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AKA Review
September 5, 2025
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At AKA, we closely follow trends and latest developments
in higher education and the nonprofit sector.
Here are some recent articles that we found particularly informative.
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From The New York Times
By Clay Shirky
We cannot simply redesign writing assignments to prevent lazy A.I. use. Learning is mental effort. Since A.I. has made mental effort in writing optional, we need new ways to require the work needed for learning. Clay Shirky proposes in-person, interactive strategies that revive a relational model of higher education dating to ancient academic culture. “A return to a conversational, extemporaneous style will make education more interpersonal, more improvised, and more idiosyncratic, restoring a sense of community to our institutions.” Read this article
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From Chicago Booth Review
Classrooms and standardized tests reward abilities different from those required for professional success. The author looks at stellar law-school grads who struggle to reach the top of prestigious firms. They excel at entry-level, rote legal work but only marginally so among other top hires. Meanwhile, they watch peers skilled in leadership, ethics, and communication—rarely gained from traditional education—rise to C-suite roles. As A.I. erodes the need for technical competence, aspiring young professionals must spend more time learning to be human. Read this article by scrolling to “Audio Transcript”
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From The Hechinger Report
In a crisis likely to reduce the quality of undergraduate education, a record number of Ph.D. students and faculty are leaving academia in the face of political, financial, and enrollment crises. 70% of doctoral candidates are departing for positions outside academia, up from 50% a few decades ago, an exodus that has been exacerbated by relentless White House attacks and funding cuts. “Every…tenured professor tells me how miserable and desperate to get out they are. This is having real-life impacts on the quality of education students are getting.”Read this article
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From The Atlantic
By Arthur C. Brooks
Debates over DEI often view it as binary, “just great or totally terrible.” The author argues that organizational success can be enhanced by taking a more nuanced view of diversity. He defines two kinds: “innate” (e.g., race), on which most DEI programs focus, and “acquired” (education, opinions, etc.), adding “ideological” to the latter. Skeptical of innate diversity’s effectiveness, he argues for “diversity of experience, thought, and ideology,” believing these can be achieved by cultivating genuine curiosity about, rather than positions on, the viewpoints of others. Read this article
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From Scientific American
By Charles C. Mann
It’s gripping TV: Maverick scientist challenges entrenched ideas, is dismissed by stuffy colleagues, but triumphs in the end. The author tells us such scientific U-turns are rare except in two cases: when disciplines are young and, more ominously, when political pressures force reversals in spite of the science. Examples of the latter—early climate surveys of the American West, mammogram controversies, the COVID pandemic—tell a cautionary tale. At our current moment, politically charged reversals are too familiar and, sadly, show few signs of declining. Read this article
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https://www.akastrategy.com
New York, NY 10022
United States
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