Image of the cover of the winter 2024 issue of Academe magazine, "The Higher Ed Data Juggernaut." Ocean waves are overlaid with data points. The words "The Higher Ed" are in white font, and "Data Juggernaut" is in yellow.

From the Guest Editor: The Higher Ed Data Juggernaut

BY SIOBHAN SENIER Following is the guest editor’s introduction to the winter 2024 issue of Academe, out this week. The full table of contents for the issue is available here.  In memoriam David Golumbia* In December 2020, a group of leading scholars of educational technology, including Jesse Stommel—a contributor to this special issue—held a landmark teach-in #AgainstSurveillance. The…

Gradebook show a table listing letter grades, including an A-, a B, and an A.

Your Gradebook Is Not Your Friend

BY JONATHAN REES I am old enough to have used a physical gradebook when I started teaching. It looked like it was filled with graph paper, but there was definitely an extra-large space on the left for the students’ names and room to do some calculating all the way on the other side. I abandoned…

AI-generated image of computer creating professor

ChatGPT and Academic Labor

BY JILL R. EHNENN AND CAROLYN BETENSKY Over the past few weeks, three scholars from political science and English departments—Corey Robin (political science, Brooklyn College and CUNY), Ted Underwood (English, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Eleanor Courtemanche (English, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)—have offered incisive and poignant reflections on what ChatGPT means to them, and us,…

"AI" appears in blue letters within a blue box with a black background and blue, intersecting lines behind it that suggest networks

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Higher Education

BY JOSHUA KNICKERBOCKER In early 2023, artificial intelligence (AI) made headlines when one of the most popular AI-powered tools, ChatGPT, passed the medical licensing boards, as reported in an Insider story. The ability of AI to pass difficult examinations easily and reliably has prompted many scholars to question the implications for academia. ChatGPT is a…

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It’s Time for a New AAUP Statement on Online Education

BY JONATHAN REES I’m a member of the AAUP Committee on Teaching, Research, and Publication. Last week, committee chair Hank Reichman and I convened a listening session at the AAUP biennial meeting to start the long process of revising the organization’s statement regarding online education. The existing Statement on Online and Distance Education dates from…

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Zoom on Academic Freedom in Higher Education

BY HANK REICHMAN In a statement, “On Academic Freedom for our Higher Education Users,” Zoom has announced that it will leave content moderation issues to universities for virtually all matter “related to the institution’s academics or operations” and engage in content-based censorship only under rare, clearly delineated conditions. In short, the company now says it…

Censorship By Zoom And Other Private Platforms

BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ACADEMIC SENATE’S UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM The following statement from the University of California faculty senate Committee on Academic Freedom was sent on December 23, 2020, unanimously endorsed by the Academic Council at its January 2021 meeting, and forwarded to the University of California provost on Feb. 4, 2021…

Professor Lubet’s Email Problem and Ours

BY STEVEN LUBET It probably should have occurred to me sooner that my university filters outgoing email for various terms of service violations such as catfishing and pornography. Never could I have imagined, however, that a third-party vendor had been empowered to “quarantine” outgoing faculty email based on its content, without ever informing the sender.…

Censoring Leila Khaled’s Webinars Violated Principles of Academic Freedom, but Sponsors Still Need to Be More Truthful about Her

BY STEVEN LUBET Steven Lubet is Williams Memorial Professor and Director of the Bartlit Center for Trial Advocacy at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.  A version of this post appeared at The Faculty Lounge on October 28. It was deeply objectionable when Zoom and other networking platforms blocked Leila Khaled’s webinars at San Francisco…