Jennifer Burke Reifman

Jennifer stands in a podium in graduation regalia, speaking to the student beside her who is also in a cap and gown.

Being on the faculty side of graduation is actually pretty special. Presenting one of the undergraduate researchers I worked with this year (who’ll be starting as an MA student in the fall) being the highlight. Yay for the end of year 1!

Tinsel the calico glares at you with a furrowed brow

“I asked chatGPT-“ ok, and I asked Tinsel, and she said you’re an uninspired, vapid dork who needs a computer to think for them.

If you’re at #4C25 I’ll be presenting on my work partnering with undergraduate researchers tomorrow morning (session GA.9) — come by! #teamrhetoric

Flyer listing dates for Writing Assessment Standing Interest Group meetings at the Cs Conference in Baltimore. April 9, 9-12:30pm: Workshop April 11, 3:30-4:30pm: Annual Meeting April 12, 12:30-1:45pm Roundtable

I’ll also be helping to facilitate the Writing Assesment SIG work with @curiousmagpie.bsky.social

Come see us in Baltimore!

I’ll be representing Xchanges Journal at the Editor’s Roundtable! Come through!

Picture of the cover of the journal: College Composition and Communication.

There’s something so gratifying about getting a print copy of a new article. Check out the digital version here: www.proquest.com/docview/3171... @curiousmagpie.bsky.social #TeamRhetoric

The thing about scientific research is that it’s one of the few national investments that’s a clear public good even if you entirely discount the actual ostensible point of it.

So glad to see this out in the world!

El Capitan displays a massive American flag upside down—the traditional signal of distress or extreme emergency.

I don't think we're talking enough about the fact that the pressure to remove DEI from science means women die.

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education published the information collection for the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid ( FAFSA®) form in the Federal Register, the first public step in the FAFSA development process. The Department is on track to launch the 2026-27 FAFSA by Oct. 1, 2025 as mandated by the FAFSA Deadline Act. The Department also announced that current and future FAFSA forms will rightfully reflect the biological reality that there are only two sexes: male and female. Department officials will remove “nonbinary” as a gender identification option from the current year’s FAFSA form. “The Trump Administration will correct the failures of the last Administration and ensure students and families can easily access the FAFSA form in a timely manner,” said Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron. “Resolving ongoing problems with the 2024-25 form, reflecting biological reality by referencing sex identifiers, and beginning the process for the 2026-27 form on-time will allow the Department to earn back the trust of the American people. Families and students depend on the FAFSA form to plan their futures, and any release delays or unnecessary politicization of the form is wholly unacceptable.”

Screenshot showing open comment form on federal register site

Department of Education FAFSA changes are open for public comment. The changes include requiring trans students to misgender themselves and removes the nonbinary option on forms. Note: comment period is 60 days, and comments are publicly visible.

Form here: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

Department of Education letter naming DEI programs discriminatory and illegal and therefore a threat to federal funding…. Read it for the most twisted of arguments.

#Education #DepartmentofEducation

Becoming an R1 is a really interesting turn for a CSU. What this means against the backdrop of the system’s budget crisis, mandated AI integration, and the greater Higher Ed funding crisis though? No idea. 🙃

#TeamRhetoric #AcademicNews #SDSU

www.sdsu.edu/r1

The Alt National Park Service account is a real gem these days.

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

CSU, reeling from budget cuts to classes and faculty, decries more proposed state reductions California State University, already reeling from budget cuts to classes and faculty amid enrollment declines, is blasting as "unacceptable" more proposed state funding reductions.

That Cal State adopted AI amidst massive layoffs & cuts does not mean AI caused the cuts; the (v Democratic) state legislature enacted them. But it’s also neither coincidence nor conspiracy: it’s conjunctural - layoffs & AI r both different articulations of austerity www.latimes.com/california/s...

Honestly, such a wild email to start the day with 🫠

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

“In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.” This is undoubtedly such a time.

www.aaup.org/report/again...

The Great Creator Reset The TikTok ban isn't just a platform reconfiguration, it will reshape the political leaning of the creator economy and permanently alter whose voices get heard online.

“TikTok is the only platform where left-leaning news influencers outnumber right-leaning ones. TikTok has more than double the concentration of creators who identify LGBTQ+ … and 73% of teens who identify as Democrats or lean left use TikTok.” open.substack.com/pub/taylorlo...

How I feel editing a paper from a pristine APA to a ramshackle MLA #academicproblems

Theme of the writing retreat was boats, I think.

Congrats!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Conference on Community Writing - Coalition for Community Writing Conference on Community Writing™ Detroit, MI October 23-25, 2025 Call for Proposals Submit a Proposal Here Learn More Photo credit: Kate Sumbler Welcome to Detroit Video Keynote Speaker Donnie Johnson...

2025 Conference on Community Writing
Theme: Designing Justice Across Space, Place, and Time"

Detroit, October 23-25

The submission deadline is Monday, February 17, 2025.

To access the CFP, proposal portal, and other conference information, visit the conference website:

On Sesame Street this morning, we saw Oscar learn about the research process: Observe, Record, Annoy. Nailed it!

great article about the devaluation of absolutely anything where women achieve 50%. which is a thing.

Maybe too specific, but using review features/track changes! In both Word and Google Docs