Earlier this month, I attended the SXSW EDU Conference in Austin, Texas, where I led a panel session about Ithaka S+R’s credit mobility work. The conference featured wide-ranging sessions covering key topics in the K-12, higher education, and education technology sectors. I wanted to highlight a number of sessions that stood out to me, focused on the growing role of artificial intelligence in education, leadership in challenging times, student mental health and learning styles, and building cultures that foster student belonging.

In the opening keynote session neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff discussed helping learners develop an experimental mindset fueled by curiosity and embracing failure as an important step on the path to growth. The session encouraged moving away from strict outcomes focused learning to experimentation and discovery, so that students feel empowered to problem solve and can innovate when things are uncertain.

Other standout sessions included one about partnerships and community empowerment with representatives from Austin Community College and Morley College London. During the session Donald Tracy, dean of continuing education at ACC, shared about the impact of the college’s collaborative work to empower and support incarcerated women learners at Lockhart Correctional Facility. Continuing the theme of building a culture of belonging, a Wednesday afternoon panel discussion focused on the one in five postsecondary students who are parents and the barriers they face in completing their education. This session featured a discussion of the Education Design Lab’s Parent Hub design community, which seeks to redesign the higher education experience for parent learners.

The four-day conference featured 32 sessions that contained “AI” in the title, demonstrating the dominance of this topic across all education sectors. The main AI sessions all appeared to be extremely well attended, and often over capacity. Sessions covered a multitude of topics and discussed both the innovative potential of the technology as well as its effects on education The majority of sessions were application focused, sharing examples of how AI is being used in sectors ranging from instruction to mental health to climate change.

Other major topics at the conference included perceptions of the value of higher education and how to navigate difficult ideological discussions and conflicts. The closing keynote was delivered by Shamil Idriss, CEO of Search for Common Ground, who highlighted turning conflict into progress in deeply polarized times. The session opened with a question: who in the room had an important personal relationship harmed or broken due to polarization and conflict in the last two years? This question was answered affirmatively by a large number of attendees, and set the stage for a recognition that by some measures we are living in historically polarized times. The keynote cited several global and local examples of strategies, like authenticity, pragmatism, and multi-partial coalitions, that have broken through conflict to achieve change

Ithaka S+R also presented at the conference. As noted above, I moderated a panel with Kristin Brooks from the South Carolina Council on Higher Education, Renee Rhodd from CUNY Queensborough Community College, and Brandon Felder from Lander University about CUNY Transfer Explorer (T-Rex) and the recently launched national Transfer Explorer. The session focused on how transparency of transfer data can be a major catalyst for improving the transfer experience and outcomes for students. A session recording and video are available from this presentation.

Dylan Ruediger and Zhou Chen (ITHAKA) led a facilitated discussion with college educators about how they are using AI to improve student engagement, learning, and skill development. Real world examples were encouraged in this rich discussion, as well as questions and challenges related to AI in the classroom.

Ithaka S+R will continue to engage with postsecondary education leaders and innovators throughout 2025 to build on these efforts and engage in new projects. The recently launched national version of Transfer Explorer will expand to contain transfer data from colleges and universities in four states by the end of the year, and Ithaka S+R will continue to engage with the higher education community about the adoption of AI tools in teaching and learning. To learn more about these growing bodies of work visit our Credit Mobility and Research Enterprise portfolios.