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Reposted by Devin Garofalo

Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 2d

It was very great to talk w/ the amazing SEL managing editor Kelly McKisson about institutions & pandemic-time in dialogue w work by @marymullen.bsky.social, @annakornbluh.bsky.social @mltondre.bsky.social, @devingarofalo.bsky.social, Liz Miller, Barbara Leckie, & others

@sel1500to1900.bsky.social

The Great Unread Era of the Global Shutdown: Pandemic Time, Remaindered Ideas, and the Vacuum of Reception, An Interview with Nathan K. Hensley Professor of English, Georgetown University – SEL's Marg...

marginalia.blogs.rice.edu

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 2d

MIT President Sally Kornbluth just issued a statement to the campus community saying NO to Trump’s authoritarian compact

“And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

Dear Madam Secretary,
I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.
I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.
As we discussed, the Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:
• MIT prides itself on rewarding merit.
Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute
was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions.

• MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family's finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available
to any American with an internet
connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly
10%.
• We value free expression, as clearly described in the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. We must hear facts and opinions we don't like - and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree.

These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission - work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific
funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that tree marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences.
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.

As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the
U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people.
We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.
Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth
CC
Ms. May Mailman
Mr. Vincent Haley

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2d

week 7, in a city under siege for 32 days and counting, and the students who are able to come to class despite the blitz are showing up like their lives depend on those 50 minutes of togetherness, poetry, and big questions

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 2d

IDK, man. School started 2 weeks ago for us, and once again students remind me that they’re so curious and interested in the world and anxious to ask big questions. We hear that these questions are no longer useful or relevant, but wherever that’s coming from, it’s not what students believe.

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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 3d

And who is the author of this op-ed? The billionaire CEO of an asset management firm who helped author the compact.

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dead manu walking @profchander.bsky.social · 4d

students said they weren’t really poetry fans but loved novels, so i wrote down a line they picked out from jane eyre, scanned it, noted the metrical substitutions and internal rhymes. reader, they took pictures of the chalkboard.

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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 12d

Once again, it is *faculty*—not administrators—who brought this case and won. Including UC Faculty Association chapters of the AAUP.

Court Rules in AAUP v Rubio: Trump Admin Violated First Amendment

The AAUP and partners sued to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members for ideological reasons.

www.aaup.org

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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 20d

Patricia A. Matthew explores class, leisure, and the historical context of Pride and Prejudice.
lithub.com/what-pride-a...

What Pride and Prejudice Tells Us About British History, Class, and Women’s Leisure Time

The first dialogue readers encounter in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a conversation between a wife and husband who have been married for twenty-three years. Mrs. Bennet is all aflutter abou…

lithub.com

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 22d

I do love your taking up of this quote but also glad unwriting is not possible! (Said by someone who hates everything they write.)

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 22d

You are also on my syllabus, just saying!!!

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 23d

Thx Rebecca, had missed the intro excerpt!

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Reposted by Devin Garofalo

Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 24d

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history."
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Censorship Is the Authoritarian’s Dream

The right to free expression must include the right to say horrible and evil things.

www.insidehighered.com

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 23d

👀

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andy hines @andyhines.bsky.social · 23d

excellent and comprehensive story about what's happening at Texas A&M

www.texastribune.org/2025/09/19/t...

How a secret recording of a gender identity lecture upended Texas A&M

Officials have struggled to detail the exact reasons for the A&M professor’s termination, citing a technical issue with her course description. Faculty say the move was politically motivated.

www.texastribune.org

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 23d

@profchander.bsky.social @rcolesworthy.bsky.social how do I get my hands on this thing, I solemnly swear I will purchase a hard copy even in the event I am able to persuade someone to give me a sneak peek!!!

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 23d

I have been impatiently waiting for this book to come out and just this morning aspirationally put selections from it on my grad seminar syllabus, the timing could not be better!

Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 25d

Major new piece from David Ben-Merre (Buffalo State) and Manu Chander @profchander.bsky.social (Georgetown), in epilogue of David's excellent new book "O: Apostrophic Ghosts and the Disappearing Acts of Lyric Poetry."

Epilogue: Every Þrose has its thorn On Poison, the Cure, and other Pharmacological Prickles; Or, Why are you so far away?

By David Ben-Merre PhD. and Manu Samriti Chander, Published on 01/01/25

digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 25d

Who benefits from attacks on higher ed?

Certainly not the US economy.
Certainly not the states where higher ed is the major employer.
Certainly not the American people.

excellent work @ehayot.bsky.social and @paulakrebs.bsky.social
www.post-gazette.com/opinion/gues...

Eric Hayot and Paula Krebs: It's not about Palestine, DEI or trans athletes

We are facing a defunding of knowledge production in this country. This isn’t only a problem for academia. Many local economies, like Pittsburgh’s,...

www.post-gazette.com

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Annette Yoshiko Reed @annetteyreed.bsky.social · 24d

“Syracuse University paused admission to 20 majors in the College of Arts and Sciences without faculty input” dailyorange.com/2025/09/coll...

College of Arts & Sciences pauses admission to 20 majors amid portfolio review

Syracuse University paused admission into 20 majors in the College of Arts & Sciences without faculty input amid its portfolio review.

dailyorange.com

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NPR @npr.org · 24d

UC Berkeley told 160 faculty, staff and students that their names were included in files shared with the federal government related to "alleged antisemitic incidents." We hear from one of them.

UC Berkeley professor warns of 'unprecedented crackdown' on academic freedom

UC Berkeley told 160 faculty, staff and students that their names were included in files shared with the federal government related to "alleged antisemitic incidents." We hear from one of them.

n.pr

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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 24d

This man could have simply resigned rather than fire a prof and demote a dept chair plus a dean. That would have been leadership.

ghostly gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 24d

Welp: Texas A&M President Mark Welch just stepped down after pressure from Republicans over a video of a professor who taught about transgender people in a children's literature class

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Matthew L Reznicek @drreznicek.bsky.social · 24d

We are launching a new #CFP at the Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine on Climate Change and Planetary Health. More details here link.springer.com/collections/...

Climate Change Mitigation and Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Planetary Health

The climate crisis poses a dual challenge, undermining the integrity of both natural and social ecosystems, while simultaneously threatening public health, ...

link.springer.com

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 26d

go go go

a *historic*, WALL TO WALL coalition of national & California labor unions, *including* the Faculty Associations and led by the AAUP

www.latimes.com/california/s...

UC employees, not waiting on leaders, sue Trump for 'financial coercion' over UCLA cuts

University of California faculty, students and staff on Tuesday sued President Trump over a $1.2-million penalty against UCLA and federal demands over campus changes. They argued that the actions are ...

www.latimes.com

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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 28d

Clearer every day that any authentic human future will need to take place off-line

Professor Tom Crick @proftomcrick.com · 28d

Revisiting the "dead internet" theory www.popularmechanics.com/science/a659...

The Internet Will Be More Dead Than Alive Within 3 Years, Trend Shows

All signs point to a future internet where bot-driven interactions far outnumber human ones.

www.popularmechanics.com

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Natalia Cecire @ncecire.bsky.social · Sep 10

lot of people out here laboring under the misapprehension that uni is just further high school and there is some higher authority on content than the professor who is a live, working researcher in the field

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · Sep 10

And if you’re damn sure that tenure will save you, consider that there’s ways of making someone’s job miserable without firing them.

Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · Sep 10

I know there are tenured professors out there who breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the A&M firing happened to a non-tenure-track faculty member. It’s going to come for you too, so maybe this is a good moment to do unto others etc.

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · Sep 10

January 2023

When their jobs were threatened in a new and acute way in the first few months of the pandemic, many tenured and tenure-track historians were able to recognize themselves as workers, sometimes for the first time. The specter of higher ed’s imminent collapse prompted many of them to ask for solidarity and support from the colleagues they have long refused to fully acknowledge as colleagues.

Even as they saw themselves as exploited laborers, few were able to acknowledge—or even seemed aware—that these conditions predated the pandemic for adjuncts. Fewer still were ready to reckon with the ways that their employment was dependent on the continuation of those conditions. The lack of solidarity with striking adjuncts and grad students during this year of labor action confirms this disconnect, and it should not be surprising—the interests of these groups of employees are not the same, and are often directly opposed.

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