Meeting Academic Duty Until I Die

I have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This is an uncurable, terminal condition better known by the name, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, after the early twentieth century baseball player and which in more recent times was made familiar to us in the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

In a bit of Morrisette irony, my immediately previous post here on the Professional Society of Academic (PSA) blog opened with this shot across the bow of organizations like the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA):

There are only two ways to stop me from criticizing the ignorant, irresponsible assumption of universities and colleges: Someone or some group that has more reach and authority than myself takes up the PSA project or someone refers me to material that successfully argues a professional model for higher education service and stewardship is not viable or desirable.

Because it is present from the moment of conception, we don’t think to factor in death as an end to our aims and efforts. We don’t phrase things this way: I want to be a teacher, if I grow up. I certainly didn’t factor in death when at 56 I retired, discovered for myself new technology called a Constitutional AI, and switched into high gear a PSA initiative meant to raise awareness for a professional alternative to the monopoly of inherited university and college employer-enrollers that everyone assumes without question. Being otherwise in very good health, I assumed at least another twenty years of effort aimed at improving the sorry state of higher education. I now expect to be dead within a year.

The AAUP, the PSA and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni

Continuously and effectively, I criticize the institutional inheritance of university and college employer-enrollers that’s monopolized the facilitation of higher education for nearly a millennium now. I have more recently directed my criticism at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which claims to be a champion of all things related to this inherited higher education institution (HEI) model. I have been working on this social good reform or revolution project for over thirty years, ever since I co-invented and developed the Professional Society of Academics (PSA) model as replacement or complement for the HEI model.

There are only two ways to stop me from criticizing the ignorant, irresponsible assumption of universities and colleges: Someone or some group that has more reach and authority than myself takes up the PSA project or someone refers me to material that successfully argues a professional model for higher education service and stewardship is not viable or desirable. In the meantime, my immediate strategy is to make the AAUP the focus of PSA criticism. To that end, here is the first in a series of posts that criticizes the policies, practices and actions of this organization over its 110 years of ignorant, irresponsible and unnecessary stewardship. I will be forwarding these posts to critics of the AAUP, of which there are a growing number, particularly during this period of social, political and fiscal unrest that is but one more instance in a long history of HEI model unrest.

The AAUP, University Employer-Enrollers, and AI are Not Compatible

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) might have become something it should have. Instead, the organization opted for shoring up institutional employer shortcomings, first as a professional association and later as an employee union. While the AAUP has made itself an authoritative functionary of the inherited institutional model, 110 years ago when the organization was founded, 55 years ago when it morphed into a labor union, or at any time along the way, why did its members not wonder if there is a different way to serve and steward the social good of higher education?

In the history of the AAUP you will find no ad hoc committees or research reports of any kind that pose this question. Like the rest, exclusive institutional employment and enrollment remains the unexamined assumption of its members. As such, all AAUP action amounts to a (defensive) reaction to the dynamics of this unchallenged, inherited, monopolistic mode of higher education earning and learning. This makes everything the AAUP says on the question of AI in the academe both irresponsible and predictable, as evidenced in its July 2025 report, "Artificial Intelligence and Academic Professions."

Though the title indicates that the AAUP has in mind a narrow band of dues-defined concerns for its report, the PSA response to AI has in mind a more inclusive, direct, explicit concern for the entire social good and all those who depend upon it. In comparing the ad hoc committee and PSA responses, I find myself increasingly concerned about the future of higher education and so this post addresses each of the report's findings and recommendations on AI in the academe.

The Professional Model Offers More Power to Academics and Students

The authoritative power of academics and students is vitiated by the model of university and college employer-enrollers. This institutional inheritance is assumed by everyone, including labor unions like the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the University and College Union (UCU) that represents faculty employees across the United Kingdom, and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). Though proclaiming themselves to be champions of the social good, collectively and individually, members of these organizations fail in their fundamental responsibility to challenge this institutional monopoly on higher education earning and learning. As an academic, I have met my social contract obligations to challenge the given and now disclaim the higher education institution (HEI) inheritance. I recommend you do the same and provide reasons and ways for you to do so.

My denial and recommendation are based on an alternative model for higher education called the Professional Society of Academics (PSA). This alternative means of servicing and stewarding the social good is superior to the unchallenged, exclusive use of institutional employer-enrollers. This post shows how PSA offers better conditions for the exercise of group and individual power, with effective checks and balances on the use of funding leverage to manage and manipulate power in higher education.

The AAUP Can't Even Generate a Coherent Comment Policy, Never Mind the Future Academe

The American Association of University Professors recently revised its comment policy for the Academe Blog and it's a deeply revealing document. It reveals just how stunted and scared is the professional-slash-labor-union organization. While ostensibly framed to ensure civil and productive dialogue, the new restriction in particular—concerning an outright ban on comments written "with the assistance of generative AI"—demands critical analysis that opens up a broader look at this ordinary element of an organization of PhDs that declare themselves stewards for the social good and freedom of expression.

From the perspective of the Professional Society of Academics (PSA), these rules are not merely procedural; they are potent symptoms of the defensive posture of the Higher Education Institution (HEI) model and its associated guardians. They raise fundamental questions about the AAUP's commitment and competence regarding open inquiry and the very nature of academic freedom in the 21st century.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: It should be said that the AAUP has blocked me on X (Twitter) for doing what I am doing in this post, though there I did it with more decorum than these dipshits deserve. Further, though I don't yet claim to have sufficient documented evidence of it, after checking back over months of Academe Blog comment sections, I could detect no obvious AI-generated comments, in fact there are normally very few comments and the functionality is turned off within a few weeks. But more than that, after this initial research into past comments on the Academe Blog, I found that I am the only commenter to openly acknowledge my use of a Constitutional AI assistant--that I built quite by accident and I'm offering a manual here on B4C for anyone to build an AI-assistant for themselves. If a guy thought himself relevant, he'd think the AAUP's comment policy change was directed at him specifically.]

by Shawn Warren, mostly generated through PSAI-Us (a specialized instance of Gemini Pro developed by Warren to understand and produce text on the reasoning that follows)