving less time to engage in the campus community and further diluting the purpose of college as an incubator for personal and intellectual growth.

There’s also a possibility, one coach told me, that colleges will shrink staff and “avoid facility upgrades in order to fund revenue share,” putting off improvements to gyms or playing fields, for instance. At some institutions, funding the revenue-sharing plan will undoubtedly lead to cuts in Olympic and nonrevenue sports like swimming and track.

What’s more, it remains unclear how revenue-sharing plans will impact gender equity, because revenue distribution may not count as financial aid for Title IX purposes. Since 1972, Title IX has ensured equal opportunities for female student athletes that includes proportionate funding for their college athletic programs. If NIL payments from colleges are not subject to Title IX scrutiny, athletic departments will be allowed to direct all revenue generated from media rights, tickets and donations to their football and men’s basketball programs. As one Division I women’s basketball coach put it to me, “We are widening the gap between men and women athletes.”

To be sure, the college sports system is problematic; as scholars have pointed out, it exploits student athletes for their athletic talent while coaches and athletic leaders reap the benefits. But creating professional athletes within educational institutions is not the answer.

Instead, I propose that all student athletes participate in collective bargaining before being required to sign employment-type contracts that waive their NIL rights in exchange for a share of the revenue.

Collective bargaining would ensure that student athletes are guaranteed specific commitments by their institutions to safeguard their academic success, holistic development and well-being. These could include approved time off from their sport to participate in beneficial, high-impact practices like internships and undergraduate research, and academic support to help them excel in a program of their choosing—not one effectively chosen for them to accommodate their athletic schedule.

The graduation rates of student athletes—particularly Black male football and basketball players at the top Power 5 institutions—are dismal. A 2018 study by Shaun R. Harper found that, across the 65 institutions that then comprised the Power 5 conferences, only 55.2 percent of Black male athletes graduated in six years, a figure that was lower than for all student athletes (69.3 percent), all Black undergraduate men (60.1 percent) and all undergraduates (76.3 percent). Under collective bargaining, student athletes could retain their scholarships, regardless of injury or exhausted eligibility, to help finish their degrees. Such financial support would encourage athletes to stay in college after their athletic careers end.

They could also negotiate better mental health support consistent with the NCAA’s best practices, including annual mental health screenings and access to culturally inclusive mental health providers trained to work with athletes. Coaches would learn to recognize mental health symptoms, which is crucial; as one former women’s basketball coach told me, she didn’t “have the right language” to help her athletes.

Presently, the NCAA’s posteligibility injury insurance provides student athletes only two years of health care following injury. Collective bargaining could provide long-term health care and disability insurance for those sustaining injuries during college. This matters because football players risk their lives every day to make money for their institutions—doubling their chances to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy with each 2.6 years they play and likely significantly increasing their chances of developing Parkinson’s disease relative to other nonfootball athletes.

As one football coach mentioned to me, it may be too late to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle when it comes to pay for play, but it’s not too late for colleges to prioritize their academic mission in their athletic programs, care for students’ well-being and restore the spirit of college sports.

Debbie Hogan works and teaches at Boston College. Her research focuses on holistic coaching, student athlete development and sense of belonging of Black student athletes.

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August 19, 2025
College Orchestrates Job Shadows in Students’ Hometowns

Job shadows are one way to give students a behind-the-scenes look at the daily operations and undertakings of a particular role or industry, giving them a deeper perspective than an informational interview or job description may provide. However, opportunities to engage in career exploration experiences can be limited, particularly for lower-level students.

A winter 2023 survey found 22 percent of respondents had never had experiential learning or an internship while in college. Among first-year respondents, that number grew to 28 percent.

To increase access to career exploration for first-generation students early in their college experience, Harvey Mudd College in California partnered with alumni around the country to offer short-term job shadows in students’ hometowns. The experiences offered students a chance to define their STEM career goals and establish a professional network.

Survey Says

Students say giving them access to and preparation for career-building spaces is critical for their success. A May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found 38 percent of students believe helping them prepare for internships and career success should be a top priority for career centers.

The background: Harvey Mudd is a liberal arts college that provides exclusively STEM degrees. Its current strategic plan focuses on expanding students’ career navigation experiences, particularly helping them connect their major program with life after college, said Shannon Braun, director of career services.

“A lot of time they really know what they want to study because it’s interesting to them, but not how that applies to life after Mudd or during Mudd,” Braun said. “It can be a little difficult.”

Staff elected to focus first on students who could most benefit from a job-shadow experience and exposure to a professional work setting.

“We landed on our first-gen, who may not have had some of the opportunities that other students might have, like a take-your-kid-to-work day,” Braun said.

How it works: The pilot program focused on students enrolled in Mudd’s Summer Institute, a precollege program for incoming students from underresourced high schools and those who are first-generation or from groups historically underrepresented in STEM.

Summer Institute participants indicated if they would be interested in a summer job-shadow opportunity, as well as some information about their hometown, program of study and career goals. From there, the career services office partnered with the alumni and family engagement office to identify hosts that matched students’ location and interests.

The focus on a student’s hometown was in part tied to logistics—most first-year students go home during the summer before their second year, and it was more cost-effective to provide job shadows where they were residing, Braun said. But staff also hoped it would expose students to career opportunities locally and near family, which can be a strong pull for first-generation students in particular, and help them affirm their major decision.

“Another benefit of this program is, let me shadow an engineer and see if I’m into that, or let me shadow a programmer to see if I’m into that,” Braun said.

After the alumni and students were matched up, both groups completed orientations prior to the job shadow addressing what makes a good job-shadow experience, questions to ask of the student or host, and transportation to and from the host site. All job shadows happened in the metropolitan area of the student’s hometown, so most participants commuted at least some distance.

The college also reimbursed students for their travel and lunch for the day, about $150 on average.

The impact: Ten students participated in cities ranging from neighboring Los Angeles and Altadena to farther away in Redmond, Wash., and Denver. Over all, student and alumni feedback indicated all parties were pleased with the experience.

“Students said this was something that they felt was informative for them, either picking a different major or thinking about an industry that they wanted to go into,” Braun said. Alumni said it was a feel-good experience and an opportunity for them to give back, as well.

One change staff are considering is to rebrand the program. The pilot was titled “Muddship,” a play on internship, which was confusing for both groups, so staff are brainstorming a new title that clarifies this isn’t work-based learning but a low-stakes career-exploration experience.

For next year, Braun and her team are hoping to offer job shadows over winter, spring and summer breaks, allowing more students to participate.

The program has limited funds, but Braun would like to see additional dollars invested for stipends on the front end so the students don’t have to pay out of pocket to participate. Braun also sees value in offering students the opportunity to travel to job shadows or providing students with professional dress to enter job-shadow spaces, which would require more financial resources, as well.

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August 19, 2025
Business Development Specialists at U-M

If you have the opportunity to apply for a job at the University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation, do so. If they offer you the gig, accept.

The two roles that CAI is recruiting for that I want to highlight are:

I asked Suzanne Dove, CAI’s chief education solutions officer, to answer four questions about the roles.

Q: What is the university’s mandate behind these roles? How do they help align with and advance the university’s strategic priorities?

A: Education Solutions is a new team within the University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation, charged with bringing strategic focus and forward momentum to our partnerships with external organizations, both private and public, seeking an innovative educational provider for workforce development.

A growing and robust set of high-value strategic partnerships is an essential component of CAI’s growth strategy in the decade ahead. We are responsible for engaging prospective partners, identifying opportunities and crafting relevant educational solutions in collaboration with other CAI teams and U-M faculty and ensuring a high-quality partner experience. We also provide thought leadership around the shifting workforce-development landscape.

Q: Where do the roles sit within the university structure? How will the hires in these roles engage with other units and leaders across campus?

A: The Center for Academic Innovation is a strategically focused central campus unit at the University of Michigan. We aim to shape the future of learning by unlocking new opportunities for the University of Michigan community and learners, as well as organizations around the world. Our vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives.

The people who join our team in these two new business development roles will play a vital role in connecting CAI to organizations outside the university, understanding and supporting solutions that fulfill these organizations’ evolving workforce and talent development needs, and helping us scale these partnerships in alignment with CAI’s mission. Successful candidates will bring expertise in developing and nurturing strong partnerships with external organizations at regional, national and international levels, as well as the ability to adopt an industry perspective.

Q: What would success look like in one year? Three years? Beyond?

A: Year one is about building the foundations for successful partnerships, both by experimenting with different ways we can serve organizational partners and by taking a systematic approach to deliver, evaluate and learn as we go. We will work together to establish a robust and vibrant pipeline of strategic partner organizations, evaluate their organizational learning needs and determine ways in which our current and future catalog of offerings can serve those needs.

At three years, I expect we will be engaging with a set of strategic external partnerships and have built our understanding of the educational solutions that we’re best positioned to provide. Beyond that, we want to scale these solutions to match the vast needs of workforce trends and transitions around the world.

Q: What kinds of future roles would someone who took either of these positions be prepared for?

A: I am excited for the people we hire as business development specialists because their work will position them at the intersection of building relationships, understanding the dynamic world of workforce learning and building internal processes to allow effective delivery of educational solutions for organizations. The result will be a tangible impact not only on people’s lives but also on the organization’s performance.

I can envision plenty of doors that would open as a result of success in one of these positions, depending on the individual’s interests: HR or talent development leadership; a workforce or economic development agency at the local, state, federal or even global level; or a larger or more complex business development portfolio.

One thing I have noticed about CAI since I joined a few months ago is that there are plenty of opportunities for team members to grow and stretch. If you are an intellectually curious, creative problem solver who leads by listening and collaborating, if you love to take an initial concept and help a team and organization bring it to life, I hope you’ll apply!

Please get in touch if you are conducting a job search at the intersection of learning, technology and organizational change. If your gig is a good fit, featuring your gig on Featured Gigs is free.

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August 19, 2025
Another Florida College Signs Agreement With ICE

Florida State College at Jacksonville has signed an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow its campus police department to enforce immigration laws.

An ICE database shows the agreement is still pending.

FSCJ joins more than a dozen other public institutions in Florida that struck similar agreements with ICE earlier this year, part of the state’s crackdown on immigration under Republican governor Ron DeSantis.

While police agencies in a number of other states have signed on to participate in the federal government’s immigration enforcement actions, the only campus police forces to join the effort are located in Florida, according to an ICE database that lists partners that have finalized agreements with the federal agency.

College officials previously told the local news outlet Jax Today that they were under the impression that FSCJ’s police department was too small to be considered for an agreement with ICE. However, spokesperson Jill Johnson told Inside Higher Ed by email that is not the case.

“Initially we thought that our police department was not large enough,” Johnson wrote. “This changed last week when we were notified that our officers were in fact eligible to go through the federal training necessary to be able to work with ICE officials, should the need arise.”

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August 19, 2025
NIH Director Orders Review of All Current, Planned Research

NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said that among other priorities, the agency will focus on artificial intelligence and “ensuring evidence-based health care for children and teenagers identifying as transgender.”

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

The National Institutes of Health’s director ordered employees to “conduct an individualized review of all current and planned research activities,” including active grants and funding opportunity announcements, according to images of a document provided to Inside Higher Ed. The review comes amid concerns that the NIH won’t distribute all of its allocated grant money by the time the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, meaning those dollars will return to the U.S. Treasury.

The document images, provided by a source who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, show that NIH director Jay Bhattacharya sent the memo Friday and that the review is effective immediately. According to the memo, “relevant NIH personnel” must review grants, funding opportunity announcements, contracts, contract solicitations, applications for new and competing renewal awards, intramural research and research training programs, cooperative agreements, and “other transactions.”

Science reported earlier on the review.

The order is part of a larger memo in which Bhattacharya outlined “select agency priorities” and said projects that don’t align with these priorities may be “restricted, paused, not renewed, or terminated.” The focuses are, among other things, artificial intelligence, “furthering our understanding of autism” and “ensuring evidence-based health care for children and teenagers identifying as transgender.”

In response to a request for an interview about the review and why it’s needed, the NIH press team sent a public statement from Friday, in which Bhattacharya listed the priorities.

Regarding health care for transgender youth, he said, “There are clearly more promising avenues of research that can be taken to improve the health of these populations than to conduct studies that involve the use of puberty suppression, hormone therapy, or surgical intervention.” He says that “by contrast, research that aims to identify and treat the harms these therapies and procedures have potentially caused … and how to best address the needs of these individuals so that they may live long, healthy lives is more promising.”

Bhattacharya’s letter comes after President Trump, earlier this month, ordered senior appointees at federal agencies to annually review discretionary grants “for consistency with agency priorities.”

Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed that the president’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 already outlined a set priorities for the rest of the current year.

“Switching gears at this stage reinforces confusion, diminishes trust, and increases concerns within the scientific community,” Carney added. “It joins the long list of tactics risking impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds rather than funding biomedical research that is essential for the people’s well-being.”

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August 19, 2025
Nike Co-Founder Gives $2B to Oregon Cancer Institute

The Oregon Health & Science University will receive a $2 billion gift from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, to support the eponymous Knight Cancer Institute, OHSU announced last week.

It is the largest single donation ever made to a U.S. university-affiliated health center and is intended to promote the integration of cancer diagnostics, treatment and patient care.

The gift will allow the cancer institute to become self-governed within OHSU. It will have its own board of directors under the leadership of Brian Druker, a leukemia researcher who has worked closely with the Knights and who helped develop a drug that vastly improved the life span of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia.

“This gift is an unprecedented investment in the millions of lives burdened with cancer, especially patients and families here in Oregon,” said OHSU president Shereef Elnahal. “It is also a signal of trust in the superlative work that our clinicians, researchers and teammates at the Knight Cancer Institute do every day. Dr. Druker’s vision around a multidisciplinary system of care—focused squarely on making the patient’s experience seamless from the moment they receive a diagnosis—will now become reality. And thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Knight, Oregon will be the place to do it.”

The Knights have been key benefactors of the cancer institute. In 2013 they vowed to donate $500 million if the university could match the funds within two years—which it did, thanks to $200 million in bonds from the Oregon Legislature, $100 million from Columbia Sportswear chair Gert Boyle and assorted donations from some 10,000 individuals from all 50 states and 15 countries.

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August 19, 2025