2025: The Year Foreign Aid Fell Off a Cliff - The McLeod Group McLeod Group blog by Stephen Brown, April 20, 2026 The latest numbers on foreign aid are out, and 2025 proved to be a record-breaking year – but not for the right reasons. It was a historic retreat, w...

Dire insights on the precipitous drop in global foreign aid (ODA) in 2025 by @stephenbrown.bsky.social for the McLeod Group: www.mcleodgroup.ca/2026/04/2025...

You may not want to know this but I just got back from Iowa City near where the Cap'n crunch factory is and apparently the factory alternates between making the cereal and dog food on different days...

Policy Briefs | Center on Global Poverty 2026 Policy Brief #1 "Co-Creation Plus Cash" Mary-Collier Wilks, University of North Carolina Wilmington

I'm excited to say I had the opportunity to write a policy brief, "Co-Creation Plus Cash" for the JHU Center on Global Poverty. Check it out here:

sites.krieger.jhu.edu/cgp/policy-b...

If you're at the University of Iowa, I'll be giving my book talk here today at 2:30 in McBride Hall!

events.uiowa.edu/event/37095

This week is my mid-West tour! I'll be doing a virtual book talk with Indiana University on Wednesday and I'll be at the University of Iowa in person for a book talk on Friday. events.uiowa.edu/event/37095

Thanks to my friend @drichardsonsoc.bsky.social, I'll be doing a virtual book talk next Wednesday with Indiana University Bloomington. Check out the registration link below!

airlines have lost the plot.

At AAS in Vancouver, I got to see my new book, Reimagining Aid, which investigates how foreign aid in Southeast Asia is being transformed by our increasingly multipolar world, out at the press booth for the first time! @aparc.stanford.edu @stanfordpress.bsky.social @asianstudies.org

4/1/26 1 PM ET: Join @profmarycollier.bsky.social for a Zoom discussion of her new book Reimagining Aid.

Hosted by Indiana University's Tobias Center and the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

If you're going to AAS in Vancouver this year and you're an early riser, please consider checking out our panel, "Global Health Imaginaries and Governance in Southeast Asia" on Saturday. Excited to be presenting on my book and attending AAS for the first time!

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

#MorningReads
Book Review: Get It Out: On the Politics of Hysterectomy By Andréa Becker

Just out here trying to get the word out about my book 😅

classnotes.uvamagazine.org/person/mary-...

If you're in the Wilmington area, my colleague, @erin-michaels.bsky.social and I are having a book event this Friday!

Tenure Will Be Eliminated at Most of Oklahoma’s Public Colleges, Governor Says Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, directed the state’s two-dozen regional universities and community colleges to phase out the practice. Existing faculty members will be grandfathered in.

Breaking, from me: An executive order from Oklahoma's governor directs most of the state's public colleges to "phase out tenure." #AcademicSky #HigherEd @chronicle.com
www.chronicle.com/article/tenu...

Test, Measure, Punish The risk of closure and repression in schoolsIn the last two decades, education officials have closed a rising number of public schools nationwide related to...

I'm thrilled to share that my first book is now out!!!
nyupress.org/978147982339...
Many thanks to ‪@ilenekalish.bsky.social‬ & the whole team at ‪@nyupress.bsky.social‬ for helping me bring this into the world!

If you'll be at the Sociology of Development Conference or in the Princeton area this weekend, please come and check out my first ever author-meets-critics panel. It's on Saturday at 4pm! #SocDev #authormeetscritics

On Friday, I wrote about what SRH care access advocates should know about Heritage's new insidious plan for "saving" (read: breaking) the U.S. Today, @jessicavalenti.bsky.social published a piece that offers a great big picture look at the plan: jessica.substack.com/p/theyre-com...

Can't say I am shocked...

Emily Oster now writes that RFK Jr’s new dietary advice—which included eating more red meat, saturated fats, beef tallow & full fat dairy—is “fine and arguably positive advice well worth following” 👀

Half the advisers who shaped the advice have financial ties to the livestock or dairy industries 👀

USAID Closure Makes Way for an “Asian” Development Imaginary - Association for Asian Studies By Mary-Collier Wilks In February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would reduce foreign aid spending. By July 2025, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was officially s...

New reading: @profmarycollier.bsky.social wrote about the closing of USAID on #AsiaNow.

#ReadUP @asianstudies.org

This is so real!

Thank you!

The Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill invites applications for a Teaching Assistant Professor or Teaching Associate Professor (depending on qualifications and experience) to begin July 1, 2026. This is a nine-month, fixed-term position with a 3–3 teaching load and a 3-year contract, with the possibility of renewal. The successful candidate will play a central role in the department’s undergraduate instructional mission, teaching a mix of lower- and upper-division undergraduate courses. We are particularly interested in candidates who can contribute to instructional needs in the Management and Society major and/or the Health and Society minor, as well as introductory sociology courses. Review of applications will begin February 16, 2026. More details and application instructions available here: https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/312247

The UNC Sociology department is hiring a Teaching Assistant or Associate Professor. The review of applications begins 2/26/26. To apply, visit unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/312....

Very excited to read this!

Congratulations to @profmarycollier.bsky.social, APARC's 2021-22 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia, on the publication of her new book 👏

Scientists mimicking the Big Bang accidentally turn lead into gold The physicists made an unexpected breakthrough

My first thought: they have funding forever now!!

USAID Closure Makes Way for an “Asian” Development Imaginary - Association for Asian Studies By Mary-Collier Wilks In February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would reduce foreign aid spending. By July 2025, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was officially…

New #AsiaNow post: Sociologist Mary-Collier Wilks @profmarycollier.bsky.social discusses how changes in aid funding from the United States and Europe has altered the situation on the ground and changed the landscape for practitioners in Southeast Asia.

Science personnel and funding gutted at astonishing scale in the US:

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

💯

Ahh, alternative reality. I just finished reading The Ministry of the Future, and sadly, it feels like that book happened in Gore's reality.