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Rifat Salam

@profsalam.bsky.social
162 followers 347 following 111 posts

Sociologist, prof at CUNY BMCC, pedagogy,WAC, teach about tech/society #communitycollege Neurodivergent, invisible disability, and in my non-work life, I’m a NJ mom, politics junkie, with a lot of hobbies. 🪴👻🪄🧙‍♀️ (opinions and thoughts are my own.)

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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
at least this one is clear about what we are optimizing for
AI image of Genghis Khan with text that says "Youshould be spending your time conquering the world,"Genghis Khan AI image and text that says "So learn on the go with your phone, wherever you are"
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
But how did they do it? Theres no doubt about computing power, but I feel like we never get the full story from OpenAI www.forbes.com/sites/the-pr...
forbes.com
OpenAI Cracks 200-Year-Old 'Millennium' Math Problem—But Credit Dispute Looms
An NYU math professor claims the AI behemoth rushed to solve the problem after discovering his progress.
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GC Writing Center @writingcentergc.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
It's #SharkWeek, writers @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social, and to celebrate we're doing one of the things we do best: research! Here are some academic books on sharks from Princeton UP to jumpstart your shark expertise and help you join in the fun:
buff.ly
Shark books
Princeton University Press publishes the world’s leading shark books, created by a team of international experts and covering in gorgeous detail the world’s full range of shark species, providing…
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Megan McIntyre @rcmeg.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Imagine the conversation we could have about this travesty if NCTE didn’t require Cs officers and executive committee members to sign confidentiality agreements. Folks should also ask NCTE about how and whether their lucrative grant/partnership with Google was part of what Cs “culture” threatened.
insidehighered.com
NCTE Dissolves 77-Year-Old Composition Association
The National Council of Teachers of English’s decision was met with swift backlash from Conference on College Composition and Communication members, who say their organization is vital to advancing co...
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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
This may sound strange, but many students either consciously or subconsciously do not see school (including college) as an opportunity to "learn." The transactional nature of the system is totalizing. Even students who don't want to outsource their learning to LLMs feel like maybe they should...
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American Sociological Association @asanews.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
ASA President Shelley Correll has selected 2 Presidential Panels for the ASA 2026 Annual Meeting: “Bridging Scholarship and Struggle: The Long Arc of Community-Engaged Sociology” and “Putting Sociology to Work in Research Funding.” Get all the meeting details here: bit.ly/ASA2026.
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
I wish we had educational institutions that were robust enough to maintain a pedagogical mission. But the imbrications with carceral logics and deep investments in ed tech have made the path ahead very narrow.
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
I have to resist the tech determinist impulse to blame all of this on social media and LLMs, although that's incredibly tempting. The social contract around public education was already incredibly broken by the time the tech came around. >>
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
This thread is incredibly depressing, although I've heard much of the same from other instructors. >>
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Too bad, companies are laying people off before they find out AI can’t replace them.
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
More and more convinced that an unexpected effect of AI in education is changing evidentiary practices in edu policy. "Testbeds" and live pilot tests are replacing "evidence-based" policy. This means schools are treated as "wild" sites that are modified to produce evidence for policy. >>
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 25/11/2025
I have many papers here if you're interested in my views: olivia.science/ai
olivia.science
Critical AI
On this page are some resources for Critical AI Literacy (CAIL) from my perspective.
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
BMCC Faculty Development Day-keynote speaker Dr. Lesley Rennis presenting “Teaching with Purpose: Creating Learning Spaces That Respect and Challenge Students.” Discussing the effects of trauma in higher education and sympathy versus empathy. #bmcc #cuny #communitycollege
Dr. Lesley Rennis-African American woman professor behind a podium delivering keynote address.
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
This below is in the context of computer science but we all need to be having this conversation about whether "using AI" in classes prepares you for future jobs or whether actually doing the thing yourself prepares you for a world in which you may or may not use AI. The idea that using AI to write/1
A degree in CS mostly prepares students to become computer scientists, just as a history degree mostly prepares students to be historians. The idea is not that every student will become an academic— few do—but that the initial training in this direction will prepare students for varied pursuits. When the world changes, Erat argues, the student who studied CS will have the creativity to “learn how to search, how to integrate things.” But for the student who just used AI to make programs, he said, “It’s going to be impossible.”

Conversely, CS professor Lin Zhong thinks Yale’s core CS curriculum is “stuck in the 1980s.” He wants students to develop the AI expertise that they would need as professional software engineers. “If your student[s] don’t learn how to use [AI], they lose their job,” he said. Students in Zhong’s Computer Systems Design course earn extra credit for using AI creatively to do their homework.
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Roxanne Shirazi @roxanneshirazi.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
It really is the best election map. Thank you, Center for Urban Research @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social! www.urbanresearchmaps.org/electioncomp...
CUNY Graduate Center's election map of NYC displaying the five boroughs with broad swaths of blue (majority Mamdani) and green (majority Cuomo). Info box on the side shows vote counts for 2025 and 2021, with optional filters to toggle by various measures like "registered voters with Irish or Italian surnames"
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Pamela Donovan @pameladonovan.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
A view from the college teaching trenches coping with AI. Writing loses while tech readiness sees no gains. A thread
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
I am a coordinator of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program and a sociologist teaching at a community college in NYC. The stories I’m hearing from faculty about students’ AI use, or rather, their inability and unwillingness to do assignments without AI is blowing my mind. 1/x
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 16/10/2025
Normies absolutely have no idea that there are any of the concerns or negative externalities with the major AI platforms, because media absolutely refuse to cover the topic.
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The Center for Humanities @humanitiescuny.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Wed, Oct 29, 10am on Zoom. A monthly online workshop series on responding to urgency. Sessions will employ writing, deep listening and discussion, and somatic practices to facilitate meaningful relationships with each other and communities. All are welcome. centerforthehumanities.org/event/compas...
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Ran into this poster on our campus today 😊
Poster of the Open Letter: Stop the uncritical adoption of ‘AI’ technologies in academia, with QR code
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Anirvan Chatterjee @chatterjee.net · 12/10/2025
“Russia has a new way to surveil its citizens: a ‘super app.’ Made by the Russian tech company VK, the app is called Max, and as of September 1, it’s required on every new phone sold in Russia.” www.theatlantic.com/internationa...
theatlantic.com
Putin Has a New Tool to Monitor Russians
Russia is pushing a “super app” for citizens. What could possibly go wrong?
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CUNY SPS @cunysps.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
(1)🎙️ Faculty Spotlight: Jen Siaca Curry Adjunct professor, social impact leader, and advocate for youth and the arts—Jen Siaca Curry joins MA in Youth Studies student and host Leonor Pereaus for a lively conversation on the latest Youth Studies podcast.
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Ben Ambridge @ambridge.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
On top of everything else, it’s just so massively unnecessary- If sites want these things, actual experts on this stuff would be queuing up to write them for free!
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
At the Section on Teaching and Learning in Sociology Hans O. Mauksch Address, “Pedagogical Dirty Work: Lessons about Respectability from Sexuality Studies” given by Allison Better at CUNY Kingsborough CC. Congrats on this deeply authentic account of an academic and pedagogical journey. #ASA2025
Sociology professor with pink hair at a conference podium giving a lecture.
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
The AI Con at #ASA2025! Grab a copy at the @harperbooks.bsky.social exhibit. (w/ @emilymbender.bsky.social)
A smiling brown trans woman with short hair and glasses, standing at a table covered with yellow tablecloth and surrounded by books. She is wearing a red and white kuffiyeh and black pants, and she is holding a book called THE AI CON.
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Albert S. Fu @novumsimulacrum.com · 03/08/2025
It's probably going to be deployed for things it can't do well versus things it can probably do well e.g. a single prompt that sets all assignments due dates. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
insidehighered.com
Faculty Are Latest Targets of Higher Ed’s AI-ification
A new partnership between OpenAI and Instructure will embed generative AI in Canvas. It may make grading easier, but faculty are skeptical it will enhance teaching and learning.
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American Sociological Association @asanews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
It’s almost here! #ASA2025 starts the day after tomorrow. There’s still time to grab a train, plane, or automobile and meet us in Chicago for this gathering of sociologists that all your colleagues will be talking about! Register online or on site! bit.ly/RegisterASA25  #Chicago #ASA #sociology
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Superheroes who look out for people and fight villains to protect them is now “woke”? What are they supposed to be doing? And Superman was always a nice guy.
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👻 Saavik ‘Spooky Season’ Ford 🎃 @saavikford.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
Omg someone please DO THIS STUDY?!?
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
the same as reading and reading a text is a different experience from reading a summary. This type of claim (just use AI) is of course an "efficiency tool" claim and not an added value claim but every day these claims are bleeding together in ways that obscure why reading is worth doing. /3
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
but what of course emerged even in the accurate ones is that a summary done without intention is not the same as reading with intention, and a summary without a framework for what you're interested in and why is not the same as a summary based on curiosity and that a summary even if useful is not /2
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Congratulations 2025 BMCC Graduates! #bmcc #cuny #communitycollege
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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
"These AI memos... should be understood less as examples of candid real talk than as disciplinary messages, or even threats..." nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com
The AI Warnings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Bosses are using the specter of artificial intelligence to strike the fear of God into their employees.
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
As an early adopter of fitness trackers and one who sincerely believes their Apple Watch saved them, I draw the line at “bio-hacking” surveillance-where is the evidence that they help anyone have a better life?
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Michael Pershan @mpershan.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
It's like if you said a search engine was tutoring a kid because a teacher asked them to google stuff.
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Anita Devineni @anitadevineni.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
The new leadership cancelled planned events for NSF’s 75th anniversary and tried to prevent staff from even taking a group photo to celebrate the landmark. These are the faces of the hardworking employees they’ve been treating as disposable. NSF, we appreciate you even if your own leaders don’t ❤️
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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
It's a rich irony that a President who is obsessed by the trade balance is blocking one of our best exports: American higher ed. International students pay fees, create high-paying jobs, learn ideas, and spread them globally. But they can't come without reliable visas.
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Nature @nature.com · 21/05/2025
The papers all follow a similar template and make misleading claims go.nature.com/4kucwEH
go.nature.com
AI linked to explosion of low-quality biomedical research papers
Analysis flags hundreds of studies that seem to follow a template, reporting correlations between complex health conditions and single variables based on publicly available data sets.
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The City University of New York @cuny.edu · 14/05/2025
Emily Feng Zhang, @huntercollege.bsky.social '25, has won the American Nurses Association New York Future Nurse Leader Award Congratulations, Emily! ow.ly/ix9E50VSAIk
Hunter College student Emily Feng Zhang.
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
I wrote a short piece for Tech Policy Press outlining how I think our paper’s claims are useful for those working in AI policy: www.techpolicy.press/most-researc...
techpolicy.press
Most Researchers Do Not Believe AGI Is Imminent. Why Do Policymakers Act Otherwise? | TechPolicy.Press
Tech Policy Press fellow Eryk Salvaggio says it is dangerous to the public interest for policymakers to center the pursuit of AGI in AI policy.
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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Using an LLM to generate a 100-word email requires .14 kilowatt-hours worth of electricity, enough to power 14 LED lights for an hour. If you were to send one AI email a week for a year, you'd use 7.5kWh, equal to an hour's worth of electricity consumed by 9 households. futurism.com/altman-pleas...
futurism.com
Sam Altman Admits That Saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power
Sam Altman says OpenAI is spending "tens of millions of dollars" processing chatbot queries made with proper etiquette.
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Brooklyn Institute @brooklyninstitute.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
Call for Faculty: German Language Instructor / Germanist (NYC-Area) | BISR seeks an experienced pedagogue of modern German language to teach in-person courses in New York City | buff.ly/m0iyAZu
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The City University of New York @cuny.edu · 30/04/2025
🗳️ CUNY students: Your voice shapes NYC’s future. Don’t miss your chance to vote in the June 24 Primary! #CUNYVotes www.cuny.edu/news/cuny-la...
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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 01/05/2025
Say it after me: Chat GPT is not a search engine. It does not scan the web for information, it just generates statistically likely sentences. You cannot use it a search engine, or as a substitute for searching. Now. Please never use an LLM for information searches ever again.
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Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
Trump’s team, often accused of spreading misinformation, slashes misinformation research www.science.org/content/arti... by @kakape.bsky.social Reality: Misinformation research is NOT about censorship. It is about understanding one of the most complex & harmful phenomena of our time.
science.org
Trump’s team, often accused of spreading misinformation, slashes misinformation research
Hundreds of grants axed in a field where the United States was a global leader
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Rifat Salam @profsalam.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
I had an incredible Spring Break on a faculty development t trip with #cuny #bmcc colleagues at the CIEE Monteverde campus. It made me more determined than ever to build rich learning experiences for our students. #studyabroad #ciee #communitycollege
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Erika Hendra @ekh77.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
The entire thread is important; we educators should be reflecting on what assignments are doing (or what we think they do vs what they’re showing us they do). It feels as if AI/LLMs are just being shoehorned into curricula without any analytical reflection as to what we want their roles to be.
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