Tools or Sovereigns? A critical conversation on AI, dashboards, and the datafication of university subjects.
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Start Date
12-2-2026 4:00 PM
Document Type
Presentation
Description
We live in a time where artificial intelligence and technology is almost ubiquitous in public and private spaces (Gallup, 2025), including education. Colleges, universities, k-12, and their intermediaries, have adopted or legitimated the use of artificial intelligence and dashboards through curricular establishment, investments, and practice architectures in their respective fields (Mulford, 2025; Vilcarino & Langreo, 2025). This exponential growth comes with cautionary tales and critiques, however. Thanks to the critical work of scholars like Taylor (2022, 2023), Brown and Klein (2020), Smithers, Eaton, and Flint (2025), Foucault (1994), and Chiarello (2023), we can start to anticipate (and observe) impacts on First Generation students with the implementation of more data praxis. Namely, how these technologies act upon actors through surveillance, constraints on agency, hegemony, nudges, and more, creating an environment that attends and proliferates the status quo, and is directly antithetical to the espoused values in uplifting First Generation students via strengths perspectives.
In this presentation, I explore themes of biopolitical ontopower, contemporary political perspectives and economic logics, and the ways in which these interwoven fabrics should give us pause and new direction. Join for a generative discussion centering critical perspectives to data praxis and uplifting student actors through empirical practice.
Tools or Sovereigns? A critical conversation on AI, dashboards, and the datafication of university subjects.
We live in a time where artificial intelligence and technology is almost ubiquitous in public and private spaces (Gallup, 2025), including education. Colleges, universities, k-12, and their intermediaries, have adopted or legitimated the use of artificial intelligence and dashboards through curricular establishment, investments, and practice architectures in their respective fields (Mulford, 2025; Vilcarino & Langreo, 2025). This exponential growth comes with cautionary tales and critiques, however. Thanks to the critical work of scholars like Taylor (2022, 2023), Brown and Klein (2020), Smithers, Eaton, and Flint (2025), Foucault (1994), and Chiarello (2023), we can start to anticipate (and observe) impacts on First Generation students with the implementation of more data praxis. Namely, how these technologies act upon actors through surveillance, constraints on agency, hegemony, nudges, and more, creating an environment that attends and proliferates the status quo, and is directly antithetical to the espoused values in uplifting First Generation students via strengths perspectives.
In this presentation, I explore themes of biopolitical ontopower, contemporary political perspectives and economic logics, and the ways in which these interwoven fabrics should give us pause and new direction. Join for a generative discussion centering critical perspectives to data praxis and uplifting student actors through empirical practice.