I got my permanent job at a university in 2008 (after 8 years hourly-paid) and now face redundancy. My salary has declined in real terms for my entire career.
The graph for senior management pay in a broken sector looks very, very different. This is not an accident.
AI is killing science and nobody’s doing anything about it
J. H. Prynne wrote a guide to reading works of literature for Cambridge students. This was the postscript:
As I have already said elsewhere today, destroy the OfS. It does nothing beneficial for universities, students, education, or society
#PalantirOut - not in!
Well let's see how this strategy of telling "white liberals" to "fuck right off" works out in the local elections
'If a freedom is needed to support education, it is academic freedom. The time I have to do research is limited by how I am judged. As long as university funding is collapsing, as long as people are being made redundant in universities that are understaffed, academic freedom is in danger.' #UCU
I still can't understand why "getting a sustainable HE funding system in place" isn't a/the KPI for all VCs.
Instead, we get constant shrugging of shoulders while saying "my pockets are so stuffed full of cash that I can barely raise my shoulders. So really, I'm the one who deserves some sympathy!"
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
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.
In my experience moral leadership in contemporary academia is largely absence or symbolic. And the senior scholars that do provide it often have to sit outside of formal power structures. It seems easier to clamber the greasy academic pole if you're a malliable coward rather than a principled leader
There are so many things Bridget Phillipson could be doing to secure UKHE. It is completely unconscionable that the government is allowing this to happen across the sector, and is trying nothing at all beyond its pointless culture war bollocks. Govern or piss off.
Join your union. It’s not perfect but it’s all we’ve got. #UCU
Awful. I’m so sorry.
Let’s not forget, as we all notice how awful the Office for Students and Bridget Phillipson are this morning, that their plans for the Teaching Excellence Framework involve downgrading institutions with identical data to last time, and using that rerating to pretty well immediately bankrupt them.
You'd only know it if you consulted the public record, so here it is: lordslibrary.parliament.uk/office-for-s...
I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name
OAI: say no more
"the purported effects of AI are frequently exaggerated due to a lack of proper references and reliance on sources that do not support the claims." Great to see this critical review: AI-hype! A critical approach to artificial intelligence in physical education (Standal, 2026) doi.org/10.1080/1357...
OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit
Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here
Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse
Media and universities: AI is here to stay
An action figure of Jessica Fletcher from the tv show Murder She Wrote.
My sister got me the greatest birthday present ever!
As a trans academic, I am beset on all sides by the failure of Bridget Phillipson to do her job.
I’m no HE policy wonk, but it seems to me that the two immediate big fixes for UKHE would be
1. Be less racist. Welcome international students.
2. Planned economy. Return to student number controls.
Let's be clear: the destruction of universities is a political choice. It doesn't have to be like this. Sure, there are issues, some serious, but Ireland's universities aren't totally screwed, nor The Netherlands'. The UK government has made a choice - it is demolishing and incinerating education.
Quite something to think we are staring down the barrel of a crisis which will end high level research and teaching as something spread evenly across the country's cities and towns, accessible to all, and both UK and devolved governments just don't seem to particularly care?
@ulsteruni.bsky.social - Announces intention to make 450 colleagues redundant
University decimated 🤬😡
@caoimhearchibald.bsky.social @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
Disgusting reporting by BBC using a tiny number of cases to suggest widespread abuse of a system which routinely denies LGBTQIA+ individuals asylum and forces them back into environments of persecution. This article massively distorts the reality of the situation. 1/
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Carlos Alcaraz Credits Success To Tennis Being Easiest Game In The World ‘All You Do Is Smack A Ball And There’s No Basket Or Tackling Or Anything,’ Says Star Player
Carlos Alcaraz Credits Success To Tennis Being Easiest Game In The World theonion.com/carlos-alcaraz-credits-s...
