Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.

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.

Right! I heard "not a lot in Allentown and Reading" and thought, oh okay. Two inches, maybe. Sir!

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.

Highly recommend the doc, Honest Man.

while I know they would never admit to it, I think that's an employer's dream.

Do what you're told.
Don't ask questions.
And definitely do not notice the cracks in our brilliant plans.

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

Trump administration drops appeal of court order blocking $1.2-billion UCLA settlement The Trump administration dropped its appeal of a major higher education case in which a federal judge blocked its $1.2-billion settlement proposal to UCLA over alleged civil rights violations. It will...

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

Don’t Record What You Don’t Want to Have to Watch Playing Big Brother would get tiring quickly. Any provost with enough time to review the videos of hundreds of classes isn’t doing their job.

"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...

Texas A&M Ends Women’s Studies and Overhauls Classes Over Race and Gender

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.

To keep AI out of her classroom, this high school English teacher went analog Forth Worth teacher Chanea Bond says sticking with pen and paper keeps generative artificial intelligence out of her American literature classes.

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...

Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless Independent research identifies few learning gains

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.

I bet!! He will do great.

Here....wild as usual!

I knew it!! I was just thinking about you this week -- randomly wondering how everything is going for you and yours. Congrats!

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.

Writing Classes Are About Writing, Not AI-Aided Production If we want students to learn to write, AI tools shouldn’t have much of a role. If we don’t think students need to learn to write anymore, I’m not sure what we’re doing here.

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