Campus Talks by Times Higher Education

Eve Riskin is on a mission to broaden the definition of diversity. The newly appointed dean of undergraduate education at Stevens Institute of Technology is determined to make sure they are "student ready" in order to support more women, mintoritised groups and students with disabilities through STEM degrees. She's also an award-winning mentor, having received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2020, and encourages her colleagues to not confuse confidence with talent. "If you give someone an opportunity they may take it and run," she counsels.  This episode is sponsored by Stevens Institute of Technology

In an episode last year with the chief scientist at Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities Ashok Goel, we asked: Is AI in higher education worth the hype? It turns out that, yes, it is. Ashok is back to help us understand what the developments of ChatGPT and other generative AI systems mean for teaching and learning and how they fit with the machine learning frameworks that were already in place. He also makes some predictions of how things will develop, including the arrival within five years of a university in which every operation is powered by AI. Hear the previous conversation with had with Ashok on Spotify, Apple podcasts or Google podcasts.    

This episode of the Campus podcast comes as record temperatures beat down through the northern hemisphere summer, with wildfires engulfing Greece and Spain, and deadly floods engulf India. With the UK recently approving new oil and gas licences, it’s easy to feel that reversing the climate crisis is a lost cause. However, our guests both offer elements of hope despite the bleak outlook. Bryan Alexander is a senior scholar at Georgetown University and a futurist. His latest book, Universities on Fire, implores universities to wake up and realise that they can make a profound change in the climate crisis. And he is cautiously optimistic about their ability to do that. Our second guest is Sebastian Pfautsch, an associate professor in urban planning and management in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, with a background in tree physiology and, of all things, interior design. His multidisciplinary research is built around the complex issue of urban heat. He talks about some of the actions WSU, which has topped the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings for the past two years, has taken to meet the SDGS and what Australia’s experience of extreme heat can teach the rest of the world about cooling their cities.

Watch the video recording of this podcast on Campus    Findings from a recent Gallup survey of Americans found that only 36 per cent have a "great deal" or "quite a lot of" confidence in higher education. That’s about 20 percentage points lower than the same survey in 2015. For Jonathan Koppell, president at Montclair State University, it’s time for universities to own their part in that loss of trust in American higher education. The big question universities need to ask themselves is: What are we doing to change the modus operandi to make it easier for people to get the dream universities are selling them, i.e.: get a degree, have a better life?  In this interview Dr Koppell  discusses accessibility to higher education for minoritised groups as well as the merger with Bloomfield College and how the affirmative action ruling will change the higher education landscape. This episode is sponsored by Montclair State, the newest member of the Campus+ network. Find out more about Campus+. 

In this episode of the Campus podcast, we’re embarking on a journey into a realm of the unknown. A world full of possibilities and creative opportunities but not without risks and ethical quandaries. Three intrepid pioneers are our guides as we learn how tools such as ChatGPT can enhance student feedback and academic research. Jennifer Rose, a senior lecturer in accounting and finance at the University of Manchester, and David Nicol, a research professor in the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, explain how they are using the AI generator in their teaching – while being sensitive to its limitations and risks. They use it to help students use inner feedback to improve their writing (through comparison with ChatGPT output), to save time, to make thinking visual, and to foster critical thinking and academic skills. Our third guest is Brooke Szücs, a research assistant and advocate for diversity in education at the University of Queensland. Brooke, who has autism, uses ChatGPT as “a conversation partner” to enhance her academic writing through feedback, polishing and drawing out key ideas, and even asking it to suggest journals where she could submit her work. Read more from Jennifer Rose on Campus. Read more from David Nicol on Campus. Read more from Brooke Szücs on Campus.

Will the promise of lifelong learning - to extend access to higher education to more people while at the same time creating a highly skilled and relevant workforce - ever be realised? On the whole, university systems remain set up to educate 18-year-olds studying full-time degrees. And how many working age adults are really able to take time off to go back to study and to take on more debt?  David Latchman, vice-chancellor at Birkbeck, University of London, is optimistic that universities and the public have woken up to the importance of lifelong learning. In this interview we talk about why he thinks England's Lifelong Loan Entitlement programme is the right one to unlock the benefits of lifelong learning, the sticking points of the policy and how employers should get on board.   

In this episode of the Campus podcast, Michael Dennin, a professor of physics and astronomy in the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, talks about using superheroes (and zombies) to bring the dynamics of physics into the classroom. Michael, who is also dean of undergraduate education, vice-provost for teaching and learning, and the recipient of UCI Senate teaching and innovation awards, explains how his approach enriches traditional physics problems, encourages creativity, and champions teamwork and interdisciplinarity. The discussion also looks at the potential of science outreach to create good “spectators of science” and why Moocs were greeted with more scepticism than teaching with superheroes. Our second guest is Liz Giuffre, a senior lecturer in communication, teaching into music and sound design, in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. Liz is also a music commentator, founding journal editor, archivist, podcaster, blogger and author – her latest book is Kylie Minogue’s Kylie, co-written with Adrian Renzo. We talked about how the ubiquity of popular culture (“it’s both ordinary and extraordinary”) drew her to study it, and why it’s the job of academics to understand mainstream culture – whether that’s the music of Kylie or Shakespeare’s plays. Read more from Michael Dennin on Campus.

On this episode we’re talking about every campus' connector, collector and collaborator – the university library. Often overlooked, university libraries are critical to the teaching and research missions of institutions. They also play a key role in digital innovation and community outreach. Two librarians tell us more about how they see their work as agents of change.  Masud Khokhar is a third-generation librarian and computer scientist and is currently the Librarian & Keeper of the Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds where he is also the director of learning spaces. Masud is also the current chair of Research Libraries UK. In this episode he does some myth busting around academic libraries, explains how they can be agents of change and tells us what he sees are the steps to shaping a more diverse generation of upcoming librarians. Toni Carter is the director of the Kares Library at Athens State University and an advocate for improving students' information literacy. She gives advice on how faculty can collaborate with librarians to help students think critically about which sources of information they trust.    

A veteran leader in English higher education, dame Madeline Atkins is the former CEO of the Higher Education Funding Council in England and is the current president of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In this Campus interview, she tells us about a widening access initiative that has led to the college admitting over 90 per cent of students from state schools – as in tax payer funded, non selective and free-to-attend schools. She explains how the programme identified students to help them apply to the elite institution and what support exists to help them succeed once they arrive. 

Dr. Nicholas Dirks is a higher education leader, an historian, the former chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley and the current president and CEO of the New York Academic of Sciences. In this interview he explains why interdisciplinarity might be harder to achieve than some might think, how to communicate the public good of science to various audiences, and if science should be leveraged in geopolitics.