Practice
A Historian and Accidental Technologist’s View of Higher Education’s AI Moment
Published by: WCET | 7/2/2026
By Van L. Davis, Ph.D. Hi, I’m Van, and I’m an accidental technologist. (A what? I know. Just stick with me.) The first time I encountered the internet, I was sitting at a terminal in Vanderbilt University’s computer science building, which still housed the mainframe. It was the early ’90s, and I used that terminal to log into the National Archives and pull up the text […]
Practice
Students Aren’t Just Learning With AI—They’re Leaning on It
Published by: WCET | 6/18/2026
By Ashleigh Golden, PsyD, MSCP, Chief Clinical Officer, Wayhaven; Adjunct Clinical Faculty, Stanford Medicine Tens of millions of people across the U.S. and Canada are turning to general-purpose AI for help with anxiety, decisions, loneliness, grief, and the general overwhelm of being human. A meaningful share of those people are college and university students, many […]
Practice
Report: Online Students and Faculty are Aligned on GenAI Use
Published by: WCET | 6/11/2026
By Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, PhD, and Naomi Aguiar, PhD You’ve likely heard that students and faculty are on opposing sides in their perceptions of how generative AI (GenAI) tools are used in higher education. These narratives are based on assumptions and stem from personal stories or any number of recently published opinion pieces. To […]
Practice
What the Canvas Cyberattack Revealed About Higher Education’s Digital Dependence
Published by: WCET | 6/4/2026
It is not lost on me that the very thing that we often contingency plan around is now in need of its own contingency planning. Online learning, with the LMS at the center of it, is what we turn to in times of extreme disruption, whether that be a global pandemic, a wildfire, or an extreme weather event like a hurricane. What do we do when the LMS fails?
Practice
How to Not Be an Ostrich in the Age of AI
Published by: WCET | 2/26/2026
I’m currently testing out Copilot for WICHE as we work to refine our AI strategy and implementation. This morning, when I opened a new Word document to write this blog post, I was greeted with a helpful window prompting me to tell it what I wanted to write. Three minutes and one refinement to the […]
Practice
Five Common Myths About AI in Higher Education and What Our Research Actually Found
Published by: WCET | 1/29/2026
Cutting through the noise to help institutions make smarter AI decisions As AI continues to reshape conversations across higher education, leaders are navigating an increasingly crowded landscape of competing claims, vendor promises, and institutional anxieties. In the midst of this information overload, misconceptions can cloud decision-making and slow meaningful progress. Through our national study of […]
Practice
Reading the Tea Leaves: WCET, the Learn & Work Ecosystem Library, and the Power of Information
Published by: WCET | 11/7/2025
WCET was founded by leaders who were willing to “read the tea leaves” and recognize the potential of emerging technologies to transform higher education. Acting on that foresight, they built a community dedicated to collaboration and to expanding access and success for learners. That same spirit continues to guide WCET today as we help our […]
Practice
Lessons from Tidepools: Connecting Learning and Work
Published by: WCET | 11/5/2025
I’m fascinated by tidepools. Perhaps it comes from growing up in a desert, where the idea of a self-contained aquatic world is both foreign and magical. Each pool is the perfect example of an interconnected system: seaweed, plankton, mussels, starfish, and even otters are all connected through these pools of water left behind by the […]
Practice
Breaking Down Walls
Published by: WCET | 8/28/2025
Imagine a student who relies on a screen reader to navigate their course or descriptive audio to better understand and follow video recordings. For that student, accessibility is a necessity. Thirty-five years ago, America made a commitment to that student when President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on a hot […]
Policy
Insights into AI’s Transformative Role in Higher Education: WCET’s 2025 Survey
Published by: WCET | 8/21/2025
Artificial Intelligence is no longer a distant possibility on the higher education horizon. It’s here. And it is reshaping how institutions operate, teach, and support learners (in fact, I’d say it is changing the way most places operate, whether they’re ready for it or not). Since WCET’s first AI survey in 2023, the pace of […]