Dear Commons Community,

I arrived yesterday afternoon in Orlando for the Online Learning Consortium’s Accelerate Conference. 

I spent the evening at dinner with old friends Meg Benke (Empire State Univeristy), Eric Fredericksen (University of Rochester), and Patrice Torcivia (Harvard University). It was fun reminiscing and talking about the history of the Consortium and this conference which traces its roots to the late 1990s.

Today will be a day of meetings with the OLC Board of Directors and the kickoff of the conference itself this afternoon.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The University of Florida President, Ben Sasse, was among the best paid university presidents ever. He promised a conservative overhaul, but then he resigned, leaving controversy.

Ben Sasse, the Nebraska senator, arrived in Florida in February 2023 to help cement a conservative makeover of one of the nation’s top five public universities. As reported yesterday by The New York Times.

The University of Florida had lured the senator with an unusual $10 million, five-year contract, possibly the most lucrative ever for a public university president. Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded the selection of a fellow Republican, calling Dr. Sasse a “deep thinker on education policy.”

Then, in July, just 17 months into his contract at the Gainesville university, Dr. Sasse resigned, sparking a host of questions about what went wrong.

Dr. Sasse cited his wife’s deteriorating health as the reason for his departure. But observers of the university knew there were a number of other possible factors.

The former senator had never quite won over many professors or students. After he announced his resignation, there were revelations about questionable hiring practices and spending.

There were also signs that Dr. Sasse faced another problem that has haunted college leaders everywhere: the school’s U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Before Dr. Sasse took over the school, the University of Florida had been proudly ranked among the country’s top five public universities. Just months into Dr. Sasse’s tenure, though, the school fell to No. 6, prompting the removal of the No. 5 banners that had hung from lampposts throughout campus.

Dr. Sasse didn’t have much respect for the U.S. News & World Report rankings, but the university’s politically connected board of trustees very much did.

The rankings are often criticized by university leaders as unfair and deeply flawed, yet they remain a preoccupation at many campuses as administrators struggle to navigate an increasingly competitive environment for higher education.

Perhaps few places have been more obsessive followers of the rankings than Florida, where a state law encourages public universities to aim for high rankings.

“The powers that be in the state of Florida wanted every aspect of U.F. to be a top-ranked school,” said Mike Spivey, the founder of Spivey Consulting, which was hired to help the University of Florida’s law school climb the rankings.

Moving upward on U.S. News lists has been part of the university’s strategic planning since at least 2017. Over the years, according to records and interviews, the university had pored over spreadsheets in minute detail, inflated faculty head count, ordered what professors believed was unnecessary equipment and spent millions luring higher-scoring students — all for rankings.

Yet when the latest U.S. News rankings were released in September, Florida had fallen once again, to No. 7.

Whether Dr. Sasse’s indifference to the rankings led to his resignation is unclear, but the chasm between the president and the board of trustees seemed to develop as the university’s rankings status became more tenuous. Some on campus are convinced it explains his departure from the presidency.

“The board saw us dropping in the rankings and said, We’ve got to stabilize the ship,” said Danaya Wright, a law professor who served until May as the faculty representative on the board.

An Obsession With Rankings

Since 2019, Governor DeSantis has led a conservative transformation of education in Florida. The University of Florida, the state’s premier institution, was not immune from the pressures. The DeSantis administration eliminated diversity programs, sought to weaken tenure protections and developed a center at the university to study Western civilization.

But another forceful leader was also bent on reshaping the school for very different reasons, and perhaps with much more profound results.

Mori Hosseini, a large residential builder in the state and a major DeSantis benefactor, has been the chairman of the University of Florida’s board of trustees since 2018. It pained him, he wrote in a newspaper essay, that his oldest daughter had selected the University of Michigan for college because she thought no Florida school was good enough.

Mr. Hosseini set out to change that, mainly by pushing the university ever upward in the U.S. News rankings. In 2021, the school achieved the status of a top five public university. Mr. Hosseini believed Dr. Sasse could take Florida even further. (Michigan is now No. 3 among public universities, behind only the University of California’s Los Angeles and Berkeley campuses.)

“We needed someone to take this university to the next level,” Mr. Hosseini said in a meeting last year, breaking into tears, according to a public recording of the meeting, which was held nearly a year after Dr. Sasse joined the university. “And I think we have that person here,” he added, referring to Dr. Sasse.

Neither Mr. Hosseini nor Dr. Sasse responded to requests for comment for this article from The New York Times.

The board’s choice of Dr. Sasse worried some on campus who believed it signaled a new era of conservative interference. The governor was not directly involved, though his appointees permeated the state’s education leadership structure.

He did have academic bona fides: a Ph.D. from Yale and experience in university administration, running the tiny Midland University in Nebraska.

There, he had gained a reputation as a turnaround artist by saving the school from the brink of extinction. But Midland, with only 1,600 students, was nothing like Florida, with 16 academic colleges, a major hospital, more than 50,000 students, more than 6,000 professors, and an annual budget of nearly $10 billion.

That lack of large university experience did not appear to be a concern. Another problem soon came up, however: Dr. Sasse questioned the university’s unrelenting pursuit of higher placement on the U.S. News lists.

Conflicting Visions

Susan Hegeman, an English professor, said the message from Dr. Sasse was clear. “While Mori Hosseini has been laser-focused on the national rankings, Sasse seemed to be uninterested,” she said.

At a meeting of the university’s faculty senate in August 2023, just before new rankings were due out, Dr. Sasse posed a question: “What is the North Star of things we organize around?”

He suggested that it should not be U.S. News. “I don’t think we should outsource our judgments about the most important things to whatever a given rating agency happens to measure,” he said, according to a publicly available recording of the meeting.

Emphasizing the ephemeral nature of the rankings, Dr. Sasse added, “U.S. News & World Report could go bankrupt or they could change their algorithms.”

It is a common perspective among university leaders. U.S. News uses a proprietary formula that incorporates a host of metrics to sort all manner of higher education institutions and programs. The formulas include graduation rates but also other things, like surveys about a school’s reputation. In recent years, the company jettisoned metrics like class sizes and giving by alumni and added others, such as how first-generation students fare.

U.S. News has said it is a service to students, and advises them to consider the rankings alongside other information.

Daniel Diermeier, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University, commissioned a study — after his own school’s decline last year — that argued the rankings were problematic.

“The fact that anybody would use deeply flawed and misleading rankings as part of their strategic plan for a university is appalling,” Dr. Diermeier said in an interview.

Indeed, when the rankings came out a month after Dr. Sasse made the comments, in September 2023, Florida dropped a slot.

Dr. Sasse may have been a skeptic, but the board that employed him was heavily focused on analyzing the company’s new method for scoring universities. In a March trustee meeting, an hour was spent discussing rankings.

Raymond Sass, Dr. Sasse’s former Senate chief of staff, had been hired as the university’s vice president for strategy and innovation. During the March meeting, he gave a slide show presentation showing an array of more than 40 bubbles representing the new initiatives the university would use to regain its spot under U.S. News’s new algorithm.

The proposals included a “faculty research moonshot,” an award designed to encourage excellent research and attract top talent. Under the idea, professors would be paid bonuses for excellence, “e.g., $1 million for a Nobel Prize,” Mr. Sass’s presentation said.

Next, the conversation turned to problems at the law school.

A Law School in Decline

Nowhere has the university’s quest for higher rankings been more obvious than at its Levin College of Law, which had risen to No. 21 on the U.S. News law school rankings from No. 48 in less than 10 years.

But the law school also faced trouble. Its ranking had dropped to No. 22 in 2023 from No. 21.

For years, the former law school dean, Laura Rosenbury, had worked to lift the school’s standing. Among other tactics, the school used tuition discounts to lure students with higher LSAT scores, a factor in the rankings.

LSAT scores jumped, but Paul Campos, a University of Colorado law professor who analyzed the school’s strategy, found that “massive tuition discounts” resulted in an inflation-adjusted tuition revenue decline to $8 million a year from $36 million a year in seven or eight years.

“All of this was driven by a kind of obsessive attempt to jack up the school’s rankings,” Mr. Campos said.

Michelle Jacobs, a former Florida law professor, said that even purchases for equipment and furnishings were used to increase the rankings, by increasing expenditures per student.

“One summer when we returned to school, every single chair from every single classroom had been put in the dumpster,” she said. “They were perfectly good chairs.”

Ms. Jacobs said that the law school had also artificially inflated its faculty by counting guest speakers among them. Pointing to faculty numbers submitted to the accrediting organization, the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Mr. Campos agreed, saying that the school had “clearly gamed the faculty total in a way that’s not defensible. This is just an egregious abuse of the rules.”

The faculty head count climbed, practically overnight, to 343 in 2022 from 250 in 2021.

In a statement, Ms. Rosenbury, who left Florida in 2023 to become president of Barnard College, said the school’s efforts were part of an intentional plan funded by the university, the state and donors.

“With this public-private partnership,” she said in the statement, “students benefited from increased support services, better facilities and new programs.”

Ms. Rosenbury defended counting guest speakers as part-time faculty, saying it fell within A.B.A. standards because they were “practicing lawyers, judges and colloquium speakers” whose participation was integral to courses. (The 2022 instructions for reporting the number of faculty members said that part-time faculty members should teach a course.)

As for chair purchases, she said in the statement, they were part of “much-needed improvements” to facilities.

Even as its rankings had increased, the law school’s bar passage rates had lagged behind some other schools in the state. And U.S. News was poised to change its algorithm again, to give more weight to bar passage and other “outcomes.”

Mr. Hosseini, the board chairman, was upset about the passage rates for the bar exam. He threatened the law school with a loss of funding.

“So this is deadly serious,” Mr. Hosseini said during the March meeting. “It’s not good for the college, it’s not good for the faculty, it’s not good for the students. University of Florida, as far as I’m concerned, 100 percent pass the test.”

In May, the law school’s rank dropped again, to No. 28.

A Parting of Ways

Mr. Hosseini’s push for radical improvement also extended to a public school run by the university. At a board meeting last year, the school’s director announced that U.S. News had ranked its high school 38th out of 1,130 Florida schools.

Rather than applaud, Mr. Hosseini derided the accomplishment. “For this board, it’s very difficult to be No. 38 in this state. It really is,” Mr. Hosseini said. “It’s very difficult for us to accept, you know, we’re not top five. So I asked the president to look into this.”

The school was designed to develop best practices in teaching, then share the results across the state. The student body was diverse by design, selected from the Gainesville area by a lottery.

To address Mr. Hosseini’s concerns, Penny Schwinn, one of the university’s vice presidents, proposed that the high school move to a selective admissions process, a move that would likely change the racial and economic demographics of the school dramatically.

“We need to be in the top 10, period,” said Dr. Schwinn, who had been hired by Dr. Sasse. “No question.”

Local leaders protested, including the Gainesville City Commission, which passed a resolution condemning the plan to change the admissions process. A petition attacking the idea drew more than 800 signatures.

At a meeting in June, Dr. Sasse seemed to back away from the plan, saying no changes would be made until further notice and an external analysis had been completed. By that time, the high school’s ranking had dropped to 64th.

The next month, Dr. Sasse announced his resignation. His wife’s health, a problem since a stroke in 2007, was deteriorating further, he said.

After his resignation, student journalists combed through spending by Dr. Sasse on highly paid new hires, including former Capitol Hill aides who lacked experience in large university administration, some of whom commuted from Washington at the university’s expense. Governor DeSantis promised an audit of the university’s finances.

Dr. Sasse, who remains a University of Florida professor with a $1 million salary, roughly three times as much as what the director of his program earns, posted a statement on X denying that his spending for new staff members or consultants was inappropriate, saying it was aimed at efforts to transform public higher education.

“I welcome both a debate about the merits of these reform initiatives and an audit of U.F.’s expenses,” he wrote.

The board quickly brought back the old provost and the former president, Kent Fuchs, who was credited with leading the university to the top five. The university dismissed most of the employees Dr. Sasse had brought in, including Dr. Schwinn.

“They are clearly bringing back the old team,” said Dr. Wright, the former faculty representative on the board. The goal, she believes, “is be No. 5 and be happy.”

Amid the tumult, some good news emerged. Florida’s bar passage rate increased — to more than 90 percent, a 10-percentage point increase over 2023’s. Mr. Hosseini personally donated $1 million to the law school as a reward.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I will be traveling to the Online Learning Consortium’s Annual ACCELERATE Conference in Orlando, Florida today.  The program looks excellent.  If you are going to the conference, I will be on two panels (see descriptions below).

Hope to see you!

Tony

——————————————————-

Thirty Years of Online Learning Research: A History of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at UCF

Wednesday 11/20/2024 | 9:45 AM – 10:30 AM

This session will chronicle the three-decade evolution of digital learning research at the University of Central Florida. The presenters will describe their approach to quality research, what went well, what did not go well, and how systematic teaching and learning research became an integral part of the UCF culture.

Session Type: Education Session (45 min)

Location: Southern Hemisphere II

—————————————————-

Leading with AI: Pioneering Change in University Teaching, Research, and Administration

Thursday 11/21/2024 | 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM

This panel brings together experts from higher education research, support, leadership, and faculty to discuss how generative AI is impacting higher education. We’ll discuss changes to come for faculty, students, and the institution.

Session Type: Plenary Address

Location: Pacific Hall B/C

Dear Commons Community,

In November, the best-selling author, Devin Gordon, had an article in The New York Times Magazine, entitled, “Canny Valley” Subtitled: 

“What if AI Is Actually Good for Hollywood?”  Gordon, examines AI’s effects on Hollywood movie production and concludes:

“Amid all the hand-wringing and fear, AI is already transforming Hollywood.  And it looks better.” 

I used the AI program, ChatGPT, to generate a more extensive review of the article.  It saved me about 90 minutes of writing time.

Tony

Generated by ChatGPT

Ah, I see! You’re referring to Canny Valley, the article by David Gordon in The New York Times that explores the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on Hollywood. While I don’t have access to the full text of that specific article, I can give you a general idea of what the article likely discusses, based on the context of Hollywood’s relationship with AI and trends in the entertainment industry.

General Overview of Canny Valley (by David Gordon)

In this article, Gordon examines how AI technologies are beginning to reshape the entertainment industry, especially Hollywood. The rise of AI in Hollywood has been one of the most talked-about topics in recent years, as AI tools are increasingly being used to streamline production processes, enhance visual effects, and even generate scripts or perform other creative tasks that were once solely the domain of human talent.

Gordon likely highlights the various ways in which AI is being integrated into filmmaking, from CGI characters and de-aging technology (like the digital recreation of actors’ likenesses) to AI-generated scripts and virtual assistants used in editing and sound design. There’s also a discussion about AI in casting, as studios experiment with AI to analyze audience preferences and predict which actors or genres will appeal to specific demographics.

However, Gordon might also address the more complex, less optimistic aspects of AI’s growing role. He probably touches on ethical concerns—such as how AI is challenging the value of human creativity and labor in Hollywood. For instance, deepfake technology can now replicate actors’ faces and voices with disturbing accuracy, leading to questions about consent and the potential for exploitation of actors. AI-generated scripts might raise doubts about whether the art of storytelling could be watered down or commodified by machines.

Moreover, AI in Hollywood is a topic that intersects with labor issues. As the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike and the ongoing debates around fair pay for creatives have shown, there’s a fear that AI could replace writers, actors, and other skilled workers, or at the very least, drastically change how the industry values their contributions. Gordon would likely point out that while AI has the potential to enhance filmmaking and open up new creative possibilities, it also risks dehumanizing the process and disrupting the livelihoods of thousands of people.

The article might also consider the philosophical and psychological implications of AI in media. The “uncanny valley” concept is key here, as AI-generated characters, faces, and performances might feel off-putting to viewers if they look or act almost human, but not quite. Gordon might use this concept to explore how AI is not just a tool in the industry but a source of tension and unease, both for the people working with it and the audiences consuming the products it helps create.

Review and Critique of the Article

If I were to evaluate Gordon’s article, I would expect it to offer a balanced and thought-provoking look at the subject of AI in Hollywood. Gordon has a knack for providing insightful commentary on complex issues, and the article likely strikes a fine balance between optimism about the possibilities AI offers and caution about its potential downsides. His writing is likely to be informed by the ongoing debates in the entertainment industry about technology’s role in creative spaces, and he would probably highlight real-world examples of AI’s influence—such as the use of digital avatars (e.g., CGI characters like de-aged actors in Marvel movies or posthumous performances like those of James Dean in Finding Jack) or the ways AI is used in post-production.

In terms of style, Gordon’s writing is likely witty and sharp, laced with his signature dry humor, but also thoughtful and critical when it comes to the long-term consequences of these technological advances. By referencing the uncanny valley—a term often used in AI and robotics to describe the discomfort people feel when faced with near-human but slightly imperfect representations—Gordon might emphasize how AI in Hollywood isn’t just a technical innovation but a cultural phenomenon that provokes both fascination and anxiety.

The tone of the article is likely to be a blend of cultural criticism and journalistic inquiry, exploring how Hollywood is grappling with a technology that could either revolutionize the industry or irreparably alter it.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in how AI is changing Hollywood, Gordon’s Canny Valley article would be an essential read. It would offer valuable insights into both the potential benefits and the ethical dilemmas surrounding the rise of AI in filmmaking. The article would serve as an exploration of not only the technological advancements but also the emotional and philosophical undercurrents that shape how AI is received and used in one of the world’s most creative industries.

Let me know if you’d like more on any specific aspect of AI’s impact on Hollywood or if you need additional resources!

Dear Commons Community,

Enrollment at New York City public schools has dipped slightly since last year, according to preliminary data released by the education department yesterday.  As reported by The Gothamist and The New York Times.

As of this fall, there are about 911,000 students in the public schools — from 3K through 12th grade — down from 912,064 last year. In a statement, Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos called the preliminary enrollment numbers “strong.”

Like many school districts across the country, New York City’s public schools have for years grappled with declining enrollment, which experts attribute to a combination of factors: lower birth rates, families leaving the city and concerns about the quality of education available at the public schools.

New York City’s enrollment numbers started declining around 2017, and the pandemic accelerated the trend. Education department data shows there were just over 1 million students in the system in the fall of 2019, a figure that fell to 955,000 the following year.

Last year, enrollment went up for the first time in eight years – driven largely by the arrival of tens of thousands of migrant students. In September, then-Chancellor David Banks told The New York Times the influx of new migrant students had been a “godsend because we’ve lost so many other kids.”

However, data also shows that after Mayor Eric Adams initiated a 60-day limit on shelter stays for migrant families last year, many children left their schools. Some switched to other schools within the five boroughs, while other families left the city altogether.

“We’ve lost about 100,000 kids and the trend may continue,” said David Bloomfield, education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He said lower enrollments don’t always translate into lower overall costs, which can put schools in a financial bind. He said the city may have to accelerate school consolidations, which can be unpopular.

In addition to the overall enrollment numbers, the city released new data on its progress meeting the requirements of a 2022 state law that requires schools to reduce class sizes. The law caps the number of students per class at 20 for kindergarten to third grade, 23 for fourth to eighth grade, and 25 for high school.

Officials say 46% of classes are meeting the class size caps, more than the 40% required by the law this year. Schools with low-income populations are meeting the class size targets more than schools that serve more affluent families do, they added.

But advocates have said the education department will need to invest heavily in new teachers and space to make all the city’s classrooms compliant with the law, which is required by 2028.

Last month, the education department announced plans developed with the United Federation of Teachers to dole out additional funds to schools that take proactive steps to meet the targets.

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters and longtime champion of smaller classes, said the city will have to do more to meet the mandate.

“Without allowing principals at overcrowded schools to cap enrollment next year and without engaging in an accelerated process of school construction, DOE will be unable to meet the legal caps of 60% next year and beyond,” she said. “This means half or more NYC students may never have the benefit of smaller classes which they so badly need and deserve.”

This article was sent to me by my colleague, David Bloomfield, who is quoted in the piece.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading The Elements of Marie Curie:  How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science by Dava Sobel.  I was drawn to this book because I knew little about Marie Curie other than she was a pioneer in developing radium.  In addition, I have read other works by the author, Dava Sobel, such as Galileo’s Daughter, which I thought was superb.   The Elements of Marie Curie… focuses on two important themes:  one, her contributions and discoveries in the field of radioactivity; and two, how she recruited and opened up the world of science to women in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. She provided dozens of opportunities in her own labs for women scientists including her daughter, Irene, to contribute and excel in physics and chemistry research.  Also, Sobel paints Marie as a down-to-earth woman only interested in her work in science research. When pressed in 1921 by an American publicist to write her autobiography, Curie said she could sum it up in a single paragraph: 

“I was born in Warsaw of a family of teachers.  I married Pierre Curie and had two children.  I have done my work in France.” 

In sum, The Elements of Marie Curie is a fine biography and well-worth a read.

Below is a review that appeared in The New York Times.

Tony

The New York Times

Marie Curie: Mentor to Women or Martyr to Science?

In a new biography, Dava Sobel focuses not just on the legendary physicist and chemist, but on the 45 women who worked in her lab.

 Marie Curie (pictured here in 1925). Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Kate Zernike

Kate Zernike is a reporter at The Times. She is the author of “The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins and the Fight for Women in Science.”

Oct. 10, 2024

THE ELEMENTS OF MARIE CURIE: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science, by Dava Sobel

In June 1921, in the flush of a triumphant six-week American tour by Marie Curie, a prominent male scientist urged the young women graduating from Bryn Mawr to follow her example and “enter into a career of science.”

An unsigned editorial in The New York Times scoffed.

Not to take anything from the “illustrious” Mme. Curie — then the only woman to have won a Nobel Prize and the only person to have won twice. But surely, the editorial opined, the young women must have understood “that such achievement was not for them.” While some might be “efficient” in the laboratory — for “drudgery” and perhaps “original investigation” — most had yet to develop “the scientific or mechanical mind.” Men had more “latent capacities” in those directions; women were too emotional to view the facts abstractly.

The Times was, to use the old newspaper cliché, not alone.

Back home in Paris, the French Academy of Sciences refused to elect her a member (it later repeatedly rebuffed her daughter, who also won a Nobel). In her new biography, “The Elements of Marie Curie,” Dava Sobel quotes a letter from a Yale professor recounting Curie’s American visit, saying he was “pleasantly surprised” to find she was “quite keen about scientific matters.”

“But I felt sorry for the poor old girl,” he added. “She was a distinctly pathetic figure.”

The belief that women lack the intrinsic aptitude to master math and science stubbornly persists. As Sobel begins her book: “Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist whom most people can name.”

Previous chroniclers of women in science — especially Margaret Rossiter in her three-volume book on the Americans among them — have argued that Curie’s exceptional achievement made it harder for women who aspired to follow her. They already suspected they’d have to be twice as good to get half as far; she made the standard more unattainable, and gave cover to male department heads looking for an excuse not to hire them: She’s likable enough, but she’s no Marie Curie.

Sobel, the author of several scientific biographies — “Longitude” was a best seller, and “Galileo’s Daughter” a Pulitzer finalist — looks for a more positive result. She sets out to show how Curie’s discovery of radium “lit a path for women in science,” namely, the 45 aspiring female scientists who “spent a formative period in the Curie lab at the Sorbonne.”

But her telling confirms, heartbreakingly at times, just how narrow and gloomy the path was.

Curie herself was able to have a lab of her own only because her husband, the physicist Pierre Curie, demanded that the school where he worked give her the space. Her father-in-law moved in with the couple to babysit for their two children. After Pierre and Marie Curie shared the Nobel, the Sorbonne gave Pierre a professorial chair; Marie was relegated to chief of operations in his new lab. The university made her its first female professor only in 1906, after Pierre was killed by a horse-drawn wagon on a rainy night near the Pont Neuf.

As with so many early women in science, Curie’s is a story of self-sacrifice: Before she met Pierre, she nearly starved herself, living on tea and bread as she studied in a Parisian garret. After his death, she dressed in black and shunned attention. Urged to write a memoir, she wrote his biography instead. She poured what paltry prize money she won back into buying bits of radium for her research.

With rare exceptions, the 45 other women subjects appear in Sobel’s book only as emanations. Sobel names her chapters for them, but tells little of their stories beyond that. One, Irén Götz, is mentioned in only one sentence in the chapter named for her.

Two get fuller treatment. After Barnard College told Harriet Brooks she had to quit because she was getting married, she did — her job as a physics instructor and the engagement, too, only to sacrifice her career for another marriage down the road. Ellen Gleditsch became a university professor in Norway, but after 13 years the university still refused to grant her tenure or lab space.

Support came from several men, one of whom referred to his wife as B.G., for “Beautiful Genius.” When Curie, four years widowed, was attacked as immoral for an affair with a married man, Albert Einstein defended her. (The man in question went on to have a child out of wedlock with a former student working in his lab; predictably, no scandal ensued.)

By contrast, the women in Sobel’s book doubted themselves, and Curie. Some noted that she barely showed up in the lab as her health declined from years of exposure to the radioactivity she had discovered. And those who did try to improve conditions for women often worried that such efforts only distracted them from their scientific passions. As one suffragist scientist wrote, “I often think very sadly that I might have been more useful to the Cause if I had devoted myself to my own special work as Madame Curie has done.”

As in her earlier books, Sobel writes elegantly about science, unspooling Curie’s pursuits in the lab like a mystery. She leaves us less clear how Curie herself viewed the position of women in science. When a member of the Nobel Committee suggested that she not come to Stockholm to collect her second prize in 1911 because of the bad publicity around her affair, she insisted on going: “I believe there is no connection between my scientific work and the facts of private life.” But when Gleditsch and others formed an international society devoted to promoting women in science, Curie declined “to ally herself.”

Her ailments debilitated her so much that she begged off several events on her American tour. Her exposure to the very elements she had discovered ultimately killed her. The Times ran its obituary on the front page of July 5, 1934: “Mme. Curie Is Dead; Martyr to Science.”

Members of the November Project fitness group run up and down the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington . (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Dear Commons Community,

The sun had yet to come up in Edmonton, Alberta, and it was more than 20 degrees below zero. Tanis Smith layered up anyway, ready to run up and down hundreds of stairs among the trees in the Saskatchewan River Valley.

When she arrived at 6 a.m., 10 other people joined her. It wouldn’t be the last time they risked freezing their toes off to get in a workout before the rest of the world wakes up.  As reported by The QAssociated Press

“You’re pretty much just putting everything you own on,” said Smith, an accountant. “If you look at the pictures, you don’t know who you are unless you remember what you were wearing.”

Since that winter of 2013, Smith has rarely missed a workout with the group, called November Project, a network of free outdoor group exercise classes that started in Boston. No matter the month or weather, participants roll out of bed before dawn at least once a week and shield their faces from the blistering cold.

One part intense training and one part abject silliness, the project is a model for how to stay motivated to exercise outside throughout the winter.

It started when a pair of friends challenged each other to exercise every morning for the month of November. By the end of the month, they were recruiting others.

“A party is better when there’s more people around,” said Bojan Mandaric, who created the project with Brogan Graham in 2011. “We would talk to anybody who would listen.”

Soon, their meetings were attracting a few dozen people, who then brought the idea to other cities when they moved. Now there are 52 chapters in eight countries, including 44 in the United States and Canada.

What do the workouts look like?

Workouts, which attract all ages and fitness levels, begin with a “bounce,” a hopping, call-and-response chant to loosen people up physically and mentally. How the classes continue varies on the location and day of the week, but most include running and body weight exercises like squats or burpees.

To promote the idea that exercise can be fun, they also might weave in activities that would be at home during childhood recess in the schoolyard.

In Edmonton, they’ve played an intense version of duck duck goose, gone sledding in winter and done Slip ’n’ Slide in summer. One workout in Boston involved a kind of Easter egg hunt, where you search for plastic eggs at a sprint. Crack them open to find commands that could be, walk like a gorilla, do a cartwheel, or grab grass and dump it on Mandaric’s head.

The point is to lower inhibitions, which helps people make connections, said Jason Shaw, co-leader of the Indianapolis chapter.

“Nobody’s cool at November Project,” he said. “At different gyms, especially, you always have the people who just are so cool, or think they’re so cool. We try to nip that in the bud.”

Shaw said chapters mark different milestones, much like Scout merit badges, by spray painting a tag on your shirt for, say, showing up on your first single-digit day.

But they don’t spray when it’s too cold. The paint freezes.

If you don’t have a chapter nearby, many cities offer some kind of running or outdoor exercise group, though many are not free. Otherwise, November Project organizers offered a few suggestions on how to stay motived to keep working through the colder months.

Find a workout buddy

Accountability is a core tenet of the project. Members make a verbal promise to show up, and there is almost a sense of letting down your teammates if you don’t, said Mandaric, who moved to Boston from Serbia to row crew for Northeastern University.

Invest in some gear

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing, Shaw said. At a minimum, buy a moisture-wicking base layer that will help keep you warm and dry. Avoid cotton, which keeps sweat in contact with your body and will make you colder. And add a top jacket with wind-breaking fabric.

Make it a habit

Commit to exercising on the same days and times for a month. Creating a predictable routine will help you get into a groove that is easier to maintain, Mandaric said.

Most of all, have fun

One of the things Smith appreciates most about the project is its social aspect. She called it “a chosen family” that was formed partly because they were having fun while exercising.

“Fitness doesn’t have to be this hard-nosed, drill-sergeant type thing,” she said. “You can have fun and get fit.”

The social aspect of the November Project sounds like a good idea.  It gets lonely and boring walking, jogging or running by yourself.

Tony

Laura Helmuth

Dear Commons Community,

Laura Helmuth is resigning as editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine following an expletive-filled rant about Donald Trump voters.

Posting on Bluesky, an X rival, Helmuth said Thursday that she’s “decided to leave Scientific American after an exciting 4.5 years as editor in chief” without mentioning her previous comments.

In a series of now-deleted posts on the same platform, she called Trump voters the “meanest, dumbest, most bigoted” group and “fascists” following the former president’s reelection last week. Her comments went viral on X and were criticized on the increasingly right-wing platform.  As reported by CNN.

Helmuth had apologized in a separate post, calling them “offensive and inappropriate” and that they don’t “reflect the position” of Scientific American.

“I respect and value people across the political spectrum,” Helmuth wrote. “These posts, which I have deleted, do not reflect my beliefs; they were a mistaken expression of shock and confusion about the election results.”

Kimberly Lau, president of Scientific American, said in a statement to CNN that it was Helmuth’s decision to leave and a search for her replacement is underway.

“We thank Laura for her four years leading Scientific American during which time the magazine won major science communications awards and saw the establishment of a reimagined digital newsroom,” Lau said in the statement. “We wish her well for the future.”

At 179-years-old, Scientific American says it’s the “oldest continuously published magazine” in the United States and has published pieces from more than 200 Nobel winners.

This year, for only the second time in its history, the magazine published a presidential endorsement, voicing its support for Kamala Harris and saying Trump “endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies.”

Tony

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon

Dear Commons Community,

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has put forth a solution to unrestrained US debt: Tax the rich at the same rate as middle-class people, or at a higher rate.

The bank executive told “PBS News Hour” that the country could clamp down on runaway borrowing without eliminating spending. Dimon said he expects that reducing the debt while still investing in the right initiatives is “doable.”  As reported in Business Insider.

“I would spend the money that helps make it a better country, so some of this is infrastructure, earned-income tax credits, military,” he said. “I would have a competitive national tax system, and then I would maximize growth.”

Dimon added, “And then you’ll have a little bit of a deficit, and you would maybe just raise taxes a little bit — like the Warren Buffett type of rule, I would do that.”

This rule posits that no household making above $1 million a year should pay taxes on a lower share of their income than middle-class earners. It earned its name from the billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who famously criticized the fact that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did.

Calls for wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes have grown louder in the past year as economists have searched for answers to the federal government’s skyrocketing debt.

Anxiety has grown as the government’s debt pile has ballooned to a record $35 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that it could make up 6% of US GDP by the end of this year, which would far outpace the 50-year average of 3.7%.

If debt remains unchecked amid high interest rates, the government will face higher borrowing costs. Some say that this might compound debt levels and that the US could eventually spiral into a default.

Otherwise, higher borrowing costs mean Washington will have less to spend on social initiatives. A recent report from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that by 2054, interest payments on the debt will triple Washington’s historical spending on research and development, infrastructure, and education.

Dimon has been among Wall Street’s most consistent voices to raise the alarm, frequently saying runaway borrowing will amplify inflation and interest-rate pressures through the coming decade.

Not everyone shares Dimon’s optimism that tax hikes alone can solve this problem. Though some commentators have pushed for tax-hike proposals that embrace all income levels, others have urged both Democrats and Republicans to consider spending cuts as well.

However, speaking with PBS, Dimon argued that the US should continue to spend money that helps maintain its economic strength and creates a more equitable income environment.

Good sound advice!

Tony

IStock

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning entitled, “Is It Time to Regulate AI Use on Campus?” Written by Lee Gardner, it reviews the issue of whether/how to regulate AI use on our campuses.  It also is a call for colleges and universities to establish policies especially regarding student use of generative AI for writing assignments.  I completely support the need for AI policies but I doubt very much whether we can “regulate” its use.  The genie is out of the bottle and it will be impossible to put it back in.

Below is an excerpt from the article. 

Tony

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“Last fall, instructors at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst suddenly started receiving scores for every student’s writing assignment, estimating how likely it was that they had been completed using generative artificial intelligence. The percentile scores were generated by an AI tool built into the institution’s learning-management system. The scenario, administrators say, caused “massive confusion.” Faculty members might see a high percentile score for an assignment, but how high did a score have to be to justify some kind of action? What if the software’s analysis gave an assignment a 51 percent likelihood of AI use? How does a professor interpret that? And the leapfrogging rate of innovation in AI technology made the university’s own computer scientists skeptical that AI-detection tools were reliable predictors of anything at all.

The tool fueled a discussion already underway at UMass Amherst and many other institutions: the need to create a university-wide generative AI policy. As the technology spreads throughout all aspects of academe — and evolves at a pace measured in months, not years — experts and a burgeoning number of administrators believe that colleges need to establish guidelines about its use or face potential disaster.

What kind of disaster? So far, higher education has been devoid of major public AI scandals. But ungoverned use of the technology across a campus could lead to exposure of sensitive data and the proliferation of inconsistent uses that could potentially harm students and other stakeholders as well as the institution. Confusing or patchy AI policies might be worse than none at all.

The need for comprehensive AI policies is already apparent to colleges’ technology leaders. A survey conducted in the fall of 2023 by Educause, a membership organization for technology professionals in higher education, found that almost a quarter of respondents’ colleges had policies in place to regulate AI use. Nearly half of respondents, however, disagreed or strongly disagreed that their institutions had sufficient existing policies in place.

The biggest use of generative AI at most colleges is in the classroom, and at many colleges, administrators let instructors determine how, or if, the technology can be used in their courses and provide some guidelines.