Tag: Higher

  • AI Companies Roll Out Educational Tools

    AI Companies Roll Out Educational Tools

    Fall semesters are just beginning, and the companies offering three leading AI models—Gemini by Google, Claude by Anthropic and ChatGPT by OpenAI—have rolled out tools to facilitate AI-enhanced learning. Here’s a comparison and how to get them.

    Each of the three leading AI providers has taken a somewhat different approach to providing an array of educational tools and support for students, faculty and administrators. We can expect these tools to improve, proliferate and become a competitive battleground among the three. At stake is, at least in part, the future marketplace for their products. To the extent educators utilize, administrators support and students become comfortable with one of the proprietary products, that provider will be at an advantage when those students rise to positions that allow them to specify use of a provider in educational institutions, companies and corporations across the country.

    Anthropic, the company that makes the series of Claude applications, announced on Aug. 21 “two initiatives for AI in education to help navigate these critical decisions: a Higher Education Advisory Board to guide Claude’s development for education, and three AI Fluency courses co-created with educators that can help teachers and students build practical, responsible AI skills.”

    The board is chaired by Rick Levin, former president of Yale and more recently at Coursera. Anthropic notes in the announcement, “At Coursera, he built one of the world’s largest platforms for online learning, bringing high-quality education to millions worldwide.” The board itself is populated with former and current leading administrators at Rice University, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin and Stanford, as well as Yolanda Watson Spiva, who is president of Complete College America. Anthropic says the board will “help guide how Claude serves teaching, learning, and research in higher education.”

    The three AI Fluency courses that Anthropic co-created with educators are designed to help create thoughtful practical frameworks for AI integration:

    “AI Fluency for Educators helps faculty integrate AI into their teaching practice, from creating materials and assessments to enhancing classroom discussions. Built on experience from early adopters, it shows what works in real classrooms. AI Fluency for Students teaches responsible AI collaboration for coursework and career planning. Students learn to work with AI while developing their own critical thinking skills, and write their own personal commitment to responsible AI use. Teaching AI Fluency supports educators who want to bring AI literacy to their campuses and classrooms. It includes frameworks for instruction and assessment, plus curriculum considerations for preparing students for a more AI-enhanced world.”

    The courses and more are freely available at the Anthropic Learning Academy.

    Earlier last month, Google unveiled Guided Learning in Gemini: From Answers to Understanding: “Guided Learning encourages participation through probing and open-ended questions that spark a discussion and provide an opportunity to dive deeper into a subject. The aim is to help you build a deep understanding instead of just getting answers. Guided Learning breaks down problems step-by-step and adapts explanations to your needs—all to help you build knowledge and skills.”

    The Google Guided Learning project offers additional support to faculty. “We worked with educators to design Guided Learning to be a partner in their teaching, built on the core principle that real learning is an active, constructive process. It encourages students to move beyond answers and develop their own thinking by guiding them with questions that foster critical thought. To make it simple to bring this approach into their classrooms, we created a dedicated link that educators can post directly in Google Classroom or share with students.”

    Google announced an array of additional tools for the coming year:

    “We’re offering students in the U.S. as well as Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Brazil a free one-year subscription to Google’s AI Pro plan to help make the most of AI’s power for their studies. Sign-up for the free AI Pro Plan offer.

    Try new learning features in Gemini including Guided Learning, Flashcards and Study Guides. And students and universities around the world can get a free one-year subscription to a Google AI Pro plan.

    AI Mode in Google Search now features tools like Canvas, Search Live with video and PDF uploads.

    NotebookLM is introducing Featured Notebooks, Video Overviews and a new study panel; it’s also now available to users under 18.

    And to help students get the most out of all these new features, we’ve announced Google AI for Education Accelerator, an initiative to offer free AI training and Google Career Certificates to every college student in America. Over 100 public universities have already signed up. We’re also committing $1 billion in new funding to education in the United States over the next three years.”

    That brings us to OpenAI, which announced ChatGPT Study Mode on July 29, 2025. Noting ChatGPT’s overall leadership and success, OpenAI added, “But its use in education has also raised an important question: how do we ensure it is used to support real learning, and doesn’t just offer solutions without helping students make sense of them? We’ve built study mode to help answer this question. When students engage with study mode, they’re met with guiding questions that calibrate responses to their objective and skill level to help them build deeper understanding. Study mode is designed to be engaging and interactive, and to help students learn something—not just finish something.”

    The Study Mode function is available now in the Free, Plus, Pro and Team versions of GPT products providing an array of features:

    “Interactive prompts: Combines Socratic questioning, hints, and self-reflection prompts to guide understanding and promote active learning, instead of providing answers outright. Scaffolded responses: Information is organized into easy-to-follow sections that highlight the key connections between topics, keeping information engaging with just the right amount of context and reducing overwhelm for complex topics. Personalized support: Lessons are tailored to the right level for the user, based on questions that assess skill level and memory from previous chats. Knowledge checks: Quizzes and open-ended questions, along with personalized feedback to track progress, support knowledge retention and the ability to apply that knowledge in new contexts. Flexibility: Easily toggle study mode on and off during a conversation, giving you the flexibility to adapt to your learning goals in each conversation.”

    I encourage readers to visit each of the sites linked above to become familiar with the different ways Anthropic, Google and OpenAI are approaching providing support to educational institutions and individual instructors and learners. This is an opportunity to become more familiar with each of the leading AI providers and their apps. Now is the time to become experienced in using these tools that collectively have become the foundation of innovation and efficiency in 2025.

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  • Most Popular Articles in the Higher Education Inquirer (8-26 to 9-2)

    Most Popular Articles in the Higher Education Inquirer (8-26 to 9-2)

    The Higher Education Inquirer continues to attract readers with investigations into corruption, scandal, and the financial burdens placed on students and families. This week’s most-read articles reflect a strong interest in for-profit institutions, university leadership controversies, and the growing student loan crisis.

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  • 5 Ways Higher Ed Marketing Is Evolving in 2025 & Beyond

    5 Ways Higher Ed Marketing Is Evolving in 2025 & Beyond

    Higher ed marketing is changing faster than ever.

    From generative AI to shifting student expectations, higher ed marketing in 2025 is a whole new game. And institutions that fail to adapt risk falling behind. 

    The past few years have brought seismic shifts to the way colleges and universities connect with prospective students. From AI-driven search to heightened public scrutiny of higher education’s value, the marketing landscape looks very different than it did even three years ago. 

    Institutions now operate in an environment where: 

    • Search behavior is changing as generative AI delivers instant answers that bypass traditional search results. 
    • Trust is under pressure as students and families weigh the true return on a college investment. 
    • Student journeys are more complex with expectations for personalized, multi-channel engagement from first inquiry through alumni relations. 
    • Data integrity is paramount as analytics get clouded by bots and misleading signals. 

    The good news? These changes also open new opportunities for colleges and universities to stand out with authentic storytelling, data-driven strategies, and student-centered engagement. 

    Keep reading to discover five of the most important higher education marketing trends in today’s landscape — and how institutions can adapt to thrive in this new era. 

    5 Higher education marketing strategies to keep your institution ahead 

    Before diving into the specifics, it’s important to recognize that these strategies build on one another to reflect today’s most pressing challenges and opportunities in higher ed marketing. 

    Here’s a closer look at the strategies every institution should be considering today: 

    1. Optimizing for the AI searcher 

    Generative AI is redefining how prospective students find information. Zero-click searches — where answers appear directly in AI Overviews like Google’s AI-generated summaries or conversational search tools — now account for the majority of queries. That’s a paradigm shift for higher ed marketing. 

    Organic traffic has dropped dramatically, in some cases by more than 30%. But while volume is down, conversion rates are rising, as the students who do land on institutional websites are more informed and further along in their decision-making. 

    Strategic response 
    To adapt, institutions must embrace Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). This means: 

    • Creating structured, conversational content designed for AI retrieval. 
    • Prioritizing FAQs, clear definitions, and outcome-driven data. 
    • Diversifying traffic sources with a mix of SEO, paid campaigns, and strong digital experiences. 

    This is no longer just an SEO shift. It’s a cornerstone of higher education marketing strategy for 2025 and beyond. 

    2. AI-supported, human-centered creative 

    AI is now embedded in higher ed marketing workflows, helping generate campaign ideas, personalize messaging, and predict outcomes. But the real competitive edge comes when AI enhances, not replaces, human creativity. 

    Approach for higher education marketing teams 

    • Use AI to accelerate production: ideation, headlines, personalization cues. 
    • Keep teams focused on authentic, human-driven storytelling. 
    • Build a culture that values both technological fluency and creative intuition. 

    This approach delivers efficiency while preserving empathy — critical when communicating complex outcomes like institutional ROI or program value. This balance is what separates innovative higher education marketing trends from short-lived tactics. 

    3. Building institutional trust 

    Public skepticism about the value of higher education is rising. Families are asking: Is the investment worth it? What outcomes can we expect? With the demographic cliff looming, institutions must double down on proving their value. 

    Strategic levers for higher ed marketing 

    • Spotlight outcomes: Share data on job placement, graduate earnings, and alumni success stories. 
    • Showcase testimonials: Humanize ROI with student voices and career impact narratives. 
    • Reinforce program value: Use research and rankings to strengthen credibility. 

    Trust is now a competitive differentiator. Institutions that clearly communicate value, ROI, and outcomes position themselves for long-term success in a skeptical environment. 

    4. Cross-lifecycle marketing 

    Higher education marketing strategy can no longer stop at the inquiry. The student journey is long, nonlinear, and filled with digital touchpoints that extend well past enrollment. 

    How to approach it 

    • Use remarketing to reinforce brand and program value throughout the funnel. 
    • Engage students across the lifecycle — from inquiry to enrollment to retention and even alumni relations. 
    • Tailor content to each stage, aligning messages to nurture confidence, reduce uncertainty, and strengthen connection. 

    Success isn’t always about clicks or form fills. Sometimes the goal is reassurance, engagement, or retention. Adopting lifecycle-based KPIs ensures institutions are measuring what truly matters. 

    5. Bot mitigation 

    Bot traffic is a growing challenge for institutions. Automated hits can inflate website visits, distort engagement metrics, and ultimately mislead decision-makers about which campaigns are working. When analytics are clouded by non-human activity, institutions risk allocating resources to the wrong strategies and missing opportunities to connect with real prospective students. 

    Best practices for higher ed marketing teams 

    • Set up filters in Google Analytics to remove known bot traffic. 
    • Partner with bot mitigation providers to extend protections to include inquiry and application forms, safeguarding against fraudulent submissions. 
    • Regularly audit campaign data to ensure accuracy. 

    Clean data leads to better decisions and in higher education marketing, clarity is non-negotiable. 

    Embracing the future of higher ed marketing 

    The most effective higher education marketing strategies today are those that combine technology with authenticity. AI search and personalization will continue to evolve, but the fundamentals remain constant: institutions must build trust, deliver value, and guide students throughout their entire lifecycle. 

    Collegis Education partners with institutions to design and deliver data-enabled marketing strategies that drive enrollment, build trust, and support student success. Let’s talk about what that could look like for your campus. 

    Innovation Starts Here

    Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

    Ashley Nicklay is the Senior Director of Student Lifecycle at Collegis Education, where she focuses on strengthening the connection between marketing and enrollment to create a seamless, student-centered journey. With more than 15 years of higher education experience, Ashley has seen firsthand the powerful outcomes that emerge when these functions work together. In her current role, she is committed to advancing that collaboration—not as separate silos, but as one team supporting every step of the student experience.

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  • Let’s Talk About Proxies and Admission (opinion)

    Let’s Talk About Proxies and Admission (opinion)

    The Trump administration has stepped up government scrutiny of college admission. Settlements reached with Brown and Columbia Universities each included a requirement that they pursue “merit-based” admission policies. On Aug. 7, President Trump issued a memorandum requiring colleges and universities to submit data to IPEDS (the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) demonstrating that they are not considering race in admission decisions. The Department of Education has since published in the Federal Register details about the planned data collection, with the public having 60 days to comment. And Attorney General Pam Bondi has entered into the fray by publishing a memo outlining what constitutes unlawful discrimination.

    I will leave it to others to rail against the unprecedented federal attack on higher education and the incursion into admission policies at individual institutions. I would prefer to examine some of the issues and underlying assumptions suggested by these documents.

    The Aug. 7 Presidential Memorandum

    Trump’s memorandum calls for increased transparency to expose practices that are “unlawful” and to rid society of “shameful, dangerous racial hierarchies.” For some reason, it doesn’t say that all racial hierarchies are shameful and dangerous. Is that an oversight or a meaningful omission? The memorandum also asserts without explanation that race-based admission policies threaten national security.

    The call to get rid of “shameful, dangerous racial hierarchies” is ironic. It is easy to imagine previous administrations using the same phrase to defend the very race-based admission policies that the executive order now seeks to abolish. “Shameful” and “dangerous” are in the eye of the beholder, and may not be color-blind.

    What is not clear is how the administration intends to collect and analyze the data, given its efforts to gut the Department of Education. As Inside Higher Ed has reported, the National Center for Education Statistics had been decimated, with a staff of more than 100 reduced to a skeleton crew of three employees.

    The Bondi Memo

    Attorney General Bondi’s July 29 memorandum offered guidance to federal agencies about practices that may constitute illegal discrimination at colleges and other entities receiving federal funds. A lot of it is rehashed, targeting popular straw men/persons like DEI programs and transgender athletes (and bathrooms).

    What is interesting is Bondi’s take on what she calls “unlawful proxy discrimination,” defined as the use of “facially neutral criteria” that function as “proxies” for race or other protected characteristics. Per the memo, examples in higher education may include things like requiring diversity statements in hiring or essay questions asking applicants to reflect on their unique identity or to write about obstacles they have overcome.

    On a surface level, Bondi is right that those can become back doors to identify an individual’s race. At the same time, knowing the obstacles an individual has overcome is essential to understanding his or her unique story, and race would seem to be one of the factors that can heavily influence that story.

    Where Bondi goes off the rails is in maintaining that what she calls “geographic targeting” may constitute a potentially unlawful proxy. She is suggesting that recruitment or outreach in schools and communities with high levels of racial minorities may be illegal. That is preposterous. Trying to expand access to education through outreach is in no way comparable to reverse engineering an admission process to arrive at a desired class composition.

    Taken to its logical extreme, Bondi’s guidance would prevent colleges from recruiting not only at inner-city schools with a large percentage of Black students, but also at suburban schools with a large percentage of affluent white students. Both could be examples of what she calls “geographic targeting.” For that matter, colleges might be in violation for asking for an applicant’s address, because ZIP code information can be used as a proxy for determining race and socioeconomic status.

    New Data Collection Requirements

    As for data collection for IPEDS, the administration has proposed a new “Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement,” or ACTS. ACTS will require targeted colleges and universities to report data in the following categories, disaggregated by race and sex:

    • Admissions test score quintile
    • GPA quintile
    • Family income range
    • Pell Grant eligibility
    • Parental education

    It will also ask for information to be broken down for early decision, early action and regular admission as well as institutional need-based and merit aid. What’s missing? Legacy status and athletic recruits, both categories that benefit white applicants. At some of the Ivies, between 10-20 percent of the undergraduates are athletes, many in “country club” sports where most of the competitors are wealthy and white, and the proportion of athletes is even higher at the highly selective liberal arts colleges that make up the New England Small College Athletic Conference. Discovery in SFFA v. Harvard revealed that recruited athletes had an 86 percent admit rate. You don’t have to have had an uncle who taught at MIT to know that is substantially higher than the overall admit rate.

    ACTS will apparently apply only to “all four-year institutions who utilize selective college admissions,” which the administration maintains “have an elevated risk of noncompliance with the civil rights laws.” That may at first glance seem to be singling out elite, “name” colleges, and that’s probably the intent, but it also reflects a recognition that the vast majority of institutions couldn’t practice race-based admission even if they wanted to because they are too busy filling the class to worry about crafting the class.

    The focus on selective institutions will both make it easy to score political points and hard to derive meaning from the data. Selectivity, especially at the 5-10 percent level, makes it impossible to know why any individual is or isn’t admitted. Admission deans at the highly-selective (or rejective) universities report that they could fill several additional freshman classes from among those applicants who have been waitlisted or denied.

    Merit-Based Admission

    The real target of the push for “merit-based” admission may be holistic review. A holistic admission process allows colleges to take into consideration nuances in an individual’s background and life experiences. It can also be frustrating for applicants, since different individuals are admitted for different reasons. The government may be pushing consciously or unconsciously for a more formulaic selection process.

    But would that be any better? Even if you focus only on grades and test scores, should you put more weight on a three-hour test or on four years of high school? How do you compare applicants from schools with different grading scales and levels of academic rigor? Should a test score obtained after thousands of dollars in test prep count the same as an identical score without coaching?

    How do we distinguish between merit and privilege? Those who have strong test scores may be more likely to believe that test scores are a measure of merit, and yet test scores are strongly correlated with family income. Those who are born into wealth and privilege may come to believe that their good fortune is a proxy for merit, buying into a perverse and self-serving interpretation of John Calvin’s doctrine of the elect. They may see themselves as deserving rather than lucky.

    Proxies in Admission

    We need a larger discussion about proxies in college admission. Advanced Placement courses are a proxy for a rigorous curriculum. GPA is a proxy for academic accomplishment, and yet means little without understanding context. Similarly, SAT scores are often seen as a proxy for ability, despite the fact that the College Board long ago abandoned the pretense that the SAT measures “aptitude.” The U.S. News & World Report college rankings have always relied on proxies, such as alumni giving as a proxy for alumni satisfaction when it may be more a measure of the effectiveness of the development office. Selectivity is a proxy for academic quality—feeding into the belief that the harder a place is to get in, the better it must be. Are proxies for race any more problematic than these other proxies?

    The larger question here is what should the selective college admission process be a proxy for. Should we seek to reward students for past performance? Predict who will earn the best grades in college? Identify those students who will benefit the most from the college experience? Or predict who will make the greatest contribution to society after college?

    I’m waiting for an executive order or memo or even a discussion among college admission professionals about what the selective admission process should represent and what proxies will support those goals.

    Jim Jump recently retired after 33 years as the academic dean and director of college counseling at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Va. He previously served as an admissions officer, philosophy instructor and women’s basketball coach at the college level and is a past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. He is the 2024 recipient of NACAC’s John B. Muir Excellence in Media Award.

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  • Is Your Idea Op-Ed Ready? Here’s a Test to Find Out

    Is Your Idea Op-Ed Ready? Here’s a Test to Find Out

    You have expert insights—plenty of them. You give impromptu lectures in office hours, debate podcast guests midrun and readily join boisterous debates over dinner. Maybe you’re even drafting a book that builds a careful case from your expert point of view. But when it comes time to write your own op-ed? That sharp idea can start to feel too complex, too niche or—let’s be honest—too wordy for 800 words aimed at a general audience.

    That’s not a failing; it’s a feature of your training. Academics are trained to distill ideas for their peers, not for nonspecialists. You argue carefully, if not compactly. You cite meticulously, not conversationally. But public writing demands something different—skills to illuminate complex concepts in a way that an intelligent lay reader can follow, feel and act on.

    Before you spend an afternoon translating your expert insight into an 800-word article you pitch to a newspaper or magazine, run your idea through this op-ed readiness test. It won’t replace compelling writing, but it may help determine whether your idea is ready to leave the seminar room and live, persuasively, on the opinion page.

    1. Who cares? It’s a tough question, but not a cynical one. Just because something fascinates you doesn’t mean that it matters to the broader public. That’s not a judgment of your topic. It’s a reminder to find the resonance. What’s at stake beyond your personal experience or corner of the discipline? You don’t have to write about what’s already dominating headlines. In fact, if your idea surfaces something overlooked or offers a fresh lens, it may be exactly what public discourse needs. Urgency is not always about volume; it’s often about insight.

    So ask yourself: Who, beyond academia, might find your idea clarifying, challenging or useful? Who might see their own experience differently—or see someone else’s for the first time? Who, if they read what you have to say, might think differently about something that affects their life, work, vote or values? If your answer is, “Well, maybe more people should care,” you might be onto something. But part of your task is to show them why.

    1. Why now—or why always? Editors love a good news hook. If your idea connects to a breaking story, an upcoming decision or a public debate gaining steam, then run with it. But run fast. In journalism, “timely” means submitting within hours or a day or two, not weeks. If something is happening right now and you have a fresh angle, start writing.

    Of course, not every op-ed needs a news peg. If your idea speaks to an enduring question or a slow-burning issue—and does so with clarity, urgency or surprising insight—it still has a shot. Just know that in an editor’s crowded inbox, a time peg can help your piece stand out. An “evergreen” op-ed may need to work harder and land stronger to compete.

    1. Can you make your case by paragraph two? You don’t have to dumb down your argument, but you do have to speed it up. Public readers and their editors have strong opinions about long, slow windups. Spoiler: They don’t like them.

    Try writing a working headline for your piece that’s under 60 characters. Then distill your argument in one or two crisp, compelling sentences—no acronyms, no jargon and no “hence” or “thus.” (Also, no “as Foucault reminds us.”) These sentences should appear early, ideally by the end of paragraph two. At first, this mandate can feel reductive. But being concise isn’t a betrayal of complexity. It’s a tool for focus. You’re not flattening your idea; you’re making it easy to find. If your piece needs detailed footnotes or a literature review, it’s probably not (yet) an op-ed.

    1. What’s the aha? Your op-ed should offer insight that readers haven’t already heard several times this week. If your takeaway is “what you’ve heard, but with citations,” then it may still need sharpening. Some of the best pieces offer a twist such as an unexpected data point, an odd-but-illuminating comparison or a perspective that flips conventional wisdom on its head. You’re trying to make an intelligent reader think, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    2. Are you writing to connect—or to impress? You’re not writing to prove you’ve done the reading; you’re writing to help someone else think differently. Your op-ed should feel like an intelligent conversation over coffee, not a cautious explanation in a lecture hall. You don’t have to be breezy or punchy (unless that’s your style), but you should sound like a real person with a distinct voice. This isn’t about being casual for its own sake. It’s about being readable.

    If your draft feels like it could be suitable for peer review, try loosening the syntax. Ask yourself: How would I say this to a smart friend who doesn’t share my training? Readers want active verbs, not hedges. When you write like someone who wants to be understood—not just cited—you don’t dilute your thinking; you make it land.

    1. Will a reader remember it tomorrow? A good op-ed doesn’t just inform, it lingers. It leaves a mark, even a small one, on a reader’s thinking. That might come from a vivid image, a well-turned phrase or a question that unsettles something they thought they knew. If your argument is technically sound but leaves no lasting impression, it’s worth asking: What do I know that will stay with the reader? What might echo later, in a moment of uncertainty, over a dinner-table debate or in a voting booth?

    If your idea for an op-ed makes it through these six questions, chances are it’s ready to leave the seminar room. From there, it’s all about shaping the piece—tightening the structure, sharpening the language and leading with your point. An op-ed doesn’t need to say everything you know on your topic. It just needs to make one point well, in a way that readers will remember.

    Not every idea belongs on the op-ed page—but yours might. Ask the questions, trust your instincts and, when you’re ready, write it, shape it and send it.

    And if you’d like more help along the way, sign up for my monthly newsletter. You’ll get notice of each new article in “The Public Scholar,” plus practical writing tips, behind-the-scenes insights from my work and inspiration from other academics finding their voice in public spaces. Your expertise is hard-won. What might happen if you shared what you know more broadly?

    Susan D’Agostino is a mathematician whose stories have published in The Atlantic, BBC, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Wired, The Financial Times, Quanta and other leading publications. Her next book, How Math Will Save Your Life, will be published by W. W. Norton. Sign up for Susan’s free monthly newsletter here.

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  • Therapy Dogs Boost Graduate Student Well-Being

    Therapy Dogs Boost Graduate Student Well-Being

    Time spent with animals can boost feelings of well-being for students at all levels.

    Laura Fay/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Therapy dogs are often touted as a way to give students a reprieve from busy academic schedules or remind them of their own pets at home, but a recent study from Chatham University found that engagement with therapy dogs can instill a sense of social connection for students at all levels.

    An occupational therapy student at Chatham who researched how weekly therapy dog interactions could impact graduate students in health science programs found that the encounters produced benefits for students’ social and emotional health.

    The background: Past research shows animal interventions can mitigate homesickness for first-year students who miss their pets and academic stress for nursing students. Students who participate in “dog office hours” also experience increased social connection and comfort. Shelter dogs can also motivate students’ physical well-being, as demonstrated by the University of South Carolina’s canine fitness course.

    Graduate students in health science programs, in particular, report high rates of anxiety, depression and stress, according to the study.

    Regardless of their program of study, graduate students also tend to be removed from general campus services and activities due to physical campus layouts, residing and working off campus, or a misalignment of schedules between resources and their responsibilities. Therefore, identifying services specifically for graduate students can improve their access and uptake.

    How it works: Twenty-five students were recruited to participate in the study, meeting weekly to engage in activities with a group of therapy dogs, including petting, playing with, brushing, holding and walking the animals. Students could interact with the dogs for up to two hours over the course of the seven weeks. Before and after each puppy playdate, participants completed pre- and post-test surveys to gauge their feelings and the effects of the animal intervention.

    Survey results showed students were less likely to report feeling stressed and more likely to say they felt happy after engaging with the dogs.

    “I’ve really enjoyed this experience,” one participant wrote. “I feel like this has positively impacted my mood and well-being overall. I always leave feeling more relaxed and happier.”

    In open-ended questions, students said the dogs made them feel happy, loved, calm, relaxed, motivated and connected. Many said they also appreciated the opportunity to engage with their peers, noting that the regular cadence allowed them to socialize and meet new people, including the therapy dogs’ owners. Students indicated they wanted the visits to continue in some way if possible.

    The average student spent around 30 minutes with the therapy dogs during the trial, and, if they had the opportunity, a majority said they would participate in therapy animal groups on campus three to four times per month.

    Other Comforting Canines

    Chatham University students aren’t the only graduate students learning to destress from dogs. Here are some other examples of animal-assisted interventions across the country:

    • At Virginia Tech, graduate students at the Innovation Campus receive love and cuddles from Allen, a therapy dog who is co-handled by Barbara Hoopes, the graduate school’s associate dean for the region.
    • The City University of New York’s School of Public Health has hosted a therapy dog visit from the Good Dog Foundation to encourage graduate learners to relax and take a break during their week.
    • The University of Cincinnati featured therapy dogs at their Graduate Student Appreciation Week in April, honoring the hard work students do and helping them break their usual routines.

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  • Instructional Designer at Springfield College

    Instructional Designer at Springfield College

    High-quality educational experiences are best created when professors partner with instructional/learning designers. This is true for in-person, hybrid and fully online courses. If you are searching for an instructional/learning designer, I would like to highlight that opportunity in this Featured Gig series.

    Today, we are talking with Chris Hakala, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship and professor of psychology at Springfield College, about his instructional designer search.

    Q: What is the university’s mandate behind this role? How does it help align with and advance the university’s strategic priorities?

    A: The College is invested in continuing to grow its online presence. We have recently had a number of our instructional designers leave for positions that offered them different flexibility or that allowed them to move into other positions, and this current position is to backfill that space and to support our faculty both in the online space as well as the in-person teaching as faculty continue to learn how to best leverage their LMS to benefit their students.

    It aligns with our strategic priorities with regard to providing faculty with resources to best leverage our digital resources to align with our pedagogy.

    Q: Where does the role sit within the university structure? How will the person in this role engage with other units and leaders across campus?

    A: The instructional design team sits in the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship (our teaching center) and reports to the director. In that capacity, the Center engages with faculty in all formats of pedagogy and supports both the face-to-face and online pedagogy as well as the digital resources that engage learners. The new ID will work with the team in the center to align practices but will also engage extensively with faculty as subject-matter experts to best design digital resources for their particular style of pedagogy.

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

    A: Success would be the continued growth of utilization of digital resources such that there is more consistency in what is available for learners in the digital platform. In three years, we’d like to grow our footprint on campus so that we are working alongside faculty in all areas to maximize learning.

    Q: What kinds of future roles would someone who took this position be prepared for?

    A: As a comprehensive teaching center, we encourage our instructional design team to learn about educational development writ large. Thus, we hope that over time our instructional designers engage in all manner of educational development, leaning into digital resources but also aligning pedagogical practice with creating effective assessments and further ensuring that they are appropriate for the learning outcomes of the courses. We expect our IDs to be well-versed in a variety of areas of educational development, including science of learning, so that our center speaks with a common voice.

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

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  • A Teaching Mantra for the New Year (opinion)

    A Teaching Mantra for the New Year (opinion)

    As professors, we naturally talk a lot about teaching—and I’ve certainly benefited from public discussions at workshops and panel presentations. But we can also have more intimate moments of instructional insight, private moments we may initially keep to ourselves until over time we come to appreciate more fully their value.

    Here’s my hitherto secret bit of pedagogic wisdom.

    It’s my teaching mantra. For many years before teaching each class, I took a moment and silently repeated to myself: Be clear. Be engaging. Be honest. Be kind.

    As a beginning teacher, it was a simple tactic to calm my nervousness before class. But as philosophers since Aristotle have recognized, daily choices become persistent habits that evolve into enduring character. It worked. As I strove to embody these values, they enabled me to bring the self I hoped to become into the classroom.

    Clarity. Engagement. Honesty. Kindness. Simple teaching virtues, yet I’ve come to believe they have a larger salience in the turbulent academic world of today.

    Be Clear

    Students today are coming to college with their own share of inner turmoil. Unsettled by the disruptions of COVID, facing an uncertain job market, and inundated with social media skepticism about the value of college, there’s a vulnerability to them that’s new.

    With their perceptions of a topsy-turvy world, students are understandably looking for clarity, elusive though it may be. Well-designed syllabi and clear directions help, but the clarity they’re looking for is something more than straightforward course formalities. The clarity they’re looking for is a more deeply rooted certainty that they can count on you.

    Thus, providing the clarity students are hoping for today involves the self you bring to the classroom. It is more a matter of character than of course planning. Are you someone they can depend on, confide in and trust? Demonstrating these personal qualities hinges on the kind of outreach you make to students from the start.

    Be Engaging

    Tentative and uncertain as they often are, I can’t expect students to come to me. Personal outreach today means I have to make the first move. It also means doing so by beginning wherever they are. Only by beginning wherever they are can you hope to take them where you might want them to go.

    While I dearly love my students, I don’t expect them to be like me. In my teaching, it has been important to remind myself of this as effective engagement depends on knowing your audience well. Particularly as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to ensure my cultural references, case choices and even language use have a resonance for students decades younger than I am. I am regularly grateful to my daughter, a recent college graduate, for exposing me to the current lingo of “crashing out,” the delights of matcha and the talents of Billie Eilish.

    Be Honest

    Honesty is hard as a teacher, particularly when reading students’ less-than-laudatory evaluations. I’ve certainly had my share of such evaluations and they can discourage extending yourself in personal outreach. But I’ve taken heart from an entrepreneur friend who has counseled openness on my part. See such student comments simply as information, he said, just as he does in reflecting upon investor critiques after pitching a business plan.

    Honesty is especially hard when enduring criticism of an unfair or even hostile nature, something that in the classroom can be especially painful. But taking criticism as simply information, as a source for developing my own deeper reflection and critical faculties, enables a self-honesty that I’ve come to realize I need not fear. In teaching law, I am regularly reminded of John Stuart Mill’s insight: “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”

    Be Kind

    Sometimes, the personal outreach you offer matters more than even the latest teaching strategies you might employ. Kindness toward students can make a decisive difference. Once, while suffering from a bad cold and struggling with a lecture, I noticed that a student coughing in the front row was struggling with her own respiratory ailment. While continuing with the lecture, I offered her a few throat lozenges from the packet that was giving me relief. From the thankful look she gave me, I saw that simple unplanned gesture had a greater impact on her than any of the legal theories I espoused that day.

    The turmoil of students’ inner lives mirrors the unsettled state of professors’ professional lives today. Many external forces are currently upending the established norms of academic life. From politicians who act to defund us to AIs that threaten to replace us to a public that increasingly distrusts us, the traditional foundations of academic culture are at risk. With such larger external threats to these traditional foundations, little tips for strengthening our relationships with students may appear to have negligible relevance or sway.

    But such little ideas do matter, even if only because of the way they contribute to the cultural resilience colleges will need in the coming days. In a deeper sense, we as individual professors are the academy’s foundations, the strength in which its future resides. And the future begins with the values embedded in the teaching choices we make each day.

    Jeffrey Nesteruk is an Emeritus Professor of Legal Studies at Franklin & Marshall College. He has published widely in the areas of law, ethics and liberal education and may be reached at [email protected].

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  • Trump Administration’s Higher Education Policies Drive Sharp Decline in College Graduate Support

    Trump Administration’s Higher Education Policies Drive Sharp Decline in College Graduate Support

    The Trump administration’s aggressive stance toward higher education institutions is contributing to a precipitous drop in support among college-educated voters, with new polling data revealing the president’s approval rating among graduates has fallen to historic lows.

    President Donald J. TrumpAccording to Gallup polling, Trump’s approval rating among college graduates plummeted from 34% in June to just 28% by August, with disapproval climbing to 70%. This represents a concerning trend for Republicans as they look toward the 2026 midterm elections, particularly given the growing influence of college-educated voters in key suburban swing districts.

    The administration’s education policies have taken aim at what Trump characterizes as liberal bias and antisemitism on college campuses. Harvard University has faced the most severe federal intervention, with the White House canceling approximately $100 million in federal contracts and freezing $3.2 billion in research funding. The administration has also moved to block international student enrollment and threatened to revoke the institution’s tax-exempt status while demanding sweeping reforms to admissions processes and curricular oversight.

    Similar measures have been enacted against Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University over issues ranging from pro-Palestinian campus activism to policies regarding transgender athletes in women’s sports. Harvard officials have characterized these interventions as an unprecedented assault on academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

    The crackdown has generated significant campus unrest and drawn comparisons to Cold War-era loyalty investigations, raising questions about the federal government’s appropriate role in higher education governance.

    The polling data reflects broader dissatisfaction with the administration’s educational approach. Only 26% of college graduates approve of Trump’s handling of education policy, while 71% disapprove. A separate AP-NORC survey from May found that 56% of Americans nationwide disapprove of the president’s higher education agenda.

    However, the policies resonate strongly within Trump’s Republican base, with roughly 80% of Republicans approving his higher education approach—a higher approval rate than his economic policies garner. About 60% of Republicans express significant concern about perceived liberal bias on college campuses, aligning with the administration’s framing of universities as ideologically compromised institutions.

    The Republican coalition shows some internal division on enforcement mechanisms, with approximately half supporting federal funding cuts for non-compliant institutions while a quarter oppose such measures and another quarter remain undecided.

    While political controversies dominate headlines, economic concerns remain the primary driver of public opinion on higher education. Sixty percent of Americans express deep concern about college costs, a bipartisan worry that transcends ideological divisions around campus politics.

    Current data from the College Board and Bankrate show average annual costs of $29,910 for in-state public university students, $49,080 for out-of-state students, and approximately $61,990 for private nonprofit institutions when including room, board, and additional expenses. Financial aid reduces these figures to average net prices of $20,800 at public universities and $36,150 at private colleges.

    These costs reflect decades of sustained increases. EducationData.org reports that public in-state college costs have risen from $2,489 in 1963 to $89,556 in 2022-23 (adjusted for inflation). Over the past decade alone, in-state public tuition has increased by nearly 58%, while out-of-state and private tuition have risen by 30% and 27% respectively.

    The economic pressures extend beyond college costs to post-graduation employment prospects. While overall unemployment among adults with bachelor’s degrees remains low at 2.3%, recent graduates face significant challenges. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that only 69.6% of bachelor’s degree recipients aged 20-29 were employed in late 2024, with unemployment among 23-27-year-olds reaching nearly 6%—substantially above the 4.2% national average.

    These employment difficulties contribute to broader economic anxiety, with 39% of college graduates describing national economic conditions as “poor” and 64% reporting job search struggles.

    The confluence of political and economic pressures creates a challenging landscape for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms. College-educated voters represent a growing and increasingly decisive demographic, particularly in suburban areas that often determine control of swing seats.

     

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  • Enhancing higher education governance will require agility and accountability

    Enhancing higher education governance will require agility and accountability

    Today Advance HE is publishing Shaping the future of HE governance, the findings of our “big conversation” on higher education governance.

    The report draws from wide-ranging engagement with governors, chairs, institutional leaders, board secretaries and others, conducted in partnership with the Committee of University Chairs (CUC), Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA), Universities UK, GuildHE and Independent HE. The research examined the effectiveness of current governance arrangements, considered good practice from other sectors and identified what needs to improve or change.

    The big conversation explored the diversity of provider types, missions and individual contexts across UK higher education. Diversity and differences exist in governance arrangements, and this is appropriate to reflect the diversity of missions and scales which need differing governance arrangements.

    The findings from this research will feed into the CUC’s current review of higher education governance, of which I’m a steering group member. I will also share the findings with the Office for Students and Department for Education – both are showing a growing interest in how higher education institutions are governed.

    Here are some of the factors that should be priorities when considering governance reform.

    A question of culture

    At the heart of good governance is culture – and this should be central to efforts to enhance governance. The research found that culture is the biggest factor in determining the difference between a highly effective and a less effective board.

    This can be hard to measure, takes time to get right, and is a constant work in progress. This includes the culture of getting the right balance of challenge and support – and where the right level of information is supplied to governors, but equally where governors themselves have a sufficient degree of expertise and curiosity to ask the right questions and know when to probe and challenge.

    The right culture requires a sophisticated relationship between executive and board and specifically the head of institution, the chair and the secretary to the board. An open relationship, with no surprises, and a healthy tension of constructive challenge. Clear schemes of delegated authority, clarifying the difference between accountability and responsibility, can help to support this.

    As the context and issues change, higher education governance also needs to adapt to meet new challenges.

    Just because governance arrangements were suitable and effective in the past shouldn’t lead to the conclusion that no change is needed. There are examples of excellent practice in the sector. There are also weaknesses which should be the focus for improvement. It is necessary for institutions to regularly review, evolve and improve their governance arrangements.

    Agility and accountability

    To meet current challenges, agility is needed to support effective transformation and change. How can governing bodies be supported to get the right balance between the speed of decision-making and ensuring good governance oversight? Is the size and composition of the governing body helping or hindering effective decision-making?

    Consideration should be given to what can be done to maximise the time that governing bodies spend on discussion of strategy, strategic issues and oversight of major risk – and minimise time spent on processing bureaucracy. This may require ruthlessness about focussing on matters which are strategic, a regulatory or statutory requirement or of material significance (financially, reputationally, or otherwise). If an item does not meet these three tests, there should be challenge as to why it is taking up board time.

    The quality of strategic decision making can be enhanced by ensuring that the board contributes to formative thinking, giving governors the opportunity to challenge and scrutinise effectively, ensuring time to properly examine information to allow for evidence-based decisions in the context of the strategy.

    Are there examples – perhaps from other sectors – that can better enable governing bodies to support change, effectively balancing the need to manage risk with the desire to be agile, innovative and entrepreneurial?

    Institutions should also consider how they can better communicate their governance story – openly and creatively – to staff, students, partners and the public. There’s an opportunity to demonstrating how institutions are governed in the public interest. This can include more proactive and transparent approaches to showing adherence to codes and compliance to regulations.

    A developing story

    Given the risks (financial, international) and changes (digital, regulatory) facing the sector it has never been more important to support governors appropriately – and this should include proactively identifying and supporting development opportunities.

    This could include both HE-specific regulatory issues and learning about good governance best practice from other sectors. Beyond initial governor induction, institutions should support continuous professional development for non-executive board members throughout terms of service and ensure structured training opportunities for governance support professionals.

    The insights from our big conversation will provide a foundation and stimulus for meaningful change and continuous improvement in HE sector governance. The priorities identified will shape how Advance HE evolves its approach to governance support, board effectiveness reviews and development programmes.

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