Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Surveillance in Classrooms at NAU

Just got an email from NAU administration that states that NAU will have detectors to track student IDs and thus attendance in classes. I find this highly disturbing. Not only does this have implications for privacy of students but also political implications. Will this be the only thing under surveillance? What happens to free speech on campus? Will social science faculty and students be tracked for the kind of speech they engage in? With Arizona's SB 1070 and the crackdown on Ethnic Studies departments in force NAU's new tracking device cannot be taken lightly. It must be protested at the highest level.

Previously, it was argued that tracking attendance would lead to more attendance rates and thus greater performance. The State is apparently to tie attendance rates to financial aid. While attendance rates might reflect good teachers, policing classrooms with detectors will not reflect the quality of teaching. It will reflect fear instead. A good university does not use policing techniques because it doesn't need to. Only an administration that has no idea how to stimulate teaching and learning would resort to such pathetic measures.

I don't think the administration has adequately argued the need for such invasive policies and if it had I can't imagine it would be accepted by the faculty or students at large. It would be good to have this new rule protested and removed. We can do without nonsense expenses also in such a tough economic climate.








8 comments:

  1. relevant to article:
    http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/aclu-submits-testimony-today-house-subcommittee-hearing-cell-phone-privacy

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  2. I'm not for the detectors but I find that your argument is bordering on the side of the logical fallacy of slippery slope. Detectors=limited speech=immigration issues? I understand that you'd like to draw attention to this issue but falsely associating trigger words with this just weakens your argument.

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  3. You are right in that I am raising questions about something that may or may not be a problem--as far as tracking free speech. But we don't know what is being tracked. What is the device used?

    I raise the issue about immigration issues because the idea of checking IDs came up with it, and NAU's Administration announced it would not be checking IDs. But it is! So, this is a completely turncoat attitude on the part of the Administration.


    The real

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  4. The real issue is about stalking/profiling students. We don't know what will be done with the info gathered. I sure as hell don't trust an administration that throws away private records of students like that to some company.

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  5. I heard that it was going to be a device similar to those at the entrance of the dorms. Which is why I can't figure out how that would track free speech. As far as the ID issue, I assume it will be the student ID, which is only given those who meet the criteria to be a student (immigration status, enrollment, etc) and therefore doesn't really have anything to do with immigration. But then again I'm not completely sure about that so who knows?

    I personally feel that the detectors are not a smart financial move for the university and that it negates the students maturity by forcing them to go to class. I mean if students aren't smart enough to go to class on their own that is their own money that they are wasting.

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  6. In my experience, undergraduate students generally attend classes where they feel encouraged by teachers to learn--where their ideas are valued and they are not forced to accept professors ideas. Perhaps low attendance should be understood by faculty as a sign of poor teaching and not flaky students. Why not crack down on faculty with poor attendance? Or for that matter why not restructure faculty evaluations to better measure their performance. Since most evals are now down online students may not feel safe about evaluating faculty. We have to sign into eval software using our NAU ID. Why not bring back the paper format?

    While one or two students may be slackers or not sure what they are doing in college, most students at NAU in classes I've attended seem serious about learning.

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  8. The administration needs to better articulate their motivation. Is this a measure that enhances campus safety? Tracking attendance is not necessary. Students are responsible for their grades, and all academic standing is based on GPA not attendance. In class quizes assure that students will be present.

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