Tag: News

  • AGB leader resigns abruptly after six months

    AGB leader resigns abruptly after six months

    Less than a year into the job, Framroze Virjee is out as president and CEO of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

    Virjee retired, a decision that was effective Saturday, according to an email from Ross Mugler, chair of AGB’s Board of Directors, who has been tapped as acting president and CEO.

    “Fram shared that after working diligently to further the organization’s mission, he determined that the president/CEO role at AGB did not align operationally with his personal and professional goals, and he decided to step down from the organization. The AGB Board of Directors accepted his resignation and offered its appreciation for his accomplishments during his tenure,” Mugler wrote in a Monday email.

    In a message to AGB staff, Virjee wrote, “This was a difficult decision and not one that I made casually, but instead only after careful consideration and thought. As I leave AGB, I remain committed to its mission of supporting excellence in board governance and leadership and remain dedicated to the value of higher education in the lives of students, our communities, and our nation.”

    Virjee, president emeritus of California State University, Fullerton, formally started in mid-August after his predecessor, former AGB president and CEO Henry Stoever, resigned amid plagiarism allegations in late 2023.

    AGB did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed on Monday about Virjee’s sudden exit, but the organization’s website has been updated to reflect the leadership change.

    “As a result of this announcement, I have agreed to serve as acting president and CEO while the AGB Board of Directors finalizes details regarding new leadership,” Mugler wrote Monday.

    Mugler recently retired as commissioner of the revenue for Hampton, Va., a post he held for more than three decades. Mugler has been on AGB’s board since 2018 and was appointed five times to Old Dominion University’s Board of Visitors.

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  • Shaping the future before it shapes us

    Shaping the future before it shapes us

    I’ve worked closely with colleagues in Silicon Valley throughout my career. Through these interaction, there are always new ideas, and the level of confidence in predictions typically starts strong and only gets stronger. This time felt different. Last week during a visit to Silicon Valley, I repeatedly heard the following as a preface to a prediction, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard it before when engaging with my most techno-optimistic colleagues: “I could be wrong, but …”

    A few innocent words, but a rhetorical hedge that suggests even the most confident among us understand that the AI era is pretty, pretty complicated.

    I was there to attend the Annual AI+Education Summit 2025, hosted by Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. The theme—Human-Centered AI for a Thriving Learning Ecosystem—framed discussions that were both urgent and inspiring. AI is not just on the horizon; it is actively reshaping the educational landscape. Our responsibility is to ensure this transformation augments human potential rather than diminishes it.

    The summit brought together leading researchers, educators and policymakers to explore AI’s role in personalizing learning, empowering educators and bridging educational divides. The pace of change is staggering—today, half of students use AI tools at least weekly, both inside and outside the classroom. Institutions must act now to shape AI’s role in education intentionally rather than reactively.

    The Power of Collective Action in Higher Education

    One of the key messages from the summit was that no single institution, company, innovator or researcher can tackle this challenge alone. A coordinated effort across higher education is essential to ensure AI serves students, faculty and society in equitable and effective ways.

    At the University of Michigan, we have seen firsthand how faculty innovators are experimenting with generative AI to enhance teaching and learning. Our most recent call for proposals at the Center for Academic Innovation resulted in a diverse set of AI-enhanced teaching and learning projects designed to explore AI’s potential across disciplines, from medical education to humanities. These projects demonstrate not only how AI can enrich classroom experiences but also how it can deepen engagement, personalize learning and extend human creativity. We are helping faculty translate emerging technologies into meaningful applications, creating impactful learning experiences on campus and beyond.

    Organizations like U-M’s Center for Academic Innovation and Stanford’s HAI and the Stanford Accelerator for Learning play a critical role in leading this work—through experimentation, research and convening communities of practice. Without spaces to explore AI’s potential responsibly, without research to test its effectiveness and without convenings to align efforts, the future of AI in education would be left to chance rather than deliberate innovation.

    Michigan’s work is part of a broader movement. Across higher education, institutions are launching AI-driven initiatives to explore the role of AI in teaching, learning and research. One example is the California State University system, which recently announced a partnership with OpenAI to explore AI’s potential across its 23 campuses. This initiative, like many others, underscores the need for systemwide efforts to develop responsible and scalable AI solutions.

    These efforts—faculty-led experiments at Michigan, large-scale system initiatives like CSU’s, and global convenings like Stanford’s AI+Education Summit—demonstrate the range of approaches to AI in education. Stanford’s summit, in particular, highlighted outstanding faculty-led experiments exploring AI’s role in augmenting learning, fostering creativity and addressing challenges in equitable access to technology. These initiatives reinforce the importance of institutional collaboration in shaping the future of AI in education. But the big question remains: How do we shape AI’s role in education to serve our preferred future rather than react to an imposed one?

    5 Key Takeaways From the AI+Education Summit

    1. AI is transforming education, but its role must be purposeful.

    AI is already reshaping how students learn and how educators teach. We must ensure AI serves as a tool for augmentation rather than automation. How do we steer away from optimizing automation and toward optimizing AI’s ability to augment human creativity, problem-solving and collaboration?

    1. Faculty innovation is leading the way—with institutional support.

    Some of the most compelling AI applications in education are emerging from faculty-led experimentation. Universities must create conditions for responsible innovation by investing in faculty training, providing resources for experimentation and developing ethical frameworks that support AI integration while prioritizing student learning. We need to understand what’s working for whom and be ready to quickly invest further in the most impactful efforts.

    1. AI ethics and governance must be at the forefront.

    AI’s potential to amplify biases and exacerbate inequities is well documented. Institutions must focus on governance, transparency and bias mitigation to ensure AI benefits all learners. Without clear institutional leadership, regulation will fill the void. Can we build governance frameworks that protect learners and help them to flourish while also fostering innovation and global competitiveness and security?

    1. AI literacy is urgent—but we lack consensus on what it means.

    There is universal agreement that students, educators and institutions need to accelerate AI literacy. However, what constitutes AI literacy remains unclear. Should AI literacy be about technical proficiency? Ethical responsibility? Practical applications? Probably all of the above—but the right balance is elusive. I could be wrong, but if we don’t actively shape this now, we may find that AI literacy is defined for us in ways that don’t align with our values. Definitions vary, but there is broad consensus that we need highly accessible and scalable opportunities for anyone to acquire AI literacy—and soon.

    1. We need a shared vision for AI in education.

    The AI+Education Summit made it clear that AI’s impact should be shaped by the collective choices of educators, institutions and policymakers. Without a shared vision, the future will be dictated by market forces alone. Speakers at the conference described the future they want to see: one that designs for the widest range of learners to support human flourishing, strengthens the essential relationship between teachers and students, and works for everyone—practically, equitably and responsibly.

    Institutions have taken very different approaches to AI—some choosing to ban it, restricting its use until clearer guidelines emerge, while others have opted to embrace it, fostering a culture of experimentation and innovation. Others have decided to take a wait-and-see approach, uncertain about how AI will ultimately shape higher education. Perhaps all of these strategies have their merits. Or maybe in a few years we’ll look back and realize the most effective approach was something we haven’t even considered yet. I could be wrong—but that’s precisely why we need a wide range of perspectives shaping this conversation now.

    Questions for Our Growing AI-in-Education Community

    As institutions embrace AI, we should ask ourselves:

    • How can we ensure AI enhances equity and access rather than reinforcing existing disparities?
    • How do we ensure AI supports human creativity and critical thinking rather than replacing them?
    • How do we balance experimentation with the need for institutional policies that safeguard students and educators?
    • What models of collaboration—between institutions, industry and policymakers—can accelerate responsible AI adoption in higher education?
    • How can institutions maintain trust with learners and faculty as AI adoption accelerates?
    • What does a thriving, AI-enhanced learning ecosystem look like in five years? How do we get there?

    The AI+Education Summit reinforced that we are not passive observers of AI’s impact on education—we are active participants in shaping its trajectory. The work happening at Stanford, Michigan, CSU and across the broader higher ed community signals a growing recognition that AI is not just another technology to integrate but a transformational force that demands intentionality, collaboration and vision.

    Yet, it would be a collective failure if we simply make it easy for students to offload critical thinking. AI must not become a shortcut that undermines the cognitive skills we seek to develop in our learners and citizens.

    Now is the time for institutions and individuals to come together, share knowledge and create our preferred future for AI in education. We don’t have all the answers, and some of today’s best ideas may prove incomplete or even misguided. It feels like there is little time for passive observation. AI’s role in education will be defined—either by us or for us. Let’s build the future we prefer—because if we don’t, well … I could be wrong, but I doubt we’ll like the alternative.

    James DeVaney is special adviser to the president, associate vice provost for academic innovation and the founding executive director of the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan.

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  • Senate vote finalizes Linda McMahon as education secretary

    Senate vote finalizes Linda McMahon as education secretary

    Linda McMahon was narrowly confirmed along party lines as President Trump’s secretary of education in a 51-to-45 Senate vote late Monday afternoon and sworn in shortly after at the Department of Education building.

    All eyes are now on the White House as educators, policy experts and advocates anxiously wait to see if Trump will sign a controversial but highly anticipated executive order to abolish the very department McMahon has been confirmed to lead.

    The president and his allies have promoted the idea of dismantling the 45-year-old agency since the early days of his campaign for a second term, saying the department has grown too big and interferes in matters best left to local and state authorities.

    But the idea isn’t entirely new, nor would it be easy to implement. It would require legislative support, as the department’s existence is written into statute. Shuttering it would require a majority vote in both houses of Congress.

    “We can expect there to be a bit of a panic when the order comes out,” Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, told Inside Higher Ed.

    It remains unclear to observers what mechanisms the Trump administration would use to close the department, however.

    “This will all depend on what dismantling the department truly means,” Guillory said. “I believe that the executive order would be somewhat broad, like we’ve seen [in the case of the diversity, equity and inclusion orders], and it will give the department the opportunity to refine the details.”

    Still, Trump has continued to promote the concept, and red states across the country have backed it. Chatter about the executive order began circling just days after he took office in January, and the plans were confirmed by multiple news sources in early February, though specifics were still unclear.

    Since the plans were leaked, Trump himself has publicly confirmed his intention to dismantle the department, although he did not disclose specific details on how he would do so.

    Guillory believes that much like when Republicans have tried to get rid of the department in the past, they will lack the congressional votes needed to officially do so. But Trump could keep the skeleton of the department and move its core functions elsewhere, he said.

    “Our thinking, because we’ve seen this before, is that likely a lot of the functionality of the department would get placed at other agencies, but we would be curious as to what functions would be terminated entirely,” he said. “That would cause the most concern for our members … Will those things simply be moved to another agency, or will some of those things not?”

    There are certain functions that are protected by the Higher Education Act of 1965, Guillory said. “The department legally would not necessarily be able to just terminate student aid programs, for example.” But he still worries the transition of oversight from one department to another may not be seamless.

    Shortly before the vote began on Monday, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, made the Democrats’ stance on McMahon’s nomination clear.

    “Before colleagues vote on Linda McMahon’s nomination for secretary of education, they should remember a vote for Mrs. McMahon is a vote for draconian cuts to education … That’s why I am so proud that every Democrat will vote no,” he said.

    Other democratic lawmakers warned during floor comments on Thursday that McMahon’s confirmation, and the major department-level changes she’s backed, could risk the future of the department.

    Senator Gary Peters of Michigan said the country needs a secretary of education “who values and respects public education.”

    “Instead of working to protect funding,” he said, “she’s blatantly supported efforts to dismantle our education system.”

    For more background on what senators have said about McMahon, check out Inside Higher Ed’s live blog from her confirmation hearing, or read the five key takeaways.

    Senator Alex Padilla of California noted the cuts that have already been made to more than 100 departmental research contracts and countless nonpartisan career staff members.

    “They’re making it clear that this is just the beginning,” he said. “We could talk about Linda McMahon’s qualifications, or frankly lack thereof, but I’m not shocked, because President Trump isn’t looking for someone with the background or commitment to public education in America. He’s looking for someone to destroy it.”

    Although no Republicans commented Thursday, they voted unanimously to confirm McMahon in Monday’s vote (Republican senators Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming were not present for the vote. Two Democrats were also absent). The majority leader, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, spoke in support of McMahon before the final confirmation.

    “Mrs. McMahon is an accomplished businesswoman and public servant,” he said. “I’m glad that Mrs. McMahon plans to work in a way that empowers those closest to the student, because they are in the best position to do what’s right for that student … I look forward to working with Mrs. McMahon to limit bureaucracy, empower state governments and let good teachers do what they’re best at.”

    Top Agenda Items

    Guillory expects McMahon to pick up accreditation policies as one of the first issues up for discussion.

    He also is expecting the new secretary to prioritize rethinking and potentially amending the financial value transparency and gainful-employment rule, a policy initiated by the Biden administration to better hold higher ed institutions accountable for students’ outcomes. A lawsuit was filed against the regulation in 2023, but federal judgment has been put on pause to allow the new administration’s Education Department to determine its position on the policy.

    It still remains unclear whether Trump will try to protect the gainful-employment rule or repeal it and drop the case, but Guillory has been encouraged by the line of communication between the department and higher ed leaders on the topic.

    “They’ve been really good about listening to and hearing from our members directly on some of the issues that they’ve experienced while they were reporting [financial transparency data] and they are really trying to get feedback on how can we make this better,” he said.

    Other topics of focus for McMahon will likely include expanded details on Trump’s enforcement of Title IX; his diversity, equity and inclusion orders; and the freeze of applications to income-driven repayment plans for student loans, Guillory said.

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  • Academics should forcefully reject the claim they are “promoting ideology”

    Academics should forcefully reject the claim they are “promoting ideology”

    To the editor:

    Jonathan Eburne calls the National Endowment for the Humanities’ posting of the executive orders regarding the promotion of gender, equity and environmental justice ideology an act of “capitulation” equivalent to “the ideological extension of a political party” (“An Open Letter to the NEH,” Feb. 28, 2025). I share his critical stance toward the executive orders and the spirit driving them. But his accusation against the NEH is unfair and normalizes a dangerous misreading of the scope of the orders that higher education must avoid.

    The NEH chair and staffers are federal employees, bound to obey government directives. To refuse compliance would invite immediate termination of the agency’s talented, experienced staff and call the future of the agency into question. With them would go vital funding and stewardship for the humanities that sustains faculty, students, state humanities councils and members of the public.

    To be clear, these orders apply across the federal government, and nothing in them is specific to the NEH. They do not apply to research and teaching; one (EO 14173) includes a carve-out for institutions of higher education.

    By treating NEH projects as falling under the scope of the orders, Eburne implicitly assents to the notion that research and teaching are equivalent to promoting ideology. This is indeed the guiding belief in Florida, and it is shared by the current administration.

    In fact, “promoting ideology” is not an accurate definition of scholarly or scientific inquiry, including the important work of teaching and doing research on gender, equity and the environment.

    It is crucial that we stand up against attempts to define academics as promoters of ideology and thus as untrustworthy stewards of knowledge, or, as the vice president has put it, dedicated to “deceit and lies, not to the truth.” It’s malicious abuse of language designed to undermine people’s confidence in academia and in expertise in general. The right strategy is not to accept a bad definition—it’s to call out the definition as wrong and reject the labeling while these orders are litigated in the courts.

    Joy Connolly is the president of the American Council of Learned Societies.

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  • One-day event creates institutional goals for student success

    One-day event creates institutional goals for student success

    Across higher education, identifying stakeholders who are engaging in similar initiatives or working toward mutual student success goals can be a challenge, and this is true at the institutional level as well.

    In a 2024 survey of student success professionals conducted by Inside Higher Ed and Hanover, over half (59 percent) of respondents said they believe their institution is very or extremely effective at making student success an institutional priority.

    Two administrators at DePaul University in Chicago created a one-day event on campus to unite practitioners and leaders who care about student success to identify common goals and challenges.

    “It’s so necessary … to think about the gathering of individuals, because it really elevates what was most important for us, which is student success being everyone’s job,” says Ashley Williams, director of student success initiatives.

    Gathering together: The inaugural summit took place Dec. 3, 2024, with 350 staff, faculty members and administrators participating. The event featured outside experts, such as Monica Hall-Porter from the University of Texas at Austin as the keynote speaker, and the university president and provost addressed institutional goals for student success and closing achievement gaps.

    The goals for the summit, as outlined by organizers, included defining student success, determining how success is measured, fostering a coordinated culture for student success, charting a road map for enhancing student success and creating awareness of technology, systems and data relevant to student success, as well as sharing of best practices in place at the institution.

    The summit was titled Charting Student Success From Orientation Through Graduation, to reflect the student life cycle and how each practitioner contributes to student success. DePaul, as a Catholic institution, also frames student success through St. Vincent DePaul’s mission.

    Organizers were intentional about selecting individuals from various areas and disciplines across the university to drive creative and diverse conversations, says Michael Roberts, senior assistant dean for student success.

    DePaul’s summit united diverse professionals from a variety of areas and disciplines on campus.

    “I think folks can get … tunnel vision in trying to solve their problems and [trying] to cultivate expertise within their immediate or closest community,” Williams says. “We know there’s a lot of knowledge and strengths that exist across in the institution and in places you may not necessarily [be] thinking about in your day-to-day.”

    Unsiloing the institution and breaking organizational barriers allows for sharing resources, strengths, ideas and innovation through collaboration, Williams says.

    Putting it together: When creating the summit, Roberts and Williams prioritized institutional buy-in and ensuring their work was collaborative and not in competition with the work of others who engaged in student success spaces.

    The organizers engaged with others who were leaders in student success to contribute to planning and guide decision-making to ensure the event could execute goals in the ways they intended, Williams says.

    Partnerships also included identifying internal and external groups that could contribute resources and serve as sponsors to finance and run the event.

    One facet that was important to Roberts was not having the summit be a pep rally to gather enthusiasm, but something that could apply to faculty or staff members’ work directly. “Like, ‘this event is going to matter to me, and I’m going to be able to take something away from this and actually make use of it,’” he says.

    Looking ahead: The inaugural summit had a goal of 50 attendees, so reaching over 300 was a happy surprise, Roberts says. Attendees were a mix of faculty and staff, and feedback was overwhelmingly positive, Williams shares.

    Anecdotally, organizers heard that having a space to discuss topics and be exposed to other work happening across campus was valuable to attendees, as was building community with peers.

    “People felt informed; they walked away enlightened and kind of motivated, inspired to think about how they could lead, how they could pivot some of their work to better fit within a standard model of student success,” Williams says.

    In the future, organizers are looking to implement more programming that allows practitioners to participate in hands-on activities that allow them to engage in work directly.

    What’s being done at your institution to ensure administrators and practitioners in various areas are aware of and using data relevant to student success? Tell us about it.

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  • Penn State blocks embattled trustee from re-election

    Penn State blocks embattled trustee from re-election

    Embattled Pennsylvania State University trustee Barry Fenchak’s time on the board may be nearing an end: A subcommittee voted Wednesday that he was “unqualified and ineligible” to run again.

    Fenchak is one of nine trustees on the 36-member board who are elected by alumni. His term is set to expire at the end of June. But Fenchak—who is already locked in litigation with Penn State over what he considers its lack of fiscal transparency—plans to fight the decision.

    “This is completely in line with Penn State’s long-standing pattern with regard to trying to maintain their secrecy, and myself and our legal team will be evaluating these recent actions by Penn State and taking the appropriate actions in the court,” Fenchak told Inside Higher Ed.

    The outspoken trustee has been at the center of controversy for nearly a year as he has sought to obtain more details on the university’s rising endowment management fees, even filing a lawsuit for that information. Penn State initially refused to provide the financial details that Fenchak, an investment adviser, said he needed to perform his fiduciary duties; he argued that endowment management fees inexplicably climbed from 0.62 percent in 2013–14 to 2.49 percent by 2018–19. Eventually, as a result of his litigation, he was able to obtain the requested documents, he told Inside Higher Ed.

    His lawsuit is one of two brought against the university last year by trustees alleging a lack of transparency by the board. A local media outlet has also sued for alleged violations of open meetings laws.

    Efforts to Remove Fenchak

    Fellow trustees previously tried to boot Fenchak from the board last fall after he made a crude joke to a female staff member. Paraphrasing the PG-rated Tom Hanks movie A League of Their Own, Fenchak—who is bald and had just received a Penn State baseball cap as a gift at a university event—joked that it made him look like “a penis with a hat on,” according to court records.

    Fenchak’s remark prompted the board to call a meeting in October in an effort to remove him. However, a judge intervened, halting the board’s attempt to oust Fenchak.

    In his opinion granting the preliminary injunction, Centre County Court Judge Brian J. Marshall wrote that while he “is not suggesting that plaintiff should not be sanctioned,” the court had been “presented with credible and, in many instances uncontroverted, evidence that Plaintiff has been subject to ongoing retaliation by Defendants.”

    The judge also noted that Fenchak had sued Penn State just three days before the remark that the board used as justification for his removal.

    Now, months later, the board landed on a new tactic to remove Fenchak: The nine-member nominating subcommittee voted 8 to 1 last week to bar him from running for re-election.

    Daniel Delligatti, vice chair of the subcommittee, argued that Fenchak had been warned multiple times about “inappropriate behavior” and that he failed to live up to the board’s code of conduct.

    Fenchak’s attempt at humor made staff members feel uncomfortable, Delligatti said, and his candidacy for a second term was not in “alignment with Penn State’s mission and values.”

    Trustee Jay Paterno was the sole dissenting vote. He argued that “the process” as he understood it was “outside the scope of our review.”

    Fenchak attended the virtual meeting but was denied an opportunity to speak on his own behalf.

    Deliberations on blocking Fenchak from running for re-election were largely confined to a closed executive session meeting of the nominating subcommittee, which preceded the deciding vote.

    A Legal Fight

    Though a judge halted Penn State’s initial efforts to remove Fenchak, the board and the university’s legal team are again trying to oust him. The same day that the nominating subcommittee shot down Fenchak’s re-election bid, the university filed a motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction that allowed Fenchak to remain on the board as his lawsuit proceeded.

    Fenchak alleges the motion was filed mere minutes after the subcommittee’s decision, which would prevent him from finishing his current term as well as serving another one.

    Penn State officials did not provide a comment on the situation.

    In response to a request for an interview with trustees, Shannon Harvey, assistant vice president and secretary for the board, referred Inside Higher Ed to a video of the subcommittee’s virtual meeting.

    As of publication, Fenchak had not filed a legal response. But he noted one is coming. Beyond the impact on him personally, he also has broader concerns about the board’s process to bar trustees from re-election, which was adopted over the last year as he pressured the university to release financial documents.

    “Forget about my specific situation. This process disenfranchises and essentially steals the vote from our alumni,” Fenchak said. “That’s a right our alumni have had for 150 years, and now we are telling those alumni who they can and who they cannot vote for to represent them on the board. Frankly, that’s unconscionable. As a Penn Stater, it’s heartbreaking.”

    Changes to the way alumni trustees are elected have also caught the attention of state lawmakers.

    At a Feb. 20 Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee hearing, Republican representative Marla Brown questioned Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi about the change. Brown said she had fielded complaints from constituents and seemed skeptical about the new processes.

    “I can tell you that people are not happy about it, and the optics on it are not good. As I’m sure you’re aware, it looks like a conflict of interest that the board is mainly concerned with picking and choosing the muscle in which the candidates will be serving on the board,” Brown said.

    Asked why Penn State made the change, Bendapudi noted it was a board decision.

    “Did you support the change?” Brown asked.

    “I report to them and I have no say in it one way or the other,” Bendapudi answered.

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  • Five strategies for improving campus career centers (opinion)

    Five strategies for improving campus career centers (opinion)

    For decades, work-life balance has been seen as the gold standard of career success. The idea suggests that professionals should allocate time and energy evenly between work and personal life, ensuring equilibrium between competing responsibilities. But in reality, balance is often an illusion—an unattainable tightrope walk that leaves individuals feeling guilty, unfulfilled and stretched too thin.

    The workforce of today—and especially the workforce of tomorrow—no longer aspires to a segmented life. Instead, workers seek career and life integration, a holistic approach where career, personal growth and well-being are deeply interconnected. Unlike the concept of work-life balance, which implies a constant trade-off, career and life integration builds synergy between personal and professional aspirations.

    Workday’s Global Workforce Report found that employees who perceive their work as meaningful feel 37 percent more accomplished than those who don’t, even when facing workloads they describe as “challenging.” An Inside Higher Ed Career Advice piece written by a University of Michigan administrator explored the importance of integrating values into the career exploration process. Additionally, research highlighted in the Journal of Personality indicates that young adults’ personal values significantly influence their career-related preferences, suggesting a strong desire for roles that reflect their core values. ​

    If higher ed institutions continue to treat career development as separate from personal well-being, they will fail to meet the evolving needs of students and professionals alike. Career centers must evolve into career and life design labs—hubs of lifelong guidance, personal development and future readiness. This piece outlines five strategic imperatives that institutions must embrace to lead this transformation.

    1. Moving from work-life balance to career and life integration.

    The traditional work-life balance model assumes a strict separation between career and personal life, often emphasizing boundaries rather than synergy. The statistics tell a compelling story:

    • A Deloitte study found that 66 percent of employees report feeling chronically overworked or burned out despite efforts to maintain work-life balance.
    • Research from Gallup indicates that 76 percent of millennials believe a successful career should seamlessly integrate with personal fulfillment rather than be kept separate.
    • A recent Moodle study indicates that job burnout has reached an all-time high of 66 percent in 2025. ​

    Campus career services leaders must reframe their approach. Students need tools to design careers that complement their life aspirations rather than forcing them to choose between professional success and personal fulfillment.

    Most students and alumni struggle with clarity—they pursue careers based on external pressures rather than intrinsic motivations. Career centers must facilitate career and life vision workshops to help individuals align their inner purpose with external opportunities. By integrating career and life design principles into career services, institutions empower students to prototype different pathways, develop adaptability and connect their academic and professional lives with personal meaning.

    By using a reflective, experiential approach, students learn that career development is not a rigid ladder but a fluid, evolving process.

    1. Integrating emotional agility into career coaching.

    One of the greatest barriers to success is not external—it’s internal. It is not a lack of skills. It is a lack of confidence, clarity and emotional agility. Many students enter the workforce grappling with impostor syndrome, career anxiety and fear of failure. A research study titled “The Impostor Phenomenon,” published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science, shows that over 70 percent of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their lives.

    Institutions must integrate emotional intelligence training into their strategic plans. Students need to learn how to navigate career uncertainty with resilience rather than fear. Instead of merely offering job search strategies, career coaches should incorporate cognitive reframing techniques to help students shift from self-doubt to empowerment. This involves helping students recognize negative thought patterns and replace them with action-oriented mindsets.

    For instance, instead of viewing rejection as a failure, students should be encouraged to see it as an iteration in the career and life design process. Career setbacks, industry changes and professional pivots are inevitable.

    Practical steps for career centers:

    • Train career coaches in cognitive-behavioral coaching techniques to help students recognize and reframe self-limiting narratives.
    • Integrate self-awareness exercises that help students identify core fears (of failure, rejection or inadequacy) and develop action plans to overcome them with emotional strength.
    • Provide group coaching sessions focused on overcoming impostor syndrome, building confidence and developing a growth mindset.
    • Use AI-driven career reflection tools to help students track their confidence growth over time.
    • Incorporate mindfulness practices and journaling into safe spaces and welcoming career and life design studios to help students reframe failure as part of their evolving unique narrative.

    Emotional agility is a core component of career development. Success today isn’t about having the perfect career path—it’s about navigating uncertainty with emotional agility. Career services must equip students with resilience and adaptability to thrive in ever-changing industries.

    1. Merging personal, career and professional development.

    Career and life design should be deeply personal, shaped by self-awareness, curiosity and personal reflection. We mention “personal” first, because we begin with the person.

    Career services has historically focused on résumé reviews, job placement and networking strategies—important elements, but not enough for long-term success. A 2023 report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that students who integrate personal development with career planning—through leadership training, mentorship and values-based exploration—are significantly more career-ready upon graduation. Rather than pushing students toward the highest-paying or most prestigious jobs, career centers should help them define success on their own terms.

    Practical steps for career centers:

    • Develop integrated mentorship networks that connect students with professionals who exemplify career and life integration.
    • Help students build personalized business plans that help them take ownership of the story they are both writing and telling.
    • Leverage design thinking principles, encouraging students to experiment with career pathways that embrace uncertainty, adaptability and iterative learning rather than rigid, predetermined plans.

    AI can assist in career trajectory mapping, skills assessment and predictive job market insights, while human coaches focus on deep coaching, the power of stories and career and life integration strategies.

    1. Considering AI-powered hyperpersonalized career coaching.

    While traditional career advising has relied heavily on in-person interactions, the next evolution of career services will be AI-empowered, data-informed and hyperpersonalized. AI-driven career exploration tools can analyze a student’s experiences to offer real-time, customized career insights. AI agents such as the 24-7 virtual Career and Life Design Lab provide personalized career simulations, self-actualization exercises and self-realization insights to help individuals align their career paths with their purpose.

    This mindset shift in career services will blend AI and human coaching. AI can assist in career trajectory mapping, skills assessment and predictive job market insights, while human coaches focus on deep coaching, the power of stories and career and life integration strategies. This synergy allows for scalable yet deeply personalized career services.

    Practical steps for career centers:

    • Integrate AI-driven solutions and experiential learning methodologies.
    • Introduce future-self mapping, where students interview their future selves and map out short- and long-term goals.
    • Use reverse-engineering techniques, working backward from the desired impact to identify the necessary skills, experiences and trajectories.
    • Implement AI-powered career simulations, allowing students to test and refine career decisions in a risk-free environment that tackles limiting beliefs and impostor syndrome.
    1. Scaling lifelong learning beyond graduation.

    The future of work demands continuous upskilling, reskilling and career agility. Institutions must create a culture of lifelong learning, where students and alumni receive ongoing support throughout their careers. Career services must expand their scope to lifelong learning and helping students and alumni develop not résumés, but portfolios of experiences.

    Practical steps for career centers:

    • Create career and life integration circles, where alumni engage in peer coaching, mentorship and accountability partnerships.
    • Offer subscription-based career services, ensuring alumni have access to coaching, upskilling and career reinvention programs throughout their professional lives.
    • Establish annual career and life re-evaluation workshops, helping alumni recalibrate their career and life vision.

    Conclusion: The New Paradigm

    The future of work is not about balance. It is about integration. By embedding the career and life design theoretical framework into institutional frameworks, universities can better equip students for a rapidly changing world. Colleges and universities that fail to adapt will be left behind, while those that embrace career and life design—leveraging both AI and a holistic approach to personal, career and professional development—will supercharge their teams with scale and empower students to craft lives of purpose, adaptability and lasting impact.

    The question is no longer whether career centers should evolve—it is whether they can afford not to.

    Does your career center offer group coaching sessions focused on confidence building, growth mindset or related topics? Tell us about it.

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  • VMI board rejects extension for superintendent

    VMI board rejects extension for superintendent

    Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors voted 10 to 6 on Friday against a contract extension for Major General Cedric Wins, a VMI graduate and the first Black leader in the college’s history.

    All 10 votes against the extension came from members appointed by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, though four Youngkin appointees voted to renew the contract, joining two holdovers named to the board by Democratic governors, The Richmond-Times Dispatch reported.

    Wins’s contract expires June 30.

    The vote will end a contentious tenure for Wins, who joined VMI in 2021. He replaced General J. H. Binford Peay III, who led the college from 2003 to 2020, when he stepped down after an investigation determined systemic racism and sexism went unchecked under his watch.

    (Peay was awarded VMI’s highest honor in 2022 despite those findings.)

    Wins’s tenure at VMI, where he was tasked with righting the ship amid the fallout from the investigation, has been marked by controversy. He has faced off with alumni, whom he accused of spreading mistruths about VMI’s curricular offerings; clashed with student journalists over alumni involvement in the campus newspaper; and faced accusations that he went too far with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at VMI, which didn’t accept Black students until 1968 and women until 1997.

    Alumni have called for his firing and complained about his bonuses in recent years.

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  • Income-driven repayment applications on hold for three months

    Income-driven repayment applications on hold for three months

    Student loan borrowers won’t be able to apply for income-driven repayment plans for at least three months, The Washington Post reported.

    The Post obtained a memo sent last week from the Department of Education to student loan servicers directing them to stop processing all income-driven repayment and consolidation applications until at least May. The memo offers more clarity on how the department plans to proceed after a federal appeals court blocked the department from implementing a new income-driven repayment option for borrowers put in place by the Biden administration. That injunction also implicated parts of other income-driven repayment plans.

    Up until this point, all that student aid experts knew was that the department had disabled new online applications. Now, they know that all existing applications have also been included in the freeze.

    The application freeze is a problem for some borrowers who rely on income-driven repayment plans for more affordable payments and to avoid default. Under the plans, borrowers’ monthly payments are based on their disposable income and other factors, and after 20 to 25 years of payment, the remaining balance would be forgiven. But now, millions of borrowers no longer have access to IDR and are left with only the most expensive loan repayment options.   

    Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, a trade group for loan servicers, told the Post that “there is a lot to clean up.”

    “We will be working for [the Office of Federal Student Aid] to implement that transition once courts clear things up and bring some finality so borrowers can have certainty and confidence in their options now and in the future,” Buchanan said.

    The Education Department has said the pause is necessary under the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruling, but paper applications for loan consolidation will be allowed. 

    “A federal Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction preventing the U.S. Department of Education from implementing the SAVE Plan and parts of other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans,” a department spokesperson said. So “The department is reviewing repayment applications to conform with the Eighth Circuit’s ruling.” 

    But legal experts on federal loans have told Inside Higher Ed taking down the applications entirely is not necessary. As the department noted in its statement, the injunction only declares “parts” of the IDR plans—such as the end-of-program loan forgiveness—illegal. It does not ban the use of lessened monthly payments.

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  • Why California Still Doesn’t Mandate Dyslexia Screening – The 74

    Why California Still Doesn’t Mandate Dyslexia Screening – The 74


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    California sends mixed messages when it comes to serving dyslexic students.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom is the most famous dyslexic political official in the country, even authoring a children’s book to raise awareness about the learning disability. And yet, California is one of 10 states that doesn’t require dyslexia screening for all children. 

    Education experts agree that early screening and intervention is critical for making sure students can read at grade level. But so far, state officials have done almost everything to combat dyslexia except mandate assessments for all students.

    “It needs to happen,” said Lillian Duran, an education professor at the University of Oregon who has helped develop screening tools for dyslexia. “It seems so basic to me.”

    Since 2015, legislators have funded dyslexia research, teacher training and the hiring of literacy coaches across California. But lawmakers failed to mandate universal dyslexia screening, running smack into opposition from the California Teachers Association.

    The union argued that since teachers would do the screening, a universal mandate would take time away from the classroom. It also said universal screening may overly identify English learners, mistakenly placing them in special education. 

    The California Teachers Association did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In a letter of opposition to a bill in 2021, the union wrote that the bill “is unnecessary, leads to over identifying dyslexia in young students, mandates more testing, and jeopardizes the limited instructional time for students.”

    In response, dyslexia experts double down on well-established research. Early detection actually prevents English learners — and really, all students — from ending up in special education when they don’t belong there.  

    While California lawmakers didn’t vote to buck the teachers union, they haven’t been afraid to spend taxpayer money on dyslexia screening. In the past two years, the state budget allocated $30 million to UC San Francisco’s Dyslexia Center, largely for the development of a new screening tool. Newsom began championing the center and served as its honorary chair in 2016 when he was still lieutenant governor. 

    “There’s an inadequate involvement of the health system in the way we support children with learning disabilities,” said Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini, co-director of UCSF’s Dyslexia Center. “This is one of the first attempts at bridging science and education in a way that’s open sourced and open to all fields.”

    Parents and advocates say funding dyslexia research and developing a new screener can all be good things, but without mandated universal screening more students will fall through the cracks and need more help with reading as they get older.

    Omar Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the governor did not respond to questions about whether Newsom would support a mandate for universal screening. Instead, he listed more than $300 million in state investments made in the past two years to fund more reading coaches, new teacher credentialing requirements and teacher training.

    The screening struggle

    Rachel Levy, a Bay Area parent, fought for three years to get her son Dominic screened for dyslexia. He finally got the screening in third grade, which experts say could be too late to prevent long-term struggles with reading. 

    “We know how to screen students. We know how to get early intervention,” Levy said. “This to me is a solvable issue.”

    Levy’s son Dominic, 16, still remembers what it felt like trying to read in first grade.

    “It was like I was trying to memorize the shape of the word,” he said. “Even if I could read all the words, I just wouldn’t understand them.”

    Dyslexia is a neurological condition that can make it hard for students to read and process information. But teachers can mitigate and even prevent the illiteracy stemming from dyslexia if they catch the signs early.

    Levy, who also has dyslexia, said there’s much more research today on dyslexia than there was 30 years ago when she was first diagnosed. She said she was disappointed to find that California’s policies don’t align with the research around early screening.

    “Unfortunately, most kids who are dyslexic end up in the special education system,” Levy said. “It’s because of a lack of screening.”

    Soon after his screening in third grade, Dominic started receiving extra help for his dyslexia. He still works with an educational therapist on his reading, and he’s just about caught up to grade level in math. The biggest misconception about dyslexia, Dominic said, is that it makes you less intelligent or capable.

    “Dyslexics are just as smart as other people,” he said. “They just learn in different ways.”

    The first step to helping them learn is screening them in kindergarten or first grade.

    “The goal is to find risk factors early,” said Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan, a speech-language pathologist and a professor at the University of Houston. “When you find them, the data you collect can really inform instruction.”

    Cárdenas-Hagan’s home state of Texas passed a law in 1995 requiring universal screening. But she said it took several more years for teachers to be trained to use the tool. Her word of caution to California: Make sure teachers are not only comfortable with the tool but know how to use the results of the assessment to shape the way they teach individual students.

    A homegrown screener

    UC San Francisco’s screener, called Multitudes, will be available in English, Spanish and Mandarin. It’ll be free for all school districts. 

    Multitudes won’t be released to all districts at once. UCSF scientists launched a pilot at a dozen school districts last year, and they plan to expand to more districts this fall. 

    But experts and advocates say there’s no need to wait for it to mandate universal screenings. Educators can use a variety of already available screening tools in California, like they do in 40 other states. Texas and other states that have high percentages of English learners have Spanish screeners for dyslexia.

    For English learners, the need for screening is especially urgent. Maria Ortiz is a Los Angeles parent of a dyslexic teenager who was also an English learner. She said she had to sue the Los Angeles Unified School District twice: once in 2016 to get extra help for her dyslexic daughter when she was in fourth grade and again in 2018 when those services were taken away. Ortiz said the district stopped giving her daughter additional help because her reading started improving.

    “In the beginning they told me that my daughter was exaggerating,” Ortiz said.

     “They said everything would be normal later.”

    California currently serves about 1.1 million English learners, just under a fifth of all public school students. For English learners, dyslexia can be confused with a lack of English proficiency. Opponents of universal screening, including the teachers association, argue that English learners will be misidentified as dyslexic simply because they can’t understand the language. 

    “Even the specialists were afraid that the problem might be because of the language barrier,” Ortiz said about her daughter’s case.

    But experts say dyslexia presents a double threat to English learners: It stalls them from reading in their native language and impedes their ability to learn English. And while there are some Spanish-language screeners, experts from Texas and California say there’s room for improvement. Current Spanish screeners penalize students who mix Spanish and English, they say. 

    Duran, who helped develop the Spanish version of Multitudes, said the new screener will be a better fit for how young bilingual students actually talk. 

    “Spanglish becomes its own communication that’s just as legitimate as Spanish on its own or English on its own,” Duran said. “It’s about the totality of languages a child might bring.”

    Providing Multitudes free of cost is important to schools with large numbers of low-income students. Dyslexia screeners cost about $10 per student, so $30 million might actually be cost-effective considering California currently serves 1.3 million students in kindergarten through second grade. The tool could pay for itself in a few years. Although there are plenty of screeners already available, they can stretch the budgets of high-poverty schools and districts.

    “The least funded schools can’t access them because of the cost,” Duran said.

    In addition to the governor, another powerful state lawmaker, Glendale Democratic state Sen. Anthony Portantino, is dyslexic. While chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he has repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, authored legislation to require public schools to screen all students between kindergarten and second grade. 

    Portantino’s 2021 bill received unanimous support in the Senate Education and Appropriations committees, but the bill died in the Assembly Education Committee. Portantino authored the same bill in 2020, but it never made it out of the state Senate.

    “We should be leading the nation and not lagging behind,” Portantino said. 

    Portantino blamed the failure of his most recent bill on former Democratic Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell, who chaired the Assembly Education Committee, for refusing to hear the bill. 

    “It’s no secret, Patrick O’Donnell was against teacher training,” Portantino said. “He thought our school districts and our educators didn’t have the capacity.”

    O’Donnell did not respond to requests for comment. Since O’Donnell didn’t schedule a hearing on the bill, there is no record of him commenting about it at the time.

    Portantino plans to author a nearly identical bill this year. He said he’s more hopeful because the Assembly Education Committee is now under the leadership of Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance. Muratsuchi would not comment on the potential fate of a dyslexia screening bill this year.

    Levy now works as a professional advocate for parents of students with disabilities. She said without mandatory dyslexia screening, only parents who can afford to hire someone like her will be able to get the services they need for their children.

    “A lot of high school kids are reading below third-grade level,” she said. “To me, that’s just heartbreaking.”

    This was originally published on CalMatters.


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