Jerod Quinn

These are “low enrollment” majors but the classes are regularly at capacity. They changed the funding structure a few years ago here, switching the allocation from course enrollments to majors then blamed these departments for a structural, top-down change. This is entirely a political choice.

Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump.

An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump. n.pr/4qTItsU

From the doomsaying, curmudgeonly communists at the Harvard Business Review:

I tell you what, Ring figured out exactly how to weaponize white people’s empathy in service to a corporately controlled surveillance state.

Tell them it will find your dog.

An illustration of a man in business attire standing, with his hands on his hips, in a dark room, in front of an illuminated keyhole-shaped door he is ready to walk through.

Career Advice | Bringing Staff Expertise Out of the Shadows

Universities are set up to recognize classification, not contribution—rendering the intellectual contributions of academic staff largely invisible. https://bit.ly/4qaxtaa

#EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

An amazing critique of Bowen and Watson's "Teaching with AI"

Thank you, Victor. I spent a few weeks on this. As usual, it’s always a negotiation with length. So a few other bon mots:

1. The admin has issued DOJ guidance to challenge state laws that would regulate AI

www.wired.com/story/ai-sup...

How to Film ICE Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.

NEW: The @wired.com Security desk put together a comprehensive guide to filming ICE—with tips for reducing risk at the forefront. No paywall, but please consider subscribing to help find these kinds of resources. And stay safe out there. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

www.wired.com/v2/offers/wi...

3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*

Early Arthropods

xkcd.com/3199/

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out.

As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.

Here's what happened:

This must be weird news to see if you’re one of the literally hundreds or even thousands of university administrators who preemptively censored faculty, scrubbed websites, changed the names of centers, etc.

UT-Austin Is Closing Its Teaching Center. Faculty Members Ask: Why? A series of shutdowns announced by the provost are short on detail. Professors say they make little sense.

This is just devastating news. www.chronicle.com/article/ut-a...

AI running 8-week online course to replace faculty teaching 16-week semester. This is right-wing and tech utopianists' idea of "helping" higher ed students. Charge them same amount, but make them believe it's better bc they finish faster and can back to full-time jobs.
@higheredlabor.bsky.social

This is a systematic effort to violate constitutional rights as policy while keeping it secret from the public, the courts, and Congress.

Yet more evidence that "reform" is not an option. The bare minimum is to abolish ICE and permanently bar all employees from future federal employment.

Either some unions are planning some things (yay!) or everyone just wants to hear what a salon with me, Matt, and Anna would be like.

Here's a direct link to the podcast if you want it:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

War powers resolution fails after Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley flips his vote • Missouri Independent Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri flipped on their previous votes to advance the war powers resolution.

Whew. For a hot moment there I thought my senator had grown a spine, found a moral compass, understood separation of powers, or decided to finally choose democracy over his own fragile ego.

But nope. Josh Hawley is back to being Josh Hawley.

missouriindependent.com/2026/01/14/r...

🚨"This is nuts! What the f*ck is going on, this is insane! ICE is just trying to scare people; they tell you it's only immigrants—it's f*cking anybody!" -furious Minneapolis resident tells our @zdroberts.bsky.social after ICE shot a man in the leg tonight. LIVE NOW ⬇️

I’m not in any way surprised:

„The report offers a surfeit of evidence to suggest that students who use generative AI are already seeing declines in content knowledge, critical thinking and even creativity.“

A galley copy of The Public Scholar: a practical handbook

(It’s real)

It’s easy to think that schools in Minneapolis are closed because the Feds murdered someone in the street but no, the actual reason is that while that was happening, the Feds were busy doing other heinous shit across the city like tear-gassing a school

IF THIS IS THE FIRST POST YOU SEE TODAY LOG OFF AND GO BACK TO BED

I've been talking about both doctoral study (with academic jobs as the goal) AND tenure for YEARS in terms of RISK MANAGEMENT. It is a very calculated, and increasingly speculative, risk. You have to treat it that way.

Faculty hate it when I do this. Especially about tenure.

a man with a beard and long hair is holding a fishing rod ALT: a man with a beard and long hair is holding a fishing rod

Don’t know if you saw, but in the last week the Columbia MO school board announced it is suing the State for forcing charter schools, therefore diverting public money to private schools, on Boone County.

Never been more proud of my school board. I wrote them to let them know.

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."

- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.

Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!

A propaganda poster in a painterly style. At the top there is a Nazi soldier in a faded grey with his hands raised at the point of a bayonet. Above him it says "We beat 'em before.." Below him in darker grey is an ICE agent in the same posture, with a hand pushing back at him, its palm out in a "stop" gesture. Below it says "We'll beat 'em again!"

New Illustration: "We Beat 'Em Before..."

Taken from a British WW2 poster, the original features a WW1 German soldier at the top. I just swapped it for the Nazi soldier it had at the bottom.

If any journalist wants to talk to a trans man with a PhD in Human Genomics who was trained in labs that studied the evolution of sex, I'm right here

Or just keep platforming Republicans who have a 5th grade understanding of biology so they get more trans people killed, sure 🤷🏻‍♂️

The Top Ten Articles of 2025 My best writing of the year, a photo gallery of America, and a big sale!

My top ten articles of 2025, a photo gallery of America, and a huge sale! sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/my-top-ten...

Yes it is curious. It’s because they lie.

Someone on here mocked me a little when I (gently) explained that edtech’s entire use case in higherEd is to build a higher quality training dataset than the ones AI can scrape from the internet. And to labor bust.

I don’t know how else to say it!

My gift to you: the worst Christmas playlist, to horrify your friends and relations. Apple Music & Spotify links at shitm.as