Tag: opinion

  • Eliminate the Structured Interview (opinion)

    Eliminate the Structured Interview (opinion)

    Job interviews have become significantly more formulaic and predictable. Employers seem to increasingly favor standardized or structured interviews, in which each applicant is presented with the same questions in the same order, with no variation permitted.

    Over the past few years, I have had almost 20 such interviews for faculty positions, all almost exactly identical, as if the questions were read from a script. I was able to prepare my answers ahead of time just by consulting the ad. After I answered each question, the search committees moved on to the next one, with little or no follow-up. Every interview ended with “do you have any questions for us?” but even then there was no sense of conversational give and take.

    There are two main reasons employers use structured interviews. One is that they are supposed to level the playing field between candidates, ensuring fairness. They are considered a best practice for the elimination of unconscious biases in interviewing. The other reason is that unstructured or open interviews are lousy predictors of job performance, as research has repeatedly shown.

    But neither of these arguments is convincing. The structured interview is based on a flawed conception of fairness as well as a misguided understanding of what a job is. These flat and dehumanizing conversations are just as pointless as they seem to anyone who has been subjected to one. In the interest of genuine fairness and for the sake of healthy workplaces, the structured interview should be eliminated.

    Start with the confusion about fairness. The structured interview rests on the assumption that the elimination of the interviewer’s subjective, individual perspective results in greater objectivity and thus less discrimination. But there’s nothing intrinsically fair about making everyone answer the same questions. On the contrary—making everyone answer the same questions goes against the very idea of equity.

    Equity is the idea that individuals start in different places and that adjustments must be made to ensure fairness. It’s a worthy and important principle. In an emergency room, it might dictate that patients be treated based on the severity of their condition rather than on when they arrived. In a workplace, it might dictate that employees with physical disabilities be provided with additional resources to allow them to perform the job.

    In the case of interviews, equity requires that employers make the effort to meet candidates where they are, so that each candidate can showcase their unique strengths. If a candidate served in the Iraq War before entering academia, for example, it might make more sense to spend more time discussing that experience than it would discussing previous jobs with a candidate who had worked only in academia.

    This kind of imbalance in the interview process would hardly be unfair. Indeed, it would be unfair not to give the Iraq veteran a chance to discuss the relevance of her war experience.

    It also makes the candidate feel seen and interesting. My structured interviews were exhausting, not because the questions were difficult, but because they were alienating and depressing. Designed to stifle the candidate’s individuality, structured interviews can end up costing candidates a lot in dignity and self-esteem. They are supposed to eliminate emotions from the hiring process, but in reality the candidate may go through intense negative emotions: In my experience, it felt like running a gantlet, in which questions were not real problems to solve, but a string of reminders that I was just one of many faceless cogs.

    This brings us to the argument that unstructured interviews are lousy predictors of job performance. That argument assumes that what counts as “performance” is skills and deliverables, rather than the human element of the workplace. But what is a job, really, apart from working with other people? The structured interview neglects what really impacts job performance: the personal attributes of the individuals involved, their commitment to the work and their ability to work with colleagues. These interviews cannot predict how well my co-workers and I will get along, how long I will stay, how dedicated I will feel over time, how the job will challenge me and build my character—all essential elements of successful performance.

    Job interviews are more equitable and more informative about what really matters when they are open-ended conversations. And such conversations let applicants evaluate prospective employers, too: Structured interviews give the candidate very little insight into their potential employer. The perfunctory and dreaded “do you have any questions for us?” tells me nothing about why I should want the job. Open interviews, by contrast, take the candidate seriously, as someone who can accept an offer or walk away.

    Having unconscious biases is part of the human condition—everyone has them. We should strive to mitigate them in hiring practices, but not at the cost of the candidates’ self-esteem. What should we talk about in open interviews? The job, of course. But the absence of a formula allows the exchange to center on the people and take place in the moment. Is this not the ultimate goal behind our desire to eliminate unconscious bias—to be able to see people as they truly are?

    Margret Grebowicz is the Maxwell C. Weiner Distinguished Professor of the Humanities and professor of philosophy at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

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  • Distorted Views of Higher Ed Lead to Wrong Remedy (opinion)

    Distorted Views of Higher Ed Lead to Wrong Remedy (opinion)

    Every day, in articles, podcasts and social media, I learn about American higher education.

    I learn that it aggressively stifles ideas that deviate from a narrow leftist orthodoxy. I learn that it privileges identity and politics over merit and knowledge.

    I learn that it is rife with antisemitism while serving as a safe harbor for people of color and LGBTQ+ people. I learn that Harvard, Columbia and other Ivy League universities are the prominent tip of a higher education iceberg that threatens to destroy our culture and country.

    If that is all I knew about American higher education, I would support tearing it down.

    I would think that American higher education, in anything resembling its current form, cannot and should not be saved.

    However, because I am a college president and have the opportunity to engage with students, faculty, staff and other college leaders every day, I think otherwise.

    Every day, I see students from myriad backgrounds and with disparate beliefs flourishing because they interact with one another in class, in the dining hall, in student residences, on athletic teams and in clubs. I hear about students whose understanding of the world is being pushed and transformed by faculty who expose them to new perspectives and new information.

    Every day I interact with students and alumni who are achieving their full potential because our college and our donors provide financial aid that caps student loans at $27,000 over four years, which is less than the average new car loan. Every day I am reminded that racism, sexism and transphobia have not been eliminated from our classrooms or our campuses—despite seeing daily evidence of our efforts to ensure that neither race, religion, nor any other identity confers advantages or disadvantages on our students, faculty and staff.

    It is because I see what college is every day, and not just what occurs on rare days on some campuses, that I know that ongoing efforts to tear down higher education are a travesty for our children and our country.

    It is why I know that the actions of those who are rarely on campus, and those who are focused on scoring political points, represent existential threats to America in what will continue to be a world in which knowledge and technology dominate.

    Much of the past 80 years shows what happens when the United States chooses knowledge over ignorance and decides to invest in its young people. After World War II, the U.S. made it possible for veterans, and then women, people of color and lower-income students, to attend college, raising the quality of life for millions.

    Our government partnered with universities to develop a research infrastructure that became the envy of the world. Innovations transformed lives and society. Diseases were cured. People lived longer and healthier lives.

    So, what confronts us now is a decision that will determine what kind of lives our children and grandchildren have.

    Are there too many colleges and universities at current prices? Are there some faculty who are intolerant of views that are inconsistent with their own? Would some college curricula benefit from more engagement with the real world?

    Yes, yes and yes.

    But will future generations thank us if we destroy the higher education system that took generations to build? Will they be better off if we judge every faculty member, administrator and student by the actions of those on the fringe, or by what we observe at a small number of colleges? Will they be better off if we shift control of scientific and intellectual innovations, course content and pedagogy from scholars to bureaucrats and politicians?

    For the sake of future generations and our country, we must find ways to convene a national discussion on the future of higher education. What are we trying to accomplish as a country, what part does each college play in that collective goal and how can we ensure the system is effective? What is right for the country is not the sum of the paths colleges set for themselves. It is not what colleges individually decide while trying to avoid existential threats from protesters, activist donors or state and federal governments.

    We must continue constructive engagement involving representatives from government, boards of trustees, college leadership, think tanks, student groups, the American Association of University Professors and other critical constituencies. The result must be a plan and action.

    As a soon-to-be former college president and the father of a future college student, I look forward to continuing to be part of this fight in the years to come. Those who sacrificed to create our great country, and those who will be impacted by our actions in the future, deserve nothing less.

    David R. Harris will step down in June after seven years as president of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. He will join Harvard Graduate School of Education in the fall as a president in residence.

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  • Centralising assessment doesn’t mean standardising pedagogy: Opinion – Campus Review

    Centralising assessment doesn’t mean standardising pedagogy: Opinion – Campus Review

    On CampusTechnology

    Adopting this approach has to be flexible and take into account different modalities used to assess students’ work, according to Piero Tintori

    Most universities dream of a future that embraces digital assessment and exams, but the journey to get there is complex and not universally supported.

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  • Five Science-Backed Ways to Improve Academic Writing (opinion)

    Five Science-Backed Ways to Improve Academic Writing (opinion)

    I vividly recall when an editor in chief invited me to publish in a well-known journal. Fresh from defending my dissertation, I still grappled with understanding how publishing worked in academia—like whether I should try to imitate the densely written, abstract sentences that appeared in the journal he edited. I thumbed the latest issue and looked at him. “Do you have a house style I should use?”

    He shuddered and gave a response I’ve since heard echoed by other editors in chief of similarly well-respected journals: “Please don’t! We publish manuscripts despite how they’re written.”

    But this candid advice leaves most graduate students and even seasoned faculty members with another dilemma. If you can’t imitate articles published in the best journals, how do you write up your research so it gets published?

    During my early years of teaching writing courses, I discovered that students seldom revised their work significantly, even when they received extensive feedback from both me and their peers. In fact, students failed to revise even when they received feedback and grades from their peers.

    All writing students also struggle with the idea that both feedback and grades on their writing are subjective, a reflection of how a particular instructor prefers students to write in a specific course. In addition, English literature and creative writing courses teach students that writing is a combination of mystery and art.

    In contrast, researchers in cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics identified the features that make sentences easy or difficult to read decades ago. As a result, we can teach students how to make their sentences clear—no matter how complex the subject—by teaching science-based writing methods. And as a graduate student or faculty member, you can improve your own academic writing—and your chances for publication—by focusing on the five basic principles that cause readers to perceive sentences as clear.

    1. Active voice makes sentences easier to read.

    In studies, researchers have discovered that readers comprehend sentences more rapidly when sentences reflect cause and effect. We can trace this to two factors. First, our brains naturally perceive cause and effect, which evolved as a survival mechanism. Research shows, for instance, that infants as young as 6 months old may identify cause and effect.

    Second, English sentence structure reflects causes and effects in its ordering of words: subject-verb-object. As researchers discovered, participants read sentences with active voice at speeds one-third faster than they read sentences in passive voice. Moreover, these same participants misunderstood even simple sentences in passive voice about one-quarter of the time. While many writing instructors require students to use active voice, few alert students to the specific benefits of active sentences that make them easier to read. These sentences are shorter, more efficient and more concrete, while sharpening readers’ sense of cause and effect.

    Consider the differences between the first example below, which relies on passive voice, and the second, which uses active voice.

    Passive: It has been reported that satiety may be induced by the distention of the gastric antrum due to the release of dissolved gas from carbonated water, which may improve gastric motility, thereby reducing hunger.

    Active: Cuomo, Savarese, Sarnelli et al. reported that drinking carbonated water distends the gastric antrum through the release of dissolved gas, inducing satiety and improving gastric motility, all of which reduce hunger.

    1. Actors or concrete objects turn sentences into microstories.

    Academic writing naturally tackles complex content that can prove challenging even to subject matter experts. However, writers can make even challenging content comprehensible to nonexperts by making cause and effect clear in their sentences by using nouns that readers can easily identify as subjects. When the grammatical subjects in sentences are nouns clearly capable of performing actions, readers process sentences with greater speed and less effort. For actors, use people, organizations or publications—any individual, group or item created with intention that generates impact.

    We unconsciously perceive these sentences as easier to read and recall because identifying actors and actions in sentences aids readers in fixing both a word’s meaning and the role it plays in sentence structure. Furthermore, these nouns enhance the efficiency of any sentence by paring down its words. Take these examples below:

    Abstract noun as subject: Virginia Woolf’s examination of the social and economic obstacles female writers faced, due to the presumption that women had no place in literary professions and so were instead relegated to the household, particularly resonated with her audience of young women who had struggled to fight for their right to study at their colleges, even after the political successes of the suffragettes.

    Actor as subject: In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf examined social and economic obstacles female writers faced. Despite the political success of the suffragettes, writers like Woolf battled the perception that women had no place in the literary professions. Thus Woolf’s book resonated with her audience, young women who had to fight for the right to study at their colleges.

    1. Pronouns send readers backward, but readers make sense of sentences by anticipating what comes next.

    If writers imitate the academic writing they see in print, they typically rely on pronouns as the subjects of sentences, especially “this,” “that,” “these,” “those” and “it.” However, pronouns save writers time but cost readers significantly, for two reasons.

    First, readers typically assume that pronouns refer to a single noun rather than a cluster of nouns, a phrase or even an entire sentence. Second, when writers use these pronouns without nouns to anchor their meaning, readers slow down and frequently misidentify the meanings of pronouns. Moreover, readers rated writing samples with higher numbers of pronouns as less well-written than sentences that relied on actors as subjects—or even pronouns like “this” anchored by nouns like “outcome.”

    Pronoun as subject: Due to the potential confounding detrimental effects of sulfonylureas and insulin in the comparator arms of the trials evaluating anticancer effects of metformin/thiazolidinediones, it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from prior studies.

    Actor as subject: In trials to assess the anticancer effects of metformin/thiazolidinediones, we had difficulty drawing any firm conclusions from prior studies due to potential confounding detrimental effects from sulfonylureas and insulin.

    1. Action verbs make sentences more concrete, efficient and memorable.

    Open any newspaper or magazine and, even in just-the-facts-ma’am hard news stories, you’ll find action verbs, like “argues,” “reinvents,” “writes” and “remakes.” In contrast, most writers overrely on nonaction verbs. These verbs include “is,” “has been,” “seems,” “appears,” “becomes,” “represents” and that evergreen staple of academic writing, “tends.”

    Action verbs enable readers to immediately identify verbs, a process central to comprehending sentence structure and understanding meaning alike. Furthermore, action verbs make sentences more efficient, more concrete and more memorable. In one study of verbs and memory, readers recalled concrete verbs more accurately than nonaction verbs.

    When we read action verbs, our brains recruit the sensory-motor system, generating faster reaction times than with abstract or nonaction verbs, which are processed outside that system. Even in patients with dementia, action verbs remain among words patients with advanced disease can identify due to the semantic richness of connections action verbs recruit in the brain.

    Nonaction verbs: Claiming the promotion of research “excellence” and priding oneself in the record of “excellence” has become commonplace, but what this excellence is concretely about is unclear.

    Action verbs: Research institutions claim to promote faculty on the basis of research “excellence,” but institutions define “excellence” in many ways, with few clear definitions.

    1. Place subjects and verbs close together.

    When we read, we understand sentences’ meaning based on our predictions of how sentences unfold. We unconsciously make these predictions from our encounters with thousands of sentences. Most important, these predictions rely on our ability to identify grammatical subjects and verbs.

    We make these predictions easily when writers place subjects and verbs close together. In contrast, we struggle when writers separate subjects and verbs. With each increase in distance between subjects and verbs, readers exert greater effort, while reading speeds slow down. More strikingly, readers also make more errors in identifying subjects and verbs with increases in the number of words between subjects and verbs—even in relatively short sentences.

    For example, in this sentence, readers must stumble through two adjective clauses, noted in orange below, before encountering the verb “decreases,” paired with the underlined subject, “rule”:

    Specifically, a rule that indicates a reduction in delay that precedes an aversive consequence decreases procrastination in university students.

    But this separation strains working memory, as readers rely on subject-verb-object order to identify sentence structure. Ironically, as academic writers gain sophistication in their subject-matter expertise, they frustrate readers’ mechanisms for comprehension. Your urge to immediately modify the subject of your sentence with phrases and clauses slows reading and increases readers’ sense of conscious effort.

    On the other hand, reading speeds increase while effort decreases when subjects and verbs appear close together. Introduce your main point with a subject and verb, then modify them with clauses or phrases:

    Specifically, university students decrease procrastination when they face aversive consequences immediately for failure to meet deadlines.

    These principles will work in any discipline, enabling writers to control how editors and peer reviewers respond to their manuscripts and proposals. These changes can help make an academic career successful, crucial in today’s competitive environment.

    Yellowlees Douglas is a former professor of English at Holy Names University and was a director of five writing programs at universities including the City University of New York and the University of Florida. She is the author, most recently, of Writing for the Reader’s Brain: A Science-Based Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

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  • Longtime Professor Offers Administrators Advice (opinion)

    Longtime Professor Offers Administrators Advice (opinion)

    I read articles constantly in various journals, including this one, on how to be successful in various administrative roles—department chair, dean, provost, president, etc. Most of these are addressed to institutions not at all like mine, and many of the pieces are facile.

    I am a senior faculty member bordering 50 years at a small private university of fewer than 900 undergrads and fewer than 500 graduate enrollments. I have held most leadership roles, won just about all the available honors and have had offers from other institutions as dean and vice president, among other roles. I have declined them all because I am at heart a classroom teacher and my dedication to my institution is inviolate.

    In my long tenure, I have seen many senior administrators come and go, and I have kept notes on the bad ones. Some left significant damage not easily repaired. Reflecting on a recently departed senior administrator inspired me to articulate some advice and a few rules for success or failure at institutions such as mine.

    1. Know the institution that you come to serve. This requires far more than a general overview; it necessitates a deep dive into the culture and nature of the place. Do not invoke the platitude “from my experience at other places, I have concluded …” Very large universities may reflect somewhat similar characteristics, but even that is questionable. However, institutions such as mine differ distinctively in their culture, including history, experiences, individuals and makeup. Learn all that you can about this before arriving, and once on campus devote the necessary time to knowing the individuals who are key players, especially those who through long service have shaped the character of the place.
      New administrators often privilege new members of the community, who, like them, are novices, in hopes that they will be more amenable to reshaping the environment. However, it is those with long history who are embedded in the culture and who have deep connections with many important constituencies, including peers, the Board of Trustees and alumni. A new administrator may believe that they have a mandate to change the culture. But traditions are the lifeblood of small institutions, and they don’t die readily. Supposed mandates can dissipate quickly. First gain trust before venturing into this potential minefield.
    2. If the institution is in such despair that immediate drastic action is imperative, ask yourself honestly if you can handle the responsibility of the challenge. Success may be ephemeral, and even if you achieve short-term goals, you may burn bridges that can continue to haunt you. My institution has not experienced existential travail, but some leaders during my tenure have exploited unease and trepidation, taking advantage of fears about salary stagnation, job reductions, benefits suspensions or even, in extreme cases, mentioning other college closings to promote their agendas. Academia today is precarious, and honesty is necessary, but fear is a poor leadership strategy.
    1. Put the institution above yourself. When you lose the trust of the community, it is merely a matter of time. No action is more damning for an administrator than résumé-building for the next position. Every action must be in the interests of the institution rather than one’s own benefit. Over 50 years, I have witnessed several leaders whose actions were so patently self-serving that I wished only that they would move away—whether up or down, I didn’t care. This is a character flaw. What one may consider as career enhancement can come at the expense and livelihood of my peers and colleagues.
      In my early days as an ambitious potential climber, my president counseled me, to privilege my personal career as I pursued the next step might be successful or not. But to privilege my institution with all my energy, talent and commitment would lead to a more fulfilling life. I didn’t appreciate the admonishment at the time, but I came to internalize it. I won’t impose this mindset on others, and personally I would be a wealthier man if I had acted differently, but it has provided a personal career satisfaction that far exceeds any material or ego considerations. My mantra is to “devote heart and soul to the institution to the day of departure, and even beyond.”
    1. Be honest, transparent, ethical and kind. Administrators often have to make hard decisions that drastically affect individual lives. You must act, but do so with integrity, empathy and kindness. Take responsibility for the decisions that you make; do not blame others or the situation for actions that you administer. Eschew pronouncements (which I have heard more than once) that “these actions are for better positioning the institution for long-term success.” That may be true, but tone-deaf remarks do not offer solace to individuals losing their careers for the institution’s “future well-being,” nor do they generally resonate well for institutional morale.
    2. Faculty and staff morale is fragile, particularly at small institutions such as mine. Compromising it is hazardous. Keep steadfast: Sincerity and trust should be your guiding principles. If people trust you, they will bear considerable pain. If they do not trust you, then you will fail no matter what your motives.

    The responsibility of leadership in the contemporary environment is a daunting undertaking. It demands skill, fortitude, courage, principles and character. From my long years of observations, many who carry significant titles do not demonstrate the requisite capabilities. One hopes that the few best practices expressed above may point toward some standards.

    Joe P. Dunn is the Charles A. Dana Professor and chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at Converse University.

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  • What AI Can’t Read: Ambiguities and Silences (opinion)

    What AI Can’t Read: Ambiguities and Silences (opinion)

    A year ago, I saw artificial intelligence as a shortcut to avoid deep thinking. Now, I use it to teach thinking itself.

    Like many educators, I initially viewed artificial intelligence as a threat—an easy escape from rigorous analysis. But banning AI outright became a losing battle. This semester, I took a different approach: I brought it into my classroom, not as a crutch, but as an object of study. The results surprised me.

    For the first time this spring, my students are not just using AI—they are reflecting on it. AI is not simply a tool; it is a mirror, exposing biases, revealing gaps in knowledge and reshaping students’ interpretive instincts. In the same way a river carves its course through stone—not by force, but by persistence—this deliberate engagement with AI has begun to alter how students approach analysis, nuance and complexity.

    Rather than rendering students passive consumers of information, AI—when engaged critically—becomes a tool for sharpening analytical skills. Instead of simply producing answers, it provokes new questions. It exposes biases, forces students to reconsider assumptions and ultimately strengthens their ability to think deeply.

    Yet too often, universities are focused on controlling AI rather than understanding it. Policies around AI in higher education often default to detection and enforcement, treating the technology as a problem to be contained. But this framing misses the point. The question in 2025 is not whether to use AI, but how to use it in ways that deepen, rather than dilute, learning.

    AI as a Tool for Deep Engagement

    This semester I’ve asked students to use AI in my seminar on Holocaust survivor testimony. At first glance, using AI to analyze these deeply human narratives seems contradictory—almost irreverent. Survivor testimony resists coherence. It is shaped by silences, contradictions and emotional truths that defy categorization. How can an AI trained on probabilities and patterns engage with stories shaped by trauma, loss and the fragility of memory?

    And yet, that is precisely why I have made AI a central component of the course—not as a shortcut to comprehension, but as a challenge to it. Each week, my students use AI to transcribe, summarize and identify patterns in testimonies. But rather than treating AI’s responses as authoritative, they interrogate them. They see how AI stumbles over inconsistencies, how it misreads hesitation as omission, how it resists the fragmentation that defines survivor accounts. And in observing that resistance, something unexpected happens: students develop a deeper awareness of what it means to listen, to interpret, to bear witness.

    AI’s sleek outputs conceal a deeper problem: It is not neutral. Its responses are shaped by the biases embedded in its training data, and by its relentless pursuit of coherence—even at the expense of accuracy. An algorithm will iron out inconsistencies in testimony, not because they are unimportant, but because it is designed to prioritize seamlessness over contradiction, clarity over ambiguity. But testimony is ambiguity. Memory thrives on contradiction. If left unchecked, AI’s tendency to smooth out rough edges risks erasing precisely what makes survivor narratives so powerful: their rawness, their hesitations, their refusal to conform to a clean, digestible version of history.

    For educators, the question is not just how to use AI but how to resist its seductions. How do we ensure that students scrutinize AI rather than accept its outputs at face value? How do we teach them to use AI as a lens rather than a crutch? The answer lies in making AI itself an object of inquiry—pushing students to examine its failures, to challenge its confident misreadings. AI does not replace critical thinking; it demands it.

    AI as Productive Friction

    If AI distorts, misinterprets and overreaches, why use it at all? The easy answer would be to reject it—to bar it from the classroom, to treat it as a contaminant rather than a tool. But that would be a mistake. AI is here to stay, and higher education has a choice: either leave students to navigate its limitations on their own or make those limitations part of their education.

    Rather than treating AI’s flaws as a reason for exclusion, I see them as opportunities. In my classroom, AI-generated responses are not definitive answers but objects of critique—imperfect, provisional and open to challenge. By engaging with AI critically, students learn not just from it, but about it. They see how AI struggles with ambiguity, how its summaries can be reductive, how its confidence often exceeds its accuracy. In doing so, they sharpen the very skills AI cannot replicate: skepticism, interpretation and the ability to challenge received knowledge.

    This approach aligns with Marc Watkins’s observation that “learning requires friction.” AI can be a force of productive friction in the classroom. Education is not about seamlessness; it is about struggle, revision and resistance.

    Teaching history—and especially the history of genocide and mass violence—often feels like standing on a threshold: one foot planted in the past, the other stepping into an uncertain future. In this space, AI does not replace the act of interpretation; it compels us to ask what it means to carry memory forward.

    Used thoughtfully, AI does not erode intellectual inquiry—it deepens it. If engaged wisely, it sharpens—rather than replaces—the very skills that make us human.

    Jan Burzlaff is a postdoctoral associate in the Jewish Studies program at Cornell University.

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  • Students Getting You Down? It’s Not Them; It’s You (opinion)

    Students Getting You Down? It’s Not Them; It’s You (opinion)

    A week does not pass without my hearing about the apparently sorry state of the current crop of students. They are lazy, disengaged, clueless and so on. It is the dusty trope that the old do not appreciate the young.

    In a trip through the literature and news of the past, you will find Generation X described as underachieving, angry, psychologically damaged slackers who were indifferent to learning, brazenly rude, entitled, unprofessional whiners. Millennials were called “Generation Whine” and described as self-centered, unmotivated, disrespectful, depressed, anxious, disloyal, entitled cynics who were so overindulged and protected by their parents that they were incapable of working without constant hand holding.

    If this all sounds familiar, it should. Professors now bemoan the current crop of Gen Z students who will not read, cannot handle stress, procrastinate, lack basic academic skills, refuse to engage in class, are psychologically needy and are more interested in preparation for a career than appreciating knowledge.

    Meanwhile, every generation is described as being both skilled in and ruined by new technology. Boomers complained that Generation X could not write a proper formal letter and that Millennials expected email communication. Generation X now complains about Generation Z not attending to their email communication and lacking proper email etiquette. It is an ongoing cycle.

    Much of the educational discourse seems to assume that each new generation of students differs from the last to such a degree that many accommodations will need to be made. Every generation is indeed affected by the events of their time. The educational disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic likely widened the already existing achievement gaps among different groups of Generation Z learners. However, learning is learning. Decades of research across multiple fields of psychology have shaped our understanding of the human mind and how we best learn. Teaching is hard work, and we make teaching harder when we remain fixated on stereotypes, tech temptations and societal trends.

    Let’s refocus on what our trade is—learning. From my experience as a professor of more than 20 years specializing in educational psychology, and as a researcher and department chair, I offer these principles:

    1. Engage in your discipline. Maintain your expertise over time and share the developments of your field. If you are bored with your discipline, it will show. And if your knowledge is out of date and students find out, you lose all credibility. As a professor, few things are as awkward as when a student shares incorrect information they learned in another course and you must contradict it with up-to-date, accurate information.
    2. Figure out what type of teaching suits you and then master that type. If you are a lecturer, then study what makes someone the best lecturer. If you use PowerPoints, study best practices in their design. If you embrace group work, explore what types of assignments and student groupings are most effective. What pedagogy you use is less important than doing that pedagogy well. By all means, learn new techniques. But new does not always mean better, and not all techniques are going to fit with your content and style. I will be the first to admit that I am not the most dynamic speaker. I am, however, good at reading the room, pacing the delivery of knowledge and explaining ideas in many different ways. Lean into your strengths.
    3. Create opportunities for multiple types of learning. Humans learn best by engaging different areas of their brain: their auditory and visual systems, their logic and expressive capabilities, and their abilities to apply and build personal connections to new knowledge. Research shows that students do not have unitary learning styles: However, everyone learns better when they engage multiple processing modes. You do not need to do everything all at once. But across your design of homework, class time and assessment, remember: Variety is key. My own action research in my measurement and statistics course bears this out. Concerted effort to allow students to use analytic, practical and creative means to express their knowledge resulted in a productive experience in a class that many students dreaded.
    1. Do not let new technology pass you by. What is new in instructional technology now may become the norm tomorrow. Try new things and stay knowledgeable, but also consider how and why you would use the technology to improve teaching or other aspects of your course. For example, clickers did not work well for me, but many professors make great use of them. A useful strategy is to turn to your students and ask them how they would improve one of your assignments by integrating new technology. Guides such as the one here are available to help you make these decisions.
    2. Express a genuine interest in your students. You are not their friend, but you can be courteous and friendly. It is good manners, after all. Be a human being. As students gather before class begins, you might consider asking how the semester is going. Perhaps reference an event that has taken place on campus. Do not be afraid to mention your own experiences if they are directly relevant to the course. There is continuing lore related to my courses that if you find a way to include cats while also demonstrating the content and skills of the course you will receive extra credit (true). Do not be afraid to be real.

    Fulfilling these principles in your teaching career is not easy. It takes time, energy and a lifelong commitment to self-improvement—the same traits we wish for in our students. If you find that you are unwilling to strive to meet these principles, and then find the students are not living up to expectations, know that it is not them: It’s you.

    Erin Morris Miller is an associate professor of psychology at Bridgewater College.

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  • Is the Partnership for American Innovation Gone? (opinion)

    Is the Partnership for American Innovation Gone? (opinion)

    In January I wrote a piece asking whether America’s research universities would make it to their 100th birthday, marking their birth with the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950—its 75th birthday was May 10. The article built on concerns that our research universities are in a precarious state, with their resources stretched thin supporting their dual missions of education and research. At the end I added a new concern: with the beginning of the Trump administration would these institutions survive the year?

    In only the first 100-odd days, the precipitous cancellation of grants and freezing of research support and now the proposed slashing of the budgets of the NSF and the National Institutes of Health and dramatic increase in the tax on university endowments have made my worst fears real. Are we really trying to end the partnership that has led to the greatest period of innovation in history?

    With the creation of the NSF, the government and universities established a research partnership to feed the American economy and national defense and to train the R&D labor force. The partnership was supported by funding from both sides, coupled with an unrelenting commitment to research excellence and impact. By any measure it has been wildly successful, generating new knowledge, inventions and cures and educating generations to lead our economy and society.

    In 2022 alone, the 174 Carnegie R-1—very research intensive—universities filed more than 20,000 patent applications and were granted nearly 6,000. But perhaps to understand why sustaining this partnership is vital to our future we only need to recall that the mRNA vaccines that spelled the end of the COVID-19 pandemic were built on research supported over decades by the NIH.

    The scale of the partnership is apparent in the data: In 2022, university research spending totaled $97.8 billion, with $54.1 billion coming from the federal government. What has not been widely acknowledged is that universities contributed $24.5 billion of this total in the form of self-supported research and cost sharing, especially supporting the misunderstood indirect costs of research. Many of these expenses are not so “indirect,” as they support specialized spaces, facilities and instruments—you cannot do research in a parking lot.

    Universities invested 45 cents for each federal research dollar received— this is the financing of the partnership. It seems like a bargain for the government to contribute only 0.2 percent of GDP (or less than 1 percent of the federal budget) to fuel innovation and the labor force of the world’s largest economy. Federal support of university research has grown only 44 percent since 2010. This compares to China’s threefold growth in investment in its universities.

    The Chinese investment highlights the increasing competition for research talent, and we risk falling behind. Other countries are emulating us, building research universities and trying to attract the stream of talent that has come to the U.S. to learn, work and live. Our chilling climate for immigrants is making it much easier to lure this talent abroad.

    American universities have done what they can to stay in front, with their own support of research growing twice as fast as federal funding, up from 30 cents to a federal dollar in 2010. It will be difficult for universities to continue to grow this investment. Following the pandemic, inflation has taken its toll. Now the funding cuts already imposed, and the enormous ones in the administration’s proposed budget, will shift billions in research costs to universities—costs they cannot afford. The proposed 15 percent cap on indirect costs alone—spread across all federal support—could cost the R-1 universities more than $10 billion, doubling their support relative to the federal government.

    The result will be catastrophic, with universities retreating from research, essentially destroying in a few months the innovation ecosystem built over three-quarters of a century. The long-term impact will be devastating for all Americans, as measured in undiscovered inventions and cures, the global competition for ideas and people, and the country’s future economic prosperity.

    Our innovation ecosystem will be hamstrung by the loss of a generation or more of research talent, who are either not trained or who go elsewhere. Already our talent pipeline is being constricted by cutting in half the number of NSF fellowships awarded to the most promising scientists and engineers. Reports also are mounting of scientists moving to countries where they are warmly welcomed with substantial government support. Is this our national strategy to strengthen America’s knowledge-based economy?

    We are on the verge of an innovation winter that will last decades when we can ill afford it as we respond to demands to improve health care, compete for global dominance in AI and other critical technologies, and create a secure and peaceful world. Universities do face important challenges, such as expanding access, educating more Americans to be informed and thoughtful citizens, and giving them the skills to thrive in an AI-driven world. Universities can meet these challenges if they are supported.

    We must avoid the innovation winter by continuing the partnership so our research universities remain the beacons for innovation and education that they have been for three-quarters of a century. This is the only way to keep America at the forefront, not at the back of the pack.

    This choice is what is at stake for all of us.

    Robert A. Brown is president emeritus of Boston University.

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  • Our Debate Over Higher Ed Has Lost the Plot (opinion)

    Our Debate Over Higher Ed Has Lost the Plot (opinion)

    There is an endless war being waged against colleges and universities in this country, one unprecedented in our lifetimes. Not merely a war of words, it is one of deeds. Beginning with state-level efforts to ban “critical race theory” and “divisive concepts” from college classrooms and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from campuses, it has now grown into an obsessive preoccupation of federal policy.

    Broad executive orders have sought to ban concepts related to race, gender and identity on campus, using the leverage of withheld federal grants. Drastic and indiscriminate cuts have been made to university funding. International students have had their visas revoked on the basis of their political views. Attacks on nonpartisan university accreditors have mounted. And escalating demands that elite private research universities effectively place themselves in government receivership or lose further billions in federal dollars have thrown the sector into chaos.

    That is why I was honored to sign, and to help coordinate, last month’s letter from more than 600 college, university and scholarly society presidents in defense of our nation’s institutions of higher learning. The letter, which calls for “constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic,” also criticizes “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering” institutions of higher learning and warns that “the price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society.”

    I remain concerned that the problems colleges and universities face today go deeper than funding cuts and government threats. Indeed, our national debate over higher education has lost the plot entirely. Critics of higher education present the entire sector as an elitist, out-of-touch indoctrination factory for liberal orthodoxy, one that has replaced the great books of the Western canon with political claptrap. This charge has gained broad traction among the public. But not only is it untrue on the merits, it fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and mission of higher education. It asks the wrong question and delivers the wrong answer.

    If our sector is to regain the respect and appreciation of American society, we need to reorient the national conversation. We need to help people remember what it is that colleges and universities actually do—and why it matters.

    The American Association of Colleges and Universities, where I have been president since 2016, is a voice and a force for what we call liberal education. Let me be clear: teaching students to believe in liberal politics or conservative politics is the opposite of what “liberal education” means. Rather, the term, which predates modern political labels, refers to liberating the mind from received orthodoxies of all types.

    I agree with Margaret Mead—and with leaders across the political spectrum, from Barack Obama to Ron DeSantis—that students should be taught how to think, not what to think. A successful college education is measured not by what its graduates believe but by what they can conceive. It fires the imaginations of its students, helps them explore ideas and experiences different from their own, and trains them in habits of thought and mind that aid them in making their own meaning from the world. It provides them both with the practical skills they will need for their future employment and with the critical thinking tools that help them attain, and succeed in, their jobs of choice. By providing a forum and a method for open inquiry and intellectual freedom, and by exposing students and communities to new ideas and perspectives, it also helps to strengthen our democracy.

    This type of education does not happen by chance, from a hodgepodge of unconnected courses; it is part of a plan. For decades, AAC&U has served as a learning lab for a type of comprehensive undergraduate education that teaches students in a systematic way, over the course of a two-year or four-year degree, how to become effective thinkers and problem-solvers. We pioneered the concepts of high-impact practices, inclusive excellence and innovations in general education, learning outcomes and assessment, innovations that have been adopted by hundreds of campuses across the country, including many of our nearly 900 member institutions.

    Higher education should always try to do better at opening students’ minds; in fact, that commitment is at the core of my organization’s work. Taking criticism seriously is how colleges and universities innovate and improve. But that innovation cannot happen if the government steps in to ban or defund ideas it dislikes, taking away the academic freedom of faculty; if it strips university leadership of its autonomy to make decisions about what ideas are permitted or promoted on campus; or if it makes so many threats or cuts that professors and students become afraid to speak and think freely.

    The careful process of preparing students for democratic citizenship requires helping them understand the great multiplicity of people, cultures and beliefs that make up the world we live in. It is time for us to stop asking whether colleges and universities teach the “right” ideas and ask, instead, whether they teach students the skills they need to navigate our complex world. That approach would lead us away from culture wars and heavy-handed government restrictions and toward constructive engagement with the educational missions of colleges and universities so they can work together with government to improve our students’ educations.

    Lynn Pasquerella is president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

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  • How I Lost Faith in My University’s Mission (opinion)

    How I Lost Faith in My University’s Mission (opinion)

    I am currently chair of the philosophy department at the University of Utah. I have taught at “the U” for 32 years. We are a flagship but not an elite university; we admit 89 percent of applicants. Our students range from quite unprepared to extremely capable. For the most part, I have loved my job and have put my heart and soul into it. I have always been proud to be on this faculty helping students at all levels of academic readiness acquire skills in reading, writing, speaking and reasoning that enhance their lives and prepare them for virtually any job. But recently, my pride has evaporated and been replaced with feelings of grief and shame.

    This year—my first as chair—has seen profound upheaval. In January 2024, shortly before my term began, the State Legislature passed an anti-DEI bill, prohibiting, among other things, offices and programs related to diversity, equity or inclusion. Administrators were required to purge these three words from university websites and other documents, such as RPT—retention, promotion and tenure review—guidelines, and the university administration interpreted the law as requiring that the Women’s Resource Center, the Black Cultural Center and the LGBT Resource Center be shuttered.

    The state has also imposed a “bathroom bill” requiring trans university students to use locker rooms aligning with their sex assigned at birth, has banned Pride flags in public spaces (and in faculty offices if they can be seen through a window), and now requires faculty to post their syllabi in a publicly searchable database. It also prohibits university presidents from taking a stand on any issue that does not bear upon the “mission, role or pedagogical objectives” of the institution. And finally, as the coup de grâce for academic freedom and faculty expertise, it has funded and established the Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University, mandating that all students take general education courses on the topics of Western civilization and the rise of Christianity. The law establishing the center identifies it as a pilot program to be rolled out to other Utah universities in the future.

    Then there is the state of Utah’s version of the national campaign against alleged “waste, fraud and abuse.” Recently passed laws dictate the process by which all post-tenure reviews of faculty must be conducted, curtail shared governance and cut state funds to all Utah public institutions by 10 percent ($60.5 million). Universities can have the funds “reallocated” if they use them for high-demand, high-wage majors. As a result, we lost our History and Philosophy of Science major, which drew some of our best students, many of them double majoring in STEM subjects and working toward careers in medicine and public health. To be clear, eliminating this major will reduce opportunities for students while producing no savings whatsoever; offering it requires no additional staff, advisers or courses beyond what is already in place for our philosophy major. These funding cuts also mean that tenure-line faculty in my department will receive a zero percent raise this year.

    In addition to the state’s actions, the upper administration—in seeming alignment with Facebook’s motto of “move fast and break things”—has instituted so many changes in such a short time it is hard to keep track. It abruptly revamped the advising system, brought four colleges under the umbrella of a Colleges and Schools of Liberal Arts and Sciences in a “shared services” arrangement, and keeps rolling out new “student success initiatives.” Whether these changes are wise or not, the pace at which they were made imposed a crushing amount of (mostly stultifying) work on deans and department chairs. Aside from refereeing a few manuscripts for journals, I have not read a piece of philosophy since I became chair, much less written one. In the midst of this, the dean of my college, a strong supporter of philosophy, resigned in the middle of the fall semester and was replaced by someone from outside our college, essentially putting us in receivership.

    While all this is happening, my youngest child, who is queer, is deciding where to attend college. He applied to the University of Utah, where he was admitted to the Honors College and received a scholarship. But how can I send him here? I fear for his safety no matter where he lives in our current hate-filled political climate, but still I hesitate to subject him to the environment on my own campus. I will likely incur a hefty bill, then, so he can attend a university out of state.

    I had more or less come to terms with this constraint, and was also managing to persevere in my job, when something happened that finally took the wind out of my sails: The president of the university announced, to the surprise of faculty, that returned missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be eligible to receive up to 12 college credits for their service to the church.

    I am galled by what all this says about who matters at my university. While students like my child can’t even have a designated room on campus to hang out in with like-minded others—and while the main symbol reminding us of the existence and dignity of students like him is banned from public spaces—returned LDS missionaries, who have an entire institute across from campus dedicated to their spiritual support, can get a full semester of credit, at a greatly reduced cost, essentially for going door to door trying to persuade people to join their church. This set of priorities is so wrong-headed that it verges, for me, on surreal. And yet the administration sees no irony or hypocrisy in naming its Office of Student Experience “U Belong.”

    Soon I will be hosting a retirement party for a wonderful colleague who joined the faculty one year before I did. In another era, I would have been sad to see him go but glad to be continuing in what I regard as my vocation. Now I feel nothing but envy. It is time for me, too, to retire, but, alas, that is not an option, because I have four years of out-of-state tuition to pay.

    Cynthia Stark is a professor and chair of the philosophy department at the University of Utah.

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