The Fora: A Higher Education Community

I don't often post on these fora. I don't know if anyone here even registers when I post. Maybe I am speaking to the void. But the impulse is here. 
My father left us in January 2022.  My mother, in March 2024. They were both very good, cool, people who gave us everything.
It was a rough ride the last few years with each of their health issues, and being a transnational family, though we were so incredibly fortunate that one sibling lived right there.
It's odd how heavy the absence is, of the person, of the routines, of all the vast space in heart and mind.
I think of the parable of the mustard seed and soldier on. I hope their energy is zinging around the universe in ultimate bliss.

Quote from: AmLitHist on April 17, 2024, 06:02:44 AMSomebody backed into my car while I was at work yesterday and didn't leave a note. The security cameras are disconnected because of all the construction near the parking lots.  I probably have several thousand dollars' worth of damage.  Yahoos.

That sucks! Could the College be liable since the cameras were disconnected?

Quote from: secundem_artem on April 17, 2024, 08:50:06 AMFinal decisions are soon to be made for who and what lives and dies here at Artem U.  The atmosphere is a toxic soup of pain, anger, resignation, and finger pointing. Factions are being formed.  Rumblings about the nuclear option - votes of non-confidence - are heard in quiet corners.  Magical thinking abounds for possible solutions to what some refuse to believe is a crisis.

I'm awfully sorry to hear it. Have alarms been sounded to wealthy board members or donors, local politicians, powerful partners, and anybody else with deep pockets?

New Jersey City College pretty much toast. Outstanding debt of 244M, operating deficit of 6M (down from 20 after 33% of academics slashed), and 50M in overdue deferred maintenance.

And they want a partner. Ummm. No.

https://www.nj.com/hudson/2024/04/financially-distressed-njcu-needs-a-partner-but-which-university-can-afford-to-take-on-the-school.html

Dickey Betts  Legendary guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band.

Quote from: apl68 on Today at 10:02:59 AM

Quote from: fishbrains on Today at 08:35:25 AMStudents don't know that the words "delve," "tapestry," and/or "whilst" in an essay send professors straight to the AI-generation detector.

While that's understandable, it does seem sad for those students who read a lot and have unusually rich vocabularies.  Although you may teach somewhere that doesn't have any such students.

It's more when all three words are used in the same sentence.

I thought I would just post this from Reddit.  It touches on several Fora themes.

QuoteAdmin announces job losses using ChatGPT-generated email
That's all. Can't give details for obvious reasons but we are sunsetting a program and there are job losses entailed. Upper admin sent out an announcement to the campus. Details were wrong. The voice was odd and not characteristic of the sender. There was nothing specific about the program being ended.

I put a prompt into ChatGPT to "write a memo to the campus community announcing the closure of X program due to low enrollment" and got a reply that was as close to identical to the memo as one can get with Chat — the same points in same order and oodles of identical phrases. Why the heck am I killing myself to hold students accountable for misusing GPT? It is stunning and insulting.

Quote from: apl68 on Today at 07:26:52 AMThere's not any way for admins to prevent (or not) controversial speech and activism on campus when passions on an issue are running this high without seriously offending somebody.  It's a no-win situation for them.  I can't help feeling sorry for admins confronted with a situation like this, even if I don't agree with particular aspects of their handling of it.  At least if they show some common sense in the process.

Amen.  Particularly the bolded.  Particularly now that conservative politicians have found a new way to McCarthyize political theater.  Admin are fallible humans, after all, put in a frightening position.

And I find it beyond hypocritical that a conservative ideology that fostered the J6 riot can call out anybody on issues of public behavior or peoples' safety.

I managed to get to QBABM and then get a 2fer on my first try! Wooohoooo! I hope I didn't use all my luck in one place.

It's hard to see them recruiting many students for upcoming semesters when word is out that they're having to make teach-out plans.  This will likely prove the final blow.  Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but then if plans like this aren't mandated in time students could end up left in the lurch.

Speaking of which, I wonder how many students have been left in the lurch in recent years when a school has suddenly shut down?  Having your college close out from under you has got to feel like a disaster for students.