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J.D. Connor @jdconnor.bsky.social · 4h

Penn rejecting the compact is a big deal bc Marc Rowan, the author of the central academic sections, is a huge Penn donor and was responsible for the defenestration of President Liz Magill. So they are not only standing up to an administration they had caved to (like Brown) but to their own alum

AAUP @aaup.org · 6h

🚨🚨🚨

And THREE stood up!

Penn has joined MIT & Brown in rejecting Trump’s loyalty oath compact.

When we join together and fight back, WE WIN!

No amount of federal bribery is worth surrendering the freedom to question, explore, and dissent.

LET’S GO!

#DefendHigherEd
@aaup-penn.bsky.social

Penn rejects White House proposal for special funding treatment

With the decision, Penn becomes the third university to decline the offer.

www.thedp.com

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Randolph Scully @randolphscully.bsky.social · 8h

📌

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University of California Press @ucpress.bsky.social · 1d

Congrats to Eric Gonzaba, whose WHA award-winning article pub'd in "California History" examines the culture of California Christian nightclubs opened by evangelical entrepreneurs in the 1970s and ’80s. #WHA2025 www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/b...

Born-Again Boogie: A Q&A with Eric Gonzaba

The recipient of the Western History Association's 2025 Arrington-Prucha Prize recognizing the best article on American western religious history tells us about his research into evangelical Christian...

www.ucpress.edu

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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 3d

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Brooke Newman @brookenewman.bsky.social · 3d

“It is not so much that proponents of ‘patriotic education’ want to end any discussion of slavery because they don’t believe it happened, but more that they don’t want people to see how slavery continues to shape social inequality in America today.”
🎯
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

What Is Colonial Williamsburg For?

Telling the full story of the town’s past is an easy way to make a lot of people mad.

www.theatlantic.com

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 7d

Accepting this as an argument means accepting that, as an educator, your primary commitment is not to educating your students, or to propagating knowledge of your subject, but to finding and securing new markets for products in whose success your employers (or their bosses) have some kind of stake.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 7d

The basic structure of so much commentary, some in the guise of academic study, reduces to:

(1) generative AI products are detrimental to the goals of education

(2) therefore, the goals of education must change.

Without the tacit axiom that AI has authority behind it, that just doesn’t follow.

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Association of University Presses @aupresses.bsky.social · 7d

Worth repeating: "University presses are essential infrastructure for the humanities & should be financially supported in the same way that other higher education inter-institutional infrastructure is." Some powerful examples here:

Institutions and funders must recognize the contributions of university presses to the humanities infrastructure (opinion)

Recognizing the university press community’s essential contributions to that infrastructure will be crucial as institutions and funders plan for the future, write Charles Watkinson and Melissa Pitts.

bit.ly

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Deepthi Murali @deepthimurali.bsky.social · 8d

Talking about Indian textiles, colonialism and 18th-19th century dress and identity in India and the Caribbean. Friday. Online and in-person at @georgemasonu.bsky.social

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Randolph Scully @randolphscully.bsky.social · 9d

Always here for a Joan Thirsk shout-out

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Do you think I’m spooky dot horse @truebe.horse · 13d

If Bluesky runs out of money you will not find me again. This is the last stop for this social media train

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alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 14d

if you're in albermarle county, the nastiest people you know are trying to bully the district into allowing anti-trans hate speech on school grounds, under the guise of free speech. it's an alt-right classic, and the only thing that works is outnumbering and out-shouting their shit.

Andrew @tjsleakyroof.bsky.social · 14d

article below covers the broad strokes. meeting is a week from today, Thursday 10/9, 6:30pm at the County office building on McIntire.

Spillman takes heat over Facebook post comparing club to KKK

ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- An Albemarle County School Board member is facing criticism after comparing a student-run club at Western Albemarle High School to the Ku Klux Klan

www.cbs19news.com

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Randolph Scully @randolphscully.bsky.social · 19d

At some point this is going to become accepted usage and then I will just give up and die.

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Kameron Hurley @kameronhurley.com · 19d

I've said often that the only defense against misinformation is not to play. Every time we share or dunk on a bad take, we're doing someone's job for them. In this case, generating a fake culture war to get Americans to hate each other (so many of these you'd think we'd be wise now, and yet)

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Early American Studies @easmisc.bsky.social · Sep 15

Monica Najar examines how 18th-century anti-Catholic writers used salacious stories of predatory priests to attack Catholicism, shape gender norms, & promote Protestant ideals of modesty in a bawdy, widely read print culture.
Now open access until 12/31/25: muse.jhu.edu/article...

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · Sep 15

This technology is so clearly designed to profit off cheating and struggling students--its insidious. And yet universities keep announcing how they're allowing this company into its midst, to exploit and incapacitate our students even more

A photo from Jamie Keller Davis for the NYT: a color photo of a Chicago skyline showing three buildings photographed from street level. The one in the center has brown brick-like walls, and a very large poster advertising ChatGPT. The poster shows a conversation between a hypothetical student and ChatGPT: "Can you quiz me on the muscles of the leg?" "Can you build me a first time marathon training plan?" The text at the bottom of the poster reads: "ChatGPT Plus is free during finals.

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Gautham Rao @gauthamrao.bsky.social · Sep 11

Just scanning media coverage of the-thing-that-happened and yeah we are, as the kids say, cooked.

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James Hell Brooks @kleinman.bsky.social · Sep 10

Obviously I don't think that'll happen but if you want to donate to the candidates working hardest to put a thumping on the Virginia Republican Party you can do so here app.oath.vote/donate?p=tsp...

OATH

Your one-stop-shop for political giving

app.oath.vote

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · Sep 8

AI companies in general and OpenAI in particular are part of an authoritarian project to centralize power.

That's actually how I would define AI tools: not by their tech stack, but by their political goals. @ali-alkhatib.com wrote a great piece about this and I cosign 100%

Ali Alkhatib: Defining AI

ali-alkhatib.com

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · Sep 8

lastly: shame is not effective public messaging for changing the behavior of **good faith low information individuals**

shame is absolutely effective public messaging for changing the behavior of institutions. and furious responses are appropriate for people in power choosing harm

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Randolph Scully @randolphscully.bsky.social · Sep 5

I'm continually infuriated that it accepts "tomtit" but not "trogon" or "caracara"

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Dan Howlett @dhowlett1692.bsky.social · Sep 3

🧵 Today, a student in office hours asked me about history he sees online and revision to historical figures. The way he phrased it, my spidey senses went off, and sure enough, he was encountering Holocaust denial

Here's the article on @askhistorians.bsky.social I gave him

slate.com/technology/2...

We Banned Holocaust Deniers From Our History Subreddit. Here’s Why Facebook Should Do the Same.

They aren’t arguing an actual side. They’re not “just asking questions” out of curiosity or ignorance. Don’t give them the chance.

slate.com

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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · Aug 31

“The Department of History at Lehigh University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position as Assistant Professor of History with a specialization in the United States and the World in the twentieth and/or twenty-first centuries and an anticipated start date of 1 July 2026.”

Assistant Professor, 20th/21st Century US and the World

facultyjobs.lehigh.edu

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Randolph Scully @randolphscully.bsky.social · Aug 30

But also, I wish that they read more and that the habits of reading came more easily to them. I think that's just a basic good for them and the world.

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Randolph Scully @randolphscully.bsky.social · Aug 30

But it does, and I need to remember to explain it to them. This is less of a "kids today" rant and more of a "I'm old and the basic assumptions of the world have changed" rant.

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