Tag: Higher

  • Misinformation Course Teaches Ethics for Engineering Students

    Misinformation Course Teaches Ethics for Engineering Students

    Nearly three in four college students say they have somewhat high or very high media literacy skills (72 percent), according to a 2025 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab. Students are less likely to consider their peers media literate; three in five respondents said they have at least somewhat high levels of concern about the spread of misinformation among their classmates.

    When asked how colleges and universities could help improve students’ media literacy skills, a majority of Student Voice respondents indicated they want digital resources on increasing media literacy or media literacy–related content and training embedded into the curriculum.

    A recently developed course at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering teaches students information literacy principles to help them develop tools to mitigate the harms of online misinformation.

    The background: USC offers an interdisciplinary teaching grant that incentivizes cross-campus collaboration and innovative teaching practices. To be eligible for the grant, applications must include at least one full-time faculty member and faculty from more than one school or division. Each grantee receives up to $20,000 to compensate for applicants’ time and work.

    In 2023, Helen Choi, a faculty member at USC Viterbi, won the interdisciplinary teaching grant in collaboration with Cari Kaurloto, head of the science and engineering library at USC Libraries, to create a media literacy course specifically for engineering students.

    “By focusing on engineering students, we were able to integrate a component of the course that addresses a social issue from an engineering perspective in terms of technical know-how and the professional ethics,” Choi said, which helps students see the relevance of course content to their personal and professional lives.

    What’s the need: Students tend to receive most of their news and information on online platforms; Student Voice data found a majority of learners rely on social media for news content (72 percent), and about one in four engage with news apps or news aggregator websites (27 percent).

    Choi and Kaurloto’s course, titled Information Literacy: Navigating Digital Misinformation, builds academic research skills, teaches information literacy principles and breaks down the social issue of online misinformation.

    “Students examine ways they can navigate online information using their research skills, and then extend that knowledge by considering how they, as prospective engineers, can build technologies that mitigate the harms of online misinformation while enhancing the information literacy of users,” Choi explained.

    USC faculty aren’t the only ones noticing a need for more education around engagement with digital information; a growing number of colleges and universities are making students complete a digital literacy course as a graduation requirement.

    In the classroom: Choi and Kaurloto co-teach the course, which was first offered in this spring to a class of 25 students.

    The students learned to develop effective search strategies and critically examine sources, as well as ethical engineering principles and how to apply them in designing social media platforms, Kaurloto said. Choi and Kaurloto employed active learning pedagogies to give students hands-on and real-life applications including writing, speaking and collaborative coursework.

    One assignment the students completed was conducting library research to develop a thesis paragraph on an information literacy topic with a short, annotated bibliography. Students also presented their research to their peers, Kaurloto said.

    Learners also engaged in a group digital literacy project, designing a public service campaign that included helpful, research-backed ways to identify misinformation, Choi said. “They then had to launch that campaign on a social media platform, measure its impact, and present on their findings.” Projects ranged from infographics on Reddit to short-form videos on spotting AI-generated misinformation and images on TikTok and Instagram.

    The impact: Student feedback said they found the course helpful, with many upper-level learners saying they wished they had taken it sooner in their academic career because of the library research skills they gained. They also indicated the course content was applicable in daily life, such as when supporting family members “who students say have fallen down a few internet rabbit holes or who tend to believe everything they see online,” Choi said.

    Other librarians have taken note of the course as a model of how to teach information literacy, Choi said.

    “We’ve found that linking information literacy with specific disciplines like engineering can be helpful both in terms of building curricula that resonate with students but also for building professional partnerships among faculty,” Choi said. “Many faculty don’t know that university librarians are also experts in information literacy—but they should!”

    This fall, Choi and Kaurloto plan to offer two sections of the course with a cap of 24 students per section. Choi hopes to see more first- and second-year engineering students in the course so they can apply these principles to their program.

    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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  • McMahon Sharpens Tone on Accreditation

    McMahon Sharpens Tone on Accreditation

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon has made clear in recent public statements that the current system of college accreditation needs to change.

    She’s accused current accreditors of hindering innovation and called for new actors to join the system. Her comments follow an executive order signed last month that targeted diversity, equity and inclusion standards in accreditation; made it easier for colleges to change accreditors; and opened the door for new entrants.

    Firing accreditors is one of the many promises—or threats—President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail as he accused such agencies of failing to hold universities accountable and vowed change. McMahon offered full-throated support for that vision this week, but her comments also raise questions about her understanding of the system she’s aiming to overhaul.

    McMahon Pushes Change

    McMahon criticized the American Bar Association and accreditors broadly in a recent interview with the conservative website PragerU, arguing that such agencies wield too much power and the marketplace would benefit from competition.

    (Contacted by Inside Higher Ed, ABA declined to comment.)

    Her remarks came in response to a question about why more universities aren’t opening. She noted that accreditation was a barrier to launching new institutions and argued that there is “a monopoly on accreditors,” singling out the ABA as the sole accrediting agency for law schools.

    “The president has said, ‘Nope, we need more competition,’” McMahon said.

    Since taking office in March, McMahon has said little about her vision for accreditation changes as she focused on other priorities such as laying off the department’s staff and targeting Columbia and Harvard Universities. But rethinking accreditation is expected to be a top priority for her agency, especially after Trump’s executive order.

    McMahon also argued accreditors have stifled innovation and implied that the accrediting system is still regional.

    “Universities in certain areas of the country can only use that accreditor that’s in that area, so the president is opening it up and he’s saying, ‘Nope, pick any accreditor that you want, anywhere in the country,’ so you’re not bound, then, by that geographical boundary—what’s working, what’s been thought of that you have to do, like, in the Northeast or the Southeast or whatever. That’s really, I think, going to change and open it up for more competition for universities to open as well,” McMahon said in the interview posted Wednesday.

    Regional accreditation was broken up in 2019 during the first Trump administration, and universities have not been bound to regional accreditors since the rules officially changed six years ago. Several institutions have either changed accreditors since then or are in the process of doing so.

    The University of Arizona, for example, jumped from the Higher Learning Commission to the WASC Senior College and University Commission, a move that was announced in 2022. Various Florida institutions are also in the process of decamping from their accreditor, though state officials complained last year that the Biden administration had slowed the process. The Trump administration has since released new guidance to make the process of switching easier.

    Robert Shireman, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation and a member of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the education secretary on accreditation, told Inside Higher Ed by email that McMahon’s talking points seem dated.

    “It does seem that Secretary McMahon is using some talking points from five or six years ago. The regions are history. That said, accreditation is a complicated and obscure topic, so I’m not surprised that it is taking a while for her to grasp it all while awaiting the confirmation of an undersecretary with more higher education policy experience,” Shireman wrote.

    McMahon also needled the ABA and accreditors broadly in a Wednesday appearance at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., where she was featured in a conversation about shutting down the Department of Education. There she was asked about improving accreditation.

    “It’s a really big topic and a big issue right now. In fact, we are looking at expanding the number of accreditors in the Department of Education, which takes a couple of years,” McMahon said.

    She again called out the ABA for being “almost a monopoly” before zooming out broadly and repeating the claim from the PragerU interview that universities were tied to regional accreditors.

    “There are accreditors who are assigned to different regions of the country. So if you’re in Florida and you have an accreditor, that’s part of the Southeast, but you really don’t feel like you’re getting your fair shake from these accreditors, and they may be putting all kinds of demands on you that are not necessarily what are looked at by another group of accreditors, and so you’d like to change your accreditation group, you’re not allowed to do that,” McMahon said.

    Education Department officials offered some clarity Thursday in response to questions from Inside Higher Ed.

    “While accreditors are no longer regional, the pre-clearance requirement put in place by the Biden Administration made it almost impossible for institutions to change accreditors. The President’s EO and Secretary McMahon’s actions will bring additional competition and innovation to the marketplace,” an unidentified department spokesperson wrote by email.

    The spokesperson also included a link to McMahon’s comments on last month’s executive order.

    A New Accreditor?

    On the same day McMahon took shots at accreditors, the University of North Carolina system’s president made a surprise announcement that UNC is “exploring the idea” of establishing a new accrediting agency. That effort, he said in remarks at a UNC Board of Governors committee meeting, would be in conjunction with other public university systems, which he did not name.

    “There are frustrations with the cumbersome, expensive, time-consuming burden the current approach places on our campuses, especially smaller institutions that must dedicate significant resources to the process,” Peter Hans said Wednesday, as first reported by The News & Observer.

    The UNC system is considering a foray into the accreditation world following state legislation passed without debate in 2023 that would require public institutions in the state to change accreditors every cycle. Florida passed similar legislation in 2022 that mandated changing accreditors.

    Both North Carolina and Florida have legislatures with strong Republican majorities. The legislation in both states followed questions from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges over shared governance and presidential hiring processes.

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  • Harvard Medical Researcher Detained by ICE Faces Charge

    Harvard Medical Researcher Detained by ICE Faces Charge

    The Harvard Medical School research associate and Russian native detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement three months ago and sent to Louisiana now faces a criminal charge—for allegedly trying to smuggle frog embryos into the U.S.

    The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office announced the charge in a news release Wednesday, saying it could mean “a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, a term of up to five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.”

    Prosecutors allege that after the researcher, Kseniia Petrova, arrived from Paris at Boston’s Logan International Airport, a law enforcement canine “alerted its handler to the defendant’s checked duffel bag on the baggage carousel.” The release said Petrova “initially denied carrying any biological material in her checked baggage.”

    Petrova’s lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, said in a statement Thursday that “less than two hours after the Vermont judge set a hearing on Kseniia’s release, she was suddenly transferred from ICE to criminal custody. This is not a coincidence. It is an attempt by the government to justify its outrageous and legally indefensible position that this scientist working for the U.S. on cures for cancer and aging research has somehow become a danger.”

    The government said in court Wednesday that it intends “to deport Kseniia to Russia,” Romanovsky said, “where it knows she will face grave danger for opposing the Putin regime.”

    He said he expects Petrova will be transferred to Massachusetts in the next few weeks. Romanovsky has previously said Petrova was transporting “a non-hazardous scientific sample,” for which authorities could’ve merely fined her instead of detaining her and revoking her visa.

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  • Higher education postcard: Hughes Hall, Cambridge

    Higher education postcard: Hughes Hall, Cambridge

    Greetings from Cambridge – and unlike last week, this time we’re definitely in England.

    It is 1878, and the Cambridge Independent Press of 7 December reports that the university has taken steps to enable the training of teachers. The Teachers’ Training Syndicate (its Cambridge-ese for a committee or working group, I think) is to be established, to oversee programmes of training for students intending to become school teachers, and the colleges at which they train.

    Image: Shutterstock

    All of this took place in the context of increased state engagement with school education: the provision of schools for all children was becoming increasingly necessary, and local authorities of various kinds (it’s complicated!) were empowered to fund such schools.

    And it stands to reason that where you have schools, you need teachers. And by then the practice of teaching was becoming increasingly professionalised. Plus, it was one of the few professions open to women.

    And so in 1885 the Cambridge Training College for Women was opened. Initially based at Newnham College, there were fourteen students, under the guidance of the college’s first principal, Elizabeth Phillips Hughes. Hughes was the first woman to gain first class honours in moral sciences at Cambridge, having studied at Newnham. (She also helped to found the Barry Teachers Training College, which ultimately became part of the University of South Wales, and helped to draft the statutes of the University of Wales). She remained principal of the new college until 1899, steering it from its modest start to a new building – that shown on the card – in 1895.

    The driving forces behind the establishment of the college included Miss Frances Buss, champion of girls’ education, and one of the subjects of an anonymous verse of some fame:

    Miss Buss and Miss Beale

    Cupid’s darts do not feel.

    How different from us

    Miss Beale and Miss Buss.

    Miss Beale was Dorothea Beale, suffragist, headmistress of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and one of the founders of St Hilda’s College, Oxford. And it seems that the pioneers of women’s education had a lot to put up with.

    At this point Hughes Hall was not a college. (It wasn’t even Hughes Hall yet!) It was only after the university recognised women as full members (in 1947, less than a lifetime ago) that the college gained recognition as part of the university (albeit not yet a college) and was renamed Hughes Hall. This was in honour of Elizabeth Phillips Hughes, the first principal; its full name at that time was Elizabeth Phillips Hughes Hall.

    It began to admit male students in 1973: the first of Cambridge’s all-women institutions to do so. In 1985 Hughes Hall became an “approved foundation” of the university (it’s the step below being a full college) and in 2006 Hughes Hall became a college of the university, with a charter and everything. And a full name – for Sunday best or when it has been naughty – of The President and Fellows of Hughes Hall in the University of Cambridge.

    Hughes Hall admits only mature students (judged by age not attitude), to both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. It still teaches education, both as an academic subject and as a PGCE, as well as programmes across other disciplines.

    This post owes its origins to the eagle-eyed Professor Chris Brooke of Homerton, Cambridge, who corrected me about wat was shown on the card. I’d shared the card as one of my daily posts on Bluesky thinking it was Homerton. But it definitely isn’t!

    Here’s a jigsaw of the card – hope you enjoy it.

    Backstory

    A couple of you have asked about the #HigherEducationPostcard backstory.

    It started about ten years ago when I was in a Cardiff antiques mall, sheltering from the rain. One of the stalls had books and old postcards, and when browsing the latter I found half a dozen showing universities. Which I thought was quite cute. So I bought them.

    Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic. The first few months were scary for lots of reasons, and if you were self-employed in the HE sector the question of how to do consulting without being on site was very much front and centre. And whilst sitting at my desk trying to solve this puzzle I noticed the small stack of postcards, and thought I’d share them on Twitter. They were really popular, so I thought I could carry on doing this. But where to get postcards? eBay, mostly. And so I started bidding. And then the collection sort of growed. Its at about 1200 cards now, in fifteen albums with a stack of a couple of hundred still to be scanned and filed.

    In the summer of 2020 I ran a #HigherEducationPostcard world cup on Twitter – 32 cards, paired off, the one with most votes went through to the next round. In the final, Swansea University beat van Mildert College, Durham; thousands of votes were cast, each institution getting its students, staff and alumni to join in. It was great fun!

    I’d been posting daily on Twitter, and when in summer 2021 Paul Greatrix retired from weekly Registrarism blogposts on Wonkhe, I suggested that I write a weekly higher education postcard blog. The good folk at Wonkhe towers said yes, and here we are, 170 posts later. My only rule is that I have to own the actual postcard; and I try to make them interesting and informative. And mostly true. I really enjoy writing and sharing them, and have no plans to stop just yet. I hope you like them too. Thanks for reading!

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  • The Contest Over Fairness in Higher Ed (opinion)

    The Contest Over Fairness in Higher Ed (opinion)

    My 5-year-old recently told me it was unfair that her teacher makes her write from left to right “like everyone else.” She’s left-handed, and for her, it smudges the ink and feels awkward—while her right-handed friends have no problem. I affirmed her frustration. It is harder. But I also knew that was discomfort, not injustice.

    If she told me her school never included stories with Black or Indian characters—her own identities—or skipped over Black history and Diwali while celebrating Halloween and Christmas, I’d respond differently. That’s not just about feelings. That’s curricular erasure—structural invisibility embedded in education.

    Higher education is now facing a similar test of discernment. In recent weeks, the American Bar Association, under pressure from the Trump administration, suspended its DEI accreditation requirement for law schools. The University of Michigan shuttered its DEI programs. And Harvard University received a sweeping federal demand to dismantle its DEI programs, reorient admissions and hiring, and submit to ideological audits.

    Harvard’s decision to reject the federal ultimatum—even at the cost of more than $2 billion in research funding—offers a rare but vital example of institutional clarity. Harvard said no to the false equivalence now dominating our public discourse: the notion that discomfort is the same as discrimination.

    Critics claim that DEI efforts create an exclusionary climate and reflect a lack of “viewpoint diversity,” framing a commitment to racial equity as an ideological litmus test. But that framing ignores history, context and the actual purpose of DEI work, which at its best corrects for the unfairness of cumulative white advantages built into college admissions, curriculum and culture in higher education. It treats the discomfort that arises when racism is named as equivalent to structural exclusion. And then, under that pretense, the federal government now imposes its own litmus test—seeking to dismantle the very practices aimed at addressing structural harm.

    Now that federal litmus test is extending into faculty hiring. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, under the Trump administration, has launched an investigation into whether Harvard’s hiring practices discriminate against white men and other traditionally overrepresented groups. Cloaked in the language of civil rights enforcement, the inquiry reflects a disturbing reversal: Efforts to address long-standing exclusion are being reframed as exclusion themselves. Rather than confronting the structural realities that have kept academia disproportionately white and male, this investigation uses claims of “reverse discrimination” to undermine the very mechanisms created to correct inequity. It’s a strategic misreading of fairness—one that turns tools of justice into instruments of suppression.

    Similar to my daughter calling left-handed writing “unfair” because it invokes feelings of discomfort and victimization—despite the absence of structural exclusion—DEI’s powerful opponents manipulate the language of fairness to justify conformity and suppress interventions that respond to actual harm. “Race neutrality” is the legal fiction of our time, much like “separate but equal” was in another era. Both erase history in favor of surface-level parity and use the language of justice to obscure harm. We saw this logic in the Students for Fair Admissions ruling, which restricted race-conscious admissions. But as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent, the deep racial disparities we see today were “created in the distant past, but have indisputably been passed down to the present day.” The issue isn’t too much talk about race—it’s our refusal to hear it.

    Now, under the guise of neutrality, institutions are being pressured to abandon DEI work, censor curricula and silence student voices. And many institutions are acting as if this call is guided by law. But the SFFA decision didn’t ban DEI programming or prohibit race-based affinity spaces, racial climate assessments or the consideration of lived racial experiences in admissions essays.

    This is interpretive overreach: stretching legal decisions out of fear. In doing so, institutions compromise not only their policies, but their principles. But there’s another path—what I call interpretive reimagination. It’s the ethical clarity to meet ambiguity with purpose, not retreat. To respond not only as a matter of compliance, but of mission. And this discernment—the ability to differentiate between discomfort and structural harm—is at the heart of racial literacy. It means recognizing that not every claim of unfairness is equal and that treating them as such can perpetuate injustice. That discernment is essential for educators and institutions.

    What we’re witnessing is not just a policy shift. It’s a redefinition of fairness—one that casts efforts to name inequality as divisive, while branding ideological control as “viewpoint diversity.” That redefinition is being enforced not just through rhetoric, but through decrees, audits and intimidation. Harvard’s refusal matters—not because the institution is perfect, but because it disrupted the pattern. It reminded us that higher education still has choices. The contrast with Michigan and the ABA is instructive. When institutions comply pre-emptively, they legitimize coercion. They don’t just narrow the space for justice—they help close it.

    Fairness, equity and justice are not settled ideas. They are contested. And higher education is not outside that contest—it is a primary site of it. To meet this moment with integrity, we must refuse the fantasy of neutrality, name systems of advantage and commit to teaching truth, even when that truth is inconvenient. The difference—between choosing caution or courage—will depend on whether we, as educators, can practice the kind of discernment that parents are called to every day. Because, ultimately, this isn’t just about legal compliance or institutional risk. It’s about whether the stories we tell about fairness will include all of us—or only those already at the center.

    Uma Mazyck Jayakumar is an associate professor of higher education and policy at the University of California, Riverside. She served as an expert witness in SFFA v. UNC, and her research was cited in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion to the Supreme Court’s landmark affirmative action case.

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  • Faculty Survey Shows Need for Digital Accessibility Support

    Faculty Survey Shows Need for Digital Accessibility Support

    The U.S. Department of Justice introduced the Americans With Disabilities Act final rule for digital accessibility in 2024, requiring public colleges and universities to follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for ensuring that online programs, services and activities are accessible. These laws require institutions to update inaccessible documents and ensure new content follows accessibility requirements.

    A recent survey by Anthology found that faculty members feel they lack sufficient support and access to resources to create an accessible online classroom environment, and they have a general lack of awareness of new ADA requirements.

    Anthology’s survey—which included responses from 2,058 instructors at two- and four-year colleges and universities across the U.S.—highlights a need for professional development and institutional resources to help faculty meet students’ needs.

    Supporting student success: Expanding accessibility isn’t just mandated by law; it has powerful implications for student retention and graduation outcomes.

    Approximately one in five college students has a disability, up 10 percentage points from the previous decade, according to 2024 data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. A majority of those students have a behavioral or emotional disability, such as attention deficit disorder, or a mental, emotional or psychiatric condition.

    While a growing number of students with disabilities are enrolling in higher education, they are less likely than their peers without a disability to earn a degree or credential, due in part to the lack of accessibility or accommodations on campus.

    Survey says: Only 10 percent of faculty believe their institution provides “absolutely adequate” tools to support students with disabilities, and 22 percent say they consider accessibility when designing course materials.

    Instructors are largely unaware of the ADA’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; one-third of survey respondents said they are “not at all” aware of the requirements, and 45 percent said they were aware but “unclear on the details.”

    When asked about the barriers to making course content accessible, faculty members pointed to a lack of training (29 percent), lack of time (28 percent) and limited knowledge of available tools (27 percent) as the primary obstacles.

    A lack of awareness among faculty members can hinder student use of supports as well. A 2023 survey found that only about half of college students are aware of accessibility and disability services, though 96 percent of college staff members said the resources are available.

    In Anthology’s survey, 17 percent of instructors said they were unaware of what tools their institution provides to help students access coursework in different formats, and 30 percent said they were aware but didn’t share information with students.

    Less experienced faculty members were more likely to say they haven’t considered accessibility or were unaware of ADA requirements; one-third of respondents with fewer than two years of teaching experience indicated they rarely or never consider accessibility when creating materials.

    One in four faculty members indicated more training on best practices would help them make their digital content more accessible, as would having the time to update and review course materials.

    Improving accessibility: Some colleges and universities are taking action to empower faculty members to increase accessibility in the classroom and beyond.

    • The University of North Dakota in spring 2023 created an assistive technology lab, which trains faculty and staff members to make course resources accessible. The lab, led by the university’s Teaching Transformation and Development Academy, offers access to tech tools such as Adobe Acrobat Pro and the screen-reader software Job Access with Speech, for course content development. Lab staff also teach universal design principles and conduct course reviews, as needed.
    • The State University of New York system created the SUNY Accessibility Advocates and Allies Faculty Fellowship program in January, designating 11 fellows from across the system to expand digital accessibility and universal design for learning practices at system colleges. Fellows will explore strategies to build a culture of access, share expertise and experience, connect with communities of practice, and design a plan to engage their campus community, among other responsibilities.
    • The University of Iowa built a new digital hub for accessibility-related resources and information, providing a one-stop shop for campus members looking for support. The university is also soliciting questions from users to build out a regularly updated FAQ section of the website. Iowa has a designated Accessibility Task Force with 10 subcommittees that address various applications of accessibility needs, including within athletics, communication, health care, student life and teaching.
    • Colorado State University has taken several steps to improve community compliance for accessibility, including offering free access to Siteimprove, a web-accessibility assessment tool that helps website developers and content managers meet accessibility standards and improve digital user experience. Siteimprove offers training resources to keep users engaged in best practices, as well as templates for creating content, according to CSU’s website. The university also has an accessibility framework to help faculty members bring electronic materials into compliance.

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  • Why Faculty Buy-In Is the Key to Scale

    Why Faculty Buy-In Is the Key to Scale

    Developmental education reform has made significant strides in the past two decades, however, if the goal is equity, completion and lasting change in gateway courses, the work to reform developmental education isn’t done—not even close. Nationally, states have passed laws and higher education systems have issued mandates requiring the use of specific high-impact practices and restricting the offering of standalone remedial courses.

    Institutions have redesigned placement systems to incorporate multiple measures and, with growing popularity, have begun using self-directed placement. Corequisite models, where students receive concurrent support for a gateway math or English course, have received increased attention and expansion. Using just-in-time content support and devoting time to student success techniques, corequisite courses have proven to support students’ retention rates.

    While we know which practices are impactful, it is still common for them to be used alongside traditional approaches, such as stand-alone developmental courses and high-stakes placement tests. That is, these practices are not the default means of how students interact with gateway courses; they are an option. There are many reasons for this lack of scale, with skepticism from faculty being a common refrain from those in academic leadership.

    Recent research reinforces what many of us in the trenches already know: Corequisite support is a powerful tool, but it is not the only solution to gateway course reform; it was never going to be. Without scaled and nuanced implementations, corequisite models are not enough on their own. Too often, states and institutions have pursued top-down solutions without sufficient attention to the people who impact scaled implementation the most: faculty.

    In fact, reformers and leaders in higher education spaces may have overlooked the hardest and arguably most important part: the classroom. If gateway course reform is the goal, we have to shift from a mainly structural reform emphasis (e.g., pathways, corequisites and placement) to incorporating classroom reforms that impact curriculum, instruction and assessment. These changes are some of the most difficult ones to make but are also the ones that have shown to matter the most. Structural reform is essential, but so is reform in the space where learning occurs.

    Why Early Reforms Didn’t Get Higher Education to a New Normal of Scale

    Early corequisite reform efforts found initial momentum by engaging supportive policymakers and system leaders and by using clear levers for change such as legislation or funding changes. However, even where reforms have been adopted, outcomes have been mixed. Completion rates have increased in some states but remain below expectations set in goal initiatives, such as Illinois’s 60 by 25 and Tennessee’s Drive to 55. Despite a broad commitment to increasing equity in higher education, equity gaps by race, income and age persist. In states with strong shared governance structures or influential faculty unions, the pace of reform has been slower and more complex.

    The common thread I’ve come to realize is this: Significant faculty cooperation and intentional faculty involvement are key to successful reforms at scale. I’ve seen this firsthand during my career in Illinois as a tenured math professor for many years who was also a union member and went on strike in 2015. Faculty have an incredible impact on students’ learning experience and outcomes; as such, faculty should be involved in the decision making that impacts them directly. However, in faculty-driven systems, the reality is that change is harder and takes longer. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

    My company, Almy Education, has worked with dozens of institutions across governance models and states. We have learned that scaled reform comes from meaningfully working with faculty. While that work may be more challenging than going around faculty, it will allow an institution to get the roots of what can hold back a scaled implementation. We’ve found when we intentionally integrate faculty as part of the institutional conversation, we can achieve the following:

    • Decide what courses and materials to remove or shift away from, not only add new ones.
    • Choose how many courses and sections of stand-alone developmental courses will be retained, even if that may mean someone’s position at the institution changes.
    • Determine how the class schedule needs to evolve to better support student needs and outcomes.
    • Adjust student intake practices to the institution that have the greatest impact on outcomes, even if it means a shift in human and financial resources.
    • Prioritize use and maintenance of data tools so that ongoing decision making is well informed.
    • Set the expectation that academic and student affairs will continually work together to improve gateway course success, not in silos or temporarily during an initiative.

    To reach scale, administrators, staff and faculty have to work together in an ongoing fashion as well as compromise for the greater good of student outcomes. We all have to own our roles in contributing to the aforementioned bulleted barriers when it comes to higher education reform. While usually unintended, they are barriers nonetheless. Reducing and removing these barriers to change often requires having hard conversations. The conversations are not always comfortable, but the results for students are worth it.

    More students complete gateway math and English courses and establish course momentum when developmental education reform is implemented at scale and improved upon over time. Scaled reform allows for more students to complete two-year degrees and certificates and/or transfer to complete a four-year degree. Increased student completion results in well-prepared adults in the workforce, the outcome nearly everyone in higher education is working toward.

    How to Effectively Integrate Faculty Into Your Reform Initiatives to Achieve Success at Scale

    So how do administrators, staff and faculty work together on scaling gateway course reform, especially when resistance occurs? Many faculty are not resistant to reform; they are resistant to being handed a one-size-fits-all solution from someone who doesn’t understand their students, classrooms or institutional realities. Research has shown that there isn’t one particular way to implement reforms like corequisites that work the best; finding the best solution is a process that must include faculty in deliberate ways.

    Faculty are also exhausted. The post-pandemic classroom is more demanding than ever, with student engagement seeming to be at an all-time low. Asking faculty to make massive changes without the support to do so can bring a reaction of resistance. Similarly, student affairs staff are also stretched thin with insufficient staffing and higher demands from students. They, too, need resources to make adjustments at scale that impact gateway course outcomes.

    To minimize resistance and thoughtfully add support where it can have the most impact, there are tangible ways to assist faculty and staff with scaling implementation of gateway course reform at the institutional and classroom levels. In our work across two-year and four-year institutions, we’ve observed what works:

    • Custom strategies tailored to each institution’s context, culture and capacity based on best practice and its own data.
    • Embedded professional learning that supports both pedagogy and content that’s ongoing, not one-and-done.
    • Support for using backward design strategies with gateway curriculum and instruction from the perspective of student needs, career pathways and transfer goals.
    • Staffing and funding so that corequisites are paired with intentional support, providing not just more time, but better use of time.
    • Deliberate use of corequisites where they make sense, alongside better-designed stand-alone options for a small number of students who may need them.
    • Pathways that provide clarity to connect math courses to students’ actual goals and are implemented purposefully, not as an option.
    • Focus on throughput, not just pass rates, and disaggregated outcomes that can support equity work.

    This next phase of gateway course reform requires the higher education industry to go deeper. We will have to face the structural barriers and the pedagogical ones. We must be willing to say the quiet parts out loud and have difficult conversations. We must be brave enough to make decisions and ultimately changes that work for the good of the students. Those changes should have broad support, but they may not make each individual at an institution content 100 percent of the time. Doing this work is not simple or easy. But it is necessary if we want real reform at scale that lasts.

    Kathleen Almy is the CEO and founder of Almy Education, specializing in gateway course reform at scale.

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  • Bastyr University Plans to Sell Campus

    Bastyr University Plans to Sell Campus

    Cash-strapped Bastyr University is selling its campus in Washington State in an effort to stabilize its shaky finances, which landed the institution on show cause status with its accreditor earlier this year.

    Bastyr’s Board of Trustees approved a plan last week to list the campus for sale.

    The Washington campus is located on 50-plus acres outside Seattle; the university also maintains a site in San Diego. Officials wrote on a frequently asked questions webpage that the “sale of the [Washington] campus will restore financial health to our university, allow continued movement forward with our strategic plan and is intended to positively impact our accreditation status.”

    The FAQ page emphasized that selling the campus does not mean Bastyr is closing.

    Rather, “Financial infusion makes the university more stable and allows us to better weather the fluctuations of the academic environment should a crisis occur,” officials wrote. They also noted Bastyr “cannot afford to maintain and modernize the main campus building” and that “the university occupies less than 50% of its space, but must fund 100% of campus upkeep.”

    The FAQ indicated that either a full or partial sale of the campus is possible. 

    Despite the sale, a move will likely be years away; officials wrote on the FAQ page that Bastyr plans to lease the campus for “up to a few years to allow for a thoughtful and phased transition.”

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  • Digital Darwinism in Higher Ed: Adapt Your Marketing for AI — or Get Left Behind [Webinar]

    Digital Darwinism in Higher Ed: Adapt Your Marketing for AI — or Get Left Behind [Webinar]

    Your students are already running to AI for answers. The only question is — what’s it saying about your institution? More importantly, are you in the conversation or being left out? If you’re not actively shaping how your school shows up in AI-driven search and decision-making platforms, you’re not just invisible — you’re irrelevant.  

    Digital Darwinism in Higher Ed:
    Adapt Your Marketing for AI — or Get Left Behind
    Date    : May 29, 2025
    Time: 2:00 p.m. ET / 1:00 p.m. CT

    In this webinar, Collegis Education’s Ashley Nicklay, Sr. Director of Marketing, and Jessica Summers, Director of Web Strategy, will unpack what “AI-ready” really means for higher ed marketing and enrollment leaders. We’ll explore how generative AI influences the student journey from search to selection, why most websites and content strategies are falling short, and what forward-thinking institutions are doing to lead the algorithm, rather than get buried by it. 

    This isn’t just about better SEO or smarter ads. It’s about understanding how AI evaluates your institution — and making sure you’re feeding it the right data, signals, and story to stay in the game.  

    What You’ll Learn 

    • How AI impacts the early stages of the enrollment journey: Understand how tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews influence what students see when exploring colleges.  
    • Why AI prompt bias is real — and how to beat it: Learn how content, structured data and reputation shape AI responses. 
    • What AI actually sees when it looks at your website (and what it may miss): Explore how site structure, clarity and technical markup shape what AI-based tools can find and summarize – and what they may overlook.  
    • What it really means to have an AI-optimized website: We’ll show you our checklist of what your .edu needs to show up in AI-generated answers.  
    • How to future-proof your marketing model in an AI-driven search landscape: Assess your current channels and content strategy for resilience as search becomes more conversational and less click-based.  

    Future-Ready Starts Here: Secure Your Spot 

    The institutions that will thrive tomorrow are learning how to market to machines today. Reserve your seat and find out what it takes to survive the AI era of higher ed marketing. 

    Complete the form on the right to reserve your spot.

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  • Penn State Proposes Seven Campus Closures

    Penn State Proposes Seven Campus Closures

    Pennsylvania State University is weighing a plan to close seven of its 19 Commonwealth Campuses, which its governing board is expected to vote on in a virtual meeting Thursday.

    The campuses proposed for closure are Dubois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York. Altogether, those campuses enroll just under 3,200 students. Penn State York, which had 703 students last fall, has the largest enrollment among the seven.

    If approved, the campuses will be shut down by the end of the spring 2027 semester.

    Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi announced the plan in an email Tuesday after several media outlets had already identified the seven Commonwealth Campuses targeted for closure.

    “I believe the recommendation balances our need to adapt to the changing needs of Pennsylvania with compassion for those these decisions affect, both within Penn State and across the commonwealth, in part because of the two-year period before any campus would close. As we work through the next steps, we will be taking steps to support every student in any needed transition and, we will take every step to provide opportunities to faculty and staff to remain part of Penn State,” Bendapudi wrote in a statement shared with the proposal.

    Penn State announced in February that it would consider closing some campuses due to declining enrollment. Officials reviewed 12 campuses for closure before settling on seven.

    While some trustees have pushed back on the proposal, they appear to be in the minority.

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