College Matters from The Chronicle

Jodi Kantor, whose reporting for The New York Times helped expose years of sexual-misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein, has been thinking a lot lately about the next generation. What will a fulfilling career look like a decade from now? How worried should college graduates be about AI gobbling up entry-level jobs? And how can employers, including universities, do a better job of stopping workplace harassment, which can derail careers before they even start? Kantor doesn’t have all the answers, of course, but she’s using her platform to start a more focused conversation about the future of work for college-educated people.

Related Reading

How to Start (Jodi Kantor)

A Year of Reckoning (The New York Times)

The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct (National Bureau of Economic Research)

She Left Harvard. He Got to Stay. (The Chronicle)

Guest

Jodi Kantor, investigative reporter for The New York Times

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, burst onto the scene more than a decade ago with a seemingly simple theory about successful people. They are incredibly determined, Duckworth argued, exhibiting that quintessentially American trait called “grit.” In her new book, Situated, Duckworth says that people have enormous power to change their “situations,” ensuring success by reducing distractions and bolstering connections with mentors. But what about low-income students for whom changing a "situation" is harder than turning off a cell phone? Is Duckworth’s blueprint for success applicable to everyone? Or is it just helpful advice for the already-privileged few?

Related Reading

Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best (Angela Duckworth)

U. of Michigan's Plan to Pass/Fail Freshmen Draws Ire — and Cheers (The Chronicle)

Has Harvard Gone Soft? (College Matters)

Guest

⁠Angela Duckworth⁠, psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Is the student reading crisis real? Is AI panic justified? What’s next for the partisan battles over higher education? Each week, The Chronicle of Higher Education’s podcast delves into the thorniest issues facing colleges and universities. Through interviews with newsmakers and conversations with Chronicle staff, College Matters delivers sharp insights and deep analysis of the biggest stories in higher ed.

Catch up on previous episodes

⁠Are the Kids Alright? We Asked Ian Bogost ⁠

⁠Higher Ed Is as American as Apple Pie ⁠

⁠Dan Ariely Emailed With Epstein for Years. He Has (Mostly) No Regrets.⁠

For more on today’s episode, visit ⁠chronicle.com/collegematters⁠. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

More than 60 years after its publication, John Williams’s novel Stoner remains a revelatory portrait of higher education and the professoriate. Spanning much of the first half of the 20th century, the novel follows William Stoner from his undergraduate days at the University of Missouri through his career as an English professor at the same institution. The common tropes of the academic novel are all on display in Stoner, which features an illicit affair and a nasty interdepartmental feud. But it is Stoner’s intense focus on the purpose of college and the ineffable power of education that make it vital reading for anyone in academe. In the inaugural meeting of the College Matters Book Club, we’re diving into what one reviewer has described as “the perfect novel.”

Related Reading:

The Inner Lives of Men - Morris Dickstein’s review of Stoner (The New York Times)

The Greatest American Novel You’ve Never Heard Of (The New Yorker)

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Guests:

Nell Gluckman, senior reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education

Julie Schumacher, novelist and English professor at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

The pandemic prompted many universities to drop standardized-testing requirements for applicants, and a lot of institutions remain test-optional today. But some high-profile universities, including all of the members of the Ivy League, have since reinstated their testing requirements. Even the University of California, which has been a leader in the “test free” movement, now plans to revisit its policy. What’s driving the return-to-test trend, and how do skeptics of standardized testing feel about the changing national mood?

Related Reading

Does the SAT Really Help Colleges Find ‘Diamonds in the Rough’? (The Chronicle)

A Great University Undermines Its Mission (The New York Times)

Report of the Academic Council’s Standardized Testing Task Force (U. of California)

Why the UC Taskforce’s Findings are Spurious (Saul Geiser)

Guest

Jon Boeckenstedt, former vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State University

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.