Dear Commons Community,

Allison Burroughs, a U.S. judge yesterday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, a policy the Ivy League school called part of Trump’s broader effort to retaliate against it for refusing to “surrender its academic independence.”  As reported by Reuters.

The order provides temporary relief to thousands of international students who were faced with being forced to transfer under a policy that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university called a “blatant violation” of the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws, and said would have an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders. 

“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school said in its lawsuit, filed earlier on Friday in Boston federal court. Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in its current school year, equal to 27% of total enrollment.

The move was the latest escalation in a broader battle between Harvard and the White House, as Trump seeks to compel universities, law firms, news media, courts and other institutions that value independence from partisan politics to align with his agenda. Trump and fellow Republicans have long accused elite universities of left-wing bias.

Harvard has pushed back hard against Trump, having previously sued to restore nearly $3 billion in federal grants that had been frozen or canceled. In recent weeks, the administration has proposed ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status and hiking taxes on its endowment, and opened an investigation into whether it violated civil rights laws.

Leo Gerden, a Swedish student set to graduate Harvard with an undergraduate degree in economics and government this month, called the judge’s ruling a “great first step” but said international students were bracing for a long legal fight that would keep them in limbo.

“There is no single decision by Trump or by Harvard or by a judge that is going to put an end to this tyranny of what Trump is doing,” Gerden said.

In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation. It said the revocation was a punishment for Harvard’s “perceived viewpoint,” which it called a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

The Trump administration may appeal U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs’ ruling. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”

Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, his administration has accused several universities of indifference toward the welfare of Jewish students during widespread campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Harvard’s court challenges over the administration’s policies stand in contrast to its New York-based peer Columbia University’s concessions to similar pressure. Columbia agreed to reform disciplinary processes and review curricula for courses on the Middle East, after Trump pulled $400 million in funding over allegations the Ivy League school had not done enough to combat antisemitism.

In announcing on Thursday the termination of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without providing evidence, accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Harvard says a fifth of its foreign students in 2024 were from China. U.S. lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns about the influence of the Chinese government on U.S. college campuses, including efforts by Beijing-directed Chinese student associations to monitor political activities and stifle academic speech.

The university says it is committed to combating antisemitism and investigating credible allegations of civil rights violations.

HARVARD DEFENDS ‘REFUSAL TO SURRENDER’

In her brief order blocking the policy for two weeks, Burroughs said Harvard had shown it could be harmed before there was an opportunity to hear the case in full. The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, scheduled hearings for May 27 and May 29 to consider next steps in the case. Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s lawsuit over the grant funds.

Harvard University President Alan Garber said the administration was illegally seeking to assert control over the private university’s curriculum, faculty and student body.

“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence,” Garber wrote in a letter on Friday to the Harvard community.

The revocation could also weigh on Harvard’s finances. At many U.S. universities, international students are more likely to pay full tuition, essentially subsidizing aid for other students.

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Harvard’s bonds, part of its $8.2 billion debt pile, have been falling since Trump first warned U.S. universities in March of cuts to federal funding.

International students enrolled at Harvard include Cleo Carney, daughter of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Princess Elisabeth, first in line to the Belgian throne.

Keep up the fight, Harvard!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Jeffrey Mervis, senior correspondent for Science, had a policy piece yesterday entitled,  “NSF cuts reduced grantee diversity” that reviewed recent Trump orders to eliminate National Science Foundation (NSF) research grants.

More than half of the 1500 research grants that the NSF has terminated in the past month, were aimed to bring groups historically underrepresented in science into the mainstream. Ending those grants reversed decades of efforts focused on what the agency calls the “missing millions” women, racial and ethnic minorities, veterans, and low-income and rural students.

But that’s not the only impact. The terminations also reduced the diversity of NSF’s pool of funded scientists, as researchers from several of those groups have borne the brunt of the cuts.  Here is an excerpt.

“According to demographic data NSF collects on all its principal investigators (PIs), 58% of the grants canceled to date were led by women, although only 34% of the total pool of active NSF grants have women as PIs. The percentage of Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities who lost grants was roughly twice their presence in the overall pool of active grants. And Black PIs have suffered the heaviest blow: They held 17% of the canceled grants, although they only make up 4% of the total NSF pool of active grants.

Taken together, those statistics “are startling and very depressing,” says physicist Tabbetha Dobbins, dean of the graduate school at Rowan University and a member of an NSF advisory panel overseeing its efforts to broaden participation. “We’ve all heard [NSF officials] say that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. These grants are designed to nurture that talent and provide those opportunities, and these cuts will make it harder to achieve that goal.”

In contrast, according to the NSF data, men were PIs on just 35% of the terminated grants despite making up 60% of the total pool of PIs with active grants. White scientists were also more likely to be spared: Although they are PIs on 60% of all active grants, they only led 52% of the terminated projects.

Biologist Jo Handelsman of the University of Wisconsin–Madison says she is not surprised that researchers from underrepresented groups were more likely to feel the ax than their white, men colleagues. “These scientists are more likely to do work on interventions intended to broaden participation in science,” she says.

Handelsman adds that the skewed demographics of the terminated grants sends a discouraging message to aspiring scientists from underrepresented groups. “We’ve been fighting for decades to increase participation by people from these groups,” says Handelsman, who has received a presidential medal for science mentoring and served in the White House under former President Barack Obama. “And now they’re seeing that there may not be a place at the table for them. It’s frightening.”

Last month NSF began to terminate grants for projects it says preferentially favored one demographic group or excluded participation by certain groups. The policy stems from directives Trump issued after taking office on 20 January that ban federally funded diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The president has disparaged those efforts, calling them discriminatory and claiming they aren’t open to everyone, in particular, white men.

But several scientists told Science Trump is wrong about the audience being served by their terminated projects. “I get that Trump doesn’t like DEI, but we don’t exclude anybody,” says Tammie Visintainer, a science educator at San Jose State University (SJSU) who has lost NSF funding for two projects. One helps local secondary school teachers prepare units and guide student research on the health and environmental effects of urban heat islands, and the second aims to improve introductory undergraduate science courses at SJSU. “Remember, white men are still a majority in science,” Handelsman says. “So when we improve how we teach science, the white male students learn more, too.”

One of the hardest hit programs is the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP). About two-thirds of the more than 60 alliances in the program have lost their grants, and NSF plans to eliminate the division that funds them and fire the program’s managers. Named for a prominent Black congressman, LSAMP would seem to meet Trump’s definition of exclusionary.

Biologist Christopher Botanga of Chicago State University disagrees. He had three NSF LSAMP grants, now canceled, to run programs to attract undergraduates into science, technology, engineering, and math fields and prepare them to pursue advanced degrees. One grant, he says, supported an Illinois program that has operated for 3 decades and served 900 students. He says a sizable portion qualified because they are the first in their family to attend college.

For Visintainer, having her grant cut essentially erases the past 4 years of her scientific life. “All the blood, sweat, and tears that I poured into the project, it’s all lost,” she says. But she has no plans to stop. “There is no way that we shouldn’t be focused on making cities more livable,” she says, “or improving how we teach undergraduate science courses. I don’t exactly know what I’m going to do, but I’m not giving up.”

Sad situation for research in our country!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students in its escalating battle with the Ivy League school, saying thousands of current students must transfer to other schools or leave the country.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the action yesterday, saying Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, saying it hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the agency said in a statement.

Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accounting for more than a quarter of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries.

Harvard called the action unlawful and said it’s working to provide guidance to students.

“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.

The Trump administration’s clash with Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, has intensified since it became the first to openly defy White House demands for changes at elite schools it has criticized as hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism. The federal government has cut $2.6 billion in federal grants to Harvard, forcing it to self-fund much of its sprawling research operation. President Donald Trump has said he wants to strip the university of its tax-exempt status.

The administration has demanded records of campus protests

The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that it provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.

In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, Noem said the school’s sanction is “the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements.” It bars Harvard from hosting international students for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.

Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said in a statement.

The action revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which gives the school the ability to sponsor international students to get their visas and attend school in the United States.

Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism, but warned it would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. He said he wasn’t aware of evidence to support the administration’s allegation that its international students were “more prone to disruption, violence, or other misconduct than any other students.”

Students in Harvard College Democrats said the Trump administration is playing with students’ lives to push a radical agenda and to quiet dissent. “Trump’s attack on international students is text book authoritarianism — Harvard must continue to hold the line,” the group said in a statement.

The administration drew condemnation from free speech groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which said Noem is demanding a “surveillance state.”

“This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected,” the group said in a statement.

The revocation opens a new front in a closely watched battle

Many of Harvard’s punishments have come through a federal antisemitism task force that says the university failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence amid a nationwide wave of pro-Palestinian protests.

Homeland Security officials echoed those concerns in their Thursday announcement. It offered examples, including a recent internal report at Harvard, finding that many Jewish students reported facing discrimination or bias on campus.

It also tapped into concerns that congressional Republicans have raised about ties between U.S. universities and China. Homeland Security officials said Harvard provided training to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as recently as 2024. As evidence, it provided a link to a Fox News article, which in turn cited a letter from House Republicans.

Asked for comment on the alleged coordination with the Chinese Communist Party, a Harvard spokesperson said the university will be responding to the House Republicans’ letter.

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called the latest action an “illegal, small-minded” overreach.

“I worry that this is sending a very chilling effect to international students looking to come to America for education,” he said.

The Trump administration has leveraged the system for tracking international students’ legal status as part of its broader attempts to crack down on higher education. What was once a largely administrative database has become a tool of enforcement, as immigration officials revoked students’ legal status directly in the system.

Those efforts were challenged in court, leading to restorations of status and a nationwide injunction blocking the administration from pursuing further terminations.

Harvard has to stay the course in its fight with Trump.

Tony 

Dear Commons Community,

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a campaign ad for his mayoral run, claims the feds are targeting Democrats with probes, including ones against him and state Attorney General Letitia James. As reported by the New York Daily News.

Mayoral front-runner Andrew Cuomo went on the offensive yesterday following news that he’s under criminal investigation by President Trump’s Department of Justice, rolling out a campaign ad blasting the probe as a nakedly political effort to disrupt his momentum in the race.

The 33-second spot kicks off with a narrator recounting how Trump’s administration has recently used federal law enforcement to target elected Democrats across the U.S. — including New York Attorney General Letitia James, a longtime political nemesis to Trump who’s facing a criminal DOJ probe, too.

“Now, they’re attacking Andrew Cuomo to interfere with New York City’s election. Why? Because Andrew Cuomo is the last person they want as mayor,” the ad narrator says as dramatic music plays in the background.

“If Donald Trump doesn’t want Andrew Cuomo as mayor, you do,” the narrator concludes.

A spokesman for Cuomo, who’s polling as the favorite to win next month’s Democratic mayoral primary, said the ad is now only airing on digital platforms, but added, “stay tuned,” when asked whether it’ll appear on television as well. The spokesman declined to say how much the campaign spent on the ad.

The ad comes just hours after news broke late Tuesday that Trump’s DOJ about a month ago launched a criminal investigation into allegations that Cuomo lied before Congress last year while testifying about his controversial decision, as governor in 2020, to force New York nursing homes to admit residents diagnosed with COVID-19. The policy is believed to have resulted in thousands of deaths.

The probe was launched in response to a criminal referral from House Republicans that former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice previously declined to act on. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing.

Democrats and Republicans alike, though, have for years lambasted Cuomo for the 2020 nursing home policy. That, along with sexual misconduct accusations against him from more than 10 women, formed the basis for the impeachment inquiry the state Legislature launched into Cuomo in 2021 before he resigned as governor.

Cuomo drew particular ire for his administration’s undercount of the number of nursing home COVID deaths in New York, with House Democrats releasing a report late last year concluding he inappropriately “interfered” with the tally and arguing he “should be held accountable.”

Though the nursing home matter is a fraught issue for him, Cuomo’s new ad indicates he will try to use the Trump DOJ probe as a badge of honor as he continues to poll as the favorite to become the next mayor of New York City, where Trump remains deeply unpopular.

AG James, whose investigative report on Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment contributed to his political downfall in 2021, found it curious the ex-gov included her in his new ad, but noted the spot only referred to her by title, not by name.

“Say my name, say my name. It’s Letitia James, and my candidate is Adrienne Adams,” James told the Daily News in a statement, referring to the Council speaker’s mayoral run, which she has endorsed. The speaker declined to comment.

One of Cuomo’s other mayoral primary opponents, Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who has for weeks accused Cuomo of not pushing back enough on some of Trump’s most controversial policies, argued the DOJ probe explains the ex-gov’s silence.

“Now, New Yorkers know why: Cuomo was attempting to keep his failed legacy of nursing home deaths and COVID mismanagement off the front pages,” Myrie said. “We deserve better than crooked, corrupt Cuomo who has spent decades in office ignoring the law to serve himself. We cannot trade one compromised mayor for another.”

In response to Myrie’s broadside, Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said the governor’s team didn’t know anything about a DOJ probe until The New York Times first reported about it late Tuesday. “Myrie once again has shown he talks without thinking,” Azzopardi said.

Myrie’s “one comprised mayor for another” comment was referring to Mayor Adams, who was charged by the DOJ in a sweeping federal corruption indictment while Biden was still in office.

Once Trump came into office, his political appointees — without opining on the merits of the case — secured a controversial dismissal of Adams’ indictment because they said they needed it quashed so he could play a larger role in helping the president’s “mass deportation” agenda.

Adams, who has since the dismissal faced accusations he’s beholden to Trump’s agenda, stayed clear of taking a shot at Cuomo following news of the DOJ investigation.

“Investigations must take their course, and I’m not going to do to him what others did to me,” Adams, who has denied a quid pro quo with Trump, told reporters after an unrelated press conference in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. “I’m going to allow the investigation to take its course.”

Adams is no longer running in the Democratic mayoral primary, having dropped out of it amid fallout from his indictment dismissal. But he is seeking reelection as an independent candidate in November’s general election, meaning he could face off against Cuomo in that contest if he wins the Democratic primary.

Ex-city Comptroller Scott Stringer, another candidate in June’s mayoral primary, said both Cuomo and Adams should be considered compromised by Trump at this point.

“For the people in New York City, here we go again: A president with a thumb on the next mayor,” he said at a mayoral candidate forum Wednesday, “and that’s just the political reality of what this city is facing.”

In my opinion, Trump going after Cuomo will guarantee Cuomo a victory in the Democratic primary in June and the mayoral election in November.  New York City voters hated Trump even before he became president and are smart enough to see through Trump’s DOJ probe.

Tony

Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump in the Oval Office of the White House.

Dear Commons Community,

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump yesterday discussed issues involving trade, political killings and refugees.  They engaged in a tense back-and-forth at the White House over Trump’s false claims of “genocide” against white South African farmers.   

News broke during the meeting that the Air Force accepted the gift of a Boeing 747 from the government of Qatar. Democrats and some Republicans have criticized Trump for the gift and he lashed out at a reporter who asked about it.

Ramaphosa had been discussing the need for greater trade with the United States. But Trump countered each plea that Ramaphosa made with a rebuttal through video and newspaper clippings about the deaths of White South African farmers. He said these killings had spurred thousands of people to flee the country.

“I’m sorry we don’t have a plane to give you,” Ramaphosa said with a smile.

“I wish you did. I’d take it,” Trump said to laughter. “If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”

Trump called questions about the plane “fake news,” saying he wouldn’t receive the plane personally, but it would serve as a temporary replacement as a presidential aircraft while Boeing builds new planes.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Google is taking its next big step in artificial intelligence by adding interactive capabilities to its search engine.  As reported by The New York Times.

Google became the gateway to the internet by perfecting its search engine. For two decades, it surfaced 10 blue links that gave people access to the information they were looking for.

But after a quarter century, the tech giant is betting that the future of search will be artificial intelligence. Yesterday, Google said it was introducing a new feature in its search engine called A.I. Mode. The tool will function like a chatbot, allowing people to start a query, ask follow-up questions and use the company’s A.I. system to deliver comprehensive answers.

“It’s a total reimagining of search,” said Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, in a press briefing ahead of the company’s annual conference for software developers. In tests of the feature, he said, people dramatically “changed the nature of how they are interacting with search.”

The feature headlined a list of new A.I. abilities, including more personalized and automated email replies and a shopping tool to automatically purchase clothing after it’s put on sale.

With the introduction of A.I. Mode, Google is essentially trying to disrupt its traditional search business before upstart A.I. competitors can disrupt it. The search giant has been nervous about that possibility since declaring a “code red” two years ago after the arrival of ChatGPT, a chatbot from OpenAI that ignited a race to add generative A.I. into tech products.

But Google has been hesitant to fully embrace A.I. because it has so much to lose. The company’s search business generated nearly $200 billion last year, more than half of its total sales. And the bedrock of that business has been how it has reliably provided people with the best answers to questions.

Though they are a technical leap, A.I. systems have one big shortcoming: They are prone to giving incorrect answers, like recommending people eat rocks, which one of Google’s A.I. systems did last year.

A.I. might have already begun to cut into Google’s popularity as the default for finding digital information. During testimony in a Justice Department antitrust case against Google this month, one of Apple’s top executives, Eddy Cue, said Google search traffic had declined for the first time in 22 years because more people were using artificial intelligence. Google said afterward that it continued to “see overall query growth” in search.

“They hesitated on this for a long time because they didn’t think the quality was good or know how to monetize it,” said Pete Meyers, the principal innovation architect at Moz, a software company focused on search engine optimization that tracks changes to Google Search. “Now they’re doing what they think they have to do to compete, and it’s uncomfortable.”

A.I. Mode, which launched in the United States on Tuesday, won’t serve ads initially. Google is holding an event for marketers and advertisers on Wednesday where it could unveil more.

The A.I. transition comes amid mounting antitrust pressures to break up Google’s business. Over the past two years, Google has lost a string of antitrust cases after being found to have a monopoly over its app store, search engine and advertising technology. The U.S. government argued this month that the company should have to give competing search engines and A.I. companies access to its data on what users search for and click on.

Google’s new A.I. features are also bound to deepen tensions between Google and web publishers who are concerned about traffic. Chatbots often lift information from websites and deliver it directly to people, upending the traditional search model that has sent people across the web to find material.

The company has sought to downplay publishers’ concerns that A.I. will disrupt their businesses. Mr. Pichai said A.I. Overviews, a feature the company introduced last year to generate summaries above traditional search results, has increased the number of searches people do and often leads people to spend more time on suggested websites.

It was only a matter of time before Google would go all into A.I.

Tony

Michael Moore

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, Patsy Moskal, sent this  to me this morning.  It is so true!

Tony

———————————————————————–

Here is a great post from the film director Michael Moore:

“This morning I have been pondering a nearly forgotten lesson I learned in high school music. Sometimes in band or choir, music requires players or singers to hold a note longer than they actually can hold a note. In those cases, we were taught to mindfully stagger when we took a breath so the sound appeared uninterrupted. Everyone got to breathe, and the music stayed strong and vibrant.

Yesterday, I read an article that suggested the administration’s litany of bad executive orders (more expected on LGBTQ next week) is a way of giving us “protest fatigue” – we will literally lose our will to continue the fight in the face of the onslaught of negative action. Let’s remember MUSIC.

Take a breath. The rest of the chorus will sing. The rest of the band will play. Rejoin so others can breathe. Together, we can sustain a very long, beautiful song for a very, very long time. You don’t have to do it all, but you must add your voice to the song. With special love to all the musicians and music teachers in my life.”

Courtesy of Sophie Park—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Ella Stapleton, a senior at Northeastern University filed a formal complaint and demanded a tuition refund after discovering her professor was using AI tools to generate notes. The professor later admitted to using several AI platforms and acknowledged the need for transparency. The incident highlights growing student concerns over professors using AI, a reversal of earlier concerns from professors worried that students would use the technology to cheat.

Stapleton, who graduated from Northeastern University this year, grew suspicious of her business professor’s lecture notes when she spotted telltale signs of AI generation, including a stray “ChatGPT” citation tucked into the bibliography, recurrent typos that mirrored machine outputs, and images depicting figures with extra limbs.

“He’s telling us not to use it, and then he’s using it himself,” Stapleton said in an interview with the New York Times.

Stapleton lodged a formal complaint with Northeastern’s business school over the incident, focused on her professor’s undisclosed use of AI alongside broader concerns about his teaching approach—and demanded a tuition refund for that course. The claim amounted to just over $8,000.

After a series of meetings, Northeastern ultimately decided to reject the senior’s claim.

The professor behind the notes, Rick Arrowood, acknowledged he used various AI tools—including ChatGPT, the Perplexity AI search engine, and an AI presentation generator called Gamma—in an interview with The New York Times.

“In hindsight…I wish I would have looked at it more closely,” he told the outlet, adding that he now believes that professors ought to give careful thought to integrating AI and be transparent with students about when and how they use it.

“If my experience can be something people can learn from,” he told the NYT, “then, OK, that’s my happy spot.”

Renata Nyul, Vice President for Communications, Northeastern University, told Fortune: “Northeastern embraces the use of artificial intelligence to enhance all aspects of its teaching, research, and operations. The university provides an abundance of resources to support the appropriate use of AI and continues to update and enforce relevant policies enterprise-wide.”

Colleges often restrict the use of AI on campus

Many schools either outright ban or put restrictions on the use of AI. Students were some of the early adopters of ChatGPT after its release in late 2022, quickly finding they could complete essays and assignments in seconds. The widespread use of the tech created a distrust between students and teachers as professors struggled to identify and punish the use of AI in work.

Now the tables have somewhat turned. Students have been taking to sites including Rate My Professors to complain about their lecturers use or overuse of AI. They also argue that it undermines the fees they pay to be taught by human experts rather than technology they could use for free.

According to Northeastern’s AI policy, any faculty or student must “provide appropriate attribution when using an AI System to generate content that is included in a scholarly publication, or submitted to anybody, publication or other organization that requires attribution of content authorship.”

The policy also states that those who use the technology must: “Regularly check the AI System’s output for accuracy and appropriateness for the required purpose, and revise/update the output as appropriate.”

Most interesting situation.  It is my sense that teachers increasingly are using AI for their lessons.  If they have not already done so, colleges and schools would do well to develop and publicize policies for AI use by faculty.

Tony

Zyrex Construction Robot

Dear Commons Community,

“We’re not just building another robot — we’re engineering the future of construction,” RIC Robotics founder Ziyou Xu said of what the company claims is the world’s first AI-powered giant construction bot.

“With the 20-foot tall, Zyrex, we’re addressing the industry’s labor shortages with powerful robotics capable of performing skilled work at scale (see video below).

The robot, designed to initially be cognitive and ultimately fully autonomous, is able to execute complex and delicate tasks such as welding, assembling, trimming, carpentry and 3-D printing across commercial and industrial job sites, according to the California-based company. A working prototype is expected in early 2026, marking a significant leap forward in the evolution of construction robotics.

Leveraging LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and visual sensors and powered by VLA (Vision-Language-Action) AI models, Zyrex will be deployed in dynamic job site environments with human monitoring, RIC said.

Despite its size and capabilities, Zyrex is relatively inexpensive. Monthly leasing options start at less than $20,000. By comparison, some giant robots cost more than $2 million.

A global shortage of construction labor, coupled with dangers of the profession — it recorded the most fatal injuries among all industry sectors in 2023 with 1,075 fatalities — have put a premium on automated alternatives. This year, the U.S. is short more than 439,000 skilled construction workers to meet industry demand and avoid further escalation in labor costs, says the Associated Builders and Contractors. [In China, the government and private industry are working overtime to ramp up manufacturing automation through AI and robotics amid a major labor shortage.]

Ziyou Xu said it is rolling out its construction bot in two phases: Human-assisted AI model training, followed by full autonomy.

The company’s latest construction robot builds on its current 3-D construction robot, RIC-PRIMUS. The latter model includes a high-speed, automation and battery-powered mobile platform with a large-scale reach of up to 32 feet.

An earlier RIC model, RIC-M1 Pro, successfully 3-D-printed two Walmart Inc. warehouse extensions, one in Alabama and another in Tennessee, with 200 more planned nationally. The warehouse 5,000-square-foot, 16.5-foot-tall warehouse in Alabama was completed in a week, three weeks ahead of schedule, saving 75% in time and 80% in skilled labor, according to RIC Robotics.

Wow!

Tony