My colleagues buzzed with excitement in the teachers’ lounge. They had discovered a new super-program that could answer almost any question. This artificial intelligence could hold actual conversations. It made Google searches feel obsolete. The journey from encyclopedia to Google to ChatGPT felt like a miracle cure with unimaginable possibilities. Or was it?
Continue reading When AI Entered Our Classroom – by Tor Arne Jørgensen
For nearly a year I’ve been going through an out-of-body experience. It was launched by a simple request that has turned into a not-so-simple journey. Here’s what happened.
In the fall of 2024, Steven Mandeville-Gamble, Director of the University of California, Riverside, Library, asked me to donate my professional papers to the library’s Special Collections. Feeling quite honored, I agreed. Since then I have been preparing my papers for delivery. This has involved months of wading through file cabinets, bookcases, and stacks of boxes crammed with books, articles, correspondence, course notes, past public lectures, workshop outlines, video and audio tapes, and published and unpublished manuscripts.
Continue reading Renewing Diversity Part 9: Rediscovering My Professional Journey – by Carlos Cortés
Education is a fundamental right that opens doors to opportunity, growth, and empowerment. Yet, according to the 2024 UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, over 251 million children and youth worldwide remain out of school. This stark reality affects millions, especially in underserved communities where access to quality education is limited due to poverty, geographic isolation, or other barriers.
Continue reading Bridging the Education Gap – by Muhammad Usman Qazi
This year, I had the opportunity to teach Intergroup Relations at the University of Toronto as a part-time instructor. It was a new and enriching experience. While at the University of Rhode Island, I once took a course titled Non-Violence and Conflict Reconciliation—at the request of a friend. Since then, I’ve been deeply interested in issues of social harmony and justice. The question of how we can build peace in our society has often occupied my thoughts. Initially, the plan was to teach a different subject. But quite unexpectedly, I found myself teaching this course at a time when divisions between groups—across the world—are becoming sharper. Conflicts based on ideologies, religions, and identities continue to shape current political realities. The urgency of improving intergroup relations is not just felt in North America, but equally in India and elsewhere, I was born in India and I closely observe the socio-political issues pertaining to both societies.
Continue reading Intergroup Relations – by Debanjan Barthakur
Debates over free speech have deeply immersed themselves into the fabric of our culture over the past few years. Wild and sharp finger-pointing has gone in both directions.
A Cornell University junior accused of posting violently threatening statements against Jewish people on campus was held without bail. While we take some measure of relief in knowing that the alleged author of the vile anti-Semitic posts that threatened our Jewish community is in custody, it was disturbing to learn that he was a Cornell student, Cornell President Martha E. Pollack said in a message to the university community.
On college campuses, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian student groups are weighing in online and in person, with many of their statements and protests provoking strong reactions from the other side.
Continue reading Israel and Free Speech on America’s Campuses – by Elwood Watson
Keynote Address for Constitutional Law:
The End of Affirmative Action
Part of the Signature DIAlogue Webinar Series of the
Los Angeles County Department of Human Resources
Thank you for the opportunity of reflecting on Affirmative Action, particularly the two recent Supreme Court decisions that struck down the admissions policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. I’ll approach this topic as both an 89-year-old retired history professor and a half-century diversity consultant/public lecturer who actually witnessed the birth of affirmative action.
The six-decade affirmative action journey involves two intersecting stories: a vision story and a systems story. Both are rooted in the civil rights movement and were launched officially by President John F. Kennedy’s March 6, 1961, Executive Order 10925.
Continue reading End of Affirmative Action? A Tale of Two Stories – by Dr. Carlos Cortés
The Corporate Odyssey:
A Journey of Challenges and Recognition
My life’s odyssey has been shaped by a commitment to empowering exceptional students and a pursuit of excellence. It all began with a brilliant mind and an engaging attitude, leading to a successful ‘corporate’ career as a production control coordinator for an aerospace company. Managing a significant commercial spares desk and overseeing millions in monthly deliverables, I excelled and gained recognition. However, my suggestion to introduce interpersonal skills classes was met with resistance, leading to my eventual outcast from the corporate circle.
Continue reading Exceptional Students: A Journey of Challenges and Growth – by Zen Benefiel
Carlos: Joe, from the first time we had lunch together, I’ve been struck by one thing: like me, you really believe that you can make the world a better place. Am I right?
Joe: I plead guilty to that one.
Carlos: Maybe that’s one reason we hit it off so well from the beginning. But it’s one thing to believe we can make a difference and another thing to actually make a difference.
Joe: Agreed.
“Education is a passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those, who prepare for it today”, as proclaimed by eminent civil rights activist, Malcolm X, bears a deeper intellectual connotation. It brings out the very holistic foundation of education as an instrument of social awareness and development, with a subtle mention of its contemporary beneficiaries, “the Youth”. Yes, it is the young people who through their rational interpretation of core educational principles, harness the progressive socio-political development of the world.
The recent phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shift to the digital mode of learning, have accentuated the need for increased efforts towards larger educational accessibility, quality and affordability, central to the role of global development in complete coherence with the recently initiated in the “Education for All” under the broader purview of the “Millennium Development Goals”, laid out by the United Nations, thereby demanding more nuanced responsibility of the young blood in spearheading a meaningful atmosphere of social inclusion , cohesion and stability.
Stanford University in December of 2022 issued the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) to eliminate potentially harmful terms used in the United States within the technology community. Most of the recommendations are trying to avoid trivializing people’s experiences and avoid devaluing others. Other recommendations, from this reader’s experience, are a stretch and assume that we are not able to distinguish the context in which a word or phrase is used.
The EHLI is a courageous and noble endeavor. I would also argue it is US-centric, Anglophilia, and elitist! And may or may not be transferrable to the larger society.
The following is a sampling of the terms/phrases in the EHLI’s thirteen pages of terms and my reaction to them.
Continue reading EHLI: Inclusive or Elitism – by Dr. Deborah Ashton
