I am very tired but I am having coffee and charting with an undergrad RA this afternoon and bless student workers for being cool despite the absolute meltdown academia is having.
This week in higher ed labor organizing:
-university that thinks it's cool for their workers to be some of the worst paid in the sector tries to take away their chances for supplemental pay
-dean decides to start lying to everyone
-instructors are still trying to date students for some reason!!!
when you win a small concession you just get to keep yelling btw. one time a local official said to me "you people are never happy" and like: correct! it is not our job to be happy with compromise! it's our job to be annoying forever actually
As usual, the far right is positioned as normal/default and anything left of center gets shat on as "radical" (derogatory).
We all know Kristi Noem getting shitcanned doesn't actually solve anything, we know, but it's still awesome that she's having a bad day, let people enjoy this moment
Noem will now be "Envoy for the Shield of the Americas," because the Trump administration believes we are living in an Age of Empires playthrough.
I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing βreviewedβ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.
It would be super cool if big national unions used their massive platforms to uplift worker voices and actions instead of posting illegible memes and screenshots of random tweets.
It cannot be stressed enough how these Republicans donβt see government jobs as jobs at all. They see them as titles, no-show gigs where they can do whatever they want. Thatβs why οΏΌthey hated the people in those jobs before, they thought it was a scam because they donβt believe in doing the work.
Yup.
Ah yes, the wokeness and indoctrination of a university that built a conservative anti-trans research center that's housed in the president's office & that just created a new admin position to explicitly "reduce the risk of additional unionization efforts."
Hard to imagine how small and insecure these ghouls must feel, going after 300 people in a state of 3 million.
They went to war with Iran (which nobody in America was asking for) so they could conjure an excuse to allow ICE to keep murdering Americans and teargassing schools here at home with impunity (which nobody in America was asking for).
News headline: Death tolls rise in Israel, UAE and across region as Iran attacks continue and IDF strikes 'heart of Tehran'
Cool, guess there are no people dying in Iran for us to care about. π
An understated part of this: teaching staff, PhD students, research support staff, technical staff, facilities workers + more ALL voiced zero confidence in university leadership.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get all these people to agree on anything. The boss is truly the best organizer.
On Wednesday β almost a year after DHS agents took Mahmoud Khalil from his residency β Columbia students rallied on campus to demand the school protect them from ICE.
Less than a day later, DHS took another student from a Columbia residential building.
Things may have changed since I left, but when I lived in KS it was basically impossible to live without driving unless you were in the KC metro area or Lawrence. This is basically an immediate criminalization of all trans people in the state.
It seems all Kansas-issued trans drivers' licenses are invalid, effective tomorrow
It is now illegal for trans people to drive a car until they surrender their license at a DMV (that most will need to drive to) and have it reissued with the wrong gender marker
This was never about woman's sports
More on this blatant fascist move:
Rest in peace, Nurul Shah Alam. His blood is on border patrol's hands. www.wivb.com/news/local-n...
Boosting this directory of mutual aid projects and relief funds that still need support: www.standwithminnesota.com/directory
Strikes work. Congrats to NYSNA nurses on their historic contract wins.
For the first time since @projectsaltbox.bsky.social launched their DHS warehouse acquisition tracker, the number of canceled sales is higher than any of the other warehouse-related figures. We've reached a tipping point, folks.
lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/b0...
Much like the One Ring, neutrality isn't real.
Gollum holding up the One Ring, captioned "My precious neutrality"
All y'all bemoaning academic institutions taking stances on issues in the wider world affecting your fellow human beings sound like this.
University: We will offer you a 3% raise.
Faculty: We need a 3.85% raise.
University: NO MORE UNIONS EVER.
(This is what higher ed collective bargaining is like, for those who still believe university admins are reasonable.)
"Flexibility" = the explicit intention to pay your workers less than what they're worth, while paying your head men's basketball coach $2 million.
Shameful, embarrassing, and so damn disrespectful.
It never ceases to confound me just how many folks think the point of essays is to provide teachers with essays. That teachers just like, collect them, or need them for sustenance or something. Rather than the point of them being the *actual fucking act of learning how to think about shit*
Watch universities cut faculty research funds even more based on the idea that applying for grants is "easier" now, while funders get inundated with slop & good applications get lost in the shuffle. The end result is less scientific research outside billionaires' controlβwhich is the point.
Did you see ICE? Remember ALERTA. Be ready to report Activity, Location, Equipment, Requests for Aid, Time/Date of incident, and their physical Appearances. Rhode Island Defense Line 401-675-1414 Vermont Migrant Justice: 802-881-7229 NH Solidarity Network Hotline for Raids 978-219-7586 Mt. Washington Valley Rapid Response Team 603-726-6680 Maine Immigrant's Rights 207-544-9989 Coalition LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts 617-370-5023 Unidad Latina en AcciΓ³n 475-323-9413
A map showing service areas for each hotline Unidad Latina en Accion is in Connecticut Mt. Washington Valley Rapid Response is in the center of the Map Rhode Island Defense Line, Vermont Migrant Justice, NH Solidarity Network Hotline for Raids, Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, and LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts are in those respective states
Updated graphics of ICE watch hotlines in every New England state. Please share widely!
