As a college prof, idgaf about their test scores. They only want them so they never have to take an English course again (they're majoring in business, after all). And of course, after taking a class pitched to a test, they won't want to.
sounds deadly for generating actual curiosity and interest
Why on earth would it be impermissible?
It's just an extension of the broad business-school-ification of universities now. I have a kid heading to college in the fall. Most common major of both tour guides and IG roommate profiles: business (now specialized down to marketing, accounting, supply chain, etc.)
I am broken-hearted at the terrible news that my alma mater, @hampshirecollege.bsky.social, after 56 yrs, is closing. Its death is a victory for conformism, for corporatism, for higher education's dull love of hierarchy & status. It's a grievous defeat for imagination & experimentation.
Everyone should ask this at every college! I have been on these college tours recently and I have asked this question (though not in such stark terms). People generally don't know the answer, but one student guide, at a $$$$ university did, and it was most of the first and second year courses.
what’s picking up steam is a curricular takeover under the guise of restoring whole books, books aren’t the problem and if we hadn’t given up on them in the first place, profiteers wouldn’t be able to exploit that vulnerability now
Imagine if this were reversed. Imagine if the Provost of a Milwaukee-based private college with no previous experience in litigation were, like, “I will run your law firm now. Give me the highest salary & the maximum decision-making power. How hard can it be?!?”
In case you're doubtful, there are quite a few entries at this level or below on the 2025-6 list.
More like an attempt to avoid a conversation.
Matt Seybold's recent episode of American Vandal on the financial history and potential of Canvas is on fire on this topic.
photograph or a poster on cream colored paper. "Dear President Ambar, we are writing to you on a typewriter that is over 70 years old. This is a machine that we all know well. With it, we misspell words without the crutch of spell check or generative AI and we think intently about every phrase we pound out. As we force ourselves, for once, to slow down, we engage in a cognitive dialogue with ourselves. We do not seek perfection because we know that education is about the growing and challenging of our young minds' potential, not the chasing of institutional 'gold-star' approval. We do not believe that your so-called 'Year of AI Exploration; providing enterprise ChatGPT and Google Gemini subscriptions to every Oberlin student aligns with our college's founding principles. You claim that this year will be one of experimentation, not adoption. But even just one semester of accepted (encouraged even) chat bot use will jettison our student body down a lazy and irredeemable tunnel of intellectual destruction. We are a college grounded in learning and labor, which now risks straying from these rooted ideals. With ChatGPT at the helm, our emails, essays,and discussion posts will be generated for us, not by us. And let's not fool ourselves. This is precisely what these platforms will be used for by our busy, anxious student body. We see your vision for this year as.advancing the college's 'businessification'--an alarming trend also seen in the takeover of our beloved library cafe by a 'bookstore' with no books in stock and an app replacing customer service. In one instance, the college assumes we want efficiency at all costs through automated rather than hand pulled coffee. In the other lies the false belief that we simply desire to turn in an essay, regardless of how little we've written of it." there's more that doesn't fit in the 2000 character limit :(
OH MY HEART...the Oberlin Luddites Reject "The Year of AI Exploration"! 💚
Why give instructors a living wage when you can support a financially untenable corporation bent on making everyone more stupid while using as much energy and water as possible?
Subtext--we'll push back "disruptions to the learning environment" until fall. We haven't heard any of your other concerns about environmental damage, invisible labor in the global south, or reproducing bias.
in 1977, Roland Barthes declared grammar to be a form of fascism
today the fascists are the enemies of grammar
She is also asking for a movement to make K-12 classrooms intellectually satisfying, inclusive, and stimulating curiosity for all (if I understand right). That movement needs to include all educators (as well as higher ed), and it relies fundamentally on trusting the expertise of teachers.
"surfaces"--is that what it's doing with experts' work?
How about having students read whole books that the teachers choose, because we trust them?
Airdrop 50,000 copies of Middlemarch with parachutes attached over every campus in America and then over the western half of Brooklyn
This is like if the Red Skull fought Dr Doom
Manuscript is a rent strike?
If you give Einstein your credentials to log in, then it can access ALL of your campus portals: your financial accounts, transcripts, email, health records, &c. because all of that is under one umbrella. Literally the only way to your LLM is through your campus login. The security risk is massive.
One day in the future, this is going to hang on the wall of a museum exhibit people visit in silence.
This letter from faculty and grad students in Natural Language Processing at CU Boulder is 🔥 "The annual expenditure of two million dollars could and should be reallocated to initiatives with tangible benefit for our campus communities."
artistic poster of a wolf and a hand and garlands of wildflowers; the text reads "March rent financial mutual aid needed. Supporting 11 families. Current goal: $7,000.00. Venmo: @Emma-Torzs"
Twin Cities' horrors continue though media has moved on. Families are still in hiding (schools w/virtual options till April), ICE still abducting people w/disregard for law, ongoing need for rent relief. Here's one hyper-local effort from my trusted colleague. Please RT even if you can't donate.
Pretty much what we've been doing in the English department the whole time.
more like student-tuition-powered AI
Also of note: the Arts and Humanities permanent budget was cut by $1 million a few years ago, and CU Boulder has cut funding for masters' students.
CU's decision to help stem OpenAI's cash flow problems by creating more of its own cash flow problems by paying them $2 million per year did not involve faculty or any shared governance.