Tag: News

  • Higher Ed Lobbying Spending Rises

    Higher Ed Lobbying Spending Rises

    Facing a proposal by congressional Republicans to significantly raise the endowment tax and other major changes for the sector, colleges spent millions of dollars on lobbying efforts in the second quarter of 2025.

    An Inside Higher Ed analysis of federal lobbying spending by members of the Association of American Universities and other select institutions showed a slight uptick in spending over the first quarter of 2025. AAU members alone spent about $9 million in the first quarter of 2025, which dramatically outpaced the same time frame in 2024.

    That number rose even more in the second quarter: Federal data shows AAU members spent more than $9.7 million on lobbying—and that’s without the multiple institutions that failed to report their numbers by a July 21 deadline, making the total likely higher. Emory University spent the most among AAU members, totaling $500,000. Among non-AAU members, the University of Phoenix spent the most, at $480,000.

    Here’s a look at how much universities spent on federal lobbying in the second quarter of 2025, and what issues they focused on between April 1 and June 30, as reported in required disclosures.

    Lobbying Expenditures

    Some institutions maintained spending levels similar to the first quarter, while others significantly increased lobbying expenditures. Emory, for example, spent $170,000 in the first quarter of 2025. But in the second quarter it increased that spending by $330,000 as lobbyists pressed Congress on cuts to federal research and public health funding, Senate disclosure reports show. Compared to data from prior years, this is the most Emory has spent on lobbying in one quarter.

    (Emory did not respond to a request for comment.)

    Emory was one of a few institutions that cracked the top 10 in terms of spending while also having the highest percentage increase in lobbying expenditures, at nearly 200 percent. Others that heavily ratcheted up lobbying efforts include Cornell University, which went from $230,000 to $444,000 over one quarter; the University of Washington, which jumped from $250,000 to $440,000; and Johns Hopkins University, which boosted lobbying from $170,00 to $380,000 between quarters.

    Only the University of Washington provided a statement to Inside Higher Ed on lobbying expenses, with spokesperson Victor Balta writing, “In light of a changing federal policy environment, we want to make sure that we are well represented so that we can continue to serve the American people through our teaching and research. Additionally, some expenses from our associations in these areas have gone up or are charged in Q2 for the full year.”

    All four institutions—along with many others—brought concerns about federal research funding to Congress, according to lobbying disclosure forms. Other key concerns for the sector included legislation that would likely limit international student enrollment and federal student aid.

    Some institutions dialed back their lobbying expenditures in the second quarter.

    Northwestern University spent the most on lobbying among single-institution AAU members in the first quarter of 2025 (excluding the University of California, which lobbies as a system)—$607,000. That declined to $306,000 for the second quarter, a figure that remains in the top 10 among AAU member institutions despite falling by nearly half.

    Lobbying Wins and Losses

    Higher education lobbyists seemed to score at least a few wins with their congressional efforts.

    Liz Clark, vice president for policy and research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, noted at NACUBO’s annual conference this week that recent federal legislation could have imposed far-reaching and costly changes for higher education.

    The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as President Donald Trump deemed it, capped some student loan programs and eliminated the Grad PLUS program, limited repayment options, and mandated that programs pass an earnings test for attendees to be able to access federal student loans. The federal legislation also tweaked the endowment excise tax, among other changes for the sector.

    But Clark noted that a leaked memo from January, well before the bill was passed in July, showed congressional Republicans considered changes that would have gone further, including imposing taxes on scholarships, dramatically increasing the endowment tax and cutting certain tax credits.

    “In that memo, it was very clear that higher education was on the menu,” Clark said.

    However, those changes never materialized as proposed. The Senate walked back House plans to significantly raise the endowment tax and extend it to far more institutions, opting for a softer blow, capping it at a maximum of 8 percent instead of the proposed 21 percent. Clark told NACUBO attendees that “what was not in the bill” was a win for the sector.

    Thad Inge, vice president at the lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates, told NACUBO attendees Monday that the leaked memo was “a real wake-up call” that “activated a lot of advocacy.”

    Inge argued that many of the proposals in the memo would have been harmful for the sector and that while higher education can absorb some hits, altogether it presented “an existential threat.” He credited individual institutions with making a personalized push to get through to Congress.

    “It’s easy to demonize Harvard and Yale and Columbia and say higher education is woke,” Inge said. “But when folks hear from schools in their state, schools in their district, they don’t paint with such a broad brush. I think those cultural battles will continue, but the more we as advocates bring it back home—not that we’re not fighting on behalf of all of higher education—but I think making it more personal to the state and the district makes it easier to win those battles.”

    Sector lobbyists weren’t quite as successful in other areas.

    Multiple universities have lobbied to maintain research funding as the Trump administration yanked federal grants and contracts, often with little to no warning or explanation. So far, the federal government has been impervious to their efforts. Similarly, many institutions advocated for the continuance of the Grad PLUS program, which was axed by Congress in July.

    Some colleges also encouraged Congress to push back on policies that could harm international enrollment and cause visa processing delays or denials—such as vetting social media posts for criticism of the U.S. government and culture—which the State Department continues to do.

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  • UL Lafayette President Retires Suddenly

    UL Lafayette President Retires Suddenly

    University of Louisiana at Lafayette president Joseph Savoie is retiring suddenly after 17 years in the top job at the public research institution, The Louisiana Illuminator reported.

    His retirement, announced Wednesday, is effective today.

    Savoie, who earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees from UL Lafayette, served in multiple administrative roles at the university from 1978 to 1996, when he stepped down to serve as Louisiana’s commissioner of higher education. Savoie returned as president in 2008.

    Altogether, Savoie spent more than 35 years at UL Lafayette.

    “I reached the decision to transition to this new position after months of careful consideration,” Savoie said in a university news release about his retirement. “Higher education has changed immensely in the past two decades. The expectations on colleges and universities are as great as they have ever been and meeting those responsibilities to our community today—and to generations that follow—requires new ideas and fresh approaches. I owe it to this institution that has given me so much, personally and professionally, to make way for the future.”

    Savoie will become emeritus president and ULL provost Jaimie Hebert will serve as interim leader while the University of Louisiana system Board of Supervisors seeks a permanent hire.

    While Savoie is credited with various accomplishments, including overseeing Lafayette’s rise to R-1 status in the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions, the university has also faced criticism from board members and state officials over inadequate financial controls in two consecutive audits.

    Savoie is the second public university leader in Louisiana to step down abruptly in recent weeks. Southern University New Orleans chancellor James Ammons announced that he was departing last month and has already been replaced by Democratic lawmaker Joe Bouie, who held the job from 2000 to 2002 before he was fired over what he said was a political matter.

    Elsewhere in the state, Louisiana State University president William F. Tate IV also stepped down in June after he was hired to lead Rutgers University.

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  • Universities Meet Just a Fraction of Demand for AI Training

    Universities Meet Just a Fraction of Demand for AI Training

    Interest in artificial intelligence training is soaring, but only a fraction of the demand is being met by higher education, according to a new report.

    Nearly 57 million people in the U.S. are interested in learning AI-based skills—with about 8.7 million currently learning, the higher education marketing and research firm Validated Insights estimates.

    Two-thirds of them are doing so independently through videos, online reading and other learning resources, and a third are doing so via a structured and supervised learning program. However, just 7,000 (0.2 percent) are learning AI via a credit-bearing program from a higher education institution.

    This is despite enrollment in AI courses growing quickly in recent years. According to the report, the first bachelor’s degree in the subject was launched by Carnegie Mellon University in 2018.

    Over the next five years, enrollment in AI programs at colleges and universities grew 45 percent annually. The report found that approximately 1 percent of institutions now offer a master’s degree in AI, 2.5 percent a bachelor’s degree and 3 to 5 percent offer a nondegree program.

    SUNY’s University at Buffalo saw enrollment in its master’s degree in AI grow over 20 times from 2020 to 2024, from five to 103 students.

    “Based on the data, there was sizable existing interest and demand for professional and workplace education and training in AI and AI-related areas, but we probably haven’t seen anything yet,” said Brady Colby, head of market research at Validated Insights.

    “According to survey data and hiring trends, this market, the AI education and training market, is positioned for incredible, maybe explosive, growth.”

    Validated Insights said ed-tech companies have seized the opportunity and are serving more than 99 percent of those looking to upskill in AI. Just 14 months after the launch of ChatGPT, enrollment in generative AI courses on platforms like Coursera and Udemy had grown to 3.5 million.

    “Given the expected very high demand for learning AI, that so few existing learners are in credit programs is an important thing to know,” said Colby.

    “It’s not necessarily a warning for colleges and universities as it may be a blast of opportunity. If for-credit, degree-granting institutions can sync their programs and reach this massive pool of interested students, the rewards could be excessive—for the students and schools alike.”

    Estimates published by Statista suggest that the aggregate market for AI in the U.S. in 2025 is worth $74 billion.

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  • Faculty Are Latest Targets of Higher Ed’s AI-ification

    Faculty Are Latest Targets of Higher Ed’s AI-ification

    LLM-enabled assignments will allow faculty to evaluate student interactions with a custom chat bot, Instructure says.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Dougall_Photography and gazanfer/iStock/Getty Images

    Last week, Instructure, which owns the widely used learning management system Canvas, announced a partnership with OpenAI to integrate into the platform native AI tools and agents, including those that help with grading, scheduling, generating rubrics and summarizing discussion posts.

    The two companies, which have not disclosed the value of the deal, are also working together to embed large language models into Canvas through a feature called IgniteAI. It will work with an institution’s existing enterprise subscription to LLMs such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, allowing instructors to create custom LLM-enabled assignments. They’ll be able to tell the model how to interact with students—and even evaluate those interactions—and what it should look for to assess student learning. According to Instructure, any student information submitted through Canvas will remain private and won’t be shared with OpenAI.

    Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure, touted Canvas’s AI push as “a significant step forward for the education community as we continuously amplify the learning experience and improve student outcomes.” But many faculty aren’t convinced that integrating AI into every facet of teaching and learning is the answer to improving the function and value of higher education.

    “Our first job is to help faculty understand how students are using AI and how it’s changing the nature of thinking and work. The tools will be secondary,” said José Antonio Bowen, senior fellow at the American Association of Colleges and Universities and co-author of the book Teaching With AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning. “The LMS might make it easier, but giving people a couple of extra buttons isn’t going to substitute for training faculty to build AI into their assignments in the right way—where students use AI but are still learning.”

    The AI-ification of Canvas is just one of the latest examples of the technology’s infiltration of higher education amid predictions that the technology will reshape and shrink the job market for new college graduates.

    Earlier this year, the California State University system announced a partnership with a slate of tech companies—including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google—to give all students and faculty access to AI-powered tools, in part to equip students with the AI skills employers say they want. In April, Anthropic unveiled Claude for Education, which it designed specifically for college students. One day later, OpenAI gave college students free access to ChatGPT Plus through finals. Soon after, Ohio State University launched an initiative aimed at making every graduate AI “fluent” by 2029. And this week, OpenAI released Study Mode, a version of ChatGPT designed for college students that acts as a tutor rather than an answer generator.

    Faculty Unsurprised, Skeptical

    Few faculty were surprised by the Canvas-OpenAI partnership announcement, though many are reserving judgment until they see how the first year of using it works in practice.

    “It was only a matter of time before something like this happened with one of the major learning management systems,” said Derek Bruff, associate director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. “Some of the use cases they’ve talked about make sense to me and others make less sense.”

    Having Canvas provide a summary of students’ discussion posts could be a helpful time saver, especially for a larger class, though it doesn’t seem like “a game-changer,” he said. But he’s less sure that using the chat bot to evaluate student interactions, as Instructure suggests, could provide faculty with useful learning metrics.

    “If students know that their interactions with the chat bot are going to be evaluated by the chat bot and then perhaps scored and graded by the instructor, now you’re in a testing environment and student behavior is going to change,” Bruff said. “You’re not going to get the same kind of insight into student questions or perspective, because they’re going to self-censor.”

    Faculty, including the thousands who work for the more than 40 percent of higher ed institutions across North America that use Canvas, will have the option to use some or all of these new tools, which Instructure says it won’t charge extra for.

    Those who choose to use it run the risk of “digital reification,” or “locking faculty and students into particular tools and systems that may not be the best fit for their educational goals,” Kathryn Conrad, an English professor at the University of Kansas who researches culture and technology, said in an email. “What works best for student learning is challenge, care and attention from human teachers. Drivers from outside of education are pushing yet another technological solution. We need investment in people.”

    But as higher education budgets keep shrinking, faculty workloads are growing—and so is the temptation to use AI to help alleviate it.

    “I worry about the people who are living out of their car, teaching at three institutions, trying to make ends meet. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of a system like Canvas to help with their grading?” said Lew Ludwig, a math professor and former director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Denison University. “All of a sudden AI is going to be grading the work if we’re not careful.”

    But that realization could push students to rely more and more on generative AI to complete their coursework without fully grasping the material—and give cash-strapped administrators another justification to increase faculty workloads. Such scenarios run the risk of further devaluing a higher education system that’s already facing scrutiny from lawmakers and consumers.

    “Students are starting to graduate into a new economy, where just having a piece of paper hanging on their wall isn’t going to mean as much anymore, especially if they leaned heavily on AI to achieve that piece of paper,” Ludwig said. “We have to make sure our assignments are impactful and meaningful and that our students understand why in some instances we may not want them to use AI.”

    Despite Instructure’s claims that this new version of Canvas will enhance the learning process in the age of AI, a recent survey by the American Association of University Professors shows that most faculty don’t believe AI tools are making their jobs easier; 69 percent said it hurts student success.

    Britt Paris, co-author of the report and associate professor of library and information science at Rutgers University, said she doesn’t expect that to change with the introduction of an AI-powered LMS.

    “In the history of educational technology there has never been an instance of large-scale … data-intensive corporate learning infrastructure that has met the needs of learners,” she said. “This is because people are nuanced in how they learn. The goal with these technologies is to make money, not [to] support people’s unique learning, teaching and working styles.”

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  • Video Allegedly Showing U of Iowa Promoting DEI Sparks Probe

    Video Allegedly Showing U of Iowa Promoting DEI Sparks Probe

    dosecreative/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

    Following a complaint by Iowa governor Kim Reynolds, the state attorney general’s office is investigating a video that allegedly shows a University of Iowa administrator saying the institution is still promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, despite the state’s ban.

    Fox News Digital published a story earlier this week based on what it called an “undercover video,” which shows a woman identified as Drea Tinoco, assistant director for leadership and student organization development at the university, saying, “On behalf of my office, we’re still going to talk about DEI, we’re still going to do all the DEI things.”

    The story doesn’t specify who recorded the video or whether they were working for Fox or another entity. The conservative group Accuracy in Media has released similar videos allegedly revealing employees skirting DEI prohibitions in other states, but AIM president Adam Guillette said the video isn’t from his organization.

    In the video, dated July 2, the woman also says, “DEI and student organizations and all of that, it is real, it still exists, we’re still doing DEI work.” Though it’s not in the clip, Fox also reported that Tinoco called Reynolds, a Republican, “cuckoo bananas.”

    Tinoco didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday. In an email, a university spokesperson didn’t confirm or deny whether the video is real or whether Tinoco is the person shown in it, saying, “Personnel matters are considered confidential.”

    Last year, Reynolds signed legislation banning DEI at public universities. In a statement Tuesday, Reynolds said, “I’m appalled by the remarks made in this video by a University of Iowa employee who blatantly admits to defying DEI restrictions I signed into law on May 9, 2024.”

    She filed a complaint with Attorney General Brenna Bird, another Republican, who announced her office is investigating. University president Barbara Wilson additionally told the Iowa Board of Regents Wednesday that her institution has “launched an immediate and comprehensive investigation.”

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  • HHS Accuses Harvard of Thwarting Investigations

    HHS Accuses Harvard of Thwarting Investigations

    The Trump administration has accused Harvard University officials of failing to comply with an ongoing civil rights investigation into alleged campus antisemitism, The Boston Globe reported.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a letter to Harvard president Alan Garber that it was referring the civil rights investigation to the U.S. Department of Justice, which it is permitted to do in cases where “compliance under Title VI cannot be obtained voluntarily.” 

    The letter, written by Paula Stannard, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, also referenced legal actions taken by Harvard, which has fought back against frozen federal research funding and other matters.

    “Rather than voluntarily comply with its obligations under Title VI, Harvard has chosen scorched-earth litigation against the Federal government,” Stannard wrote. “The parties’ several months’ engagement has been fruitless.”

    Harvard did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    The letter comes as Harvard is reportedly considering a $500 million settlement with the Trump administration to close current investigations and unfreeze $2 billion in federal research funding. Harvard is reportedly mulling a settlement even though a judge appears to view its case favorably.

    If Harvard settles, it will add to the list of wealthy and highly visible institutions that have yielded to the Trump administration’s demands in recent weeks. Columbia University agreed to far-reaching changes and a $221 million settlement to restore federal funding and close investigations into antisemitism on campus that stemmed from pro-Palestinian protests in 2024. Brown University also struck a deal with the Trump administration to restore $510 million in research funding, agreeing to various concessions but no payout to the federal government.

    As a potential settlement with the Trump administration looms, some Harvard faculty members sent a letter to the president and board, urging Garber to push back on what they called “the Trump administration’s assault on the vibrancy and inclusiveness of U.S. higher education.”

    Signed by multiple well-known scholars, the letter exhorted Garber not to “compromise core university and academic-freedom values that generations before us have worked to define and sustain,” and to resist ceding power to the federal government over hiring and admissions.

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  • Penny Schwinn Drops Out of the Running for Ed Department’s Deputy Role – The 74

    Penny Schwinn Drops Out of the Running for Ed Department’s Deputy Role – The 74

    Updated

    Penny Schwinn, in line to serve as second in command of the U.S. Department of Education, has withdrawn from the nomination, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced Thursday.

    Instead, the former Tennessee education commissioner will take on a different role for the department.

    “I am grateful to Dr. Schwinn for her commitment to serving students, families, and educators across the nation,” McMahon said in a statement. “Penny is a brilliant education mind and I look forward to continuing working with her as my chief strategist to make education great again.”

    Schwinn, in a statement, said she gave the decision “thoughtful consideration” and said she will  “remain committed to protecting kids, raising achievement and expanding opportunity  —  my lifelong mission and north star.”

    Considered a champion for improving reading outcomes and high-dosage tutoring, Schwinn was among President Donald Trump’s early picks for department posts. Many perceived her as a more bipartisan choice than others joining the administration, but among Tennessee conservatives, many who felt she was too liberal, opposition to her nomination was strong.

    The timing of Schwinn’s withdrawal couldn’t be worse, according to some conservatives. 

    “Her decision to remove herself from consideration to become deputy secretary hurts students, educators, and the Trump administration,” said Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, a think tank. “Secretary McMahon has been charged by Congress and the president with huge tasks under the One Big Beautiful Bill and several urgent executive orders.”

    As head of the Education Department, McMahon is striving to turn more authority over education to the states. It’s now unclear who will step into the deputy position and take the lead on the state’s requests for more flexibility over education funding. At least two states, Iowa and Oklahoma, have already submitted requests for block grants, and Indiana is currently gathering comments from the public in preparation for a similar proposal. Kirsten Baesler, North Dakota’s long-time education chief, is currently awaiting confirmation to be assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the department. In February, she joined 11 other GOP chiefs in asking McMahon for greater freedom to direct education funds toward state-level needs.

    Controversies and questions over Schwinn’s conservative qualifications have followed her for years. Far-right groups, including Moms for Liberty, said her past support for equity initiatives, like hiring more teachers of color, was evidence that she was not a good fit for an administration determined to eliminate such programs. Others remained angry over Schwinn’s pandemic-era plan to conduct “well-being” home visits. Even though she scrapped the plan, parents and members of the legislature considered it an example of government overreach.

    More recently, Steve Gill, a conservative commentator in Tennessee, reported that while she was deputy superintendent of the Texas Education Agency, Schwinn recommended individuals who advocate for comprehensive sex education, including abortion rights, to advise the state on health curriculum. 

    Gill told The 74 he shared his TriStar Daily article about her stance on these issues with Tennessee Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, as well as the state’s congressional delegation. Blackburn, who is expected to run for governor next year, was considered a possible no vote for Schwinn.

    According to Gill, Blackburn’s office “has been working tirelessly behind the scenes with the White House, Secretary Linda McMahon and Majority Leader [John] Thune to block the confirmation.”

    But Madi Biedermann, spokeswoman for the department, said the agency “strongly disagrees with that characterization.”

    Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee was expected to vote no on Penny Schwinn’s confirmation. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Blew said it’s unfortunate that politics got in the way, noting that Schwinn’s experience in both blue and red states would have brought valuable expertise to the Ed Department role. In addition to her jobs in Tennessee and Texas, Schwinn founded a charter school in Sacramento and also served in the Delaware Department of Education.

    “It’s sad that a handful of demagogues are standing in the way of giving Secretary McMahon the team she needs to succeed,” he said.

    Others praised Schwinn’s record of prioritizing the science of reading in Tennessee schools and directing COVID relief funds toward tutoring.

    “This is a setback for all who want to see Washington slashing red tape, advancing literacy and fighting for common sense values,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

    For some critics, Schwinn’s business ventures since leaving the top spot in Tennessee two years ago raised questions as she waited to appear before the Senate education committee. 

    In June, a day ahead of her joint hearing with three other nominees, The 74 reported that shortly after Trump tapped her for the job, she registered a new education consulting business in Florida, New Horizon BluePrint Group, with a longtime colleague. Before Schwinn filed ethics paperwork with the federal government, her sister replaced her as a manager on the business. 

    When a reporter from The 74 asked questions about the new project, Donald Fennoy, her colleague and a former superintendent of the Palm Beach County School District, dissolved the business.

    Ethics experts say candidates for an administration post often distance themselves from new business entanglements to avoid any appearance of a conflict, but Schwinn has faced accusations of poor judgment before.

    While she was in Texas, the state agency signed a $4.4 million no-bid contract in 2017 with a software company where she had a “professional relationship” with a subcontractor, according to a state audit. And in Tennessee, the education agency made an $8 million deal in 2021 with TNTP, a teacher training organization where her husband Paul Schwinn was employed at the time. Lawmakers considered the deal a “huge conflict.”

    “Ethics was a crucial concern,” said J.C. Bowman, executive director and CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-union organization. He was among those who sent letters to the Senate, asking them to remove her from consideration. “Her personal business interests and possible conflicts could potentially influence educational decisions in ways that many found difficult to overlook.”

    Clarification: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the role Penny Schwinn will take on in lieu of serving as the deputy education secretary. Schwinn will be taking on an advisory role at the Education Department.


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  • What we lose when AI replaces teachers

    What we lose when AI replaces teachers

    Key points:

    A colleague of ours recently attended an AI training where the opening slide featured a list of all the ways AI can revolutionize our classrooms. Grading was listed at the top. Sure, AI can grade papers in mere seconds, but should it?

    As one of our students, Jane, stated: “It has a rubric and can quantify it. It has benchmarks. But that is not what actually goes into writing.” Our students recognize that AI cannot replace the empathy and deep understanding that recognizes the growth, effort, and development of their voice. What concerns us most about grading our students’ written work with AI is the transformation of their audience from human to robot.

    If we teach our students throughout their writing lives that what the grading robot says matters most, then we are teaching them that their audience doesn’t matter. As Wyatt, another student, put it: “If you can use AI to grade me, I can use AI to write.” NCTE, in its position statements for Generative AI, reminds us that writing is a human act, not a mechanical one. Reducing it to automated scores undermines its value and teaches students, like Wyatt and Jane, that the only time we write is for a grade. That is a future of teaching writing we hope to never see.

    We need to pause when tech companies tout AI as the grader of student writing. This isn’t a question of capability. AI can score essays. It can be calibrated to rubrics. It can, as Jane

    said, provide students with encouragement and feedback specific to their developing skills. And we have no doubt it has the potential to make a teacher’s grading life easier. But just because we can outsource some educational functions to technology doesn’t mean we should.

    It is bad enough how many students already see their teacher as their only audience. Or worse, when students are writing for teachers who see their written work strictly through the lens of a rubric, their audience is limited to the rubric. Even those options are better than writing for a bot. Instead, let’s question how often our students write to a broader audience of their peers, parents, community, or a panel of judges for a writing contest. We need to reengage with writing as a process and implement AI as a guide or aide rather than a judge with the last word on an essay score.

    Our best foot forward is to put AI in its place. The use of AI in the writing process is better served in the developing stages of writing. AI is excellent as a guide for brainstorming. It can help in a variety of ways when a student is struggling and looking for five alternatives to their current ending or an idea for a metaphor. And if you or your students like AI’s grading feature, they can paste their work into a bot for feedback prior to handing it in as a final draft.

    We need to recognize that there are grave consequences if we let a bot do all the grading. As teachers, we should recognize bot grading for what it is: automated education. We can and should leave the promises of hundreds of essays graded in an hour for the standardized test providers. Our classrooms are alive with people who have stories to tell, arguments to make, and research to conduct. We see our students beyond the raw data of their work. We recognize that the poem our student has written for their sick grandparent might be a little flawed, but it matters a whole lot to the person writing it and to the person they are writing it for. We see the excitement or determination in our students’ eyes when they’ve chosen a research topic that is important to them. They want their cause to be known and understood by others, not processed and graded by a bot.

    The adoption of AI into education should be conducted with caution. Many educators are experimenting with using AI tools in thoughtful and student-centered ways. In a recent article, David Cutler describes his experience using an AI-assisted platform to provide feedback on his students’ essays. While Cutler found the tool surprisingly accurate and helpful, the true value lies in the feedback being used as part of the revision process. As this article reinforces, the role of a teacher is not just to grade, but to support and guide learning. When used intentionally (and we emphasize, as in-process feedback) AI can enhance that learning, but the final word, and the relationship behind it, must still come from a human being.

    When we hand over grading to AI, we risk handing over something much bigger–our students’ belief that their words matter and deserve an audience. Our students don’t write to impress a rubric, they write to be heard. And when we replace the reader with a robot, we risk teaching our students that their voices only matter to the machine. We need to let AI support the writing process, not define the product. Let it offer ideas, not deliver grades. When we use it at the right moments and for the right reasons, it can make us better teachers and help our students grow. But let’s never confuse efficiency with empathy. Or algorithms with understanding.

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  • Service Portfolios Make Service Visible (opinion)

    Service Portfolios Make Service Visible (opinion)

    Another academic year is fast approaching, and with it another promotion and tenure cycle in which faculty members will prepare dossiers for promotion. Some, but not all, universities have detailed instructions on what and what not to include in the dossier. At many research institutions, the service section consists of a list of committees on which the faculty member has served with little information about the nature of their participation. Having managed promotion and tenure at multiple institutions, I know that faculty members are often told to check the service boxes and move on.

    Yet, the pandemic and its aftermath threw into high relief what most faculty members already knew: Faculty service is a mission-critical portion of workloads and highly undervalued by our institutions. We also know that mission-critical workload is unevenly allocated to and carried out by some faculty members while others either refuse to participate, focus their service outside the institution for the profession or participate as free riders while others pull their load. This leads to conversations about “service slacking” and “service shaming.” Articles abound with useful suggestions on how to address the uneven distribution of service, including advice on how to say no. And the Faculty Workload Equity project, part of an NSF ADVANCE award to the University of Maryland, provides important tools to better understand the contours of differential workloads and ways to create transparency around them.

    This conversation is not new; Joya Misra and colleagues suggested in 2011 that changing the culture around service is essential in order to find ways to distribute the workload more evenly and to develop reward mechanisms for doing critical service in mission-central areas like curricular reform or student outcomes assessment. More than 10 years later, this conversation seems to have stalled. Properly recognizing the value of service would be a good way to restart it.

    Articulating the Value of Service

    Let me start with a story. About 15 years ago, I co-chaired my institution’s reaccreditation bid with the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. We were tasked, among other things, with collecting information about how our faculty engaged in outreach to our community. Our campus survey about community engagement came back with pitifully little data. We realized that we needed to excavate the information. After visits to lots of faculty meetings, we had an amazingly rich list of ways our faculty were engaging with schools, nonprofits and local governments in our area. To my question about why these activities didn’t appear in any university document, faculty members universally replied that they didn’t think anyone cared.

    As Cullen C. Merrit recently argued, service and engagement activities are ways that the academy provides value to society at large. I agree. Yet we cannot value or demonstrate the impact of what we don’t document.

    To that end, colleges can launch a service portfolio that faculty can submit as part of promotion and performance-review processes. The service portfolio documents the range of service activities for each faculty member, as well as success metrics that demonstrate their impact on students, other faculty and the institutional mission. Identifying impact is a first step in increasing the value our institutions place on service activities and establishing fairer systems of allocation and rewards.

    The Service Portfolio

    Before you stop reading because no one wants to do more service work, a service portfolio can help bring attention to the value of work by demonstrating the impacts and outcomes. Indeed, some universities and colleges already have faculty members provide such information about service; others make suggestions about how to craft a promotion and tenure service and engagement dossier.

    As with a teaching portfolio, a service portfolio is a structured assemblage of contributions to mission-critical activities around student and faculty success (e.g., mentoring, curriculum development, professional development) and engagement with local and regional communities (e.g., support for K–12 education, support for local governmental and nongovernmental agencies).

    Service portfolio guidelines could begin by listing elements of the stated mission or the strategic planning goals at the department, college/school and institution levels. In consultation with department chairs or deans, faculty members would then select those elements to which they contribute through their service activities. In addition to describing their contributions, faculty could describe outcomes and impacts either in terms of future goals or what can already be measured.

    For example, a faculty member might want to prioritize curriculum development or faculty mentoring. In that case, we might expect them to serve locally or institutionally in those areas, to engage in professional development opportunities, or to develop community engagement activities related to their specializations. A focus on value requires that the service portfolio identify the impacts or expected outcomes of each activity. For example, participation in a curriculum revision might result in higher learning outcomes or lower DFW rates. Faculty mentoring can result in improved teaching outcomes, enhanced research productivity and an improved work environment.

    There are numerous advantages of a service portfolio over the current way of counting the number of committees on which we serve. First, faculty members can gain agency in the way that they shape and narrate their own contributions to the institutional mission through service. Agency is a motivating factor that might encourage yet more engagement. Faculty members will have a harder time free riding on a committee when they must articulate their contributions and when those contributions are then reviewed by departmental peers. Equity-minded faculty members and chairs/heads will be better able to track individual contributions and ensure that service is equitably allocated. And chairs and departmental colleagues who are impressed with a particular faculty member’s service contributions will be better positioned to suggest that recognition or reward for those contributions may be in order.

    To be sure, putting together a service portfolio will require extra time, something that faculty members do not have lots of. But the relatively small time commitment can result in significant benefits to faculty and to the institution. Intentional and agentic shaping of service and engagement workloads can ensure that mission-critical work is accomplished in a visible way and can be assessed for impact. Perhaps most importantly, a service portfolio gives information and tools to our colleagues to amplify impactful and valuable activities.

    Beth Mitchneck is professor emerita in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona.

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  • VP Online Enrollment, Integrated Marketing Solutions, Carnegie

    VP Online Enrollment, Integrated Marketing Solutions, Carnegie

    The last time we caught up with Shankar Prasad, he was telling us about his new role as chief strategy officer at Carnegie. Shankar reached out, saying that he is recruiting for the key role of Carnegie’s VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions. As I’m on the lookout to share information with our community about roles at the intersection of learning, technology and higher education change, this job seemed perfect. Shankar graciously agreed to answer my questions about the role.

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

    A: Carnegie’s Online Program Experience (OPX) business line is an important growth area. The company aims to be the premier provider of integrated marketing and enrollment solutions for online programs. The mandate of the VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions is to build and own the sales plan for this OPX business, drive revenue growth, and ensure that Carnegie’s full suite of services (research, strategy, digital marketing, lead generation, creative and website development) are successfully cross‑sold to new and existing clients.

    The job description states that the VP will “lead our sales strategy and execution to achieve our revenue targets,” shape the OPX growth strategy, and establish Carnegie as the premier provider of online program solutions in higher education. To do this, the VP must create the OPX sales plan, drive sales, meet goals and targets, and deliver growth through new clients and client‑expansion opportunities across Carnegie’s entire suite of services.

    This work aligns closely with Carnegie’s strategic priorities. The company positions itself as a leader in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy and emphasizes human‑centered, data‑driven solutions. By spearheading integrated marketing and enrollment solutions for online programs, the VP advances this mission—ensuring that Carnegie’s OPX offerings evolve with market trends, deliver measurable results and reinforce the organization’s leadership position. The role also requires thought leadership, cross‑team collaboration and partnerships, which support Carnegie’s focus on innovation and authentic human connections

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

    A: The VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions is Carnegie’s leader of integrated sales for OPX. The position sits within the company’s growth and revenue organization and is accountable for the sales plan, revenue forecasting and team performance. The description notes that the VP “owns the development of all sales pursuits related to OPX” and partners closely with the SVP of marketing and the chief growth officer to develop messaging, positioning and proposals. This indicates that the role reports into or collaborates with senior leadership on growth strategy and marketing alignment.

    The role is highly cross‑functional. It requires partnering with marketing and business development to support inbound and new business pursuits and providing training and support to sales representatives in those divisions. The VP must collaborate with leaders of all business units to share feedback and optimize the OPX solution for clients.

    Day to day, the person will work with colleagues in sales, account management, production, senior strategists, client success, executive sales and enrollment strategy. They will also work with growth team members to craft proposals and coordinate with the marketing leader on business development materials and events. Additionally, the VP manages OPX revenue forecasting and ensures visibility across all accountable parties. This matrixed engagement means the VP acts as a connector between sales, marketing, product and leadership, ensuring that OPX solutions are delivered seamlessly and that market feedback informs strategic decisions.

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

    A: In the first 12 months, success would involve laying the groundwork for a high-performing OPX sales organization. The VP should build and execute a sales plan, recruit or train a team, and cultivate strong relationships with marketing, business development and other unit leaders. Key milestones would include securing new OPX clients and expanding revenue from existing accounts, delivering on initial sales goals, instituting accurate revenue forecasting and establishing Carnegie as a respected thought leader at conferences and webinars.

    Three years: By year three, the VP should have turned OPX into a mature, scalable business line. The sales plan would be continuously optimized based on market feedback and the team would be driving sustained revenue growth across Carnegie’s services. Market penetration should be evident through a diversified client base, with high renewal and upsell rates. The VP should have built a strong network of external relationships and should be contributing to product evolution by monitoring industry trends and competitor activity. Measurable outcomes might include year‑over‑year revenue growth outpacing the market, higher average contract values and expanded partnerships or acquisitions that enhance the OPX offering.

    Beyond (five-plus years): Over a longer horizon, success would mean that the OPX division is a significant growth engine for Carnegie and a well‑recognized market leader. The VP will have built a resilient, data‑driven sales organization capable of adapting to changes in the higher education landscape. They may spearhead new offerings or strategic acquisitions and could play a central role in broader company leadership. The division’s revenue contribution might warrant further expansion into related services or international markets, ensuring Carnegie remains at the forefront of online program marketing and enrollment strategy.

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

    A: The VP of online enrollment and integrated marketing solutions oversees sales strategy, team leadership, revenue forecasting and cross‑functional collaboration. With 10-plus years of experience required in higher education enrollment and marketing for online programs, the role prepares someone for broader executive positions. Potential future roles could include:

    • Chief growth officer or chief revenue officer, because the VP manages revenue planning, sales execution and cross‑unit coordination.
    • General manager or president of a business unit, given the experience in developing a business line, building teams and driving profitability.
    • Chief marketing officer or chief commercial officer: The position demands collaboration with marketing leadership and deep knowledge of enrollment strategy.
    • Consulting or strategic advisory roles in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy, leveraging expertise in market trends, client relationships and integrated solutions.
    • Entrepreneurial leadership roles within the higher ed technology and services space, capitalizing on the growth mindset, executive presence and strategic thinking emphasized in the qualifications.

    By leading a high‑growth, cross‑disciplinary sales organization, the VP will develop a skill set that translates to senior leadership roles not only within Carnegie but across the broader higher education services sector.

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