Here’s my potentially controversial hot-take of the day on higher ed pedagogy: let’s move away from the language of “data-driven” pedagogy. Yes, of course your pedagogy should be data (and research) *informed*… But not to the neglect of your expertise and judgement as an instructor.

On the one hand, I’m glad that restrictions on doing research about the health effects of psychedelics are being loosened.

Today I attended an education research talk by a math professor and, as someone who mostly lives in these pedagogical spaces within the social sciences and humanities, it was a total breath of fresh air.

Ooof, definitely not a pic you want to be remembered by. 16 years in power is, like, you know, A LOT of years. #AlwaysStandForDemocracy #DemocracyRequieresTheCirculationOfElites #MaxWeber

Seems like Trump really enjoyed the UFC fight on Saturday. Meanwhile, Iran talks collapsed. #Priorities www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/u...

Cool research on a classic higher ed question: are the wage benefits of college just about the credential, or do you actually learn stuff in college that matters for getting (and doing well in) jobs?

“Trump’s excursion has proved to be a march to disaster. His “major combat operation” has shifted from aiming to block Iran achieving a nuclear capability that was supposedly “obliterated” last June to unblocking the S. of Hormuz and restoring the situation that existed before the operation began.”

Leadership… or its absence, has consequences. #gallup

The article argues that people often confuse two different things: giving everyone the chance to go to college versus saying everyone should go. The real goal is access, making sure students who could benefit from college actually have the information and support to choose it.

Repeat after me: “the percentage of college grads who are underemployed has DECLINED over time.” “the percentage of college grads who are underemployed has DECLINED over time.” “the percentage of college grads who are underemployed has DECLINED over time.”

Important correction to that bubble graph about engagement on X/Twitter by Nate Silver. Apparently, the data source is trash, which makes the graph questionable but also weirdly confirms the point Nate Silver was trying to make (that there’s a lot of misinformation on X, including Nate’s post).

Fascinating research! “‘Without the labour of social reproduction – nursing infants, caring for children, cooking meals, laundering clothes, making beds, tending to sickness – there could be no wage labourers marching off to the fields and the workshops.

This is an excellent piece by Beth McMurtrie that takes grade inflation as an entry point to unpack a series of complicated institutional, pedagogical, cultural and teaching dynamics.

New research on the ROI of various grad degrees, using data from Texas. On average, graduate school does boost your earnings. But that average fails to reveal differences across students and programs. www.nber.org/system/files...

Two quick things about my UCSD undergrad students I've been meaning to post about, before I forget again.

Finished reading the Amulet graphic novel to my daughter. So good! I can see how it could be used in a literature class to discuss AI. A nearly irresistible technology that makes you super powerful, but the more you use it, the more you lose yourself to it.

Friends and colleagues, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to share a heart-wrenching story about parenting, childhood, friendship, cruelty, and growing up.

Folks, a little fable for your feed. Imagine a guy (because, you know, of course it’s a guy, or at least it’s almost always a guy) who decides he's done with his long-time crew.

🙏 to Fabio Rojas for posting my comments about sociology’s geographic concentration over at his his Temple of Sociology Substack! You can check it out here: templeofsociology.substack.com/p/is-the-soc...

To all ya’ll mom scientists out there, 🙏🫡 🙇‍♂️.

Here's your provocative claim of the day: the problem with the argument that academics are both too woke and not really woke because their views don't align with the American working class is that, wait for it....

Academic and Teaching Centers staff colleagues: I’m writing a paper tentatively titled, “Anatomy of a Contested Pedagogical Landscape: A Conceptual and Historical Account of the Structural Contradictions at the Root of Higher Education Pedagogy.”

Nothing like starting out my day with a bite of chocolate cake to make me feel like an accomplished adult. 🤦

Got lots of pushback on this in another platform. In hindsight, I wish I had avoided the snark in my comment. #Sorry Mainly folks were arguing that the bar chart doesn’t add any info compared to the radial chart, but it does add a lot of visual clutter.

Anthropic should have just created a bar chart. Apparently none of their LLMs told them that.

Here you go. Directly from Anthropic: how much work in different sectors of the economy is currently handled by #Ai vs how much could be theoretically handled by it. #TheFutureofWork #Ai #labor #AiEconomy

One of my favorite parts of my job is being surrounded by a lot of people doing fascinating intellectual work. Recently, I’ve been cultivating the habit of asking my colleagues what has been on their minds recently, what questions or topics have drawn their intellectual attention.

Folks, two things I've been sitting with recently: @insidehighered.com has a piece out today by Kathryn Palmer about AI cheating in in-person classes. www.insidehighered.com/news/student...

Really interesting piece by Ali Kadivar. Go read it if you want a nuanced and thoughtful political analysis of the war against Iran and its potential consequences for the country’s political development. open.substack.com/pub/alikadiv...

Board of Peace Established —> Attack on Iran 🤔

Good piece mapping the micro-level power dynamics within the White House. Also, some absolutely chilling comments by and about the White House deputy chief of staff. open.spotify.com/episode/2DE7...

Universities have always had an uneasy relationship with dissent. Elite public and private institutions, in particular, have long been cauldrons of youth protest.

The syllabus for my grad course in Economic Sociology is ready! A bit different, I hope, than other econ soc courses. pardoguerra.org/socg-264-eco...

Sociologists: the concentration of sociology degrees in CA is not a population size thing. CA does produce a ton of undergrad degrees because of its size; around 12% of national total (BAs across all fields). But it accounts for 41% of sociology BAs. #Sociology #HigherEd #California #UC #CSU

Sociology colleagues: I'd love your take on this data. American sociology is, to a striking degree, Californian and public. #Sociology #HigherEd #ASA #Academia @asanews.bsky.social

Colleagues and friends in sociology: Join me tomorrow for an ASA webinar on “Navigating the Current Academic Landscape.” (2/26 at 4pm EST / 1pm Pacific). I promise to make it interesting. You can register here (free for ASA members): my.asanet.org/cv5/cgi-bin/...

Public Service Announcement: Em-dashes are a dead giveaway you’re using Ai to write. ChatGPT, in particular, loves them. #IfYouSayYouWroteItProveItWorld #Ai

Are we headed to a world (or maybe we’re in one already?) in which any claim to authorship over a piece of writing carries with it the moral expectation that you make all your AI prompting for that project public? Kind of like the way researchers make their data and code public.

Saw Hedda Gabler last night at The Old Globe with Katie Holmes in the title role. Highly recommend. www.theoldglobe.org/pdp/26-seaso...

Folks, if you’re one of those people trying to go full Lestat and live forever, you might want to check out this TikTok from Professor Anne Churchland over at #UCLA. www.tiktok.com/@neuroanne/v...

“Karen has no criminal record. She is a grandmother who spent eight years working as an admin assistant at a primary school before her retirement. “I don’t even have parking tickets in the background anywhere,” she says.

“It is only in popular parlance that social movements “die” or political eras “come to a close.” The finality of these phrases is rarely borne out in reality. Movements do not so much die as survive on a much smaller scale.

Thrilled to share that my new TRAILS assignment, “Practicing Ethnography with Visual Media: A Step-by-Step Assignment Using Downton Abbey,” is now live!

The Mexican federal government does this; it provides free, easy to obtain voter IDs to every eligible voter.

In the summer of 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—one of the central grassroots organizations of the Civil Rights Movement—worked with local Black communities in Mississippi to create Freedom Schools as part of Freedom Summer.

Very helpful discussion that demistifies tenure and explains what it is and what it’s not as a type of labor contract. open.spotify.com/episode/21c6...

One common phrase you’ll hear in Silicon Valley is, “I want to change the world.” In contrast, I’ve never heard my sociology students say that. What I have heard them say (often, and without irony) is, “I want to help people.”