Less ‘2000 and late’: What today's students need in the classroom (Loop - President’s Dialogue Series for Students, Faculty and Staff)

Students today are learning in a world shaped by rapid technological change, artificial intelligence, economic precarity, and constant information overload. Faculty are teaching amid shifting expectations, new tools, and real pressures to both preserve rigor and adapt. Somewhere in between lies a tension we all feel but rarely name: Are our classrooms truly designed for the students sitting in them now—or for a world now past?

This Civil Dialogue brings students, faculty, and staff into a shared conversation about what learning actually requires today. (Explore the Civil Dialogue model here.) What should we hold onto? What might we need to rethink? Where does technology help and where does it get in the way? And what parts of education remain deeply, irreplaceably human?

This isn’t a debate about right or wrong answers. It’s a space for curiosity, disagreement, nuance, and reflection. Come ready to listen, challenge assumptions (including your own), and imagine what teaching and learning could look like if we were brave enough to reconsider the familiar.

If you’ve ever felt excited, conflicted, skeptical, or hopeful about the future of the classroom, this conversation is for you.