AI’ed
A central element of the sociology of scientific knowledge a la Edinburgh is the principle of symmetry: accounts of success should also be able to make sense of failure; what explains how some things go up should also explain other’s downfall. Whatever social processes made neuroanatomy successful should also make sense of phrenology’s decline, without […]
Reading is fundamental. Even for Regents.
UC San Diego was recently in the news and not for the best reasons. Following the publication of a comprehensive report written by faculty and administrators on the preparation of recent undergraduate admits, journalists and pundits across the political spectrum turned on the soundbite machine and got to work. The report was a clear sign […]
Beyond the Metrics: How AI Can Help Faculty Highlight Crucial Contributions in Advancement and Promotion Reviews
Academic advancement is built on explicit and implicit standards that define the contributions of faculty, typically divided into three categories: Research, Teaching, and University/Public Service. At a large public university, such as my own institution, contributions in research and teaching are often quantified using metrics like publication output or teaching effectiveness scores to guide evaluations […]
Circles of Hell
Which is worse: an institution being coerced into accepting a $500 million penalty (bribe), or an institution being punished and prosecuted for sticking to their absolutely legal and legitimate mission and values? It depends, I guess, on who we are talking about. If the first happens to be the wealthiest university in the country and […]
Elite Dislocation and the Politics of No Return
In between nervously freaking out about the future of higher education and education more generally, I’ve been thinking about possible tomorrows. Will we come back from this? Will we rebuild the institutions we are seeing collapsing before our eyes? Throughout the turmoil, I’ve been a pessimist. Entropy goes one way—and reversing its effects takes energy […]
The midification of higher education
By now, faculty, staff, and administrators across US higher education are waking up to the realization that this crisis is definitional: however we come out of this mess, it will be permanently and fundamentally changed. Our institutions, our professions, and our craft will never be the same. Predicting exactly what will happen is difficult and […]
The Problem with Progressives
The last six weeks have been tough. Although most of what has happened was entirely predictable (there was an actual playbook), the speed at which longstanding, bipartisan structures have been attacked and dismantled has been overwhelming (also, in the playbook). What makes these last six weeks since the inauguration particularly difficult is the lack of […]
Influencer intellectuals, a quick summary
In my newfound condition as a part-time bureaucrat, I have dropped the ball on some of my academic projects. I’ve carved out a little bit of time in between grant applications, emails, and paperwork to write about a topic that I find critical for understanding the politics of knowledge today: the emergence of the influencer […]
The Strength of Weak Bullies
What explains the rapid spread of similar strategies against student protestors across American campuses? Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about this issue—as many of us have—with constant puzzlement. While national political life might seem to be echoing times past thus explaining at least some of the reaction of university presidents, these are […]
Thoughts on the academy and elite disconnection
(These are some very quick thoughts—apologies for typos and disconnected arguments). The recent public relations failures of elite universities—most notably, Harvard—seem deeply paradoxical. Here we have multi-billion-dollar organizations, heavy with pedigree and rife with all types of connections, folding to a handful of online radicals whose only instruments are the volume of their digital voice […]
Writing Like an Algorithm
In a recent post on BSky, Kieran Healy reminded us of the very practical realities of academics colliding with point-and-click large language models. Published in Surfaces and Interfaces, a paper starts with the tell-tale signs of an AI-generated text: “Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic”. While more evidence is needed to state […]
It’s not me. It’s you.
How should we confront attacks to higher education? This question is eminently tricky. Part of the complexity has to do with power: for many in academia, taking a position is simply a luxury they cannot afford. Another part is practical: who are we to confront, anyway? Much has been written about how neoliberalism has taken […]