i’ll never understand being a mean girl academic in 2026. are we trying to save what we love and sustain some modicum of a scholarly community, or do we want to keep playing passive-aggressive “i’m smarter than you” games? some folks still don’t get the stakes. the rest of us are exhausted.

Staff are typically "easy" to let go and the after-effects are often seen only years after those positions have been eliminated. The advising and student success research clearly shows what good advising can do for student success, retention, and graduation rates.

honestly, if more schools did what UVA advising is doing, we’d be having much more holistic conversations about what college can offer students and how they can take advantage of it. i bet we would have happier, more successful students, too.

i feel like there should be a collective word for “nerds” (complimentary) if the internet hasn’t already established one — but not something predictable like “symposium.” we need something totally unexpected!

Oh this is great: there’s now an #Artemis II Lunar Flyby Gallery on the NASA images site: www.nasa.gov/gallery/luna... (thx @dpmanchee.bsky.social for pointing it out)

this string of replies is why @jasoncombs.bsky.social is my beta reader. as long as i’ve known jason, he’s had an incredible intellectual range, but he couples that with serious theory & method work and beautiful prose in his written work. his latest is OA:

exactly this.

hey, paul scholar friends: as predicted, i've got questions about pauline pseudepigrapha in my intro class. help me out: what early conversations were happening re: authorship around the pseudepigraphical letters? do church fathers question the authorship of the pastorals, for instance?

it never fails that we’ll put WOC in leadership positions only to erode their authority when real stakes emerge. ftr: this is tantamount to questioning our competence.

If you are a colonial Latin Americanist and don’t know what to do with your digital docs from old projects, please consider donating them to the Iberian Colonial Repository, where MA or PhD student can give these docs a second life in their own research projects! DM me for questions.

Some doorways make it hard for us to stay in our lane.

if you, like me, need a pre-work decompress, check out the tokyo lens explore youtube channel. it's mostly gorgeous, soothing hikes all over japan with a delightful host.

We’re on strike today! Support our fight for a fair contract by NOT visiting the @propublica.org website or engaging with ProPublica stories today. Tell ProPublica’s management you won’t cross the picket line: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...

Also of note, Iowa paid Chris Rufo—perhaps the leading propagandist for the current assault on higher ed, an unqualified hack and admitted fabulist—$34,000 to speak. It's embarrassing that any higher ed institution would invite him, especially when they are cutting departmental budgets.

some days, i really want everyone and everything to leave me alone. the world is fucking relentless.

The famous Andor line is that "tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle." Here is a perfect example of that through malicious compliance: Idaho forced the city of Boise to remove its Pride flags. So the city painted rainbows everywhere else.

please stop calling 47 sanist slurs, friends. plenty of mad folks don’t threaten genocide.

really would love to have a life where the difficulties of learning a new language or socializing are considered hard mode, or “friction-maxxing.” pretty sure existing in 2026 IS friction-maxxing, but maybe i’m just a coddled princess, who knows?

I made a whole BBC TV series (2020) about the remarkable resilience of the people of Iran and their culture over centuries of threat and callous rule. You can watch it right here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

there is no civil rights gain in this nation's history that happens without the involvement of religious actors and communities full stop feel however you need to feel about that but then suck it the fuck up, bc we need all of us in this thing

🚨New preprint and our results are rather concerning.. We find the "boiling frog" equivalent of AI use. Using large-scale RCTs, we provide *casual* evidence that AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance. And these effects emerge after just 10–15 minutes of AI use! 1/

Watch the recording of the AHA's History Behind the Headlines event exploring the history of US intervention in Latin America. Moderated by Ben Vinson III, the panel features George Reid Andrews, Jurgen Buchenau, Lillian Guerra, and Alejandro Velasco. 🗃️

jesus h.

"Moon's haunted"

On the theme of kids of astronauts, this is Maya Glover, the daughter of NASA astronaut Victor Glover and Dionna Glover. Maya is at Cal Poly doing architecture. From her Insta: mayalorinnn.

Come work with me! @wired.com is hiring for a staff editor who will work across all of our coverage areas and with our international counterparts—an ideal job for a curious polymath. Details in the listing:

In the latest issue of our advocacy newsletter sent on April 2, #AAR Executive Director Claudia Schippert revisits Arendt's "activity of thinking" and ponders the consequences of its absence for democracy. Read now and subscribe if you haven't yet: mailchi.mp/aarweb/advoc...

my kingdom for schools to realize that religious literacy is a critical skill given, well, all the things. but that would require schools to care about teaching and learning, not only about turning their students into good neoliberal cogs for industry.

i'm on a panel with a UVA friend according to this email i just received, but of course i have no idea *which* UVA friend because UVA email handles look like canadian license plates.

why do my transcripts cost a whole $10 to email, UNC?! didn't y'all take enough of my money?

may we never be forgiven. for this, for so much.

"By week one, I was already tired of his anti-rich, pro-Samaritan bullshit. I wanted to take a course in Christianity, not liberalism."

It also means thousands of poor HS teacher will lose an important source of summer income when they move to AI grading. Which is of course why they're doing it.

“…the researchers argue that AI systems have given rise to a categorically different form of “cognitive surrender” in which users provide “minimal internal engagement” and accept an AI’s reasoning wholesale without oversight or verification.”

every college and university should be mad as hell about this if they care about — *checks notes* — meritocracy. but let’s see…

Jacquelyne Kibler's "Indigenous Knowledges and New Materialism: A Citation Analysis of Exclusion" is a racing rundown of how much the field has built on uncredited Indigenous epistemologies archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/24...

Object Oriented Ontology was a backdoor entry into AI respectability among a certain set of academics.

i know i complain a lot, but we’re having a ridiculously gorgeous day today in SWVA.

The latest Pasts Imperfect is out! 📚 This week, Nandini Pandey, Niek Janssen & Christopher Londa discuss enslaved readers & writers in Roman antiquity. Then, Venice & the Mongols, a podcast on Cahokia, ancient astrological practices, ancient world journals from @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & more.

EXCLUSIVE: “Casualty Cover-Up”: The Pentagon Is Hiding U.S. Casualties Under Trump in the Middle East The Pentagon has sent outdated statements on the number of U.S. troops killed or injured during the Iran War, resulting in undercounts. theintercept.com/2026/04/01/i...

no travel, apparently. and i plan on being extremely salty for the rest of the day at least.

My Eris Morn duck has entered the chat.

everyone send good travel vibes, please! i’ve got delays already.

i have a bungo stray dogs nendroid of dazai osamu who’s my brainstorming partner. AI is for the folks who aren’t weird enough. if you think you need it, get weirder first. i promise it helps with the brainstorming.

find some friends to bounce ideas off of; much more fun than a chatbot.

Awe and wonder at the vastness and mystery of the universe is one of the holiest human experiences and I think it's fine for governments to expend a lot of resources to provide that experience

One small quibble with NASA’s excellent mission stream. The astronauts need walk up songs.

SpaceX could never

moon launches are still so fucking cool.