Liz Morrish

Same old playbook

I can almost taste the curly fries, well-done burger and rice pudding here.

collin's diner, route 7, canaan, connecticut, 1977

collin's diner, route 7, canaan, connecticut, 1977

General McChrystal’s Dolly Parton Doctrine The retired four-star general looked to “Jolene” to describe Trump’s second-term foreign policy.

US foreign policy: The Jolene Doctrine. Well, it makes as much sense as any other analysis at the moment. www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

this is of course part of a much larger attack on modern languages, which, frankly, undercuts the supposed ‘market’ arguments around falling student demand. we know that languages improve graduate outcomes and employability and we know they enrich students’ lives.

If languages close at Univeristy of Essex, that means large parts of the East of England is left without HE languages provision.

Jfc this happened to my department years ago when I was at Sussex.

FIFA Peace Prize latest

Today - 12/03/2026 - BBC Sounds News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

In today's 'women are getting angry' - here's Emma Barnett drilling a new one for Nick Thomas-Symonds on #r4Today over the Labour boys' club discounting consorting with Epstein as a problem for #Mandelson. Starts at 1:47:50
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Watch this clip.

Professors will recognize this kid as the student who didn't do the reading but still has very strong opinions about how it's all "bullshit," except this time he's not the callow student who's going to fail your course, he's the reviewer who's going to cancel your grant.

America's loss, Britain's gain. Oh wait, I forgot Shabana Mahmood.

Women are starting to get really angry.

Despicable.

Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only Teaching staff at post-92 institution to be employed by subsidiary firm and lose right to access expensive pensions scheme

As @amyryall.bsky.social pointed out, the REF is supposed to be an audit of institutions not individuals. In that case, let's only award pension benefits to VCs whose universities are in the top 20% of the REF table. That'd tighten them.

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only Teaching staff at post-92 institution to be employed by subsidiary firm and lose right to access expensive pensions scheme

I really didn't think I could still be shocked by the capacity of university managers to demean, demoralise and betray the best qualified and most talented people in the country.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only Teaching staff at post-92 institution to be employed by subsidiary firm and lose right to access expensive pensions scheme

'Teaching-only staff at Sheffield Hallam University are set to be moved into a subsidiary firm, leaving research intensive scholars the only academics still being employed directly by the institution.'

Utterly inequitable & betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the teaching/research nexus. 1/3

Wow.
Research staff can have a decent pension but teaching staff can’t.
Wonder how students will feel about how much Sheffield Hallam values their teaching.

I thought REF was supposed to be institutional.

Solidarity with all @ucuhallam.bsky.social this is absolutely despicable behaviour.

FFS... and not the most important thing but stopping teaching staff from accessing the Teachers Pension Scheme is exactly the kind of irony that sums up UK HE

disgraceful - while all these universities scramble to stack student numbers to survive, they don't actually value the thing that keeps the lights on.

This is absolutely disgraceful and deeply perpetuates the divisions between research active and teaching and scholarship colleagues. HE teaching requires research skills and this division is as incoherent and unsound as it is immoral.

Shabana Mahmood approves police request to ban Al Quds march in London Home secretary says ban on Pro-Palestinian rally ‘necessary to prevent public disorder’ after Met police raised concerns

"If liberty means anything at all, it means ...." Oh I give up. Still, I expect Toby Young and the FSU will be up in arms about this, ditto the free speech warriors at the Daily Telegraph. What's that you say? Really?

Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only Teaching staff at post-92 institution to be employed by subsidiary firm and lose right to access expensive pensions scheme

Moving teaching-focussed staff away from the Teachers'Pension Scheme is the ultimate irony for a university which boasts Gold TEF and an equal regard for teaching and research. @sheffieldhallamuni.bsky.social

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only Teaching staff at post-92 institution to be employed by subsidiary firm and lose right to access expensive pensions scheme

When I wrote in 2016 that UK academics were treated like indentured servants, that triggered a charge of gross misconduct. Am I right yet?

"Only staff eligible for the REF will remain employees of the university and retain their TPS pension."
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

I'm sure everyone will want to go to a uni where teaching is blatantly devalued in this way.

Opinion: “What I think about is if I return to Afghanistan, will I have the chance to continue my teaching at university? There, I see zero per cent job security.”

The UK’s visa ban is another blow for Afghanistan’s despairing intellectuals, says scholar #highered
https://ow.ly/Po5r50YraxQ

@audreywatters.bsky.social Interesting - from within JISC
bsky.app/profile/eica...

The choices universities and colleges make about AI are political Ahead of this week's Digifest, Michael Webb and Rebecca Flook confront the complex values systems behind general purpose AI technology

'The systems now being woven into education are shaped by a remarkably small group of people. Not “the internet” as the source of training material. Not “society” influencing the way we use these tools.'

Fascinating that this comes from within Jisc. 1/3

Part of Trump’s mass appeal (and of why he’s so dangerous) is that he really seems to share Joe Barstool’s worldview that there are no complex problems: Everything has a simple brute solution, which previous leaders were somehow too stupid or weak to deploy.

The hill I will die on: People who ski have more money than sense | Emma Loffhagen Extortionate costs, queueing in the cold and potentially life-altering injuries? No thanks. And don’t get me started on the EDM après-ski hell, says freelance editor Emma Loffhagen

As a cross country ski enthusiast, this really nails my thoughts on downhill.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...