The 2025-2026 academic year is almost here, and faculty are getting ready to return to their campuses. Amid this return, the higher education landscape is rapidly changing, with intense political interference, attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), high-speed technological shifts, and continual financial pressures. Given all that is happening, I talked to faculty throughout the country and across academic disciplines about what they are looking forward to as they return to campus. Faculty are excited about everything from talking with students, curricular innovation, integrating AI into their courses, and having the difficult conversations that are necessary during this time. Of interest to me was their sense of hope and purpose.
Despite the turmoil, faculty are motivated by the opportunity to engage students and mentor the next generation. For example, Kent Wallace, a physicist and Dean of Graduate Studies at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, shared, “We love the respective subject matter of our disciplines. We love sharing it with our students and mentoring them to be the next generation of scholars, scientists, doctors, and engineers.” For Wallace, education is more than content delivery; it’s about civic responsibility. He added, “Our faculty are eager to rear the next generation of future leaders to have a positive impact in government, academia, and the private workforce, and challenge the status quo.”
Other faculty members discussed their sense of connection. According to Lance Bennett of St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, “I’m genuinely looking forward to teaching and mentoring the next generation of higher education leaders – those who are stepping into the field with a deep desire to tackle the urgent challenges of our time.” He is inspired by “emerging scholars and practitioners who are committed to equity, access, and institutional transformation.”
Cynthia Tyson, a professor at The Ohio State University in Columbus, is going to keep “showing up” for her students. She stressed, “As a Black professor and therapist, I’m heading back to campus with purpose. Let’s be real—the world feels like a dumpster fire that someone pours gasoline on daily. And our students are living in it while trying to learn, grow, and survive. That’s why I show up.” Tyson added, “My classroom is more than a space for grades—it’s a space for truth-telling, testifying, talking, healing, critiquing, thinking, and caring. In the middle of the chaos, we build community. We breathe. We fight to thrive.”
Faculty are also energized by the opportunity to redesign courses and integrate technologies in innovative ways. A biology professor at New York’s LaGuardia Community College, Sultant Jenkins, is excited about his course redesign and how students will react to it. He shared, “One of the things that I am looking forward to this coming academic year is the effect of the changes that I proposed and have implemented for our college’s Human Anatomy and Physiology course. I am eager to see if these planned modifications will not only improve the students’ understanding of the material, but also their grade outcomes.”
Larry Moneta, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, teaches doctoral students focused on higher education leadership. He is “anxiously looking forward to rich and deep conversations about essential reinvention of higher education.” He laid out five key issues he wants to explore: 1.) curricular reform that blends workforce preparation and liberal arts thinking; 2.) belonging and anti-DEI laws; 3.) the transformative potential of AI; 4.) institutional retrenchment; and 5.) the evolving boundaries of responsibility for student wellbeing. Moneta added, “Bizarrely, I look forward to ‘heavy’ conversations about the current chaos and climate in higher education and to being of support to our students who assuredly are frightened, insecure, and possibly unsafe. If I can help, I will be grateful.”
Like Moneta, Jonathan Zimmerman, also at the University of Pennsylvania, is anticipating challenging conversations with students. He shared, “I’m looking forward to discussing all of the constraints and controversies around higher education. The Trump Administration is trying to limit that discussion, but we don’t have to comply. Let’s talk about it! That’s the only way we learn, about anything.”
Faculty also want to build campus cultures that are grounded in care, justice, and connection. According to Andrés Castro Samayoa of Boston College, “We’re definitely entering an academic year that is filled with questions and concerns for academics invested in equitably just futures! I’m most energized to reconnect with students and colleagues who are undeterred by our current circumstances and who recognize that it is vital to invest our energies in supporting each other.” He added, “I am grateful to meet students who recognize that their pursuit of an education is more than their self-growth or a formal credential; it’s a way of contributing to our collective good. And a critically engaged civic society is a fearsome thing for any wannabe authoritarian.”
Other faculty are focused on building visionary, inclusive leadership and broadening the reach of academic contributions. For example, Yvette Latunde of the University of La Verne in California shared, “I see myself as part of a visionary team – one that leads with purpose, clarity, and courage. Our learder is inspiring: someone who takes thoughtful, calculated risks and models integrity, imagination, and care.” She also looks forward to co-creating a space “where collaboration is meaningful, curiosity is nurtured, and difference is embraced.” What excites Latunde most is “the possibility of collaborating beyond the boundaries of academia – across disciplines, across sectors, and across the globe.”
Faculty members across the country are rising to the moment we are in with intention. They are passionate about their students’ futures, believe in collective change, and refuse to be silenced by restrictive politics. They believe that higher education must be both a space of intellectual rigor and social responsibility. They are not naive to the challenges ahead – including those that are political, pedagogical, or institutional. As Tyson stated, “This work matters. Our students matter. And I’ll keep showing up—fully present, fully human.”