Nancy J. Jacobs

College professors stage NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Teach-In on Federal Government’s Higher Education cuts “Our ability to train the next generation of STEM professionals is in jeopardy,” said Maia Bailey, a Providence College biology professor. “We have lost funds to help us teach more effectively..."

steveahlquist.substack.com/p/college-pr...

PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release: March 22, 2025 Contact: Seth Rockman, sethrockman2018@gmail.com NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Teach-In on the Federal Government's Attack on Higher Education Providence, RI, March 22, 2025 College professors from Brown University, Providence College, University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island School of Design, and other local institutions will stage a "mobile teach-in" in Downtown Providence during Saturday's NCAA Men's Basketball games at the Amica Mutual Arena. Faculty will draw attention to the Trump Administration budget cuts that threaten higher education here in Rhode Island and on the campuses now competing in the tournament. "There won't be any winners when it comes to the massive reductions of research funding and financial aid befalling schools like Purdue, Arkansas, McNeese, and St. John's," said Seth Rockman, a Brown University history professor and organizer of the event. "These institutions may no longer be able to conduct transformative research or open doors to social mobility. This will be a disaster for our country." All eight of the institutions competing in Providence this week are at risk of losing millions in federal funding due to DOGE interference in the operations of the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Education, and other federal agencies. Purdue University, for example, may lose $70 million in funding from USAID. Cuts to federal financial aid may render St. John's unaffordable to the more than 30 percent of its students eligible for such support. Executive orders prohibiting institutional efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion have placed Clemson under federal investigation and resulted in last month's termination of three teacher education programs at High Point University. "These aren't 'woke' or elite schools," observed Rockman. "Red state, blue state, big, small, public, private, it doesn't matter. Everyone los…

At March Madness today in Providence, @sethrockman.bsky.social, a historian at Brown University, and profs from other local colleges will be conducting a mobile teach-in to draw attention to how DOGE cuts will negatively impact the students and communities associated with the schools playing today.

Peter and I at the #marchmadnessteachin. Full Court Press against Trump's Education Policies!

YouTube video by CBC News: The National Passenger describes Toronto plane crash, rollover

This guy is human.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9pa...

The God Abandons Us.

Substitute "liberal democrats" for "Anthony" and "democracy" for "Alexandra. There we are at the window, watching her leave. Playing music as she goes. We were not worthy and now she's gone. The God isn't intervening.

www.onassis.org/initiatives/...

Trump admin threatens to rescind federal funds over DEI In a sweeping and unprecedented letter issued over the weekend, the Office for Civil Rights declared race-based scholarships, cultural centers and even graduation ceremonies illegal.

Flat out assimilationism, www.insidehighered.com/news/diversi...

I asked for an "angry grey parrot" and got this:

Am I seeing things?'

I asked Chat GPT for an image of an angry African grey parrot and got this:

When I started this post, I was also reaching towards what we retain, it might help us recover. But the lesson of SA suggests that will take a long time. I'll end here, without exonerating the past by hoping for the future.

I'm incandescently angry about what they propose to "restore" greatness, but MAGA may be right on one thing: what was lost was actually not so great.

As in SA in 1948, this is a real turning point.

If we are outraged by what is happening, we should also be revulsed by what happened on the liberal watch. Lincoln's point in the Second Inaugural was, "you'll reap what you sow." And so, here we are. My class, my cohort, is losing its country right now.

I don't have to make a list, but you can think the good reasons that many people, here and abroad, from all across the political spectrum, do no not mourn the crumbling of the liberal establishment.

In 1948, the recent past had not been salubrious for most South Africans. Segregation was well established and the state regularly used violence to suppress dissent. What we've lost in the US was also not salubrious for many Americans or much of the world.

Last week and this week, I'm teaching on South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s. I feel something as momentous as 1948 in SA has just happened in the US. I don't say this only to rage at MAGA, but to think about what was lost and what will be required for recovery.

You may say my settings are wrong, but I share these posters' politics. I don't want to share their mode of critique. I had a sense BlueSky would be different, but I guess it's social media, after all.

I had a Twitter account for a bit. I considered myself in the Twitter world, but not of it. Now I'm trying BlueSky. I'm following people who share my politics, but I'm seeing a good amount of the binary thinking and purism that sent me off Twitter.

YouTube video by Rachel Carson Center Lunchtime Colloquium with Elijah Doro

Lunchtime Colloquium with Elijah Doro - @carsoncenter.bsky.social

“Toxic Narratives of the African Wasteocene: Gold Mining and Arsenic in Southern Rhodesia (Colonial Zimbabwe).”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc5U...

#envhist #mininghistory

I wonder if Mitch McConnell ever thinks about Faust..

Hello Bluesky world! What if I raised my head above the parapet and said things?

I talked about parrots: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgF8...

My review of a terrific book: Gabrielle Hecht, *Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures* networks.h-net.org/group/review...

It’s Giving Tuesday! Today, ASEH will double match a gift to the ASEH cause of your choice - that means a gift of $50 for fellowships, prizes, awards, provides $150 to support the work of environmental historians. Donation link is below, and thank you for supporting ASEH!

aseh.org/together-wit...