I know!

High performing degrees taught by dedicated experts which support loads of students to be culled in the name of governmental shrugging and “adding value” managerial parasites bluffing their way through the next generic PowerPoint

a man in a suit and tie is talking to a woman and says i wanna hold out hope but hope is painful . Alt: a man in a suit and tie (the character of Harold Finch in the TV series Person of One and played by the actor Michael Emerson) is talking to a woman and says "i wanna hold out hope but hope is painful"

We've reached #PersonOfInterest 's Season 2 finale

I really enjoyed the series when it first aired

Rewatching in 2026 is still enjoyable but now it's all too realistic

Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture with Dr. Emma Smith YouTube video by FolgerLibrary

Did you catch the @folger.edu Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture from Emma Smith this weekend?

www.youtube.com/live/KZV-21r...

FANTASTIC news!! 😀👏

@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social on strike again tomorrow - pickets from 9.30, free film screening @ Tyneside Cinema from 11.00.

See y'all there, for 'One Battle After Another' - in real life and on screen! @onebattlemovie.bsky.social @paulthomasanderson.bsky.social

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.

That's going to sound "terrific" on the University's webpages and REF intentions (if they still have them). I'm appalled that the SMT thinks this is a viable solution

Almost everything we argue about is a substitute for the thing we should be arguing about: the immense wealth & power of an oligarchic class, which captures governments, ruins lives and wrecks the living planet.
This class redirects our rage at scapegoats. To resist its lies is to resist its power.

The cyberattack on The British Library in October 2023 knocked out ebooks and almost ever other computer thing there for years.

Ebooks just came back. They were knocked out everywhere using the BL’s license (legal deposit libraries I think? More libraries?)

Distributed physical copies matter.

pink peony flower bud with an ant nearby

patiently waiting

Lu Yan (b. 1980), Regeneration - Floating Life (polychrome woodblock)

Lebanon, Iran, Israel, Gaza, the US. None of them merit a BBC news headline this morning apparently

Yes: @timothycbaker.bsky.social 👇

Solidarity with my UKHEI colleagues who

- are doing the student-facing parts of the job that must be done in toxic working conditions

- have lost jobs in UKHEI & are trying to keep their lives intact

- have yet to find their 1st open-ended academic job

✊️

What makes the protracted internal assault on higher education so distressing is that most of us who are targeted still fundamentally believe that universities are, or should be, or could be, good places to work, and the reality of the current environment never quite overcomes the vision.

University staff to strike after vote against vice-chancellor Frustrated staff at the University of Essex have declared a day of strike action and a rally in Southend after a vote of no confidence was held

www.echo-news.co.uk/news/2603540...

If London South Bank is doing this from financial distress then it should have notified OfS that there’s a serious danger of bankruptcy so students can be protected.

If it’s not, then this is simple asset-sweating cartoon capitalist evil and their leaders need to be sacked. Like mine.

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

brutal, shameful and disgusting

I can't stop thinking about this + 'Hamnet-era' in the Guardian yesterday + that quote from Sam Altman doing the rounds, about buying intelligence as if it were a utility

Rectangular cut portable whetstone with clear signs of rust, seen in my gloved hand. Made of sandstone with quartz properties, sometimes they have knife grooves and a hole at the top to enable to enable the owner to attach to a belt.

Whetstones often have knife marks carved deep into the stone. This one hasn’t but has clear signs of rust, evidence of (iron) blade sharpening. They were typically cut into rectangular, portable bars, sometimes with a hole at the top enabling them to be carried about attached to the owner’s belt.

From the river today, a lark with a good friend, Peter, who has taught me how to find whetstones. Used for millennia to sharpen blades, this particular example is probably post medieval, found near a famous old fish market. Like Roman whetstones, this is made from sandstone, rich in quartz 1/

How many of us in #UKHE are hearing this exact same script these months? They don't even have the decency to treat staff with dignity.

Also: the slashing of jobs didn't solve anything in 2022, neither did making the portfolio bland. Stop making the problem worse, managers.

It's the Principal's KPI (drawn up with NOUS), with uptake of the staff survey as the *only* metric for staff relations.

So the Senior Executive Team ONLY hears about the uptake. NOTHING about the content.

Loads of money well spent. Very clear signaling of how much they value staff's input.

'In addition to seeking the “dissolution of [the university] council in its current form”, the group called for wider reforms to the higher education system, including “a reimagining of the funding model” to “prevent the university from rehashing and reviving the plans in further...years”.' 2/2

Goldsmiths students occupy library in protest against job cuts Group demands university leaders rule out compulsory redundancies and course closures following new cost-saving plans

'The students – who have launched a “Free Goldsmiths” campaign – are asking for “immediate widespread transparency” about the latest redundancy plans and the state of the university’s finances. They...demand that university leaders rule out compulsory redundancies, course closures and mergers.' 1/2

✊️

Join your union. It’s not perfect but it’s all we’ve got. #UCU

Happening at a UKHEI right now

What the actual f? This is absolutely dreadful

I recognise the justification you've been given

Do you/ local union have the energy to fight this?

Solidarity with you and your colleagues

Fantastic news !

Very many congratulations to my Faculty colleague
Dr Leonie Smith (School of Global Affairs)
and co-recipient @jonbebb.bsky.social
for winning the first
"Teaching Philosophy in the Community" award

More information below