Non-Helicopter Parenting Illegal, Dorm Slounge, & More - Around the College Town
Links related to urbanism and higher ed for the week of Nov. 8 - 16.
Note: each week Around the College Town will feature a list of links from stories I am reading that are related to urbanism and higher ed, often combining both. This will include a brief commentary on each link. These may grow into future articles by me. Submit a link if you think it fits.
How ChatGPT Brought Down an Online Education Giant - Wall Street Journal
There have been so many discussions about AI and education recently. We just had two public events on my campus in the last week or so. One takeaway that everyone has been grappling with is cheating. Professors aren’t supposed to be Blade Runners, but it has consumed much of our profession these days.
One interesting development is how much ChatGPT has wrecked another notorious cheating website, Chegg. Of course, ChatGPT is easier and better than whatever Chegg has been offering, so the latter’s traffic has cratered since the former was released. There will be no funeral from us professors, as my colleagues were jubilant in hearing about the looming death of the cheating site on the r/Professors Reddit page.
Can Professors Afford the American Dream? - Chronicle of Higher Education
More on my profession: I recently covered the ‘Homeless UCLA’ professor (and have an interview with him coming next week), so the Chronicle’s new stat heavy article on professor pay is quite relevant. They calculate the disparity between pay and local cost-of-living. Basically, it’s a list of universities in New York City and California. The thing is, these are the good positions, the dream positions that everyone in grad school is gunning for. There is another class of adjunct under these jobs that have it exponentially worse. Just another reason I tell my students not to pursue a PhD.
‘Slounge’: The Great Experiment - University of Notre Dame
On other parts of campus, the University of Notre Dame gives us a new word: the Slounge. This stands for Section Lounge, which are shared living spaces in campus dorms with sectional couch, TV, and other lounging amenities. Let’s look at the description of a typical day in the Slounge”
On Saturdays, Slounges across campus come alive with eager football fans cheering for THE Fighting Irish; on Wednesdays, they host intense Survivor watch parties; Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays are all about more football (with the occasional Irish alum making an appearance); and, of course, Fridays are reserved for movie nights.
We probably all had a version of a Slounge during undergrad, and these spaces are what made dorm days so much fun. The community aspect is what is so invigorating about college. It’s a shame that when we graduate, we often lose this due to the structures of our built environments.
Mom Jailed for Letting 10-Year-Old Walk Alone to Town - Reason
Speaking of our built environment, there was a viral story about a mom who was jailed for letting her son walk to town alone. The problem is that we have built our spaces to be so dangerous to anyone outside of a car that it has put helicopter parenting into overdrive. This is not a left/ right issue either (the initial story was from a deep red Southern county)—it’s an entire US thing. It’s a national epidemic.
This means students can no longer walk or bike to school. In my classes, when I embed my international students into local schools, they are always shocked at the insanity that is the school car pick-up line. I usually juxtapose our conversation on this issue with Japan, where young kids can walk down the street alone. I will have a future post on this issue.
Chinese Cycling Craze Blocks Ancient City Streets - SCMP
Finally, a little fun from university students in China. A viral video sparks a bike craze! Looks like fun, even though the trend has been clamped down on by a concerned government. Bummer.
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