RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/ai-in-the-writing-classroom-professor-beware/

Generative artificial intelligence has no role in the walled garden of teaching a student how to write.

For nearly three decades, I’ve had the privilege of teaching media writing to generations of undergraduate and graduate students at Boston University’s College of Communication, helping them week after week to steadily acquire the skills they need to embark on successful careers. However, two years after the arrival and wider use of generative AI, it’s inarguably clear that, at every level of education, these tools represent nothing short of an existential threat to the writing classroom — undercutting the very way we formulate, develop, and express our intelligence.

Although I needn’t rehearse all of the many statistics describing the obvious decline of writing and literacy in our society, the temptation is too great. Last fall, Joseph Pisani grimly noted in the Wall Street Journal, “the average score on the ACT dropped to a new 30-year low, indicating fewer high-school seniors are ready for college.” That lamentable decline aligns with other research showing the number of teenagers who read for pleasure dropping steadily over the past 40 years, while the number of teens who rarely or never read for fun climbed from 8 to 29 percent.

Since writing instructors can confirm that the best way to learn writing is to read voraciously, it’s clear that we instructors already face a steep climb, competing with distractions ranging from TikTok and Snapchat to Netflix and the latest smartphone games. We already have a generation that refuses or is unable to read. Do we now want them unable to write, as well?

Ask virtually any college writing instructor today and you’ll get some variation of issues about student performance: an inexplicable unwillingness to read (either compulsorily or voluntarily), an inability to properly compose sentences that rise above the most pedestrian of structures (at best), or a crippling overreliance on writing and grammar tools whose scope only increases. Those concerns are now exponentially magnified.

With the arrival of gen AI in late 2022, my colleagues and I have been facing a game-changing inflection point: the increasing inability to accurately assess an individual student’s writing talent — their ability to create, develop, and express original thoughts in clear, compelling, audience-centric ways. Even in the face of clear policies prohibiting the use of gen AI in our classes, we now face an onslaught of prefab essays brazenly churned out in seconds by time-pressed, shortcut-seeking students eager to get their tickets punched before moving down the path to their degrees.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/campuses-arent-ready-for-the-return-of-encampments/

Indiana University’s confusion over its policies for dealing with demonstrators is likely to prove representative.

As students start returning to their colleges and universities this month, many will find new rules about protests, camping, signage, and other types of “expressive activity” on their campuses. These changes were prompted by last spring’s demonstrations over the war in the Middle East that led to confrontations among students and faculty, disrupted classes and graduations, and in some cases resulted in police action and arrests. Penn, Texas, and Harvard are among the schools reportedly revising their policies.

At its July meeting, Indiana University’s board of trustees adopted a new “expressive activity” policy, which went into effect on August 1. It may provide a glimpse into what higher education is planning to do about last spring’s demonstrations — and why it doesn’t go far enough.

In late April, a group of IU students and faculty (along with outsiders) began what was meant to be an “indefinite” encampment in Dunn Meadow, a portion of the Bloomington campus at which protests had been allowed since the 1960s. In short order, IU’s leadership — after specially trained administration and faculty teams failed to persuade the protesters to dismantle the encampment — asked campus and state police to remove the tents. Several hundred faculty members quickly signed a petition demanding the resignations of IU president Pamela Whitten and her provost, Rahul Shrivastav. Neither resigned, but in response, the university’s trustees retained Cooley LLP to conduct an independent investigation.

The law firm’s July report is disturbing. It describes a chaotic situation in which well-organized demonstrators faced off against understaffed and unprepared “de-escalation” teams and police. After several attempts, the teams succeeded in dismantling most of the encampment, making more than 50 arrests, but allowing the protesters to remain.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/asian-representation-at-mit-increases-after-supreme-court-ruling-ending-affirmative-action/

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has seen a significant increase in Asian-American representation in its first freshman class to be admitted since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in the admissions process at U.S. colleges and universities last summer.

Asian-American students make up 47 percent of the incoming freshman class, according to the new admissions data that MIT announced on Wednesday. This is up from 40 percent the prior year.

The data is consistent with the evidence that Students for Fair Admissions brought in its two lawsuits against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina: that subjective admissions criteria were used to disadvantage Asian students who performed disproportionately well on standardized tests such as the SAT, while black and Hispanic students, who scored lower on such tests on average, were given an admissions boost. As a result of the landmark ruling, it’s expected black enrollment will decrease while Asian enrollment will increase. MIT came to the same conclusion.

“We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT,” Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill told campus publication MIT News. “That’s what has happened.”

The percentage of black students enrolled at the university dropped from 15 percent last year to 5 percent, and the percentage of Hispanic students dropped from 16 percent to 11 percent. White students stayed roughly the same — 37 percent compared to 38 percent last year.

The university notes these figures do not include international citizens, nor does the total add up to 100 percent as students may identify as more than one race or ethnicity.

MIT is the first major university to publish data on the composition of its first-year class since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/22/vote-for-school-choice-on-election-day/

As I noted in 2022 and 2023, school choice, where applicable, should be a campaign issue. With untold numbers of national, state, and local candidates on the ballot in November, voting for parental freedom is a winner. While this cause is usually associated with Republicans, Democrats who are not beholden to the teachers’ unions should also get on board.

Keri Ingraham, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, highlights numerous success stories of pro-school choice legislators. In March, Texas saw six representatives ousted who voted against parental freedom. The Texas runoff election a few months later found three more representatives opposed to school choice voted out of office.

In Kentucky’s primary election in May, the two Republican representatives who received the most money from the teachers’ unions lost by 44 and 48 points each.

In Tennessee, after a bill to expand a school voucher program failed, Gov. Bill Lee went to work endorsing candidates who favored expanding school choice. His effort was successful, as 12 out of the 15 candidates he endorsed were victorious in the state’s primary election on August 1.

In Missouri, voters chose six pro-school choice candidates in their August 6 primary election, a clear sign of the strategy’s effectiveness.

Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, adds that three Republicans in the Idaho House who had the most support from the teachers’ unions lost in the primary election, while their opponents all supported school choice.

https://www.afterbabel.com/ Jonathan Haidt

“Schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are phone-free experiences.”  

— U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy

“Cell phone use in schools has gotten out of control. It’s gotten to the point that students don’t talk face to face, but instead text one another when they’re sitting right next to each other! …research tells us what we already know: excessive cell phone use impacts students’ mental health and academic performance. It’s time to update our policy [to ban cell phones] and make it a district-wide responsibility.”  

— Jackie Goldberg, Los Angeles Unified School District Board President

“It’s 2024 – and all families rely on cell phones to stay connected and communicate now more than ever…parents want to be able to have clear and open channels of communication with their own children. Banning cell phones outright in school or treating them like contraband instead of using effective classroom management is entirely unreasonable and not grounded in the reality we will live in.” 

— Keri Rodrigues, President of the National Parents Union 

It’s back-to-school season, and you know what that means! We’re talking about school cell phone bans.

Should schools ban phones outright? Are there other options? Is there any research on this? 

This is a big topic, so I cover it in two parts. In this post, I discuss the research on phone bans. In the second post, I talk about specific policies, and how schools can implement them.

So, please, grab a seat, put away your cell phone (in your backpack, out of sight, for the duration of this period), and let’s get to it! 

Wait, what’s going on?

https://tjvnews.com/2024/08/updated-version-examining-the-incessant-flow-of-qatari-money-into-american-academia-unintended-consequences-on-campus/

Until recently, the issue of foreign donations influencing American academia remained unnoticed. However, a study published in 2022 by the National Association of Academics in the United States sheds light on a significant flow of Qatari money to universities in the country, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. According to an in depth report that appeared on the Calcalistech.com web site in October 2023,the study reveals that between 2001 and 2021, Qatar donated a staggering $4.7 billion to American universities, making it the largest foreign donor during this period. What initially seemed like harmless financial support has sparked a series of events, raising concerns about the influence on academic institutions.

Having said this, it should be noted that prominent American universities, including Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, and Carnegie Mellon, received substantial funding from Qatar, leading to the establishment of branches in Doha. As was reported in the Calcalistech.com report, Cornell, a member of the Ivy League, opened a medical school with a staggering $1.8 billion donation from Qatar. Georgetown University was also a recipient of Qatar’s largess as they received $750 million for a school of government. Moreover, Northwestern established a journalism school with a $600 million donation from Qatar in 2007.

The significant share of donations comes from the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit organization established by the government in 1995 with the mission to promote education and science in the country, as was indicated in the Calcalistech.com report. While collaborations between nations and educational institutions are not uncommon in the era of globalization, the source and magnitude of Qatari donations raise unique concerns.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/reprehensible-columbia-students-who-occupied-campus-building-let-off-without-consequences/?

Columbia University has failed to discipline students who broke into and occupied a building on campus, even after pledging to do so, according to a new House Education and Workforce Committee report.

Eighteen of the 22 students arrested inside Hamilton Hall after forcibly occupying the campus building remain in good standing with Columbia, according to the report. While the university had previously stated it would expel those who stormed and occupied the building, three of the 22 are on interim suspensions and one has been placed on probation. Twenty-seven of the students arrested outside Hamilton Hall the day after activists broke into the building have had their disciplinary cases closed despite their arrests.

Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) said in a statement that the university’s decision not to follow its own procedures represents a surrender to the mob.

“The failure of Columbia’s invertebrate administration to hold accountable students who violate university rules and break the law is disgraceful and unacceptable,” she said. “More than three months after the criminal takeover of Hamilton Hall, the vast majority of the student perpetrators remain in good standing. By allowing its own disciplinary process to be thwarted by radical students and faculty, Columbia has waved the white flag in surrender while offering up a get-out-of-jail-free card to those who participated in those unlawful actions. Breaking into campus buildings or creating antisemitic hostile environments like the encampment should never be given a single degree of latitude — the university’s willingness to do just that is reprehensible.”

Students who disobeyed the university’s orders and refused to leave the encampment have apparently faced a similar lack of consequences.

https://quillette.com/2024/08/08/the-professor-his-nemesis-and-a-scandal-at-oberlin-mohammad-jafar-mahallati-iran-islamism/

I. A Disappearance

On 28 November 2023, the profile of a tenured professor at Oberlin College disappeared from the school’s website. Only a day earlier, typing Mohammad Jafar Mahallati’s name into the site’s search box returned a page with an extensive biography and links to several of his posts and videos. His photograph was there, too: a bearded man with a greying hairline and a reticent smile that suited his title of Professor of Peace and Friendship Studies. Since 2007, he had been among the most prominent professors on campus.

A former top diplomat who had represented Iran at the United Nations from 1987–89, Mahallati had brought a certain metropolitan pizzazz to the small college, along with glamorous tales from his days of hobnobbing with a global who’s who of politicians and diplomats. Among academics, where consensus is hard to reach, nearly everyone remembers Mahallati as “magisterial.” If Shi’ism had a campaign ad made for the American consumer, Mahallati—who had swapped the Western suit and tie for the mandarin-collar blazer and shirt and drove a siren-red BMW around town—would be that ad.

Even the locals were smitten. The Iranian professor who had given them an annual Day of Friendship, complete with rainbow flags and peace t-shirts, was all the proof they needed that the George W. Bush administration was wrong to call Iran an evil state. With his arrival at Oberlin in 2007, he managed to infuse the humble small town with an air of cosmopolitan grandeur. And a few years later, he was appointed to the prestigious Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies. The chair’s namesake, Nancy Shrom Dye, was Oberlin’s president from 1994–2007, and it was Dye who brought Mahallati to Oberlin after she met him during two trips to Iran in the mid-2000s.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/sensitivity_training_from_the_left.html

Throughout the year, college instructors are required to have mandatory faculty training. This month it is “Disability Cultural Responsiveness for Faculty: Improving Communication and Understanding.” It was led by Sara Sanders Gardner, the autistic designer of Bellevue College’s Neurodiversity Navigators Program, established in 2011.

Consequently “autistic people prefer identity first language, i.e., “disabled, autistic” whereas parents and professionals often prefer person first language, i.e., “person with autism. Yet, according to Gardner whose pronouns are (they/them), the latter “is awkward syntax, separates the disability from a person, and shows a desire to be distant from the disability.”

In fact, “a push to treat autism as a cultural identity is challenging notions of it as a disorder.”

Unlike past training which promoted euphemistic language, now teachers are to avoid euphemisms such as “on the spectrum,” “differently abled,” “challenged,” or “diffability” because “embracing the word ‘disability’ and normalizing it as an aspect of identity has the potential to lead to positive psychological health outcomes.”

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a national law that protects qualified individuals from discrimination based on their disability. This includes individuals with physical or mental impairments that limit major life activities.

According to Gardner, it is “not necessary to know the details of, or even the name of, a student’s disability to respond to, include, and communicate with them effectively.” Thus, words need to be used to “avoid a clinical relationship” — rather, it should be a “human relationship.”

Instead, one needs to consider “what barrier is the student experiencing and how can they be supported by recognizing their strengths?” For example, wearing glasses would indicate a disability concerning sight but no one really sees wearing glasses as a disability. But clearly some disabilities are not readily apparent. What is the effect on a person’s self-esteem? (As a side note, I have always admired how Israel incorporates autistic individuals into the military. Thus, a disability is turned into an asset.)