Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, May 7. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Flex your AI muscles

As the academic year draws toward a close, colleges are far from closing the books on uncertainty about artificial intelligence in the classroom.

College students are a top target market for AI companies that hope to turn giveaways today into high-margin customers tomorrow. OpenAI is offering its ChatGPT Plus for free through May to college students. Google says its Gemini Advanced is “free for college students through finals 2026.”

Optimistic academics have often pushed students to use AI to advance their learning, rather than to cheat. Sue Hum, an English professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, says that when she teaches students to combine archival research with AI prompting, they produce complex projects.

• “Specific prompting — really good specific prompting — matters,” Hum recently told The Chronicle’s Beth McMurtrie. “I don’t think it’s going to do away with creative thinking or critical thinking. I think it’s going to ask us to think very differently. But ultimately, the takeaway is you need to know more rather than less.”

But pessimists say that teaching students good ways to use AI doesn’t mean they won’t use it to cheat. “Faculty and students have been telling me … an instructor can introduce AI for essay feedback or test prep without that stopping their student from also using it to write most of their assignments,” Clay Shirky, vice provost for AI and technology in education at New York University, writes in The Chronicle Review.

The big concern remains: AI is undercutting the tools that faculty members use to make students think, like essays and research assignments. Shirky cites a slew of research suggesting AI is a crutch that props up student performance when it’s available, leaving it to collapse when it’s not. Even some students say they’re worried they’ve become too dependent on AI.

Clearly, colleges and classrooms face a long process of adaptation, particularly as AI tools’ abilities evolve. That can feel overwhelming.

Why not try a simple AI exercise routine? Marc Watkins suggests it in a new Chronicle advice column. It won’t substitute for institutional support, but it could at least allow professors to offer students practical advice:

• Read about AI for 30 minutes per week. Books and free newsletters both count.
• Use AI for 30 minutes a week. It’s the only way to understand what the tools can do and how they appeal to students.
• Reflect for 30 minutes per week. This doesn’t have to mean silent discernment. Talk with a colleague.

The bigger picture: It’s not only faculty members who would stand to gain from deeper engagement with new technology and the challenges it presents. Administrators, students, and even journalists could benefit, too.

📱 For more on AI from The Chronicle: Colleges Turn to AI to Fix the Disjointed Student-Transfer Process

Federal news

• High stakes at antisemitism hearing today: The House Committee on Education and the Workforce will grill three college presidents today in a hearing that expands the scope of Republicans’ inquiry beyond the country’s research powerhouses. As the hearing neared, one of the presidents set to testify, Wendy Raymond of Haverford College, apologized “to Jewish members of our community who felt as if the College was not there for you.” But some Haverford faculty members have attacked the committee’s credibility, singling some members out for allegedly overlooking antisemitic incidents in their own districts and accusing them of “weaponizing our pain and anguish.” (The Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Guardian)
• ABA poised to keep diversity rule on ice: The American Bar Association’s accreditation arm is scheduled to consider on Friday whether to extend its suspension of a rule that requires law schools to show they’re committed to diversity in recruitment, admissions, and programming. In February, the ABA suspended the rule for six months. President Trump has since signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Education to consider jettisoning the ABA as the government’s recognized law-school accreditor. (Reuters)
• Trump demands viewpoint diversity at Columbia: The administration has presented Columbia University with proposed terms for a legally binding consent decree that would require viewpoint diversity among faculty members and bar the institution from considering race in admissions. Officials told university leaders they can strike a deal on a consent decree or fight the government in court. Columbia called reports that it’s negotiating while considering its options “hearsay” and pointed to a statement from last month that said the university would reject any deal requiring it to give up independence. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Lawsuit seeks to stop NSF cap: Thirteen research universities, the Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities have sued the National Science Foundation to challenge a 15-percent overhead cap it announced last Friday. They argue that, like similar overhead caps federal judges have halted at other agencies, the NSF policy violates federal law because it was created without public notice and without considering agreements colleges have with the government. (ACE)
• Michigan State primed for budget cuts: Federal changes have undercut research projects and left the university needing “to make hard decisions that will impact people we care about,” said the president, Kevin Guskiewicz, in a letter to faculty and staff members on Monday. More details about budget adjustments are forthcoming. (WLNS)

Join us live on Thursday

📺 The Chronicle’s Sarah Brown and Rick Seltzer are returning, once again, to talk about all the latest news from the Trump administration and what it means for higher ed. Thanks to Google Cloud for sponsoring. Join us at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. 📺

If you joined us at our online events on April 3 or April 24, you’re already registered. If not: 🖊️ Sign up here. 🖊️

Protest watch

• Dozens arrested in Washington: Roughly 30 pro-Palestinian students were arrested at the University of Washington on Monday night after they took over a building and set dumpsters on fire. The group, Super UW, said it targeted an engineering building erected in part with funding from Boeing to object to the company’s defense work with Israel. University officials said the activists created a dangerous environment. (NBC News)
• Five arrested in Oregon: Portland State University called police officers to help with crowd control outside of its student union on Monday night. Riley Gaines, an activist who opposes trans athletes participating in women’s sports, was scheduled to talk in the building. About 150 people took part in a peaceful student-led protest. Later, an unaffiliated group of about 40 people assembled, tried to open locked doors, and left graffiti. (KGW, Oregon Public Broadcasting)

Quick hits

• Degrees still highly regarded: Almost nine in 10 adults without a college degree or credential think some such postsecondary attainment is valuable, according to a survey released today of nearly 14,000 American adults without degrees. The share of enrolled adults who’ve considered dropping out dipped by three points to 32 percent. (Lumina Foundation, Gallup)
• Alumnus’s name taken off business school: The University of Portland School of Business no longer bears the name of Robert Pamplin Jr., a wealthy philanthropist who owns a corporate conglomerate. Pamplin and his company recently admitted in a legal settlement that they took part in transactions that violated pension laws. A university spokesperson said Pamplin’s name on the school “was subject to an agreement that has concluded.” (The Oregonian)
• Wichita State merges affinity-group events: Festivities focused on certain groups of students, like multicultural graduations, Lavender Graduations, and first-generation ceremonies, are being combined into “The Toast,” an existing event. The celebration is open to all and intended to allow students to “express their cultural and academic backgrounds with a selection of cords,” according to the institution in Kansas. It cited federal and state changes. (KWCH)
• More late pay at Arkansas Baptist: An email from the small private institution warned that checks due April 30 would be delayed, adding to a string of payroll problems in the last six months. The institution’s interim president, George Herts, said the college is securing financing to foot its bills. But he maintained that it’s financially secure, arguing it’s “easy to confuse cash-flow challenges with financial problems.” (KATV)

This section has been updated to make clear that “The Toast” is an existing event.

Transitions

• Jesse M. Bernal, vice president for strategy and university initiatives, chief of staff to the president, and chief executive of public charter schools at Grand Valley State University, in Michigan, has been named president of Western Connecticut State University.
• Deb Kerkaert, vice president for finance and administration at Southwest Minnesota State University, has been named acting president following Kumara Jayasuriya’s retirement.
• Mike Walsh, vice provost for student affairs at Oregon Health and Science University, has been named vice president for student affairs at the University of Mary Washington.
• Dennis Assanis, president of the University of Delaware since 2016, plans to step down at the end of June.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find Transitions online here.

Footnote

In 1969, construction crews poured concrete around the clock for 18 days at the University of Cincinnati. The resulting local landmark, the 16-story Crosley Tower, counts as the second-largest continuously poured concrete structure in the country, behind only the Hoover Dam.

Like any good brutalist building, this blocky behemoth has drawn both derision and defenders. Architectural Digest named it one of the seven ugliest university buildings in the country, deeming it more fit for “a Disney villain’s lair than a part of the University of Cincinnati’s campus.” Some students nonetheless founded a Crosley Tower Appreciation Club.

Whether you think the brutalists’ architectural abstractions are underwhelming or underappreciated, pour one out for poor Crosley Tower, which is pictured above courtesy of University of Cincinnati Marketing + Brand.

Trustees recently approved funding to tear down the building and an adjacent garage. Renovation is off the table because of its age and limited layout “that no longer serves programmatic needs,” according to the university, which has been planning the demolition for years. Back in 2020, The News Record student newspaper noted the building has been plagued by “a crumbling exterior, sinking foundation and leaky ceilings.”

Demolition and remediation will cost a whopping $47.3 million, cementing the building’s status as a budgetary nightmare.