On Monday, at 1 PM, we welcome Casey Schmitt to our Ships & Seafaring Talk, where she will present her book "The Predatory Sea", a full-length study of the entangled history of captivity and colonialism using Spanish, French and English archives. Sign up here: www.eventbrite.com/e/ships-seaf...
Chart showing Ontario PSE funding by year, with 2018 adjusted for inflation and current student levels. 2018 saw equivalent of $16.5bn, with 2027 provincial projection $2.4 billion below that.
Last week the Ford gov't announced new #university and #college funding. But it still leaves Ontario students at the bottom of the pack and with worse per-student funding than in 2018 when Ford took office.
#HandsOffOurEducation #onpoli
Here's a map showing how the #Ontario post-secondary #education funding shortfall affects students living in different census divisions. For fun, it also includes corporate tax breaks in each of those areas.
#HandsOffOurEducation #onpoli
www.datawrapper.de/_/QLXpO/
Today I reactivated Atlantic Digital Scholarship, a project I began with Elizabeth Mancke in 2019 to support building research and community networks. I’m excited to bring the platform back, and to add new tools and databases including my ongoing work transcribing Saint John customs records!
Did these experts agree to be used in this way? Were they compensated? Or is this just more theft?
Leaving Substack, where we had both built up communities with thousands of followers, was incredibly hard, & restarting our own site even more so. Please check it out, subscribe for free, & support the phenomenal work @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social has done to create this space! 🗃️
blackwhiteandread.com
Silhouette of a woman with an enormous updo hairdo, long 18th century gown, and an absurd hat perched atop.
How can you be talking about HISTORY with everything that's going on. 18th century history? Women's history? Waves hands.
Friends, it is precisely because of everything that's going on that we need to talk about history much, much more.
Also at Berkeley, on Wednesday, catch me talking about my 14 years of experience in Opting Out of Big Tech, and why the world needs more of this right now!
besi.berkeley.edu/event/how-to...
It's been a long time coming. Canadian independent bookstores have banded together to create an online book buying source so you can avoid the behemoth in the room. (Here are the titles published by CMU Press, which I run.)
Spread the word #booksky!
www.booksellers.ca/publisher/cmu-press-18021
The same is true for some of the big ones. The University of Waterloo is still gutting the Faculty of Arts.
As an NS author, I’m outraged. Funding for ALL NS book publishers, many museums and others has been stripped. This will have devastating longterm impacts on our communities and culture. Don’t brush this off. Literacy is important to critical thinking skills, problem solving, and community building.
#NovaScotia PC Govt announced devastating cuts to the Arts for its 2026/2027 budget, including ending the Publisher Assistance Program. This core investment helps protect our culture from the onslaught of books coming in from across our borders. How-to #DefendNSbooks :
mailchi.mp/ddb43d514227...
Per @joshmatlow.bsky.social who quotes the AG report, Ford's new Science Centre will cost 1B more than repairing and maintaining the original Science Centre. This makes NO SENSE and shows no fiscal responsibility by the Ford gov when the province is under assault by Trump.
bsky.app/profile/josh...
The Canadian government & universities & schools need to pay attention and stop relying on Big Tech...that includes Microsoft, Google and their various products. Thiel, Musk, Altman etc are all at the helm of pushing "educational AI"...which is about surveilling populations.
Okay, so for people who know.
if I could only choose *one* maritime museum in France, because we're driving from Carcassonne to Paris over a few days.
Is it better to go to the naval museum in Rochefort or the maritime museum in La Rochelle?
I'm leaning towards La Rochelle
And this brings us to the recent OSAP changes.
While the Ford government has put some new money into post-secondary education, "over 50% of the new money is being reallocated...by taking about $700 million/year away from OSAP." /9
How did we get here?
Well, the first answer is provincial austerity.
As per Higher Education's 2023 Report:
"Now Ontario is an outlier. No province has underfunded PSE more...it is tenth out of ten in every inter-provincial comparison of funding.
...in a word, abysmal." /2
If you missed the news about Elsevier and Wiley (and doubtless the rest to follow) remaking themselves as AI companies with plans to profit from selling AI summaries of academic work back to the institutions that produced the original work:
bsky.app/profile/benp...
Elsevier introduces LeapSpace, an AI tool scanning 18M paywalled papers from 5 publishers. It offers a 'Trust Card' for citations, but it only hits ~22% of 2024 research, all at a cost of $32 per month.
Donning my purple gloves to say happy birthday to our 1000-year-old astrolabe #histsci 📜
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Explore African Canadian history with award-winning historian @nhenrydixon.bsky.social! Access open resources on Black Canadian histories and the African diaspora.
Learn more at Teaching African Canadian History: tach.natashahenrydixon.ca
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#BHM2026 #ProjectLaunch #DigitalHumanities
Reminder that the Consortium for #histSTM has research fellowships available (d/l april 15) for travel to 2 or more of its constituent members. Tho' most are in US, McGIll, U of Toronto and Wellcome Collection are also options for ppl who can't travel safely to US for research
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😍 Title page from a 1830 French bookkeeping 📖, with both women and men keeping the business running ... #WomenInMath #BookHistory #Roret
I will believe that Canadian governments are actually serious about our prosperity and role in the world when they start funding our universities at an actually effective level rather than constantly cutting them.
Ever wondered how Spanish privateers shaped global warfare & trade? Join Dr Vera Moya Sordo on Mon 23 Feb (1–2 pm CET) for “Kings of Privateering: A History of the Spanish Enterprise”, part of our Ships & Seafaring series #earlymodern #maritimehistory 🗃️
Register: www.eventbrite.com/e/ships-seaf...
#earlymodern
I just got my annual Public Lending Right cheque for Because Internet from the Canada Council for the Arts, so permit me a thread about what the public lending right is and why you should request books you love from public libraries!
LAC was already limping along on life support for years and now this.
The CFP for "New Netherland and the World," this year's NNI conference is up. We'll be meeting in Albany at the New York State Museum on Nov. 7-8. For more information, visit www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/programs/eve.... Proposals are due on April 1.
