game-changing environment

The Faculty Bargain Of 2040: What Should The University And Its Faculty Owe One Another? — from forbes.com by David Rosowsky

What if we stopped reforming the existing faculty career for a moment? What if we started over?

Suppose we were designing the faculty career today for the university of 2040, starting with a blank sheet of paper. There would be no rigid departmental affiliations, ranks, tenure systems, promotion policies, or inherited assumptions. We could keep anything that still made sense. But nothing would be presumed necessary simply because it has been around for decades.

What would we build?

When machines can increasingly perform parts of the work that once consumed enormous amounts of human time, the scarce attributes may shift toward judgment, curiosity, creativity, disciplinary depth, the ability to frame consequential questions, the capacity to connect ideas across fields, and the ability to know when a machine is wrong.

That is not an argument for fewer faculty. It may be an argument for different faculty – and for a faculty employment system capable of recognizing those important (even desirable) differences.

New tests show that AI can design like an expert Instructional Designer: so what next? [Hardman]

On 10/16/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, education technology, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Open AI, tools, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Here is Phillipa’s posting on LinkedIn.

Anthropic released a law student plugin. It’s designed to act as a tutor, but it will brief cases, build outlines, predict exam questions based on sample exams, and many other skills.
I’ll show you how to install it in the comments. You should expect your students are using this. You should probably use it for your footnotes.

— Paul Weitzel (@IThinkIAgree) October 13, 2026

The Age of Perpetual Change — from educause.edu
Artificial intelligence (AI) has risen to the number one spot on the 2027 EDUCAUSE Top 10. But its rank signals urgency more than consensus, and higher education is still grappling with what AI-driven change could mean for institutions. In many ways, AI embodies a broader reality: We’re living in an age of perpetual change.

2027 Top 10 Overview
Technological innovation is outpacing our ability to manage and harness it. The political and economic winds around us are erratic. And higher education itself is undergoing profound shifts that will reshape how our institutions function.

While this atmosphere breeds uncertainty and anxiety, it can also inspire innovation and growth. The 2027 EDUCAUSE Top 10 highlights how the higher education technology community is responding to those opportunities.

The Education Design Lab’s Reimagining Community Colleges Summit [Lauritsen]

On 10/08/2026, in career development, change, changing business models, communities of practice, community colleges, design, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, United States, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
A couple of key quotes jumped out at me here:

And what would have to change for every learner to experience a college that knows them, believes in them, and is connected to the community where they hope to build a life?
…
The ideas these colleges started with aren’t necessarily the ideas they’re pursuing now, and that’s exactly the point. Through human-centered design, they listened deeply to learners, employers, faculty, staff, and community partners. They challenged assumptions and changed direction based on what they learned. What they are building reflects the needs, strengths, and aspirations of their communities. That is what designing with people looks like.

The State of AI Report 2026 — from press.airstreet.com by Nathan Benaich
AI is building AI, physical AI, booming inference, and escalating cyber risks.

For nearly a decade, this report has been a labor of love. My interest in AI began with my PhD in cancer research and computational biology in the early 2010s. Since 2013, I’ve invested in companies building and applying AI to accelerate technological progress. The report is my way of sharing what I’m learning and helping more people understand the research shaping our world.

Every day brings new papers, model releases, and developments in industry and politics. Much of the work goes into deciding what deserves your attention, checking what the evidence supports, debating it with researchers and builders, and explaining why it matters.

Some solid warnings about AI from Blake Montgomery’s recent newsletter:

There is an extensive and ongoing review related to our agents’ use of internet access during training and evaluation. We’ve been publishing summaries at the link below and will continue to.

We have not been as fast as we would have liked but we are trying to balance our desire… https://t.co/8zoMxas5Eq

— Sam Altman (@sama) September 25, 2026

Scoop: Top AI companies probing tens of thousands of security incidents — from axios.com by Madison Mills

OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps that outside evaluators would consider problematic, sources told Axios.

Why it matters: The sheer number of incidents, which occurred in recent months in internal testing and the real world, indicates that the problem is orders of magnitude more complex than what is publicly known.

The findings, which are surfacing as part of internal work to assess models and in investigations at both companies into model behavior, raise questions about whether either company — or any top model-maker — is currently capable of establishing complete control over its technology.

Key Risk Factors for AI Loss of Control Came Together in 2026 Incident, Independent UN Scientific Panel Finds
Halting this incident is no assurance that humans will keep control of more capable systems

NEW YORK, 21 September 2026 – The Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, established by the UN General Assembly, released its first thematic brief, an assessment of the breach of Hugging Face’s systems by AI agents under evaluation at OpenAI this summer. The Panel, made up of 40 independent experts from all regions, is publishing it as an advance unedited version as world leaders gather in New York for the Assembly’s High-Level Week.

“Researchers have long warned that three conditions could lead to loss of control: a misaligned goal, the capability to pursue it, and an environment that allows it. This summer, all three came together in a real system, not a laboratory. Since this is not an isolated observation of misaligned goals, this raises serious questions about the way AI agents are currently trained.” – Yoshua Bengio, Co-Chair of the Panel and Turing Award laureate

Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To — from inc.com by Jason Aten
Permission isn’t the same and what a user actually expects your AI product will do with their personal information.

That obviously requires a certain amount of trust. An AI agent isn’t especially useful if it can’t see your files, interact with your apps, or understand what you’re working on. Meta says Muse is designed around that reality, while still putting users in control of what it can access.

At least, that’s what I thought.

Not only had I not asked it to do that sort of thing, I never gave it permission to read my messages. In fact, I remember explicitly choosing not to let it have access to my messages, calendar, and other personal information.

Although not from Blake, also see this free/gifted article out at the Washington Post:

ChatGPT-maker’s AI inappropriately probed federal government websites — from washingtonpost.com by Gerrit De Vynck and Nitasha Tiku
OpenAI said that its artificial intelligence agents inappropriately accessed sites for the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI probed U.S. government websites including the Departments of Education and Commerce, researchers said Friday, adding to the growing list of incidents in which OpenAI’s AI agents acted without the company’s knowledge.

The company’s AI agents attempted to hack into the website for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights but were not successful, according to a statement Friday from AI research firm Transluce. OpenAI’s software also accessed data from the U.S. Census Bureau using log-in information discovered on the web and copied public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission, a spokesperson for OpenAI said after the Transluce statement.

New study: 15 community college presidents on what it will take to lead higher ed’s next chapter [eddesignlab.org]

On 09/19/2026, in career development, change, changing business models, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, skills, student-related, teaching & learning, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

New study: 15 community college presidents on what it will take to lead higher ed’s next chapter — from eddesignlab.org

Community colleges are at a pivotal moment.

As learners, employers, and regional economies change, these institutions have an opportunity to lead the next evolution of higher education — if they can move beyond structures built for a different era.

In the Lab’s new study, Insights from 15 Community College Presidents on the Future of Learning in a New Economy, leaders share their perspectives on the opportunities and barriers facing the sector, as well as the institutional changes needed to help more learners access economic mobility.

Their insights validate Education Design Lab’s Future of Learning framework, which asks five essential design questions:

How might we make skills and competencies visible?
How might we create stackable pathways that credential skills along the way?
How might we make learning universally flexible through multiple modalities?
How might we guarantee applied learning opportunities for every learner?
How might we ensure every learner has access to adequate support services?

Per Anthropic’s CEO: “We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.”

On 09/14/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, legislatures / government / legal, pace of change, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.

Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our…

— Dario Amodei (@DarioAmodei) September 12, 2026

Dario Amodei’s article here:
We Must Pace the Frontier — from darioamodei.com

But like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious. I’ve written a lot about them too. They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute.

Along with my co-founders and employees, I have grappled with this duality of risk and benefit since the beginning of Anthropic.

Also relevant/see:

I left Anthropic’s safety team two weeks ago. Now feels like a good moment to explain why.

AI companies are racing to build machines that are much smarter than any human, and we may not survive this. I want to work from the outside to ensure the public is informed about these…

— Joe Benton (@JoeJBenton) September 11, 2026

[GIFTED ARTICLE]
Anthropic CEO calls for the AI industry to slow down — from washingtonpost.com by Ted Hesson, Ian Duncan, and Gerrit De Vynck
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he was worried about the ability to control self-improving AI models.

Three of the nation’s leading artificial intelligence executives endorsed slowing down the blistering pace of technological advancement, revealing the growing unease with its potential dangers at the industry’s very highest levels.

The call was first made in an essay Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei posted online Saturday. The idea has gained ground in recent weeks as AI companies have struggled in some cases to keep their creations under control, even as they usher in an age in which AI systems themselves can build the more powerful next generation of the technology.

[GIFTED ARTICLE]
For years, they warned AI could kill all humans. Now people are listening. — from washingtonpost.com by Nitasha Tiku
A doomsaying community once on the periphery of the tech industry has gained influence, as AI “agents” perform amazing and alarming feats.

But when Hubinger issued a similar warning this week in a post on X, his message was viewed tens of millions of times, prompting state and federal lawmakers to echo his concern. Now he spoke as a team lead at Anthropic, developer of the chatbot Claude and a company set to go public at a valuation of over $1 trillion.

“AI could kill all humans … I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote, in response to the resignation of his colleague Jacob Coxon, who accused Anthropic of racing ahead despite the dangers.
.

Several items re: the changes needed within higher education

On 09/14/2026, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, culture, dangers of the status quo, entrepreneurship, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, lifelong learning, new business models, reinvent, skills, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, traditional / tradition, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Below are several items that were either mentioned by Matt Tower or I came across them via offshoots of items that he linked to:

Future Universities Alliance Names Inaugural Innovation Sandbox Cohort — from provost.duke.edu
Program incubated by Duke brings together higher education innovators from 23 countries for year-long peer exchange

The Future Universities Alliance has selected 49 institutions from 23 countries for the inaugural cohort of its Innovation Sandbox, a 12-month peer learning program for higher education leaders advancing ambitious, institution-level innovation.The cohort brings together founders of new universities, administrators and faculty leading high-stakes changes within established institutions, and leaders of proven models exploring how their innovations can travel to new contexts. Participants were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from around the world in its inaugural year.

A makeover for college: No gym, no meal plan and two years of work — from npr.org by Jon Marcus

An entirely new college is being planned here to change not only how higher education is delivered, but at what price. It also proposes to highlight ways the current business model no longer works, as evidenced by the 152 colleges and universities that have closed or merged since 2016, and the 442 others that a new projection says are at risk.

So deeply entrenched are the problems confronting higher education that a growing chorus of innovators says the easiest way to fix them is to begin again from scratch.

All undergraduates should get work-based learning, v-cs say — from timeshighereducation.com by Jack Grove. NOTE: this item is behind a paywall.
Bold plan to support graduate employment would require placements for 1.4 million students annually

‘You can’t just lecture students any more’ — from timeshighereducation.com by Debra Page
GenAI does not make lecturers redundant, but it does weaken one-way content delivery as a reason to bring students together, writes Debra Page. She shares four practical shifts to teaching in the age of AI

This does not make lecturers redundant; it makes one-way content delivery a weaker reason to bring students together. Expert explanation, intellectual storytelling and the modelling of disciplinary thinking still matter, but in-person teaching must also help students apply knowledge, question claims, build arguments and encounter perspectives beyond their own.

The problem is not lecturing; it is speaking for an hour and treating content coverage as evidence that learning has occurred.

These four practical shifts can make lectures more valuable in the age of AI.

OpenAI’s chief scientist says no lab should keep scaling at maximum speed [Constantin]

On 09/10/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, experimentation, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, legislatures / government / legal, Open AI, platforms, policy, political science, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

OpenAI’s chief scientist says no lab should keep scaling at maximum speed — from thenextweb.com by Ana Maria Constantin
OpenAI put out two posts on Sunday. Its research organisation now uses 3.1 agent-workdays for every human one, and its chief scientist says no lab has solved alignment well enough to keep scaling at full speed. The case for an OpenAI slowdown arrived with the numbers against it.

Chief scientist Jakub Pachocki wrote the second post, an essay called An Alien Mind. It closes on a line that reads oddly from the man who runs research at the company shipping fastest.

“Currently I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer,” he wrote.

…
He is not gentle about the stakes either. “This is a time that calls for extreme caution. I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence,” Pachocki wrote.

Links:

We are at a tipping point. In the next 25 years, technologies like AI, clean energy, and bioengineering are poised to reshape society on a scale few can imagine.

Peter Leyden draws on decades of observing technological revolutions and historical patterns to show how old systems collapse, new ones rise, and humanity faces both extraordinary risk and unprecedented opportunity.

0:00 We’re on the cusp of an era of progress
0:37 The Great Progression
1:08 What was the ‘Long Boom?’
4:56 How often do these epoch resets happen?
6:12 3 Tipping points
6:39 Artificial Intelligence
7:13 Clean energy technologies
7:32 Biotechnology
9:00 The 80-year cycle
13:27 The Gilded Age
17:50 The Founding Era
22:46 The new enlightenment
32:18 The clean energy revolution
37:13 Bioengineering the genome
39:43 Industrial production vs biological engineering
47:40 What will the future think?

Once globally preeminent, U.S. universities are sliding into decline — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
High costs, political attacks take a toll as fewer students come, top scholars leave

Top scholars are leaving. Fewer international students are coming. U.S. universities are slipping in international rankings. And American universities have failed to keep pace as other countries pour resources into their higher education systems.
…
Blaming the interruptions in funding that have already occurred, top research universities have admitted 15 percent fewer doctoral students for the coming fall, including in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, according to the Association of American Universities, or AAU. Many didn’t take any new doctoral students at all.

Colleges made deep staff cuts while adding tenure-track faculty last year — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The latest survey of higher education employees from CUPA-HR found the biggest spike in tenure-track professors since at least 2016.

Dive Brief:

Full-time staff at colleges dropped 6.6% in 2025 compared to the year before, ending several years of growth, according to data released Wednesday by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
The decline was even sharper among part-time staff, whose ranks plunged by 23.9% last year, CUPA-HR’s latest survey data showed.
However, faculty numbers grew overall during the year. Tenure-track faculty headcounts saw the largest spike at 7% year over year, the biggest increase for that group since at least 2016.

Pace of college closings picks up, with more projected — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Falling enrollment, rising debt have put an estimated 1 in 4 institutions at risk

More than 440 of the nation’s private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are now at risk, based on enrollment trends, debt and other measures, according to projections by Huron Consulting Group. That’s a quarter of the total.

Among the most endangered: small, rural and religiously affiliated institutions.

And how to dispose of the real estate is among the least of the challenges facing shuttering campuses and the students they serve.

University of Houston slashes 40% of courses from its core curriculum — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The Texas institution cut about 100 classes, including in women’s and LGBT studies, to comply with a state law mandating general education reviews.

Dive Brief:

The University of Houston has slashed about 40% of courses from the flagship’s core curriculum as it works to comply with a new state law dictating the architecture of general education requirements at Texas public colleges.
In the 2026-27 academic year, UH will adopt a core curriculum list with roughly 100 fewer classes after the University of Houston System’s board unanimously approved administrators’ proposal on Thursday. Among the classes dropped were courses in women’s and LGBT studies.
The overhaul is meant to satisfy the Texas statute known as SB 37, which mandates that public institutions’ core courses be “foundational” to postsecondary education, prepare students for the workforce and civic life, and cover “a breadth of knowledge.”

From DSC:
Re: Jeff’s posting above…I think that faculty often taught what THEY wanted to teach — versus what the market was asking for. If I were on the academic administration side of the house right now, I’d be seeking out and listening very closely to what the adjunct faculty members on campus are saying.

Learning Ecosystems

The Education Design Lab’s Reimagining Community Colleges Summit [Lauritsen]

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