Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like; The New York Times, November 21, 2024

Vimal Patel , The New York Times; Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like

"The slashing of core classes across the state, which has often been based on course titles and descriptions, is meant to comply with a state law passed last year that curbed “identity politics” in the curriculum. The law also bars classes from the core that “distort significant historical events” or that include theories that “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.”

AI task force proposes ‘artificial intelligence, ethics and society’ minor in BCLA; The Los Angeles Loyolan, November 18, 2024

Coleman Standifer, asst. managing editor; Grace McNeill, asst. managing editor , The Los Angeles Loyolan; AI task force proposes ‘artificial intelligence, ethics and society’ minor in BCLA

"The Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) is taking steps to further educate students on artificial intelligence (AI) through the development of an “artificial intelligence, ethics and society," spearheaded by an AI task force. This proposed addition comes two years after the widespread adoption of OpenAI's ChatGPT in classrooms.

Prior to stepping into his role as the new dean of BCLA, Richard Fox, Ph.D., surveyed BCLA’s 175 faculty about how the college could best support their teaching. Among the top three responses from faculty were concerns about navigating AI in the classroom, Fox told the Loyolan.

As of now, BCLA has no college-wide policy on AI usage and allows instructors determine how AI is — or is not — utilized in the classroom.

“We usually don't dictate how people teach. That is the essence of academic freedom," said Fox. “What I want to make sure we're doing is we're preparing students to enter a world where they have these myriad different expectations on writing from their faculty members.”

Headed by Roberto Dell’Oro, Ph.D., professor of theological studies and director of the Bioethics Institute, the task force met over the summer and culminated in a proposal for a minor in BCLA. The proposal — which Dell'Oro sent to the Loyolan— was delivered to Fox in August and now awaits a formal proposal to be drawn up before approval, according to Dell’Oro.

The minor must then be approved by the Academic Planning and Review Committee (ARPC), a committee tasked with advising Provost Thomas Poon, Ph.D., on evaluating proposals for new programs.

According to the proposal, the proposed minor aims “to raise awareness about the implications of AI technologies, emphasize the importance of ethical considerations in its development and promote interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, ethics, and society.

The minor — if approved by the APRC — would have “four or five classes,” with the possibility of having an introductory course taught by faculty in the Seaver College of Science and Engineering, according to the proposal.

Most of the sample courses in the proposal include classes rooted in philosophy and ethics, such as, “AI, Robots, and the Philosophy of the Person,” “Could Robots Have Rights?” and “Introduction to Bioethics.” According to Dell’Oro, the hope is to have courses available for enrollment by Fall 2025."

"Feedback effects": The real censorship caused by fake "cancel culture" outrage; Salon, October 8, 2024

 Amanda Marcotte, Salon; "Feedback effects": The real censorship caused by fake "cancel culture" outrage

"Cancel culture" is a phantasm. Yes, as any true believer will insist, there have been cases where a person saw consequences — such as being suspended for a year from a plum teaching gig — for "political incorrectness." A deeper look, however, often shows that what is being sold as "free speech" is instead repeated abuse of colleagues or students. More often, it's outrage at being yelled at online, as we see with self-described cancellation victims like J.K. Rowling or Elon Musk. In many cases, the "cancellation" is pure myth, such as when a few students complained about bad food at the Oberlin cafeteria, and the press decided it was "wokeness" and not good taste driving anger that limp pork sandwiches were being passed off as "bánh mì."

In his new book "The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession Went Global," Stanford professor Adrian Daub argues that the hysterics over this alleged trend amount to a moral panic. Worse, fretting about the mythical excesses of youthful leftists has created a pretext for the right to engage in real assaults on free speech, such as banning books for being "woke" or shutting down student protests. But conservatives get away with it because so much of the press — not just in the U.S., but in Europe as well — would rather feed centrist audiences a steady diet of "cancel culture" panic.

Daub spoke with Salon about his book and whether it's "politically correct" to want your bánh mì to taste like a real bánh mì."

Scottish university to host AI ethics conference; Holyrood, October 2, 2024

 Holyrood; Scottish university to host AI ethics conference

"The University of Glasgow will gather leading figures from the artificial intelligence (AI) community for a three-day conference this week in a bid to address the ethical challenges posed by the technology.

Starting tomorrow, the Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium, will see academics, researchers, and policymakers discuss how to make AI a tool for “positive change” across higher education.

The event will inform the development of a new online course on AI ethics, which will boost ethical literacy "across higher education and beyond”, the university said...

During the symposium, speakers from the university’s research and student communities will present and participate in workshops alongside representatives to build the new course.

The first day of the event will examine the current state of AI, focusing on higher education and the use of AI in research and teaching.

On Thursday, the conference will discuss how to tackle inequality and bias in AI, featuring discussions on AI and race, gender, the environment, children’s rights, and how AI is communicated and consumed.

The final day will involve participants creating an ethical framework for inclusive AI, where they will outline a series of actionable steps and priorities for academic institutions, which will be used to underpin the online course."

Use the f-word; The Ink, October 1, 2024

 The Ink; Use the f-word

"Philosopher Jason Stanley talks about why fascists have mounted an attack on education, why universities haven't fought back, and how to resist."

Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area; Inside Higher Ed, September 9, 2024

  Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed; Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area

"Pandemic-era library programs that helped students access books online could be potentially threatened by an appeals court ruling last week. 

Libraries across the country, from Carnegie Mellon University to the University of California system, turned to what’s known as a digital or controlled lending program in 2020, which gave students a way to borrow books that weren’t otherwise available. Those programs are small in scale and largely experimental but part of a broader shift in modernizing the university library.

But the appeals court ruling could upend those programs...

Still, librarians at colleges and elsewhere, along with other experts, feared that the long-running legal fight between the Internet Archive and leading publishers could imperil the ability of libraries to own and preserve books, among other ramifications."

Teacher's Post About Students Using ChatGPT Sparks Debate; Business Insider, September 8, 2024

Jaures Yip, Business Insider; Teacher's Post About Students Using ChatGPT Sparks Debate

"Fritts said that technology addiction has affected students' general agency when interacting with information."

Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech; The New York Times, September 6, 2024

Cass R. Sunstein , The New York Times; Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech

"To answer those questions, we should turn to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Those words provide the right foundation for forging a new consensus about the scope and importance of free speech in higher education.

As a rallying cry, that consensus should endorse the greatest sentence ever written by a Supreme Court justice. In 1943, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

It is true that private colleges and universities, unlike public ones, are not subject to the First Amendment, which applies only to public officials and institutions. If Harvard, Stanford, Baylor, Vanderbilt, Pomona or Colby wants to restrict speech, the First Amendment does not stand in their way.

Still, most institutions of higher learning, large or small, would do well to commit themselves to following the First Amendment of their own accord.

First Amendment doctrine, developed over the centuries, provides excellent guidance."

AN ETHICS EXPERT’S PERSPECTIVE ON AI AND HIGHER ED; Pace University, September 3, 2024

 Johnni Medina, Pace University; AN ETHICS EXPERT’S PERSPECTIVE ON AI AND HIGHER ED

"As a scholar deeply immersed in both technology and philosophy, James Brusseau, PhD, has spent years unraveling the complex ethics of artificial intelligence (AI).

“As it happens, I was a physics major in college, so I've had an abiding interest in technology, but I finally decided to study philosophy,” Brusseau explains. “And I did not see much of an intersection between the scientific and my interest in philosophy until all of a sudden artificial intelligence landed in our midst with questions that are very philosophical.”.

Some of these questions are heavy, with Brusseau positing an example, “If a machine acts just like a person, does it become a person?” But AI’s implications extend far beyond the theoretical, especially when it comes to the impact on education, learning, and career outcomes. What role does AI play in higher education? Is it a tool that enhances learning, or does it risk undermining it? And how do universities prepare students for an AI-driven world?

In a conversation that spans these topics, Brusseau shares his insights on the place of AI in higher education, its benefits, its risks, and what the future holds...

I think that if AI alone is the professor, then the knowledge students get will be imperfect in the same vaguely definable way that AI art is imperfect."

Sasse’s spending spree: Former UF president channeled millions to GOP allies, secretive contracts; The Independent Florida Alligator, August 12, 2024

Garrett Shanley, The Independent Florida Alligator; Sasse’s spending spree: Former UF president channeled millions to GOP allies, secretive contracts

"In his 17-month stint as UF president, Ben Sasse more than tripled his office’s spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies.

Sasse ballooned spending under the president’s office to $17.3 million in his first year in office — up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs’ last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data.

A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse’s former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials.

Sasse’s consulting contracts have been kept largely under wraps, leaving the public in the dark about what the contracted firms did to earn their fees. The university also declined to clarify specific duties carried out by Sasse’s ex-Senate staff, several of whom were salaried as presidential advisers."

Students Weigh Ethics of Using AI for College Applications; Education Week via GovTech, July 24, 2024

Alyson Klein , Education Week via GovTech; Students Weigh Ethics of Using AI for College Applications

"About a third of high school seniors who applied to college in the 2023-24 school year acknowledged using an AI tool for help in writing admissions essays, according to research released this month by foundry10, an organization focused on improving learning.

About half of those students — or roughly one in six students overall — used AI the way Makena did, to brainstorm essay topics or polish their spelling and grammar. And about 6 percent of students overall—including some of Makena's classmates, she said — relied on AI to write the final drafts of their essays instead of doing most of the writing themselves.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of students admitted to Harvard University's class of 2027 paid a private admissions consultant for help with their applications.

The use of outside help, in other words, is rampant in college admissions, opening up a host of questions about ethics, norms, and equal opportunity.

Top among them: Which — if any — of these students cheated in the admissions process?

For now, the answer is murky."

Ethical AI: Tepper School Course Explores Responsible Business; Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business, July 1, 2024

Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business; Ethical AI: Tepper School Course Explores Responsible Business

"As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widely used, there is growing interest in the ethics of AI. A new article by Derek Leben, associate teaching professor of business ethics at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, detailed a graduate course he developed titled "Ethics and AI." The course bridges AI-specific challenges with long-standing ethical discussions in business."

Class explores how media impacts perceptions of health issues; University of Pittsburgh, University Times, July 11, 2024

MARTY LEVINE, University of Pittsburgh, University Times; Class explores how media impacts perceptions of health issues

"Communicating a message through storytelling, and not the mere recitation of facts, is key to public health communication, and Hoffman collaborates often with the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, whose “Hollywood, Health and Society” project has conducted research on everything from “Increases in calls to the CDC National STD and AIDS hotline following AIDS-related episodes in a soap opera” to “The Impact of Food and Nutrition Messages on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” It also provides consultants to shows from “Breaking Bad” to “Black-ish,” and a Lear Center rep spoke in Hoffman’s class.

Hoffman was recently lead author on a published overview of current research evidence on the media and health, which found that “health storylines on fictional television influence viewers.”...

Pitt Public Health was the leader in developing the Salk vaccine for polio, she points out. Public health education and media literacy can be a sort of vaccination against misinformation, she says: “We often talk about it as inoculation. Misinformation is not going away. How can we make people less susceptible to it?”"

THE GREAT PRETENDERS; Toronto Life, February 14, 2024

SARAH TRELEAVEN, Toronto Life; THE GREAT PRETENDERS

"The “pretendian” phenomenon in Canada can be traced back to at least the 1930s, when Archibald Stansfeld Belaney donned leathers, renamed himself Grey Owl and began telling people his mother was Apache. He used his new identity to amass fame and fortune as an Indigenous author and conservationist. But the term itself didn’t gain traction in Canada until late 2016, when Indigenous journalists started pointing out the inconsistencies in bestselling author Joseph Boyden’s proclaimed Indigenous roots. Today, it’s used to broadly describe fakers who claim to be Indigenous but aren’t. (Some Inuit also use the term “pretenduit” as a way to address the specific co-opting of their heritage and culture.)

The list of high-profile Canadians busted for faking Indigenous identities has grown alarmingly long in recent years and includes academics, judges, professors and cultural icons. In October 2021, a CBC investigation revealed that Carrie Bourassa, a University of Saskatchewan professor, had falsely claimed to be Métis, Anishinaabe and Tlingit. In 2022, media raised questions about former judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s purported Cree ancestry; she has maintained her ­Indigeneity but later lost her Order of Canada, among other awards. Last year, Memorial University removed Vianne Timmons from her role as the school’s president after a CBC report challenged her claims of Mi’kmaw heritage. And in one of the most explosive revelations to date, The Fifth Estate reported last October that 82-year-old singer and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie had lied about being a Cree survivor of the Sixties Scoop.

The problem is especially prevalent in Canadian academia, where the allure of money and status runs high. Universities have been under pressure to increase Indigenous student admissions—as of 2021, only 13 per cent of Indigenous people of working age had a university degree—and hire more Indigenous faculty. In their rush to boost their numbers, many institutions have overlooked the potential for scammers. Jean Teillet is a recently retired Métis lawyer in Vancouver who has worked on Indigenous-identity fraud cases. In the wake of the Bourassa scandal, the University of Saskatchewan hired Teillet to write a report on Indigenous-identity fraud, complete with recommendations on how to spot it. While some institutions are now introducing mechanisms to confirm membership in a recognized nation, including the presentation of official status documents, Teillet found that, for many applicants, claiming Indigeneity is as easy as ticking off a box. Universities are largely ignorant about the complexities of Indigenous identity, and they’re either too gullible or willfully blind to dubious claims."

Ethics Week set for Nov. 6-12; University of North Georgia, November 3, 2023

 Denise Ray, University of North Georgia; Ethics Week set for Nov. 6-12

"The University System of Georgia (USG) will promote Ethics Week from Nov. 6-12 with the University of North Georgia (UNG) offering various events focused on ethical awareness. It serves as a reminder to employees of the importance of an ethical culture and UNG's year-round commitment to compliance with USG policies, as well as state and federal laws.

UNG promotes a culture of excellence by bringing awareness to its core values of integrity, student-focus, excellence, engagement, and service.

"Leading ethically means an individual does the right thing, even when no one is looking. At UNG, we strive to make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing," Jill Holman, director of internal audit, said. "We exist to enroll and educate students. Teaching ethical leadership in the classroom and through our actions is vitally important in promoting a culture of excellence. Join us this week in celebrating our ethical culture here at UNG."

With War Raging, Colleges Confront a Crisis of Their Own Making; The New York Times, October 26, 2023

 Frank Bruni, The New York Times; With War Raging, Colleges Confront a Crisis of Their Own Making

"Remember the student complaints about and the subsequent dismissal of an art history lecturer at Hamline University in Minnesota who — after giving students a trigger warning, so they could opt out of class — showed a historically important painting of the Prophet Muhammad? Hamline’s president, Fayneese Miller, defended that sequence of events by saying that to not weigh academic freedom against a “debt to the traditions, beliefs and views of students” is a “privileged reaction.” 

That’s a troubling assertion, as Tom Nichols wrote in The Atlantic: “If you don’t want your traditions, beliefs or views challenged, then don’t come to a university, at least not to study anything in the humanities or the social sciences.”"

At Harvard, a Battle Over What Should Be Said About the Hamas Attacks; The New York Times, October 10, 2023

 Anemona Hartocollis, Stephanie Saul and Vimal Patel, The New York Times; At Harvard, a Battle Over What Should Be Said About the Hamas Attacks

"The debate over Israel and the fate of Palestinians has been one of the most divisive on campus for decades, and has scorched university officials who have tried to moderate or mollify different groups.

But Dr. Summers’s pointed criticism raised questions about the obligation of universities to weigh in on difficult political matters.

A famous 1967 declaration by the University of Chicago called for institutions to remain neutral on political and social matters, saying a university “is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.” But students over the years have frequently and successfully pressed their administrations to take positions on matters like police brutality, global warming and war."

Here’s my AI policy for students: I don’t have one; The Washington Post, August 29, 2023

Jonathan Zimmerman , The Washington Post; Here’s my AI policy for students: I don’t have one

"Most of all, I want you to decide what is real."

OpenAI funds new journalism ethics initiative; Axios, August 8, 2023

• Sara Fischer
, Axios; OpenAI funds new journalism ethics initiative

"OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, will fund a new journalism ethics initiative at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute with a $395,000 grant, executives told Axios."

How book-banning campaigns have changed the lives and education of librarians – they now need to learn how to plan for safety and legally protect themselves; The Conversation, July 20, 2023

Nicole A. Cooke Baker Endowed Chair and Professor of Library and Information Science, University of South Carolina, The Conversation ; ; How book-banning campaigns have changed the lives and education of librarians – they now need to learn how to plan for safety and legally protect themselves

"Library professionals maintain that books are what education scholar Rudine Sims Bishop called the “mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors” that allow readers to learn about themselves and others and gain empathy for those who are different from them. 

The drive to challenge, ban or censor books has not only changed the lives of librarians across the nation. It’s also changing the way librarians are now educated to enter the profession. As a library school educator, I hear the anecdotes, questions and concerns from library workers who are on the front lines of the current fight and are not sure how to react or respond. 

What once, and still is, a curriculum that includes book selection, program planning and serving diverse communities in the classroom, my faculty colleagues and I are now expanding to include discussions and resources on how students, once they become professional librarians, can physically, legally and financially protect themselves and their organizations."