Members of the Dáil's Education Committee stated that Irish curriculums are 'overloaded' and must be reduced, advocating for a focus on nature and outdoor activities.
House File 2487 would require the universities to identify any general ed course requirements that 'include diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory-related content' by the fall 2028 semester. The legislation says the Board of Regents 'in its discretion shall direct an institution to eliminate such a course or course requirement.' The bill doesn't define DEI or CRT.
Collective learning is how a group or system creates, improves, and keeps knowledge. This knowledge lasts beyond any one person or cohort. That is the most practical collective learning definition, because it shifts the focus away from individuals and toward the learning system itself.
Cuts that hurt are obvious: layoffs, program closures, college closures, furloughs, deferred maintenance, pay freezes, travel freezes, etc. It's a well-worn playbook at this point. Most of the moves in this category involve either attacking employee compensation, which causes obvious pain, or putting off necessary investments and living with gradual declines in quality.
Many colleges and universities have made cuts in these programs, often bolstering STEM programs at their expense. It's a situation that has sparked no small amount of impassioned editorials. The headline of a recent article at The Guardian by Alice Speri referenced an 'existential crisis at U.S. universities,' and Speri's reporting features numerous examples of undergraduate and graduate programs facing cuts or outright elimination.
This is a striking decision at a moment when public confidence in higher education is eroding. It is also puzzling because rigorous research and evaluation have demonstrated, over and over, the value of the work of centers for teaching and learning, including positive impacts on student learning outcomes, institutional effectiveness and faculty development.
When we look more closely at how and why organizations actually invest in these systems, we can see that the popularity of adaptive learning has far less to do with pedagogical ambition and far more to do with operational pressure. Understanding this gap between how adaptive learning is marketed and how it is used in practice is critical for organizations trying to decide whether it is the right approach for their learning needs.
Of course, anything can become controversial simply by virtue of somebody objecting. I wouldn't encourage anyone to do this-heaven forbid-but hypothetically, someone could loudly object to discussions of capitalism, traditional gender roles, law enforcement or even the Trump administration, thereby making them "controversial" and out of bounds. After all, objections can come from the left as well as the right. A few well-orchestrated rounds of public objection could highlight the absurdity of the law pretty quickly.
This idea was based on the parallel between the pluck and elan that are characteristic of both the early-college students I worked with and that of America's hardest-working founding father. Five years after I wrote the book, I had the opportunity to revisit the field for a revised edition, making it appropriate to ask, after Thomas Jefferson's song in the second act of Hamilton, "What'd I Miss": How has early college/dual enrollment changed over the past half decade?
