Many professors recognize that online education is changing the landscape of academe. But faculty members at several colleges are making it clear that they will not be steamrolled. Philosophy professors at San Jose State University last week wrote an open letter saying they refused to use material from an edX course, taught by a famous Harvard University professor, for fear that California State University administrators were angling for a way to eventually gut their department. At Duke University a week earlier, an undergraduate-faculty council voted down a push by the provost's office to offer small online courses for credit through 2U, a company that sells an online platform and support services to colleges. In each case, the professors were careful to make clear that they oppose not online technology, but rather the notion of collaborating with an outside vendor that might pose a threat, in the long term, to their principles. The philosophy professors at San Jose State, in particular, sensed a latent, existential threat in their university's collaboration with edX, a nonprofit massive open online course (MOOC) provider formed last year by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.