John Raine: Can universities recover their mojo in the AI age?

 

The Path of Cultural Re-Engineering 

The 2020s have been a period of cultural change in academia throughout the Western world. In countries such as the USA, Canada, the U.K. and Australia, where universities have been heavily captured by ideological agendas, we have yet to see a much loss of momentum in “progressive” left wing politics on campus.  

Nathan Smith: In Defence Of AI Cheating

Good news everybody! Another piece of the tired 20th century may finally be on its deathbed. The university system is in terminal decline and I couldn’t be happier.

The news comes from a family member who teaches about artificial intelligence at one of the universities. In perhaps the juiciest of ironies, professors have given up trying to detect if the students are using AI to write essays and pass tests. You would think that professors of AI would be able to outrun their students, but you would be wrong. It’s over. The students have defeated the teachers.

Dr James Allan: What’s So Great About Diversity?

‘Diversity is our strength.’ One hears this, or myriad variants of the same idea, unrelentingly. Certainly I work in an Australian university where the extent of higher-ups pushing this notion does indeed qualify as unrelenting, even matching totalitarian state levels of propaganda. But even outside the hallowed halls of impartial, politically balanced academia (did I write that with a straight face?) the mantra or cliché that diversity somehow delivers a stronger balance sheet or a more cohesive society or just better outcomes is pervasive in today’s democracies that have committed themselves to multiculturalism and to the various neo-Marxist versions of feminism. Sure, those spouting these ‘diversity is a panacea’ nostrums never cash out the claim. They never tell us precisely how ‘diversity’ is making society better or wealthier or more unified. We are all just supposed to take it on faith, as it were. We’re just to believe the bureaucratic, political and various professional bodies’ elites who push this line, and believe it simply because they are the ones telling us it’s so.

Professor Kendall Clements, Dr Michael Johnston: The Irony Of Relativism

When new evidence emerges, scientists update their theories, sometimes radically. Good scientists actively seek evidence that could disconfirm their theories.

Scientific uncertainty owes a lot to cross-cultural encounters. For example, when Jesuit missionaries visited China in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were fascinated by Chinese astronomical records.

Roger Partridge: The Open Mind and the Closed University

Last month, Dame Anne Salmond issued a public challenge to the very idea of reason – the commitment to shared standards of inquiry that has delivered unprecedented human flourishing over the past three centuries.

Salmond is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated public intellectuals. She was writing in Newsroom on 18 November – the same day legislation requiring universities to protect open debate and remain “institutionally neutral” received royal assent. Salmond opposes the reform. For her, neutrality is a fiction: there is no common ground – only competing worldviews.

Dr James Kierstead: Another high-ranking Victoria University of Wellington administrator doesn’t understand free speech

A while back now, we opened Oko, the staff newsletter at the university where both of us still have adjunct positions. One of the featured articles that week was ‘The Thing about Words’ by Bryony James, who (the article reminded us) was ‘Te Herenga Waka’s Provost, and member of Te Hiwa.’ (The latter, if you haven’t been keeping up, is the name that the university’s Senior Management Team adopted a couple of years ago.)

Natasha Hamilton-Hart: Chumocracy in the universities?

Do universities govern themselves as a group of chums? My colleague Robert MacCulloch recently called out the soft corruption of “chumocracy” in New Zealand. Chumocracy is governance by a group of mates and insiders. The dangers and risks of governance-by-chumocracy should be clear: complacency, lack of accountability, tolerance of abysmal performance and a culture of in-group favours. All entirely within the law.

David Farrar: Free speech problems.......

Academics who argue there is no free speech problems, are like whites who argue there is no racism against blacks


Radio NZ reports:

Ananish Chaudhuri: There is a free speech crisis at our universities

A recent article in The Post by two University of Auckland academics makes three primary assertions. First, there is no free speech crisis at our universities. Second, universities are autonomous and should be “allowed to make this judgment call”. Third, universities should not be forced to “bend the knee to an external agency of the state.”

The authors are wrong on all three counts.

Professor Ananish Chaudhuri: Trump’s war against Universities

Universities push back

Harvard university recently made news by refusing to bow down to the Trump administration’s demands in order to retain more than US $2 billion in federal grants and contracts. Harvard’s stance stands in contrast to the one adopted by Columbia earlier, where the latter agreed to most demands in order to keep about US $400 million of federal funds.

Julian Mann: Is Labour Bending to US Pressure on Free Speech?

Labour’s General Election victory last July filled me with pessimism about the future of free speech in the UK. But has there been a change in the Government’s attitude to free speech as a result of US pressure? An unlikely statement from Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson this week suggests this may be the case.

David Farrar: Government moves to strengthen free speech on campus

Penny Simmonds announced:

Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities.

“Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse approach,” Ms Simmonds says.

David Farrar: Grant Duncan on the change in universities

Grant Duncan writes:

What’s unusual lately, though, is to see university administrators taking public stands on contentious political events, shutting down or de-platforming certain people, and imposing particular political opinions as the “correct” opinions.

Joanne Nova: For years the CCP has been sending millions to US universities and NGOs to promote Green Energy

If you have the feeling that our universities are working for the enemy, you might be right

China is a developing nation, too poor to cut carbon emissions themselves, but somehow they can find the money to help the richest nation in the world reduce their fossil fuel use.

John MacDonald: Free speech rules shouldn't stop at universities

Here’s how I would sum up the Government’s changes to the free speech rules for universities.

It wants more Posie Parkers and less posey political statements.

Which I’ve got no problem with - but I don’t think it should stop at universities. I think the Government also needs to look at other public entities, such as local councils, which actually seem to be making more posey political statements than universities.

Dr Eric Crampton: Trump’s declaration of war on universities

One week after the American election, Trump-advisor Elon Musk tweeted a 2023 video outlining Trump’s plans for higher education.

Trump is erratic. Many of his public statements seem more aimed at encouraging his supporters than at signalling actual changes in policy. His statements frequently ramble. And few of Trump’s statements put up what could reasonably be described as a coherent strategy for achieving his stated objectives.

This one was different.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 19/12/24

Waitangi dissidents are denied the chance to chuck mud (or t-shirts) at Luxon next year – but his February 7 plans stay secret

Will he be there – or won’t he?

That was the question raised earlier this week when Prime Minister Christopher Luxon would not confirm whether he will attend Waitangi Day commemorations at Waitangi next year.

John Raine: A Trump Card for Science?

Trump’s Election as a Reaction to Identity Politics

The weeks following Donald Trump’s election win have seen numerous mainstream and blog commentaries on the possible consequences of Donald Trump’s Presidential win. Existential despair from the left, and “Thank God we can now change direction” from the right. 

A common observation from conservative commentators is that voters reacted to the capture of the Democrats by critical social justice agendas and identity politics, and the Democrats’ failure to read the mood of the majority. We saw something similar with the demise of the Ardern-Hipkins government In New Zealand in October 2023.

Collin Bjork: Why universities must be wary of embracing AI-driven teaching tools....

Clones in the classroom - why universities must be wary of embracing AI-driven teaching tools

The university sector in New Zealand is at a tipping point due to chronic underfunding, shifting enrolments and increasing costs from inflation. In response, the government has established two working groups to assess the health of the sector and provide recommendations for the future.

Dr James Kierstead: The open academy and its enemies

A couple years before the outbreak of the Second World War, the philosopher Karl Popper moved across the world to take up a position at what was then Canterbury College. Popper, who lost no fewer than sixteen family members in the Holocaust, was under no illusions about what would have happened to him had he stayed in Vienna.

While in Christchurch, Popper wrote The Open Society and its Enemies, one of the classic defences of liberal democracy against totalitarianisms of the left and the right. Canterbury had a poor research culture at the time, and Popper butted heads with the chair of his programme. But his academic freedom – his freedom to think and write what he wanted – was never seriously in doubt.