Cheating With ChatGPT: Can an AI Chatbot Pass AP Lit? [ Wall Street Journal ]

 

Taliban Bar Women From College Classes, in a Stark Reversal of Rights [ New York Times ]

 The flava:

The Afghan government on Tuesday barred women from attending private and public universities, officials said, in the latest severe blow to women’s rights under a Taliban administration that has all but reinstituted the hard-line rule the group maintained during its first stretch in power during the 1990s.

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-women-education.html

Stephen King Commencement Address to University of Maine (2005)

 

Black Student Arrested For Not Apologizing To White Professor [ Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey ]

 

Oscar-winning Producer of My Octopus Teacher, Ellen Windemuth [ Beat the Often Path with Ross Palmer ]

Mary Karr as the commencement speaker for Syracuse University in 2015

 

Remembering Lloyd Newman of Ghetto Life 101 [ NPR ]

 

December 9, 2022   

12:08 AM ET

In the early 90s, teenagers LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman recorded a week of their lives on Chicago's South Side. Working with StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, LeAlan and Lloyd produced a documentary they called Ghetto Life 101, one of the most acclaimed programs in public radio history. In remembrance of Lloyd, who died this week, we bring you a special presentation of Ghetto Life 101.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_Life_101

LGBTQ+ college students are struggling [ The Hechinger Report ]

The flava:

By Olivia Sanchez

Oscar Santiago Perez is very tired. They are not tired because of their course load at the University of Florida, where they are studying political science and criminology, or because of their student government work. 

Santiago Perez said it’s the barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, rhetoric and violence that has intensified throughout the past year that has left them feeling so tired and drained that they are becoming desensitized.

 “These politicians, these people in power just repeat these falsehoods and narratives that are actively harming myself and members of the community,” Santiago Perez said. “Oftentimes, I feel powerless to do anything about it.” 

 This year alone, state lawmakers have filed at least 340 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, according to the Human Rights Campaign, and at least 25 have passed. These include policies that would restrict queer and transgender people from accessing healthcare, limit educators from teaching about LGBTQ+ identities in schools and prevent athletes from playing sports on the team that corresponds with their gender identity.

 Beyond legislation, the United States Supreme Court hinted at potentially reconsidering the case that led to the constitutional right to same-sex marriage in 2015. And most recently, a gunman killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. These are just the things that have made national news.  . . . 

The article:

https://mailchi.mp/hechingerreport.org/lgbtq-college-students-are-struggling

Katie Meyer's Parents File Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Stanford University [ NBC Bay Area ]

Engineering Professor Advice: You Get Out of Your Education What You Put Into It [ Carlotta A. Berry, PhD ]

 

It's not easy, is it?

 

At N.Y.U., Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry. Who Was to Blame? [New York Times]

The flava:

In the field of organic chemistry, Maitland Jones Jr. has a storied reputation. He taught the subject for
decades, first at Princeton and then at New York University, and wrote an influential textbook. He received awards for his teaching, as well as recognition as one of N.Y.U.’s coolest professors.

But last spring, as the campus emerged from pandemic restrictions, 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him.

Students said the high-stakes course — notorious for ending many a dream of medical school — was too hard, blaming Dr. Jones for their poor test scores.

The professor defended his standards. But just before the start of the fall semester, university deans terminated Dr. Jones’s contract.

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html

Students demand USM replace professor for allegedly saying there are only 2 sexes [Bangor Daily News]

The flava:

Nearly two dozen graduate students at the University of Southern Maine are demanding their education professor be replaced after the professor allegedly said only two biological sexes exist.

The students said professor Christy Hammer’s remarks were inaccurate and transphobic.

After all but one student walked out of Hammer’s class on Sept. 14 in protest, they demanded a facilitated restorative justice meeting between the 22 students and their professor.

The article:

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2022/09/29/news/portland/usm-professor-two-sexes/

What Americans Don’t Understand About Teachers and Professors [The Atlantic]

 The flava:

Last week, I asked readers to tell me what people don’t get about their job. In an economy with thousands of occupations and hundreds of sectors, and where many people within the same large company have no idea what their colleagues do all day, I thought hearing from dozens of people about the reality of their work would be valuable.

I received several hundred replies—from opera singers, TV screenwriters, chefs, neuroscientists, and more. However, no category of workers wrote back more than teachers and professors. Given that education has become polarized and politicized, it makes sense that educators feel misunderstood and underappreciated.

The article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/what-america-doesnt-understand-about-teachers-and-professors/671590/

Why college?

 

Why community college?

Why?

Professors, It’s Time to ‘Rate Your Campus Admin’ [chronicle.com]

The flava:

Peruse RateYourCampusAdmin.com, and it’s not totally clear whether the website is supposed to be
funny or serious.

“You will have the power to evaluate the performance of the senior administrators on your campus,” the home page declares. Below that are claims that the site is “fueled by experts” with “years of user experiences with higher-education administrators, condensing a wealth of knowledge about their performance and future employability.” A banner prompts people to “add your administrators here!”

The links:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/professors-its-time-to-rate-your-campus-admin

https://rateyourcampusadmin.com/

Higher Ed Must Change or Die, by Jason Wingard

"I am the president of Pennsylvania’s second-largest institution of higher education. Temple University is a public, R-1 research university in a major East Coast city with a medical school and health system. Our research portfolio has more than tripled in the last decade. You would think all of these key distinctions would help me rest easy at night. That has not been the case as of late. . . ."

        --Jason Wingard

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/08/16/higher-ed-must-change-or-die-opinion

Growing Number Of High Schoolers Are Opting Out Of Higher Education [NBC News]

 

Beyond books: The 21st century public library [CBS Sunday Morning]

 

Deep Springs College: Higher education on a remote ranch [60 Minutes]

 

:-)

 

Peace be with you.

Earth is at aphelion (approximately 94,509,460 miles from the Sun).

Today is Independence from Meat Day and Alice in Wonderland Day and so much more.

The Hidden Life of a Christian-College Professor [The New Yorker]

 The flava:

In October of 2015, I received one of those vaguely mysterious e-mails which journalists sometimes get. It came from an account under the name of “K. Lee,” generic enough to be un-Googleable. “I wasn’t sure to whom to send this message,” the note began. “I am gay and teach at a member institution of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.”

That got my attention. The council, known as the C.C.C.U., is America’s most prominent association of evangelical Protestant schools. A few weeks earlier, two schools had left the organization after announcing that they would start hiring married gay and lesbian faculty, an unacceptable theological position for most member institutions. If this e-mail was really from a gay faculty member at a C.C.C.U. school, the sender’s identity would likely need to remain a secret. Otherwise, he or she would probably be fired. . . .

The article:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-hidden-life-of-a-christian-college-professor

This physics professor is becoming a TikTok star for her cool demonstrations [boingboing.net]

@tamuphysastr #Levitating balls using Bernoulli's principle as shown by Dr. Tatiana #physics #tamu #bernoulli #fyp #fypシ #science ♬ original sound - TAMU Physics & Astronomy

Tatiana Erukhimova, a professor of Physics at Texas A&M University

 

Solveig Gold Is Proud to Be the Wife of a ‘Canceled’ Princeton Professor [NYTimes]

The flava:

Solveig Lucia Gold was setting the table in her backyard, next door to the house once occupied by Albert
Einstein. Her yard is a sweeping field of emerald green grass leading down to the 18th-century blacksmith’s cottage with stone floors that houses her home study.

Ms. Gold, 27, was preparing for an intimate dinner with some of the few people — “our little cabal,” she said — who publicly admit to being on friendly terms with her and her husband, the recently fired (she prefers “canceled”) former Princeton classics professor Joshua Katz.

Most of the guests were much older than Ms. Gold. This included Dr. Katz, who is 52 and was once her professor. . . . 

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/style/solveig-gold-joshua-katz-princeton-professor.html

A kind American reader submits some information. . .

"To the leader of the pasture:

I'm no longer in academia, but when I was, there was a great deal of agita among faculty members over journal submissions.

I just ran across this opportunity for academics of all disciplines. Thought it would be appropriate for the pasture.

The graphic is attached.

Thanks for your consideration."

Actor and Alum Willem Dafoe Speaks at UW-Milwaukee Commencement

 

Students I have turned away from research, by Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno

When I first started involving students in research, I idealistically took in anything that walked through the door. I quickly learned to stop this, since research can be tedious, hard work. It’s not all field trips to Hawai’i, Arizona, or Chile. Indeed, with the new generation of automated observatories, traveling around the planet to get a look at a star is sadly coming to be seen as a thing of the past, by astronomers like me. 

I began giving students copies of three papers to read, and told them to write a three-page paper about what they understood of these papers, due next week. About half of these students would seemingly vanish into a black hole. This was a good start. I later added a diagnostic quiz, to be given before assigning the three-page paper. Being unable to list the planets of the Solar System in the correct order outward from the Sun is never a good sign. And no, Pluto isn’t a planet: get over it.

For many years now, I have mentored incoming students in research only for academic credit, through independent study courses. It puts a limit on how many students I can take, and thankfully also on my workload, since many of my students need a LOT of help even to get even the most basic results they still don’t really understand. I used to pay student researchers out of grants. I won’t do that anymore, unless they’ve proved their worth to me by first doing at least one semester of research for credit. I hate it when students tell me they have “nothing to report,” and then immediately ask me to fill out their time sheets so they’ll get paid for it.

In the interest of fairness, I was still open to all comers. This may now be ending, with the following three cases.

(1) Student 1 was a student at a nearby college. He did not realize that to do research with me, he would need to be registered at my university. I need to get some credit for mentoring students: I am simply not in a position to work for free, without limit. (At least he didn’t tell me it would be “good exposure.”) He also had negligible astronomy background, never having heard of Cepheid variables. These are the stars used by both Edwin Hubble and the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project, to measure the size and age of the Universe.

(2) Student 2 did not deliver a scientifically useful result to me at the end of a semester of undergraduate independent-study research. This was because he was sloppy, disorganized, and managed time poorly, always letting everything go until the last minute. During every one of the weekly research meetings he had with me throughout the semester, he told me that he had nothing to report, but he’d get to it next week. At the end of the semester he requested more time, to prolong the agony. Student 2 also did not understand significant digits. All science majors cover this on the first day of college, and usually also previously in high-school chemistry class.

(3) Student 3 did not deliver a scientifically useful result to me at the end of a semester of undergraduate independent-study research. This was because he didn’t follow the directions that I gave him. Throughout the semester, he did a poor job of communicating with me, even though I repeatedly told him that if he didn’t understand, he could have emailed me at any time. I’m still waiting for him to reply to any of my emails. Student 3 also had little astronomy background, having never heard of Betelgeuse, the brightest red supergiant star and variable star in the night sky. It’s every kid’s favorite because of its funny name, often mispronounced “beetle-juice.”

Mentions (not honorable)

Mention 12: This graduate student was a mismatch, interested in nuclear physics. The last time I did nuclear astrophysics was when L7 was at the height of their popularity. I recommended he ask another faculty member to mentor him. It also wasn’t easy to communicate with him, because his email clearly wasn’t written at college level. 

Mention 11: This undergraduate independent-study research student and honors college scholar produced no scientifically useful result because of his inability to understand and to follow directions. This was compounded by his lack of effort due to his pronounced senioritis.

Mention 10: This undergraduate could not understand or follow directions. He also had a serious attendance problem, missing most weekly research meetings with no notice. The only result he produced was some poorly documented code in a computer language I repeatedly told him I didn’t know. I still don’t know whether this code works, or even what it’s supposed to do. It certainly was not what I told him I needed!

Mention 9: I sure hope this undergraduate is doing something useful now. I am by no means the only faculty member who started out impressed by his intelligence and promise, only to become exasperated by his egregious lack of a work ethic. If this highly competitive field of esoteric science isn’t fun for you, why not get a real job making real money? He did produce a review of the problem in his final report, but no new science.

Mention 8: This undergraduate proved unable to contribute anything scientifically useful since he couldn’t understand even the basics in the literature. He also seemed to think this was my responsibility, much as when he could not read a DVD. I told him the university library still has DVD players, and this bounced off harmlessly. Why do students complain that college is not like the real world, but when you make it like the real world by involving them in actual scientific research, they hate it because you are not dumbing it down enough for them? The idea of rising to a challenge seems quite alien to him. 

Mention 7: This undergraduate honors college scholar, who I came to think of as “Spontaneous Me,” did turn in a competently written literature review. It appeared to contain original research and thought, but careful examination showed it seemed so only because it was so poorly cited. None of the papers cited (or not cited) were papers this student found herself: they were entirely papers of which I’d given copies to this student. I hate how often honors college students are busy, busy, busy all right, but doing seemingly everything but the research they signed up to do with me, above all keeping up that all-important GPA. At least four times, this student missed weekly research meetings and Astrophysics Journal Club meetings at short or no notice (twice each), for two of which I had put substantial effort preparing. Fool me twice, and I decide you’re not worth the trouble.

Mention 6: I fired this graduate student because he couldn’t even understand the basics and repeatedly wasted my time by not showing up to research meetings with no notice. At least use that smartphone I see that you have to send me email to let me know you won’t be coming, will you?

Mention 5: This undergraduate was a complete waste of his and my time. It’s not good to go through life as a grinning idiot, especially when you’re not capable of anything else.

Mention 4: This undergraduate could not understand the literature or even the basics of the astrophysics we were trying to do. He broke the telescope’s focusing mechanism during the second week of classes (and this never happens at the end of the term), by exerting an astonishing amount of force on it. I can work with theorists with no mechanical aptitude, if they can follow directions carefully. It’s impossible to defend against negative mechanical aptitude, which is when someone breaks things in ways you wouldn’t have thought possible. This guy could screw up even a remote control. Normal people use those on TV sets!

Mention 3: This graduate student turned on me, by threatening to report me to my totally incompetent department chair. This was because his astonishingly litigiously minded wife told him I wasn’t publishing a paper with him listed as a co-author fast enough. I have a 4/4 teaching load: whenever it’s reduced to 4/3, I am made to feel like Oliver Twist with his bowl out. Particularly astonishing was that this graduate student had served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. I guess it should now be, “Aliquando fidelis.”

Mention 2: This non-traditional (or “mature”) undergraduate was a colossal waste of money, time, and effort. This touristy dilettante clearly couldn’t have cared less about publication, and gave up so easily at everything.

Mention 1: This graduate student was a pure-and-simple crank. He refused to my face to read the literature because it might affect his “ideas.” He did not even think to back up his software, not that he would have achieved any scientific result with it anyway. I emailed him, “I never want to talk to you again for the rest of my life.”

--Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno

Adult daughters of Purdue professor accuse him of incest [yahoo.com]

"I have never had any form of inappropriate relationship with any minor or any form of non-consensual relationship with anyone, and I am innocent of any such charges."

--Purdue University Associate Professor Robert Givan

Big Hungry. . . May Day. . . mayday, mayday, mayday

So many of the community college campuses are like ghost towns now because of the pandemic.  There's been a profound increase in online classes.  On the other hand, the elite college campuses look crowded like they did three years ago.

There will be consequences, yes?

Former Yale administrator stole $40M in electronics from school to buy luxury cars and homes, prosecutors say [New Haven Register]

 The flava:

A former Yale School of Medicine administrator pleaded guilty Monday after stealing and reselling more than $40 million worth of computers and electronic devices while employed by the university, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Connecticut.

The article:

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Former-Yale-administrator-stole-40M-in-17034496.php

1,000+ Professors Call For Full Student Debt Cancellation and Tuition-Free College [Business Insider]

 The flava:

Canceling student debt won't solve all the inequities in higher education — but it's a vital first step,
professors say.

Over 1,000 faculty members from universities across the country, including Columbia, Yale, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, signed a letter urging President Joe Biden to deliver on full student debt cancellation for federal borrowers. The letter, which was organized by the Debt Collective — the nation's first debtor's union — and obtained by Insider, said that the growing $1.7 trillion student debt crisis is causing "instructional harm," forcing borrowers to assume studies that would best help them pay off their debt. They say it has also exacerbated the labor shortage for faculty, because many of them are student debtors themselves.

The article:

https://www.businessinsider.com/read-why-1000-professors-support-universal-student-loan-debt-cancellation-2022-3

Wombat of the Copier shares a copy of a position description. . . and a thought

 F***in' UCLA, am I right?

--Wombat of the Copier

Kofi Annan's postulation

 “Education, is quite simply, peace building by another name.  Education is the most effective form of defense spending there is.”

—Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, on September 10, 1999

The speech:

https://www.un.org/press/en/1999/19990910.sgsm7125.doc.html

Big Hungry

Have you dumbed down your classes during the COVID pandemic?

:-)

Huntsville Amarillo Pampa Paris Yates Bluegrove Izoro Rockport Texline Hillsboro Decatur Abilene Yturria, Canton Alvin Lufkin!  

Ex-Casino Executive Gets 1 Year and 1 Day in Prison in College Admissions Scheme [New York Times]

 The flava:

A former casino executive was sentenced on Wednesday to a year and a day in prison for participating in a conspiracy to secure his daughter’s admission to the University of Southern California as a Division I basketball recruit even though she did not make the varsity team in high school, prosecutors said.

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/us/varsity-blues-sentence-gamal-abdelaziz.html

Merger with USF Charts New Direction for San Francisco Art Institute [KQED]

The flava:

The San Francisco Art Institute and the University of San Francisco announced this month that they’re planning to merge. Under the agreement, USF will acquire the cash-strapped 151-year old arts college and offer a program called SFAI@USF in the fall. The move is reminiscent of Northeastern University’s acquisition of Mills College in September 2021 as small colleges and arts schools deal with financial pressures compounded by Covid. We’ll talk about the implications for SFAI’s students and adjunct faculty, as well as for the broader arts community of the Bay Area, and look ahead at a new era for the irreverent contemporary arts school.

The podcast episode:

https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101887741/merger-with-usf-charts-new-direction-for-san-francisco-art-institute

Bookstore Woes, from Wombat of the Copier

I need advice.

Before COVID we had nearly 1000 students in our service courses, so we use an online homework package.  It's pricey but it comes with textbook access.  I felt that for what the students pay for it, we shouldn't just thoughtlessly throw some random problems at them - but we should make the absolute best use of it.  I devoted an entire winter break a few years ago to testing all of the bells and whistles and coming up with a new course design that, for the same price they were already paying for run of the mill problem sets, could be used to give them a great, interactive, experience where things done in one part of the course (lecture, lab, peer workshop...) would work synergistically with other parts.  I made self-assessments that students could use with flow-charts to help them figure out if they've nailed a topic, or need more practice, and if so, what part of the program should they try next etc.  I even watched upwards of 50 hours of supplementary videos and played with supplementary animations/simulations/manipulatives etc. to provide students with descriptions and time stamps of what each of these features were.  If we're going to tell them we'd like them to buy a $100 access code - I wanted to make sure they got $200 worth of education out of it.

But our bookstore manager is the worst.  Every fall until Nov and every spring until April, I have students getting the run around about "back ordered" course codes.  A few years ago me and a few colleagues put the publisher link in our course outline and bookstore manager sent us aggressive cease and desist orders claiming we have a contract and that we're violating it.  HE violates it by not providing the students with course materials.  He claimed it was a communication issue and my department fails to tell him to order an adequate number of codes.  Every year we increase the request by 10% of what we asked for the last semester - and since covid our enrollment is actually down (like everywhere else) and he STILL runs out of codes before the first week.  I wouldn't mind but there's more.  He still lets the bookstore take orders - he continues to take money from the students and tells them they'll get a call when the codes come in.

But he never calls them.

We have 2 reps from the publisher and they tell me this is all bullshit in the first place.  There is no such thing as being "backordered".  There isn't some ship in the middle of the Suez holding all the cards.  If the bookstore manager calls and requests more codes, they hit a button, a computer generates a few dozen more codes, and they send them instantly.  

They've even told me "stay by your e-mail - we're sending codes to your bookstore right now and we'll let you know when your students can get them on campus" and STILL when the students show up he claims they're "backordered".

So I've pleaded multiple times with my chair to take this to the University and every semester he says ok next semester.

I wouldn't mind that he can't provide the codes if he didn't threaten me - but now I'm afraid - I try to be covert about it but it gives me massive anxiety.

If this is how he runs the bookstore can I really be sued, as he claimed?  I can't get my chair to talk to the university about what is actually in that contract - I'm SURE the bookstore voids the exclusivity by not being able to provide the course materials.

What would you do?  Any advice?  

I mean in what universe do students actually work this hard to get their materials?  They usually blow it off - and I've managed to convince them that they should try to use the recommended course materials.  I'm actually pretty proud of what I've done with this course - and this guy is just screwing the students and lashing out at the faculty.  I am just very frustrated and hoped someone might have a good idea.  

--Wombat of the Copier

Prof. Pottah sends a letter of contemplation and hope.

Hey There, 

So over four years ago--wow, that long?--I posted this: https://zoozethehorse.blogspot.com/2017/05/adjunct-debt-from-prof-pottah.html

I was down. I was . . . not well. I had just finished another semester at two local colleges. The jobs, like many adjunct jobs, were often humiliating (we know why; no need to rehash that). The school I taught most of my classes at let me go a semester later. It was bleak--financially and spiritually. It was bleak. I had made mistakes and was paying for them, but I was pretty much condemned to this life forever. 

I kept the messages (on the website and one the moderator sent me) with me. I kept them in my wallet. I took them out this year on Christmas morning after receiving a new wallet from my kids. I had forgotten about them, but they helped me hold out some hope and stop judging myself by academia's
terms,  and eventually I found an open door (that phrase is inspired by one of the comments) in another field.  It was just a crack at first, but then it grew into something larger (and it almost grew into something really amazing recently, but I didn't get the job, which is fine). I'm not making much money, but with this job and a little adjuncting, I am at least making about $40,000. And I get four months off from the main job! (It's permanent but seasonal.) 

But what I am really earning is pride and a sense of mattering. My teaching experience directly impacts my job now, and I am able to mentor younger people and bring all of my creativity to the work. I am really good at the job. Teaching as an adjunct, of course, mattered, but any positive feelings were usually destroyed by the daily humiliations and frustrations. But that's a thing of the past.

I feel real again. I don't have to lie to my kids. Adjuncting is much better now because I don't walk on to campus full of shame, the community college at which I teach values me.  I feel like an actual person, not something that exists on the backside of a university and can be wiped away at will without the outside world ever witnessing it, or wanting to.

No one else knew about this struggle, save my wife. (And I don't even think she understood the feelings of powerlessness.) Who else was I going to tell? Thank you. I was glad you all listened. Who else would have? Again, thank you.

--Prof. Pottah

[Editor's note:  Thank you to the writer for sending a follow-up message a few days later--because the first one actually went to my spam folder.  Who knows how long it could have languished there had I not been poked?]

White professor teaching 'Black Lives Matter' course for $140k/year [Rebel News]