In his book The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman sets the stage for his analysis of the 1990s by setting up how generations tend to view each other, a theme he’s built on across many of his essay collections:

“Younger generations despise older generations for creating a world they must inhabit unwillingly, an impossible accusation to rebuff. Older generations despise new generations for multiple reasons, although most are assorted iterations of two: They perceive the updated versions of themselves as either softer or lazier (or both). These categorizations tend to be accurate. But that’s positive. That’s progress. If a society improves, the experience of growing up in that society should be less taxing and more comfortable; if technology advances and efficiency increases, emerging generations should rationally expect to work less. If new kids aren’t soft and lazy, something has gone wrong.”

As an “elder millennial” myself, I have an interesting vantage point: I’ve experienced being part of a mocked generation, and now I’ve transitioned into the generation doing some of the disparaging. In fairness, though, when Instagram started feeding me reels of a “millennial manager,” which are supposed to be humorous, I could only laugh so much, given that she’s representing the way I comport myself in the workplace with upsetting accuracy. 

To be clear, I don’t think the generalized perspectives and behaviors of Gen Z students deserve derision; rather, I share the approach of my colleague Bridget Wagner, who has written about how she’s seeking out resources in order to best respond to the learning needs presented by this generation. 

At our annual Teaching and Learning Conference on May 2, 2025, I facilitated a concurrent session to check in with faculty about how our students are doing on three fronts: mental health, generative AI, and academic preparedness. I’m going to share the materials that informed the selection of these three topics and a bit about the conversation that unfolded in the session.

Mental Health

In Fall of 2024, several outlets, including the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported that the Healthy Minds Study had started to see an improving trend in rates of depression and anxiety. I’d stored this away in hopes of finding a time to see if faculty are also seeing decreasing student needs in these areas. However, a recent update from the Global Flourishing Study indicates that perhaps we’re not heading in a positive direction. 

The keynote speaker for this year’s conference, Dr. Katie Rose Guest Pryal, offered a comprehensive view of neurodiversity that encompasses mental health:

1. Developmental neurodiversity, which includes conditions such as autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
2. Psychiatric neurodiversity, which includes conditions like depression and anxiety
3. Acquired neurodiversity, which includes conditions like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI)

The faculty in the concurrent session who discussed student mental health provided another explanation for the uptick in students disclosing mental health diagnoses: an increased willingness of this generation to advocate for themselves. This advocacy element may also be connected to de-stigmatization of these diagnoses and the care needed to address them (like therapy and medication).

Additionally, faculty were asking questions about how they might continue their own professional development in order to be of service to their students. At DePaul, one of the best resources for this type of professional development is the Office of Health Promotion and Wellness, which offers an array of trainings in this area, such as “Mental Health First Aid” and “I Care for You: Trauma-Informed Response.”

Generative AI

While there are some general perspectives that students are using generative AI frequently and mostly to cheat, Beth McMurtrie finds those generalizations to be flawed. In my own classes, I’ve found that many of my students know that too much generative AI use undercuts their learning. They want to be the primary authors of their work, but they also want to know how AI could help them do their work better. 

The faculty discussion on generative AI in this concurrent session focused on the fact that, as with generations before, students are most tempted to cheat (via any means – illicit test banks, paper mills, generative AI, etc.) when they’re under pressure and unsure how to get started on an assignment. They talked about how clear and explicit scaffolding is more important than ever, something that Dr. Pryal also advocated for as a way to support neurodiverse students.

For instructors navigating this shift, “Beginning to Integrate a Framework for AI Literacy Into Existing Heuristics” offers a thoughtful framework for AI integration into pedagogy. “A Meditation on AI and the Faculty Member” also explores the emotional and instructional tensions faculty face when adapting to new tools like ChatGPT.

Academic Preparedness

My first response to reading this Substack post from a faculty member was frustration: I’m not a fan of the way this author speaks about their students, and I can see that the changes Gen Z students are presenting have led them to be cynical and contemptuous towards those students. Very much a lose-lose situation!

That said, I’ve heard similar frustrations from colleagues at DePaul – just usually framed more generously. We prepared ourselves for the students who would show up in our classrooms with pandemic-related learning loss, but that learning loss seems to be more broad-reaching than we’d anticipated, encompassing things like difficulty engaging in class discussions or lack of awareness in executive functioning areas, like how to plan for large class projects. 

Those concerns were echoed by the faculty in the conference session, who said that they’ve observed these shifts and are trying to be responsive to student needs while still upholding academic rigor. Faculty also noted that they sometimes struggle to meet students where they are without creating future problems. For example, one faculty member noted that in the quarter system, offering even one or two “late work” passes can compound quickly, and if a student gets a couple of weeks behind on compounding assignments, that student might end up requesting an incomplete that doesn’t get finished. In this case, the faculty member feels like they’ve made accommodating decisions (late work passes) that have unintended serious consequences (an incomplete that turns into an F).

I wish I had some sort of clear, definitive thought on the “state of the student body” at the end of the 2024-25 academic year, but I’m afraid we’re still in a complex place. That said, I want to reiterate that the place we find ourselves today, as instructors trying to meet the learning needs of a new generation of students, isn’t a new one. I’ll return to Klosterman’s point that some aspects of life should be easier for these students, and perhaps therein lies our opportunity. Rather than lamenting changes in attention spans or temptations for AI shortcuts, we might instead focus on leveraging the unique strengths this generation brings – their digital fluency, their desire for connection, their heightened awareness of social issues – while creating learning environments that address challenges. The fundamentals of good teaching haven’t changed: meeting students where they are, challenging them appropriately, and creating paths that allow them to reach their potential.