Tag: Events

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
Educators Can Teach Students to Write Well—and to Hope

To the editor:

I was absolutely appalled at the anonymous AP Literature and Composition reader’s summary of his time in Salt Lake City. I was even more appalled by his tone, which was condescending, arrogant and unapologetic, and by his sense of superiority. Far be it from me to evaluate how he might be as a teacher (especially if he had a bad night’s sleep, poor lamb), but his emphatic victimhood at the circumstances that accompanied the reading, which he signed up for, was more than off-putting; it was flat out reprehensible.

His attitude, that this whole event is beneath him, is hard to understand. Again, he chose to be there. He blatantly ignored his table leaders, skimmed rather than read essays and, behind the shield of anonymity, celebrated only giving a handful of 5s. He took it as a personal affront when he was asked to follow the rules. I feel especially bad for any AP student who suffered because of the negligence of this dismissive and self-pitying reader.

Worse, he used his entire experience as a microcosm for What’s Wrong With Education Today. The other readers are a part of this excoriation: While he gets up to give himself additional breaks, his colleagues “seem well adapted to the AP regimen, and to regimentation.” He, though, has escaped from Plato’s cave and has come back to tell us all … that the free coffee wasn’t very good.

This, while there are actual problems plaguing the state of college writing, from students uncritically using AI to assignments and essays that aren’t accurately evaluating student learning. With these legitimate concerns, it seems myopic to worry only that he encountered too few essays that contained “something insightful or fluent.” From that small sample, he concludes, “Is this how we’re educating the best and brightest, these college students of the near future? Are the vaunted humanities—assailed for years from without—rotting from within?”

A sharp reader might resist stooping to make such generalizations. A sharp reader might conclude that work written hastily on an unseen topic while myriad other concerns are influencing its writer will rarely be sufficiently fluent. But the author’s preoccupation with these flawed essays reveals something worse: an attitude more concerned with signifying his august tastes than celebrating some of the essays’ successes—which AP readers are explicitly tasked with doing. As many happiness scholars have noted, expressing gratitude is an often-effective way to combat negativity.

If I were the sort of writer who uses few examples to draw overconfident conclusions, I might argue that the anonymous author represents the worst sort of virtue signaler: one who simultaneously laments that the “army of food service workers, mostly Hispanic or Asian,” must serve all the readers, but who also overindulges on the free food (“my waistline expands”). He likewise points out the inequality women professors face (“That fits with the service-heavy load female professors typically shoulder at most universities”) while demeaning his own female table assistant-leader (ignoring her when she asked him to put away his phone). Dare one conclude that he is staring at the mere shadows of true virtue down in his cave of concrete convention center floors and thick black curtains?

Maybe I am overreacting. I have a visceral dislike for the sort of persona he displays here, and it was part of the reason I left higher education after finishing my Ph.D. At most academic conferences, especially in the humanities, where our findings aren’t as obviously helpful to the field as, say, the sciences, postering and self-aggrandizement were pervasive. Seven years ago, I became a high school teacher and now an AP Literature reader, and I’m happy to report that I find myself surrounded more by the optimism of youth than the performative jadedness of some of those in higher education.

I’m sorry the author wears his ennui and disillusionment as a signifier of his superiority. I’m sorry he celebrates his misanthropy alongside his impractically high standards. And it’s a shame that he was so disheartened by this experience, he felt the need to trash it publicly. To what end?

I was not at the author’s table this year. I’m sure my sunny disposition would have made me fodder for his future displeasure. (When he got to his table and saw so many people excited to start reading, he responded, “The enthusiastic vibe can’t help, either.”) But perhaps instead of focusing our energies complaining about the task of wading through essays or the state of writing today, we can embrace the role we have as educators. Few other positions offer that sort of direct influence on such a large number of people.

Hopefully, as we teach our students to write well and insightfully analyze texts, we can also teach them to see the hope that comes with possibility—to see that they can always find something to celebrate, as long as they try to have the right attitude.

Andrew J. Calis is an English teacher at Archbishop Spalding High School in Maryland.

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August 18, 2025
International Student Demand Remains High for Now

Despite federal attitudes and policies toward international students, demand to study in the U.S. remains high.

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

Advocates for international students are raising alarms that federal actions are limiting foreign-born learners’ ability to study in the U.S. But researchers say the trend isn’t an indication of international student interest or demand to study in the U.S.

A late July survey of 300 foreign-born students found 91 percent plan to study in the U.S., despite funding cuts and internal instability in the U.S. The reputation of U.S. institutions also has yet to take a hit, with 99 percent of respondents indicating they still trust the academic quality of U.S. institutions.

That’s not to say students are unaware of or undeterred by changes at the federal level. Fifty-five percent of survey respondents indicated some level of concern about pursuing their degree in the U.S., and 50 percent said they’re less excited about the opportunity now than they were previously. The top reason their sentiment has changed is international tensions or politics (54 percent), followed by worries about political instability in the U.S. (45 percent).

Brian Meagher, vice president at Shorelight, a higher education consulting group focused on international students, said at an Aug. 12 media roundtable that even students caught in the visa backlog haven’t shifted their gaze to other countries yet. Instead, they are deferring to the spring semester. May data from the U.S. Department of State shows 19,000 fewer students received a F-1 or J-1 visa that month compared to May 2024, which experts say is the first sign that a fraction of expected students will be coming to campus this fall.

“Most of them want [to study in] the U.S.—they’re not changing their minds to the U.K. or Canada or Australia,” Meagher said. “We do think there will be a longer-term impact on switching to other country destinations as a result of this.”

Others are taking classes online at their host institution or enrolling in a satellite campus elsewhere in the world for their first term, but those are less popular options, Meagher said.

“In talking with prospective students, I’d say the belief is that this is a temporary changeover at an unfortunate time that may result in missing a fall semester,” Shorelight CEO Tom Dretler said during the roundtable.

Long-Term Challenges Expected

While international students see the changes as a short-term setback, some market predictions forecast significant changes to U.S. higher education enrollment and revenue. At least the lack of visas could impact future applications to U.S. colleges, Dretler said.

Research by Holon IQ, a global intelligence agency, points to the U.S. as a top destination country for international students for decades, but since 2016—roughly the start of the first Trump administration—the country lost 10 percentage points of its share of international students.

Starting in 2016, “the U.S. became perceived by some as less welcoming or safe, did not recruit international students as energetically, and denied a substantial fraction of student visa applications, while governments and university sectors in the other countries acted in concert to grow international student numbers,” according to an August report from Holon IQ.

Modeling by Holon IQ finds that a variety of actions by the federal government, including visa policy changes, a crackdown on universities and new tariffs could create barriers to students in the U.S. as well as a climate of uncertainty for prospective students.

The agency predicts the most likely trajectory is there will be a short-term decline in U.S. international enrollment, with 1.12 million students in 2030, unchanged from 2023 levels. But possible scenarios range from an increase in students of 8.3 percent to a drop of 7.9 percent by 2030.

“I think what’s happening in the U.S. is a point in time as to whether the U.S. will continue to lead and for how long it will continue to remain the global leader for international student mobility and a desired study destination,” said Patrick Brothers, co-CEO of Holon IQ Global Impact Intelligence, during the media roundtable.

Paying the Price

Experts warn that a lack of students on campus could mean billions in lost tuition revenue for years to come.

NAFSA, the association of international educators, reported if the number of new international student enrollment declined between 30 and 40 percent, it would result in a 15 percent drop in overall international enrollment and result in a loss of $7 billion in revenue.

June data from Shorelight found even a 20 percent decline would result in a $1.7 billion annual loss in tuition revenue, or $5 billion over four years.

“We think it’s going to be something that is negative for the U.S. economy, negative from a jobs perspective and also very hurtful to colleges and universities, but not always the one that people think,” Dretler said. Top universities will be able to weather the financial hit, pulling students off their waiting lists, but regional and community colleges will experience greater losses, which could increase tuition rates for middle-class families.

States with high international student enrollment would be hit hardest by the changes. Among the top states for international students—California, New York and Texas—Shorelight anticipates a total loss of $566.6 million and NAFSA projects a loss of $2.39 billion, based on their respective data models.

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August 18, 2025
Federal District Judge Rules Against Trump’s Anti-DEI Orders

One of the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses and in K–12 classrooms has been struck down by a federal district court judge who previously put the guidance on hold.

Judge Stephanie Gallagher declared in the Thursday ruling that the Department of Education broke the law when it tried to withhold grant funding from institutions that practiced DEI based on one of the president’s executive orders and a related guidance letter.

In her opinion, Gallagher focused less on the legality of the attempt to ban DEI itself, but rather the process through which the president and secretary of education tried to do so.

“This court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue in this case are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair. But, at this stage too, it must closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. Here, it did not,” the judge wrote. “By leapfrogging important procedural requirements, the government has unwittingly run headfirst into serious constitutional problems.”

That said, she did explain the ways Trump’s policy violated the Constitution, saying, “The government cannot proclaim that it ‘will no longer tolerate’ speech it dislikes because of its ‘motivating ideology’—that is a ‘blatant’ and ‘egregious’ violation of the First Amendment.”

Gallagher’s decision followed a motion for summary judgment that was filed by the plaintiffs, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association, after they won a preliminary injunction that blocked parts of Trump’s anti-DEI policy since April. (Gallagher was appointed by Trump during his first presidency in 2018.)

Since the Education Department’s anti-DEI guidance was enjoined, the Trump administration has made other attempts to block the same academic practices. Most recently, the Department of Justice published a nine-page memo that stated that DEI is unlawful and discriminatory.

Still, AFT president Randi Weingarten viewed the ruling as a “huge win” against Trump’s “draconian attacks on the essence of public education.”

“This decision rightly strikes down the government’s attempt to dictate curriculum, and, in so doing, upholds the purpose and promise inherent in our public schools,” Weingarten said in a news release.

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August 18, 2025
Stand Against the Leaky STEM Pipeline (opinion)

A couple of years ago, I got into a heated argument with a white male lab mate about whether racial and gender inequities still existed in science. He argued that, having both made it to our Stanford cancer biology lab for graduate school, the two of us, a white man and a Black woman, were functionally equal, and that attempts to distinguish us in future grant and fellowship applications were unfair. When I explained, among many differences, the unequal labor I took on by running a pipeline program for underrepresented aspiring physician-scientists, he replied, “If you gave a fuck about your academic career, you would stop doing that stuff.”

His attitude is not unique; it represents a backlash against baby steps made toward any form of equity that was also reflected in the 2023 Supreme Court decision to overturn affirmative action. But in recent months, as attacks on diversity equity, and inclusion have unfolded with shocking fervor from the highest office in the country, I have been confronted with terrifying questions: Was my lab mate right? Has DEI work become antithetical to advancement in science?

Science, as a seemingly objective craft, has historically not cared about the self. Science does not care if you couldn’t spend free time in the lab because you had to work to support your family. Science does not care that the property taxes in the low-income area where you attended high school couldn’t fund a microscope to get you excited about biology. Science does not care that I’ve never once gotten to take a science class taught by a Black woman.

Such experiences, and many, many more, contribute to the leaky pipeline, a reference to how individuals with marginalized identities become underrepresented in STEM due to retention problems on the path from early science education to tenured professorships. The gaps are chasmic. A couple years ago, Science published the demographics of principal investigators receiving at least three National Institutes of Health grants, so-called super-PIs. Among the nearly 4,000 of these super-PIs, white men unsurprisingly dominated, accounting for 73.4 percent, while there was a grand total of 12 Black women in this category.

Pipeline programs—initiatives aimed at supporting individuals from underrepresented groups—are meant to patch the leaks. They are rooted in the understanding that minorities are important to science, not just for representation’s sake, but because diverse perspectives counteract a scientific enterprise that, because scientists are human, has historically perpetuated racial, gender and other social inequities. Such programs range from early-stage programs like BioBus, a mobile laboratory in New York City that exposes K–12 students to biology, to higher-level pipeline programs like the one I run at Stanford, which provide targeted early-career support to aspiring scientists from diverse and marginalized backgrounds.

These programs work. Participants in the McNair Scholars Program, a federally funded pipeline program aimed at increasing Ph.D. attainment among first-generation, low-income and otherwise underrepresented students, are almost six times more likely to enroll in graduate school than their nonparticipant counterparts. These programs are designed to see the student’s full self, and they recognize the extra labor minorities and women disproportionately take on, like mentoring trainees or running their own pipeline programs.

Sadly, in deference to state laws and the current presidential administration’s attacks, more than 300 public and private universities have dismantled at least some of their DEI efforts. In February, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, killed its Inclusive Excellence Program, an eight-year-old, $60 million initiative that supported programming at universities to draw more underrepresented groups into STEM. As Science reported at the time, all evidence of the program disappeared from the Howard Hughes webpage. Shortly thereafter, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting science, technology and (previously) equality, canceled the second year of its Science Diversity Leadership Awards, even though, as The Guardian reported, the process of selecting new awardees was already underway.

Researchers and academics have held rallies to stand up for science and have proposed bills for state-funded scientific research institutes, but many have remained silent on DEI. Meanwhile, after a pause to screen for DEI language, the NIH has resumed grant approvals (albeit not at its normal pace), and private organizations like Chan Zuckerberg continue to fund “uncontroversial” science. But science will never be whole without the inclusion of trainees from underrepresented backgrounds, who broaden and improve scientific questions and practice in service of a diverse human population. And without pipeline programs, the gaps will grow.

That is why I am calling on academics to stand up not just for science but also for DEI. Stand up against the leaky pipeline. Universities and private research institutes must reinstate language on diversity, equity and inclusion, particularly for pipeline programs. Faculty, students and community members should contact the heads of local universities and private organizations like Howard Hughes and Chan Zuckerberg, demanding reinstatement of diversity language and programs. Labs and research groups should adopt diversity statements reaffirming this commitment.

Given the financial jeopardy federal policy has imposed on pipeline programs, states should also step in. Sixteen state attorneys general recently sued the National Science Foundation for, among other things, reneging on its long-established, congressionally mandated commitment to building a STEM workforce that draws from underrepresented groups; states can take their advocacy further by filling funding gaps. Individuals and private organizations can donate either directly to nonprofits like BioBus or to universities with funds earmarked for pipeline programs.

Many minority students who have done DEI advocacy worry they can no longer discuss their work when applying for fellowships or faculty positions. To counteract this, universities and research organizations should proactively ask applicants about their leadership and advocacy work, to signal that these are the kinds of employees they want. And scientists who are not from underrepresented groups should leverage their privilege—volunteer for mentorship programs, serve on graduate admissions committees to fight for diversity, advise young scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

Show my lab mate that he was wrong. Caring and succeeding are not mutually exclusive.

Tania Fabo, M.Sc., is an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate in genetics at Stanford University, a Rhodes Scholar, a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project. She is the program leader for Stanford’s MSTP BOOST pipeline program.

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August 15, 2025
For Learning, You Have to Ride Up the Hill

On a recent vacation in the southwest portion of Ireland, as I was slogging away, trying to get the bicycle I was peddling up a reasonably daunting hill, I started thinking about generative AI.

I was thinking about generative AI because my wife, who is quite fit, but historically not as a strong a biker as I am, had disappeared into the distance, visible only because we were on twisting roads and she was several switchbacks ahead.

She also powered past my older brother, who competes in triathlons, and (I was told later) a French couple that muttered some apparent swears in their native language. Ultimately, she arrived only three or four minutes ahead of me at the top-of-the-hill way station, but as I huffed and puffed the final couple hundred yards, down to my next-to-lowest gear, moving at a just-above-walking pace, the gap felt enormous.

If you haven’t figured it out, my wife was riding an e-bike, while I was on a conventional (though very nice) bike. For the most part, the biking was very doable, but there were moments where I was not entirely sure I could or should keep peddling.

But I made it! Because we were touring with Backroads, an active vacation company, there was a delicious snack waiting for me at the top, which I enjoyed with great relish, knowing that I’d burned quite a few calories with many more to come that day.

I believe those French riders might’ve said something about “cheating” by using an e-bike, but this is obviously a case where what is cheating is in the eye of the beholder and significantly dependent on what you’re valuing about the experience.

If the point of our Ireland cycling vacation was to expend maximum effort on physical activities while cycling around the southwestern Ireland countryside, using an e-bike would prevent you from achieving your objective. But this is not the point of these kinds of trips. Yes, we have a desire to be active, outside and engaged, but the point is to use these methods to experience the place we’ve traveled to, and if—as happened to me a different day—you are perspiring so hard that the sweat dripping into your eyes has temporarily blinded you, it is tough to say that you are maximizing the experience.

Having the “best” vacation on this kind of trip is often a matter of balance. At times, I actively wished for the boost an e-bike could’ve given me. Other times, particularly on a day where we did 60 miles, and my brother and I were the only ones doing the whole itinerary, and we managed to go fast enough on the closing stretch to beat the Backroads van back to the hotel, I was thrilled with what it felt like to put my full physical effort behind the task.

I think my body paid for that big effort for a couple of days afterward, but I don’t regret it.

Like I said, it’s a matter of balance and values.

The e-bikes are great because they made it easier for my wife and me to ride together. The bottom-level boost had her toasting me up the hills, but on the flats, we were essentially the same speed, with us both working at levels we were comfortable with. The e-bike isn’t a motorcycle. You are still working plenty hard at the lower levels of boost.

But at the higher levels, you might find yourself speeding through the itinerary, as a group of four gentlemen in our group seemed to do, frequently arriving at our stopping points 20 minutes ahead of the rest of us.

I was thinking of generative AI because of the different lenses through which you can look at the use of an e-bike in the context of a bike-touring vacation.

You could see it as supplementary, allowing someone to experience something (like the view from a particular peak) that they wouldn’t otherwise unless they substituted something entirely nonbiking, like a car.

You could see it as substitutive, removing effort in exchange for feeling less tired and taxed at the end of the day.

You could see it as cheating, as those French riders did.

Because I don’t bike all that often at home, my primary “training” for the trip has been my regular Peloton rides, and for sure, those helped. My metrics on the stationary bike suggested I was well prepared. And I was, but well prepared doesn’t mean you aren’t going to face some very challenging moments.

There were several times—like that sweat-pouring-down-my-face period—where I would have gladly kicked in an e-bike boost in order to reduce my effort to conserve something for a different aspect of the trip, e.g., not being exhausted over dinner. But at no point did I need the boost to continue or finish the route, and if I was so inclined, Backroads is happy for you to hop in the van and get a ride the rest of the way.

I’m stubborn enough to not do that, but knowing myself, there were many times when an e-bike boost wouldn’t have been necessary or even desirable, when I would’ve switched it on in order to alleviate some measure of present discomfort. If it’s available, why not use it?

This would have signaled a shift in the values I initially brought to the trip. Whether or not it should be viewed as a betrayal or merely a change with its own benefits is a more complicated question, but at least for this trip, I was glad to not have the temptation.

I like to look at my opportunities to travel through the lens of experience. We aren’t going somewhere to check a box, but instead to literally spend time in a different place doing different things than our regular routines. I often know that I’ve had a good trip by the number of pictures I take—the fewer the better, because it means I was too absorbed in the experience to bother reaching for my phone to document something.

As we consider how to teach in a world where students have a superpowered e-bike instantly and constantly available, I’ve found looking at learning through the lens of experience is helpful, because focusing on the experience is a good way of identifying the things we should most value.

For my focus, writing, it seems almost irrefutable that if we want students to develop their writing practices, they should be doing the work without the assistance. The work must be purposeful and focused on what’s important in a given experience, but if that’s been achieved, any use of a boost is to miss out on something important. Learning is about riding up that hill under your own steam.

For writing especially, it’s axiomatic that the more you can do without the boost, the more you could potentially do with the boost.

Perhaps more importantly, the more you do without the boost, the greater knowledge you will gain about when the boost is truly an aid or when it is a way to dodge responsibility.

Figuring out where these lines must be drawn isn’t easy, and ultimately, because of the nature of school and the fact that students should be viewed as free and independent actors, the final choice must reside with them.

But we can act in ways that make the consequences of these choices and the benefits to opting for unboosted ride as apparent and inviting as possible.

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August 15, 2025
It’s a Small World (After All)

These days, most faculty members are tired, sad and as anxious as our tired, sad students. We spend time doing things that aren’t what our advisers did, or what they trained us to do, or even really what we want to do.

We serve on too many committees, busy with work that’s unrewarded and mostly invisible, and we must explain to civilians that, no, we don’t have summers off—we just don’t get paid to do the research we have to produce to survive, even if no one ever reads it. Some of us juggle zillions of courses at multiple institutions and can barely afford dog food. Most people getting Ph.D.s these days can no longer expect to land a permanent job. And many of us who were lucky enough to get on that last gravy train to tenure are ready to hop off, if we could only think of something else we’re qualified to do.

As tired, sad and anxious as I am, I still find this gig a privilege: indoor work, no heavy lifting. And the academic world, with all its wacky quirks, is fascinating. Like other cultural niches, we have our own jargon, celebrities unknown to the wider public, rituals that make zero sense to outsiders (and to many of us) and a deeply entrenched caste system that keeps us humble. (Ha-ha.)

I’ve been in multiple rings in the academic circus. After I bailed out of scholarly publishing—first at Oxford University Press and then at Duke—I worked in undergraduate admissions at Duke. I wrote a snarky book about that experience, then published two more to atone for my sins. That experience fed into my next act: For a quarter century, I spouted off in columns for ~~The Chronicle of Higher Education~~ a rival publication, hoping to give academics permission to write for and like humans.

When I became a faculty member, I felt I’d won the lottery. Who else has this kind of job security and so many degrees of freedom? I try to remember how fortunate I am when I’m tempted to complain. (Doesn’t stop me.) It helps to remember that having tenure is luxurious compared to being staff, where I was sometimes treated as one notch above custodians and had to deal with almost as much shit.

Two years ago, I was asked by Inside Higher Ed’s co-founder, my old buddy Doug Lederman, to create a paywalled newsletter for industry leaders. I got a crash course in governance and learned how little I understood about how universities are run. In off-the-record chats with presidents, I’ve realized that rarely does anyone see the full picture, including faculty members like me who believe they know it all.

Those conversations opened my eyes to just how brutal the job has become—death threats, harassment by frat-boy trustees, vicious attacks from faculty senates, black mold in presidents’ houses and other crap that would make most of us run screaming. It’s enough to think presidents deserve those big honking salaries. Unless they suck. Which, undoubtedly, some of them do. Just not the ones willing to talk to me and write anonymously for no rewards other than the rare opportunity to be truthful and vulnerable on the page.

Of course, the problems in higher ed go far beyond presidential housing crises and governance theater. The sector’s challenges create genuine existential threats to a shocking number of the nearly 4,000 institutions that make up our ecosystem. And yet, we beat on, boats against the current, trying to figure out how to keep doing meaningful work in this strange, insular, endlessly complicated world we’ve chosen, one that’s always been isolated from what others call “the real world” (and not in a fun MTV way) and that is, in many ways, small.

Small World is, in fact, the title of the middle novel in David Lodge’s campus trilogy. Long ago in a galaxy far, far away (the ’80s, NYC), I read it after gulping down the first, Changing Places, which includes one of the best bits in academic fiction. In a game called Humiliation, each person in the English Department names a book he hasn’t read but assumes the others have. So caught up in wanting to succeed, a poor sap calls out Hamlet. He wins the game and is denied tenure.

Lodge’s fictional world captured something true about academic insularity, but even his juicy satire couldn’t anticipate the daily reality most of us don’t want to face today—the fact that we are no longer trusted and respected by the public, we’re going through leaders like Kleenex during flu season, the feds are taking a chain-saw approach to federal funding, previously dull topics like accreditation are now going to change all of our lives and ideas of inclusion and access we were naïve enough to think would change the world are being thrown into the trash heap

It’s a ~~shit show~~ big yikes. In some ways, though, academe is still a small world, even if the days of budgets for international conference hopping à la Lodge are not within the reach of most of us. But if you read The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, you might think higher ed consists of about 20 schools, plus another dozen or so when they’re trying not to be snobby.

Most of us do not live in that world.

Most of us don’t live in a world where a degree-seeking student is an 18- to 22-year-old whose only job is going to class.

Most of us don’t work at institutions where the six-year graduation rate is 90 percent. Or 80 percent. Or even 60 percent.

Most of us don’t work at places that will be hit hard by the rise in the endowment tax.

Most of our schools were in decline even before the recent upheavals, facing eroding public trust and not enough butts to put in our classroom seats. And each department plays a zero-sum game trying to attract majors, which are, if you speak with employers, as I’ve done for my most recent book, important to no one (save faculty and department chairs).

Yet many faculty, staff and students don’t pay enough attention to what goes on beyond their campus gates to notice that everything else in our society has changed while we remain ~~conservative~~ stolidly averse to adaptation. With so many colleges and universities circling the drain, “Don’t look up!” feels like a reasonable response.

In this space, each I’ll draw on my experience to explore corners of our small world that may be overlooked. What I can promise is ~~no bullshit~~ candor about both the disasters and the unexpected moments of grace. Because even as our world grows smaller and more precarious, it remains endlessly fascinating. And well worth fighting for.

Rachel Toor is a contributing editor at Inside Higher Ed and the co-founder of The Sandbox, a weekly newsletter that allows presidents and chancellors to write anonymously. She is also a professor of creative writing and the author of books on weirdly diverse subjects. Reach her here with questions, comments and ~~complaints~~ compliments.

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August 15, 2025
Student Success Coaching Success Stories

For Chianti Grantham, her vocation in life crystallized the moment she started teaching.

“The first time I stepped foot in a classroom, I knew that that’s what I was supposed to do. I knew that was my happy place.”

Grantham works as an academic success coach at Houston’s University of St. Thomas, in the Kolbe School of Innovation and Professional Studies, an associate degree–granting arm of the university that supports nontraditional learners. In her role, Grantham assists students who are facing challenges that are impeding their academic progress, including those who have fallen below a 2.0 GPA.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Grantham discusses how she does the work and effective strategies she’s used to support her students.

Q: What experiences or training have helped you establish your student success philosophy?

A: All of the experience that I’ve had over the years has taught me how to do what I do. I have a varied amount of experience from teaching, from being a tutor, and I think that it grew as I matured and grew as an educator. So did my skill level and paying attention to the needs of the students, and establishing those relationships with the students.

One of my very first classes that I taught, I had a student disclose in a paper that he had HIV. I learned quickly, like, “OK, this is about more than just teaching these students how to write. I have to be a mother. I have to be a support system. I have to be that person that they can go to.” Because if he felt comfortable enough in disclosing something like that with me, then I have a lot of power, and I can use that power for good, or I can use that power for bad. I decided that I wanted to use that power for good, and I specifically wanted to serve the nontraditional, underserved population.

I’ve been an academic success coach for going on four years at St. Thomas and then two years prior with Lone Star College. I have found that, once I reach out to a student and I’m like, “Hey, your instructor indicated that you have fallen behind. You haven’t turned in your assignments. Your assignments have been subpar. You’ve been unresponsive,” whatever the situation is—I always ask for very detailed information about what’s going on with the student—it’s like the floodgates open. Students are like, “Oh my gosh, somebody called me, somebody cares.” And that’s what I normally hear, like, “Yes, I’m sorry. I lost my job,” or “I’m overwhelmed with work,” or “I’m overwhelmed with life,” or “I’m depressed,” or “My husband and I have separated.” It’s generally an external factor that is impeding them from being successful in the classroom.

What I tell our instructors is: We have to get to the root of the issue, but we have to get to the root of the issue early. Early intervention is the best and most viable way to help a student to be successful. If I don’t know until a week before classes end, I can’t help that student, right? But if I know week one, they haven’t submitted any assignments within that first week, I tell the instructors to contact me, give me their information, tell me what’s going on and I’m reaching out. In that instance, I can help a student to turn it around.

Q: You recently started a program to support students on academic probation. Can you talk about where that idea came from and where you saw a need to improve processes for these students?

A: What we’re trying to do is find as many ways to support the students in their success. So, specifically, when they’re on academic probation—meaning that they’ve fallen below a 2.0 grade point average—at that time, they go under my wing.

They’re required to be in contact with me, either through phone call or meeting face-to-face or virtually, just to help them get back on track. We’re sitting down, we are creating a routine and a study schedule that also includes their personal lives.

What I tell a student is “Let’s look at your personal as well as your professional life. Let’s put all of those responsibilities in a calendar.” So whether it be a paper calendar or on a cellphone—I’m an old-school person, so I actually do paper and I do my cellphone—I help them in that way.

I also refer them to other resources. If they’re telling me they’re having some type of housing issue, I will contact our residence life department. I’ve also sought out shelters, other community resources. I have advocated for students to get scholarships so that they can pay their rent. It’s a gamut of things.

I’m in the process now with one of my colleagues to write an academic probation course that the students must take for an entire semester, and it focuses on time management, organizational skills and some mental wellness tips. All of these things that I have either seen myself in interacting with students or in my conversations with faculty and adjuncts, things that they’ve seen. We’ll be launching that this semester.

Q: How do you balance the complexity of student support work? Each student is going to need a different thing, so how do you keep yourself educated as to what those resources are and who’s going to help you and be a partner in this work?

A: What I found early on in this role is that it’s super important, actually, that I build relationships with other departments around the campus.

I have also learned that it’s super important that I build relationships within the community. So there have to be people within the community that I can have a conversation with about, like, “Hey, I have a student that is unhoused. Can you help me? They need food; they need somewhere to live. They need clothing.” Those relationships are key. If I didn’t have those relationships, I wouldn’t be able to support my students.

Q: How have you built up relationships with instructors as well, letting them know that you’re here to help with students’ success?

A: At the beginning of every semester and then midway through the semester, I always send an email to all of the instructors reminding them, “I’m here. These are the services that I offer. These are the hours that I’m available if the students are performing at a lower level, if they’ve inquired about additional resources, if they’re unresponsive, if they said, ‘Hey, I just need help.’” If faculty feel they can’t offer that, those are the kind of things that I tell the instructors that I am able to help the students with.

Also, I advocate for the students. Because I know these students very well, I’m copied on all emails that are sent to students when there is an external factor that’s going on that’s impeding them from being successful. I’m able to just keep a pulse on what’s going on. But yeah, my relationships with the faculty are great. It has to be, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to support my students.

Q: Do you have any advice for other academic success coaches you’d like to share?

A: The one thing that I would say is the relationships that you build are so key. If you have relationships, if you reach across the aisle, so to speak, and you keep an open mind, just because someone doesn’t look like you, just because someone doesn’t share the same interests and beliefs as you, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a relationship with them.

Some of the most beneficial relationships that I’ve had with students have been with people that are not like me and don’t share similar interests as me, but we’ve been able to come together.

A perfect example is I had a student come to campus. He is local, but he didn’t ever come on campus because our programs are fully online. He’s really shy, so when he came to campus, I made a point to introduce him to one of my colleagues over at the peer-mentor program so that he could become a peer mentor. I took him over to career services because he was interested in an internship program, so I put him in touch directly with the person that handles that. Then he was like, “Oh, well, I also want to get involved in this particular club.” Well, it just so happened that the person in career services is also over [at] that particular club.

I didn’t just pass him off like he was a baton or a number. I took him to these specific people. We had a conversation. We determined what the need was. I already knew what the need was, but I also have to help students advocate for themselves, right? That is the biggest thing—those relationships have been key, because I’ve been able to go into spaces that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to, or maybe not effectively go into.

If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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August 15, 2025
Recipe for Science Superpower? “Pay Your Taxes With Pride”

Denmark’s world-leading success in commercializing research should not be written off as a one-off confined to the country’s booming weight loss drug industry, a Nobel-winning scientist has argued.

Since Novo Nordisk’s diabetes treatment Ozempic was sold as weight-loss drug Wegovy, the Danish biotech company has quickly grown into one of the world’s biggest companies and Denmark’s largest single corporate taxpayer, contributing almost $4 billion in corporate taxes in the year ending March 2025—about half of the country’s total corporate take.

A further $3.8 billion in income taxes—which can reach up to 56 percent for higher earners—was also collected from Novo Nordisk staff in 2024.

That success has led to major interest in how Denmark’s model of combined strong fundamental and applied research paid off so spectacularly and whether it can be replicated, although some pundits have wondered whether the serendipitous discovery of Ozempic—whose roots lie in research on snake venom—represents a one-shot for its industrial science sector.

Speaking to Times Higher Education, however, the Nobel laureate Morten Meldal, who is professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, said Novo Nordisk’s story should not be seen as an outlier in Danish research but one of many prosperous science-based companies based in the country of just six million people.

“Novo Nordisk is the result of Denmark’s system—its success is directly attributable to how our society operates: We have high taxes, but those taxes result in huge tax-exempt industrial foundations funding science and creating opportunities for both academic and industrial success. That is why Novo Nordisk happened in Denmark,” said Meldal, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2022.

While Novo Nordisk—whose $570 billion valuation last year was famously larger than Denmark’s entire GDP—has captured the interest of research policymakers, it should be understood in a wider context of sustained investment in research from industry, he added.

“Look at Novozymes, Maersk, Carlsberg—if you consider how much our companies invest in research, it is far more than the government. Novo Nordisk has the blockbuster product now, but it arrived within the context of our system—there are lots of companies doing well by commercializing research.”

Noting the advances made by U.S.-based Eli Lilly, which has two medications—Mounjaro and Zepbound—approved for use by American regulators, Meldal predicted that Novo Nordisk’s undisputed advantage in this area will eventually be eroded. But Denmark’s system will produce other big science success stories, said the biochemist, who leads the synthesis group in the chemistry department at the Carlsberg Laboratory.

“We have won so much with Novo Nordisk, but its scientific success is the rule, not the exception,” he said, underlining the importance of basic research to create the opportunities of tomorrow.

Denmark’s success in research has an even simpler root, continued Meldal, who was speaking at the annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting held in southern Germany last month.

“The best investment that any country can make is education; the payback on this is huge, and that allows for other investments, such as science. To do this you need our high-tax system and a government dedicated to long-term success of the entire society,” he said.

“My advice to any country who wants Denmark’s system of science is simple: Pay your taxes with joy and ask for return on investment for the community.”

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August 15, 2025