Tag: Grad

  • UT Austin Muzzles Grad Student Assembly’s Political Speech

    UT Austin Muzzles Grad Student Assembly’s Political Speech

    The Graduate Student Assembly had planned to consider resolutions against two Texas laws.

    Officials at the University of Texas at Austin blocked the Graduate Student Assembly from considering two resolutions against Texas state laws last week, arguing that the student-run body must follow institutional neutrality policies. 

    Mateo Vallejo, a first-year master’s student and representative in the GSA for the School of Social Work, drafted two resolutions for the assembly to consider: one condemning Texas SB 17, which bans diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Texas public institutions, and another against Texas SB 37, a state law that, among other changes, put faculty senates at public institutions under the control of university presidents and boards. 

    On Oct. 10, GSA president David Spicer submitted the two resolutions to Associate Dean for Graduate Studies Christopher J. McCarthy for approval. According to the assembly bylaws, the dean of students’ office must approve all proposed GSA legislation before it can be considered by the full assembly, effectively giving the office an opportunity to veto, Vallejo explained. Once a bill is submitted to the dean’s office, the assembly cannot make any changes to the text. Vallejo, Spicer and the GSA vice president were careful to follow the bylaws during the drafting process to give administrators as little reason as possible to shut the resolutions down.

    Five days later, McCarthy nixed them.

    “[Vice President for Legal Affairs] considers the legislation to be political speech that is not permitted to be issued by a sponsored student organization in their official capacity,” McCarthy wrote in an email to Spicer, which Inside Higher Ed obtained. “This legislation should not be permitted to go forward.”

    Spicer followed up, asking why the GSA was prohibited from engaging in political speech when others have done so in their official capacity at UT Austin. He pointed to an op-ed by Provost William Inboden in the conservative magazine National Affairs and a statement from University of Texas System Board of Regents chairman Kevin P. Eltife, who said the university was “honored” to be among the institutions “selected by the Trump Administration for potential funding advantages” under Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” 

    “Their speech was on ‘political and social’ matters, so I do not know how they escape the neutrality requirement whereas GSA cannot,” Spicer wrote in his response to McCarthy. In addition, UT Austin’s undergraduate student government recently put out a statement of support for the university’s new president, Jim Davis, which Spicer argued is also political speech. 

    “Like attacks on the Faculty Council, silencing GSA through institutional neutrality is an attack on the notion of shared governance,” Spicer said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “GSA appoints students to university-wide committees and, previously, Faculty Council committees. GSA is the one space at UT Austin where students can voice issues impacting their graduate education.”

    When asked about the double standard, UT Austin spokesperson Mike Rosen told Inside Higher Ed that the resolution in support of Davis is not political speech because he was appointed by a nonpartisan board and not by an elected official. Members of the University of Texas System Board of Regents are appointed by the Texas governor. 

    “UT Austin exercises institutional neutrality consistent with a policy approved by the UT System Board of Regents, which prohibits System institutions from expressing positions on political matters or issues of the day. As a sponsored student organization, GSA acts as an extension of the University and cannot act to cause the University to violate the UT System policy,” Rosen wrote in an email. 

    Vallejo’s resolutions against SB 17 and SB 37 would not be the first attempt by the GSA to address Texas politics. In 2022, the Assembly passed a resolution in response to Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s opinion and Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to the Department of Family and Protective Services that gender-affirming medical care for minors could be treated as child abuse. In its resolution, the Assembly urged campus officials not to adopt that definition for campus reporting purposes.

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  • Grad v. Professional Programs a Key Issue for ED Panel

    Grad v. Professional Programs a Key Issue for ED Panel

    Despite the possibility of a government shutdown next week, the Education Department is slated to begin the complicated endeavor of determining how to carry out the sweeping higher ed changes in Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

    The agenda for the weeklong meeting, which kicks off Monday, includes hammering out details about loan repayment plans and how to help struggling borrowers return to good standing. The key issue on the table, though, will likely be determining how best to differentiate between graduate and professional degree programs for future borrowers.

    The terms “graduate” and “professional” were once nothing more than a trivial self-prescribed classification. But under the Republicans’ new law, they have become critical labels that could alter which college programs get more federal aid. For example, under the new plan, student borrowers in a graduate program will be limited to $20,500 per year or $100,000 total, whereas those enrolled in a professional program will be able to borrow more than double that.

    And while lawmakers on Capitol Hill gave the department a foundational definition of what qualifies as professional in the bill, it’s up to Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent and the negotiated rule-making advisory committee to write rules that detail how that definition will work in practice. (The committee is scheduled to meet for another weeklong session in November, and only after that can the department finalize its proposal and open the floor for public comment.)

    Some university lobbyists and career associations want the department to include more programs in the professional bucket and make a comprehensive list of those that qualify. Others recommend using a broad definition and then letting institutions sort the programs. Consumer protection advocates, however, are urging the department to stick to the original, more narrow definition in an effort to prevent greater levels of student debt.

    The department’s initial proposal, released this week, stuck largely to the 10 programs cited in the existing definition but added a catch-all clause to add “any other degrees designated by the Secretary through rulemaking.”

    To Clare McCann, a former Education Department official and now managing director of policy for the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University, the initial proposal shows that the department doesn’t quite know how it wants to define a professional program.

    “This is a really complicated issue,” she said. “So it seems clear to me that the department is planning to use this first session to gather ideas and feedback but is not planning to come to the table with a real proposal of its own.”

    Further complicating the issue, McCann and others say, it’s going to be difficult for the department to finalize its rule fast enough to give students and institutions enough time to prepare. (Currently, the new loan caps are slated to kick in as of July 1, 2026.)

    As McCann explained, the earliest colleges and universities could expect to see a proposed rule—let alone a finalized one—would be later this fall. And at that point, many prospective students have already started receiving acceptance letters.

    “There will be many people making decisions about whether and where they’re going to graduate school, and they’ll be doing that in a vacuum, without final rules about what they’ll be able to borrow and how they’re going to be able to repay it,” she said. “So this whole regulatory process is going to be an incredible time crunch.”

    Current Definitions

    The current definition of “professional,” which is laid out in the Higher Education Act of 1965, states that in order to qualify as professional a degree must signify that a student has the skills necessary beyond a bachelor’s degree in order to practice a specific profession.

    Later it adds that “professional licensure is also generally required,” and provides a short but nonexhaustive list of programs that could fit the bill, including: pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, osteopathy, law, optometry, podiatry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic medicine and theology. (That list served as the foundation for the department’s proposal.)

    Some groups, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, made clear in their public comments that they interpret this definition to be an intentionally “flexible” and “inclusive approach.” And based on that, they encouraged the department to maintain a broad definition and allow institutions to self-certify their programs with periodic review from the department.

    Jordan Wicker, the senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs at Career Education Colleges and Universities, a lobbying group for for-profit institutions, added that the economy and higher education landscape are constantly evolving—pointing to the need for a broader definition.

    “I don’t know that you want to re-regulate a comprehensive list any time curriculums or programs change,” he told Inside Higher Ed.

    Others, including the American Council on Education, agree that the interpretation should be broad but say the best way to ensure that is the case is by creating a more complete list of eligible programs. “At the very least,” ACE said in its comment letter, the list should include dozens of clinical and health science programs highlighted under an existing regulation known as financial value transparency. On top of that, it also urges the department to include about 15 additional programs, including architecture, accounting, social work, education and word languages.

    Halaevalu Vakalahi, president of the Council on Social Work Education, agreed, arguing that many programs like hers meet the current definition.

    “We’ve always identified ourselves as a profession,” she said. “There’s licensure, there’s accreditation—all of the things that we have as part of the social [work] profession are also in the list that currently exists on what is a profession.”

    But Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, drew the exact opposite conclusion, arguing that Congress intended for the definition to be stringent and address “unnecessary student debt.” (Graduate student debt accounts for nearly half of the student loan portfolio, raising concerns for lawmakers and advocates.)

    “While this list is not exclusive, Congress did not indicate that it intended to include any other fields in crafting the OBBBA loan limits,” senior policy adviser Ben Cecil wrote in a recent blog post about the distinction. “By codifying this list as written, the Department can best enforce the legislative intent of ensuring that students aren’t overborrowing for graduate school and have manageable debt compared to their program’s earnings.”

    High-Stakes Talks

    With the different proposals on the table, those interviewed agreed that it will be rather difficult for the committee to reach consensus. If the committee doesn’t reach an agreement, the department is free to interpret the definition cited in OBBBA however it wants.

    McCann from PEER, who worked at the department during the Obama and Biden administrations, said that until she starts to see the debate play out, it’s hard to know which approach will win. But no matter what, she added it will likely be an uphill climb.

    “It’s a challenging issue for negotiators, and there are a lot of competing interests with pretty high stakes attached,” she said. So “this is going to be a difficult committee on which to get that kind of agreement.”

    Todd Jones, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio and a former Republican staffer in the department, said that he expects the Trump administration will lean toward a more narrow definition if the committee doesn’t reach consensus. At that point, he added, it will be up to the individual types of programs to lobby for why they should be added to the list.

    “The question is, what has the administration already decided that they are going to give on?” Jones said. “And the things I’ve heard while I was in D.C. over the past few months indicate that there may not be support for some of these social science higher degrees being considered professions and instead simply being considered master’s.”

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  • More Colleges Promise Grads Employment, Grad School Placement

    More Colleges Promise Grads Employment, Grad School Placement

    For some students, enrolling in college can feel like a gamble due to the high cost and lack of a clear career at the end of the program. But a growing number of colleges and universities are guaranteeing students will land a job or graduate program slot within months of graduation.

    Bethel University in St. Paul is the latest to make such a promise; Bethel’s Career Commitment provides students in the College of Arts & Sciences with additional assistance if they are still unemployed or not enrolled in graduate school six months after graduation—including by offering a tuition-free spot in a graduate-level Bethel course or a staff job at the university. 

    The trend indicates a growing awareness among institutions of their responsibility to provide students with career-development opportunities, as well as their recognition that a lack of institutional support can impact the college’s perceived value.

    State of play: Nationally, institutions of higher education are struggling to demonstrate value to the public, including prospective students, parents and lawmakers. Much of the trepidation comes from a lack of transparency regarding colleges’ high cost of attendance and the mountain of student loan debt Americans hold, as well as high unemployment and underemployment rates among graduates.

    A recent survey by Tyton Partners found that among students who believe college is worth the cost, 95 percent think higher education is preparing them well for jobs and careers.

    In general, students give fair ratings to the work campuses are currently doing to prepare them for their professional lives. A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that the plurality of students rate their institution’s efforts in career development as “average” (34 percent), 44.6 percent combined consider their college “good” or “excellent,” and 18 percent said poor or below average.

    Today’s college students are also eyeing a competitive job market during an economic downturn, as well as pressures from evolving technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence, that threaten entry-level roles.

    Embedding career development throughout the curriculum or as a graduation requirement is becoming more common, encouraging students to think about life after college earlier and in more meaningful ways so they aren’t caught unprepared when senior spring rolls around.

    Previous research shows that students engaged in career development are more likely to secure a job; a 2022 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that students who engaged with their career center received more job offers than their peers who didn’t. But some structural barriers can hinder students’ ability to participate in career activities, including off-campus work, caregiving responsibilities or lack of awareness of services. Internships are also increasingly competitive, leaving some students behind.

    How it works: A key piece of the Bethel Career Commitment is that students must undertake significant measures to advance their own career before the university will open additional doors of support.

    Students must complete four “phases” of career preparation prior to graduation to be eligible for a spot in Bethel’s career commitment plan. The elements include creating a Handshake profile, meeting with a career-development coach and participating in an internship. And after they earn their degree, students must meet with a career coach monthly and apply for at least 20 jobs per month to complete the final phase.

    In addition, students must have a minimum 3.0 GPA, be in good financial standing with the university and be willing to relocate.

    For students who don’t meet all the eligibility requirements, the university provides postgraduation career support in the form of coaching, Bethel University president Ross Allen told Inside Higher Ed.

    “Today, 99 percent of Bethel graduates are employed or in graduate school within a year, so we expect a small number of graduates will need the additional postgraduation support,” Allen said.

    He anticipates that graduate-level credits will often be “the most helpful next step vocationally,” but the university may offer short-term employment opportunities to students based on staffing needs, Allen said.

    A national picture: Other institutions, including Thomas College in Maine, Davenport University in Michigan, Curry College in Massachusetts and the University of Tulsa, guarantee their graduates employment, also on the condition that students participate in career development while enrolled.

    At Davenport, for example, students in select majors who earn a 3.0 GPA, complete an internship or experiential learning opportunity, and participate in extracurricular activities are supported by the DU Employment Guarantee. The plan allows students to enroll in 48 additional credits tuition-free in a graduate, undergraduate or professional program at the university, as well as participate in career coaching and recruitment efforts.

    At Curry College, students who opt into the Curry Commitment receive assistance with federal student loans for up to 12 months. They are also given a paid internship or a tuition waiver for six credits of graduate studies at the institution. To be eligible, a student must participate in career advising, workshops and résumé development; earn at least a 2.8 GPA; and graduate within four years.

    None of these institutions differentiates among the types of job a student may secure—making no distinction between a part-time role or one that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree—leaving some questions about the underemployment of college graduates.

    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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  • Staff Members Fired, Grad Student Punished for Cheering Charlie Kirk’s Death

    Staff Members Fired, Grad Student Punished for Cheering Charlie Kirk’s Death

    Right-wing social media accounts have embarked on a widespread name-and-shame campaign to out any college employees who have celebrated or spoken insensitively about Kirk’s death.

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

    Two administrators are now out of a job and a graduate student lost an internship after making comments online that downplayed or celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk, the influential conservative founder of the campus-focused Turning Point USA. 

    In the 36 hours since Kirk was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University, right-wing social media accounts have screenshotted and circulated several social media posts, likes and reposts from college faculty and staff members related to Kirk’s death. In addition to the firings, the campaign to name and shame these individuals has led to death threats, Wired reported.

    Late Wednesday, a student affairs administrator at Middle Tennessee State University was fired after posting “insensitive” remarks on Facebook in response to Kirk’s death. “We take great pride in the professionalism of our staff; in my long tenure with this university I’ve never before had to dismiss someone for so carelessly undermining the work and mission of this fine institution,” Middle Tennessee State president Sidney McPhee wrote in a statement Thursday. A university spokesperson confirmed the employee was Laura Sosh-Lightsy, an associate dean of student care and conduct who had worked at the university since 2005. 

    “Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy,” Sosh-Lightsy wrote in a Facebook post that has been circulated widely by right-wing accounts on social media. A university spokesperson did not confirm whether or not that specific post led to her firing but noted that “her termination was related to her insensitive social media posts related to the horrific death of Mr. Kirk.” Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, called for Sosh-Lightsy’s firing on X, writing that she “should be ashamed of her post.” Sosh-Lightsy did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.

    On Thursday afternoon, University of Mississippi chancellor Glenn Boyce confirmed the firing of an unnamed staff member who he said “re-shared hurtful, insensitive comments on social media regarding the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk.”

    Boyce didn’t provide specifics but noted that “these comments run completely counter to our institutional values of civility, fairness and respecting the dignity of each person.” 

    At Baylor University, officials distanced the university from a graduate student who wrote “this made me giggle” in response to a social media post sharing the news of Kirk’s death.

    “We are aware and greatly disappointed by a social media comment from a Baylor graduate student regarding the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. To make light of the death of a fellow human being is completely inappropriate and completely counter to Baylor’s Christian mission. Baylor strives to be a community in which every individual is treated with respect—in life and in death,” a university statement said.

    The graduate student—whose online username includes “coach”—is not a member of the faculty nor a part of the athletics program, the statement clarified. Midway Middle School, where the graduate student was student teaching, also removed him from teaching there, KWTX reported. 

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is monitoring which universities are censoring employee speech, said Lindsie Rank, director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE. “It may not be moral to speak ill of the dead, but it is protected by the First Amendment so we’re going to be keeping our eyes open for those situations,” she said.

    Ryan Quinn contributed to this report.

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  • Brown to Fund Grad Students Who Lost Grants

    Brown to Fund Grad Students Who Lost Grants

    The university has vowed to honor financial commitments made to M.F.A. and Ph.D. students.

    Brown University will give money to some of its graduate students whose federal research grants were cut by the Trump administration, The Brown Daily Herald reported. 

    “We want to make sure that we’re able to give each of you all of the attention and support that you need to get through comfortably [and] well supported,” Janet Blume, interim dean of the graduate school, said at a Graduate Student Council meeting Wednesday. She said the university will honor the financial commitments of M.F.A. and Ph.D. students who lost their grants. 

    The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies have terminated thousands of academic researchers’ grants—including many at Brown—that don’t align with the Trump administration’s ideological agenda. 

    Blume said Brown is also reducing its graduate student admissions target this year to allow “time to work out issues of the federal financial landscape and also shifts in the job market.”

    In addition to canceling research grants, numerous federal agencies have put forth plans to cap the amount of money they reimburse universities to cover indirect research costs, which universities say will hurt their budgets and slow innovation. Brown is among the institutions suing the government over its changes to indirect cost reimbursement rates, which are on pause during ongoing litigation. 

    Brown, which had a $46 million deficit before President Trump took office in January, has also faced targeted scrutiny from the Trump administration. The university implemented a hiring freeze in March. In April, the government froze $510 million of Brown’s federal research dollars in retaliation for the university’s alleged failures to address antisemitism on campus.

    In June, administrators warned of the potential for “significant cost-cutting” measures amid the “deep financial losses” resulting from grant cuts, increased endowment taxes and threats to international student enrollment.

    The following month, Brown and the government came to an agreement, and the frozen grant money is coming back to the university. However, the deal did not restore the grants of researchers whose funding was terminated as part of the broader ideologically driven policy changes.

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  • Columbia Ends Some Teaching Roles for Grad Students

    Columbia Ends Some Teaching Roles for Grad Students

    Columbia’s graduate student union is in the middle of negotiating a new contract with the university.

    DNY59/iStock/Getty Images

    Less than a month before the start of the semester, Ph.D. students at Columbia University in New York were told with little explanation that they would no longer be teaching this fall.

    The catalyst for this change is unclear. The university said it’s an effort to reduce the teaching load on Columbia graduate students and allow them to finish their degrees in six years rather than seven. The students said it’s a move to weaken the labor power of their union, which is in the middle of tense negotiations with the university to renew its contract, which expired June 30.

    The students, who are members of the graduate student union Student Workers of Columbia, will still be paid. However, instead of receiving a biweekly teaching stipend, they’ll get a lump sum at the start of the semester. To pay both the Ph.D.s and their replacements, “the cost to the university likely runs to millions of dollars,” estimated Michael Thaddeus, a mathematics professor at Columbia and vice president and acting president of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors. In July, Columbia agreed to a $221 million settlement with the federal government in order to restore hundreds of millions in federal research funding.

    Columbia has traditionally tapped sixth- and seventh-year graduate students to teach foundational courses and some of the undergraduate college’s Core Curriculum classes, which includes courses, like University Writing and Frontiers of Science, that all first-year students are required to take. The work is more time-consuming than a regular TA job; as the so-called instructors of record, the Ph.D. students must teach two two-hour lectures and attend a pedagogy seminar each week, on top of all of the reading and prep time that goes on behind the scenes. The workload sidelines their research and writing, a representative from SWC explained. But it offers valuable teaching experience, and Ph.D. candidates are usually guaranteed a seventh year of funding when they sign on to teach a core class.

    But this teaching expectation is unusually large for graduate students, according to Columbia officials.

    “Columbia doctoral students have typically been required to teach more than Ph.D. students at peer institutions, which often means delays in their time to degree,” a university spokesperson wrote in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “After discussions with some departments about teaching requirements and instructional staffing, we have released some graduate students from teaching obligations for the fall—while continuing to offer them the same funding and benefits. These students will have more time to complete academic requirements or advance their dissertation research and writing.”

    Neither the students nor some faculty buy this explanation. Students say they didn’t receive any formal communication about changes to the graduate student teaching structure and that the move to dismiss or deny Ph.D.s from the teaching positions is an effort to undermine the labor power of the union, which had been planning a strike for the fall. As TAs and members of SWC, the students would still be able to participate in a work action, but it wouldn’t have as big an impact as lecturers walking out of class.

    More than 100 students are affected by this change, according to the union. Columbia officials said the figure was much lower but declined to share an exact figure and noted that the number of Ph.D. core instructors varies year to year.

    Columbia’s AAUP chapter denounced the university’s action in an Aug. 19 statement.

    “We do not agree with the claim that this step has been taken to help graduate students. Rather, it clearly has to do with the looming contract negotiations. The timing makes this clear,” said Thaddeus. “Students applied for preceptor positions back in November, and then they heard nothing at all for many months. If this were being done to help graduate students, then it would have made sense to notify them promptly.”

    The move will also damage the quality of Columbia’s doctoral and M.F.A. programs, Thaddeus argued.

    “Practical experience with setting assignments and exams, giving final grades, and so on is invaluable to those graduate students who pursue a career in teaching,” he added.

    One sixth-year Ph.D., who wished to remain anonymous to prevent retaliation from the university for speaking out, applied for a core teaching position in December. Over the next eight months, she received no communication about the position and finally received an offer for a TA position July 30. It wasn’t until Aug. 6, the day she was originally supposed to sign and return the teaching assistant appointment letter, that she heard back about the core position. She’d been rejected, the email said, and it included no explanation or information about the widespread changes to graduate teaching duties at Columbia.

    The abrupt change is “really disrupting people in the later stage of the program, like myself, who thought that this was not going to be my last year,” says the Ph.D. student. “Now I’m having to go on the academic job market basically at the last minute.”

    To fill the now-vacant teaching jobs, Columbia is recruiting for one-year lectureships and advertising the roles to adjuncts, postdocs and New York–based graduate students at other universities.

    “I wanted to share with you a posting we’ve just made for full-time lecturer positions teaching all across our Core curriculum—in Art, Music, Literature, and Contemporary Civilization—where we are expecting a larger entering class that we’d originally thought,” Columbia officials wrote in a message that was passed along to faculty at the University of Chicago and obtained by Inside Higher Ed. Columbia has also sent the position to Yale University.

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  • Why Write About Grad, Postdoc Career Development? (opinion)

    Why Write About Grad, Postdoc Career Development? (opinion)

    As a higher education professional with a background in writing and rhetoric, I frame my work in career and professional development in terms of communication, such as helping trainees translate their skills to the language of employers, convey complex research to audiences beyond their fields and forge professional selves through the written and digital texts they produce. By training, I often think about how texts produce effects on readers and the design choices writers make to engage those audiences.

    At a time when higher education faces great adversity, I find myself reflecting on the value of writing about career and professional development work in a venue such as “Carpe Careers”: Why write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development? How does this writing translate the impact of our work to different audiences? In this piece, I outline what we do when we write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development and why we should keep writing about this work.

    Writing to Empower Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholars

    As career and professional development leaders, we sometimes feel frustrated that the impact of our work seems limited to one institution or program. For example, we might be the office of one at our institution and concerned about the scalability of advising appointments or low attendance at workshops. Writing about best practices for career and professional development can expand the reach of our advice to online audiences worldwide.

    For example, “Carpe Careers” writers have penned more than 400 pieces that address key career exploration skills like job search strategies, building an authentic personal brand and identifying transferable skills. In addition to equipping graduate and postdoctoral trainees with strategies for landing fulfilling jobs, we present essential advice for navigating academia, such as how to communicate with faculty mentors, deliver effective presentations and cultivate professional references.

    These essential topics continue to be necessary and relevant to new generations of graduate and postdoctoral readers because they make visible the hidden curriculum of academia and the world of work. Our work gives learners the tools to navigate these spaces with confidence, supplementing the efforts of mentors, coaches and instructional workshops. Likewise, when we write about professional development, we attend to the holistic flourishing of graduate and postdoctoral scholars by centering topics such as mental well-being on the job search, coping with the culture shock of career transitions or the power of rest. We not only give learners practical advice for the next steps in their careers but also cultivate virtual community and belonging for graduate and postdoctoral trainees facing common challenges and pursuing similar goals.

    Writing to Support Fellow Practitioners

    When we write about career and professional development, we put our own spin on old chestnut topics by drawing on our backgrounds, identities and experiences. For example, this recent piece reframes professional networking as a form of evidence-gathering and scientific research, leveraging the authors’ training in science. Putting our own spins on standard topics of career transitions and exploration can help us create a distinct personal professional brand as practitioners: How have we synthesized our own stories and the wisdom of others to support current graduate and postdoc trainees? What do we want to be known for as graduate and postdoc career development leaders?

    Beyond enriching individual professional identities, when we write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development, we also reflect on how our work with graduate and postdoctoral trainees is changing and identify opportunities for innovation, from the pros and cons of using generative AI tools for career-related activities to advice for supporting international job seekers. We likewise showcase innovative approaches to implementing career and professional development for graduate and postdoctoral learners, such as how to tailor experiential learning, alumni mentoring and badging programs to these populations.

    By reflecting on our practice and how we have adapted to challenges, this writing becomes a form of professional development for us, as it enriches the dynamic fields of graduate and postdoc career and professional development and extends our conversations from professional organizations and conferences to wider, virtual communities of practitioners. For instance, recent “Carpe Careers” pieces have highlighted administrative postdoc and “meta” postdoc roles as entry points to career development and related academic administrative work, defining new positions through the perspectives of those who hold these inaugural roles and shaping the futures of work in our fields. When we address practitioners as an audience, writing about career and professional development creates a virtual community of practice where we highlight emerging trends and offer support for one another’s professional growth.

    Writing to Engage Stakeholders

    Writing for fellow graduate and postdoc career practitioners elevates our work and sets the stage to convey its value to stakeholders, such as faculty and senior administrators whose support is crucial for campus career and professional development initiatives. The external recognition from a piece in a venue such as “Carpe Careers” can lead to greater internal recognition for our programs and offices. For example, when I wrote a “Carpe Careers” post on professional thank-you notes for Thanksgiving week 2024, a University of Pittsburgh newswire service highlighted it in a newsletter, and a vice provost invited me to present on writing thank-yous at a faculty retreat.

    Beyond our campuses, when we write about graduate and postdoctoral career development, we communicate the value of our efforts to stakeholders outside higher education, such as employers, policymakers and the public. As Celia Whitchurch observed, graduate and postdoc career and professional development work occupies a third space in higher education amid academic, student affairs and administrative functions, so it is often overlooked and less understood than more conventional academic or student life initiatives.

    Writing about our work situates it—and by extension the experiences of graduate and postdoctoral scholars—in the wider ecosystems of higher education and the workforce. This writing can educate stakeholders who are less familiar with the work of career and professional development, highlighting our contributions to graduate and postdoctoral learners’ success, and thereby helping us advocate for greater visibility and resources. When we write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development, we underscore the value of our work and its impacts on trainees, higher education and the wider society.

    Writing for and as Change

    Writing about graduate and postdoc career and professional development positions us as change agents, championing trainees’ holistic success and envisioning what our field could be. In this writing, we hold space for courageous conversations in difficult times, such as supporting learners through recent disruptions, reflecting on activism as a form of professional development and highlighting the entrepreneurial potential of our trainees amid economic uncertainty. Whether we address learners, fellow practitioners or broader stakeholders, when we write about career and professional development, we let ourselves dream about our careers and those of trainees, not only advocating for change but also modeling what change looks like through our advice, our programmatic innovations and our support for the broader enterprise of higher education.

    In short, writing about graduate and postdoc career and professional development is an affirmation of advanced degrees, higher education and the work of practitioners who support these learners’ long-term professional flourishing. This writing can be rewarding, as it scales up the impact of our advice, enriches professional communities and elevates the profile of career and professional development work. It can be bold, as it envisions and embodies positive change in our areas of practice. For “Carpe Careers” readers who are writers, why do you write about graduate and postdoc career and professional development? For “Carpe” readers who are considering writing about their work, when will you start?

    Katie Homar is the assistant director of the Office of Academic Career Development, Health Sciences, at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

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  • Preparing Grad Students to Defend Academic Freedom (opinion)

    Preparing Grad Students to Defend Academic Freedom (opinion)

    Defending academic freedom is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. From the current administration’s scrutiny of (and executive orders related to) higher education, to state legislative overreach and on-campus bad actors, threats to academic freedom are myriad and dire.

    As leader of a program focused on free expression and academic freedom, I see faculty and campus leaders who are flummoxed about how to respond: Where to begin? What can be done to make a difference in defending academic freedom?

    I have an answer, at least if you’re graduate faculty, a dean or director of graduate studies, or a provost: Make a plan to prepare graduate students—tomorrow’s professors—to defend academic freedom.

    Graduate students often feel too pressed to focus on anything other than their coursework or dissertation and so are unlikely to study academic freedom on their own, even if they know where to find solid information. It is incumbent on faculty to put academic freedom in front of graduate students as a serious and approachable topic. If their professors and directors of graduate study do not teach them about academic freedom, they will be ill prepared to confront academic freedom issues when they arise, as they surely will, especially in today’s climate.

    An example: When I met with advanced graduate students at an R-1 university, one student recounted an experience as a junior team member reviewing submissions for a journal. He reported that another team member argued for rejecting a manuscript because its findings could be used to advance a public policy position favored by some politicians that this colleague opposed. The student was rightly troubled about political factors being weighed along with methodology and scholarship but reported he didn’t have the knowledge or confidence to respond effectively. Bottom line: His graduate school preparation had incompletely prepared him to understand and act on academic freedom principles.

    Here is a summer action plan for graduate faculty, deans and provosts to ensure we don’t leave the next generation of scholars uncertain about academic freedom principles and how they apply in teaching, scholarship and extracurricular settings.

    Add an academic freedom session to orientation. Orientation for matriculating graduate students is a can’t-miss chance to begin education about academic freedom.

    Patrick Kain, associate professor of philosophy at Purdue University, provides a primer on graduate students’ academic freedom rights and responsibilities during his department’s graduate student orientation. His session covers the First Amendment, state law and campus policies. He provides written guidance about what to do, especially in their roles as teaching assistants (“pay attention to the effects of your expression on others”); what not to do (“don’t compel speech”); and what they should expect (“students’ experiences and sensitivity to others’ expression will vary”).

    Reflecting on his experiences leading these orientation sessions, Kain said, “Graduate students, especially those joining us from quite different cultures and institutions, really appreciate a clear explanation of the ground rules of academic freedom and free expression on campus.” He added, “It puts them at ease to be able to imagine how they can pursue their own work with integrity in these trying times, and what they can expect from others when disagreements arise.”

    However, orientation cannot be a “one and done” for a topic as complex as academic freedom. Additional steps to take this summer include:

    Revisit the professional development seminar. Most graduate students take a professional development seminar before preliminary exams. When I took that seminar three decades ago, academic freedom wasn’t a topic—and my inquiries suggest academic freedom hasn’t been added to many professional development seminars since. This must change. In addition to sessions on writing a publishable article and giving a job talk, include sessions on the history and norms of academic freedom and free inquiry. Assign foundational academic freedom documents, such as the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement on the Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure and the 1967 Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students, alongside a text offering an overview of academic freedom principles, such as Henry Reichman’s Understanding Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins Press, 2025).

    Schedule an academic freedom workshop. Graduate students at all stages—and your faculty colleagues, too!—can benefit from stand-alone workshops. Include tabletop exercises that allow students to appreciate nuances of academic freedom principles. For example, tabletop exercises let students test possible responses to a peer who is putting a thumb on the scale against publishing a manuscript submission on nonacademic grounds, to department colleagues who are exerting pressure on them to sign a joint statement with which they disagree or to administrators bowing inappropriately to donor wishes or political pressures. The reports of the Council of Independent Colleges’ Academic Leaders Task Force on Campus Free Expression include ready-for-use tabletop exercises.

    Bolster classroom training for teaching assistants. Professors with teaching assistants can provide an insider’s look into their process for designing a course and planning class meetings, with a focus on how they build trust and incorporate divergent viewpoints, and their approach to teaching potentially controversial topics. In weekly TA meetings, professors and TAs can debrief about what worked to foster robust discussion and what didn’t. Centers for teaching and learning can equip graduate students with strategies that build their confidence for leading discussions, including strategies to uphold free expression and inclusive values when a student speaks in ways that others think is objectionable or violates inclusion norms. The University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching offers programs tailored to graduate students and postdocs, including a teaching orientation program.

    Look for opportunities to provide mentorship. An academic career isn’t only about teaching and scholarship but also entails serving on department and university committees, providing—and being subject to—peer review, and planning conferences. Academic freedom questions come up with regularity during these activities. Graduate faculty serve as mentors and should be alert to opportunities to discuss these questions. One idea: Take a “ripped from the headlines” controversy about journal retractions, viral faculty social media posts or how universities are responding to Trump administration pressures and plan a brown-bag lunch discussion with graduate students.

    Take the next step in rethinking graduate student preparation. While the steps above can be taken this summer, with a longer planning horizon, it is possible to rethink graduate preparation for a changed higher education landscape. Morgan State University, a public HBCU in Maryland, offers Morgan’s Structured Teaching Assistant Program (MSTAP), an award-winning course series to prepare graduate students as teachers. Mark Garrison, who as dean of the School of Graduate Studies led the development of MSTAP, explained, “In our required coursework for teaching assistants, we are intensely focused on establishing ground rules for TAs” around how to guide “student engagement that is accepting and encouraging without the intrusion of the TA’s personal views.”

    Garrison added, “This makes free expression a component of instruction that must be cherished and nourished. We cannot assume that the novice instructor will come to this view naturally, and we do our best to embrace a reflective teaching model.”

    Academic freedom is under threat. As Mary Clark, provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of Denver, observed, “Graduate students are developing identities as scholars, learning what academic freedom means in their research and in the classroom—and how their scholarly identity intersects with their extracurricular speech as citizens and community members. It is critical that we support them in developing these understandings.” This summer is the time to plan to do exactly that.

    Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill is senior director of the Civic Learning and Free Expression Projects at the Council of Independent Colleges.

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  • Why Grad Students Can’t Afford to Ignore AI  (opinion)

    Why Grad Students Can’t Afford to Ignore AI  (opinion)

    I recently found myself staring at my computer screen, overwhelmed by the sheer pace of AI developments flooding my inbox. Contending with the flow of new tools, updated models and breakthrough announcements felt like trying to drink from a fire hose. As someone who coaches graduate students navigating their academic and professional journeys, I realized I was experiencing the same anxiety many of my students express: How do we keep up with something that’s evolving faster than we can learn?

    But here’s what I’ve come to understand through my own experimentation and reflection: The question isn’t whether we can keep up, but whether we can afford not to engage. As graduate students, you’re training to become the critical thinkers, researchers and leaders our world desperately needs. If you step back from advances in AI, you’re not just missing professional opportunities; you’re abdicating your responsibility to help shape how these powerful tools impact society.

    The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think

    The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence isn’t just a tech trend but a fundamental shift that will reshape every field, from humanities research to scientific discovery. As graduate students, you have a unique opportunity and responsibility. You’re positioned at the intersection of deep subject matter expertise and flexible thinking. You can approach AI tools with both the technical sophistication to use them effectively and the critical perspective to identify their limitations and potential harms.

    When I reflect on my own journey with AI tools, I’m reminded of my early days learning to navigate complex organizational systems. Just as I had to develop strategic thinking skills to thrive in bureaucratic environments, we now need to develop AI literacy to thrive in an AI-augmented world. The difference is the timeline: We don’t have years to adapt gradually. We have months, maybe weeks, before these tools become so embedded in professional workflows that not knowing how to use them thoughtfully becomes a significant disadvantage.

    My Personal AI Tool Kit: Tools Worth Exploring

    Rather than feeling paralyzed by the abundance of options, I’ve taken a systematic approach to exploring AI tools. I chose the tools in my current tool kit not because they’re perfect, but because they represent different ways AI can enhance rather than replace human thinking.

    • Large Language Models: Beyond ChatGPT

    Yes, ChatGPT was the breakthrough that captured everyone’s attention, but limiting yourself to one LLM is like using only one search engine. I regularly experiment with Claude for its nuanced reasoning capabilities, Gemini for its integration with Google’s ecosystem and DeepSeek for being an open-source model. Each has distinct strengths, and understanding these differences helps me choose the right tool for specific tasks.

    The key insight I’ve gained is that these aren’t just fancy search engines or writing assistants. They’re thinking partners that can help you explore ideas, challenge assumptions and approach problems from multiple angles, if you know how to prompt them effectively.

    • Executive Function Support: Goblin Tools

    One discovery that surprised me was Goblin Tools, an AI-powered suite of tools designed to support executive function. As someone who juggles multiple projects and deadlines and is navigating an invisible disability, I’ve found the task breakdown and time estimation features invaluable. For graduate students managing research, coursework and teaching responsibilities, tools like this can provide scaffolding for the cognitive load that often overwhelms even the most organized among us.

    • Research Acceleration: Elicit and Consensus

    Perhaps the most transformative tools in my workflow are Elicit and Consensus. These platforms don’t just help you find research papers, but also help you understand research landscapes, identify gaps in literature and synthesize findings across multiple studies.

    What excites me most about these tools is how they augment rather than replace critical thinking. They can surface connections you might miss and highlight contradictions in the literature, but you still need the domain expertise to evaluate the quality of sources and the analytical skills to synthesize findings meaningfully.

    • Real-Time Research: Perplexity

    Another tool that has become indispensable in my research workflow is Perplexity. What sets Perplexity apart is its ability to provide real-time, cited responses by searching the internet and academic sources simultaneously. I’ve found this particularly valuable for staying current with rapidly evolving research areas and for fact-checking information. When I’m exploring a new topic or need to verify recent developments in a field, Perplexity serves as an intelligent research assistant that not only finds relevant information but also helps me understand how different sources relate to each other. The key is using it as a starting point for deeper investigation, not as the final word on any topic.

    • Visual Communication: Beautiful.ai, Gamma and Napkin

    Presentation and visual communication tools represent another frontier where AI is making significant impact. Beautiful.ai and Gamma can transform rough ideas into polished presentations, while Napkin excels at creating diagrams and visual representations of complex concepts.

    I’ve found these tools particularly valuable not just for final presentations, but for thinking through ideas visually during the research process. Sometimes seeing your argument laid out in a diagram reveals logical gaps that weren’t apparent in text form.

    • Staying Informed: The Pivot 5 Newsletter

    With so much happening so quickly, staying informed without becoming overwhelmed is crucial. I subscribe to the Pivot 5 newsletter, which provides curated insights into AI developments without the breathless hype that characterizes much AI coverage. Finding reliable, thoughtful sources for AI news is as important as learning to use the tools themselves.

    Beyond the Chat Bots: Developing Critical AI Literacy

    Here’s where I want to challenge you to think more deeply. Most discussions about AI in academia focus on policies about chat bot use in assignments—important, but insufficient. The real opportunity lies in developing what I call critical AI literacy: understanding not just how to use these tools, but when to use them, how to evaluate their outputs and how to maintain your own analytical capabilities.

    This means approaching AI tools with the same rigor you’d apply to any research methodology. What are the assumptions built into these systems? What biases might they perpetuate? How do you verify AI-generated insights? These aren’t just philosophical questions; they’re practical skills that will differentiate thoughtful AI users from passive consumers.

    A Strategic Approach to AI Engagement

    Drawing from the strategic thinking framework I’ve advocated for in the past, here’s how I suggest you approach AI engagement:

    • Start with purpose: Before adopting any AI tool, clearly identify what problem you’re trying to solve. Are you looking to accelerate research, improve writing, manage complex projects or enhance presentations? Different tools serve different purposes.
    • Experiment systematically: Don’t try to learn everything at once. Choose one or two tools that align with your immediate needs and spend time understanding their capabilities and limitations before moving on to others.
    • Maintain critical distance: Use these tools as thinking partners, not thinking replacements. Always maintain the ability to evaluate and verify AI outputs against your own expertise and judgment.
    • Share and learn: Engage with peers about your experiences. What works? What doesn’t? What ethical considerations have you encountered? This collective learning is crucial for developing best practices.

    The Cost of Standing Still

    I want to be clear about what’s at stake. This isn’t about keeping up with the latest tech trends or optimizing productivity, even though those are benefits. It’s about ensuring that the most important conversations about AI’s role in society include the voices of critically trained, ethically minded scholars.

    If graduate students, future professors, researchers, policymakers and industry leaders retreat from AI engagement, we leave these powerful tools to be shaped entirely by technologists and venture capitalists. The nuanced understanding of human behavior, ethical frameworks and social systems that you’re developing in your graduate programs is exactly what’s needed to guide AI development responsibly.

    The pace of change isn’t slowing down. In fact, it’s accelerating. But that’s precisely why your engagement matters more, not less. The world needs people who can think critically about these tools, who understand both their potential and their perils, and who can help ensure they’re developed and deployed in ways that benefit rather than harm society.

    Moving Forward With Intention

    As you consider how to engage with AI tools, remember that this isn’t about becoming a tech expert overnight. It’s about maintaining the curiosity and critical thinking that brought you to graduate school in the first place. Start small, experiment thoughtfully and always keep your analytical mind engaged.

    The future we’re building with AI won’t be determined by the tools themselves, but by the people who choose to engage with them thoughtfully and critically. As graduate students, you have the opportunity—and, I’d argue, the responsibility—to be part of that conversation.

    The question isn’t whether AI will transform your field. It’s whether you’ll help shape that transformation or let it happen to you. The choice, as always, is yours to make.

    Dinuka Gunaratne (he/him) has worked across several postsecondary institutions in Canada and the U.S. and is a member of several organizational boards, including Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada, CERIC—Advancing Career Development in Canada, and the leadership team of the Administrators in Graduate and Professional Student Services knowledge community with NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

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  • College grad unemployment surges as employers replace new hires with AI (CBS News)

    College grad unemployment surges as employers replace new hires with AI (CBS News)

    The unemployment rate for new college graduates has recently surged. Economists say businesses are now replacing entry-level jobs with artificial intelligence.

     

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