The Key with Inside Higher Ed

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Alexis Redding, a developmental psychologist and professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay.

Colleges have devoted growing attention and resources to student well-being in recent years, but supporting mental health goes far beyond what happens inside a counseling center. Students’ well-being can be shaped by nearly every part of the college experience—from the expectations they bring with them to campus and the academic, financial and social pressures they encounter to how they navigate setbacks, uncertainty and the transition into adulthood.

They unpack what colleges may still misunderstand about student mental health, how the broader college experience shapes students’ well-being, where normal stress and struggle fit into the conversation, and what it would look like for institutions to build a culture of care that supports students throughout college and beyond.

In their new book, Faculties: A Dialogue on Inciting Constructive Change in Destructive Times (Duke University Press) Cathy Davidson, founder of the Futures Initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Jody Greene, founding director of the Teaching and Learning Center at UC Santa Cruz, call on faculty to get involved in the decisions shaping their institutions' futures.

They join Inside Higher Ed editor in chief Sara Custer to talk about the book, which they describe as part love letter, part self-help guide. They dig into why faculty have lost ground in institutional leadership and how the rift between academics and administrators got so wide. Cathy and Jody share how faculty should respond to claims that they're brainwashing students with leftist ideology, and how to get informed about the challenges facing the sector. (Hint: Start with Inside Higher Ed every morning.)

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Bryan Ashton, chief strategy and growth officer at Trellis and head of Trellis Strategies, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay.

Adult learners, working students, student parents, transfer students and first-generation students are often grouped under the broad umbrella of “nontraditional” students. While their experiences differ, they also highlight the various ways higher education is, or isn’t, designed around the realities of students’ lives.

Many of these students are navigating similar pressures: balancing college with work and family responsibilities, managing financial challenges and figuring out systems that weren’t necessarily built with them in mind. And as these experiences become increasingly common across higher education, they raise a bigger question: If so-called nontraditional students reflect the reality of today’s college population, does it still make sense to call them nontraditional?

The Department of Education in August released its accreditation reform for public comment. If finalized, the new rules could expand accreditors’ responsibilities  to include policing First Amendment compliance and research misconduct. They could also force many agencies to set more specific standards for student achievement and hiring and to rethink their decades-old peer-review model.

In this episode, Inside Higher Ed editor in chief Sara Custer speaks with Maria Toyoda, president and CEO of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, about the details of the department’s proposal, how WASC is preparing for the changes and what the new rules signal for the relationship between the federal government, states and accreditors.

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Hope Pacheco, associate dean of students and executive director of the Gator Resource Center at the University of Houston–Downtown, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay.

Being the first in your family to attend college can mean entering an unfamiliar system without the same knowledge or networks some of your peers may have—from knowing where to turn for help to navigating financial aid, academics and the unwritten rules of college. But first-generation students also bring their own experiences, strengths and support systems with them. So what do colleges still misunderstand about first-gen students—and what actually helps them feel like they belong and ultimately earn a degree?

They unpack what first-generation students experience when they arrive on campus, who they turn to when they need help and what colleges can do to make sure students don’t have to figure it all out on their own.

Paul LeBlanc is an innovative change maker in higher ed who led Southern New Hampshire University’s transformation from a small regional institution with a couple thousand students to one of the largest nonprofit providers of online higher education in the country.  In his latest book Reclaiming Purpose: The University in an AI World he presents a vision of higher education that shifts from knowledge transfer to teaching students how to develop the human skills that will set them apart from artificial intelligence. In this conversation with Inside Higher Ed editor in chief Sara Custer, LeBlanc explains what his prediction could mean for faculty and institutional leaders and encourages higher ed to take a leading role in ethical AI design.

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Josh Wyner, executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, and John Fink, senior research associate and program lead at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay.

Millions of students begin their education at community colleges with plans to eventually earn a bachelor’s degree, but moving from one institution to another can mean navigating confusing requirements, losing credits and figuring out systems that don’t always work together. So why is transfer still so difficult despite years of reform efforts, and what would it take to make the process truly seamless for students?

They unpack where transfer students encounter the biggest barriers and what institutions can do to create avenues that help more community college students earn a bachelor’s degree.

Inside Higher Ed’s news editor Katherine Knott is back on The Key with editor in chief Sara Custer to analyze the latest developments from the White House. On deck: The education secretary’s call to higher ed leaders to commit to series of priorities she says will "revitalize" higher education; the Department of Homeland Security’s new regulations limiting the length of international student visas; Harvard’s legal victory over the Department of Justice; and what the newsroom will be following after Congress’s summer recess.

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Nicole Lynn Lewis, founder and chief executive officer of Generation Hope, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay.

From finding affordable childcare and stable housing to navigating time poverty, financial insecurity and questions of belonging, student parents face barriers that can shape their ability to persist and ultimately earn a degree. They discuss what colleges still misunderstand about student parents and the challenges they navigate both inside and outside the classroom.

Venu Govindaraju is the senior vice president for research, innovation and economic development and a distinguished professor at the University at Buffalo. He's spent more than 30 years working in AI, building systems with real social impact — and he's also a poet, with a simple way of describing why the humanities still matter: AI finds the patterns. The humanities find the meaning behind them.

Inside Higher Ed editor in chief Sara Custer talks with him about the place of universities in the age of AI, why scientists should fail on purpose and how New York's Empire AI consortium model could help counterbalance big tech's grip on AI development. Stay tuned until the end of the episode when Venu reads a poem from his new collection or poetry Discovery of Self.