Anything ChatGPT Can Do, My Students Can Do Better

Why a Media History Professor Is Welcoming AI Into Her Classroom

Zócalo is celebrating its 20th birthday this year! As part of the festivities, we’re publishing reflections and responses that revisit and reimagine some of our most read and most impactful stories.

CSUN media history professor Elizabeth Blakey draws inspiration from UCLA behavioral ecology professor Peter Nonacs’ 2013 essay, “Why I Let My Students Cheat on Their Exams.”

Comedian Steve Martin once said that teaching is like show business. Keeping this metaphor in mind, I try to approach each of my lectures like a live …

by Elizabeth Blakey | August 31, 2023

A Letter From Northern Michigan, Where Remote Is Not Remote Enough to Escape COVID

A Professor Who Finds a Home in the Upper Peninsula No Longer Has the Heart to Return to the Classroom

by James McCommons | September 3, 2020

Last winter, I felt pressure and spasms beneath my breastbone and went in for a cardiac stress test. Two days later, I left the hospital with a stent in the …

The Pioneering Cornell Anatomist Who Sought to Bring ‘Honor’ and ‘Duty’ to College Life

At the Turn of the 20th Century, Burton Green Wilder Railed Against Frivolous Activities and Thought Privileged Students Should Hold Each Other to Higher Standards

by Richard M. Reid | November 8, 2018

In 1901, Cornell University students created a new holiday on campus, called “Spring Day.”

Many faculty members objected to the holiday, but few were as visible and vocal as professor Burt …

How Attending Elite Universities Helped Mormons Enter the Mainstream

Through Higher Education, Latter-day Saints Joined the U.S. Meritocracy and Transformed Their Own Identity

by Thomas W. Simpson | July 9, 2018

The history of Mormon “Americanization” has long puzzled those who try to understand it.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Mormons, under immense pressure from local and federal …

Why an Undocumented College Student Left California for Indiana

The Golden State Values Dreamers Like Me, but the Hoosier State Put Graduation Within Reach

By Miguel Molina-Ventura | August 8, 2017

I’m one of the young people covered by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows people who immigrated with their parents before they were 16 to live …

How Much Do We Learn in College?

Until Universities Track Improvement, We Won't Know the Real Value of Higher Ed

By James R. Pomerantz and Daniel Oppenheimer | February 28, 2017

It’s mid-winter, your college applications have been submitted, and you’ll soon be pacing the floor waiting to learn where you have been accepted. But will you emerge from college four …

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