Tag: Essays

  • Revolutionizing University Assessments: From Essays to Portfolios

    Revolutionizing University Assessments: From Essays to Portfolios

    First posted on Substack

    The AI arms race still rages. Students will identify AI writing support tools, educators will rearm themselves with AI-aware plagiarism-detection software, and students will source apps that can bypass the detection software. Institutions are increasingly prioritising the ease with which mass assessments can be marked. Governments are revising legislation that banned ‘essay mills’ used for contract cheating to incorporate restrictions on Generative AI.

    Students may find themselves asked to handwrite their submissions to avoid the temptation to use fully integrated generative AI tools in their word processing software. Some shrewd students will (re)discover software that takes your typed text, AI-generated or otherwise, and turn it into a version that mimics your handwriting (calligraphr.com).

    Many institutions have already been thinking about this for years. In 2021, UNESCO issued a useful report, ‘AI and Education’, which remains a foundational reader for any institutional leader who wants to be able to go head-to-head with their head of technology services, and to be informed when members of the Senate repeat some of the dystopian viewpoints gleaned from their social media feeds.

    What we need is a revolution in the design of university assessments. This also means some radical redesign of programs and courses. Institutions should be redefining what assessment looks like. Not just because much of the assessments currently on offer lend themselves too easily to plagiarism, contract-cheating, or AI-generated responses, but also because they are bad assessments. Bad assessments, designed loosely to assess very badly written learning outcomes.

    Many universities face a fundamental problem: their entire assessment philosophy (if they have one) remains rooted in a measuring psychosis. One that sees its self-justification in measuring what the learner knows now, rather than what they could do before they undertook a specific course or degree, and how much they have improved. Each course is assessed against its own learning outcomes (where these exist and assuming they are actually well-formed). The odds are that these outcomes are heavily weighted towards the cognitive outcomes and have not moved beyond Bloom’s standard pyramid.

    Rarely are these course-level outcomes accurately mapped and weighted against programme outcomes. A student should always be able to match the assessment they are asked to complete against a set of skills expected as the outcome for a specific course. These skills need to be clearly mapped onto programme outcomes. Each assessment task is assessed against some formulation of marking rubrics or guides, often with multiple markers making controlled, monitored judgements to attempt to ensure just (not standardised) marks.

    Unfortunately, it remains common to see all of these cohort-marked assessments plotted against a bell curve, and top marks to be ‘brought back into line’ where convention dictates.

    Why? Surely the purpose of undertaking a university degree is self-improvement. There is a minimum threshold that I must meet, a pass mark, that allows me to demonstrate that I am capable of certain things, certain abilities or skills. But beyond that? If I got a second-class honours degree and my friend got a first, does that mean they knowmore than I do? Currently, given the emphasis on cognitive skills and knowledge, one can fairly say yes. Does it mean they are necessarily more proficient out there in the big, wide world? Probably not. We are simply not assessing the skills and abilities that most graduates need.

    I advocate for Universities to abandon isolated course-specific assessments in favour of programme-wide portfolio assessments. These are necessarily ipsative, capturing students’ disparate strengths and weaknesses relative to their own performance over time. There may be pass/fail assessments as part of any portfolio, but there are also opportunities for annual or thematic synoptic assessments. Students would be encouraged to draw on their contributions to the university drama club, the volleyball team, or their part-time work outside the university.

    I undertook a short consultancy last year for a university that has been a bit freaked out by the advent of Generative AI. The head of department had a moment of realisation that the vast majority of the degree assessment was based entirely on knowledge recovery and transmission. In reality, of course, their assessment strategy has been flawed long before the advent of ChatGPT. They’ve struggled with plagiarism detection, itself imperfect, obviously, and with reproducing answers that differ only at the margins between students.

    The existing assessment certainly made it easier for them to have external markers looking for specific words to match a pro forma answer. No educational developer worth their salt would have looked at this particular assessment strategy and thought it was in any way valid. The perceived threat to assessment integrity does offer an opportunity for those who are still naive enough to think that essay questions demonstrate anything other than the ability to regurgitate existing knowledge and, at its best, an ability to write in a compelling way. Unless such writing is a skill that is required of the programme of study, it’s a fairly pointless exercise.

    Confidentiality means I don’t wish to identify the organisation, let alone the department, in question. What became abundantly clear is that the assessment strategy had been devised as the programme grew. As they increased the number of students, they had contracted out significant amounts of the marking. This led to a degree of removal from individual students’ actual experiences.

    Surely one can see that it will become pointless to ask students to answer knowledge-based questions beyond a diagnostic exercise early in each course or programme.

    So what’s the alternative? With very rare exceptions, the vast majority of tertiary students will have lived for at least 18 years. They have life experiences that make their perspectives different from those of their fellow students. Suppose we can design our assessments around individuals’ personal epistemology, culture, and experience. We have a chance to differentiate between them. We can build assessment incrementally within specific courses and programmes. Each course in a programme can build on previous courses. In the case of this particular client, I suggested that eliminating as many electives as possible and narrowing the options would not deter applicants and would make the design of assessment strategies within the programme more coherent.

    Developing a personal portfolio of evidence throughout a programme of study gives students both a sense of ownership over their own learning and potentially a resource they will continue to augment once they graduate. The intention is to develop an incremental assessment approach. Students in the third year of studies would be asked to review coursework from previous years, for example. Students could be asked to comment and provide feedback on students in earlier years within the same programme. Blending the ipsative nature of assessments with credit-bearing assessment tasks is the crucial skill now required of learning designers.

    Maybe it is now a good time for you to review your learning outcomes and ask whether you are assessing skills and attributes?

    Paid subscribers will have access to assessment design tools

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  • Our 13 Most Read, Most Talked-About and Most Powerful Education Essays of 2025 – The 74

    Our 13 Most Read, Most Talked-About and Most Powerful Education Essays of 2025 – The 74

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  • Some Colleges Cut Diversity Essays, But They Remain Popular

    Some Colleges Cut Diversity Essays, But They Remain Popular

    Two years after the Supreme Court banned the use of race in college admissions decisions and in the wake of the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, colleges’ use of diversity- and identity-related supplemental essay prompts is patchy.

    After a boom in prompts about applicant’s identities, several universities have scrapped the essays entirely for the 2025–2026 admission cycle. Still others, especially selective universities, have kept the prompts, saying they are the best way to get to know their applicants.

    Kelsea Conlin, who oversees the college essay counseling team for College Transitions, an admissions consulting firm, identified 19 colleges with optional or required diversity essays last admission cycle that either had dropped or reworded those prompts this year.

    “I’ve seen very few colleges that still require students to write about diversity; the prompt may still be on their application and students have the opportunity to write about it, but it’s an optional essay,” she said.

    Diversity-related essays often ask students to describe how they’ve been shaped by their community, culture or background, sometimes prompting them to describe how those identities will bring something new to a campus. Others ask students to discuss or reflect on issues like diversity, social justice or antiracism more broadly.

    In the majority opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Chief Justice John Roberts said it was acceptable for students to continue discussing race in their essays: “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

    The following application cycle, several colleges introduced diversity-related essay prompts to their applications, according to research by Sonja Starr, a law professor at the University of Chicago; Conlin also said she observed a surge in these essays in the 2023–2024 application cycle.

    But this year, the Department of Justice issued guidance warning institutions against using “proxies” for race in admissions and hiring, and described requirements for applicants to “describe ‘obstacles they have overcome’ or submit a ‘diversity statement’ in a manner that advantages those who discuss experiences intrinsically tied to protected characteristics” as examples.

    “The administration basically says, … ‘if you are letting the desire for a diverse campus influence your policies in any way, that is just as unconstitutional as taking the individual applicant’s race into account,’” Starr said. “I think that’s a wrong reading of the law.”

    Still, she said she’s not surprised institutions may be wary of maintaining essay questions overtly related to identity, considering the harsh actions the administration has taken against colleges it disagrees with.

    “There’s all kinds of ways the federal government can really make it difficult for universities,” she said, pointing out the slew of funding the administration has cut or frozen over the past ten months. “[Some institutions], I think, are just trying to at least stay out of the administration’s way.”

    Simplifying the Process

    Several institutions told Inside Higher Ed that they cycle out their essay prompts regularly, so the change from last year’s diversity question was par for the course. Others said they eliminated their supplemental essay requirements altogether, in an effort to make the application process less strenuous.

    The University of Washington, which removed a supplemental essay asking prospective students to describe how their background and the communities they are involved in would contribute to the campus’s diversity, told Inside Higher Ed in an email that they hope the removal of the essay will make the admissions process less strenuous for applicants.

    “During the annual review of our application process, we determined that an additional essay did not provide sufficient value when reviewing students for admission. We discovered that some applicants, like those interested in our honors program, were previously seeing up to four essay prompts. This change simplifies the process for all our applicants,” wrote David Rey, associate director of strategic communications.

    A University of Virginia spokesperson gave a similar statement to the campus student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, about its decision to remove a diversity essay prompt introduced in the 2025–2026 application cycle, saying that its removal aimed to “lighten the load and reduce stress and anxiety around the college application process.” UVA did not respond to Inside Higher Ed‘s request for comment.

    Does that mean supplemental essays are falling out of vogue? Not necessarily, Conlin said; a significant number of selective universities still require them, and the students she works with are generally writing just as many supplemental essays as they have in previous years.

    Despite some institutions opting to change or remove their diversity prompts, though, Ethan Sawyer, the founder of the admissions consulting firm College Essay Guy, said that a review of 300 institutions’ prompts for the 2025–2026 admission season showed that questions about what a student’s identity will bring to the institution are the most popular for the second year in a row.

    He said in an email to Inside Higher Ed that these prompts have proven to be particularly effective at providing colleges with the key information they’re looking for out of an admissions essay. The identity prompt acts as the new “Why Us” essay, but avoids the pitfall of students focusing exclusively on the college’s attributes rather than their own.

    “It lets colleges learn what they’ve always wanted to know—how will this student engage with our community? What qualities will they bring?—but through a framing that encourages students to reflect on who they are (as opposed to how awesome the college is). In other words, colleges are still trying to understand fit; they’re just using a lens that better centers the student,” he said.

    Students Still Write About Race

    While some colleges may be scrapping diversity prompts, many students want to write about their identities, Conlin and Sawyer said.

    “They don’t see themselves through just one lens. No student wants to be reduced to a single label or experience. They understand they’re complex people shaped by many different identities, roles, and life moments,” Sawyer wrote. “Part of our job as counselors is to help them express that complexity—to choose which pieces of their story to spotlight in each essay, and to show how those pieces translate into contributions they’ll make on a college campus.”

    Many of the new or reworded essay prompts that have replaced diversity-related questions are broad enough that students can still talk about their identities and experience if they choose to, Conlin noted. In her experience, students are often interested in discussing their race or first-generation student status in essays. But students are more reluctant to write about being LGBTQ+ or having mental health struggles.

    Diversity essays aside, Conlin also noted two burgeoning categories of essay topics this year: prompts asking students to talk about how they handle conflict and prompts offering students the chance to explain their relationship with AI.

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  • In Light of AI, a Creative Alternative to Essays (opinion)

    In Light of AI, a Creative Alternative to Essays (opinion)

    For decades now, professors have been complaining about the futility of asking students to write term papers, otherwise known as a research paper. In theory, research papers teach students how to gather a large body of information, weigh conflicting interpretations and come up with their own ideas about the subject, all while honing their writing skills.

    But the reality is very different. The prose is usually terrible and the ideas a bad rehash of class lectures. Grading these essays is pure torture. Anecdotally, I’ve heard many say that evaluating papers is the worst part of teaching. If Dante had known about grading, he would have added a new circle of hell where the damned have to grade one bad paper after another for all eternity.

    And now we have AI, or “artificial intelligence,” in the form of ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini and a host of other platforms. Submit a prompt, and these programs spit out an essay that, aside from the occasional hallucination, is actually pretty good. Grammatical mistakes are rare; there’s a thesis, evidence and organization.

    Even worse, using AI for schoolwork is rampant in both K–12 and higher ed. As James D. Walsh puts it in his now-infamous New York magazine article, “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College.” And it’s nearly impossible to catch cheaters, especially now that the airless, robotic prose that’s often a marker of an AI-written essay can be masked by programs that promise to “unlock truly human-like AI text.”

    What to do? If you have a large class, interviewing students about their essays to ensure they didn’t use AI is impractical, and randomly choosing students to interview could lead to charges of bias. Besides, suspecting everyone of plagiarism destroys the class atmosphere.

    Many have gone back to handwritten exams and in-class writing assignments. But grading a pile of blue books is as agonizingly tedious as a pile of papers.

    My solution has been to replace the final research paper with a creative project.

    Instead of a detailed prompt or instructions, I give my students very wide latitude to do, as the phrase goes, whatever floats their boat. Nonetheless, I still set a few parameters. They have to tell me several weeks in advance what they have in mind. They can’t take a piece of paper, draw a line across it and say, “Behold: my interpretation of Hamlet.”

    I have only two hard rules: The project must reflect a good-faith effort to interpret something we’ve read in class, and they have to hand in a brief description of what they tried to accomplish. For those willing (most are), the students present their projects to the class during the period allotted for the final exam. Other than that, they do what they want—and I’ve gotten amazing results.

    When I was teaching the literature of terrorism, one student happened to be going to New York for spring break, so she went to the Sept. 11 memorial and interviewed people. Another student composed a rock opera based on Thomas Kyd’s Elizabethan play The Spanish Tragedy. A group put together a postapocalyptic performance of King Lear on the heath, using the university’s loading docks for their stage. I’ve gotten raps, short stories, children’s books, parodies performed and written, musical compositions, and paintings.

    For example, a student produced this project for my last Shakespeare class (reproduced with the student’s permission):

    Created by Teresa Cousillas Lema

    This pencil drawing represents the student’s response to Al Pacino’s delivery of Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew” speech in Michael Radford’s 2004 film, The Merchant of Venice. The three images represent the different emotions Shylock displayed over the course of his speech: rage, sadness, determination.

    For the background, this student wrote out Shylock’s speech, thereby committing it (she told me) to memory. But this project represents more than a pretty picture: It demonstrates a profound response to Shakespeare’s words and Pacino’s delivery of them.

    This project accomplished nearly the same goals a term paper is supposed to accomplish: reflecting on the material and responding to the play both emotionally and intellectually. As a final payoff, while most students forget about their term papers seconds after they submit them, I’m guessing this student will remember this one and carry forward a deep appreciation of Shakespeare.

    Granted, switching to creative projects does not entirely eliminate the possibility of using AI to cheat. Students could still resort to AI if they want to produce anything that involves writing (e.g., a screenplay or a short story), or, for visual projects, they could use an AI art generator. But the opportunity to create something they’re invested in, as opposed to responding to the professor’s essay topics, reduces the incentive to not do the work. The project is something the student wants to do rather than something they have to do.

    Yet there is something lost. When the creative project replaces the research paper, students will not have the experience of sorting through multiple and contradictory interpretations. They won’t learn about literary theory and different approaches to literature. And they won’t learn how to write critical prose.

    In short, in my discipline, replacing the research paper with a creative project means moving away from teaching English majors how to be literary critics, and that’s not small. It means reorienting the undergraduate English major away from preparing our best students for graduate school and more toward historically informed response.

    Nonetheless, it makes no sense to continue with an evaluation method that just about everybody agrees has long since lost its value. So I suggest abandoning the essay for another method that not only accomplishes nearly the same aims but, in the end, brings joy to both student and teacher.

    Peter C. Herman is a professor of English literature at San Diego State University.

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  • How (and why) to get beyond traditional essays

    How (and why) to get beyond traditional essays

    I vividly recall the confusion among my classmates when the first assessment grades were released during our master’s course at a leading UK university.

    Many had invested weeks in research and writing, feeling confident in their understanding of the subject. However, despite their efforts, many essays received unexpectedly low grades, and feedback highlighted a lack of critical engagement, analytical depth, and structured argumentation – elements essential at the postgraduate level.

    My cohort was comprised mainly of international students. Many students for whom English was not a first language struggled to articulate their arguments clearly, ultimately impacting the overall coherence of their work.

    During our feedback discussions, it became evident that the core issue was not a lack of subject knowledge but rather a misunderstanding of the academic conventions governing the structure and articulation of ideas.

    The challenges presented by unfamiliar practices, such as citation and referencing, only compounded these difficulties.

    Over time, I heard similar struggles from students of various backgrounds, revealing a recurring theme. Whether I was a student, class representative, tutor, or researcher, I observed that students faced fewer challenges in mastering course content and more challenges in expressing their knowledge through unfamiliar formats, such as essay-based assessments. This realisation left a lasting impression on me.

    Emotional and psychological impact

    For many students, adjusting to such systems is not merely an academic challenge but also an emotional and psychological one. High-achieving students from their home countries often experience the shock of receiving unexpectedly low grades on their initial assignments. This can lead them to question their abilities and sense of self-worth.

    Some, overwhelmed by the high stakes of postgraduate education – especially those managing financial burdens or caring for dependents – find themselves under immense pressure. In extreme cases, I’ve witnessed students spiral into distress, with one even contemplating suicide after failing a dissertation. Such stories are a grim reminder that failure can feel unbearable for someone accustomed to excelling.

    This intense pressure, stemming from rigid assessment structures, can sometimes lead students to engage in academic misconduct and unethical solutions, such as plagiarism and using essay mills.

    Every assignment feels like a make-or-break moment for those juggling the demands of visas, funding, and future careers, further amplifying the emotional toll of education.

    These experiences have convinced me that while essays remain valuable tools for assessing reasoning and critical analysis, they should not be the sole measure of deep learning. Modern assessment structures must evolve to reflect the diversity of student cohorts, embracing various learning styles and backgrounds while upholding academic standards.

    Inclusive assessment practices promote fair evaluation of academic knowledge while prioritising student well-being.

    Broadening the lens – multimodal assessments

    Assessment should not just measure learning – it should facilitate and inspire it. Single-format, high-stakes assessments can disproportionately disadvantage students facing personal challenges, time constraints, or unfamiliarity with academic norms.

    Research consistently shows that students prefer assessments offering flexibility and choice, allowing them to tailor tasks to their strengths and interests.

    Concerns about compromising academic rigour often accompany discussions of diversifying assessments. However, as David Carless emphasises, rigour is not tied to format – it lies in the expectations and standards underpinning any method.

    Multimodal assignments allow students to express their knowledge in diverse ways, such as presentations, reflective journals, or case studies, while fostering essential skills like multimodal literacy.

    In today’s interconnected and media-rich world, these formats prepare students to navigate and engage with complex communication demands.

    Aligning assessments with real-world demands

    Richard Wakeford highlights that an effective assessment must align with course objectives while capturing a meaningful combination of students’ abilities, skills, achievements, and potential. Beyond measuring academic progress, assessment should also provide insight into future performance. Yet, traditional essay-based methods fall somewhat short of developing the practical competencies required in today’s job market beyond academia.

    Students value assessments that reflect real-world professional tasks, as highlighted in a study by David Carless, reinforcing their importance beyond the classroom.

    Many careers demand skills such as report writing, public speaking, and problem-solving – competencies that theoretical essays only partially address. Assessment practices should move beyond rigid academic standards and embrace authentic assessment methods incorporating applied learning to better equip students for professional environments.

    Diverse assessment methods and technologies are now available to facilitate this transition. Digital tools enhance exam delivery, streamline feedback, and improve the overall assessment process.

    By incorporating multimodal assessments – such as policy briefs, research portfolios, infographics, case studies, and presentations – educators can not only evaluate students’ academic knowledge but also cultivate essential workplace skills.

    Standardised rubrics can ensure fairness and consistency across different formats. Ultimately, the aim is to assess the depth of analysis, evidence-based reasoning, and clarity of argumentation.

    Your evaluation, your choice

    Offering students flexibility and choices in assessments fosters autonomy, which in turn boosts engagement and promotes deeper learning. When students are allowed to choose tasks and formats that resonate with their interests and strengths, they become more motivated, perform at higher levels, and show greater persistence in their efforts.

    An example from one of my modules illustrates this well. Offering students the choice to submit either an essay or a presentation for the innovation in education assignment was warmly received, as it allowed them to showcase their expertise in different contexts and disciplines through written analysis, audio-video or verbal presentation.

    Similarly, integrating oral components like brief viva or follow-up discussions alongside written submissions could enable students to express their key arguments verbally, bridging the gap between their knowledge and their ability to convey it in academic writing. Such recorded sessions could ensure that students’ intended messages align with instructors’ understanding by mitigating language barriers while upholding academic integrity.

    Nevertheless, it’s essential to recognise that expanding assessment methods involves several practical considerations, including time, faculty workload, and institutional constraints. JS Curwood points out a common concern among educators – existing rubrics may not be suitable for evaluating innovative assessment formats, and there can be inconsistencies in grading among different instructors.

    To address these issues without overburdening staff or resources, targeted reforms – such as updated rubrics, moderation, staged submissions, and brief sustainable feedback – can be implemented. Such small adjustments can help students navigate potential setbacks by engaging more meaningfully with feedback and developing resilience – elements integral to the learning process.

    Hidden curriculum and transparent expectations

    For many students, especially those from diverse educational systems, academic writing in Western institutions introduces a “hidden curriculum” that is often unspoken. In regions like South Asia, East Africa, and parts of the Middle East, assessments typically focus on knowledge recall and adherence to textbooks.

    Deviation from prescribed content is often penalised. In contrast, UK institutions prioritise originality, critical synthesis, and independent argumentation—expectations that are not always clearly communicated to students initially.

    A study conducted by LSE’s Change Makers program (2022) revealed that many international students struggle not due to lack of knowledge but because they are unfamiliar with the nuanced expectations of UK academic writing. The same report indicated that students often misinterpret feedback, further exacerbating their frustration.

    Research by David Carless emphasises the importance of transparent assessment processes. While rubrics can clarify expectations, students frequently find them abstract and challenging to interpret. Many are confused by vague feedback phrases such as “lacks critical analysis” or “needs better synthesis.” Perceptions of assessment tasks—shaped by previous learning experiences – can also significantly influence how students respond to these tasks. Therefore, ensuring transparency and clarity in the design of assessments and feedback is crucial.

    One effective strategy is using annotated exemplars – high-quality student work paired with commentary explaining key attributes. After my cohort requested such resources in one of our modules, the instructor provided a selection of exemplars to showcase various approaches to academic writing and argument development.

    These insights into different structures and styles proved invaluable in clarifying the expectations for essays. Research supports this approach, showing that students find exemplars helpful, particularly in studies focused on classroom discussions of exemplars and the role of exemplars as formative assessments.

    However, it’s important to approach the use of exemplars with care. Some educators worry that they may stifle creativity if students focus too heavily on imitation rather than innovation. To address this concern, guided discussions can help unpack the elements of quality work while encouraging originality. When combined with structured academic writing workshops, these strategies can equip students to confidently navigate academic expectations.

    Balancing tradition with innovation

    The future of higher education rests on our ability to integrate traditional practices with innovative approaches in assessment. This evolution transcends mere changes in grading, reflecting a broader commitment to cultivating an inclusive academic environment that values diverse pathways to success. By incorporating multimodal strategies, we not only strengthen the rigour of our assessments but also enhance their applicability to real-world challenges.

    This shift underscores the need for education to move beyond the confines of theoretical knowledge and numerical grades. Instead, it should focus on developing graduates who are adaptable, reflective, and equipped with the practical skills necessary to navigate the complexities of life beyond academia. In doing so, assessment practices transform from simple measures of performance into tools that inspire and empower well-rounded individuals capable of leading and innovating in a dynamic world.

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  • Essays in the Transformation of Higher Education (Dan Morris and Harry Targ)

    Essays in the Transformation of Higher Education (Dan Morris and Harry Targ)

    From Upton Sinclair’s ‘Goose Step’ to the Neoliberal University (lulu.com)

    Table of Contents
    Introduction
    Chapter One: Macro and Micro Analyses of Higher Education
    Chapter Two: Discourses On Ideology
    Chapter Three: Branding
    Chapter Four: What Do Universities Do?
    Chapter Five: Universities and War:
    Conclusion
    Appendix

    Introduction

    In the following pages, you are going to find a lot of specific information about what is happening at one major public research university, but we believe what is happening at Purdue is analogous to a canary in a coal mine. We believe that Purdue under Mitch Daniels, a former George Walker Bush administrator and Governor of Indiana, is becoming a high profile and influential spokesperson for the transformation of public higher education in the 21st century in directions that we find dangerous and that go against how we value higher education. We realize that, while we address extensively institutional changes and policies at Purdue, Indiana’s Land Grant University, our interest is in using this case study to illustrate larger patterns and issues that should be of concern to readers who care about the future of higher education in a broader sense.

    Harry Targ’s pieces do tend towards a wider-angle perspective than do those by Dan Morris, although both of us rely on our “boots on the ground” level understanding of Purdue to counteract and contest official media versions of what is happening at Purdue. We write at a moment when there is something of a “media desert” in terms of local news coverage of higher education in small markets such as Lafayette, Indiana. We have both tried to work to rectify the “media desert” landscape in our community by contributing to the Lafayette Independent, an electronic newsletter. We appreciate efforts by local journalists such as Dave Bangert and the student staff of the Purdue Exponent to offer coverage of the university in ways that are more substantial, and, often, more critical, than what one finds in the area’s only mainstream newspaper, the Journal and Courier, and main local TV news source, and the Purdue NPR radio station, whose ownership in the last year has been mysteriously transferred to an Indianapolis corporation. Paradoxically the richest data for many of the essays below come from the official daily public relations newsletter from Purdue called Purdue Today. This public relations source celebrates Purdue’s latest connections with multinational corporations, the military, and state politics, and provides links to editorials published by Purdue’s President and other officials in the national press. Ironically, oftentimes what Purdue celebrates becomes the data for our more analytical and discursive writings.

    Like alternative media sources, we see this book as another intervention in offering an alternative view of what is happening at our campus, but we also write with the hope that readers can apply the readings we bring to Purdue to begin conversations about the promise and problems of contemporary higher education on campuses. The authors wish to praise and encourage further research and activism around the transformations of higher education in general. We identify with what some scholars have referred to as Critical University Studies (CUS). The essays below, we believe, are part of this emerging tradition of critical and self-reflective scholarship.

    The authors also wish to identify at least three major elements of the transformation of higher education. First, Purdue, like many other universities, is once again pursuing research contracts with huge corporations, and perhaps most importantly, the Department of Defense. As essays below suggest, Purdue research is increasingly justified as serving the interests of United States “national security.” Often this is conceptualized as helping the United States respond to “the Chinese threat,” rarely identifying what exactly is the threat, or considering the possibility that contributing to a new arms race with a perceived adversary may increase, rather than reduce, the possibility for conflict between nations.

    Second, the work below and other writings in CUS, highlight the purposive transformation of the content of higher education. Universities are moving resources away from the liberal arts, creating new programs in “artificial intelligence” and “data science,” and in response to political pressures are diminishing programs that emphasize interdisciplinarity, intersectionality, and the structural problems of race, class, gender, and sexual preference in history and contemporary society. Essays below on “civics literacy” suggest that leading administrators at Purdue, while refusing to defend its universally praised Writing Lab after it was ridiculed on Fox News for its recommendation that student writers select gender-neutral terms such as postal worker when writing about occupations, seek to avoid the controversaries around Critical Race Theory by requiring all students to study in some fashion “civics literacy.” President Daniels has made it clear that the study of civics literacy will illustrate the “vitality” of US political institutions (as opposed to over-emphasizing the slaughter of the original inhabitants of the North American continent or the history of slavery and white supremacy).

    Third, the essays below do not dwell enough on the transformation of the university as a workplace. While there have been attacks for years on the tenure system, a system of job security which was initially designed to protect faculty from external political pressures, recent additions to the transformations of the university as a work site should be noted.

    Adjunctification is a term that refers to the qualitative increase in the hiring of various forms of part time instructors: full-time instructors for a set time period, instructors to teach less than a full complement of courses, and instructors with various arrangements that limit their work life, their ability to do research and prepare for their class time, and their time to serve the many needs of students. The fundamental trend in higher education is to “cheapen” and make insecure instructors, ultimately to destroy the job security that comes with academic tenure. In many cases this impacts negatively on the quality of the educational experience. (In colleges and universities in general about 70 percent of classes now are taught by instructors who are not tenure-line faculty).

    And finally, every effort is made by universities to limit and derail the workplace concerns of non-teaching staff, particularly opposing their right to form unions.

    One positive development from all of this-destroying the tenure system and job security, adjunctification, increased exploitation of graduate students, and finally restricting the rights and the wages and benefits of staff has been the rise of labor militancy. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and various unions such as the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the United Electrical Workers (UE) with a history of militancy have been organizing graduate students and staff.

    Finally, the authors acknowledge that in the months after we completed our manuscript, Purdue administrators and trustees have announced a series of initiatives without an appropriate level of input from university stakeholders and the wider Lafayette area community:

    1. Purdue is building a housing complex near the Discovery Park part of campus to attract higher income earning technologists to relocate in West Lafayette. To encourage new high-income residents, the West Lafayette city government has authorized $5,000 cash incentives for any purchasers of these new housing units adjacent to Purdue. Such offers are not available to lower income earners or students.

    2. To deal with record enrollments, Purdue has purchased a privately constructed apartment complex across from campus at a price well more than the cost of its construction.

    3. Purdue officials have expanded partnerships with Saab, Rolls Royce, the Raytheon Corporation, one of the world’s five largest military contractors, and undertaken a controversial business mission with the Indiana governor to Taiwan to pursue research and production of semi-conductors, in part to respond to what Purdue officials have described as a ”Chinese threat” to national security in the United States.

    4.The College of Liberal Arts has announced it will be partnering with the College of Science to develop a new interdisciplinary degree program in artificial intelligence. CLA calls its “new field” of interest, “sociogenomics.”

    5. Purdue received an award recognizing its “excellence in counterintelligence,” one of only four such award recipients in 2022. Purdue joins those few universities which protect “sensitive national information from foreign adversaries.” The award announced in Purdue Today, August 24, 2022, noted that the university continues to work with the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) and the FBI.

    In short, the transformation of Indiana’s Land Grant university continues at a rapid pace. And while the essays below concentrate on the developments and forces leading to these changes, the broader point of this collection of essays is to suggest that higher education in the twenty-first century is changing in a rapid and largely deleterious way. The appended essay by Carl Davidson reflects a similar critique of the university during the height of the Cold War. What we are witnessing today is a revitalization of that trend.

    For those who value the university as a site for informing students about the world and debating the value of changes occurring in it, the developments highlighted in these essays are a warning. And for faculty and students alike the antidote to the militarization of the university, the transformation of the curricula, and the disempowering of those who work in universities is organizing against those elements of change that are antithetical to the educational process.

    And More:

    “The Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue has created a category of its own. As part of the nation’s leading national security university, it is rapidly becoming the world’s premier institution focused on Tech Statecraft, a new model of diplomacy bridging the gap between technology experts, government officials and policymakers, and business leaders to ensure tomorrow’s tech secures our freedoms,” said (Daniel) Kurtenbach. ‘I’m excited to contribute to the Krach Institute’s already-impressive momentum by enhancing and building its innovative partnerships and relationships to achieve our shared vision of a future that prizes individual freedom through trusted technology.’ ”

    https://www.citybiz.co/article/378157/krach-institute-for-tech-diplomacy-at-purdue-names-daniel-kurtenbach-as-chief-growth-officer/

    Homepage – Tech Statecraft (techdiplomacy.org)

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