Inside Higher Ed

Student Success | Campus Engagement Tip: Encouraging Student Voting Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, colleges, community organizations and student advocates are looking to boost on-campus civic engagement through voter registration and participation initiatives. https://bit.ly/4e7MRhJ

Campus Cuts Appear to Slow in August Fewer institutions announced layoffs in August compared to the earlier summer months. But at several universities that did, the cuts were sweeping. https://bit.ly/47ai5m2

Career Advice | The Summer Break That Isn’t Faculty need to be able to use the time in ways they can return rested and renewed in the fall, but that often doesn’t happen, writes Northern Virginia Community College's Susannah M. Givens. https://bit.ly/3AKin74

In recognition of Labor Day, IHE is taking a publishing break and will return tomorrow, 9/3. ICYMI 2024 has been a significant year for labor and unionization in higher education. Check out all our coverage at the link in bio. ➡️ https://bit.ly/3AYnlx2

In this week's Inside Higher Ed Sandbox, a boatload of college and university presidents respond to someone telling them how to do their job. I started out with myself: Five years ago, a friend had just been named to a (big) presidency. After hugging him, I said, “I just want one thing from you.” “What’s that?” “Moral leadership,” I said, smug in my role as a faculty member. With a winning smirk, he said, “Can I get my kids through college first?” For the next five years, I followed his stunning career, as he bobbed and weaved with grace and skill through a challenging situation. I watched him speak out with conviction, promote the work of others, especially people of color, and champion the causes we all care so much about. From people who worked with and for him, and in the news, I heard about how well he was doing his job. This summer, at a leadership institute, one of the participants asked a panel of former and current leaders about "moral courage" in the job. One responded: “Just showing up at the office every day is an act of moral courage." When I saw my friend again recently, I said, “Remember our conversation when you first got the big job?” He did. "I am so sorry,” I said. How annoying it must have been to hear my perspective as an indignant faculty member who knew zip about what the job was or required. “No," he said. “It was a heavy burden.” He’d thought a lot about my comments and explained it helps to have the words of people we trust in our heads. You sometimes need to be reminded of who you are and what you believe. He also said that he’s grateful for some of those angry faculty members who call him out for, well, everything. They can be useful and it’s important to listen to them. Still, I remain embarrassed by how little I knew then, and how free I felt to offer an uninformed opinion. 

ICYMI | In West Virginia, billboards declare that students should fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and “fetch funds for college fast.” In Alabama, students who have yet to finish the form are receiving direct text messages reminding them to complete their FAFSA. In Mississippi, dozens of businesses, churches and nonprofits are hosting events to help students with the application. States across the country have worked all summer on a final push to boost FAFSA completion rates, which have dropped this year due to the U.S. Department of Education’s botched launch of the revamped form. State officials and college-access professionals say their efforts, backed by a $50 million infusion from the Education Department, have helped to move the needle, but they don’t expect to catch up to last year’s application numbers. “The hole that students were in over all was so deep that it’s very hard to climb out … over the course of the summer,” said Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives for National College Attainment Network (NCAN), a nonprofit. “Closing the gap is out of the question.” Read more ➡️ https://bit.ly/3MmPTmw

ICYMI | A Florida State University professor has found a way to detect whether generative artificial intelligence was used to cheat on multiple-choice exams, opening up a new avenue for faculty who have long been worried about the ramifications of the technology. When generative AI first sprang into the public consciousness in November 2022, following the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, academics immediately expressed concerns over the potential for students using the technology to produce term papers or conjure up admissions essays. But the potential for using generative AI to cheat on multiple-choice tests has largely been overlooked. Kenneth Hanson got interested after he published research on the outcomes of in-person versus online exams. After a peer reviewer asked Hanson how ChatGPT might change those outcomes, Hanson joined with Ben Sorenson, a machine-learning engineer at FSU, to collect data in fall 2022. They published their results this summer. Read more ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ZbXN9M

ICYMI | Here are a few headlines from this week: 🚫 New Sweet Briar Policy Bars Transgender Students 🤖 Can AI Be Used to Cheat on Multiple-Choice Exams? Read more in this week's update ➡️ https://bit.ly/4e8Ntnv

ICYMI | The University of Utah is one of many institutions in Republican-led states nationwide to be impacted by legislation mandating the closure of diversity, equity and inclusion offices—as well as the cultural and affinity centers that typically fall under the DEI umbrella. Though some lauded Utah’s law for being more lenient than others, it still prompted the U, as the flagship is known, to close three centers: the LGBT Resource Center, the Women’s Resource Center and the Center for Equity and Student Belonging, previously called the Center for Ethnic Student Affairs. The Black Cultural Center remains open but has been stripped of all programming, leaving it only as a “community gathering space.” The U implemented the changes to comply with guidance from the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE), which clarified that universities could not offer resources that appeared to be available only to some students and not others (even if they were technically open to all). When the changes went into effect on July 1, they drew backlash from campus community members. Read more ➡️ https://bit.ly/3XkwcSy

ICYMI | Here are a few headlines from this week: 😰 Faculty Members Are Burned Out—and Technology Is Partly to Blame 🧑💻 Universities Hit Back Against Proposed Online Attendance Policy ✂️ ‘Red Wedding’: Storied Stanford Creative Writing Program Laying Off Lecturers 📚 Academic Publishers Threatened By Open-Access Expansion Read more in this week's update ➡️ https://bit.ly/4e8Ntnv