I read part of that paper -- it is an opinion piece (?) but they publish a draft with abstract like it is science looking for peer-review? This is new to me.
Thanks for sharing it. The timing was excellent as I just wrote a clip about "Velvet Prisons" the documentary featuring Russell Jacoby. While Hartzog and Silbey assert:
Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo....
Jacoby would read this as either sarcasm or wishful thinking. Jacoby argues that legacy institutions are insular and self-protecting. His title refers to the dynamic by which the smartest among us wind up producing nothing of value due to the structure and politics of these legacy institutions. Those who outshine or reach alternative conclusions are treated as a threat to the hierarchy which Hartzog and Silbey praise.
Jacoby uses a counter-example to make his case: because they are constrained by the politics of their own departments, professors who HAVE made notable contributions to knowledge and understanding had to do so OUTSIDE their department. And even then they are punished for emerging as thought leaders:
"Well, Noam Chomsky, I suppose, is tend to used in two different ways, because, as he's actually a professor of linguistics, not a professor of politics, and it's clear that he would've never become a professor of politics."
"Think of the mediocrities out there. Think of the thousands, tens of thousands of people who are saying nothing about anything and prospering! And then you have one guy who's done, yes, he's controversial, I don't agree with everything he says, but, it's amazing that, if you have the marshaling of this kind of political power to send him packing, what lessons do you draw? I mean, you have to be very careful what you say until you get tenure. Well, the problem is, by the time you get tenure, you've forgotten what you wanted to say, you've lost the will, it no longer seems important." -Russell Jacoby, Velvet Prisons
I'm no fan of AI. It is mis-named and half-baked but it is still evolving. Still steerable toward a better version. It is dystopic and soul-crushing but more to the present point, colleges need to adapt rapidly if they are to maintain value.
I am currently focused on the backlash to AI which is very encouraging. In the Arts, people are now more inclined to seek out live performances. In the EU laws have been passed so that all AI output must be labeled as such and people must allowed to opt out of become the training inputs. It is hard for me to square that with Hartzog and Silbey who seem only concerned with maintaining colleges as gatekeepers and brands. Them calling colleges "super heroes" and "transparent" seems to show an unwillingness to be realistic.
IMHO we need to replicate
the laws that the EU has. And we need to help our children make the best career choices they can using everything we know about the changes that are underway.
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This is Kurt Jacobsen's doc featuring Jacoby (I have no idea why it should be age restricted (!?) It mentions but does not show the execution of the Rosenbergs, mentions communism many times) :
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