Large institutions rushing, and dawdling, to make changes with the times

I did a bit of time traveling this morning while reading a story about how colleges were scrambling to handle the challenges of ChatGPT and rampant "cheating." One of the first suggestions from some professors? Return to the Blue Books.

Of course. Never accuse universities of abandoning the "old ways" and hanging on by tooth and nail to traditions. Unless we are talking college football and the Power 5 schools. 

BTW, this latest round of conference shake-ups may be a good example of why large organizations need to be careful about massive changes without much planning... and almost always responding to money. As many commentators have pointed out, flying from California to Newark for a football game on Friday morning for the Saturday game, returning late Saturday or early Sunday, might be fine for the semi-professionals at USC. But what about the baseball or softball teams? What about basketball teams that normally play at least one mid-week game? 

It all sounds like a scheduling nightmare but, as always, all that time-consuming travel is likely to negatively affect the student athletes (and, honestly, most college athletes really ARE students). 

When football rules all, it's similar to "you hate America" as a motivator in political "debate." Anger and misinformation and rash decisions overwhelm common sense and even civic behavioral norms. 

Eventually, I predict that the top 60 football programs will have to be separated from their traditional (or untraditional) conferences and split into more rational geographic "leagues" of 15. Then the other sports can return to the former conferences and fan bases that have always inspired so much devotion (and pleasure). 

But in the meantime, chaos and misunderstandings and more division within the country awaits. 

Speaking of chaos, we are one week out from opening online courses for Metro and CSU, and no one from either institution has offered any firm guidance as to how to deal with ChatGPT. I received the fall syllabus policies document yesterday from Metro, for instance, and there is no mention of AI. Everyone pledges to "not cheat" but who knows what that means anymore? I checked the Liberal Arts academic integrity videos featured on the university site and they were produced in 2020.

My how time flies. 

I am still fiddling with a ChatGPT "best practices post/unit for my own section, and need to have that ready to go in a week. One thing I know for certain: I will not be returning to Blue Books. 

Would I be comfortable with a classroom culture that assumes cheating and student dishonesty and that exults in "catching" the guilty.

Short answer: no.

But I am certain I can create essay prompts that cannot be simply answered by AI (like, list three common themes in the writing of Charles Dickens). Those simple "regurgitate the facts" exams have got to go. But that was true before ChatGPT.