A physics teacher might think “It’s great that AI will polish my students’ writing for their lab reports“ whereas someone else might argue “your students need to learn to write in your class too.” But of course this problem is not new.
Really interesting problem here in the group ownership of curriculum and goals vs individual academic freedom in teaching...
“I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.” ― Frank Lloyd Wright
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/312645-i-m-all-in-favor-of-keeping-dangerous-weapons-out-of
original source?
Florida Has Deemed All Existing Intro to Sociology Textbooks Illegal and Produced Its Own<br /> by [[Zachary Levenson]] in Truthout<br /> accessed on 2026-03-11T11:16:07
"We believe in academic freedom, but it should not and cannot be used to excuse away behavior that harms others." (STATEMENT FROM HAMLINE UNIVERSITY) The above statements shows the struggle that Hamline faced when deciding to fire Erika Lopez Prater. A tension between academic freedom and insulting others.
1:05 A good point by Safi is that the statements of the director was assuming that the freedom of speech was in direct opposition to the feelings of Muslims. This is not the case. A difference between iconical devotion within the Islamic tradition (both Sunni and Shia) and Charlie Hebdo examples.
03:00 Both to respect students and expand their horizons. Not everyone needs to agree with it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1494322378142359554.html
from https://twitter.com/NeilLewisJr/status/1494322378142359554
Context:
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Some news: yesterday I learned that, by faculty vote, my bid for tenure/promotion was not approved.<br><br>I feel many things, but not shame or regret. I am so proud of our work during our time at yale, and angry that this version of that work will come to an end, this end.
— Michael W. Kraus (@mwkraus) February 16, 2022
Carl Heneghan on Twitter. (2020). Twitter. Retrieved 2 March 2021, from https://twitter.com/carlheneghan/status/1329861848573861888
Regardless of an explicit requirement, it is an implication of membership in the academic community that its members have a responsibility, and a right, to contribute to the intellectual corpus of their time.
So who then is, or isn't, a "member" of the "academic community?" And is it incumbent that members "produce ideas" within their defined fields, or does their membership entitle (require?) them to speak more broadly than that?
I had always understood that academic freedom was associated with job security; however, and forgive my naïveté, I was disappointed to learn that academic freedom was inexorably tied to tenure. Before that revelation, I had always thought of academic freedom as a principle complemented by tenure, not contingent upon it.
This is the thorny heart of the problem - does the freedom only flow from the power to protect it?
The Rights Retention Strategy ignores long-standing academic freedoms
It’s not entirely clear what is meant by this statement. This is incredibly inflammatory rhetoric for most academics who take academic freedom very seriously - for very good reasons. However, the academic has the freedom not to accept a grant if they fundamentally disagree with the funder’s desired approach to effective dissemination of the research they support. Furthermore, the rights retention strategy (RRS) is in place to give the authors more freedom of choice over what happens to the version of record (VoR). Because of the RRS, the author can submit to the most appropriate journal for the research regardless of whether it explicitly provides a compliant route to publication (assuming the journal takes the submission forwards) or whether or not the author can access funds to pay a publication charge (APC) in a hybrid subscription journal.
And though flags from this software don’t automatically mean students will be penalized—instructors can review the software’s suspicions and decide for themselves how to proceed—it leaves open the possibility that instructors’ own biases will determine whether to bring academic dishonesty charges against students. Even just an accusation could negatively affect a student’s academic record, or at the very least how their instructor perceives them and their subsequent work.
The companies are hiding behind this as a feature - that the algorithms are not supposed to be implemented without human review. I wonder how this "feature" will interact with implicit (and explicit) biases, or with the power dynamics between adjuncts, students, and departmental administration.
The companies are caught between a rock and a hard place in the decision whether students should be informed that their attempt was flagged for review, or not. We see that, if the student is informed, it causes stress and pain and damage to the teacher-student relationship. But if they're not informed, all these issues of bias and power become invisible.
Freedom of intramural expression means that teaching personnel is not only allowed to teach according to their knowledge, but that they can take part in the administration of their institutions. This is supported by the freedom of extramural expression, which gives teachers the capacity to share their research outcomes and disseminate the knowledge acquired.
participation in activities to share research outcomes.
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn GooglePlus jQuery(document).ready(function() { "use strict"; $ = jQuery; var decal = $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').parent().width(); $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').css({'margin-left':decal+5}); $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').fadeIn(); $(window).scroll(function() { socialbar.scroll(); }); }); var socialbar = (function(jQuery) { var timeOutId = 0; var jitterBuffer = 20; return { scroll:function() { var offset = $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').parent().offset(); var top = offset.top -150; //alert(offset.top); if ($(window).scrollTop() > top) { $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').addClass('fixed'); } else { $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').removeClass('fixed'); } } }; })(); Message from the president: 'This is a victory for academic freedom'
"The university is thankful that the tireless efforts of governments, diplomats and colleagues across Canada and internationally were successful. The Concordia community — in particular faculty and staff members and unions — played a critical role in securing her release. This is a victory for academic freedom."
In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, for example, where universities are under effective control of neoliberal states, academic freedom has no legal standing
This doesn't seem to me to be accurate. The UK's Education Reform Act of 1988 sec 2(a), still in force as far as I know, is written in law "to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions;"
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/40/part/IV/crossheading/academic-tenure