Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
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christinenowik.bsky.social
Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
@christinenowik.bsky.social
760 followers 570 following 110 posts
Life in the Interregnum: Researcher, org change specialist, English faculty, supernerd, follow-back girl, zero patience for organizational dysfunction and poor leadership. Personal account, obv.

https://christinenowik.substack.com/
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christinenowik.bsky.social
Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D. @christinenowik.bsky.social · 19d
Really proud of the work we are doing at haccea.org We launched a micro course!

We are unpacking our contract negotiations w as much clarity as possible after two strike days last week.

We shall see what this week brings! #solidarity
HACCEA- Harrisburg Area Community College Education Association
HACCEA, the Harrisburg Area Community College Education Association, is the faculty union at HACC, dedicated to educating students in central Pennsylvania and beyond.
haccea.org
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
jackiantonovich.bsky.social
My hot take is that over the next 10 years, we're going to see more emphasis on and investment in the humanities at Ivy League and other fancy schools just as state schools and small privates continue to decimate and even eliminate the humanities.
rbtownsend.bsky.social Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 5d
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
"The humanities really are a resource — a confidence for living in our times.” Dean Sara Guyer on the modern utility of humanities degrees
This interview originally appeared on the Division of Arts
bit.ly
November 23, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
jacquelyngill.bsky.social
Study after study shows that using LLMs is bad for cognition, bad for learning, bad for understanding, bad for mental health. So why are our schools and universities still relentlessly pushing them?
us.theconversation.com The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 7d
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.

Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
mmparsons.bsky.social
The rhetoric has been about training students for the economy of tomorrow. Yet when employers always, *always*, year after year, say they want their workers trained in the skills that Humanities and Social Sciences teach, somehow that never turns into more investment in those programs.
thetattooedprof.bsky.social Kevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · 17d
From today's Chronicle of Higher Ed briefing. I am *never* an advocate of cutting programs. But I am curious to see if there will be the same type of "students aren't majoring in this, so let's cut the program" discourse around computer science as there always is for the arts and humanities.
But computer science is cratering. Four-year undergraduate enrollment in computer and information sciences plunged by 7.7 percent this fall — and it decreased almost twice as fast at the graduate level. The Clearinghouse data doesn’t say why, but it’s hard to ignore recent gluts of tech-company layoffs and questions about artificial intelligence taking coders’ jobs in a discipline that’s proven subject to ebbs and flows.
November 11, 2025 at 2:55 PM
christinenowik.bsky.social
Really proud of the work we are doing at haccea.org We launched a micro course!

We are unpacking our contract negotiations w as much clarity as possible after two strike days last week.

We shall see what this week brings! #solidarity
HACCEA- Harrisburg Area Community College Education Association
HACCEA, the Harrisburg Area Community College Education Association, is the faculty union at HACC, dedicated to educating students in central Pennsylvania and beyond.
haccea.org
November 10, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
olivia.science
cannot believe on some level I & my colleagues have turned the tide on this, but also it was in some senses inevitable as why not! Humans can do anything; we still have a way to go however of course, but:

banning AI in the classroom should be as uncontroversial as banning calculators in early maths
olivia.science Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Oct 24
“I already ban the use of generative AI in my own courses, and as a promoter of master’s theses. I explicitly tell my students they won’t learn anything by using it. [...] A general ban is necessary, but nobody dares to say so.”

🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️

apache.be/2025/10/24/b...
Belgian AI scientists resist the use of AI in academia
Several AI scientists have published an open letter calling for a ban on AI use by students.
apache.be
October 24, 2025 at 10:55 AM
christinenowik.bsky.social
Someone just liked this post from 2022 so I read it again to check relevance.

Yeah. Shattering resonance here in 2025 on the matter of power and the "quiet quitting" discourse in orgs.

open.substack.com/pub/christin...
Quiet Quitting
"It’s not just that we’re overdue for a re-calibration. We’re overdue for a revolution." ~Amelia Nagoski
open.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
Realizing that part of the reason universities’ uncritical pushing AI into everything bothers me is that it is partly related to how little our institutions care about the humanities. Tech that might work in (some) fields does not need to be force fed to all of us. But who listens to us?
October 9, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
tedmccormick.bsky.social
A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.
October 9, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
leahmcelrath.bsky.social
The prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population is 4.5%.

That’s about one out of every 22 adults.

In case anyone was wondering.

Psychopathy is often more concentrated among people in leadership positions.
January 29, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
smcgrath.phd
🧪 A new position piece argues that the uncritical adoption of 'AI' in academia mirrors past collective blunders.

Fueled by industry hype, they posit this trend erodes critical thinking, academic freedom, and scientific integrity.
#AcademicSky #MLSky
olivia.science Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
tjheffernan.bsky.social
Exactly...it is super irritating that there has been so much uncritical adoption of genAI and that governments seem to have swallowed the industry hype.
abeba.bsky.social Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Sep 4
the more you learn about genAI, the less likely you're to use it!!!

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-a...

I've repeatedly said in the past that meaningful change to the current disastrous reality is via combating big tech narrative & rhetoric and critical public awareness, which enables refusal/resistance
The Less You Know About AI, the More You Are Likely to Use It
AI can seem magical to those with low AI literacy, a new study finds. That, in turn, might make them more willing to try it.
www.wsj.com
September 4, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
charleswlogan.bsky.social
Resharing a 🧵 for the Labor Day morning crowd on why it's essential to teach young people about the labor abuses that make GenAI possible, now with excerpts from my own morning reading of Karen Hao's Empire of AI. #EduSky
It was yet another stark illustration of the logic of AI empires. Behind promises of their technologies enhancing productivity, unlocking economic freedom, and creating new jobs that would ameliorate automation, the present-day reality has been the opposite. Companies pad their bottom lines, while the most economically vulnerable lose out and more and more highly educated people become ventriloquists for chatbots. The empire's devaluing of the human labor that serves it is also just a canary. It foretells how the technologies produced atop this logic will devalue the labor of everyone else. In fact, for the artists, writers, and coders whose labor the empires of AI turn into free training data, that is already happening.
September 1, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
ketanjoshi.co
The 'bubble' is definitely the wrong metaphor for this whole thing. Even if the stock values slide, the hype dissipates and the headlines vanish, there will still be a massive energy hunger locked in, along with a swathe of new fossil infrastructure projects that'll stick around for decades
U.S. tech stocks slide after Altman warns of AI bubble and MIT study casts doubt on the hype
Investors’ long-running enthusiasm for artificial intelligence showed signs of faltering on Tuesday as tech stocks tumbled.
fortune.com
August 24, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
benpatrickwill.bsky.social
If the AI takeover of education is indeed just getting started then it's really important to highlight why this could be bad, not just accept the unevidenced assumptions it will be good for education.

21 reasons to argue against AI in education coming up 🧵 www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
The AI Takeover of Education Is Just Getting Started
Was your kid’s report card written by a chatbot?
www.theatlantic.com
August 23, 2025 at 10:25 PM
christinenowik.bsky.social
"Stringer noted that real officers do not wear ski masks."
August 23, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
tressiemcphd.bsky.social
I’mma be real with y’all, I am holding this grudge big time.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...
August 20, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
biblioracle.bsky.social
Great thread that's still going. Join me for how it develops in progress.
ryancordell.org Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · Aug 22
Yesterday I was chatting with a colleague who researches AI who asked me why I think so many scholars—especially humanists, but not exclusively—are so skeptical about/hostile to it. We ended up having a lovely, generous, & genuinely curious discussion, a few moments of which seem worth summarizing+
August 22, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
wolvendamien.bsky.social
Things i didn't go into education to be (presented in order of best rhetorical impact):

1) a shill for tech company marketing hype
2) a cop surveiling my students & trying to "catch" anyone who falls for the tech co. marketing hype permeating their entire sociocultural milieu

So you see my dilemma
August 12, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Again.
hypervisible.blacksky.app Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Aug 3
I’ve yet to encounter an ai booster whose response to its critics isn’t at least partially “you don’t know enough about it and how it’s useful.”

That’s not it, bro.
August 9, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
grubstreetwomen.bsky.social
Yup. It might be a time to, idk, take your old course material off blackboard and canvas. Bc some universities are already training on it. And others will once it gets out. Students posting material to chegg and chatgpt has nothing on your employer wanting to pay less for instruction.
phdhurtbrain.bsky.social Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · Aug 5
I think we’re on the cusp of mass attempts to automate teaching, and I also think it is going to be a massive wasteful failure in ways that will make the “learning loss” of the pandemic look like a speed bump next to a mountain.
August 5, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
johntrterry.bsky.social
took a stab at a first draft of a new AI policy for my classes this year (heavily leaning on @heymrsbond.com and @williamfleitch.bsky.social)
"Your job in this class is to become a better reader, writer, and thinker. Look around these days. We need more of you! To do this, you’re going to have to read, write, think, and talk . . . a lot. And my job in this class is to provide you with the information, support, and feedback to help you meet that goal. And guess what else? Writing is one of the most deeply human things you can do. It’s meaningful. It matters. I care less about your writing being “perfect” than about it coming from you, with your voice, using evidence you find compelling. Because of all this, the use of any AI tool (including Grammarly, sorry!) to produce any written work in this class is not permitted and will result in a score of 0 on the assignment. Here’s the deal: AI doesn’t generate. It doesn’t build. It doesn’t edify what we’re out here doing as human beings. It scrapes together what’s already there and pulls it together in a boring and formulaic way. It steals ideas, art, and phrases from real human people without proper citation. It outsources thinking and pollutes our planet. So we’re just not going to use it. I know this sounds a little scary, but this policy should encourage you to be the vibrant, curious, and badass thinker I absolutely know you are."
August 5, 2025 at 4:22 PM
christinenowik.bsky.social
"This ongoing bending to pressures that run counter to our deeply held educational and ethical beliefs makes me wonder if we’re experiencing a collective moral injury in higher education."
August 5, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
geofffhughes.bsky.social
Microsoft is so not mad about "AI" becoming synonymous bad writing that they hired someone to tell you that's actually very classist of you and you should check your privilege.
nickseaver.website Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · Jul 21
uh oh, things are happening dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
CHI Al shaming is a social phenomenon in which negative judgements are associated with the use of Artificial Intelligence (Al). This includes comparing someone's work with Al-generated work as a means of disparagement, voicing suspicion or alleging that someone has used Al to undermine their reputation, or blaming the poor quality of an artefact on Al use. Common justifications of Al shaming include recourse to Al's societal harms, its technical limitations, and lack of creativity. I argue that, more fundamentally than any of these, Al shaming arises from a class anxiety induced in middle class knowledge workers, and is a form of boundary work to maintain class solidarity and limit mobility into knowledge work. I discuss the role of Al shaming in protecting the privileged class of knowledge work and its attendant harms.
July 22, 2025 at 3:57 AM
christinenowik.bsky.social
Despite how it FELT, "The study found that "AI" actually decreased productivity (by 19%)."

Just vibes
July 21, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Christine M. Nowik, Ph.D.
globalecoguy.bsky.social
We have decided to ban the use of GenAI for research, writing & creative work at our organization.

In fact, we make people sign an agreement saying that their research, analysis, writing, and creative work are *theirs* and not done by GenAI.
July 17, 2025 at 1:04 AM