#happystarwarsday #MaytheFourth

I'm in @theobserveruk.bsky.social today looking at why so many unis are in financial trouble and what the government needs to do to save HE. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

I don’t want NYC to become a museum. It should be a living, breathing testament to the working people of our city.

I wrote about why we should keep reading and writing www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

This paper is now available to read open access. Very timely given the tragically high level of global conflict and militarism. Comments and feedback on my paper are very welcome.

Like… We cannot go ahead and have the World Cup now like nothing is going on. Regardless of what does or doesn’t happen tonight. Countries should simply refuse to send teams. The rest of the world cannot treat us as a remotely normal country after this

Donald Trump is unfit to serve as the leader of the free world. That's why I have cosponsored H. Res. 939 Articles of Impeachment to remove him from office.

I checked and the post is real.

'He worked 10-hour shifts at minimum wage. “By that time, my ego had died, so I had accepted: OK, we can do this,” he told me.' A distressing read. #HigherEd #UKHE www.theguardian.com/education/ng...

Isn’t it weird how “AI literacy” being pushed on students isn’t about learning how it works, the cost of how it works, learning to spot disinformation, media and tech literacy. But instead is just “employers will like it if you get it to write your emails :)”

My article, “Donald Trump's profane threats against Iran display the unhinged language of war,” has been published on The Conversation. Here's the link: theconversation.com/donald-trump...

“In a sane world, Americans wouldn’t have elevated an arrogantly ill-informed and reckless man to make the gravest possible decisions for our nation. Nor would the U.S. Senate…confirm men and women deeply ill-equipped to perform their duties.” www.americaamerica.news/p/how-much-d...

This is a great talk. I learnt a lot about AI from reading's Wooldridge fantastic little book about it, which I drawn upon here: cdbu.org.uk/genai-an-ena...

Thanks for reposting! I'd be very interested in any comments from colleagues in education and elsewhere.

This is truly disgraceful and very, very alarming.

Did I hear this correctly? Did he just say that every day "the Department of War lets the drummer get wicked" over Iran? Did this unbelievable dork just quote Public Fucking Enemy in defense of their war on Iran?

A fascinating read about one particular war crime, but it also explains what’s going on in universities and companies everywhere; the automation of decision-making that removes judgment and worker-autonomy in the name of efficiency and management tyranny. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ma...

The BBC’s job is to “inform, educate, and entertain”? Let’s talk about the middle word. What follows is the story of what we found in an FOI request (per the Observer) about the Corporation killing off plans to launch an online catalogue and failing to deliver ‘learning for people of all ages’. 🧵

“GenAI systems throw out ‘best guess mashups’, generating articles that bear some similarity to the work that academics publish, but are simply unreal. Meanwhile, the real publications written by actual people very much do exist, and have never been easier to find”

@warren.senate.gov @markey.senate.gov

It's a beautiful day! Let's go and see what's out there. #cats #springtime

Has anyone written a review of the restructuring going on across UK HE? Trying to understand what is common across institutions: large, team-taught courses, centralised workload models, limited to no research time, promotion directly tied to grant income. How many consultancy firms are pushing this?

As we note in 'Shaping for Mediocrity': "Framing resistance in terms of negative emotions ... undermines the validity of any critique and denies the legitimacy of any alternative vision for the university. Everyone must move on – to the stages of acceptance and integration." #HigherEd

Video Assistant Referees have been a total failure. If you dislike VAR as much as me (and every football fan I've come across), please have your say in this FSA survey! Someone might listen one day, you never know. #VAR thefsa.org.uk/news/var-sur...

Staff at Sheffield Hallam University joined an ‘All staff’ call & were told the university must save £26.6m by August after disastrous London property venture Blameworthy Vice Chancellor Chris Husbands has since moved into consultancy/advisory roles in HE www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/sheffield-ha...

The consultancy Nous takes hundreds of thousands of pounds from universities, leaves the exact same path of destruction everywhere, and keeps trying to avoid transparent contracts. We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social

A stark reminder of the bureaucratic logic of work & how we're all just so much productive efficiency ... until we're not. Nice to know that he was good on his time-keeping though. Presumably until he was dead. From an LNWR employment record, 1920s.

www.timeshighereducation.com/uk-universit... Times Higher has not always been a friend of universities given the league tables, rankings, etc. But it might be worth completing this survey to help publicise the widespread redundancies and terrible standards of management and leadership in UK HE.

www.newscientist.com/article/2516... GenAI is a study buddy. A cutting-edge employability tool.

Very interesting blog from Cliff Bacon of University of Salford. Summarises and builds on the ethnographic work he did for his PhD. bscpolicingnetwork.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/u...

New blog post: How I'm teaching about Generative AI. catherinedenial.org/blog/uncateg...

"When we ask what is at stake if academic freedom is not protected, the answer is not only vital knowledge and democracy itself. The untruthful language marking universities as we know them, might be a precursor to the demise of academia itself." Distressing but important piece by Susanne Taüber.

Now published! Universities Degraded, by @beccaeharrison.bsky.social & me, reveals the scale of job losses in UK universities, exposes employer practices & shares testimonies of those made redundant & their colleagues. Warning: some of the content is distressing. zenodo.org/records/1563...

"One of the defining qualities of contemporary academic research concerns its built-in obsolescence." (Marinetto, 2018) In contrast, Marinetto suggests to prioritise: - Being read over being published - Thinking over productivity - Broad over narrow reading onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

"The untruthful language marking universities as we know them, might be a precursor to the demise of academia itself." (Susanne Täuber, 2026) An important, powerful essay about attacks on academic freedom and the erasure of critical scholarship. #HigherEd journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Using X is not harmless. Just by logging in, you pad Elon’s metrics. He gets paid every time you scroll past an ad. And you normalize him just by staying. Because if what he’s done isn’t a dealbreaker for you, why should it be for anyone else?

Northumbria University attacking its staff's pensions. Please consider signing this petition: www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ... Times Higher hasn't been such a good friend of HE, with all the rankings garbage. But this survey is surely worth completing

'The Goffman Nobody Knows.' Really enjoyed this book review from @jerolmack.bsky.social. The book sounds fabulous. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Airline bookings to the U.S. in advance of the World Cup are soft, calling into question whether the high-profile tournament will deliver the boon U.S. tourism officials are expecting.

"[V]iolating academic freedom becomes an essential requisite for entrenching and sustaining the specific illiberal mindset that the erosion agents pursue." Interesting new study about the erosion of #AcademicFreedom in Hungary and Poland. #HigherEd journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

An excellent video from @ucu.org.uk highlighting the continued destruction of higher education in this country. We need urgent change to how the entire sector is funded, led and governed. Please, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social, can this Labour government do something?

Week zero of the semester and life is hectic. Looking forward to getting back in the classroom but the amount of things swirling around... Let's just say this fog feels appropriate. Hope everyone is well and feeling some sunshine soon! ☀️

The phrases used to avoid saying 'redundancy' and to sanitise the brutality of laying staff off are really something. "Adapting for continued success" here. What others have you heard?

'We likely require fewer academics with research in their remit, but those that do need greater time allocated, and must be subject to a strategic research management regime'. I remain very sceptical/negative about the medium- and long-turn impacts of separating research and teaching. 1/2

*hisses like a cat* BAD www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

France announced today it’s phasing out Teams, Zoom, etc. to be replaced with a French/European solution called Visio. The data is hosted on Outscale. Transcripts and subtitles are also handled by French providers. The target is set on 2027 for government agencies.

A boycott of the World Cup absolutely needs doing. But I very much doubt anyone else will suggest it. Few in sport or politics have the gumption or courage. www.bbc.com/sport/footba...