Take It or Leave It with Stacey Johnson, Liz Norell, and Viji Sathy

We're back with another "Take It or Leave It" panel on the podcast this week. I know it's only been a couple of episodes since the last one, but there's a lot happening in U.S. higher ed right now, and I find these panels helpful for making sense of it all.

Once again I’ve invited three smart colleagues on the show to discuss recent op-eds that address the challenges that colleges and universities and their teaching missions are facing here in 2025. For each essay, we decide if we want to Take It (that is, agree with the central thesis of the essay) or Leave It (that is, disagree). It’s an artificial binary that generates lots of useful discussion about the state of higher ed.

The panelists for this edition of Take It or Leave It are:

• Stacey Johnson, director of learning and engagement at the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities and co-editor of the book How We Take Action: Social Justice in the PK-16 Language Classrooms;
• Liz Norell, associate director of instructional support at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi and author of the book The Present Professor: Authenticity and Transformational Teaching; and
• Viji Sathy, professor of the practice of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-author of the book Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom.

Stacey and Liz are both former colleagues of mine and veterans of the "Take It or Leave It" format. Viji is new to the panel format, but not new to the podcast. I'm glad to have all three back on the show this week.

The op-eds we discuss are "Higher Ed Is Adrift" by Kevin McClure, which generated such rich discussion on the previous "Take It or Leave It" panel that I brought it back for this week's panel; “I Teach Computer Science and That Is All” by Boaz Barak, which argues that professors should keep their teaching and activism separate; and "Ghosts Are Everywhere" by Patrick Scanlon, which makes the case that our notions of authorial authenticity should shift in this age of AI.

The panel had lots of thoughts about these essays, and I'll share a few of them here to get you thinking.

Stacey Johnson, on ways that individuals can respond to the current moment in higher ed:

Liz Norell, on the possibility of leaving one's politics out of one's classroom:

Viji Sathy, on communicating what's happening in higher ed to friends and family:

​You can listen to the entire Take It or Leave It panel discussion here (where you'll also find a transcript) or search for "Intentional Teaching" in your favorite podcast app.

Around the Web

This is the part of the newsletter where I link to things that I find interesting in the hopes that you do, too.

• "What I Learned Serving on My University's AI Committee" - This Chronicle essay by Megan Fritts makes the argument that our moral and ethical selves are formed by the words we use and that outsourcing our writing and thinking to generative AI robs us of that opportunity for personal development. What I found provocative in the piece was Fritts' suggestion that maybe humanities courses as a whole should be AI-free zones to encourage students to do this kind of self work. That would require a level of faculty consensus around the entire curriculum that seems impossible, but it's certainly food for thought. What if we could make a sensible plan for generative AI at the curriculum level? See my LinkedIn post about this for more discussion.
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• "You Deserve Better Brain Research" - You may have read some shocking headlines about a recent MIT Media Lab study looking at brain activity while writing essays with and without generative AI. I am not a neuroscientist, but one of the hosts of the Change, Technically podcast, Ashley Juavinett, is, and she and her co-host, psychologist Cat Hicks, have a lot to say about the MIT study in their latest podcast episode. As the episode title suggests, they are not impressed. I learned a lot about brain science from this episode, and I think you will, too. Hat tip to Peter Newbury for directing me to this one.
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• "Trump vs. Birds: Proposed Budget Eliminates Critical Research Programs" - Rebecca Heisman is the author of Flight Plans, a fantastic book I read last year about the study of bird migration. She has a new piece in The Revelator outlining the impact of two federally funded programs that are on the chopping block in President Trump's "big beautiful bill": the Bird Banding Laboratory and the Breeding Bird Survey. Both programs have helped scientists track the health and population of birds around the country, and both are critical to ongoing bird conservation efforts.

Thanks for reading!

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