Each summer I make a point of stopping by a first-year orientation session at the University of Virginia, where I have been a professor in the music department for 18 years. The sessions take place in the historic concert hall on the floor below my office. On June 30, members of the Class of 2029 danced their arrival wearing the university’s colors of blue and orange.
Usually, the raw enthusiasm and promise of the students reminds me why, on many days, I love my job. It didn’t work this time. I just couldn’t resolve the dissonance between the fantasy and the reality. The fantasy was of a college education these young people worked so hard to land. In real life, the Department of Justice had just pressured our president, Jim Ryan, into quitting, demanding his resignation to supposedly resolve an investigation into the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
This is almost old news by now. But it shouldn’t be. There is a direct line between the Jan. 6 insurrection and the 2017 Unite the Right march, when, just days before first-year students started school, a few hundred white nationalists emboldened by the first Trump presidency marched across campus with their torches, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” The legal historian Farah Peterson, who used to teach here, writes that “an embrace of violence to assert constitutional claims” is baked into our history and that the founders understood violence as a way of making legal arguments.
The charge against UVA by the Department of Justice is being led by two UVA alums. One of them, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general who overlapped with Jim Ryan at UVA law school, served as co-chair in 2020 of Lawyers for Trump, which challenged the presidential election results, and represented Trump in a defamation suit involving Stormy Daniels.
The ousting of Jim Ryan was not a surprise. But even after the Trump administration’s relentless siege on universities, it was a gut punch. Those of us who teach here have predicted for months that the Board of Visitors would try to fire Ryan this July, when all of its appointed members would be Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees. We’ve been through that before. In 2012, when the Board of Visitors fired then-president Teresa Sullivan, faculty, students and alumni stood up to resist corporate America infringing on the educational mission of the university, and the board reinstated her.
Youngkin’s newest appointees to UVA’s board include the controversial Ken Cuccinelli, who, when he was the state attorney general, led an assault on academic freedom in the form of a civil investigation targeting five grants held by climate scientist Michael Mann. Youngkin, for his part, has long intended to purge the state’s education system of “divisive concepts”—things like acknowledging the fact that the buildings of Jefferson’s “Academical Village” were built by the enslaved. When the Board of Visitors banned DEI in March of this year, Youngkin gleefully stated, “DEI is done at the University of Virginia. We stand for the universal truth that everyone is created equal, and opportunity is at the heart of Virginians’ and Americans’ future.”
I think we know whom he means by “everyone.”
Beloved by many here, including me, Ryan is perhaps a once-in-a-generation leader. Still, he is so very far from “woke.” As the student satire magazine put it, “Fly high Jim, we’ll never forget the early mornings, late nights, and also the several hundred state troopers you sent to attack students for peacefully protesting.” In May 2024, Ryan did not hesitate to crack down on a very small pro-Palestine encampment. No one at the university cracked down on those tiki torch–bearing white nationalists.
Here is what we are guilty of: believing that our professional duty requires us to openly reflect on our individual and collective responsibilities in a democracy. We do think it’s our job to give our students tools to respond to the world they will inherit. If we were guilty of or capable of “left-wing indoctrination,” I suspect we would have a different governor and maybe different other things, too. Almost 70 percent of our students are from Virginia.
Because we are guilty of believing that history matters, we can’t ignore the wicked irony of a federal and state government killing diversity-related programs and forcing out a president in part by leveraging the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in1868. This amendment, which mandated equal protection for all humans, is now weaponized to protect only white people. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, sex or national origin. It has been similarly weaponized.
Meanwhile, our history also includes these facts: The UVA biology department taught eugenics until 1953. Not only was the institution built by enslaved laborers, but by 1829 it had its very own slave patrol. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson wanted to establish a University of Virginia in part because too many young men went north and learned the evils of abolition. Such thinking amounted to a canker “eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once will be beyond remedy.” More recently, the Office for Civil Rights did not approve the commonwealth of Virginia’s plan for desegregating higher education until 1982.
My current and former students have been texting from all over the world since Ryan’s June 27 resignation announcement. Mostly they want to know: Why UVA? Virginia is arguably ground zero for reckoning with the chattel slave system and its intertwining with a flailing fantasy of democracy. “The 1619 Project” made front-page news of it. But you don’t have to go back that far.
Thanks to the summer of 2017, for many Charlottesville now conjures images of burning torches and Nazi slogans. Over the weekend of Aug. 11 and 12, 2017, the sleeping dogs of America’s nasty history rose up from the evidently not dead. Richard Spencer (UVA, Class of 2001) helped orchestrate a torchlit nighttime march across our campus, the marchers barking, “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” The university let this happen. In her book about the weekend of Unite the Right and the ideology that inspired it, Deborah Baker writes, “The nature of this awakening appeared to go to the core of who we are and the myths and folklore that have sustained us as a nation.”
Also that weekend of Unite the Right, a young woman was murdered and dozens were injured when a neo-Nazi drove a car into a group of counterprotesters. While the city was still reeling, Trump went on television and claimed there had been “very fine people on both sides.” There was an uproar and a backlash then. And in September 2017, the president had no choice but to sign a congressional joint resolution condemning the violence and domestic terrorist attack in Charlottesville. It is clear that no such condemnation would be forthcoming today.
This administration will not stop with Jim Ryan, and they will not stop with UVA. The miraculous dean who got those first-year students to dance on a hot June day in 2025 will get them dancing at their graduation in May of 2029. But I am very afraid of what this university, and other institutions of higher learning across the country, will look and feel like by then.
Bonnie Gordon is a professor of music at the University of Virginia and vice president of the American Musicological Society.
Research shows that adults often enter college with a goal in mind, such as a career pivot, additional education in their current industry or completion of a degree they previously started. But returning to the classroom can be challenging, particularly for first-generation students or those who haven’t been in school for a while.
In 2024, Wichita State University launched a college bridge program, the Adult Learner Community and Connections Program, to ease the transition for adult and online learners. The program, part of the university’s Shocker Preseason series, offers eight modules of self-paced online content designed to assist them in their first term at the university.
In the most recent episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with Brett Bruner, assistant vice president for student success and persistence at Wichita State, about adult learner pedagogy and lessons learned in the first year.
An edited version of the podcast appears below.
Q: Can you introduce us to your adult learner population? Whom do you serve and how does their makeup change how you serve them?
Brett Bruner, assistant vice president for student success and persistence
A: At Wichita State University, our adult learners come from various backgrounds. We know that two-thirds of our adult learners are first-generation college students. And when we think about being the first age friendly [University Global Network]–designated university in the state of Kansas, I think we’re really focused on how do we support learners of all ages, including adult learners of all ages?
When we think about the more than 2,200 adult learners and more than 1,600 online learners at Wichita State, our adult learners are enrolled in on-campus programs and fully online programs. We always approach our adult learners with that mindset of, how do we center this through our first-generation lens, recognizing that two-thirds of them will be first in their families to graduate from college?
Q: I’m also thinking about your orientation program focused on adult learners. I wonder if you can give us some background on, what does a Shocker Preseason look like across the board? And how does this look different for your adult learner populations, given all the backgrounds that you mentioned—first generation, online learners, et cetera.
A: Our Shocker Preseason programs were created from a university standpoint to really focus on building academic resource awareness, providing all our students with the academic skills they need to be successful and helping students make connections with each other. Our Shocker Preseason programs were also created as part of our strategic enrollment management plan, as well as one of our student success priorities.
We’ve grown [the program]; this fall, we’ll now have 20 different Shocker Preseason programs.
Q: Wow.
A: I know, it’s amazing to see growth from even just when I started here two years ago, from six programs now to 20. I think the beauty of our Shocker Preseason programs is this differentiated care. We talk about differentiated care at WSU from a student success standpoint, but it means the program modality—on campus versus online—program length, content, is really driven by each of the individual units that are designing their programs.
In spring of 2024, as the Office of Online and Adult Learning that I get the privilege of working with sat down to really look at career congruence of our adult learners’ transitions, health and well-being emerged as a topic, but really that overall support of, how do we form connections? Because so many times adult learners in the research cite that they aren’t finding peers, they aren’t finding friends, because they feel that they are the one and only older student, returning student or student who didn’t come fresh out of high school to college.
I’m so proud of our team, who said, “Let’s design a Shocker Preseason program, but let’s make it look different to meet the needs of our students.” And so as they rolled out this online format for our Adult Learner Community and Connections program, they really rooted it in health and well-being, because they were able to do that in meaningful ways that may look different from how we talk about health and well-being for an 18- to 22-year-old, but then also building in community and connection opportunities in different ways. Maybe they’re more likely to lean into conversations about how the Ulrich Museum of Art on campus can provide a means for social connection, and maybe that will resonate with our adult learners.
Q: I love that you’re focusing on community and that sense of belonging and engagement on campus. Because I think when we consider online learners’ needs, or adult learners’ needs, oftentimes we think it’s providing services expeditiously. We want them to get through their degree program, we want to get them into a job, which are great priorities to have. But students also want a college experience, and they do want to engage with their peers. And so I wonder if you can speak to that dimension of this, that it’s not just getting them to timely degree completion, but everything else as well.
A: It’s all about finding their people, helping them realize that with 2,200 adult learners across campus, you’re not the only one. So how can we connect you with others who are experiencing similar transitional pieces?
We think about the 83 students who engaged in our optional program last year, but then also the eight peer ambassadors that we hired who had lived these experiences and can bring some insight when we talk about social wellness and why it’s an important part of thriving in college as an adult learner, or financial wellness, or whatever dimension of wellness.
I think that’s the important part, because we’re seeing then these connections continue beyond just this orientation and transition experience. We’re seeing friendships bloom. We’re seeing opportunities to make connections in the classroom. After year one of the program, specifically related to the social wellness connection, students were saying, “I appreciated what you shared about how to make connections, but I want more. I want more about how to build my network. How do I invite people to my network and grow my network?”
And I don’t think that was something that we were intentionally designing. So as we think about the 2.0 version of this program, we’re really deepening the content about networking. Because I think we’re all always striving to build and grow our networks as we move throughout life. That desire for connections, that community, that sense of belonging, was clearly, clearly articulated in our postprogram surveys from the first year of the program.
Q: Can we talk about how the program works logistically for people who might not be familiar and how it’s scaffolded?
A: Our program is designed around the eight dimensions of wellness, and it is an online program. We built it in our learning management system so that it mirrors a lot of the other classes that an adult student is taking, whether they’re taking an online class or an in-person class that has the learning management system component to it. So they’re also getting access to the technology upskilling that we so often see in research about what adult learners want as they transition into college.
They move through the eight modules, which are all rooted in the eight dimensions of wellness. The beauty of the program is it’s self-directed and self-paced, so it doesn’t necessarily build upon one another. We’ve had some adult learners who are like, “I really want to jump in and dive into module five and start talking about physical wellness, or module eight and talking about occupational wellness.” So they can do that, or they can sequentially go module by module.
As a student completes each module, there is an incentive that was provided through the Urban Adult Learner Institute, [Wichita State] being the inaugural winners of an Accelerate Pitch Competition that funded a lot of these incentives. But one of the things that we learned in year one is that incentives are not a motivating factor for our adult learners. We know that adult learners are intrinsically motivated, and so a lot of times we had the extra incentives that they didn’t strive to pick up, but they were completing the modules.
We’ve got campus partners who provide content for the modules. Our Shocker Career Accelerator office is providing content for the module about occupational wellness. And Shocker Financial Wellness staff are providing content for the module about financial wellness. So each module connects individuals to campus resources. It’s providing some actual content and then some reflective experience. The modules open Aug. 1 and they close in December.
So students can move throughout that time however quickly they want, or maybe they just want to complete one module, whatever it may be. And then if they complete all eight modules, we’re able to provide an overall incentive with some merchandise from our Shocker store.
Q: You mentioned it’s self-motivated, and students can really opt in to which sections speak to them. I think it’s interesting that you’ve all chosen to make this optional. It’s an orientation program, but it’s something that they can do throughout their first term. Can you talk a little bit about that decision? Because I think some people might say, “No, you have to make it mandatory and make this something that they must complete before they start classes, because we know that this will be good for them.” What’s that balance of ensuring students are getting this information but letting them do it at their own pace and timing?
A: This program doesn’t replace our in-person or online adult learner orientation, but I think, as someone who spent 10 years as a new student orientation director before moving up, sometimes people say, “We can solve all the world’s problems just by adding five minutes in orientation.” And I like to say, “Sometimes orientation is like drinking from a fire hose,” there’s so much information. And it also doesn’t relate to three words: time, place and manner.
When we think about orientation, we have to know, what do we share with individuals? When do we share it, and especially with our adult learners, as we dive into andragogy [adult learner pedagogy]? And what we know from Malcolm Knowles in 1985, when he developed the six tenets of andragogy, is adult learners need to know what they need to know when they need to know it.
If we’re sharing resources about knowing your values and what’s your why, and we’re sharing that on June 13, when they’re on campus for adult learning orientation, is it really going to sink in and resonate with them versus in August or September, when they’re knee-deep in the semester? Or when we’re talking about intellectual wellness and we’re sharing all of the resources from our 13 different tutoring centers across campus—that may go in one ear and out the other ear in July when they’re here, but maybe they’re going to need it in week five or six, when they’re struggling with a certain class and trying to figure out “where do I go to get connected?”
Our team wanted to keep it optional, much like that kind of aligns with all of our Shocker Preseason programs, because the Shocker Preseason programs never take the place of orientation. They’re an additional element in a student’s transition. But as we lean into some of those core elements of andragogy, we lean into the need to know, and we lean into the readiness to learn that students—adult learners, specifically—when they see a need, that’s when they’re going to be ready to learn. We wanted to provide that in an asynchronous format, but they can still come back to and access those resources throughout the duration of that critical first semester at WSU.
Q: You’ve obviously rooted this program in pedagogy and the best understanding we have of adult learners, but I wonder how you’ve incorporated the student voice from this first season of the Shocker Preseason program and how you’re incorporating it into version two?
A: As we dug into assessment feedback from version one, not only looking at completion rates by each module, we definitely know 86 percent of all students who registered [for the program] and did something completed social wellness. That’s great. Is that because of the concept, is that because it was the first module? We don’t necessarily know.
As we look at the qualitative feedback, I think that’s been the most interesting thing. From the social wellness piece and students saying they appreciate it, but they want to know more about how to network. We think about the intellectual wellness model, and some of the feedback that we receive from that is … “Give us more information, we want all the additional apps, all the additional resources beyond basic technology. What are those apps or things that I need to do to succeed academically?” So we’re diving deep into that.
One of the most interesting things that caught us off guard, in a good way, was that the most popular session by students [who provided qualitative feedback] was the spiritual wellness module, because it was really rooted in helping students articulate, “What is your why?” Whether you’re coming back to school because you’re a career changer, you’re switching career paths in life or you want to finish a degree because you want to climb higher into the occupation that you’re in, but then also, then connecting that why to their values and continuing to drive that forward as a motivation factor.
Then I think we’re also taking some of the other elements of the areas and growth of opportunity. For example, when we think about occupational wellness and adult learners, we learned that we’re serving two very different groups within the adult learner piece: the career changers and the career climbers. And so we need to know, how do we go about approaching occupational wellness from both an individual who’s saying, “I’m going from industry to being a teacher at the age of 50” or “I need a degree to move up in this career path that I’ve been doing for quite some time”? So we have to almost take the differentiated care approach, if that makes sense, especially in that.
Or financial wellness, that was probably one of the most, I wouldn’t say, polarizing, but one we need to think a little bit more about. We got great opportunity for growth feedback that said, “I’ve been doing finances for quite some time” and recognizing the experiences, but the piece of finances that many adult learners said is, “Can you help me figure out where can I find additional scholarships? Where can I find additional ways to pay for all of my educational expenses?” So we need to focus a little bit more on scholarship resources rather than just maybe the general how to budget, how to manage finances that we may think about … our 18- to 22-year-old population.
Q: I think it’s interesting that the feedback you received, it seems to fall into a few categories, like, one, help me navigate the institution better, but two, help me navigate myself as a student better.
It seems like they know how to be an adult, and they know how to manage their own budgets or engage with one another on a social level. But when it comes to that professional networking, or when it comes to understanding what tools they might need to be a learner, again, that’s the piece where they’re really asking for feedback. And I think that’s so unique to our adult learner population at large. It might be our 18-year-olds who need more help figuring themselves out as people, but our adult learners need help figuring themselves out as students.
A: In version 2.0 we’re also trying to be much more intentional about providing some extended podcasts with campus partners. So someone who really wants to embrace the concept of social wellness and wants to engage in a podcast with our Student Engagement and Belonging Team or our Ulrich Museum of Art and really dive deep into those, we’re connecting this to various podcast episodes from our Shockers Learning Out Loud podcast series. It’s been around for quite some time. So how are we just connecting the pieces of the puzzle for students who want to deep dive a little bit more, recognizing that, once again, what we know about adult learners is they’re very problem-focused. And how can we provide those additional asynchronous resources for them to dive much deeper into the concept?
Q: I mean, I think podcasts are the best format ever.
When you talk to your peers in this space, because I know you’ve presented on this topic at conferences and really shared this with others who are working in similar roles, what are you hearing from them? What other ideas are you getting? Or what are some opportunities that you see for others to engage in this work as well?
A: I think the biggest piece that I’ve heard from others is this whole notion of differentiated care, and how can campuses lean in and not just replicate a transition experience that they may have for an 18- to 22-year-old, but they’re recognizing the needs of our adult learners, and we’re centering some of those elements. Adult learners bring a lot of experiences, so how do we harness that? How do we name that? How do we give them the opportunity to own that space and bring that into whatever content we design, whether it’s from a well-being [or] from a career standpoint, bring that into that space and recognize that that looks different? You can’t just copy and paste. You can’t just lift what we’re doing from a first-year, first-time-in-college student and apply that, because that’s doing a major disservice.
I think the other piece that I’m hearing from colleagues as we’re doing this is leveraging and leaning into making this a virtual space, because the lives of an adult learner look very different. You may be an adult learner that’s also a caregiver, and you may only have evenings to hop on and learn, or dive deep because you’re working full-time, trying to go to school full-time, maybe giving care to parents, to children, to partners, to spouses, etc. Or we’ve had some students who are adult learners who are working third shift. You may be available during the workday, but you may have just got off work at 8 a.m., so how are we leveraging technology in new ways? Because going back to that research, one of the biggest pieces that adult learners want in their transition and want from colleges universities is to help them upskill with the technology that they’re going to need to be successful.
I think those two pieces of really leaning into the adult learner needs, leveraging technology and leaning into this notion of differentiated care is needed and is the easy way to start thinking about, how do I take something like this and apply it to the adult learners on my own campus?
Q: As we think about the new age of college students or today’s learners, and how we’re seeing a larger population of adult learners, or more high school students are considering taking a break before going to college, I think this is going to be even more applicable, maybe for a 20-year-old who took a break and was working for a few years, and not just our traditional 25-, 35-year-old who’s coming back to school.
A: Absolutely. I think there are elements of this that can be applied to many facets of today’s learner.
Q: So what’s next for you all as you’re considering launching for the fall?
A: We have been taking all the feedback in from version 1.0 [and] we’re redesigning some of our modules. We’re bringing in new campus partners, which I think has been super exciting.
We’re leaning into this well-being concept, and we know health and well-being is important for all of today’s college learners. You can’t read any article, have a conversation at a conference or go to a meeting on your own campus where the concept of health and well-being of today’s college students is not at the forefront. I think as I’ve continued to share this data, we’ve gained lots of support from various entities across campus, especially those who really are approaching it from a health and well-being lens.
But we’re just really excited as we launch version 2.0 and engage some of those completers of version 1.0 in various peer ambassador roles to support the next generation of ALCC participants.
Q: Can you talk about how this program transitions into larger support on campus and making sure that students aren’t just getting these modules online, but that they’re translating it to in-person experiences or online experiences as it’s relevant?
A: Our peer ambassadors, I think, are great representatives of the Office of Online and Adult Learning, and so they have been a great resource to connect individuals in their small groups to our associate director of student engagement in the Office of Online and Adult Learning or online and adult learning retention specialist who’s providing some additional follow-up pieces. So I think the peer ambassadors have been great representatives to connect the students who are going through this experience with the amazing support staff and the network of individuals through our Office of Online and Adult Learning and across campus who are here to help them be successful, because we want all of our adult learners to successfully complete their first year, that first milestone, and then ultimately graduate with their degree from WSU.
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The Trump administration is holding up hundreds of millions of dollars slated for adult education programs as part of a review of education spending.
The roughly $716 million was supposed to be disbursed to states July 1 and then divvied up among their adult education providers, such as community colleges. But the funding for high school equivalency classes, English as a second language programs and other adult education services never arrived. The news comes as the Trump administration continues to withhold $7 billion from states for K–12 education, including ESL classes and after-school programs, which includes the adult education money.
The freeze is part of a broader “ongoing programmatic review of education funding,” an unnamed spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a statement to Inside Higher Ed.
“Initial findings show that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda,” wrote the OMB spokesperson, citing examples of states and schools using the money to support students in the country without proper documentation as well as for a seminar on “queer resistance in the arts,” though the statement made no mention of adult ed programs.
The fate of the withheld funding remains unclear. “No decisions have been made yet,” the spokesperson said.
Now states and their community colleges, which offer a significant share of adult education programs, are scrambling to figure out how to continue providing adult education services despite staggering funding shortfalls.
“If funding is not provided, there are nothing but bad options for institutions,” said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations for the American Association of Community Colleges. He predicts community colleges would have to reduce adult education services, lay off personnel and vie for funds to fill in the gap from states and other sources. But even so, “the funding is so substantial in a number of places that there’s no immediate source of replacing that money.”
He emphasized that adult education programs have received “broad support from both parties for decades”—and they were already underfunded relative to student need.
Adult basic education is “a core function and a core part of the mission of community colleges across the country,” he said.
Adult education is one of several programs on the chopping back in the Education Department’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026. Officials wrote in budget documents that states and localities are “best suited to determine whether to support the activities authorized under this program or similar activities within their own budgets and without unnecessary administrative burden imposed by the federal government.”
Higher ed advocates worry other programs like the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program that are on the chopping block could suffer a similar fate.
Concerns Across the Country
Community colleges in red and blue states alike are anxiously waiting for the adult education funds to come through.
Heather Morgan, executive director of the Kansas Association of Community Colleges, said if the pause persists beyond two months with no alternative funding, Kansas’s 19 community colleges will have to make “tough decisions” about laying off or furloughing staff.
She added that college leaders were given no notice, leaving them with no time to prepare.
“Situations where funding doesn’t come as expected are real hardships on small colleges and really leave staff in a position of wondering and not knowing what’s coming next,” she said.
Joe Schaffer, president of Laramie County Community College in Wyoming, said the withheld funds risk hurting high-demand, successful adult education programs in the state.
He noted that, historically, the coal and oil industries in the state offered well-paying jobs that didn’t necessarily require a high school diploma. But now, because of changes in technology and the state’s diversifying economy, many jobs do require at least a high school education. Wyoming workers hit with that realization are coming to adult education programs later in life to earn high school equivalency certificates, commonly referred to as the GED.
And the programs work. Roughly 80 percent of Wyoming adult basic education students get a job or enroll in college after their programs, and 84 percent earn a credential beyond a GED. These programs graduate more people with a high school equivalency than any one high school in the state, making the programs arguably Wyoming’s “largest high school,” he said.
Because the state funds half of these programs, he believes Laramie County Community College can make do without the federal funds and continue to offer these programs for another year, with some belt-tightening measures.
But still, the move to withhold federal funds risks “reducing the flow of high school graduates at a time when the workforce pipeline, the talent pipeline, is a concern of everybody across the nation,” Schaffer said.
Morgan agreed that state economies would suffer if adult education programs took a permanent funding hit.
For many Kansans, “this is their option to get out of poverty and to get into a higher-paying job,” she said. “The ability for them to get skilled up is important, and we have to have the resources to do that, and the uncertainty that’s been injected into the system is not helpful in trying to meet our mission, which is to prepare citizens for the Kansas economy.”
Speaking at the Metascience 2025 conference in London, Maria Leptin said such data is in a “very precarious” position. Since Donald Trump began his second term as U.S. president, researchers have raced to archive or preserve access to U.S.-hosted data sets and other resources at risk of being taken down as the administration targets research areas including public health, climate and fields considered to be related to diversity.
“We’ve heard the situation from the U.S. where some data are disappearing, where databases are being stopped, and this is really a wake-up call that we as a community need to do more about this and Europe needs to do more about it,” Leptin said.
The ERC president highlighted the Global Biodata Coalition, which aims to “safeguard the world’s open life science, biological and biomedical reference data in perpetuity,” noting that the European Commission recently published a call to support the initiative.
“Medical research critically depends on the maintenance and the availability of core data resources, and that is currently at risk. Some of these resources may disappear,” she said. “I really encourage all policymakers and funders to join the coalition.”
“Right now is the worst time to not have access to data in view of the power of AI and the advances in computing, large language models, et cetera,” Leptin told the conference, noting that the Trump administration is not the only threat to accessible data. “The value of the data that are held across Europe is unfortunately massively reduced because of fragmentation, siloing, and uneven access.”
A recent ERC workshop involving researchers, policymakers, industry representatives and start-ups raised some “shocking” concerns about health data, she added. “Even in the same town where researchers wanted to access the huge numbers of data that the hospitals in that town had, it was impossible because the hospitals couldn’t even share data with each other, because they used totally different data formats.”
Boosting access to data will require “a huge effort,” Leptin acknowledged. “We of course need technical, legal and financial frameworks that make this possible and practical, [as well as] interoperable formats and common standards.”
While not a data infrastructure in itself, the ERC “has a role to play” in improving accessibility, she said. “What we try to do is to set expectations around good data practices.”
“We do need European-level solutions,” Leptin stressed. “The scientific questions we face, whether in climate or health or technology or [other fields], don’t stop at national borders—in fact, they are global.”
A group of Texas law school deans is urging the state Supreme Court to uphold American Bar Association accreditation standards for public law schools. The state’s highest court announced in April that it was considering dropping the ABA requirement for licensure, opening a public comment period on the matter that closed July 1.
“We strongly support continued reliance on ABA accreditation for Texas law schools and licensure eligibility,” the deans of eight of the state’s 10 ABA-accredited law schools wrote in a letter to the Texas Supreme Court. “ABA accreditation provides a nationally recognized framework for quality assurance and transparency; portability of licensure through recognition of ABA accreditation by all 50 states, which is critical for graduates’ career flexibility; consumer protections and public accountability through disclosure standards; and a baseline of educational quality that correlates with higher bar passage rates and better employment outcomes.”
Though the Texas justices did not say why they were reviewing ABA accreditation, the law deans’ letter noted that the body has already suspended its DEI standards—a move it announced in February and then extended in May through Aug. 31, 2026. That means “the language of the Standard can be revised in accordance with federal constitutional law and Texas state law that bar certain diversity, equity and inclusion practices at state universities,” the deans wrote.
Of the state’s ABA-accredited law schools’ deans, only Robert Chesney of the University of Texas and Robert Ahdieh of Texas A&M didn’t sign the letter, Reuters reported.
In his own nine-page letter to the state Supreme Court, Chesney urged the justices to look at “alternative” pathways for ensuring law school standards “to help pave the way for innovative, lower-cost approaches to legal education.”
Ahdieh told Reuters that whatever the court decides about ABA accreditation, it’s “critical” that law degrees earned in Texas remain portable.
In the latest volley in the Trump administration’s war with Harvard University, federal agencies told Harvard’s accreditor the university is violating antidiscrimination laws, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement will subpoena Harvard’s “records, communications, and other documents relevant to the enforcement of immigration laws since January 1, 2020.”
The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security announced these moves Wednesday in news releases replete with condemnations from cabinet officials. The pressure comes as Harvard still refuses to bow to all of the Trump administration’s demands from April, which include banning admission of international students “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.” In May, DHS tried to stop Harvard from enrolling international students by stripping it of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, but a judge has blocked that move.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement, “By allowing antisemitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers. The Department of Education expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices.” (Only the accreditor can find a college in violation of its policies.)
Trump officials said last week that Harvard is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry, including antisemitism. They notified that accrediting agency of the HHS Office for Civil Rights’ finding that Harvard is displaying “deliberate indifference” to discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students.
HHS’s Notice of Violation said multiple sources “present a grim reality of on-campus discrimination that is pervasive, persistent, and effectively unpunished.” Wednesday’s release from HHS said the investigation grew from a review of Harvard Medical School “based on reports of antisemitic incidents during its 2024 commencement ceremony,” into a review of the whole institution from Oct. 7, 2023, through the present.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “when an institution—no matter how prestigious—abandons its mission and fails to protect its students, it forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold. HHS and the Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination.”
The Trump administration also notified Columbia University’s accreditor after it concluded Columbia committed a similar violation of federal civil rights law. The accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, then told Columbia that its accreditation could be in jeopardy.
DHS’s subpoena announcement is the latest move in its targeting of Harvard over its international students, who comprise more than a quarter of its enrollment.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a release, “We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way. Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus.”
DHS didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed information on what specific records ICE is subpoenaing. It said in its release that “this comes after the university repeatedly refused past non-coercive requests to hand over the required information for its Student Visitor and Exchange Program [sic] certification.”
The release said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus” back in April. The release further said that other universities “should take note of Harvard’s actions, and the repercussions, when considering whether or not to comply with similar requests.”
Harvard pushed back in statements of its own Wednesday. It called the DHS subpoenas “unwarranted” but said it “will continue to cooperate with lawful requests and obligations.”
“The administration’s ongoing retaliatory actions come as Harvard continues to defend itself and its students, faculty, and staff against harmful government overreach aimed at dictating whom private universities can admit and hire, and what they can teach,” one Harvard statement said. “Harvard remains unwavering in its efforts to protect its community and its core principles against unfounded retribution by the federal government.”
If Harvard were to lose its accreditation, it would be cut off from federal student aid. In another statement, Harvard officials say they are complying with the New England Commission of Higher Education’s standards “maintaining its accreditation uninterrupted since its initial review in 1929.”
Neither the Trump administration nor Larry Schall, president of NECHE, provided the letter the administration wrote to the commission. Schall told Inside Higher Ed the commission will request a response from Harvard within 30 days and that, plus the results of the federal investigation, will be presented to the commission at its next regularly scheduled meeting, currently set for September.
“We have processes we follow,” Schall said. “We follow them whether it’s Harvard or some other institution … Our processes are consistent and actually directed by federal regulation.”
For first-generation students, the hidden curriculum—the unstated norms, policies and expectations students need to know in higher education—can be a barrier to participating in high-impact practices, leaving them in the dark about how to thrive in college.
But new research aims to identify the lesser-known policies that disadvantage first-generation students and to make them more accessible. During a panel presentation at NASPA’s Student Success in Higher Education conference in June, Kristin Ridge, associate dean of students and community standards at the University of Rhode Island, discussed her doctoral research on first-generation students and how they interact with the student handbook and conduct spaces on campus.
What’s the need: First-generation students make up 54 percent of all undergraduates in the U.S., or about 8.2 million students. But only one in four first-generation students graduates with a college degree, compared to nearly 60 percent of continuing-generation students.
First-generation students are often diverse in their racial and ethnic backgrounds and come with a variety of strengths, which academic Tara Yosso describes as the cultural wealth model. But in some areas, including higher ed’s bureaucratic processes, first-gen students can lack family support and guidance to navigate certain situations, Ridge said. Her personal experience as a first-generation learner and a conduct officer pushed her to research the issue.
“It really came to a head when I was dealing with two students who had a similar circumstance, and I felt like one had a better grasp of what was going on than the other one, and that was something that didn’t sit right with me,” Ridge said. “I felt like the behavior should be what I am addressing and what the students are learning from, not their previous family of origin or lived experience.”
Conduct systems are complicated because they require a fluency to navigate the bureaucracy, Ridge said. Student handbooks are often written like legal documents, but the goal of disciplinary proceedings is for students to learn from their behavior. “If a student doesn’t understand the process or the process isn’t accessible to them, there are very real consequences that can interrupt their educational journey,” she added.
Some states require conduct sanctions to be placed on a student’s transcript or a dean’s report for transfer application. These sanctions can result in debt, stranded credits or underemployment if students are unable to transfer or earn a degree.
“Sometimes [continuing-generation] students who have parents or supporters can better understand what the implications of a sanction would be,” Ridge says. “Students who don’t have that extra informed support to lean on may unwittingly end up with a sanction that has more long-term impact than they realize.”
First-generation students may also experience survivor’s or breakaway guilt for having made it to college, which can result in them being less likely to turn to their families for help if they break the student code of conduct or fear they will be expelled for their actions, Ridge said.
Therefore, colleges and universities should seek to create environments that ensure all students are aware of conduct procedures, the content of the student handbook and how to receive support and advocacy from both the institution and their communities, Ridge said.
Creating solutions: Some key questions conduct staff members can ask themselves, Ridge said, include:
Is the handbook easy to access, or is it hidden behind a login or pass code? If students or their family members or supporters have to navigate additional steps to read the student handbook, it limits transparency and opportunities for support.
Is content available in plain English or as an FAQ page? While institutions must outline some expectations in specific language for legal reasons, ensuring all students understand the processes increases transparency. “I like to say I want [students] to learn from the process, not feel like the process happened to them,” Ridge said.
Is the handbook available in other languages? Depending on the student population, offering the handbook in additional languages can address equity concerns about which families can support their students. Hispanic-serving institutions, for example, should offer the handbook in Spanish, Ridge said.
Who is advocating for students’ rights in conduct conversations? Some institutions offer students a conduct adviser, which Ridge says should be an opt-in rather than opt-out policy.
Is conduct addressed early in the student experience? Conduct is not a fun office; “no one’s going to put us on a parade float,” Ridge joked. That’s why it’s vital to ensure that students receive relevant information when they transition into the institution, such as during orientation. “My goal is for them to feel that they are holding accountability for their choices, that they understand and learn from the sanctions or the consequences, but I don’t want them to be stressed about the process,” Ridge said. Partnering with campus offices, such as TRIO or Disability Services, can also ensure all students are aware of conduct staff and the office is seen less as punitive.
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Inaccessible PDFs are a stubborn problem. How can we marshal the energy within our institutions to make digital course materials more accessible—one PDF, one class, one instructor at a time?
Amid a flurry of other broad institutional efforts to comply with the federal deadline, my colleague—coordinator of instruction for libraries Liz Bellamy—and I agreed to lead a series of workshops designed to help instructors improve the accessibility of their digital course materials. We’ve learned a lot along the way that we hope can be instructive to other institutions engaged in this important work.
What We’ve Tried
Our first big hurdle wasn’t technical—it was cultural, structural and organizational. At the same time various groups across campus were addressing digital accessibility, William & Mary had just moved our learning management system from Blackboard Learn to Blackboard Ultra, we were beginning the rollout of new campuswide enterprise software for several major institutional areas, the institution achieved R-1 status and everyone had so many questions about generative AI. Put plainly, instructors were overwhelmed, and inaccessible PDFs were only one of many competing priorities vying for their attention.
To tackle the issue, a group of institutional leaders launched the “Strive for 85” campaign, encouraging instructors to raise their scores in Blackboard Ally, which provides automated feedback to instructors on the accessibility of their course materials, to 85 percent or higher. The idea was simple—make most course content accessible, starting with the most common problem: PDFs that are not machine-readable.
We kicked things off at our August 2024 “Ready, Set, Teach!” event, offering workshops and consultations. Instructors learned how to find and use their Ally reports, scan and convert PDFs, and apply practical strategies to improve digital content accessibility. In the year that followed, we tried everything we could think of to keep the momentum going and move the needle on our institutional Ally score above the baseline. Despite our best efforts, some approaches fell flat:
Let’s try online workshops! Low engagement.
What about in-person sessions? Low attendance.
But what if we feed them lunch? Low attendance, now with a fridge full of leftovers.
OK, what if we reach out to department chairs and ask to speak in their department meetings? It turns out department meeting agendas are already pretty full; response rates were … low (n = 1).
The truth is, instructors are busy. Accessibility often feels like one more thing on an already full plate. So far, our greatest success stories have come from one-on-one conversations and by identifying departmental champions—instructors who will model and advocate for accessible practices with discipline-specific solutions. (Consider the linguistics professor seeking an accurate 3-D model of the larynx collaborating with a health sciences colleague, who provided access to an interactive model from an online medical textbook—enhancing accessibility for students learning about speech production.)
But these approaches require time and people power we don’t always have. Despite the challenges we’ve faced with scaling our efforts, when success happens, it can feel a little magical, like the time at the end of one of our highly attended workshops (n = 2) when a previously skeptical instructor reflected, “So, it sounds like accessibility is about more than students with disabilities. This can also help my other students.”
What We’ve Learned
Two ingredients seem essential:
Activation energy: Instructors need a compelling reason to act, but they also need a small step to get started; otherwise, the work can feel overwhelming.
Sometimes this comes in the form of an individual student disclosing their need for accessible content. But often, college students (especially first year or first generation) don’t disclose disabilities or feel empowered to advocate for themselves. For some instructors, seeing their score in Ally is enough of a motivation—they’re high achievers, and they don’t want a “low grade” on anything linked to their name. More often, though, we’ve seen instructors engage in this work because a colleague or department chair tells them they need to. Leveraging positive peer pressure, coupled with quick practical solutions to improve accessibility, seems to be an effective approach.
Point-of-need support: Help must be timely, relevant and easy to access.
When instructors feel overwhelmed by the mountain of accessibility recommendations in their Ally reports, they are often hesitant to even get started. We’ve found that personal conversations about student engagement and course content or design often provide an opening to talk about accessibility. And once the door is open, instructors are often very receptive to hearing about a few small changes they can make to improve the accessibility of their course content.
Where Things Stand
Now for the reality check. So far, our institutional Ally score has been fairly stagnant; we haven’t reached the 85 percent goal we set for ourselves. And even for seasoned educational developers, it can be discouraging to see so little change after so much effort. But new tools offer hope. Ally recently announced planned updates to allow professors to remediate previously inaccessible PDFs directly in Blackboard without having to navigate to another platform. If reliable, this could make remediation more manageable, providing a solution at the point of need and lowering the activation energy required to solve the problem.
We’re also considering:
Focus groups to better understand what motivates instructors to engage in this work.
Exploring the effectiveness of pop-up notifications that appear with accessibility tips and reminders when instructors log in to Blackboard to raise awareness and make the most of point-of-need supports.
Defining “reasonable measures” for compliance, especially for disciplines with unique content needs (e.g., organic chemistry, modern languages and linguistics).
Leading With Empathy
One unintended consequence we’ve seen: Some instructors are choosing to stop uploading digital content altogether. Faced with the complexity of digital accessibility requirements, they’re opting out rather than adapting. Although this could help our institutional compliance score, it’s often a net loss for students and for learning, so we want to find a path forward that doesn’t force instructors to make this kind of choice.
Accessibility is about equity, but it’s also about empathy. As we move toward 2026, we need to support—not scare—instructors into compliance. Every step we make toward increased accessibility helps our students. Every instructor champion working with their peers to find context-specific solutions helps further our institutional goals. Progress over perfection might be the only sustainable path forward.
Remember in late 2022 when ChatGPT arrived on the international scene and you communicated with AI through a simple chat bot interface? It was remarkable that you could type in relatively short prompts and it would instantly type back directly to you—a machine with communication capability!
For most of us, this remains the most common daily mode of accessing and utilizing AI. Many of us are using AI only as a replacement for Google Search. In fact, Google Search AI Overviews, are now a standard feature, which was announced last year for a significant portion of users and search queries. They appear at the top of the results, and only after allowing you to follow up with a deeper dive are you taken to the old list of responses. As of mid-June 2025, the rollout of AI Overviews has progressed to the point where these overviews are a common sight at the top of search results pages. Yet the whole world of communication is open now for most of the frontier models of AI—and with the new communication modes comes a whole world of possibilities.
In order to more fully utilize the remarkable range of capabilities of AI today, we need to become comfortable with the many input and output modes that are available. From audio, voice, image and stunning video to massive formally formatted documents, spreadsheets, computer code, databases and more, the potential to input and output material is beyond what most of us take for granted. That is not to mention the emerging potential of embodied AI, which includes all of these capabilities in a humanoid form, as discussed in this column two weeks ago.
So, what can AI do with images and videos? Of course, you can import images as still photographs and instruct AI to edit the photos, adding or deleting objects within the image. Many apps do this exceptionally well. This does raise questions about deepfakes, images that can be shared as if they were real, when actually they are altered by AI in an attempt to mislead the public. Most such images do carry a watermark that indicates the image was generated or altered by AI. However, there are watermark removers that will wash away those well-intended alerts.
One example of using the image capability of AI is in the app PictureThis, which describes itself as a “botanist in your pocket.” As one would expect, you can upload a picture from your smartphone and it will identify the plant. It will also provide a diagnosis of any conditions or diseases that it can determine through the image, offer care suggestions such as optimal lighting and watering, point out toxicity to humans and pets, and provide tips on how to help your plant thrive. In education, we can utilize AI to provide these kinds of services to learners who simply take a snapshot of their work.
We can build upon the PictureThis example to create a kind of “professor in your pocket” that offers enhanced responses to images that, for example, might include an attempt to solve a mathematical problem, develop a chemistry formula, create an outline for an essay and much more. The student may simply take a smartphone or screenshot of their work and share it with the app, which will respond with what may be right and wrong in the work as well as give ideas of further research and context that will be helpful.
Many of us are in positions where we need to construct spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and more formal reports with cover pages, tables of contents, citations and references. AI stands ready to convert data, text and free-form writing into perfectly formatted final products. Use the upload icon that is commonly located near the prompt window in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or other leading models to upload your material for analysis or formatting. Gemini, a Google product, has direct connections with Google apps.
Many of these features are available on the free tier of the products. Most major AI companies have a subscription tier for around $20 per month that provides limited access to higher levels of their products. In addition, there are business, enterprise, cloud and API levels that serve organizations and developers. As a senior fellow conducting research, I maintain a couple of subscriptions that enable me to seamlessly move through my work process from ideation to creation of content, then from content creation to enhancement of research inserting creative concepts and, finally, to develop a formal final report.
Using the pro versions gives access to deep research tools in most cases. This mode provides far more “thinking” by the AI tool, which can provide more extensive web-based research, generate novel ideas and pursue alternative approaches with extensive documentation, analysis and graphical output in the form of tables, spreadsheets and charts. Using a combination of these approaches, one can assemble a thoughtful deep dive into a current or emerging topic.
AI can also provide effective “brainstorming” that integrates deep insights into the topics being explored. One currently free tool is Stanford University’s Storm, a research prototype that supports interactive research and creative analyses. Storm assists with article creation and development and offers an intriguing roundtable conversation that enables several virtual and human participants to join in the brainstorming from distant locations.
This has tremendous potential for sparking interactive debates and discussions among learners that can include AI-generated participants. I encourage faculty to consider using this tool as a developmental activity for learners to probe deeply into topics in your discipline as well as to provide experience in collaborative virtual discussions that presage experiences they may encounter when they enter or advance in the workforce.
In general, we are underutilizing not only the analytical and composition capabilities of AI, but also the wealth of multimode capabilities of these tools. Depending upon your needs, we have both input and output capabilities in audio, video, images, spreadsheets, coding, graphics and multimedia combinations. The key to most effectively developing skill in the use of these tools is to incorporate their time-saving and illustrative capabilities into your daily work.
So, if you are writing a paper and have some data to include, try out an AI app to generate a spreadsheet and choose the best chart to further clarify and emphasize trends. If you need a modest app to perform a repetitive function for yourself or for others, for example, generating mean, mode and standard deviation, you can be helped by describing the inputs/outputs to AI and prompt it to create the code for you. Perhaps you want to create a short video clip as a simulation of how a new process might work; AI can do that from a description of the scene that you provide. If you want to create a logo for a prospective project, initiative or other activity, AI will give you a variety of custom-created logos. In all cases, you can ask for revisions and alterations. Think of AI as your dedicated assistant who has multimedia skills and is eager to help you with these tasks. If you are not sure how to get started, of course, just ask AI.
Nearly two-thirds of teachers utilized artificial intelligence this past school year, and weekly users saved almost six hours of work per week, according to a recently released Gallup survey. But 28% of teachers still oppose AI tools in the classroom.
The poll, published by the research firm and the Walton Family Foundation, includes perspectives from 2,232 U.S. public school teachers.
“[The results] reflect a keen understanding on the part of teachers that this is a technology that is here, and it’s here to stay,” said Zach Hrynowski, a Gallup research director. “It’s never going to mean that students are always going to be taught by artificial intelligence and teachers are going to take a backseat. But I do like that they’re testing the waters and seeing how they can start integrating it and augmenting their teaching activities rather than replacing them.”
At least once a month, 37% of educators take advantage of tools to prepare to teach, including creating worksheets, modifying materials to meet student needs, doing administrative work and making assessments, the survey found. Less common uses include grading, providing one-on-one instruction and analyzing student data.
A 2023 study from the RAND Corp. found the most common AI tools used by teachers include virtual learning platforms, like Google Classroom, and adaptive learning systems, like i-Ready or the Khan Academy. Educators also used chatbots, automated grading tools and lesson plan generators.
Most teachers who use AI tools say they help improve the quality of their work, according to the Gallup survey. About 61% said they receive better insights about student learning or achievement data, while 57% said the tools help improve their grading and student feedback.
Nearly 60% of teachers agreed that AI improves the accessibility of learning materials for students with disabilities. For example, some kids use text-to-speech devices or translators.
More teachers in the Gallup survey agreed on AI’s risks for students versus its opportunities. Roughly a third said students using AI tools weekly would increase their grades, motivation, preparation for jobs in the future and engagement in class. But 57% said it would decrease students’ independent thinking, and 52% said it would decrease critical thinking. Nearly half said it would decrease student persistence in solving problems, ability to build meaningful relationships and resilience for overcoming challenges.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education published a report recommending the creation of standards to govern the use of AI.
“Educators recognize that AI can automatically produce output that is inappropriate or wrong. They are well-aware of ‘teachable moments’ that a human teacher can address but are undetected or misunderstood by AI models,” the report said. “Everyone in education has a responsibility to harness the good to serve educational priorities while also protecting against the dangers that may arise as a result of AI being integrated in ed tech.”
Hrynowski said teachers are seeking guidance from their schools about how they can use AI. While many are getting used to setting boundaries for their students, they don’t know in what capacity they can use AI tools to improve their jobs.
The survey found that 19% of teachers are employed at schools with an AI policy. During the 2024-25 school year, 68% of those surveyed said they didn’t receive training on how to use AI tools. Roughly half of them taught themselves how to use it.
“There aren’t very many buildings or districts that are giving really clear instructions, and we kind of see that hindering the adoption and use among both students and teachers,” Hrynowski said. “We probably need to start looking at having a more systematic approach to laying down the ground rules and establishing where you can, can’t, should or should not, use AI In the classroom.”
Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to The 74.
