really having a hard time processing this. I wish these incompetent managers were forced to carry out a term’s teaching on these terms. Not only is it meaningless & unworkable bollocks, it’s this *in the place of* the things that make life actually worth living (thinking, talking, reading, writing)
I’m so sorry, Daisy. All my solidarity to you and your colleagues. The cruelty of this is heartbreaking.
It's hard not to conclude that the cruelty is the point
My full solidarity with all those affected. I hope UCU (and other unions) will move swiftly to defend jobs
Higher Education continues to burn through talented people, imitating their 'competitors' in a strategy toward oblivion. University leadership across the nation only has one idea and it is cruel and self-defeating.
All my solidarity to colleagues. Another university 'management team' with zero sense of accountability. All too easy to blame the government. And enough with the rhetoric of 'improved curricula'. Impoverished curricula and skills that will not longer be transmitted - that's the reality.
Disgusting, heartbreaking, wrong. HE leaders are callous vandals, we can't go on like this
Solidarity. The cruelty of this is shocking.
More on the state of British academia.
Such cruelty and brutalisation effected through these processes that are dismantling disciplines and universities in the face of governmental indifference
Image shows the covers of pts 1 and 2 of the new vol. 1 of The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland
Congratulations to the editors and all who contributed to this long-awaited first vol (2 pts) of the History of the Book in Scotland! Great achievement. Proud to be included on Esther Inglis in pt.2, with her portrait highlighting the cover of pt.1.
#bookhistory @edinburghup.bsky.social
Today is #TransDayOfVisibility - today, and all days, I stand in solidarity with trans people. #TDOV
Can we have one of these inquiries here, please? #UKHE is also leading a stupid amount of money from the public institutions to these leechy private businesses. And yes, the lack of accountability is a key part of the issue about that.
They're buying unaccountability. Once you've got an external consultant in, you can hide your data because it's suddenly 'commercially sensitive', so that staff cannot see the basis on which decisions were made, and thus not challenge it. Plus it becomes very obscure where decisions are made.
Afghan women have now been banned from applying to study in British universities by the Labour government
www.gov.uk/government/s...
Please do spread the word about the @srsrensoc.bsky.social Scholars of Colour MA Scholarship Awards -- two pots of £4,000 each, and an optional mentoring opportunity. I've very much enjoyed being a mentor to a fantastic scholar through this scheme!
The SRS invites applications for its Postdoctoral Fellowships, ŵ a stipend worth £15,000. SRS Fellows can hold jobs alongside their fellowship provided they do not take up more than the equivalent of 3 days a week over the course of the academic year. Apply by 30 April
rensoc.org.uk/apply/postdo...
Utterly horrifying and destructive
This week’s horror is our introductory module, which examines the literature, art, music, dialect, film and TV from the region 1500-2025 being forcibly replaced by an entire ‘success in HE’ module featuring two weeks on how to use AI.
I designed my module to incorporate proper study skills…
Yep. In fact, the real failing of students was when we stopped requiring them to regularly search a library catalogue for their reading and instead produced lists with hyperlinks that students simply had to click. As soon as they have to go off list, they’re lost.
I have a 'History Department in UKHE' joke but it's been reduced from 250 characters to 50 and is now merged with jokes from across ten other largely-unrelated disciplines while still being expected to be Just As Funny.
Please help spread the word #medievalsky!
Funded PhD position on medieval literary and artistic representations of disability as part of a Vidi project I will be leading that is funded by the Dutch Research Council:
www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3592...
What does it mean for us being human when a massacre does not stop you in your tracks? In this essay I examine the various ways in which scholars have tried to imagine the undoing of the endless night of the Zong, the undoing of a world we cannot live within.
folukeafrica.com/what-you-do-...
The Poet Laureate of the UK is famous for his translation of St Gawain and the Green Knight, and Kym once got up on stage, looked him straight in the eye, and then performed this.
Unsurprisingly enough, every time they've encountered each other since, he's remembered them.
Workers don’t vote for 5 consecutive bouts of industrial action with a 75% turnout unless something is seriously wrong. Solidarity with all in Unite UCU ✊🔥
All the solidarity!
🚨 FIFTH consecutive vote for industrial action 🚨
🔥 Two week ballot window
🔥 75% turnout
🔥 73% YES to strike action
🔥 81% YES to ASOS
Our members will not tolerate victimisation and won’t be intimidated.
UCU staff are not the enemy. It’s beyond time for the GS to talk to us.
#HandsOffMarie
A governance structure which is run on pleasing one man incentivises people to hide things that aren’t pleasing, make unrealistic pitches & hope the consequences won’t be for you, and refrain from asking critical but needed questions.
In the absence of actual checks, you end up with crazy costings
What *did* they do all day? Because this feels like a key part of the job, the whole ‘knowing what’s going on’ bit?
UK unis: we need to pay mid-six figure salaries to the people in charge, because it is imperative we get the best and brightest to lead us.
Also UK unis: It isn't reasonable to expect us to do anything to solve any of our problems, or even to check whether a new problem might be brewing.
Excellent article: shows small-mindedness of punishing universities here on narrow, insular metrics out of their control. Seeing benefits of a degree in global terms changes conversation (+ it won’t be 2026 forever).
(And in any case UK grad salaries still 45% premium on non grad: not nothing)
