A gender lens remains one of the best ways to understand far right authoritarian regimes. Male order is imposed through a family-like structure, with women subservient and children taught that fear is the price of belonging www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Trump: "I hate my opponents and I don't want the best for them" So glad all his supporters have spent the past week talking about how the left are so uncivil. So glad all the shitty centrists of the world have spent the past week saying the left needs to reach out and be kind.

Put simply, where universities have competent leaders and are governed through robust structures, one would not expect to find them relying on UniForum data or external consults to the extent that we see at so many universities in Australia and beyond.

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run. My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor... A thread

My fear is that people are internalizing ChatGPT's voice as "good writing" and real humans will start writing/talking like that in real life, and then I will have no choice but to return to the sea.

@jennaprice.bsky.social writes about UTS, MQ & higher ed in general. In the discipline I teach, Politics&IR, we are losing half our units &staff despite strong student #s and growth. Other disciplines face cuts. Diversity is under attack. Student options reduced and PhDs will lose supervisors. see👇

There is no financial crisis. This is Macquarie uni balance sheet

11/ And importantly: the curriculum cuts are being made not because it is good for the curriculum, but to justify staff cuts. This goes against the principles embedded in TEQSA, and bypasses governance processes meant to oversee academic issues.

9/ And we are gaslight - told that these are just 'culturally new' ideas. That it is just a 'culture change' that is needed. We need to get with the times and learn to be 'agile' and 'fail fast'. Real words.

10/ imagine being a world expert in whatever - , quantum physics, multi-regression statistical analysis, sociology of work and organisational studies, ancient history, political science.... and being treated as though we are stupid and don't understand the issues or the numbers.

8/ Governance oversight of these cuts is completely inadequate. The cuts just get rammed through via loopholes like 'resting' and 'pausing' units and programs - bypassing the few checks and balances we have at our disposal. At some point the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

8/ And do you know why? I'm told the bean counters in the chancellory with their consultants apparently had the brainwave that each discipline major can be taught by just 3 staff if they get rid of all the content. And that will save money.

7/ Specialist teaching is replaced with generic faculty wide units with 1000 + students, mostly online and no F2F tutorials. Macquarie wants to introduce a 'common first year' to the BA - so discipline content will be confined to 2nd and 3rd year - six units in total. No electives/option sets.

6/ We lose high level specialist expertise and teaching, and this impacts the entire scholarly pipeline for higher study. When my European and US colleagues see the pathetic state of our unit offerings they are in shock.

5/ This denies students opportunities for specialist study on topics that are important for society, for science, for the stock of human knowledge.

4/ Over and above staff losses is the shocking loss of intellectual diversity. The nation is losing whole areas of study. My uni has a rule where each discipline major may only have 8 units and no electives. There is a proposal to reduce that to 6,

3/ My own discipline of sociology is losing 11 of 14 academics yet we have had a 65% increase in student enrolments this year and have more students than areas not being cut. Same story for other areas being hit with staff cuts.

2/ Journalists should challenge management claims of 'declining enrolments'. And budget crisis. Management and their consultants cherry pick data. I dont know the UTS situation but at Macquarie university they are cutting areas with growing enrolments.

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

Australia's universities are blighted by a "culture of consequence-free, rotten failure", a senate inquiry has found.

"Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation is the latest sign we’re witnessing the end of US democracy" Excellent by @emmashortis.bsky.social theconversation.com/jimmy-kimmel...

in light of the kimmel news, just a reminder that a few days ago a prominent fox news host literally called for killing homeless people. right afterward, someone shot up a couple homeless encampments. that fox news host still has his job.

America now fully a fascist state and pundits still preaching about the virtues of civility and "debate". JFC. Dark times.

I don’t know when it’s going to pop for a lot of normies that they are living under an authoritarian regime, but the cancellation of popular TV shows that make fun of the administration might do it www.vulture.com/article/abc-...

The newe coole thynge to do ys to Major yn English

This also applies to Australia...unbelievably grim.

Far as I can tell, Robert Redford was: * successful at everything he tried * genuinely intelligent & insightful * desired by women * envied by men * an absolute mensch to everyone he dealt with * a tireless, lifelong philanthropist ... and he died peacefully in his sleep. 10/10 life. No notes.

This is your brain on centrism

Australian universities are in a governance crisis. VC pay blowouts, scandals, mission drift — these aren’t random, they’re structural. This new working paper with @marijataflaga.bsky.social & Keith Dowding digs into why the system is broken, and how to fix it. doi.org/10.25911/MWW... A thread:

I'm always glad to see @squigglyrick.bsky.social take on the absolute mess that is university governance www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/educati...

The combination of bloodless corporate managerialism by uni execs and a do-nothing Albanese govt is killing Australia’s university sector.

How tf does a press photographer become a full prof at ANU in cybernetics with no industry background, no PhD (any degree?) where have I gone wrong where do I apply

This is really bad

I'll merely note that today, like all days, is a great day to stop posting on Twitter, a platform whose owner force feeds this slop into people's brains with an algorithm designed to boost his views and trample yours.

Just like white immigrants assimilated with indigenous people. Wait, I’m being handed a note…

I can't believe I need to have an AI policy! I made it pretty short though: Using AI is cheating, yourself mostly. In addition to the environmental blight created by AI, it makes no sense to use it in your intellectual and creative work. Why would you outsource your innate intelligence?

So many unanswered questions posed in this excellent piece on the Meanjin closure. eg. -Why the sudden irreversible decision? -Why didn't they try to save it (community, donor drives etc)? -Why the secrecy? -Why use the financial viability argument now? As if the v wealthy UniMelb can't afford it.

SafeWork NSW orders UTS to pause job cuts due to risk of ‘psychological harm’

It would be a massive mistake for progressive folk to convince themselves the March for Australia was a bust, or can safely be ridiculed. It was an alarming escalation of far-right action, and we need to reckon with it. More thoughts (un-paywalled) here: www.lamestream.com.au/how-mainstre...

One thing I’m quite grateful for is that generative AI has given me a new source of personal esteem in that I feel incredibly superior to those who use it.

I'm giving a research seminar on Wednesday 17 September at 3pm with one of my PhD students on unhinged women fiction (mine will specifically be on unhinged women's historical fiction). DM me if you're interested!

Death. Cult. www.rawstory.com/rfk-jr-mass-...

Dear lord this is dumb

Thanks to @michellearrow.bsky.social , @frankbongiorno.bsky.social and Anna Clark for bringing solutions to the higher ed crisis - as teachers and researchers, not consultants theconversation.com/universities...

Pathetic

Congratulations and a big 'Thank you' to Stephanie Russo for getting out the next issue of the 'Journal of Historical Fictions'!

One of the most irritating things about management edicts re: uni teaching is how often they come from people who actively avoid teaching, who've forgotten what the inside of a classroom looks like, and whose views seem derived from decades-old memories of a bad lecturer or their own bad lecturing

Having children dress as characters for book week teaches them to embrace naive mimesis. They should be encouraged to personify formal categories like omniscient naration, free indirect discourse, etc