"By late May in a normal year, the NSF would give out about 250 social-science awards. This year, it has distributed five"

Scoop: NSF has been quietly blocking new funds and grants to four top universities: Duke, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Dozens of proposals from PIs at these universities—and their collaborators—have been stuck at the Office of Award Management awaiting finalization for months.

"You’ve read a million pearl-clutching op-eds about woke professors and cancel culture, but for my money, the real crisis facing American higher education is that colleges & universities are increasingly run by people who are hostile to students & professors, &...the idea of the university itself."

“This is also the direct result of voters’ treating their decisions as consumer choices, a mind-set that has trickled down from a donor class that feels free to openly shop for those candidates whose policies suit its specific personal and professional preferences and needs.”

Life imitating art next to the Public Garden in Boston. (Officer Mike’s uni’s at the cleaners) 🦆 @universalhub.com

How your email finds me

Chicago map lovers (you know who you are and there are too many of you to tag), look what's just been released! node.uchicago.edu/collection/m...

Update: Louisiana voters tonight have rejected all five constitutional amendments that were on the ballot today; they were there with the support of the GOP legislature and Gov. Landry.

“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education.”

The creepiest state park.

I agree with this: "“The downtown campus,” Fitts said, “changes our relationship with the city.”" Just maybe not in the way he means it.

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.”

I don't only think that college should be FREE but I think young people should also receive living stipends while in school. Finally, I do not care what they major in because education needs to actually BE DECOUPLED from a future job. You are welcome. You should have 4 years to study anything.

Some really terrible things happening in Louisiana right now but this is good news. I hope this ruling sticks.

«Everyone has their own way of solving problems» Original post

I want these.

One side obsession from my research into the 1920s is the extensive network of ELECTRIC trains that used to connect cities and towns across the central Midwest called the Interurban. We had this more than a hundred years ago. The things we had and the things we lost.

For those that celebrate.

If you’re going to Jazz Fest, I made this map of unmarked music heritage sites near the Fair Grounds, including Alex Chilton’s apartment and Eddie Bo’s base of operations when he cut “Hook and Sling” (which was then a seafood depot but was razed for a Walgreens). acloserwalknola.com/tours/jazz-f...

"Unfortunately, the types of people for whom such fellowships might represent the greatest departure from their everyday experience—and whose career trajectories might be most dramatically shifted given freedom from their usual constraints—are infrequently their beneficiaries."

🚀 Christina Koch, NC State graduate and Artemis II astronaut, is headed back to Earth following NASA’s first return to the moon in more than 50 years. On Friday, Christina and her crewmates will splash down in the Pacific Ocean to end the farthest human flight in history. http://ncst.at/9rma50YGP25

The fight we’ve been waiting for, the Battle of Brattle: Waymo vs. Cambridge turkey. @universalhub.com

We are too reliant on the internet, she muses while running out of tasks I can work on without it or any of our campus online systems.

BREAKING: After more than a decade in office, state Rep. Carla Cunningham appeared to lose her Democratic primary on Tuesday by a significant margin. The race in N.C. House District 106 was more contentious this year than anyone might have expected. www.theassemblync.com/news/politic...

North Carolina sent a clear message tonight: You cannot betray our community and keep your seat.

RESULT: Over & over, Democratic lawmaker Shelly Willingham helped the North Carolina GOP override the vetoes of Governor Stein & Cooper. He lost just now to a progressive challenger, 56% to 44%. (And he's likely one of several in this position. Stay tuned.)

RACE CALL: All three North Carolina Democrats (Shelly Willingham, Nasif Majeed, & Carla Cunningham) who voted to overturn Governor Josh Stein's vetoes have LOST their respective Democratic primaries

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

UNC-Chapel Hill will “scrap” a policy that would have allowed administrators to secretly record professors, Chancellor Lee Roberts said Friday. The move comes less than three weeks after the controversial rules were enacted. www.theassemblync.com/news/educati...

"The NC AAUP is also in the midst of creating a “prevention and response plan” for faculty who experience online threats."" www.wunc.org/education/20...

I’m grateful for faculty with expertise and track record on prevention & response plans for targeted harassment. I’m most familiar with @rebekahtromble.bsky.social’s projects researchersupport.org & expertvoicestogether.org - I’m sure she can recommend others for everyone who needs help now

Here's an op/ed I co-authored in the @orlandosentinel.com

Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it. Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:

I am trying to imagine teaching sociology without controversy. It's pretty much all we've got.

Thousands of institutions abandoned programs, ended or rewrote scholarships, closed down clubs and publications, all in pre-emptive compliance. And you know why? Mostly because they wanted to do it if they thought they could blame someone else for it.

Oof.

This employee was fired for explaining the school’s anti DEI policy in roughly the same language used by one of the trustees who adopted said policy.

"We do not accept a system in which personnel decisions affecting people’s careers and livelihoods are made at the direction of online vigilantes and so-called journalists, whose methods would not be taught in our university or allowed at our university publications."

what could go wrong?

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

Also very bad.

well, that is bad.

BREAKING: punxsutawney phil has fled the country

Bunch of uni admins are thanking their lucky stars today that their faculty's research was beneath Epstein's notice. Still, I hope JE prompts all universities to reflect on how to fund research w/o compromising values, particularly as federal & state funding shrinks and donors play larger role.

❤️

“Independent” is doing too much work in this first wave. They are arresting journalists and just like everything else they’ve done, they’re testing the limits of our resistance by starting wt vulnerable margins.