New Semester, Old Problems

Education, Labor, and AI

I teach college and technical/professional writing at a regional, public 4-year university. I supervise the English department’s teaching assistants, who run their own composition classes.

We’re constantly dealing with AI.

Soon, we’ll also be reckoning with the cost of higher education in an unexpected way.

AI: The Jerk Who Won’t Go Away

I thought AI, by which I mean “generative AI” like ChatGPT, would slowly dissolve into irrelevance.

Remember MOOCs? Exactly.

I thought people would realize, “Oh, AI can’t do what I thought it could. Meh.”

Instead, people were very creative in getting AI to do what they wanted. Human intelligence, ironically, makes AI into a useful tool that isn’t going anywhere. The development of a prompt, the cleverness of using the output, determines whether AI helps or hurts, whether it’s useful or useless.

So, this semester, I’m planning to approach AI by teaching my students how it works “under the hood,” how to critically think about its output, and why they must carefully and thoughtfully integrate its output (if they do so).

90-Hour Bachelors Degrees: The Cost-Saver No Professor Wants

A few colleges and universities have begun offering 90-hour bachelors degrees. They tend to be very focused degree programs that lead directly into a specific job or career path. They’re designed for adult students who have zero interest, or time, for exploring various disciplines and taking “fun” classes.

The appeal to students is obvious: 25% off tuition and 25% off the time required to get a degree.

Surprisingly, colleges find the idea appealing, too. They want to attract students who might not attend college otherwise. Perhaps, then, colleges can survive the decline in enrollment of traditional-age college students.

What’s lost in a 90-hour bachelors compared to a 120-hour degree?

I cherish some of my elective courses from my undergrad, and I use many of them in my life and work, including courses that didn’t seem obviously relevant at the time.

But I also attended college on a full-ride scholarship. I might have felt differently about filling in 40-ish credit hours at several hundred bucks per hour if I had been taking out loans.

The New Semester

With change comes anxiety. With anxiety comes anger. With anger comes departmental meetings that suck.

I don’t know how things will shake out, but I’m praying for the fruits of the spirit to be present in how I navigate them.