Relationships and ChatGPT in learning

Inside Higher Education's Steve Mintz frequently offers insightful reflections with which I resonate. The Power of Relationships in Undergraduate Education is a review of two books directed at how relationships matter, relationships among students and with faculty. I tend to resonate with Mintz' articles because his content is often very familiar and comfortable for me, which is the case with this article. The points he makes are as old as the stories of Socrates who advocated the importance of discourse and intimate interaction in learning and as contemporary as the expressed preferences of students who are now studying in higher education institutions.

There is a fresh insight that I've previously not pondered - how undergraduates' inclination toward career preparation has turned higher education into a transaction, one in which students seek efficiency rather than depth. Mintz' conclusion is that meaningful relationships must be cultivated if students are to receive the quality of education that they need. He proposes very traditional strategies to enhance relationships such as mentoring, increasing peer interaction, and other high-impact practices. Mintz acknowledged that few students in the U.S. higher education sector actually have experiences that mirror these qualities but others deny that personalized liberal education is in a death spiral.

Enter artificial intelligence - Chat GPT... The emergence of technology complicates the question of relationships. The jury appears to be "in," confirming that technology is very powerful and must recognize the changing nature of the workforce. The big question is how can technology be turned into something personal. As an example, John Warner suggests that ChatGPT might offer a way to prioritize learning by moving away from the routine aspects of writing and on to more substantive engagement. For faculty attempting to control students' use of ChatGPT Warner asserts, "If ChatGPT can do the things we ask students to do in order to demonstrate learning, it seems possible to me that those things should've been questioned a long time ago."

Reinforcing its importance as a disruptive technology, educators have begun to harness it for good, including experimenting with conversations on complicated questions of life and exploring the essentials of what constitutes good writing. ChatGPT was also lauded as helping students with learning challenges level the playing field. Some educators offer the analogy of reactions to the calculator in math to that of ChatGPT emerging in writing. While there are similarities between the calculator and ChatGPT, especially in relation to expediting tasks, there is a real difference in that writing is, itself, a process that requires advanced personal, contextual revelation. Others offer the perspective that any technology that moves learning away from "teaching to the test" would be beneficial to everyone. Other strategies being adopted include faculty talking directly about ChatGPT at the beginning of their courses, which then pulls the AI technology into a role as a companion in learning.

Some academics have equated ChatGPT with the plague, warning that it will forever change higher education and offering recommendations on how to combat its spread. After raising the questions of relationships and ChatGPT in different posts, Steve Mintz offers practical advice about how to accept, and incorporate, ChatGPT into instruction. His process includes assigning students to write a short essay with four parts: 1. a proposed prompt to ChatGPT; 2. ChatGPT's response; 3. an original essay that builds in the ChatGPT text supplemented by additional research and bibliography; and 4. corrections, revisions, and additions to the ChatGPT response. Students essays are then discussed in class.

Steps aimed at neutralizing ChatGPT include the creation of software that detects its use, training that informs faculty of the options they have in responding, and suggestions for policy related to it. The Brookings Institute offers a policy view on ChatGPT that applies in higher education and beyond, including handling the commercial risks and mitigating malicious use of AI.

The belief that many educators are embracing is that ChatGPT is a force that cannot be ignored. Thoughtful examination of the promises and pitfalls of AI in learning will remain central in campus and policy discussion going forward.

China v. U.S.A. rivalry could impact higher education

The President of the National University of Singapore warned that the tensions between China and the U.S.A. could impact higher education in Asia. The rivalry between the two super-powers could disrupt research and other collaboration as smaller countries in Asia navigate a path that allows for continuing relations with the two competitors.

While warning of broader problems throughout Asia, the NUS President continues to focus on making sure that his institution is in the best possible position. Concerns for stability and preeminence as an elite institution harken back to the controversy of NUS parting ways with Yale University. The decision was criticized by some as arbitrary and ill-timed but consideration was evidently underway further back than most realized. NUS reported that expansion of curriculum beyond just those enrolled in the Yale-partnered program was the objective. This expansion is underway as well as other innovations such as offering a grade-free year (similar to MIT's first-year strategy). The grade-free year allows students to explore more diverse subjects without the threat of failure while at the same time encouraging students to double-major.

U.S. institutions that have counted on significant enrollment of Chinese students face significant challenges left from the pandemic. As travel restrictions are lifted, recruiters will find changing expectations from prospective Chinese students and families. Shifting federal policies are part of the problem but more important is the loss of confidence in the U.S. as a desirable destination. Recent policy changes invalidating online programs for Chinese students left many of them scrambling for in-person options, which could result in a boost in students from China studying in many other countries.

William C. Kirby's Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China raises important questions about the potential for China to overtake the primacy of U.S.A. higher education. If the U.S.A. wants to maintain world-wide preeminence it must understand that: institutions can improve and/or decline rapidly (so watch out!), sustained ambition is essential, and elite education and national power and world leadership are engaged in a powerful dialectic.

One measure of China's viability in the international higher education world is its ability to attract scholars who are willing to serve as repatriated Chinese or expatriate intellectuals. China is failing this test thus far. The Young Thousand Talents initiative was designed to  draw scholars particularly in STEM fields to China, resulting in the return of many Chinese who studied abroad and did not return to China but stayed in the U.S.A. or other countries to pursue their careers. Chinese authorities claim that YTT is working but others suggest that improvement of the research infrastructure needs to occur first.

In addition to China's inability to attract scholars, U.S. institutions that previously struck agreements to offer branch programs in China are now experiencing more headwinds. The challenges of operating in China is causing institutions such as Duke University to carefully consider whether or not they will continue. University of Michigan severed its relations with Shanghai Jiao Tong University under pressure from House Republicans and others are likely to follow as the 2025 Trump administration and Republican dominated House and Senate begin to flex their muscle.

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 raises academic questions

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 raised academic freedom concerns related to Qatar's Education City American branch programs. Geoff Harkness, who formerly served in a postdoctoral teaching role for Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University in Qatar, commented "The World Cup is a branding opportunity of a lifetime for a country like Qatar... Education, and Education City in particular, is a big part of the image that Qatar is trying to project to the world, using the World Cup as a platform to do so." Harkness claimed he left his teaching roles in 2013 partially due to concerns over academic freedom.

Craig LaMay, who taught and served for a time as the Dean of Northwestern's program, said that he was once ordered to cancel a student event that included a gay performer. As a result, he "remained unconvinced and uncertain about the country's prospects as a higher education destination, noting that a lot of institutions were rethinking the value of international campuses more widely, not just in Qatar."

Another Carnegie Mellon University faculty member, David Busch, reflected on his two years at the Qatar campus. His essay referenced F. Scott Fitzgerald's assertion in "The Crack-Up" that "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." He went on to describe asking students in his class to debate the historical record of race in the U.S.A. and a current pressing public policy issue. The students explored the same issues related to Qatar on a second day. The example was used to demonstrate Fitzgerald's thesis that first-rate intelligence could see both the negative and positive aspects of the two governments. Busch assessed the debate about the U.S.A. as effective but he was disappointed in the defensiveness he observed when it came to Qatar, supporting the Fitzgerald thesis in one case but not in the other. When exploring whether or not teaching in Qatar was effective or defensible, Busch cited Fitzgerald again - "I must hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort... and the sense of the necessity to struggle."

Having worked for Qatar Foundation and interacted with faculty and students of branch programs on a regular basis from 2007-14, I recognize the tensions that Harkness and LaMay expressed. I saw the tensions somewhat differently as a result of my working directly with QF and Qatari colleagues where faculty working for the branches have much less contact with the real people and leaders of the country. My view is that significant change has been, and continues to be, underway. A deep encounter of cultural perspectives like that of U.S.A. academic institutions in an Islamic monarchy is destined to have points of conflict on everything from recognition of LGBTQ+ rights to free speech and more. The point for me was and continues to be that the change process is underway and that it requires adaptive responses among everyone and every institution involved.

Social media for academics

The controversy over Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter has caused many academics and others to withdraw from, or cancel, their subscriptions. I've struggled with what to do, recognizing that I get a lot of my early notifications on world issues through my Twitter feed. Even though I have few followers and most of my posts are ignored, I remain a Twitter subscriber for now. Interestingly enough, the only example where I get likes or reposts is if I post on Pete Buttigieg. He must have an amazingly attentive social media team!

Insider Higher Education's Ray Shroeder offered perspective on social media presence that helped me look at which platforms are worth retaining and others to consider. Some of the dispersion of academic Twitter usage is going to Mastodon but other platforms may emerge. Considering Twitter's instability, LinkedIn is apparently expanding beyond job future networking. I only sporadically use LinkedIn and, as with any social media, consistent promotion and amplification is required in order to be anything close to an influencer. The other platform he noted was Blogger, which I began using in 2005 and through which I maintain two blogs - Pursuing Leadership by Denny and this Global Student Affairs blog. My followers are few in number and it is questionable how useful my involvement is but I stick with it in order to stay contemporary.

A major question related to social media is whether my participation is about gathering information or offering my views and influencing thinking. I would love to know what you're thinking. Please let me know where you are headed in your social media. Also, let me know if you see value in any of my posts on Blogger, Twitter, or LinkedIn. My blogs were unfortunately dominated by foreign intrusion several years ago so I closed down comments. The other two platforms are still readily available for likes and comments.

Anti-corruption major and COVID protests in Chinese universities

Sixteen universities in China are rolling out a new major in anti-corruption. The new undergraduate focus is a response to "China's need for more skilled graduates to root out administrative misconduct." However, some "raised concerns about the future employability of students majoring in the topic and their retention in the public sector."

The question that immediately comes to mind is how corruption is defined and the potential that it might even include views or actions that challenge communist ideology. Reducing corruption in private and public behavior is important in all countries but how that is defined is critical.

As the focus on corruption gains traction, Chinese higher education is facing protests that mirror the national push-back on COVID restrictions. Blank sheets of paper have become the symbol of protest, due to Chinese citizens fear of reprisal for voicing their views. The implications for U.S.A. study abroad and branch programs or campuses in China are significant.

Russian education - moving toward indoctrination?

Is the new required course design for Russian higher education, "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood," just another course or an example of increasing attempts to indoctrinate? The creators of the course are stalwart Putin and state supporters. The ideological bent of the course has caused some academics to fear encroachment into academic freedom but others simply view the course as a hurdle that students will be able to circumvent through cheating and apathy. Previous attempts at state brainwashing improved "students' skill at cheating and thwarting attendance monitors," commented an alumna of Saint Petersburg State University who subsequently completed the master's program in international education at the University of Oxford.

Russia and China have both attempted to move up in the world rankings of academic institutions, primarily by supporting research and placement of academic articles in prestigious journals. The problem is that academic substance and positive student outcomes are related to a broader array of opportunity - student engagement, dialogue across difference, and critical thinking as examples. Will Russian and Chinese educators eventually recognize that the path to academic excellence isn't just in the research rankings but also the experience of students?

2022-23 enrollment and signs of 2023-24

I previously offered a cumulative post of the 2022-23 enrollment outlook. Early figures painted a picture of continued decline of enrollment at U.S.A. institutions of 1.1%. The National Student Clearinghouse warned, "Our biggest concern is that we aren't seeing a huge upsurge back in freshman enrollment at four-year institutions. So those two lost years of high school graduates who didn't enroll in fall 2020 or fall 2021, there's not a lot of evidence of them coming back." A portion of the COVID graduates appear to have found other paths outside of higher education.

Three-fourths of Americans believe that a higher education is as, if not more, important than it was 20 years ago. But the bottom line related to maintaining, or potentially growing, enrollment is that the cost of attendance is a barrier for 41% of those who are presently, were previously, or never enrolled.

The latest National Student Clearinghouse figures show that enrollment for 2022-23 is up by comparison to 2021-22. "Freshman enrollment was up across all higher education sectors, with the greatest growth coming from community colleges, which gained 42,000 first-year students since last fall, an increase of 6.1 percent." The Latino, Asian, and Native American numbers increased and Black first-year students remained essentially the same. Spring 2023 enrollment was flat, with some shifts in where students attend.

The "good news" for 2022-23 requires tempering with other estimates that predict immediate 2023-24 decline on top of the steady decline over the last dozen years. This decline will encounter a demographic shift in 2025 that will likely challenge institutions even more. The question of enrollment, and how it sustains budgets and institutional infrastructure will require adaptation across the spectrum of higher education. Examples of necessary change include inclusion of career-related issues in liberal arts institutions, regional public institutions offering a broader mix of credentialing, cooperation across state borders, and community college consortium models. Higher education may also move back to its "sweet spot" of the 1960s and 1970s - baby boomers. However, the baby boomers looked very different than the more diverse youth of the 2020s.

The early 2023-24 trends favored students of high socio-economic backgrounds and international students and also resulted in competitive colleges leading in numbers. The rise in Common Application submissions per student requires consideration by institutions seeking to yield their target enrollment. One of the most troubling parts of the competition is that several elite institutions settled in a class action lawsuit alleging collusion for decades in financial aid practices that ultimately benefitted students from higher socio-economic backgrounds.

Because standardized testing was judged to negatively impacted the prospect of students from diverse backgrounds, a number of institutions moved to test-optional applications. Columbia University was the first Ivy League institution to go test-optional in order to embrace more wholistic admission criteria. As the impact of not requiring tests scores in the admission process emerged, students faced a confusing patchwork of approaches.

Early-decision programs also accelerated, perhaps as a strategy to grab enrollment before other institutions have a chance. The major problem with this is that privileged students are the primary participants and beneficiaries and most of the early decision programs are found in small and elite colleges.

During good economic times, enrollments generally decline and then rebound under poor conditions. With the U.S.A. presently in an in between time, this trend may not be relevant. However, the decline in trust of higher education, especially among more conservative families, is a new factor that may be impacting enrollment trends. The political leaning of where higher education institutions are located is now beginning to factor into students' choices. Especially when cost is an issue for everyone, finding ways to revive a commitment to higher education is essential. Challenging the myth of higher education not reflecting the "real world" should be coupled with institutions committing to being learner and learning-centered. These images have potential appeal for those who aspire to attend college as well as skeptics who often don't buy that investing in a college education is worth it. The caveat on learning-centered practice is that researchers have found that "flipped classrooms" are not living up to their hype. The skeptics are found most often among more conservative groups, a dynamic that will likely continue to impact higher education pricing and ultimate enrollment.

Rising tuition is an outcome of a trend that started in the years of Ronald Reagan's governorship in California. Prior to his years, California boasted one of the best and least expensive systems in the U.S.A. With his persistence, the trend reversed in California and perhaps the entire nation. And now we are in a period where the public benefit of going to college is no longer recognized. As Nicole Barbaro indicates, "The cost of college today is economically too high, but there is another - though less tangible - cost of today's high tuition prices: the loss of intellectual curiosity. By approaching higher education primarily as a means to pursue job training, for which students should be responsible for paying the bulk of the costs, we have successfully stifled the notion of learning for learning's sake - and made doing so unaffordable to most." The conclusion that is increasingly being reached is that college attendance and completion is both/and - it should provide career preparation and it clearly leads to graduates' personal development, a worthy goal in itself.

Innovations such as direct admissions are boosting application numbers at many institutions but the degree of "melt" in admission is unpredictable. Direct admission has potential benefits to both institutions and students and may actually demonstrate the irrelevance of the application processes of the last seven decades. One thing that may help is that most institutions have not raised tuition, although the impact of inflation for all institutions has not yet been taken into account in pricing. Other colleges are cutting tuition - dramatically - as a "reset" of tuition pricing, and accompanying discounting, that got out of hand. Ironically, low-income students' cost of attendance increased at a faster rate than high-income students at a sample of 700 institutions. Some institutions are involving faculty in applicant review, which helps manage workload as well as offers faculty an insider's view of the complexities of recruitment and admission functions. In order to secure the optimal enrollment, a number of institutions have extended the deadline for student acceptance decisions.

The economic futures of higher education institutions are mixed which has resulted in state systems initiating education campaigns to reinforce the benefit of pursuing advanced education. Baum and McPherson describe ways for higher education to respond to economic pressures in their book, Campus Economics. Higher education in the U.S.A. is very diverse and institutions are best served to distinguish themselves by sectors and what they do best. Elite private institutions, such as Stanford University, are able to increase tuition charges while redirecting some of the revenue to more scholarships and financial aid to maintain enrollment.

As the demographics of the U.S.A. continue to diversify, students of color are increasingly sought to bolster enrollment. However, long-term systemic racism among students of color made them more vulnerable to dropping out, a complication that some institutions are attempting to counter with greater support from cultural centers. The need for greater financial assistance is one of the primary impediments to attendance and retention. The Biden administration initiative to cancel previous student loan debt is an important step to rectify historic disadvantage. However, the executive branch action is likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court. Nontraditional students are an increasing proportion of those who could potentially enroll but their special circumstances have to be considered as central, rather than marginal, to institution leaders. Going forward, institutions will have to determine pricing structures that offer more opportunity to diverse populations if they are to hold enrollment proportions even close to former decades. The Disney World strategy rewarding those who pay higher prices with line-jumping privileges should not be a model emulated in higher education.

Increased international student enrollment bolstered the budgets of many institutions prior to the pandemic. However, the number of internationals dropped dramatically when the pandemic took hold; the numbers rebounded but have not returned to previous levels. William Brustein, who stepped down from his position because he saw a decline in WVU's commitment to internationalization, proposed, "elite institutions like those in the Ivy League won't have trouble recruiting wealthy international students or forging partnerships around the world... but other institutions may not fare so well, due to the high cost of U.S. undergraduate education, coupled with shifting views of its value abroad and a decline in support from college administrators." The latest figures indicate that new international student enrollment has rebounded to almost pre-pandemic levels, with graduate students driving much of the surge. Recruiters and institutions need to examine how the international students who seek U.S.A. education are the same or different than other students. In fact, based on common application data, international prospects differ significantly from typical domestic students. One significant difference is that 40% of international students are increasingly uncomfortable with gun violence in the U.S.A. while employment opportunity during and after study as well as the cost of living impacts others.

Inside Higher Education's compilation of enrollment management strategies is a resource for those seeking to maximize success in a shifting and competitive environment. Benchmarking and outlier innovation reveals that improving enrollment management is pretty straight-forward. Facing inflation and rising salary pressure, college leaders favor revenue recovery through retention of current students or finding ways to bring students who stopped-out back. Commitment to improving retention and graduation is key and fortunately enough, indications that degree completion had stalled were later determined to actually be improving. On the other hand, students' low use of and dissatisfaction with advising services does not bode well for using advising as a strength. Soliciting donor support is another strategy but success in raising enough money to make a difference is challenging.

Students' degree completion dropped in fall 2022 for the first time since 2012, an indication that U.S.A. higher education is at a critical juncture. Confidence in higher education as a public good is no longer the common view of the goal of going to college. And, the costs are too high. Perhaps helping to reverse rising costs, federal earmarks include $1.7 billion for 550 colleges and universities across the U.S.A. State support for public institutions has increased but concerns are already being expressed if the increases will be sustained. And, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) is investing $30 Million in improvement grants to help push the envelop of innovation.