Month: November 2024

For those who are terrified at the prospect of ChatGPT ushering in the Age of Non-Cognition among undergraduates, Bowdoin College offers a ray of hope.  In January 2026, Bowdoin will begin offering COG 100 (Introduction to Thinking), a 3-credit intersession course for seniors. 

Students in COG 100 will spend two weeks in a cabin in the deep woods of Baxter State Park, a massive forest covering 209,000 acres in north-central Maine.  No cell-phone service or Wi-Fi is available at the site, rendering ChatGPT irrelevant. 

Every morning, afternoon, and evening, students will write an original sentence of at least 15 words.  Each sentence will be on a different topic, such as one’s favorite breakfast cereal, why God created Republicans, or innovative uses for tuna-flavored gravel.  At the end of the course, students will complete a capstone project in which they write an entire paragraph proposing, and justifying, a new sport for the 2028 Olympics.

According to Safa Zaki, Bowdoin’s President, “we can’t claim that we’re educating America’s next generation of thought leaders if we don’t give students the opportunity to think in college.  However, let me be clear: COG 100 will be an elective course.  No students are required to think at Bowdoin.  We don’t endorse deep-state coercion.  But if an undergraduate here wants to give cognition a shot, we are ready to be supportive.  We just don’t want to be pushy.”

Students who wish to take COG 100 must submit a short essay in which they discuss the reasons for their desire to enroll in the course and/or visit Baxter State Park.  ChatGPT-assisted submissions will be accepted.  

A recent headline in The Chronicle of Higher Education screams, “Cheating Has Become Normal” on college campuses, proclaiming that “Faculty Members Are Overwhelmed” (November 4th online).

Let’s turn down the burners under this bubbling pot of panic, shall we?  Wesleyan University has just taken a huge step forward in addressing student skulduggery and has done so in a fashion that is stunningly straightforward.  

Beginning January 1st, 2025, “cheating” and “plagiarism” will, officially, no longer be regarded as meaningful concepts at Wesleyan.  In other words, all work submitted by students will be considered legitimate, regardless of its source.  

This new policy was recommended by a Faculty Task Force on Postmodern Pedagogy, which issued its report in October.  According to Michael S. Roth, Wesleyan’s President, “the conclusion reached by the Task Force is that the traditional distinction between ‘original work’ and ‘cheating’ is arbitrary and without merit.  In completing their assignments, students use words, numbers, and punctuation marks that all predated the students’ existence.  In that sense, nothing a student does is original — it’s all copied.  

“If an undergraduate decides to ChatGPT their way through four years at Wesleyan, that’s their choice.  Sure, they will probably leave our university as ignorant as they were when they arrived, but no educational system is perfect.

“Let’s face it.  The majority of voters in the United States opted for Donald Trump on November 5th.  Mind-numbing stupidity is trending.”

In the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s stunning victory on November 5th, institutions of higher education in the U. S. are in a frenzy, resembling crack-addicted chipmunks dancing on a hot pancake griddle as they attempt to prepare for what’s coming in January.  

Here’s a sample of the reactions at colleges and universities around the country:

Yale Divinity School: YDS will host a national conference of theologians in mid-December focusing on the theme, “WTF is Up with The Almighty?  Asleep at the Wheel, or Just Out to Get Us?”  Paper submissions are due by Thanksgiving. 

Boston University: Late Thursday night, seven professors from BU’s Women’s Studies program stuffed their pockets with rocks and jumped into the Charles River.  A note found by police simply said: “Virginia Woolf made her statement.  Now, we’re making ours.  Have a good day. — Sisters in Solidarity with Melania”

Syracuse University: Beginning on Inauguration Day 2025, the Syracuse Orange will become the Syracuse Grape.  Orange traffic cones will be banned from campus, as will all fruit bearing that name.     

Wellesley College: The Theatre Department’s fall production of “Hello Dolly!” has been cancelled.  Commencing December 1st, a Goth version of “The Handmaid’s Tale” will be performed on the campus quadrangle 3 times a day, 7 days a week, for the next 4 years, regardless of weather conditions. 

Tufts University: The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy will close and be replaced by the school’s first graduate institute of cosmetology.  “It’s sad, but it’s not like we have a lot of choice,” says Fletcher’s Dean, Kelly Sims Gallagher.  “Trump’s idea of foreign relations is appointing Hulk Hogan as Ambassador to Great Britain and Kid Rock as our NATO representative.  I mean, what’s the point?”  

United States Military Academy: No one has answered the phone at West Point since the night of November 5th.  A sign at the entrance to the campus urges visitors to “shelter in place.  We’ve got this.  Watch CNN for breaking news. — Yours truly, Mark A. Milley, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff”

Roger that. 

The theme of the October 18th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education is “The College Presidency Is Broken.”

It’s certainly true that being a college or university president is a hazardous undertaking in today’s toxic political and cultural climate.  But a new initiative from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), inspired by the NCAA’s transfer portal for student athletes, is poised to bring relief to beleaguered leaders in higher education.  

On January 1, 2025, the Presidential Transfer Portal (PTP) will be launched.  With a minimum of paperwork, a college president will be able to leave his or her current institution via the PTP and take another, less stressful, job. 

According to Aaron Nisenson, AAUP’s Interim Executive Director, the PTP will lead to one of the following two vocational destinations: (1) searching for land mines along the Ukrainian/Russian border, or (2) working as a hospital aide in Gaza.  

Nisenson observes: “The presidents I’ve talked to are beyond excited about these opportunities.  Although they acknowledge the danger of being blown up in either venue, they say they would rather take that risk than spend one more minute sparring with petulant professors, negotiating with outraged students, or testifying before Congressional committees.  As one president told me, ‘I knew it was probably time for me to leave my current position when I seriously considered wearing a dynamite-laden vest under my sport coat when I met with faculty union representatives last week.  I took that as a sign of stress starting to get the best of me’.

Presidents who wish to take advantage of the PTP should make sure their passports are up to date.  Feel free to visit the program’s website, IamOuttaHere.com, for details.   

It’s time to shed the vest and breathe deeply again.