Himpathy is the WaPo using this photo of Graham Platner as he's poised to exit the race over alleged forcible rape.

Somehow only discovering the work of Cynthia Willett in the year of our lord 2026 and a little mad about it, actually

Just a note that if your administrative staff are the ones who “really run the department/university” they should be paid more than you.

"88% of men reported an academic career as their singular priority" I think this is the most important datum. cis men in academia make academia their life, & they often have caretakers around them to make that possible. but I read that and feel sorry for them. what an impoverished life it must be.

Carolyn Dicey Jennings@cdj.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Get it while its hot! #philsky apda.ghost.io/2025-survey-...

For cisgender women and individuals with non-normative gender identities, the path is characterised by higher ‘invisible labour’ in teaching and a more taxing institutional climate, requiring them to be more resilient and multi-faceted to achieve similar employment outcomes.”

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

Truly cruel and reprehensible stuff from the NHS. For all their talk about "harm" this shows that NHS has no actual interest in the well-being of these kids. I don't even know what else to say.

Cal Horton (they/them)@fiercemum.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Update: Young people & families today received shocking & transphobic letters from NHS. These letters tell people that endocrine care (blockers / HRT) is being fully withdrawn in 7 weeks time (July 31st). Forced medical detransition. This country is a danger to trans children & young people.

I hope that people are aware that one of the primary political objectives of this ascending right-wing effort to remake higher education through things like the Vanderbilt Report, the Chicago Principles, and the AEI Future of the American University project is to crush the academic labor movement.

Sarah Osment@smosment.bsky.social · 2mo ago

One of the authors of the humanities report sat across a table and said, through a smile, that me & my writing instructor colleagues are not teachers. Still, he is welcome in my seminars on evidence, reasoning & warrant since he seems to not understand those basic aspects of academic argument.

The Chronicle's dominant position in the higher ed media ecosystem is one of the biggest problems that we face. Endless right-wing grift, just like the New York Times.

Chronicle of Higher Education@chronicle.com · 2mo ago

Two divisive campus leaders commissioned a report that asks an equally divisive question: Have the humanities and social sciences been corrupted by politics? https://chroni.cl/4eafiNL

What @nearleft.bsky.social says:

Jay Thurber Show@jaythurber.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I mentioned this on the radio yesterday, but have we talked about the fact that the CEO of NVIDIA was Carnegie Mellon's commencement speaker this year? "Congratulations, graduates, with any luck we'll have eliminated your entry-level job by the time I finish speaking"

Colleges will under-hire, expend zero time or resources to expand a major, and sink money into expensive boondoggle programs that send students into other pathways and then turn around and say the market has spoken so they’re shutting down a major.

The drive for more and more publications is another example of the management class fucking up higher ed. Measurable outcomes: you MUST publish a certain number of articles every year. Just keep churning them out. It's rationalization: productivity is making more, and productivity is good.

Ted McCormick@tedmccormick.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Historical research does not need to be done faster or in greater volume for any social or intellectual purpose whatever; if anything, it needs to be done more slowly and deliberately than at present, by people allowed the training, time, space, and resources to do it that way.

Historical research does not need to be done faster or in greater volume for any social or intellectual purpose whatever; if anything, it needs to be done more slowly and deliberately than at present, by people allowed the training, time, space, and resources to do it that way.

Erin Grievances@erinbartram.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"This will transform historical research!" Cool but it's already being transformed out of existence by the same forces pushing these transformative technologies. Forgive us if we're skeptical of a moment that's telling us "This will help you do your work--which we despise--faster and better."

This is what makes it so egregious that CMU has not communicated to our students or faculty about this AT ALL. I spoke with a student today who knew nothing about it. Students deserve to be informed about what is happening with their data.

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 3mo ago

private details of health and social vulnerabilities students disclose in comms to their faculty are precisely what makes data of young people - soon to make the largest spending decisions of their life like more education debt, car ownership, home ownership - valuable enough to force platform use

The best part of the canvas outage is the part where our central administration has not communicated even a single word to faculty or students about it, just absolute crickets 🙃

On Friday afternoon before the Bank Holiday, colleagues in the Humanities department were called to a meeting on Tuesday. They were informed that the University Portfolio Review had decided that English Language, English Literature, Philosophy, History & Creative Writing UG degrees would close

Owen Davies@odavies9.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Aye. Heard today that my university is closing UG History, Philosophy, English Lit, Linguistics, and Creative Writing in one go.

Messages you love to see on Canvas on the day seniors' grades are due

the best part of post-tenure academia has been having the career space to slow down. the damage done by the contraction of tenure track positions + poor security/working conditions of non tenure track faculty + quantification of academic contributions is incalculable

Hakeem Jefferson@hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 3mo ago

FWIW, I don’t think the major problem in my field, or related ones, is that people need to move faster & produce more. I read a lot of papers as part of the job, and I’m increasingly convinced we’d benefit from fewer papers and better ones, not more mediocre work produced ever more “efficiently.”

Just gonna call them “Homogeneity hires.”

The main place this graphic goes wrong is suggesting there's a discrete endpoint to the panic, as if I'm incapable of crying while in the midst of a multi-day panic attack

currently at the "smashing my head repeatedly into a wall" stage of the writing process

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the answer to this is "No."

Dear Professor [Insert Name] I write to apologize for the use of AI in my latest assignment. That wasn't just against the rules, that was disrespe

I have had TWO students email me to ask if it would be alright to enroll in one of my classes next semester and then only attend half of the meetings bc one of the days conflicts with another class. I have never in 18 years of teaching had a student ask me this before, what in the world?!?

It's not hyperbole in the least to say Musk purchased a six-month shadow presidency for $280 million and used the power of that shadow presidency to 1. Steal the government’s data, 2. Permanently damage the state’s ability to regulate his businesses, and 3, kill non-white people.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 3mo ago

Still feel like "Musk and his crew of incels destroyed a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and thereby hastened the deaths of millions of children" did not get the public attention it warranted.

God almighty, never in my life did I imagine something like this could happen—but RFK Jr’s MAHA movement keeps surprising us😢 Tobacco is the world’s number 1 cause of premature death & the tobacco industry is one of the most repulsive & cynical industries on earth www.statnews.com/2026/04/22/n...

Former tobacco executive joins CDC senior leadership, raising concerns over industry influence

Naming a former Imperial Brands executive for a CDC job is the latest example, advocates say, of tobacco industry influence in Trump administration.

statnews.com

The expansion of surveillance on college campuses is extremely worrisome, curious to know if the Penn State @aaup.org chapter is organizing around this

Jeffrey@staticmade.com · 4mo ago

Penn State University has inked a deal with Flock Safety, bringing their cameras and a new layer of surveillance capitalism to campus in State College. Jonathan Chiu does some digging for The Daily Collegian.

When we fight, we win. Become part of the fight. Become a member of @aaup.org: www.aaup.org/join

Join

Joining the AAUP says that you’re concerned about academic freedom, and about the way that basic freedom protects your teaching and research. Join today.

aaup.org

AAUP@aaup.org · 4mo ago

“We strenuously object to the Trump administration’s efforts to erase the realities of racial and ethnic inequality and discrimination.” — Karin Rosemblatt, president of UAM-UMD & AAUP Governing Council Member @uam-umd.bsky.social

Having students use paper to complete tasks is in this sense to help them understand how to disentangle a single focused thought task from the machine ensemble of our ubiquitous modern information systems.

Reading student essays and getting a little verklempt. Sometimes you get real lucky with the makeup of a class and the students who land in it. This semester has been one of those and I'm really gonna miss the care and thoughtfulness that these students brought to a course on some tough topics 🥲