18 colleges seek to support Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak
In a court filing Friday, the colleges argued that the elimination of Harvard’s federal funding “negatively impacts the entire ecosystem.”

Dive Brief:

  • Eighteen research colleges are seeking to formally support Harvard University’s legal challenge against the Trump administration for cutting or freezing roughly $2.8 billion of the institution’s grants and contracts.
  • In a legal filing Friday, the colleges asked a U.S. District Court for permission to file an amicus brief in support of the Ivy League institution, even though the lawsuit only addresses the federal cuts facing Harvard.
  • “Academic research is an interconnected enterprise,” the filing argued. “The elimination of funding at Harvard negatively impacts the entire ecosystem.”
 

From DSC:
My brother lost a lifelong friend recently and I’ve lost friends and family members waaaay too soon as well. It made me reflect, once again, on the brevity of our lives here on Earth.


Psalms 90:12

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

James 4:14

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Psalms: 39:5

You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.

Psalms 144:3-4

Lord, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow.

 


From DSC:
And regarding this weekend, what an incredible waste of money to put the military on display (for his own birthday).  This smacks of what arrogant dictators do. It’s big-time ugly.

If our justice system had done its job, this arrogant lawbreaker and convicted criminal would be in jail right now. No wonder he has no regard for the legal system, the Constitution, or the law — those things don’t serve his interests. They impede his interests. And thank God for that! In fact, may true leaders rise up within the Legislative and Judicial Branches of our government. The latter is our best chance of keeping our democracy, as the Republican Party has ceded all of their power — and responsibility — over to Donald Trump. They are not leaders in any sense of the word.

But whatever happens, ultimately, there WILL be justice.

Is America being humbled? Or is it being destroyed?

Trump Is Getting the Military Parade He Wanted in His First Term — from nytimes.com by Helene Cooper
There will be 28 Abrams tanks, 6,700 soldiers, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules and a dog, according to the Army’s plans for the June 14 event.

In President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon opposed his desire for a military parade in Washington, wanting to keep the armed forces out of politics.

But in Mr. Trump’s second term, that guardrail has vanished. There will be a parade this year, and on the president’s 79th birthday, no less.

The current plan involves a tremendous scene in the center of Washington: 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks (at 70 tons each for the heaviest in service); 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers; more than 100 other vehicles; a World War II-era B-25 bomber; 6,700 soldiers; 50 helicopters; 34 horses; two mules; and a dog.

 

Navigating Career Transitions — from er.educause.edu by Jay James, Mike Richichi, Sarah Buszka, and Wes Johnson

In this episode, we hear from professionals at different stages of their career journeys as they reflect on risk, resilience, and growth. They share advice on stepping into leadership roles, recognizing when it may be time for a change, and overcoming imposter syndrome.

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Isaiah 53:5

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

1 Chronicles 29:11

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

Colossians 3:13

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

 

Mary Meeker AI Trends Report: Mind-Boggling Numbers Paint AI’s Massive Growth Picture — from ndtvprofit.com
Numbers that prove AI as a tech is unlike any other the world has ever seen.

Here are some incredibly powerful numbers from Mary Meeker’s AI Trends report, which showcase how artificial intelligence as a tech is unlike any other the world has ever seen.

  • AI took only three years to reach 50% user adoption in the US; mobile internet took six years, desktop internet took 12 years, while PCs took 20 years.
  • ChatGPT reached 800 million users in 17 months and 100 million in only two months, vis-à-vis Netflix’s 100 million (10 years), Instagram (2.5 years) and TikTok (nine months).
  • ChatGPT hit 365 billion annual searches in two years (2024) vs. Google’s 11 years (2009)—ChatGPT 5.5x faster than Google.

Above via Mary Meeker’s AI Trend-Analysis — from getsuperintel.com by Kim “Chubby” Isenberg
How AI’s rapid rise, efficiency race, and talent shifts are reshaping the future.

The TLDR
Mary Meeker’s new AI trends report highlights an explosive rise in global AI usage, surging model efficiency, and mounting pressure on infrastructure and talent. The shift is clear: AI is no longer experimental—it’s becoming foundational, and those who optimize for speed, scale, and specialization will lead the next wave of innovation.

 

Also see Meeker’s actual report at:

Trends – Artificial Intelligence — from bondcap.com by Mary Meeker / Jay Simons / Daegwon Chae / Alexander Krey



The Rundown: Meta aims to release tools that eliminate humans from the advertising process by 2026, according to a report from the WSJ — developing an AI that can create ads for Facebook and Instagram using just a product image and budget.

The details:

  • Companies would submit product images and budgets, letting AI craft the text and visuals, select target audiences, and manage campaign placement.
  • The system will be able to create personalized ads that can adapt in real-time, like a car spot featuring mountains vs. an urban street based on user location.
  • The push would target smaller companies lacking dedicated marketing staff, promising professional-grade advertising without agency fees or skillset.
  • Advertising is a core part of Mark Zuckerberg’s AI strategy and already accounts for 97% of Meta’s annual revenue.

Why it matters: We’re already seeing AI transform advertising through image, video, and text, but Zuck’s vision takes the process entirely out of human hands. With so much marketing flowing through FB and IG, a successful system would be a major disruptor — particularly for small brands that just want results without the hassle.

 

So much for saving the planet. Climate careers, and many others, evaporate for class of 2025 — from hechingerreport.org by Lawrence Lanahan
The Trump administration is disrupting career paths for new graduates hoping to work in climate and sustainability, international aid, public service and the sciences

As the class of 2025 enters the workforce, the Trump administration has dismantled career pathways for graduates interested in climate and sustainability work, international aid, public service and research across the natural, behavioral and social sciences. Federal jobs are disappearing, and the administration is eliminating grants and agency divisions that sustain university research programs and nonprofits that are crucial to launching careers.

The National Science Foundation, for example, halved graduate research fellowships, canceled some undergraduate research grants, stopped awarding new grants, froze funding for existing ones, and eliminated several hundred grants for focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion. In March, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced 10,000 layoffs at his agency, the Department of Health and Human Services; earlier buyouts and firings had already cut another 10,000 jobs.

 

“The AI-enhanced learning ecosystem” [Jennings] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

The AI-enhanced learning ecosystem: A case study in collaborative innovation — from chieflearningofficer.com by Kevin Jennings
How artificial intelligence can serve as a tool and collaborative partner in reimagining content development and management.

Learning and development professionals face unprecedented challenges in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, 67 percent of L&D professionals report being “maxed out” on capacity, while 66 percent have experienced budget reductions in the past year.

Despite these constraints, 87 percent agree their organizations need to develop employees faster to keep pace with business demands. These statistics paint a clear picture of the pressure L&D teams face: do more, with less, faster.

This article explores how one L&D leader’s strategic partnership with artificial intelligence transformed these persistent challenges into opportunities, creating a responsive learning ecosystem that addresses the modern demands of rapid product evolution and diverse audience needs. With 71 percent of L&D professionals now identifying AI as a high or very high priority for their learning strategy, this case study demonstrates how AI can serve not merely as a tool but as a collaborative partner in reimagining content development and management.
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How we use GenAI and AR to improve students’ design skills — from timeshighereducation.com by Antonio Juarez, Lesly Pliego and Jordi Rábago who are professors of architecture at Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico; Tomas Pachajoa is a professor of architecture at the El Bosque University in Colombia; & Carlos Hinrichsen and Marietta Castro are educators at San Sebastián University in Chile.
Guidance on using generative AI and augmented reality to enhance student creativity, spatial awareness and interdisciplinary collaboration

Blend traditional skills development with AI use
For subjects that require students to develop drawing and modelling skills, have students create initial design sketches or models manually to ensure they practise these skills. Then, introduce GenAI tools such as Midjourney, Leonardo AI and ChatGPT to help students explore new ideas based on their original concepts. Using AI at this stage broadens their creative horizons and introduces innovative perspectives, which are crucial in a rapidly evolving creative industry.

Provide step-by-step tutorials, including both written guides and video demonstrations, to illustrate how initial sketches can be effectively translated into AI-generated concepts. Offer example prompts to demonstrate diverse design possibilities and help students build confidence using GenAI.

Integrating generative AI and AR consistently enhanced student engagement, creativity and spatial understanding on our course. 


How Texas is Preparing Higher Education for AI — from the74million.org by Kate McGee
TX colleges are thinking about how to prepare students for a changing workforce and an already overburdened faculty for new challenges in classrooms.

“It doesn’t matter if you enter the health industry, banking, oil and gas, or national security enterprises like we have here in San Antonio,” Eighmy told The Texas Tribune. “Everybody’s asking for competency around AI.”

It’s one of the reasons the public university, which serves 34,000 students, announced earlier this year that it is creating a new college dedicated to AI, cyber security, computing and data science. The new college, which is still in the planning phase, would be one of the first of its kind in the country. UTSA wants to launch the new college by fall 2025.

But many state higher education leaders are thinking beyond that. As AI becomes a part of everyday life in new, unpredictable ways, universities across Texas and the country are also starting to consider how to ensure faculty are keeping up with the new technology and students are ready to use it when they enter the workforce.


In the Room Where It Happens: Generative AI Policy Creation in Higher Education — from er.educause.edu by Esther Brandon, Lance Eaton, Dana Gavin, and Allison Papini

To develop a robust policy for generative artificial intelligence use in higher education, institutional leaders must first create “a room” where diverse perspectives are welcome and included in the process.


Q&A: Artificial Intelligence in Education and What Lies Ahead — from usnews.com by Sarah Wood
Research indicates that AI is becoming an essential skill to learn for students to succeed in the workplace.

Q: How do you expect to see AI embraced more in the future in college and the workplace?
I do believe it’s going to become a permanent fixture for multiple reasons. I think the national security imperative associated with AI as a result of competing against other nations is going to drive a lot of energy and support for AI education. We also see shifts across every field and discipline regarding the usage of AI beyond college. We see this in a broad array of fields, including health care and the field of law. I think it’s here to stay and I think that means we’re going to see AI literacy being taught at most colleges and universities, and more faculty leveraging AI to help improve the quality of their instruction. I feel like we’re just at the beginning of a transition. In fact, I often describe our current moment as the ‘Ask Jeeves’ phase of the growth of AI. There’s a lot of change still ahead of us. AI, for better or worse, it’s here to stay.




AI-Generated Podcasts Outperform Textbooks in Landmark Education Study — form linkedin.com by David Borish

A new study from Drexel University and Google has demonstrated that AI-generated educational podcasts can significantly enhance both student engagement and learning outcomes compared to traditional textbooks. The research, involving 180 college students across the United States, represents one of the first systematic investigations into how artificial intelligence can transform educational content delivery in real-time.


What can we do about generative AI in our teaching?  — from linkedin.com by Kristina Peterson

So what can we do?

  • Interrogate the Process: We can ask ourselves if we I built in enough checkpoints. Steps that can’t be faked. Things like quick writes, question floods, in-person feedback, revision logs.
  • Reframe AI: We can let students use AI as a partner. We can show them how to prompt better, revise harder, and build from it rather than submit it. Show them the difference between using a tool and being used by one.
  • Design Assignments for Curiosity, Not Compliance: Even the best of our assignments need to adapt. Mine needs more checkpoints, more reflective questions along the way, more explanation of why my students made the choices they did.

Teachers Are Not OK — from 404media.co by Jason Koebler

The response from teachers and university professors was overwhelming. In my entire career, I’ve rarely gotten so many email responses to a single article, and I have never gotten so many thoughtful and comprehensive responses.

One thing is clear: teachers are not OK.

In addition, universities are contracting with companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and Google for digital services, and those companies are constantly pushing their AI tools. So a student might hear “don’t use generative AI” from a prof but then log on to the university’s Microsoft suite, which then suggests using Copilot to sum up readings or help draft writing. It’s inconsistent and confusing.

I am sick to my stomach as I write this because I’ve spent 20 years developing a pedagogy that’s about wrestling with big ideas through writing and discussion, and that whole project has been evaporated by for-profit corporations who built their systems on stolen work. It’s demoralizing.

 

NAMLE 2025 Conference
Join us for the largest professional development conference dedicated to media literacy education in the U.S. on July 11-12, 2025.

From Pre-K to Higher Education, Community Education and Libraries, the conference provides valuable resources, technology, teacher practice and pedagogy, assessments, and core concepts of media literacy education.


 

Astronaut one day, artist the next: How to help children explore the world of careers — from apnews.com by Cathy Bussewitz

Sometimes career paths follow a straight line, with early life ambitions setting us on a clear path to training or a degree and a specific profession. Just as often, circumstance, luck, exposure and a willingness to adapt to change influence what we do for a living.

Developmental psychologists and career counselors recommend exposing children to a wide variety of career paths at a young age.

“It’s not so that they’ll pick a career, but that they will realize that there’s lots of opportunities and not limit themselves out of careers,” said Jennifer Curry, a Louisiana State University professor who researches career and college readiness.

Preparing for a world of AI
In addition to exposing children to career routes through early conversations and school courses, experts recommend teaching children about artificial intelligence and how it is reshaping the world and work.

 

Cultivating a responsible innovation mindset among future tech leaders — from timeshighereducation.com by Andreas Alexiou from the University of Southampton
The classroom is a perfect place to discuss the messy, real-world consequences of technological discoveries, writes Andreas Alexiou. Beyond ‘How?’, students should be asking ‘Should we…?’ and ‘What if…?’ questions around ethics and responsibility

University educators play a crucial role in guiding students to think about the next big invention and its implications for privacy, the environment and social equity. To truly make a difference, we need to bring ethics and responsibility into the classroom in a way that resonates with students. Here’s how.

Debating with industry pioneers on incorporating ethical frameworks in innovation, product development or technology adoption is eye-opening because it can lead to students confronting assumptions they hadn’t questioned before.

Students need more than just skills; they need a mindset that sticks with them long after graduation. By making ethics and responsibility a key part of the learning process, educators are doing more than preparing students for a career; they’re preparing them to navigate a world shaped by their choices.

 

The 2025 Global Skills Report— from coursera.org
Discover in-demand skills and credentials trends across 100+ countries and six regions to deliver impactful industry-aligned learning programs.

GenAI adoption fuels global skill demands
In 2023, early adopters flocked to GenAI, with approximately one person per minute enrolling in a GenAI course on Coursera —a rate that rose to eight per minute in 2024.  Since then, GenAI has continued to see exceptional growth, with global enrollment in GenAI courses surging 195% year-over-year—maintaining its position as one of the most rapidly growing skill domains on our platform. To date, Coursera has recorded over 8 million GenAI enrollments, with 12 learners per minute signing up for GenAI content in 2025 across our catalog of nearly 700 GenAI courses.

Driving this surge, 94% of employers say they’re likely to hire candidates with GenAI credentials, while 75% prefer hiring less-experienced candidates with GenAI skills over more experienced ones without these capabilities.8 Demand for roles such as AI and Machine Learning Specialists is projected to grow by up to 40% in the next four years.9 Mastering AI fundamentals—from prompt engineering to large language model (LLM) applications—is essential to remaining competitive in today’s rapidly evolving economy.

Countries leading our new AI Maturity Index— which highlights regions best equipped to harness AI innovation and translate skills into real-world applications—include global frontrunners such as Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States.

Insights in action

Businesses
Integrate role-specific GenAI modules into employee development programs, enabling teams to leverage AI for efficiency and innovation.

Governments
Scale GenAI literacy initiatives—especially in emerging economies—to address talent shortages and foster human-machine capabilities needed to future-proof digital jobs.

Higher education
Embed credit-eligible GenAI learning into curricula, ensuring graduates enter the workforce job-ready.

Learners
Focus on GenAI courses offering real-world projects (e.g., prompt engineering) that help build skills for in-demand roles.

 

Scientific breakthrough: artificial blood for all blood groups — from getsuperintel.com by Kim “Chubby” Isenberg
Japan’s universal artificial blood could revolutionize emergency medicine and global healthcare resilience.

They all show that we are on the threshold of a new era – one in which technological systems are no longer just tools, but independent players in medical, cognitive and infrastructural change.

This paradigm shift means that AI will no longer be limited to static training data, but will learn through open exploration, similar to biological organisms. This is nothing less than the beginning of an era of autonomous cognition.


From DSC:
While there are some promising developments involving AI these days, we need to look at what the potential downsides might be of AI becoming independent players, don’t you think? Otherwise, what could possibly go wrong?


 
 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian