Damning report on @BBCRadio4 this morning about the financial situation of UK universities. As Id been told by others involved in UK digital policy, the general attitude is to digitise almost any aspect of UK HE that can be automated, and employ #AI tools to achieve this. To me this is almost a death knell of UK HE standards. No one attends university to learn with a bot, least of all to pay high fees for the pleasure. #bbc#highered#academicchatter
Since hegemons declared the pandemic "over" early in the pandemic, I have seen article after article complaining that students aren't doing well and intimating it's because "lowering standards" during the pandemic harmed them.
Meaningless platitudes from outgoing UC Berkeley Chancellor Christ, who cares so much about "shared humanity" that she lied to those who wrote to her in 2020 urging her to read & act on the Demandifesto steps. https://archive.org/details/disability-equity-and-justice-demands
My institution - the University of Toronto - just released a remarkably bland statement on the student encampment. It basically says: we know emotions are running high, but please give us time - admin and students are talking. I have no inside information, but on the face of it at least, this is encouraging.
“…For students and faculty exercising their right to academic freedom including the freedom to protest? Or for those who require a militarized system of surveillance and policing in order to feel “comfortable” in maintaining a status quo that has continued for far too long?”
In Ontario, "public spending was still restrained by a frugal government more interested in highway building than higher learning." While one would be forgiven for imagining this is a description of the current provincial government, it actually applies to the province's priorities in the postwar period.
University of California is holding its annual survey of undergraduates. It surveys on several subjects, including "campus climate for diversity and inclusiveness". This is especially important for disabled undergrads to weigh in on, IMO. If there are freeform comment fields, make sure to fill them with anything you want them to know that they're NOT asking you about.
In an interview I just taped with Rashid Khalidi about #Columbia he said words to the effect of "this is the neoliberal dream of the university--no students, no professors, just administrators and cops on campus"
Fellow academic colleagues: please get involved in shared governance at your institution. I know, that kind of service takes up your time and is often thankless, but it is crucially important. And it is on the verge of extinction at many places. The rug is being pulled out from under us while we go about our teaching and research.
If we value our work in #HigherEd we have to do the work to make the institution a place that is fair, equitable, and just.
"police raids do not serve a university’s own interests in maintaining peace and civility on campus. The 1960s made that crystal clear. Bringing law enforcement to campus invariably intensifies protests, fuels acrimony, and creates a climate of distrust. Police involvement doesn’t dampen protests; it accelerates them, often with devastating consequences"
This excerpt from a DEI survey shows the attitude: In their view, it's not up to the university or the department to do the work to be as accessible as they can be by default (highest common denominator accessibility). It's up to the disabled person to take on the labor of fighting for our rights and they'll "accommodate" us if we take it up the chain (they don't).
Even the word "accommodation" betrays that they like inaccessibility to be the norm, from which they may occasionally deviate if you do the work, fill out the forms, and beg.
In which I propose an integrated #academic#conference team to be established at #universities, to make the process of organising and running academic conferences much easier - and reduce the workload on #academics - who don't usually have event management as a core skill.
'Dance Your Ph.D' music video 'Kangaroo Time' showcases differences, diversity - winner turned his research on #kangaroo personality into a winner #highered#australia