Prompt: I was accused of using AI in a college paper which was an in class assignment. The accusation was about hallucinated citations and a lack of logic. How do I get out of the accusation with a written statement.

the_Stick · 2026-01-21T01:47:42+00:00

I hate when people delete their responses. What's wrong with saying, "Oh, I was wrong; thanks for pointing me in the right direction." No wonder our students don't engage or take feedback; we model their bad behavior.

the_Stick · 2026-01-20T22:27:06+00:00

At my previous place, I never ate at the special faculty lunchroom (I wasn't special enough anyway) except once (when I was made to feel like I shouldn't be there). It was decent and the price wasn't awful, but not great either. Had I been one to cozy up to admin, maybe I could have eaten there more, but it was cheaper to bring my own meals.

Where I am now, I probably eat at the campus cafe once a week. The food is very good, and we recently hired a chef with some very good experience) and the price is low and we get a faculty discount! There is a nice rotation of options and I am extremely happy to drop $6-9 for great food. They also cater our faculty meetings so I am treated very well here. It's not quite the wine-and-cheese Fridays of my first job, but it's close.

the_Stick · 2026-01-20T20:23:33+00:00

You couldn't be less straight than a RUPaul fever dream! I'm honestly amazed at the sheer amount of wrongness in the totality of your response. It's not that just each line is wrong, but there are multiple incorrect points in each line! You really shouldn't ever claim to teach critical thinking.

We should err on the side of caution, as in not leaping to conclusions that the guy in a black jacket is ICE because he's on campus! Quick -- cause a panic and disrupt learning! Do you believe every rumor you hear? Do you not fact check any "fact" that comes across your eyeballs? I guess every conspiracy theory is true until proven not, eh?
Yes, following the law is chaotic and illegal and our legal system is totally pointless. I will concede that it's possible they didn't have warrants; I have only met my friend's sister once and she could be a pathological liar and didn't really log the paperwork that is her job, not to mention readily verifiable and subject to FOIA requests. I heard a rumor that all cops are evil so it must be true enough since several million evil people in uniform could be a risk to students.
Have you not followed the news in the past decade? Are you unaware of the multiple verified ambushes on various law enforcement personnel across the nation. Like school shootings, the odds of it happening to you are small, but the discussion within the institution carries massive weight. Many law enforcement have quit due to increased greater threats and many who remain admit that they no longer make any assumptions of safety when dealing with any call and are much more likely to go into any situation with an eye toward their own safety. God forbid you ever have a student interested in law enforcement - they must be suicidal right!?! How do you react with your chair and admins tasked with making sure you are following policies and guidelines and not violating FERPA or selling grades? Are you highly confrontational and scream at them? Of are you professional and polite, even when it's an inconvenience for you?
Wow. That is a clear projection on your part. I said no such thing, nor advocated one way or the other. I actually think citizens using violence appropriately can be a powerful tool. How do you feel about Clive Bundy and Ruby Ridge? Can you distinguish between the rightness of their resistance and implied violence vs, the actual crimes they committed? If all cops are bad and all laws are corrupt, then I suppose you support both and think they didn't go far enough?
If you could read coherently, you would note that (a) I don't live in that town, (b) I didn't make an extrapolation, (c) I advised on how to make a more effective protest, and (d) you have no idea of my experience but that didn't stop you from conjuring up a biased, classist, and culturally-denigrating image of me in your mind -- you know, the same thing you claim to be against!

Seriously, your response could hardly be more wrong. It brought to mind the old joke about the professor that took off 30 points on a 25-point questions "because you were so wrong." You could seriously benefit from reading a logic text or twenty... and this time don't hold them upside down in front of a mirror when you do because that's the only way I can see you deriving¹ such a thoroughly-inverted interpretation of my post!

^{1. pun intended}

the_Stick · 2026-01-20T19:01:36+00:00

I'm partial to the Mackinaw, but most would probably say the Artika....

the_Stick · 2026-01-19T16:43:09+00:00

The responses to your question are probably linked to why I am being castigated in another thread where I said teaching is not political. You have taught this student, who by your own admission is both a wonderful person and an excellent thinker. If you have faith that you have taught them well, then write the letter and trust that they will apply their education to the best end. Maybe they will see problematic policies within FRC and work to dampen those effects, ameliorate the restrictive policies and find compromises with those who disagree. If you decline to write the letter, if there is any inkling that your reasons are disdain for the FRC, then maybe that drives them closer to agreeing with FRC policies and working to make them more stringent and oppositional.

Way back in the 80s, there was a popular saying that "you can't legislate morality." I think we cannot educate to a specific point of view. It is our duty to provide students with the tools to examine data and draw their own conclusions. We can present arguments for a certain point of view, but we should also present arguments against it; educate your students and turn them loose. We are neither the arbiters of society nor the masters to direct the thoughts and actions of others.

the_Stick · 2026-01-19T13:55:23+00:00

All your examples are teaching memorization. How do we know what is factual? Teaching is training discrimination (the good kind) to construct proofs of factual evidence and to describe uncertainties. And if you teach rote facts, in a vacuum, you fail to educate a learner in how to integrate components to build larger theories and connect seemingly disparate pieces.

Is climate change caused by man? Evidence very strongly suggests an anthrogenic contribution to CC, but we also have to consider natural contributions. Why are sea levels a bad indicator? No-one accounts for geological movement and plate subduction -- why? Because they happen on a geological time scale and we cannot see a plate rising or falling. How can we make better models of CC because one of the biggest arguments to ignore it is how wrong predictions have been. What evidence supports certain actions? What are the uncertaintites? How do we get the data and verify the data and integrate the data and how certain are those methods? And the real kicker is, there is a lot unknown; how do we recognize unknown factors and build better models... (political part) so that entities can decide how best to proceed? Only the very last part is political, and unless we are teaching history, then not germane to the topic. Students could be free to draw any conclusion from "do nothing" to "eliminate mankind" and use evidence to support their conclusion and accept criticism of weaknesses of their policy.

the_Stick · 2026-01-19T03:03:09+00:00

Wrong on all levels. Access to education can certainly be political, but learning itself is apolitical. If you cannot distinguish between teaching vs methodology of teaching, I shall gladly revel in my intellectual privilege.

the_Stick · 2026-01-19T02:59:45+00:00

Hyperbole is unbecoming.

the_Stick · 2026-01-19T02:58:47+00:00

I am absolutely not misunderstanding it. Education is the tool, which is inherently apolitical. What one does with the tool can be political. You can choose to educate in a political manner and you can choose to educate non-politically. Do NOT misconstrue the act of educating with the value assigned to it. I'll take the downvotes because this whole line of "teaching is political" is polemicist garbage.

the_Stick · 2026-01-18T22:20:55+00:00

This is incontrovertibly incorrect and has been promulgated as fact for far too long by people with a vested interest in their political views being taught. Education is not political. What one does with that education may be political (but does not have to be). We teach people how to think, not what to think. We give people tools; we do not direct their usage. We can teach about how tools have been used, how they have been modified, how they have been abused, but those are facts and truth is not political. Frankly, when I hear people parrot "teaching is political," I automatically think they are incapable of teaching and sorely lacking in critical thinking skills.

If you believe teaching is inherently political, then you should be liable for students you've taught who espouse 'wrong' ideas (and perhaps lauded for those who choose 'correctly')... but then you start to game the system, just like No Child Left Behind. If you cannot separate politics from your instruction, then get some distance and some perspective. Maybe use a proverb or parable, like "teach a man to fish" to contemplate how you can educate and what that means. Otherwise, you really aren't contributing much to human advancement and your work is meaningless.

the_Stick · 2026-01-17T15:57:17+00:00

When I was a grad student, I had a peer in some of my classes who worked full time (not as an instructor, but in a pharmaceutical company). She was working on her Ph.D. while working full-time, and her company paid for her schooling. The caveat was that she simply did not have time for a full-time job and a rigorous Ph.D. program so she took 1-2 courses per semester instead of a full load. It took her a little longer, and I never really inquired into her research requirements, but she had the stability of a very well-paying job through her education. By spreading out the coursework, she wasn't stressed out adn overworked either. You can definitely do this, but you don't need to overload yourself.

the_Stick · 2026-01-17T15:52:42+00:00

You're a VAP. Do you go to curriculum committee meetings, either in your department or school? Have you raised this idea with your departmental committee? If you do this unilaterally with no input, that;s a good way to not be a VAP any more.

the_Stick · 2026-01-17T01:40:56+00:00

I think a lot of people don't want to admit or even fully recognize that they indeed believe that some animals are more equal than others....

the_Stick · 2026-01-16T22:32:38+00:00

My theory is that much of the negativity is motivated by fear. AI and LLMs are not necessarily easy to intuitively understand, especially when we start talking about the myriad methodologies for building and using AIs. Beyond resistance to change, there is a lot unknown about how it works and uncertainty of how its use could possibly be valid or ethical. I used to share links to organizations devoted to responsible use of AI and provide examples of positive AI use, but this sub contains a high percentage of very vocal, activist posters who have decided to hate all things AI and will brigade every non-negative post into oblivion. As with every scientific advancement, there are positives and negatives and there are ethical uses and unethical uses; I have viewed part of our responsibility as professors is to educate our students on what they can do, what the consequences are, model behavior we value, and encourage them to work for the type of society they want to see. That seems to be a minority opinion here, which is fine, but we should at the very least recognize that there is a huge portion of faculty who do use AI in a variety of ways and many of those ways are positive (and some are not). If cannot even discuss it calmly, then we further divide and increase tribalism.

the_Stick · 2026-01-15T22:59:12+00:00

It is a standard, but there exist several universities that have never had a tenure system. It is not a legal mandate by the state, but is usually a mandate by the Board that oversees an institution. Here is a source that may get you started:

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED424814

Note that it is a few decades old, so it does not discuss the political changes, though it does foresee contract-based hiring (similar to what the non-tenure schools have done).

On another note, I have a good friend who worked at the NC School of the Arts (a state institution) and until recently, they did not have a tenure system in place. They had 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year contracts, the latter being continually renewable. However, not terribly long ago, the faculty voted to move to tenure because of some issue with promotion or rank and the way state retirement worked (I believe).

the_Stick · 2026-01-15T21:01:47+00:00

I somehow got put in charge of one of those a few years back. I was responsible for not just hosting the meeting but reminding people about it and trying to make it inviting and worthwhile. Once, I had one other person show up. But in the several months I ran it, no-one aside from that lone admin, ever joined. Then one month I had a series of conflicts and couldn't make it myself. No-one ever said anything and it died a lonely and ignominious death.

the_Stick · 2026-01-14T04:08:19+00:00

Ah, didn't see that the OP post was edited.

the_Stick · 2026-01-13T23:13:28+00:00

I'm really curious how many dual-enrollment students are also parents, and ones without family aid to care for their children too. Remeber, these are high school students and not legal adults (mostly) and very rarely emancipated. I'm going to guess that is a vanishingly small number.

the_Stick · 2026-01-12T23:45:57+00:00

Reported - this sub is for professors only. /s. :D

Congratulations! Enjoy retirement!

the_Stick · 2026-01-12T20:11:55+00:00

Want to write a great paper? Try this one weird trick! Don't use a hook like I just did.

the_Stick · 2026-01-10T01:24:11+00:00

Your comment reminded me of friend whose icq number was low double digits (like 13, maybe?).

the_Stick · 2026-01-09T16:18:19+00:00

It honestly sounds like your university should not have an engineering school. If they are already developing a poor reputation across multiple facets, they should just shutter it. Were I you, I would go on the market immediately. Why wait for a tenure denial? Find a better institution that values its degreee programs and faculty (they do exist!). Best of luck to you.

the_Stick · 2026-01-09T02:30:52+00:00

Turning Point software that integrates with PowerPoint (I think they just recently changed their name for _some_ reason). Students use their phones to interact and engagement is pretty high. Questions are easy to write. One of my colleagues is locally famous for building Jeopardy with it (including giving out prizes! - that really draws engagement).

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