Professional, Continuing, and Online Education Update by UPCEA

The Superintelligence Force: A Moment to Reconsider the Pace and Nature of AI - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

2026-10-16T06:10:00.000-04:00

I am not entirely convinced that the “Superintelligence Force” is the best way to cool down the competition and slow down the race. However, here we are. This is the only available opportunity to cool down the competition and pursue a safer approach to further development. Although higher education was not heavily consulted in the preparation of this model, we will be impacted by the priorities and products that are produced as a result. Hence, we should actively seek inclusion in the process. We must also recognize that hundreds of other development efforts are being pursued in smaller independent as well as larger military and other governmental initiatives around the world. Some of these are providing open-source solutions that can then be further developed and applied by unregulated actors.

https://www.insidehighered.com/index%2ephp/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2026/10/16/superintelligence-force-reconsidering-pace-ai

He Helped Create Modern AI. Now the ‘Godfather of AI’ Wants an FDA-Style Approval System for It. - Sherin Shibu, Entrepreneur

2026-10-16T06:10:00.000-04:00

Geoffrey Hinton is known as the “Godfather of AI” due to his pioneering work in the field.
The Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist wants new AI models to be approved like drugs.
Hinton’s call for greater oversight arrives as AI industry insiders raise alarms about the technology they are helping build.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/the-godfather-of-ai-wants-an-fda-style-approval-process

Workforce in motion: Skills and pathways to future jobs in the United States - María Jesús Ramírez, Kweilin Ellingrud, Tanguy Catlin, Diego Castresana, and Anna Kortis -McKinsey

2026-10-16T06:00:00.000-04:00

AI, automation, and broader structural trends are accelerating the reallocation of work across the US economy. Capturing its benefits requires developing new professional pathways and skills, and reducing barriers between declining and growing occupations. The US economy could create more jobs in the next decade than will be replaced through automation, but the change may require the largest and most sustained workforce transformation in US history. Jobs of the future, particularly growing jobs, could pay more on average but require more skills. Roughly 60 percent of growing employment could be in the top two wage quintiles, with much of the increase concentrated in healthcare, construction, and management occupations. Conversely, more than 70 percent of declining employment could be in the bottom two quintiles, primarily in office and administrative support, retail and sales, and transportation and logistics occupations.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/workforce-in-motion-skills-and-pathways-to-future-jobs-in-the-united-states

Deluge of 377 OpenAI proofs bewilders the math world - Konstantin Kakaes, Quanta Magazine

2026-10-15T06:10:00.000-04:00

The technology firm OpenAI has announced the solutions to 377 open questions across nearly every mathematical subdiscipline. The results are spread over 722 papers, which OpenAI has uploaded to the Github code repository. They were achieved by a new, unnamed internal model that the company intends to release publicly in the near future, once they deem it safe. All of the papers were written by this model; only one, on a zero-free region of the Riemann zeta function, was edited by a person.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/updates/transformation/

UW-Stevens Point to host lectures, panels on strategies to navigate AI misinformation - UW Stevens Point

2026-10-15T06:05:00.000-04:00

The “Truth, Trust and Technology: Information in the Age of AI” series for the 2026-2027 academic year aims to help people navigate the complexities of information people must evaluate with an abundance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within digital platforms we read and use. This kickoff event, “Technology Brought Us Here, Now What?” features presenter Chad Johnson, associate professor in the Department of Computing and New Media Technologies. Participants will learn more about how humans can protect themselves and adapt to a constantly changing technological environment. “In this series, we will attempt to cut through the smoke screen, separate the signal form the noise, understand what we’re facing, and learn about how to survive it all,” said Johnson.

https://www.uwsp.edu/news/article/uw-stevens-point-to-host-lectures-panels-on-strategies-to-navigate-ai-misinformation/

Gonzaga Community Explores AI Through Faith, Ethics, and Dialogue - Gonzago University

2026-10-15T06:00:00.000-04:00

This fall, faculty, staff, and students are participating in reading groups focused on Pope Leo's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which examines artificial intelligence through the lenses of human dignity, ethics, faith, and the common good. The discussions are creating space for the Gonzaga community to engage thoughtfully with one of the most significant technological developments of our time. The first fall AI reading group session was organized through Foley Library and invited participants to discuss the encyclical and its implications for higher education and society. The conversations reflect Gonzaga's commitment to cura personalis, educating the whole person, and preparing students not only for careers, but for lives of purpose and ethical discernment about the use of this powerful new technology.

https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/magnifica-humanitas-reading-groups

Why more employers are hiring workers without college degrees - Heather Olinger, Maura Barrett - Scripts News

2026-10-14T06:10:00.000-04:00

A growing number of employers are prioritizing skills over college degrees, opening new career paths for workers with experience and certifications. As companies struggle to fill jobs and industries evolve faster than traditional education systems can keep up, more employers are shifting toward skills-based hiring — focusing on experience, certifications, and practical abilities instead of diplomas alone. Career experts say it’s creating one of the strongest job markets in years for workers without college degrees. “Skill-based hiring has really been picking up,” said Dr. Jasmine Escalera, career expert for resume builder Zety. “Companies are thinking more about the skills and experience they need rather than just the college degree.” The shift is especially noticeable in industries like skilled trades, healthcare, technology, and sales — fields where employers often need hands-on experience more than traditional academic credentials. According to Escalera, younger workers are also approaching careers differently than previous generations. Instead of climbing a traditional corporate ladder, many Gen Z workers are prioritizing flexibility, meaningful work, and opportunities to build skills that can transfer between industries.

https://www.scrippsnews.com/politics/economy/why-more-employers-are-hiring-workers-without-college-degrees

Five design principles for meaningful online global learning - Marcia Cross, Times Higher Education

2026-10-14T06:05:00.000-04:00

As digital technologies transform access to both information and education, how can universities offer distinctive educational value for professional learners online? Online programmes that bring together professionals from different organisations, sectors or countries can distinctly support this sense-making process. My department does this by starting from a simple idea: online learning does not happen in isolation from professional practice. Learners make sense of concepts, frameworks and methods through their professional experiences, but those experiences can also shape the assumptions that they bring to new problems. Learning solely within one setting can, therefore, reinforce existing assumptions as much as it challenges them.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/five-design-principles-meaningful-online-global-learning

City Colleges sees shift from in-person to online enrollment -the Channels, Luz Elena Del Pielago, Santa Barbara City College

2026-10-14T06:00:00.000-04:00

The numbers show that the challenge of filling classes has extended to departments across City College. While the reasons behind the decline are not completely clear yet, the difference between online and in-person enrollment has become noticeable.Van Arsdale said that one possible factor could be for the growing use of artificial intelligence. “It’s a response to that,” he said, when discussing some of the changes happening in education. However there may be several reasons in-person classes seem to be less attended by City College students. Since 2023-24, the number of in-person sections has increased by 2.81%. LaFave wrote that as of 2025-26, 52.61% of the City College sections were in-person. This may mean that the increase of in-person classes has exceeded the demand for sections that have been partially met by online classes.

https://www.thechannels.org/news/2026/10/06/city-colleges-sees-shift-from-in-person-to-online-enrollment/

What Does the Credential Still Certify? Cognitive Stewardship for AI-Mediated Education - Kai Yao, AIES 2026

2026-10-13T06:10:00.000-04:00

Generative AI is changing a basic premise of educationalassessment: that submitted work can reliably evidence thehuman capacities a credential claims to certify. The chal-lenge is not simply whether students use AI, but what re-mains inferable about learning when some cognitive workhas been delegated to a system. This paper developscogni-tive stewardship, a framework for AI-mediated assessmentthat links the learning claim, delegation boundary, evidencestandard, and safeguards. We then audit verified public gen-erative AI assessment guidance from 30 universities.

https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AIES/article/view/43349/50909

Want to be a lifelong learner? Don’t go it alone - Celine Nguyen, Psyche

2026-10-13T06:10:00.000-04:00

The history of autodidacticism shows that learning has always been social. The right relationships open intellectual horizons. The internet is full of resources for self-directed learning: for any subject, you can easily find blog posts about essential texts, links to university syllabi, and hours of YouTube lectures. When I attempted to make use of these guides, however, I often found myself disengaged and unfocused. I chastised myself for scrolling through social media while watching online lectures, or forgetting most of the ideas inside the books I read. The problem, however, wasn’t my attention span. It was my approach: I was struggling because I saw learning as a solitary pursuit.

https://psyche.co/ideas/want-to-be-a-lifelong-learner-dont-go-it-alone?comment

64 Online Learning Statistics for 2026 - Toya S., National University

2026-10-13T06:05:00.000-04:00

Who Is Enrolling in Online Education? The typical online learner is not a recent high school graduate experimenting with digital formats. Most are what NU calls ANDers: working adults balancing careers, families, and education. This demographic shift is reshaping how institutions will deliver instruction.

As of Fall 2023, approximately 54.3% of all U.S. college students took at least one online course, up from 37.2% in Fall 2019, representing a structural “new normal” well above pre-pandemic baselines.

In Fall 2023, nearly 3.9 million undergraduate students were adult learners aged 25 or older, representing 24% of the total undergraduate population.

69% of adult learners (students aged 25 and older) were employed either full or part time while pursuing their degrees in 2022.

https://www.nu.edu/blog/64-online-learning-statistics/

Workforce in motion: Skills and pathways to future jobs in the United States - María Jesús Ramírez, Kweilin Ellingrud, Tanguy Catlin, Diego Castresana, and Anna Kortis, McKinsey

2026-10-13T06:01:00.000-04:00

The US economy could create more jobs in the next decade than will be replaced through automation, but the change may require the largest and most sustained workforce transformation in US history. We estimate that roughly 11 million workers in declining occupations may need to transition to new jobs, ranging from six million to 16 million depending on the pace of automation adoption and its impact on labor demand. Jobs of the future, particularly growing jobs, could pay more on average but require more skills. Administrative support, retail and sales, and transportation and logistics occupations. One in seven workers could have a direct pathway into growing jobs, but almost half may face an unpaved pathway. While every transitioning worker has a route into growing work, Overall, more than 70 percent of workers could require some level of reinvention because new tasks may require more than 15 percent of their time. Three types of skills help workers move, move up, and keep adapting.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/Workforce-in-motion-Skills-and-pathways-to-future-jobs-in-the-United-States

The ‘AI and Future of Work’ Series — How the University is preparing students for what is next - Lidia Zur Muhlen, Cavalier Daily

2026-10-12T06:10:00.000-04:00

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, college graduates of the last three years are entering a challenging job market. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 5.7 percent in Q1 of 2026, compared with 4.23 percent for workers overall. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in June 2019, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.3 percent and for workers overall, was 3.5 percent. In a recent Gallup Inc poll, 79 percent of Americans believe that artificial intelligence will reduce the number of jobs over the next 10 years. A recent study by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab has found no evidence of “widespread” job displacement. The study looked at young workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations — jobs in which AI can perform most of the tasks like customer service and software development. Ultimately, its findings illuminated that there would have been a 19 percent drop in employment in late 2026 for AI-exposed jobs if the market kept pace with less AI-exposed occupations’ employment trends.

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2026/10/the-ai-and-future-of-work-series-how-the-university-is-preparing-students-for-what-is-next

New AI Framework Teaches Robots to Choose Their Own Skills and When to Use Them - Bioengineer

2026-10-12T06:05:00.000-04:00

One of the most stubborn problems in artificial intelligence is teaching an agent to carry out tasks that stretch far into the future, where rewards arrive rarely and the path to success is measured in hundreds of small decisions. A robot asked to stack blocks into a pyramid or open a microwave must chain together dozens of primitive motions, and a learning algorithm that treats every one of those motions as an independent choice quickly drowns in the sheer scale of the search. Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and collaborating institutions have now unveiled a framework that tackles this problem head-on by letting an agent learn not only which skills to deploy, but also how long each skill should last, adapting that timing on the fly as circumstances change.

https://bioengineer.org/new-ai-framework-teaches-robots-to-choose-their-own-skills-and-when-to-use-them/

Building digital skills and career opportunities - Age UK

2026-10-12T06:00:00.000-04:00

At 60, Mahmoud is exploring a new career direction after spending several months unemployed. With support from Age UK Islington, he is developing his digital skills, improving his ability to search for work and exploring the possibility of becoming self-employed. He was particularly interested in digital marketing, including content creation, website development and building applications. With rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), Mahmoud recognised that there was a great deal to learn and wanted to develop the skills needed to pursue opportunities in this field. Participating in online courses and managing a job search presented practical challenges, particularly when courses required learners to take part in discussions, complete activities and respond to questions online. Age UK Islington worked with Mahmoud to understand his circumstances and identify ways to help him move forward with his employment and learning goals. With this support, Mahmoud has been able to make progress with his online learning and take more active steps towards finding work.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/islington/about-us/news/2026/building-digital-skills-and-career-opportunities/

The AI industry is booming. Women are getting left behind - the Guardian.org

2026-10-09T06:10:00.000-04:00

Women made up only about a quarter of new hires in AI roles in the last year, compared to 50% of new hires in non-AI roles, according to a recent report from LinkedIn. In executive roles, that number drops to just 13%. At the same time, LinkedIn’s research shows that women are more likely to work in roles with high exposure to AI disruption, like customer service, meaning they are also at higher risk for job loss due to AI. AI jobs, whose postings have doubled since 2023, come with a salary premium, on average paying more than twice as much as roles that don’t involve working with AI, according to LinkedIn’s research. But women who do have jobs in AI are disproportionately concentrated in low-paying roles, like data annotators, said Sarah Steinberg, the head of global public policy partnerships at LinkedIn. Across all AI occupations, men have $45,000 higher median pay than women, partly due to the types of jobs they are likelier to have. “AI is creating some of the fastest growing, highest paying and most consequential jobs in the global economy,” said Steinberg. “Women are just strikingly underrepresented.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/04/women-ai-jobs-inequality

Universities urged to build coalitions to address SDGs - Kalinga Seneviratne, University World News

2026-10-09T06:05:00.000-04:00

Universities should take part in growing “multi-stakeholder coalitions” in society to strengthen education for sustainable development (ESD). That was the key message of a two-hour webinar organised on 30 September by the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) of the United Nations and attended by over 150 participants from across the world, many of whom were not academics. In presenting a HESI toolkit on how to grow the green and sustainable economy, the convenor, Debra Rowe, who has been the president of the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development for twenty years, said that by bringing in a diversity of groups working on green development, including finance and development experts, “we've been talking about a multi-stakeholder coalition.”

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20261002102236341

Community knowledge belongs at the heart of higher education - Jack Layton and Sue Griffiths, University World News

2026-10-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

In recent years, universities in the United Kingdom have scrutinised their relationships with neighbouring communities – exploring what these should and could look like. That requires asking what it takes to undertake meaningful community engagement, how their research can contribute to local economic growth and how their facilities can be repurposed to support local health and well-being.Part of this is about recognising that the traditional academic ecosystem can be detached from people’s everyday lives and concerns. Data extracted from places. Research trapped behind paywalls. Value derived from rankings and citations. Last week, the Institute for Community Studies at the Young Foundation launched the Journal for Community Studies. The journal brings academic research into direct conversation with community voice, lived experience and practical knowledge. It challenges a persistent imbalance in how evidence is produced and valued, where communities are too often treated as subjects of study rather than partners in inquiry.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20260930112346517

College Leaders Are Using A.I. Students Call It Hypocrisy. - Mark Arsenault and Alan Blinder, NY Times

2026-10-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

College professors and administrators have been busting students for cheating with artificial intelligence for several years. Now, the professors and administrators are getting in trouble, too. Dartmouth College last week announced it was investigating its provost, Santiago Schnell, after the college’s student-run newspaper found that some of his published writing appeared written by A.I. Dr. Schnell, a mathematical biologist, is perhaps the most prominent in a growing cast of college professors and administrators who have been accused of using A.I. in a way that crosses ethical lines. There have been instances of opinion articles, research papers and even campuswide messages to students showing traces of A.I. influence. He issued a statement apologizing. Administrators wring their hands, and sometime issue punishments, when students outsource writing assignments to a robot to save time or avoid the hard work of thinking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/college-professors-administrators-ai-dartmouth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FVE.V8JL.tY_Q3iRPn0wJ&smid=url-share

Career Prep When No One Knows What’s Next - Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed

2026-10-08T06:10:00.000-04:00

Cameron Sublett, senior director of innovation and incubation at FoundationCCC, which supports California’s community colleges, explained that job forecasting—with its direct implications for the postsecondary mission—has “always been a mad science,” and that AI disruption has added “so many more layers of complexity, confusion and noise.” Citing the economist David Autor, Sublett said that society is now in an “era of artificial intelligence uncertainty,” in which “history and secular trends no longer hold their predictive value.” Competing studies on AI’s labor-market effects regularly contradict each other, absent standard measures or methodologies, he continued. Shawn VanDerziel, president and CEO of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, agreed that “the current employment environment is challenging for job seekers and employers.” That’s due to the uncertainty around AI, but also the broader economy and policy shifts, including on tariffs, he said.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/life-after-college/2026/09/29/future-proofing-graduates-uncertain-labor-market

Can GenAI actually help build better learning modules? - Toni Jones, et al; RMIT Australia

2026-10-08T06:05:00.000-04:00

Building a high-quality online learning module is a substantial undertaking that involves a range of tasks, such as writing and organising content, developing activities, sourcing multimedia, structuring pages for accessibility, and aligning it all with learning outcomes. At GAILE, we've been curious about where Gen AI might help in that process, and where it does not. Gen AI can accelerate the production of learning resources, but its outputs still require careful educational judgement. We have previously explored how Gen AI can support lesson planning, learning simulations and question generation, and across these examples, a consistent pattern has emerged. Without expert guidance, AI-generated content can be fluent yet generic. The educator therefore remains central to shaping outputs through pedagogical knowledge, critical review and instructional expertise.

https://www.rmit.edu.au/about/educational-ai/blog/can-genai-help-build-better-learning-modules

From AGI to ASI - Tim Genewein, et al; arXiv

2026-10-07T06:10:00.000-04:00

After characterizing ASI, the report discusses four potential pathways from AGI to ASI: scaling AGI, AI paradigm shifts, recursive improvement, and ASI emerging from large-scale multi-agent collectives. The report then discusses possible frictions and bottlenecks along these pathways. Determining whether the impact of these frictions will be negligible or substantial raises a number of concrete open research questions. Due to large uncertainties for predicting ASI progress, it cannot be ruled out that AI progress might continue to accelerate over the next years. This could imply that the image of a single transformative step change, caused by the introduction of human-level AGI into our society, could be inaccurate. More apt might be the prospect of a series of transformative societal changes caused by AI-enabled progress and breakthroughs across many areas of science and technology. Preparing for this prospect requires a massively interdisciplinary endeavour of global scope and interest.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.12683

How one president is creating new pathways for older students - Alcino Donadel, University Business

2026-10-07T06:05:00.000-04:00

The Western New Mexico University president has a personal stake in this mission. A GED graduate, Coll was a firefighter and Marine before he entered college. His work portfolio and community college certificates helped him earn his associate degree, a critical moment that propelled him into higher education leadership. “I see my own lived experience in so many of our students,” says Coll, a former provost of Western Oregon University. “Those who come in with a GED to be a welder should be able to come back a year later to start working on their baccalaureate degree, and eventually their master’s.” “This is the value of our university,” he adds, “to embrace students where they’re at.” Building new academic pathways is also a vital enrollment strategy. Demographic changes have imperiled most institutions’ traditional student pipeline, forcing leaders to create onramps for adults and programs that entice stopped-out students to return to college.

https://universitybusiness.com/from-ged-to-university-president-jose-coll-is-redesigning-the-student-journey/

Friendship is built over time, through ordinary moments – I teach lonely college students to notice them - Justin Vaughn, the Conversation

2026-10-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

Many new students want close relationships, but feel anxious about initiating them and have had little practice sustaining them.I realized that my students rarely spoke to one another, and went entire semesters without learning their classmates’ names. Many students seemed unsure how to cross the few feet between them and their peers and make the social connection they craved. Factual. Free. For everyone. I designed a freshman honors seminar, “Friendship & Society,” around this uncertainty, combining the academic study of friendship with practical exercises in forming and sustaining it.

https://theconversation.com/friendship-is-built-over-time-through-ordinary-moments-i-teach-lonely-college-students-to-notice-them-291953