Campus by Times Higher Education

Campus interview: Laura Allen from Trinity University on connecting student well-being to the natural world

 

Can spending time in natural environments support students’ well-being? The is the question that an interdisciplinary team of researchers and educators at Trinity University in San Antonio Texas wanted to answer.  Despite research showing that spending time outside does support students’ mental health, the team struggled to get students to actually spend time outdoors. So they developed an innovative course combing theory, research and practice to help students improve their mental wellness and better understand how it’s connected with the natural environment.

 

On today’s episode of the podcast, Laura Allen, co-developer of the course and a professor in the department of education at Trinity University joins us to talk about what inspired her and colleagues to develop this programme, how it combines forest bathing and undergraduate research, and, most importantly, if it’s helped their students. 

 

Thanks to one of our newest Campus+ members Trinity University for sponsoring this episode. 

Watch the video recording of this episode on Campus. 

Campus: What to do when principles of free speech are tested

Academic freedom and free speech are the defining values of higher education institutions. But sticking to those principles becomes very difficult when polarising political events divide communities on and off campus. In this episode, free speech champion and the chancellor at Vanderbilt University, Daniel Diermeier, discusses how academic leaders should respond to the Israel-Hamas war.

Civil discourse is part of Dr. Diermeier’s solution to tribalism on campus and he gives examples of how that has been coached and encouraged at Vanderbilt. He also shares what is was like in the first few months of his chancellorship when researchers at Vanderbilt’s University Medical Center were on the cutting edge of Covid-19 vaccine development.

Find more resources from colleagues and peers on how to protect academic freedom on Campus 

Campus: Unlocking people power through citizen science

Find out how engaging non-academics in research can uncover and disperse new knowledge and ways of thinking that could help shape solutions to seemingly intractable problems

Campus: How to be a good mentor and mentee

For this episode of the podcast we handed the mic over to the Campus network to get their top tips on how to be a good mentor and mentee. These relationships can make or break academic careers so getting them right is crucial. Our contributors offer suggestions on how to choose a mentor or supervisor, how to give advice, how to do reverse mentoring and how to lay the ground rules so that everyone gets what they need from these relationships. 

This episode's contributors are:

Eve Riskin, dean of undergraduate education, Stevens Institute of Technology 

Monika Foster, head of department marketing, operations and systems, Faculty of Business and Law, Northumbria University 

Jon McNaughtan, associate professor, educational psychology, leadership, and counseling, Texas Tech University 

Sioux McKenna, director, Center for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University 

Preman Rajalingam, director, Centre for Teaching, Learning and Pedagogy, Institute of Pedagogical Innovation, Research and Excellence, Nanyang Technological University

Bryan Hanson, graduate student ombudsperson, Virginia Tech

Tara Brabazon, dean of graduate studies and professor of cultural studies, Charles Darwin University 

Barbara Kensington-Miller, associate professor curriculum and pedagogy, University of Auckland

Elena Riva, associate professor and director of education, Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, University of Warwick

Gabriel Paquette, associate provost for academic affairs and faculty development, University of Maine

Lucas Lixinski, professor law and justice, UNSW Sydney

 

Campus interview: Ngiare Brown, chancellor, James Cook University

Ngiare Brown is the first female and the first indigenous chancellor of James Cook University. She’s joined the institution at a time when efforts to indigenise Australian higher education are taking root, with the recent interim report of the Universities Accord saying that putting First Nations at the heart of Australian higher education would result in positive, long-term changes. 

Dr. Brown intends to make higher education a place for indigenous students, starting with James Cook, one of her alma maters – a goal which she balances with an acknowledgment of the legacy of the university’s namesake. In this interview, she talks about what she’d like to see changed in Australian higher education, how researchers should engage better with First Nations communities and how a welcome to country statement can make a big difference when it’s done the right way. 

Campus interview: Eve Riskin, dean of undergraduate education, Stevens Institute of Technology

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

Campus: The AI university is coming

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.  

 

Campus: Universities aren’t too small to lead the climate crisis fight

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.

Campus interview: Jonathan Koppell, president, Montclair State

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+. 

Campus: How to use generative AI in your teaching and research

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.