Jessie Starling

Opinion | I Led Product Safety at OpenAI. Don’t Trust Its Claims About ‘Erotica.’

Universities must cut ties with OpenAI. And no, "cocaine is available on the streets, there's no reason we shouldn't dispense it in the dorms" is not a good argument.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/o...

Visiting Assistant Professor in Korean Studies Lewis & Clark College of Arts & Sciences The College of Arts and Sciences at Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college with 2,000 undergraduates, located in the southwest hil...

Join me at Lewis & Clark next year to teach 3-5 courses in Korean Studies!
lewisandclark.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Faculty/job/...

somewhere in portland, there's one person, or a small handful of people, who came up with the inflatable costume idea, and I feel like they deserve our immense respect for defining the obvious developing aesthetic of the contemporary battle against fascism

To the University of Virginia community: On Monday of last week, Rector Rachel Sheridan and I shared a message with the community regarding the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We were asked to provide comments on the proposal no later than October 20. Today, I sent the letter below to the Secretary of Education and to White House officials. The letter confirms our core values and commitments while expressing our view that federal research funding should be based on merit. I want to thank personally the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, Student Council, and many other members of our community who expressed their opinions on the proposed Compact, through the online form we provided and other means. Your thoughtful feedback shows a profound care for the University and a strong commitment to its future. We will continue to work to strengthen free expression and free inquiry, protect academic freedom, ensure affordability , promote intellectual pluralism, and maintain institutional neutrality in an increasingly polarized world. I am grateful for your continued dedication to the University and I look forward to working with you on these vital projects. Paul Mahoney Interim President University of Virginia

October 17, 2025 The United States Department of Education Washington, DC 20202 Dear Secretary McMahon, Ms. Mailman, and Mr. Haley, Thank you for your letter inviting comment on the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We wholeheartedly agree that “American higher education is the envy of the world.” We also agree with many of the principles outlined in the Compact, including a fair and unbiased admissions process, an affordable and academically rigorous education, a thriving marketplace of ideas, institutional neutrality, and equal treatment of students, faculty, and staff in all aspects of university operations. Indeed, the University of Virginia leads in several of these areas and is committed to continuous improvement in all of them. We seek no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals. The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship. A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education. Higher education faces significant challenges and has not always lived up to its highest ideals. We believe that the best path toward real and durable progress lies in an open and collaborative conversation. We look forward to working together to develop alternative, lasting approaches to improving higher education. Sincerely yours, Paul Mahoney Interim President University of Virginia

UVA says no to the compact

DMing you

i am feeling, i am seeing, i am hearing, i am getting the vibes, that students this sem are better than they've been in years because learning offers a rare haven from authoritarianism, a place to convene, commune, think together, refuel for the fight

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

"This 'compact' is more like an invitation to borrow money from the mob, with substantial control and future penalties assured"
- Siva Vaidhyanathan, media scholar at UVA
newrepublic.com/article/2013...

under this language charlie kirk would not have been allowed to speak on clemson’s campus

Opinion | I’ve dedicated my career to promoting free speech on college campuses. Here’s why the murder of a red state college dropout by another red state college dropout means it’s time to fire liberal professors in blue states.

Week 34 Sept 6-12, 2025 - the purpose of a parachute

Each Friday, I summarize what is happening to American science & higher ed. 🧪

This was Week 34:
- UC Berkeley feeds the administration a list of targets
- Dept of Ed rescinds $350M from minority serving institutions
- faculty firings at Texas A&M

& so (SO) much more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

The president plans to invade Chicago this week. Now to schedule the vet appointment and get the kids’ backpacks ready for school!

The attack on core departments, tenured, and tenure track faculty is now accelerating in blue states, building upon the assault on NTT colleagues. Far from resisting Trump’s assault on higher ed, University admins in Democratic run states are spraying fuel on the fire to make it burn faster.

I found this website full of usable resources as well as "solidarity solace for educators who might find themselves inventing wheels alone while their administrators, trustees, and bosses unrelentingly hype AI and nakedly enthuse the negative consequences for educator labor."

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

Essay | Paradise Lost at the University of Virginia Teaching literature is an exercise in freedom. Now ideological demands from the right are putting it in danger.

I'm so sorry to hear about the troubles at my graduate alma mater. I hope the faculty will keep fighting the good fight, as they have been. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.

Visiting Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and Classics Lewis & Clark College of Arts & Sciences The College of Arts and Sciences at Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college with 2,000 undergraduates, located in the southwest hil...

Come work with me for a year, and help make sure religion in the ancient world continues to be taught at Lewis & Clark! lewisandclark.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Facult...

Nowhere in the story does it explain how the men were confirmed as being ICE agents. How can anyone know they're not just kidnappers if they don't have badges or ID? And why are they masked?

No indication here of why Dr. Jeon's visa was suddenly revoked. UH states: "We are aware that one University of Houston faculty member has been affected by the SEVIS visa terminations based on his recent status as a doctoral student at (Ohio State)."

New job:

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Japanese Buddhism

University of California - Berkeley

www.h-net.org/jobs/job_displa...

Very happy to have been a part of this great volume that explores exciting new perspectives on Japan, religion, and Japanese religions. If you speak Japanese, have a look at this conversation between the editors of the OG and new Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions!

Did You Work on a Terminated NIH Grant? ProPublica Wants to Hear From You. The National Institutes of Health is canceling grants that are seen as conflicting with the Trump administration’s priorities. We want to hear from researchers who have been affected.

Did You Work on a Terminated NIH Grant? ProPublica Wants to Hear From You. www.propublica.org/getinvolved/...

This is insane. “Everyone is welcome here” should be the principle guiding every classroom, not a banned phrase

When I was a teenager in an evangelical church in Arizona, my pastor would have used this as an illustration of the Antichrist.

The deadline for proposals for the 2025 American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Boston has been extended to March 10. Here is the CFP for the Japanese Religions Unit: papers.aarweb.org/group/14930

"Our Arabic program is half a millennium old but couldn't withstand the corporatization of the contemporary university because it isn't nuclear engineering"

Assistant Professor in Japanese Buddhism University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

Outstanding job opening in a legendary Buddhist Studies Department with an absolutely top-notch Japan Studies program as well.
Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA is searching for a tenure stream assistant professor in Japanese Buddhism!
recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09824?fbc...