Lisa Fazio

Excellent piece, including this quote from the head of Greece's statistical agency about why fights over data are also fights about whether a country can see itself clearly:

Just the best! You've got a good one ❤️ (and a great family)

That's so cool!!

A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia

I sort of thought either the first half of this or the second was some kind of a metaphor. Reader, it was not.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/w...

This week, the board met in person for the first time since the email vote. At the meeting, Dean gave an informational presentation about tenure at the university, including how the process typically works. The board wasn't entirely receptive. Trustees Marty Kotis and Jim Blaine both reiterated their opposition to tenure, while Perrin Jones and Rob Bryan raised skeptical questions. Much of the discussion centered around the net present cost of tenured faculty-the metric Clemens argued against using—and how the board can provide strategic and financial oversight of those decisions given the commitment of long-term resources. Preyer said he supported tenure in general but felt it had been given out "willy-nilly" in the past. He also inquired about ways to oust tenured faculty who "retire on the job." No one discussed the other side of the accounting ledger, as Clemens had. Roberts did not weigh in on the discussion.

Pretty grim kicker on an overall bleak outlook on the future of UNC

www.theassemblync.com/education/hi...

Ready to strengthen students' long-term learning? Gain practical tips from cognitive scientists who are also teachers! Join me, @lkfazio.bsky.social, and @veronicayan.bsky.social for a workshop on August 14. Early bird: Register by August 8 for $10 off! www.eventbrite.com/e/science-of... #EduSky

Real bad. I have a whole class on this, btw.

Look at what happens to male teacher salaries (blue line) v.s. female teacher salaries (red line) after collective bargaining laws expire.

let’s have a crisis of femininity, as a treat

you know the world is ending when Summers is supporting a woman in STEM

Alright friends - with the new academic year upon us, I plan to put in an order for more books. This year, I hope to reach 1,000 books gifted. Can you help me do that? Let me know! I wish I knew exactly how many people have donated to this effort - but I do know I'm grateful to them all!

The story of how Trump sells access to the White House - to benefit himself and his family financially and to benefit his political operation - is shocking and sordid.

No President has ever monetized access like Trump has.

1/ It's a story you need to know.

There must be a more dignified way for a democracy to die

News Analysis Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook In firing the head of the agency that collects employment statistics, the president underscored his tendency to suppress facts he doesn’t like and promote his own version of reality.

This Peter Baker joint does catalog Trump's lies and censorship, but headline and text tie themselves in journo-cliched linguistic knots to avoid that direct judgment. He's not "underscoring a tendency." He's not an "echo" of an "authoritarian playbook." He is a dictator.

Whether it's conservatives assassinating State Senators in Minnesota or liberals refusing to sell Alan Dershowitz pierogis in Martha's Vineyard, both sides have taken incivility to an extreme.

Channeling these vibes for the foreseeable future.

Conspiracy theories follow familiar patterns, repeating the same tropes over and over again, so that when a new event happens, the theorists can interpret that event through the same old corrupted frame… and blaming science for diseases has been an old, worn-out story, since long before Covid.

Cornell Expected to Reach Settlement with Trump Administration to Restore Federal Funding Cornell University is expected to reach a settlement with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that has been revoked over the last several

“The ransom that [Columbia] ended up paying strikes me as a pretty good value if you decide you’re going to pay ransom,” he added. “But the problem with paying ransom is that it incentivizes the taking of more hostages.”

www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...

Bending the knee one after the next

School drop off lines that stretch for miles are one of the most visible policy failures out there

You want…romance novels, Ian. They already exist.

The massive list of suspended UCLA grants came out today: 300 NSF and 500 NIH grants. I am miraculously not on the list, but this is devastating. Science will be lost, progress will be frozen, people will lose jobs, and careers in science and medicine are being destroyed. This is not ok.

Farm to faculty: How federal research funding changes lives and boosts Minnesota's economy When I was growing up on a farm near Cambridge, I never met a scientist. I didn’t know what scientific research was or how people became scientists. I graduated from

From farm to faculty. Writing home to his community in Minnesota, Prof Jim Magnuson explains that the powerhouse behind U.S. research is the infrastructure, paid by “indirect costs”. “This system has made U.S. science the strongest in the world.” 🧪🏠

www.hometownsource.com/county_news_...

Sketchnote of Nora Newcombe's Rumelhart Prize Talk, posing three questions and case studies for cognitive science: (1) innateness (with the geometric module as a case study), (2) representations (featuring cognitive maps vs. graphs), and (3) embodiment (featuring mental rotation)

Notes from @noranewcombe.bsky.social 's beautiful Rumelhart Prize "tasting menu" - congratulations Nora!!! #CogSci2025

Nora S. Newcombe and Robert Glushko stand together smiling on stage at CogSci 2025. Nora wears the Rumelhart Prize medal around her neck

Huge congratulations to the brilliant Nora Newcombe, recipient of the 2025 David E. Rumelhart Prize! 🏅#CogSci2025

"But what universities are learning, that authoritarian scholars already know and have been saying, is that complying with illegitimate attacks does not make them stop—it makes them continue"

Super useful timeline of the attacks on GMU

What if we keep our heads down & just tried the quiet, have-the-lawyers-work-the-back-channels strategy that failed predictably & miserably for a decade in Wisconsin with the Scott Walker & Robin Vos-led attacks on the UW System?

They're coming for every single institution. This has been obvious for months. Which is why Old Men like me have been Yelling At Clouds for university presidents to start speaking publicly, loudly, & collectively, against the full-scale assault on our sector

www.markcopelovitch.com/post/it-s-ma...

More hostage-taking

I'm fully convinced that if we simply cut our letter requirements from 3 letters down to 2 (or even just 1 for certain applications), we would be saving everyone a lot of time...