Trump’s ‘Compact’ Is Freaking People Out [ Chronicle of Higher Education ]

George Takei, Banned Books Week 2025 Honorary Chair

Indiana pi bill [ wikipedia.org ]

The Indiana pi bill was bill 246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most notorious attempts to establish mathematical truth by legislative fiat. . . . 

USC, University of Southern California | BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, City Tour 4K | CALIFORNIA

A look at the future of DEI on college campuses as hundreds of programs disappear [ PBS NewsHour ]

Moriarty from Midland forwards a message received from his union.

Moriarty, 

 

This has been an incredibly disturbing week, between political violence in Utah and yet another school shooting in Colorado. Amid these national events, our union has been weathering a storm closer to home. 

• On Tuesday, a Texas A&M University professor was fired after viral video clips - spread widely by state Rep. Brian Harrison - showed a student confronting her over (relevant) course content related to gender identity. 
• On Wednesday, a Texas State University professor was fired after comments he made at an outside conference, in his personal capacity, were circulated by extremist outlets and influencers. 
• And today, a Goose Creek CISD teacher has been doxxed by state Rep. Briscoe Cain for comments she made on her personal Facebook page on her personal time. 

These are not isolated incidents, and they will not be the last. Already, Cain, Harrison, and others have begun doxxing teachers and faculty members in Texas and across the nation for using their rights to free expression to say things those elected officials do not agree with. 

 

Let me be clear: This behavior is abhorrent. And our union will fight for and defend members caught up in this state-sponsored witch hunt with every resource we have. We have your back in defending your rights to due process, freedom of expression, and academic freedom. 

 

That said, these are frightening and uncertain times. And we are up against a well-funded, well-resourced, and ill-intentioned outrage machine. Folks, the governor tweeted that the Texas A&M professor should be fired - without an investigation, without a chance for the faculty member to comment, and without any legal merit. 

I don't say all of this to scare you. And I don't say it to make you think we'll shy away from a righteous fight. I say it to encourage you to act with caution. We are in a volatile environment, with elected officials seizing this moment to juice up their fundraising and reelection campaigns. 

 

We will have further updates in coming days. At this time, however, I recommend the following to every pre-K-12 and higher education employee: 

• Lock down your social media accounts: This weekend, I urge you to look at all of your online accounts. Set them to private. Limit your networks to people you know. Remove your school district and occupational information from your social media profiles. 
• Think twice before posting: You are an American. You have a right to free speech. But for public employees, case history on this issue is more treacherous. And it seems clear that we have a political environment where courts and politicians may exploit murky legal waters. 
• Call your union at the first sign of trouble: If you are a member of a local union - pre-K-12 or higher education - contact them first. If you are a member in our Associate Membership Program or otherwise an at-large member without a local union, contact Texas AFT. 

I don't like sending this message any more than you like receiving it. But it is my duty, as well as Secretary-Treasurer Longoria's, to provide sound guidance and strong defense to our members. Thank you for what you do, and as always, I am proud to stand alongside you. 

In solidarity,

Zeph Capo

President, Texas AFT

Charlie Kirk’s Watch List Made Some Professors’ Lives a ‘Living Hell’ [ chronicle.com ]

The flava:

For Tobin Miller Shearer, a professor of history at the University of Montana who had received death threats after being placed on a Turning Point USA target list, news of Charlie Kirk’s murder on a college campus in Utah prompted a flood of emotions. “I cried for our nation, for what this will mean for his family, for all the harm he did in his life, for all of us,” he said. “It was a horrible moment in all of its complexity.”

After those threats, Shearer moved his class on the history of white supremacy to a secret location, with a campus police officer on guard. “I did not want any threats on my life to ripple out and affect my students,” said Shearer, who heads Montana’s program in African American studies.

Shearer was one of hundreds of professors whose lives had unexpectedly intersected with Kirk’s when their names ended up on Turning Point USA’s Professor Watchlist.

Kirk created the watch list in 2016 as a signature product of his new nonprofit. Its mission, it says, is to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” It’s based on published news stories about “radical” behavior by professors, but also informed by recordings leaked by students and tips from the public.

The publicly searchable database has grown to more than 300 professors, who are grouped into categories including diversity, equity, and inclusion, climate alarmist, feminism, abortion, terror supporter, racial ideology, and LGBTQ.

The Chronicle spoke to more than a dozen professors who, like Shearer, ended up on a list that exposed many of them to doxxing and threats. As the examples below show, Kirk’s death conjured up mixed emotions ranging from empathy for his family to contempt for his ideas. It also elicited frustration over how the country is mourning his death. . . .   

The article:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/charlie-kirks-watch-list-made-some-professors-lives-a-living-hell

College Disorientation [ This American Life ]

Episode 867

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/867/college-disorientation 

Day Trips: The University of Texas McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis [ austinchronicle.com ]

The flava:

The University of Texas McDonald Observatory high on Mt. Locke in the Davis Mountains is an internationally recognized center for astronomical research. It also invites the public to experience the wonders of looking into space.

To get to the observatory from Fort Davis, take Spur 118 north. The winding 15.5-mile two-lane highway is one of the most scenic roads in Texas. Near the summit of Mt. Locke at 6,791 feet it becomes the highest paved road in Texas.

The article:

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2025-09-12/day-trips-the-university-of-texas-mcdonald-observatory-fort-davis/

UC Berkeley shares 160 names of students, staff with Trump administration in ‘McCarthy era’ move [ Berkeleyside ]

The flava:

UC Berkeley has provided 160 names of students, staff and faculty to the federal government, which has been conducting a probe into alleged antisemitism on college campuses nationwide.

UC Berkeley provided the personal information of these students and staff at the direction of the University of California’s Office of the President, according to The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s student paper. Affected students received an email on Sept. 4 notifying them that their names had been released.

An anonymous graduate student told the newspaper that the names targeted seem to be Muslim and Arab individuals who expressed support for Palestine.

Among those accused of “potential connection to reports of alleged antisemitism” is noted feminist theorist Judith Butler, who has previously said that their Jewish upbringing drove her to speak out against the state of Israel through Jewish Voice for Peace.

Butler told the San Francisco Chronicle that UC’s compliance has “echoes of McCarthyism.” . . .

The article:

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2025/09/12/uc-berkeley-shares-names

THE LIBRARIANS | Official Trailer

Horrifying Moment Captures Charlie Kirk's Assassination at Utah Valley University [ Republic World ]

66-year-old achieves dream of making the LSU marching band [ CBS Evening News ]

Why Do So Many Americans Not Know How Their Government Works? [ PBS ]

A largely invisible role of international students: Fueling the innovation economy [ The Hechinger Report ]

The flava:

International students make up more than a third of master’s and doctoral degree recipients in science and engineering at American universities. Two-thirds of U.S. university graduate students and more than half of workers in AI and AI-related fields are foreign born, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. 

“A real point of strength, and a reason our robotics companies especially have been able to grow their head counts, is because of those non-native-born workers,” said Luther, in Pittsburgh. “Those companies are here specifically because of that talent.”

International students are more than just contributors to this city’s success in tech. “They have been drivers” of it, Mawhinney said, in his workspace overlooking the studio where the iconic children’s television program “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” was taped. 

“Every year, 3,000 of the smartest people in the world come here, and a large proportion of those are international,” he said of Carnegie Mellon’s graduate students. “Some of them go into the research laboratories and work on new ideas, and some come having ideas already. You have fantastic students who are here to help you build your company or to be entrepreneurs themselves.” 

The article:

https://hechingerreport.org/a-largely-invisible-role-of-international-students-fueling-the-innovation-economy/

Three Bay Area College and University Presidents Reflect on Their Mounting Challenges [ KQED ]

https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911106/three-bay-area-college-and-university-presidents-reflect-on-their-mounting-challenges

Guests:

Roger Thompson, president, Saint Mary's College of California

Lynn Mahoney, president, San Francisco State University

Jennifer Taylor-Mendoza, president, West Valley College

How Small College Presidents Are Leading Through Uncertainty [ Small College America ]

The Exam Carl Sagan Gave His Students [ Tibees ]

What's the REAL Value of Going to College? [ Bret Weinstein ]

The US used to be a haven for research. Now, scientists are packing their bags. [ CSMonitor.com ]

The flava:

This isn’t the first time James Gerber and Lisa Hilbink have packed up their things and left.

In the past 23 years, the married pair of academics have rented out their two-story house in Minnesota a handful of times – during sabbatical stints or fellowships. They’ve tucked away in boxes the family photos, handicrafts from trips to Latin America, and leather booties their children wore when they took their first steps.

But this time feels different.

“We’ll do what we’ve always done in the past: Pack things up and leave it,” says Dr. Hilbink, sinking into a leather armchair in their St. Paul home. “But this time, I’ll bring certain special things with me, like my favorite photos.”

In a matter of months, the two will move to the south of France, where they’ve been offered spots within Aix-Marseille University’s Safe Place for Science initiative. Dr. Gerber is a climate researcher; Dr. Hilbink is a tenured professor of political democracy. They don’t know whether they’ll be welcome in the United States when they return.

“I hope it’s just paranoia,” says Dr. Hilbink, offering a pained glance at Dr. Gerber sitting beside her. “You prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

The couple are part of a growing number of academics and researchers leaving the United States. As government funding for scientific research dries up, and as President Donald Trump wages pointed attacks against some of the nation’s top universities, more academics are looking to Europe and Asia as safe havens.

A recent survey of U.S. college faculty by the journal Nature found that 75% were looking for work outside the country. Some are doing so to protect their research, while others are trying to safeguard their individual freedoms. The result is a reverse brain drain that has not been seen since European scientists sought refuge on U.S. shores before and during World War II. For the researchers who have chosen to leave, it is bittersweet – and professionally risky. But they say the future of science depends on it. . . .    

The article:

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2025/0825/trump-science-brain-drain-europe

Is ChatGPT killing higher education? [ Decoder ]

Professor at the end of 2 years of struggling with ChatGPT use among students. [ reddit ]

The flava:

Professor here. ChatGPT has ruined my life. It’s turned me into a human plagiarism-detector. I can’t read a paper without wondering if a real human wrote it and learned anything, or if a student just generated a bunch of flaccid garbage and submitted it. It’s made me suspicious of my students, and I hate feeling like that because most of them don’t deserve it.

I actually get excited when I find typos and grammatical errors in their writing now.

The biggest issue—hands down—is that ChatGPT makes blatant errors when it comes to the knowledge base in my field (ancient history). I don’t know if ChatGPT scrapes the internet as part of its training, but I wouldn’t be surprised because it produces completely inaccurate stuff about ancient texts—akin to crap that appears on conspiracy theorist blogs. Sometimes ChatGPT’s information is weak because—gird your loins—specialized knowledge about those texts exists only in obscure books, even now.

I’ve had students turn in papers that confidently cite non-existent scholarship, or even worse, non-existent quotes from ancient texts that the class supposedly read together and discussed over multiple class periods. It’s heartbreaking to know they consider everything we did in class to be useless.

My constant struggle is how to convince them that getting an education in the humanities is not about regurgitating ideas/knowledge that already exist. It’s about generating new knowledge, striving for creative insights, and having thoughts that haven’t been had before. I don’t want you to learn facts. I want you to think. To notice. To question. To reconsider. To challenge. Students don’t yet get that ChatGPT only rearranges preexisting ideas, whether they are accurate or not.

And even if the information was guaranteed to be accurate, they’re not learning anything by plugging a prompt in and turning in the resulting paper. They’ve bypassed the entire process of learning.

The source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1kzzyb2/professor_at_the_end_of_2_years_of_struggling/

UT System nixes faculty senates, approves restrictions on campus protests [ Texas Tribune ]

The flava:

The University of Texas System Board of Regents authorized campus presidents on Thursday to replace faculty senates with less independent versions of the bodies.

The decision is a turning point for the state’s largest university system that shifts academic and hiring decisions once left to faculty and university leaders into the hands of lawmakers and governor-appointed regents. . . .    

The article:

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/21/university-texas-system-faculty-senates-protests-campus-speech/

‘A nightmare': Students and faculty respond to Villanova campus shooting hoax [ NBC10 Philadelphia]

A desk with the greatest view [ CBS Sunday Morning ]

Caring Relationships Drive Revenue [ Get Down to College Business ]

Why does Reading University have a nuclear bunker? [ Chris Spargo ]

How College Financial Troubles Could Reshape the Student Experience [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

American higher education is lurching into an era of austerity. . . .   

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/us/college-financial-troubles-student-experience.html

Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

For years, whistle-blowers have warned that fake results are sneaking into the scientific literature at an increasing pace. A new statistical analysis backs up the concern.

A team of researchers found evidence of shady organizations churning out fake or low-quality studies on an industrial scale. And their output is rising fast, threatening the integrity of many fields.

“If these trends are not stopped, science is going to be destroyed,” said Luís A. Nunes Amaral, a data scientist at Northwestern University and an author of the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

Science has made huge advances over the past few centuries only because new generations of scientists could read about the accomplishments of previous ones. Each time a new paper is published, other scientists can explore the findings and think about how to make their own discoveries.

“Science relies on trusting what others did, so you do not have to repeat everything,” Dr. Amaral said.

By the 2010s, journal editors and watchdog organizations were warning that this trust was under threat. They flagged a growing number of papers with fabricated data and doctored images. In the years that followed, the factors driving this increase grew more intense. . . .   

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/science/04hs-science-papers-fraud-research-paper-mills.html

The Biggest Signs That AI Wrote a Paper, According to a Professor [ Gizmodo ]

The flava:

Mark Massaro has taught English Composition at Florida Southwestern State College for years, but his job became significantly more difficult in 2023. Not long after AI apps like ChatGPT became freely available, higher education throughout the U.S. was hit with a tsunami of automated cheating. Students have been using AI to write essays—and the trend appears to be worsening as time passes. Massaro said that, out of 25 students in his classes, it isn’t unusual for as many as five to turn in papers that appear to be written by AI.

When ChatGPT first launched, and it became apparent that students were using it to cheat, Massaro says he used to run papers through multiple AI scanners a day. If a majority of them labeled the prose as generated by AI, he believed them. Now, however, the school doesn’t allow them to upload students’ work to such applications because it could be considered a breach of their privacy. It also doesn’t help that the accuracy of AI detectors is unreliable.

Instead, Massaro says he must depend on his own wits to assess whether a paper was illegitimately conjured or not. . . .   

The article:

https://gizmodo.com/the-biggest-signs-that-ai-wrote-a-paper-according-to-a-professor-2000634580

In Defense of “Silly Science:” How Curiosity-Driven Research Drives Discovery [ Amanpour and Company ]

Reader's Comment on NYTimes Guest Essay

Carol Baker, PhD

I feel dispirited as a professor in an era in which some students increasingly rely on AI.  While I cannot detect its use in all papers, i try. I teach in an online program.

I can detect AI use in students' records. Where students had previously signed up for two courses per semester,  to balance their academic lives with their work and family responsibilities,  they are now signing up for 4 or even 6. I contacted one student whose weekly participation was poor. She told me she was taking 5 courses at my institution and another four at a community college! In one semester.

With AI, students can earn a college degree without learning.

--Reader's comment on a Guest Essay titled, "I Teach Creative Writing. This Is What A.I. Is Doing to Students."

Trump administration scrutiny of academic institutions stretches beyond elite colleges [ Fresh Air ]

Kenyon College graduates win 7 Fulbright Fellowships [ knoxpages.com ]

The flava:

Seven Kenyon graduates have been awarded prestigious Fulbright fellowships, continuing the College’s legacy of success with the international academic exchange program.

Kenyon has long been a liberal arts leader in producing Fulbright scholars, and earlier this year it was recognized for the number of applicants it had selected for the 2024-25 student scholar program.

Kenyon has received the “top producer” designation 18 times in the past 20 years. 

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, provides funding for students and young professionals seeking graduate study, advanced research and teaching opportunities worldwide. . . .  

The article:

https://www.knoxpages.com/2025/07/20/kenyon-college-graduates-win-7-fulbright-fellowships/

Former Supreme Court Justice Souter on The Danger of America's 'Pervasive Civic Ignorance' (2012)

The End of Cheating As We Know It [ Michael Wagner ]

"After decades of playing cat-and-mouse with academic dishonesty, we've reached an inflection point. I strongly believe that the old definition of cheating is obsolete and pretending otherwise helps no one. As I reflect on the rapid transformation of educational assessment over the past two years, I’m struck by how fundamentally generative AI has disrupted our assumptions about authorship, originality, and the very nature of learning itself. The recent wave of universities abandoning detection tools meant to combat cheating isn’t merely a technical failure—it’s a watershed moment that demands we completely reimagine what academic integrity means in an era of human-AI collaboration. . . . "

The author:

https://www.theaugmentededucator.com/about

‘It’s just bots talking to bots’: AI is running rampant on college campuses as students and professors alike lean on the tech [ Fortune ]

Duck.ai's two-sentence summary of the article:

The article highlights a controversy at Northeastern University where a student demanded a tuition refund after discovering her professor used AI tools like ChatGPT to generate lecture notes without disclosing this to students. The incident underscores the shifting dynamics in higher education regarding AI, as students express concerns over transparency while educators navigate the challenges of integrating AI into their teaching practices.

The article:

https://fortune.com/2025/07/08/ai-higher-education-college-professors-students-chatgpt/

What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? [ The New Yorker ]

The flava:

On a blustery spring Thursday, just after midterms, I went out for noodles with Alex and Eugene, two undergraduates at New York University, to talk about how they use artificial intelligence in their schoolwork. When I first met Alex, last year, he was interested in a career in the arts, and he devoted a lot of his free time to photo shoots with his friends. But he had recently decided on a more practical path: he wanted to become a C.P.A. His Thursdays were busy, and he had forty-five minutes until a study session for an accounting class. He stowed his skateboard under a bench in the restaurant and shook his laptop out of his bag, connecting to the internet before we sat down.

Alex has wavy hair and speaks with the chill, singsong cadence of someone who has spent a lot of time in the Bay Area. He and Eugene scanned the menu, and Alex said that they should get clear broth, rather than spicy, “so we can both lock in our skin care.” Weeks earlier, when I’d messaged Alex, he had said that everyone he knew used ChatGPT in some fashion, but that he used it only for organizing his notes. In person, he admitted that this wasn’t remotely accurate. “Any type of writing in life, I use A.I.,” he said. He relied on Claude for research, DeepSeek for reasoning and explanation, and Gemini for image generation. ChatGPT served more general needs. “I need A.I. to text girls,” he joked, imagining an A.I.-enhanced version of Hinge. I asked if he had used A.I. when setting up our meeting. He laughed, and then replied, “Honestly, yeah. I’m not tryin’ to type all that. Could you tell?”

OpenAI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Six days later, Sam Altman, the C.E.O., announced that it had reached a million users. Large language models like ChatGPT don’t “think” in the human sense—when you ask ChatGPT a question, it draws from the data sets it has been trained on and builds an answer based on predictable word patterns. Companies had experimented with A.I.-driven chatbots for years, but most sputtered upon release; Microsoft’s 2016 experiment with a bot named Tay was shut down after sixteen hours because it began spouting racist rhetoric and denying the Holocaust. But ChatGPT seemed different. It could hold a conversation and break complex ideas down into easy-to-follow steps. Within a month, Google’s management, fearful that A.I. would have an impact on its search-engine business, declared a “code red.”

Among educators, an even greater panic arose. It was too deep into the school term to implement a coherent policy for what seemed like a homework killer: in seconds, ChatGPT could collect and summarize research and draft a full essay. Many large campuses tried to regulate ChatGPT and its eventual competitors, mostly in vain. I asked Alex to show me an example of an A.I.-produced paper. Eugene wanted to see it, too. He used a different A.I. app to help with computations for his business classes, but he had never gotten the hang of using it for writing. “I got you,” Alex told him. (All the students I spoke with are identified by pseudonyms.)

He opened Claude on his laptop. I noticed a chat that mentioned abolition. “We had to read Robert Wedderburn for a class,” he explained, referring to the nineteenth-century Jamaican abolitionist. “But, obviously, I wasn’t tryin’ to read that.” He had prompted Claude for a summary, but it was too long for him to read in the ten minutes he had before class started. He told me, “I said, ‘Turn it into concise bullet points.’ ” He then transcribed Claude’s points in his notebook, since his professor ran a screen-free classroom. . . .   

The article:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/07/07/the-end-of-the-english-paper

West Point R-Day Class '29 Reporting to the Cadet in the Red Sash

Parents FAQs: https://www.westpoint.edu/parents/frequently-asked-questions

In California, Colleges Pay a Steep Price for Faulty AI Detectors [ Undark ]

The flava:

It has been more than two years since the release of ChatGPT created widespread dismay over generative AI’s threat to academic integrity. Why would students write anything themselves, instructors wondered, if a chatbot could do it for them? Indeed, many students have taken the bait, if not to write entire essays, then certainly to draft an outline, refine their ideas or clean up their writing before submitting it.

And as faculty members grapple with what this means for grading, tech companies have proved yet again that there’s money to be made from panic. Turnitin, a longtime leader in the plagiarism-detection market, released a new tool within six months of ChatGPT’s debut to identify AI-generated writing in students’ assignments. In 2025 alone, records show the California State University system collectively paid an extra $163,000 for it, pushing total spending this year to over $1.1 million. Most of these campuses have licensed Turnitin’s plagiarism detector since 2014.

That detector first became popular among professors when the internet made it easy for students to copy and paste information from websites into their assignments. In the AI detector, faculty members sought both a way to discourage students from using ChatGPT on their homework and a way to identify the AI-generated writing when they saw it.

But the technology offers only a shadow of accurate detection. . . .  

The article:

https://undark.org/2025/07/01/california-colleges-ai-detectors/

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road [ Notes & Keys, Columbia University ]

Higher Ed in the Crosshairs [ The Aspen Institute ]

With Shavar Jeffries, David Leonhardt, Margaret Spellings, Michael Elliott, & Ted Mitchell

Policing higher education [ Bryan Alexander interviews Eve Darian-Smith ]

Eve Darian-Smith

Bryan Alexander

Record number of higher education students highlights global need for recognition of qualifications [ UNESCO ]

The flava:

The number of students enrolled in higher education worldwide reached a record 264 million, a surge of 25 million since 2020 and more than double the total in 2000, according to new UNESCO data.

This rapid expansion reflects a global broadening of higher education pathways, including online degrees, hybrid courses, and micro-credentials shift, complementing traditional models and reshaping how knowledge is delivered and assessed. Academic mobility is also on the rise, with 6.9 million students studying away from their home country, a number that has tripled since 2000. 

While global enrolment has surged — with women now outnumbering men in higher education globally (113 women per 100 men in 2023) — large disparities persist. Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, has a gross enrolment ratio of just 9% compared to the global average of 43%. . . .  

The article:

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/record-number-higher-education-students-highlights-global-need-recognition-qualifications

Behind the turmoil of federal attacks on colleges, some states are going after tenure [ The Hechinger Report ]

The flava:

The “gravy train.” That’s what a Hawai‘i state senator called the practice of awarding tenure to university research faculty when she proposed legislation stripping this long-standing form of job protection from them. 

The bill got little notice at the time. Now, obscured by the turmoil of the many other challenges to higher education since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, tenure has come under siege in states across the country.

Never in the 110-year history of tenure in the United States have there been so many attempts to gut or reconfigure it, said Julie Reuben, a professor of the history of American education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. . . . 

The article:

https://hechingerreport.org/behind-the-turmoil-of-federal-attacks-on-colleges-some-states-are-going-after-tenure/

Teen paralyzed in pool dive finds new dream at SMU: "‘I never thought about college" [ CBS TEXAS ]

AI Agents Are Set To Transform Higher Education—Here’s How [ Forbes ]

The flava:

McKinsey’s Seizing the Agentic AI Advantage report notes that while 78% of companies have deployed generative AI tools, only a small fraction report meaningful impact. Most companies start with tools like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, or Google Gemini. These are typically horizontal copilots—general-purpose tools for writing, summarizing, or brainstorming across many roles.

The issue is that many organizations stop there, using GenAI tools as assistants for individual productivity (such as helping an employee write emails or draft a document). These use cases often don’t change how work is structured, so the impact remains limited.

McKinsey contrasts this with agentic AI systems that are embedded into workflows. These systems take action, make decisions within guardrails, and solve problems in a domain-specific, goal-oriented way (like admissions, student advising, or academic research support). These vertical agents, when built with clear integration into business processes, are what lead to meaningful impact. . . . 

The article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivalegatt/2025/06/16/ai-agents-are-set-to-transform-higher-education-heres-how/

Why Did Syracuse Offer $200,000 Deals to Teens Who Had Turned It Down? [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

By the time the usual May 1 college deposit deadline rolled around this year, David Berger’s daughter had already made up her mind: She would leave Alpharetta, Ga., and become a Penn State Nittany Lion.

But Syracuse University, which had also accepted her, wasn’t done with her yet. After having initially offered exactly zero merit aid, its staff began a poaching campaign.

A $20,000-per-year offer arrived on May 2. Then came a $10,000-per-year discount two days later. Weeks went by before Syracuse dangled an additional $20,000 per year.

“Spaces will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis,” that last email said.

All of this left the scores of families that received similar offers scratching their heads. “It’s almost like they’ve turned into used car salesmen,” said Mr. Berger, whose daughter is sticking with Penn State.

Syracuse appears to have played chicken with children and lost. Having lowballed their parents in March and April, the school presumably came up many heads short for its newest class. Once May rolled around, it had to offer eye-popping discounts to steal kids away from other schools.

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/your-money/syracuse-merit-aid.html

:-)

The recent history of AI in 32 otters [ Ethan Mollick ]

https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-recent-history-of-ai-in-32-otters

Can we even imagine how the students will use A.I. tomorrow?

Are International Students Good for American Universities? [ David A. Bell ]

The flava:

This is the Trumpian viewpoint in a nutshell: The enrollment of foreign students is basically an elite scam. And the Trumpian solution, at least in Harvard’s case, is to shut things down as brutally as possible, regardless of the consequences for the students who cannot complete their degrees, the labs that need these students to conduct research and the university that is losing the tuition income.

But the fact that the Trump administration is handling the issue crudely doesn’t mean it’s not a real issue. Strikingly, the progressive historian Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins and the conservative law professor Adrian Vermeule both suggested on X after Mr. Trump’s move against Harvard that perhaps international enrollments should not continue at the same level.

By some measures, the opening of American higher education to international students is an obvious, unqualified good. By others, it is much more problematic. . . . 

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/opinion/international-students-harvard-trump.html

The author:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Bell

University of the People offers students a new and affordable college experience [ PBS NewsHour ]

commencement speeches 2025

 

letters regarding international students

April 16 Department of Homeland Security letter to Harvard

May 22 Department of Homeland Security letter to Harvard

The War Keeps Raging Against Science [ Science Vs ]

The transcript and citations:

https://bit.ly/ScienceVsWarKeepsRaging

Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Hearing: State of Higher Education

US higher education cuts ‘opportune moment’ for Hong Kong to attract talent, says head of city’s top university [ Hong Kong Free Press ]

The flava:

However, Hong Kong also faces competition from other universities in the region in attracting talent, he said, citing the case of ex-Harvard chemist Charles Lieber.

Lieber, who in 2021 was convicted of lying to the US federal government about his research ties to China, joined Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, a university in Shenzhen, as a professor in late April.

Zhang told the newspapers that Lieber intended to come to HKU, but the Chinese university made a better offer. The vice-chancellor added that housing and education for children in Hong Kong posed an additional challenge in the city’s bid to bring in talent. . . . 

The article:

https://hongkongfp.com/2025/05/20/us-higher-education-cuts-opportune-moment-for-hong-kong-to-attract-talent-says-head-of-citys-top-university/

Crisis on campus: The future of higher education [ Connecticut Public Radio ]

https://www.ctpublic.org/show/the-wheelhouse/2025-05-14/crisis-on-campus-the-future-of-higher-education

GUESTS:

• Susan Raff, Chief political reporter, WFSB Eyewitness News Ch. 3
• Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, Investigative reporter, Hearst Connecticut Media
• Brian Rosenberg, Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, author of Whatever It Is, I’m Against It
• Jon Marcus, Senior higher education reporter for The Hechinger Report and co-host of the podcast, “College Uncovered” 

Attorney: University of Alabama student detained by ICE chooses to return to Iran [ Tuscaloosanews.com ]

The flava:

A University of Alabama graduate student detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than 40 days said he wants to return to Iran, his home country. 

David Rozas, an attorney representing Alireza Doroudi, said in a statement May 8 that Douroudi made the decision after a hearing in Jena, Louisiana, where he was taken by authorities after ICE agents took him into custody in March. 

“Mr. Doroudi made the difficult decision to ask for and was granted voluntary departure and return to Iran in order to avoid prolonged and unnecessary detention,” Rozas said in the statement. “He turned and looked at me and said, ‘I love this country, but they don’t want me here, so I will go home.”’ 

The article:

https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/news/2025/05/13/detained-university-of-alabama-student-wants-to-return-to-iran/83597968007/

The Professors Are Using ChatGPT, and Some Students Aren’t Happy About It [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

In February, Ella Stapleton, then a senior at Northeastern University, was reviewing lecture notes from her organizational behavior class when she noticed something odd. Was that a query to ChatGPT from her professor?

Halfway through the document, which her business professor had made for a lesson on models of leadership, was an instruction to ChatGPT to “expand on all areas. Be more detailed and specific.” It was followed by a list of positive and negative leadership traits, each with a prosaic definition and a bullet-pointed example.

Ms. Stapleton texted a friend in the class.

“Did you see the notes he put on Canvas?” she wrote, referring to the university’s software platform for hosting course materials. “He made it with ChatGPT.”

“OMG Stop,” the classmate responded. “What the hell?”

Ms. Stapleton decided to do some digging. She reviewed her professor’s slide presentations and discovered other telltale signs of A.I.: distorted text, photos of office workers with extraneous body parts and egregious misspellings.

She was not happy. . . . 

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/technology/chatgpt-college-professors.html

College Decision Reactions 2025 (Ivies, T20, UC's) [ Eileen Zhang ]

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College. ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project. [ nymag.com ]

The flava:

In January 2023, just two months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a survey of 1,000 college students found that nearly 90 percent of them had used the chatbot to help with homework assignments. . . .

Still, while professors may think they are good at detecting AI-generated writing, studies have found they’re actually not. One, published in June 2024, used fake student profiles to slip 100 percent AI-generated work into professors’ grading piles at a U.K. university. The professors failed to flag 97 percent. It doesn’t help that since ChatGPT’s launch, AI’s capacity to write human-sounding essays has only gotten better. . . . 

The article:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

The archived article without paywall:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250507112131/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html

Harvard President Responds to Trump’s ‘Highly Illegal’ Threats [ WSJ ]

How Are Universities Trying to Fight Back Against Trump’s Mandates? [ Amanpour and Company ]

Some college presidents express an opinion.

Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation. . . . 

Signed,

Jonathan Alger, President, American University

Suzanne Ames, President, Peninsula College

Carmen Twillie Ambar, President, Oberlin College

Denise A. Battles, President, SUNY Geneseo

Ian Baucom, Incoming President, Middlebury College

Allan Belton, President, Pacific Lutheran University

Hubert Benitez, President, Saint Peter's University 

Joanne Berger-Sweeney, President, Trinity College (CT)

Michael A. Bernstein, President, The College of New Jersey

Audrey Bilger, President, Reed College 

Erik J. Bitterbaum, President, SUNY Cortland

Sarah Bolton, President, Whitman College

Mary H. Bonderoff, President, SUNY Delhi

Eric Boynton, President, Beloit College

Elizabeth H. Bradley, President, Vassar College

Brian Bruess, President, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University

Adam Bush, President, College Unbound

Alison Byerly, President, Carleton College

Wendy Cadge, President and Professor of Sociology, Bryn Mawr College

Nancy Cantor, President, Hunter College CUNY

Alberto Jose Cardelle, President, SUNY Oneonta

Brian W. Casey, President, Colgate University

Ana Mari Cauce, Professor and President, University of Washington

Andrea Chapdelaine, President, Connecticut College

Thom D. Chesney, President, Southwestern College (NM)

Bryan F. Coker, President, Maryville College 

Ronald B. Cole, President, Allegheny College

Jennifer Collins, President, Rhodes College

John Comerford, President, Otterbein University

Marc C. Conner, President, Skidmore College

La Jerne Terry Cornish, President, Ithaca College

Grant Cornwell, President, Rollins College

Isiaah Crawford, President, University of Puget Sound

Gregory G. Dell'Omo, President, Rider University

Kent Devereaux, President, Goucher College

Jim Dlugos, Interim President, Landmark College

Bethami Dobkin, President, Westminster University

Harry Dumay, President, Elms College

Christopher L. Eisgruber, President, Princeton University

Michael A. Elliott, President, Amherst College

Jane Fernandes, President, Antioch College

Damian J. Fernandez, President, Warren Wilson College

David Fithian, President, Clark University

Lisa C. Freeman, President, Northern Illinois University

Robert Gaines, Acting President, Pomona College

Alan M. Garber, President, Harvard University

Michael H. Gavin, President, Delta College

Mark D. Gearan, President, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Melissa Gilliam, President, Boston University

Jorge G. Gonzalez, President, Kalamazoo College

Jonathan D. Green, President, Susquehanna University

David A. Greene, President, Colby College

William R. Groves, Chancellor, Antioch University

Jeremy Haefner, Chancellor, University of Denver

Yoshiko Harden, President, Renton Technical College

Anne F. Harris, President, Grinnell College

James T. Harris, President, University of San Diego

Marjorie Hass, President, Council of Independent Colleges 

Richard J. Helldobler, President, William Paterson University

Wendy Hensel, President, University of Hawaii

James Herbert, President, University of New England

Doug Hicks, President, Davidson College

Mary Dana Hinton, President, Hollins University 

Jonathan Holloway, President, Rutgers University

Robin Holmes-Sullivan, President, Lewis & Clark College

Robert H. Huntington, President, Heidelberg University 

Nicole Hurd, President, Lafayette College

Wolde-Ab Isaac, Chancellor, Riverside Community College District

Karim Ismaili, President, Eastern Connecticut State University

J. Larry Jameson, President, University of Pennsylvania

Garry W. Jenkins, President, Bates College

Paula A. Johnson, President, Wellesley College

John E. Jones III, President, Dickinson College

Cristle Collins Judd, President, Sarah Lawrence College

David L. Kaufman, President, Capital University

Colleen Perry Keith, President, Goldey-Beacom College

Julie Johnson Kidd, President, Endeavor Foundation

Jonathan Koppell, President, Montclair State University

Sally Kornbluth, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Julie Kornfeld, President, Kenyon College

Michael I. Kotlikoff, President, Cornell University

Paula Krebs, Executive Director, Modern Language Association

Sunil Kumar, President, Tufts University

Bobbie Laur, President, Campus Compact

Frederick M. Lawrence, Secretary and CEO, Phi Beta Kappa Society

Hilary L. Link, President, Drew University

Patricia A. Lynott, President, Rockford University

Heidi Macpherson, President, SUNY Brockport

John Maduko, President, Connecticut State Community College

Lynn Mahoney, President, San Francisco State University

Daniel Mahony, President, Southern Illinois University 

Maud S. Mandel, President, Williams College

Christine Mangino, President, Queensborough Community College

Amy Marcus-Newhall, President, Scripps College

Felix V. Matos-Rodriguez, Chancellor, City University of New York (CUNYAnne E. McCall, President, The College of Wooster

Richard L. McCormick, Interim President, Stony Brook University

Michael McDonald, President, Great Lakes Colleges Association

James McGrath, President and Dean, Cooley Law School

Patricia McGuire, President, Trinity Washington University

Maurie McInnis, President, Yale University

Elizabeth M. Meade, President, Cedar Crest College

Scott D. Miller, President, Virginia Wesleyan University

Jennifer Mnookin, Chancellor, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Robert Mohrbacher, President, Centralia College

Chris Moody, Executive Director, ACPA-College Student Educators International

Tomas Morales, President, California State University San Bernardino

Milton Moreland, President, Centre College

Kathryn Morris, President, St. Lawrence University

Ross Mugler, Board Chair and Acting President and CEO, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

Krista L. Newkirk, President, University of Redlands

Stefanie D. Niles, President, Cottey College

Claire Oliveros, President, Riverside City College

Robyn Parker, Interim President, Saybrook University

Lynn Pasquerella, President, American Association of Colleges and Universities

Laurie L. Patton, President, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Beth Paul, President, Nazareth University

Christina Paxson, President, Brown University

Rob Pearigen, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of the South

Deidra Peaslee, President, Saint Paul College

Eduardo M. Peñalver, President, Seattle University

Ora Pescovitz, President, Oakland University

Darryll J. Pines, President, University of Maryland

Nicola Pitchford, President, Dominican University of California

Kevin Pollock, President, Central Carolina Technical College 

Susan Poser, President, Hofstra University

Paul C. Pribbenow, President, Augsburg University

Vincent Price, President, Duke University

Robert Quinn, Executive Director, Scholars at Risk Network

Wendy E. Raymond, President, Haverford College

Christopher M. Reber, President, Hudson County Community College 

Suzanne M. Rivera, President, Macalester College - Saint Paul, MN ( MBR )

Michael S. Roth, President, Wesleyan University

James Ryan, President, University of Virginia

Vincent Rougeau, President, College of the Holy Cross

Kurt L. Schmoke, President, University of Baltimore

Carol Geary Schneider, Acting Executive Director, Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition

Sean M. Scott, President and Dean, California Western School of Law

Zaldwaynaka Scott, President, Chicago State University

Philip J. Sisson, President, Middlesex Community College (MA)

Suzanne Smith, President, SUNY Potsdam

Valerie Smith, President, Swarthmore College

Paul Sniegowski, President, Earlham College

Barbara R. Snyder, President, Association of American Universities

Stephen Snyder, Interim President, Middlebury College

Weymouth Spence, President, Washington Adventist University

Terri Standish-Kuon, President and CEO, Independent Colleges of Washington

G. Gabrielle Starr, President, Pomona College 

Karen A. Stout, President, Achieving the Dream

Tom Stritikus, President, Occidental College

Julie Sullivan, President, Santa Clara University 

Aondover Tarhule, President, Illinois State University

Glena Temple, President, Dominican University

Steven J. Tepper. President, Hamilton College

Kellye Y. Testy, CEO, Association of American Law Schools

Tania Tetlow, President, Fordham University

Strom C. Thacker, President, Pitzer College

Scott L. Thomas, President, Sterling College 

Deborah Trautman, President and CEO, American Association of Colleges of Nursing

Satish K. Tripathi, President, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Kyaw Moe Tun, President, Parami University

Brad Tyndall, President, Central Wyoming College

LaTanya Tyson, President, Carolina Christian College

Matthew P. vandenBerg, President, Ohio Wesleyan University

James Vander Hooven, President, Mount Wachusett Community College

Laura R. Walker, President, Bennington College

Yolanda Watson Spiva, President, Complete College America 

Michaele Whelan, President, Wheaton College

Manya C. Whitaker, Interim President, Colorado College

Julie A. Manley White, Chancellor and CEO, Pierce College

Kim A. Wilcox, Chancellor, University of California, Riverside

Sarah Willie-LeBreton, President, Smith College

Safa R. Zaki, President, Bowdoin College

Source:

https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement

Wesleyan Pres.: “We Don’t Want To See Students Living in Fear of Their Gov.” [ Amanpour and Company ]

Terminally ill Stanford professor teaches class about dying from cancer [ KREM 2 News ]