You already see it in how people have clocked out. Universities used to be run on an inordinate amount of goodwill. Yes, the unhealthy kind that meant people bent over backwards in things they should be properly remunerated for, but also more broadly in collegiality and turning up. Eroded now.

The speeches grads received were not the speeches they deserved. open.substack.com/pub/christin...

To your point: Our latest org Zoom background says that our "customer" is also our "product."

"The Vermont Labor Relations Board has overturned a controversial return-to-office requirement that Gov. Phil Scott’s administration implemented late last year." www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2...

not sure if university presidents are getting stupider or just believing their own lies about budget

Non-tenure-track contract faculty at NYU went on strike this morning after over a year of bargaining (capped by a 24-hour+ marathon session). Big crowd of @uaw.org members and supporters, incl lots of students. They’re picketing over pay, workload, AI, a voice in faculty governance, & more.

let me put it in a way schools will understand: if you're (afraid of) running in the red, and instead of leaning into your core strengths, you spend more money to chase *potential* new revenue from *potential* new "customers" (they're called "students," btw), you're bad at business.

While we're doing our "the problem with university teaching" takes, mine is that it should be more shocking that in basically every UK university, the crucial decisions about teaching and assessment are made centrally, by fiat, and are almost never guided by active teaching staff or subject experts.

christinenowik.substack.com/p/partnershi... Orgs that treat faculty as a cost center will continue to manage decline and decay. Period. Orgs seeing faculty as a central strategic resource can build coherent responses to enrollment volatility, retention challenges, & public skepticism about value.

When you are involved in a labor union one of the most surprising things you learn is that management is often more interested in control of and power over workers than narrow financial concerns.

Oscar-winner Ryan Coogler recalling how a college writing professor pushed him to become a screenwriter & the possibility of #Sinners being taught in film curriculums someday: “I have so much respect for professors…for dedicating their life to future generations & making sure their minds are solid.”

Years ago our admin did a red and black report. It took salaries & how much $ each instructor made in tuition $ for classes we taught-you were in the red or black. They released numbers once & shut it down bc humanities were producing huge $ for uni & engineers, business and scientists were losing $

The president of St. John's University's announcement that the school will no longer recognize its two faculty unions is a shameful union-busting move. SJU faculty have been working for 236 days without a contract. Please sign the petition below to demand a return to the bargaining table.

The VAST majority of union-busting goes unreported. That means workers are subjected to undisclosed levels of secret coercion. These concerted attacks of the freedoms of working people degrades our society and weakens our democracy.

The Morning from NYT today, where they're describing a process for moving through a certain set of files with AI: "In fact, it’s really bad at news judgment, Dylan said: “A.I. can be sloppy and make mistakes that are inexcusable in journalism. It’s super industrious but not super intelligent.” And

This is a genuinely huge, sweeping victory today for the University of California—or rather, for us, its faculty, acting through our faculty associations, while the UC itself maintained a strict policy of deer-in-headlights silence. The Trump admin has given up its appeal of a powerful injunction:

thread. related, my impression is a lot of higher ed administrators are significantly oriented toward making a mark on an institution in the short term so they have a claimable on their CV to get their next admin job elsewhere. that incentivizes vandalizing institutions, whether by AI or otherwise

"One of the seldom-noted benefits of a high-trust environment is that it allows leaders to focus on structural issues, rather than trying to micromanage every little interaction. High trust is an enormous time saver, and it does wonders for performance..." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

“more and more colleges and universities are eagerly partnering with A.I. companies, despite decades of evidence demonstrating the need to test education technology, which often fails to deliver measurable improvements in student learning.”

As @rinewithoutacat.bsky.social said: "This is a publicly-funded university, using public money to fight its own employees.”

See also: college and university presidents and the purpose of higher education.

Yale English faculty requiring paper. yaledailynews.com/articles/eng...

This is a five-alarm fire not just for Texas A&M but for higher education and the country more generally. And it’s old news to say it, but this resides in a different universe of consequentiality than any of the perceived transgressions that triggered the Harper’s letter.

Forth Worth teacher Chanea Bond says sticking with pen and paper keeps generative artificial intelligence out of her American literature classes. n.pr/4c3cdzs

Absolutely. I had to go on a little tear about this matter this weekend to discuss the internal effects on the orgs as well. Trying to stay in my lane but 👀 this bigger issues are CLEAR open.substack.com/pub/christin...

Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com. ‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’ economist.com/united-state...

Please know that if your institution did this, it's a racist institution. Sure, many good people still work there and do good work there. But the school as a whole functions as a white supremacist institution. Proceed accordingly.

The org that paid for half of my PhD doesn't even respect me.

I've gotten more emails about [university whose name is on my paycheck]'s rebranding / new logo than I have about the WCAG requirements

The ADA Final Rule requires accessibility for: -All online course content -Digital materials used for in-person courses -Content provided by publishers Historically, I have made PDFs of my slide decks available to students on Canvas. This year I won't be. Why not? #academicsky 1/n

I remember hearing higher ed leaders trying to make people go ALL IN on VR as "education of the future" and getting stopped in my tracks by this thought: "OH. You really don't know what youre doing." Evergreen.

Pretty much every article I read about "integrating" AI into the writing classroom brings me back to the conclusion I work through here: We should teach writing, not document production. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

I have thoughts about this having done it myself. Reposting so that I remember to come back to it.

wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage

It's official: Unions of Our Own is coming ☺️ My highest aspiration is that readers will find it helpful for winning all that they need from their job — and for smashing injustice in society

It would appear I am now a columnist at Inside Higher Ed. My first piece focuses on McCarthyism, censorship, and our current moment in higher education. This is an essay I started nearly 6 months ago so I'm glad to finally share it with y'all. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

A deeply concerning development for all educators. #AcademicSky #EduSky

People keep wanting to shove "learning about A.I." into the curriculum when what we really need is learning about power and how it works.

When I say AI is a rhetorical technology

"The key is not technology; it is institutions," Méndez Galain said. "Once the rules are fair and predictable, the system builds itself."

Makes me recall a clip I saw of Joe Rogan enthusiastically forcing an musician to listen to genAI music he'd prompted as he heaped praise on the model that had generated it. The musician responded, "What about AI podcasts? They have those, now." No prizes for guessing how Joe reacted.

The Center for Academic Freedom has developed some recommendations and language around academic freedom that you can make part of your semester syllabus. Check out this post by CDAF director @isaackamola.bsky.social for details and links. open.substack.com/pub/academic...

"Who's the best organizer of workers? The boss" (p. 115). @dskamper.bsky.social

ISU student support workers file to unionize | WGLT share.google/tQEYWrzQxvQi...

We ran into these issues during the MOOC days and ended up just sort of giving up on enforcement because of this boondoggle. I sincerely hope that every professor sues their outgoing institutions on these very grounds. May the legal morass bog us down for a generation.

1/ At bargaining yesterday, @propublica.org management said that they should have 100% discretion to replace workers with AI and would not commit to labeling future AI-generated content.

It's hard to overstate how impossible this demand is from Purdue's administration to implement these AI requirements by next fall. We are nowhere close to understanding what AI proficiency means or what it looks like in education. www.forbes.com/sites/michae...