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 I strongly believe that the old definition of cheating is obsolete and pretending otherwise helps no one.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 ]

USF cheerleaders’ daring stunt goes viral [ FOX 13 Tampa Bay ]

She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

Dr. Peshkin’s team is interested in sperm and egg cells, and how they repair damage as an embryo develops. They needed someone equally fluent in machine learning and cell biology, Dr. Peshkin explained in a post on Kaggle, an online community for data scientists. Ms. Petrova reached out.

When she arrived in Boston in May 2023, Dr. Peshkin was shocked to discover that she had not brought a suitcase; she carried a backpack. It became clear, he said, that she was “extremely ascetic,” entirely wrapped up in her research.

“I thought the Russia of my childhood was gone, the Russia of this crazy, dedicated, ascetic scientist is gone,” he said. Over the months that followed, Dr. Peshkin watched her focus intensely for many hours; he saw what she could pull off in a few days of coding. “She is probably strongest I’ve seen,” he said. “I am at Harvard for 20 years.”

Ms. Petrova found ways to speed up everyone’s work. . . . 

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/science/russian-scientist-ice-detained-harvard.html

Wiley journal retracts over 200 more papers [ Retraction Watch ]

The flava:

The International Wound Journal has retracted 242 papers so far this year as part of an ongoing investigation into manipulated peer review. . . .  

The article:

https://retractionwatch.com/2025/03/31/wiley-international-wound-journal-retracts-over-200-more-papers/

They came to the US for degrees. They fear being deported without them. [ csmonitor.com ]

The flava:

“If the United States government has national security concerns regarding a student and they feel that their visa should be revoked, they are within their rights to do that. But we are really trying to understand, in this new environment, what does that mean? What are these students doing that is triggering a national security concern?” says Sarah Spreitzer, assistant vice president at the American Council on Education, which advocates for 1,600 colleges and universities.

Most international college students hold F-1 visas and are allowed to enroll as full-time students. They are allowed to travel in and out of the country, and enjoy most constitutional rights. They cannot vote or receive federal financial aid or other government benefits.

International students have brought a financial boon to both universities and the overall U.S. economy. In a 2023-2024 school year analysis, 1.1 million international students added $43.8 billion to the economy and supported 378,175 jobs, the NAFSA Association of International Educators found. That was up from $26 billion a decade ago. Ms. Spreitzer is concerned that current policies could send students and researchers looking for berths in Canada or Europe instead. . . . 

The article:

https://www.csmonitor.com/text_edition/USA/Education/2025/0408/international-student-visas-deportation-ozturk-khalil

Postdoc Named Helen Hay Whitney Fellow [ Stowers Institute for Medical Research ]

College student reflects on impact of viral online rumor that 'ruined' her life [ NBC News ]

Ten weeks that shook the world [ Financial Times ]

The flava:

On many fronts, and with deliberate haste, America is vaporising its soft power. It takes less than a quarter to besmirch a brand that took a quarter of a millennium to build. How long would it take to repair? Last week, Myanmar was hit by its worst earthquake in decades. Chinese and even Russian aid teams were on the ground within days. Having dismantled USAID, American assistance has yet to arrive. At home, Trump plans to deport more than 300,000 Venezuelan refugees into the maw of the brutal regime they fled. 

None of the world’s huddled masses are welcome in America with one exception — white South Africans. As Trump shuts down agencies and consulates around the world, his administration is establishing processing centres for white Afrikaner “refugees” in Pretoria, who he claims are victims of racial discrimination by South Africa’s Black majority government. In case anyone misses the point, his administration is erasing the contributions of non-white Americans from Pentagon websites, the Arlington cemetery and the Smithsonian museum. Martin Luther King Jr is out. The names of defeated confederate generals are back. Science research projects are being scoured for banned words, such as “equity” and even “women”. 

All of this is being done in the name of meritocracy. America’s new guard are almost all white, all male, and mostly unqualified to lead the great departments they are vandalising. It is not just foreigners who are remaking their plans. American scientists are looking for jobs abroad. Trump has presented the rest of the world with a giant poaching opportunity. . . .   

The article:

https://www.ft.com/content/510069b5-75e5-4f1d-b382-56217f3866bb

How Each Pillar of the 1st Amendment is Under Attack [ krebsonsecurity.com ]

The flava:

In an address to Congress this month, President Trump claimed he had “brought free speech back to America.” But barely two months into his second term, the president has waged an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment rights of journalists, students, universities, government workers, lawyers and judges.

This story explores a slew of recent actions by the Trump administration that threaten to undermine all five pillars of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedoms concerning speech, religion, the media, the right to assembly, and the right to petition the government and seek redress for wrongs. . . . 

The article:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/

Opinion by Michael I. Kotlikoff

Cornell University recently hosted an event that any reputable P.R. firm would surely have advised against. On a calm campus, in a semester unroiled by protest, we chose to risk stirring the waters by organizing a panel discussion that brought together Israeli and Palestinian voices with an in-person audience open to all.

We held the event in our largest campus space, promoted it widely and devoted significant resources to hosting Salam Fayyad, a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority; Tzipi Livni, a former vice prime minister and foreign minister of Israel; and Daniel B. Shapiro, a former United States ambassador to Israel, in a discussion moderated by Ryan Crocker, a career diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to countries in some of the world’s most combustible regions.

The week before, I extended a personal invitation to our student community, explaining that open inquiry “is the antidote to corrosive narratives” and is what enables us “to see and respect other views, work together across differences and conceive of solutions to intractable problems.”

Was I surprised when the discussion was almost immediately interrupted by protest? Disappointed, yes, but not surprised or deterred. We had expected it and were prepared. The few students and staff members who had come only to disrupt were warned, warned again and then swiftly removed. They now face university discipline.

Inside the auditorium, the event went on as planned. . . . 

--Michael I. Kotlikoff, president of Cornell University and professor of molecular physiology.

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/opinion/ideas-universities-controversey-protest.html

A Day at the 'Anti-Woke' University Funded by Billionaire Trump Backers [ WSJ ]

Most college students are taking online classes, but they’re paying just as much as in-person students [ hechingerreport.org ]

The flava:

Emma Bittner considered getting a master’s degree in public health at a nearby university, but the in-person program cost tens of thousands of dollars more than she had hoped to spend.

So she checked out master’s degrees she could pursue remotely, on her laptop, which she was sure would be much cheaper.

The price for the same degree, online, was … just as much. Or more.

“I’m, like, what makes this worth it?” said Bittner, 25, who lives in Austin, Texas. “Why does it cost that much if I don’t get meetings face-to-face with the professor or have the experience in person?”

Among the surprising answers is that colleges and universities are charging more for online education to subsidize everything else they do, online managers say. Huge sums are also going into marketing and advertising for it, documents show.

The article:

https://hechingerreport.org/as-online-higher-education-hits-a-milestone-why-does-it-still-cost-so-much/

How Niche Programs Are Saving Higher Education [ Forbes ]

The flava: 

Higher education institutions must rethink their strategies to stay relevant in today's increasingly competitive landscape. As enrollment numbers dwindle, financial pressures mount, and competition from alternative education options rises, many schools seek ways to differentiate themselves. Higher education institutions marketed themselves for decades as one-size-fits-all solutions, offering broad liberal arts curricula and traditional majors. However, a new strategy is emerging as the landscape shifts: niche programs catering to high-demand, specialized fields. One of the most effective ways to do so is by offering specialized programs not widely available elsewhere. In an era where niche knowledge and skill sets are in high demand, universities that cater to specific industries or unique interests can position themselves as leaders in their fields. . . . 

The article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottwhite/2025/03/16/how-niche-programs-are-saving-higher-education/

Lee Bollinger presents his thoughts

I can’t comment specifically on current responses among universities, in part because they are facing an extremely difficult and, I would say, unprecedented political environment and, in part, because they are being put in a vise of dealing with an admittedly serious problem and being presented with an existential threat by forces unclear about what they really want. I can, however, make more general comments.

First, I believe universities must understand what their identity is, their role in the society, and then express and defend that identity. It is my view that the First Amendment should extend special protections to universities just as it arguably does for the press, as institutions of systemic importance serving the public’s interest in advancing understanding and knowledge and in informing the public about vital issues. Courts have afforded universities important protections because they are part of the bedrock of American values, reflected in the Constitution. Universities need to articulate that special role and defend it.

Second, I think that seeking shelter in the courts is most often the necessary path. I share the view of those who argue that the government cannot intrude into university decision-making without compelling reasons, whether directly or by placing unconstitutional conditions on funding. When I became president of the University of Michigan, I was immediately informed that we were the next target of the anti-affirmative action movement. This was an attack on a core value of the institution, and settlement or capitulation was not an option in my view. We ended up successfully making that case in the Supreme Court.

And, third, it is always important to take the long view, and we must make sure that when we emerge from whatever present crisis we are in, the choices we made will not make us ashamed. Universities last for centuries. . . .

We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. It’s been coming and coming, and not everybody is prepared to read it that way. The characters regarded as people to emulate, like Orban and Putin and so on, all indicate that the strategy is to create an illiberal democracy or an authoritarian democracy or a strongman democracy. That’s what we’re experiencing. Our problem in part is a failure of imagination. We cannot get ourselves to see how this is going to unfold in its most frightening versions. You neutralize the branches of government; you neutralize the media; you neutralize universities, and you’re on your way.

We’re beginning to see the effects on universities. It’s very, very frightening.

--Lee Bollinger, former president of Columbia University and the University of Michigan

podcasts this week: Grammar Girl, Fresh Air, & The Key with Inside Higher Ed

Local college students give up spring break to give back [ WOOD TV8 ]

Education Department Lays Off Nearly Half of Staff [ Inside Higher Ed ]

The flava:

The Education Department laid off “nearly 50 percent” of its more than 4,100 employees Tuesday evening, according to four sources inside the agency who were told about the plans and an agency news release. . . . 

The reductions will bring the total workforce down to fewer than 2,200. 

The department’s D.C. offices will be closed Wednesday for “security reasons,” according to an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed. The email instructed department staff to take their laptops home with them on Tuesday in order to telework Wednesday, and said they would “not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th, for any reason.” 

The article:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/03/11/education-department-reduce-staff-half

What science tells us about transgender athletes [ PBS NewsHour ]

As Trump Goes After Universities, Students Are Now on the Chopping Block [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

In the early weeks of the Trump administration’s push to slash funding that colleges and universities rely on, grants and contracts had been cut and, in a few cases, researchers had been laid off.

In recent days, the fiscal pain has come to students.

At the University of Pennsylvania, administrators have asked departments in the School of Arts & Sciences, the university’s largest school, to cut incoming Ph.D. students. In some cases, that meant reneging on informal offers, according to Wendy Roth, a professor of sociology.

Her department had to decide which of the students would be “unaccepted.” Dr. Roth, chair of graduate education, was chosen to explain those decisions to them.

“Two of them, I would say, were extremely upset. One person was in tears,” she said. “It’s just the most terrible thing to get that kind of news when your plans are made.”

Since taking office, the Trump administration has issued orders that threaten to broadly undercut the financial foundation of university based research, including deep reductions in overhead cost reimbursements through the National Institutes of Health. Court challenges have paused some of the cuts, but universities are bracing for uncertainty. The University of Pennsylvania could face a $250 million hit in N.I.H. funding alone. . . . 

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/politics/trump-university-funding-grad-student-cuts.html

Trump threatens to pull federal funds for US schools allowing ‘illegal protests’ [ The Guardian ]

The flava:

Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to halt all federal funding for any college or school that allows “illegal protests” and vowed to imprison “agitators”, in a social media statement that prompted alarm from free expression advocates.

“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” the US president wrote on Truth Social.

“Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on [sic] the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

In a statement on Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire) condemned Trump’s remarks. . . . 

The article:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/04/trump-university-funding-protests

:-)

Hoehne Alamosa Piedra Platner Yuma 😊 Brush Idalia Rollinsville Telluride Hotchkiss Downieville Almont Yoder  😊  Crestone Agate Limon   

"Will Universities Surrender or Resist?" Scholar Slams Trump's Threat to Defund Universities [ Democracy Now! ]

The crisis facing colleges and universities that no one is talking about [ thebigstorypodcast.ca ]

There is a crisis facing Canada’s post-secondary education sector that no one is talking about.

Now that the federal government has slashed the number of international student permits available in Canada, colleges and universities from coast to coast are facing huge budget shortfalls.

Several of Canada’s best schools are cutting programs and laying off staff just to stay afloat.

These institutions have no choice but to take drastic measures, or risk going bankrupt.

PhD student expelled from University of Minnesota for allegedly using AI [ KARE 11 ]

I was asked to keep this confidential [ Sabine Hossenfelder ]

5 Ways the Education Department Affects Higher Ed [ insidehighered.com ]

The flava:

Republicans’ long-sought goal of shuttering the Education Department got a boost this week as several media outlets reported the Trump administration was finalizing plans for an executive order to wind down the agency.

Trump added to the speculation, telling reporters Tuesday he wanted his education secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, to put herself out of a job. Then, on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said getting rid of the department is “an idea whose time has come.”

The specifics and timing of the executive order are still unclear, though media reports say the directive could instruct department officials to shut down some programs not directly approved by Congress or come up with a plan to move functions to other departments in the federal government. At the very least, the Trump administration wants to see a much smaller version of the department, particularly because only Congress can actually eliminate the agency.

More than 4,000 people currently work for the department, which was created in 1979. In fiscal year 2024, the department had a $80 billion discretionary budget. Its spending makes up just over 2 percent of the federal budget. . . . 

The article:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/student-aid-policy/2025/02/07/five-ways-education-department-impacts-higher-ed