Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
banner
katjathieme.bsky.social
Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
@katjathieme.bsky.social
Into words, sentences, genres.
#writingstudies #teamrhetoric #cdnwrds #genai+writing
https://katjat.medium.com/
Pinned
If you've ever found yourself in a position of inventing some sort of story that might explain uneven student evaluation scores—your own or someone else's—then this blog post is for you.

#writingstudies #cdnwrds #rhetcomp #teamrhetoric
Teaching Scores, Storied Averages, and Small Classes
University administrations are very keen on student evaluations. Behind the scenes, they are a managerial lever in employment decisions and…
katjat.medium.com
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
I truly hate this. I'm a CSU alumni, with two degrees from the system. I have studied parts of its history. It is the best of us public education system: squeezed and pressured from all quarters but serving an essential role in the lives of its students. Providing quality education for all.
December 3, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
„Curth—who received an Outstanding Grad Teaching Award from OU’s Dept of Psychology—is now on admin leave. The uni emphasized its commitment to ‘protecting every student’s right to express sincerely held religious beliefs,‘ which is a fascinating way to describe giving a bad grade to a bad essay.“
December 3, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
My controversial belief is Congresspeople, like MPs and all elected officials, all over the world, should be paid the minimum wage. In order to hold office, they must have all stocks, bonds, investments and ownership of any company held in a trust for their time in office.
Rep. Roger Williams defends members of Congress trading stocks: "I think we gotta be careful that we don't limit Congresspeople to where they can do nothing ... from a financial standpoint, it's not easy being up in Congress."
December 3, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Why is the @chronicle.com wasting reporting time to argue about the grade. The Fulnecky family’s campaign isn’t focused on the grade.

The grade isn’t the story.

www.welcometohellworld.com/a-coordinate...
December 3, 2025 at 12:37 AM
Oof. Thread.
I think this hit me b/c (& here is an anecdote that sounds like bullshit but is absolutely true) just yesterday, in class, we were talking abt feminism & neoliberalism, via C. Rottenberg's claim for a post-2000 shift in 'work-life balance' discourse toward a ruthless entrepreneurial self-investment
December 3, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Strong floor, no ceiling. Big hat, no cattle. Short skirt, long jacket
December 3, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
OpenAI is like the modern version of management consultants.

People feel obliged to pay them lots of money to demonstrate that they take the future seriously, regardless of whether it adds any value to their organisation and what it does.
December 3, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
This article absolutely nails the political economy of Higher Ed's embrace of AI - "Critical pedagogy is out; productivity hacks are in. What’s sold as innovation is really surrender."

"The future of education has already arrived–as a liquidation sale of everything that once made it matter."
„CSU—US’s largest public uni system—went all-in with a $17mill partnership with OpenAI. . .CSU unveiled its grand technological gesture just as it proposed slashing $375mill from its budget. While admin cut ribbons on AI, they were cutting faculty positions, academic programs, student services.“
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 3, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
This is a longer read very worth reading "Knowledge becomes data; teaching becomes delivery. What disappears are precious human capacities—curiosity, discernment, presence. The result isn’t augmented intelligence but simulated learning: a paint-by-numbers approach to thought."
„CSU—US’s largest public uni system—went all-in with a $17mill partnership with OpenAI. . .CSU unveiled its grand technological gesture just as it proposed slashing $375mill from its budget. While admin cut ribbons on AI, they were cutting faculty positions, academic programs, student services.“
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 3, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Good read about the arms race of AI in education: "Universities partner with AI companies; students use AI to cheat; schools panic about cheating and then partner with more AI companies to detect the cheating. It’s surveillance capitalism meets institutional malpractice."
„CSU—US’s largest public uni system—went all-in with a $17mill partnership with OpenAI. . .CSU unveiled its grand technological gesture just as it proposed slashing $375mill from its budget. While admin cut ribbons on AI, they were cutting faculty positions, academic programs, student services.“
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 3, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
The Paediatric Society of NZ - representing the clinical field most relevant here - have released maybe the strongest statement of all the medical bodies: “puberty blockers are an established, safe, reversible, and
life-saving treatment option”
PSNZ responds to government announcement on puberty blockers
www.paediatrics.org.nz
December 3, 2025 at 1:21 AM
„CSU—US’s largest public uni system—went all-in with a $17mill partnership with OpenAI. . .CSU unveiled its grand technological gesture just as it proposed slashing $375mill from its budget. While admin cut ribbons on AI, they were cutting faculty positions, academic programs, student services.“
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 3, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Not sure if any single part of academia felt more like a weird cheat code than Interlibrary Loan. Like, I just say a book I want, basically any book, and this crack team of experts just *get it*????
December 3, 2025 at 3:05 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Rejected by the couch, JD has moved on to fucking tables, confirmed by the NYT
December 3, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Gah.
Your universe is a photocopy of a photocopy of a…
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa
December 3, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
„Fulnecky’s demand for better grades, and the mobilization of con media to achieve it, is far from extraordinary. In Sep, after a Texas A&M student recorded a prof discussing gender, the school fired the prof. A&M has now a policy banning profs from talking about ‘race or gender ideology‘ in class.“
What Liberals Can Learn from Charlie Kirk
Over the last few days, if you’re active on political media, you have probably seen references to the “controversy” over a student’s failing grade on an essay at Oklahoma Un…
nathangoldwag.wordpress.com
December 3, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
“This essay was originally published in The Free Press” Haidt I’m gonna stop you right there
December 2, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
"I am *unsettled* that ChatGPT, fed on the plethora of articles I and others have written on the subject as well as my own chat history has reproduced a rough sketch of our arguments back to me, this is *chilling*!"

This guy has massive influence on tech policy. Wonderful.
December 2, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
Oliver Traldi has richly Koch-funded thoughts on how many unhinged Bible reflections he's used to seeing in a psychology course he's never taught and will never teach.
December 2, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
I ended up drafting an email that didn't really lean on research specific to grade school education, but expressed my concerns in the most basic terms.

I removed the personal details and have shared it as a template here for folks who might find it useful:
bit.ly/TeacherEmail...
December 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
If youre equivocating about the actual fairness of the numbers of the grade of a paper that you managed 2 read because it was shared by the stochastic nazi terror org whose mission is to make colleges places unsafe for queers and POC might I suggest you've lost the fucking plot
December 2, 2025 at 5:30 PM
WTF. And I say this sincerely. WTF.
I asked the machine if you had joy 💀
December 2, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Oliver Traldi quoted as an alleged expert in instruction in the field of psychology. Please.
@chronicle.com, what please is this? How to miss the entire story.
December 2, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)
i refuse to call the slop that these flawed correlation models output “hallucinations”, that is an insult to anyone who has ever actually experienced hallucinating.
December 1, 2025 at 9:29 PM
„This is a standard playbook. We are now all arguing about the details of a grading rubric, while the practical outcome on the ground will be to continue the project of giving conservative students & activists veto power over educational institutions & curricula.“

Don’t. Argue. About. The. Grade.
I wrote much of this several months ago, about Ezra Klein's response to the Kirk assassination, and then never ended up publishing it, but I think this UO "controversy" is a such a perfect example of how TPUSA et al actually advance conservative power that I decided to revive and rewrite it.
What Liberals Can Learn from Charlie Kirk
Over the last few days, if you’re active on political media, you have probably seen references to the “controversy” over a student’s failing grade on an essay at Oklahoma Un…
nathangoldwag.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:17 PM