“bassoonists are taking our jobs!” is the only moral panic I’m interested in
unserious scholar, serious academic editor research in medieval studies; music history, culture, and politics; women’s and gender studies; increasingly writing about feelings glgower.com
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“bassoonists are taking our jobs!” is the only moral panic I’m interested in
Yes, part-time PhDs are still a thing. As far as taking 20 years to finish, that's probably NOT a thing. For example, at the university where I did my PhD, students who still hadn't filed their dissertation after 10 years were automatically kicked out.
*years
OpenAI is an evil company and ChatGPT is an evil product. Excise it from your lives and yell at any institution that tries to make you use it.
If you accept the premise that "illegal Migration" is a serious issue, then you are part of the problem. This is a moral panic and every time you affirm it as an issue you play into the signification spiral. Progressives/left must reject the issue itself not just the "solutions" of the right.
N.B. This is a joke. I was stupid, not special.
Finishing a PhD in 4 years is basically unheard of in the US for humanities programs, not that anyone cares. Of course, I finished mine in 5, but I was special 💅
okay but did Handel please the lord like Leonard Cohen
what the fuck
I assume these are the same people who sit on search committees bleating about how there is a legitimate comparison to be made between Ivy ABDs and post-PhD contingent faculty with 5+ years experience teaching and publishing.
but it was a sexy Dm7
Narrator: The chord was Dm7
Randi, promoting AI is the opposite of advocacy for teachers, which as a former member, I understand to be the sole purpose of the American Federation of Teachers. Please reconsider.
I really recommend doing it ASAP if at all possible, especially if you hope to pursue an academic career in the US. Not being able to drive was an even bigger detriment to my career prospects as a professor than I anticipated.
I work at an R2 with major R1 ambitions (it’s our president’s top priority). I’m in my 4th semester and I’ve have 11 new preps. No TAs. No pre-tenure leave available. It is structurally impossible to be a top scholar. I’m so fortunate to have a TT job, but this kind of ask is not cool at all.
not sure what driving has to do with me doing your comms or lifting boxes over 25 lbs but it sure does say a lot about what your LABOR ORGANIZATION thinks about disabled people
Imagining Silicon Valley was a real actual place. You'd hitch your ox to the cart, and load up your powerpoints and Keurig pods, send your family on a treacherous journey to the mythical Stanford where you mine for funding.
while I'm feeling cranky I'd like to say that it's fucked up that every paid organizing or political job in my area requires a valid driver's license
stunning
TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE has a COVER👀 (this is a late C16 embroidered coif - never in fact assembled - in the V&A. All the crazy scale with added big cats, like an acid trip As You Like It. I love that it is a bit stained and messy.) global.oup.com/academic/pro...
anyway, put me back in the lecture hall, coach.
Faculty do not have the subject matter expertise or training to provide these accommodations. This kind of assistance should be provided free of charge by the university, college, or school. Instead, disability "specialists" dole out extensions like painkillers. And now schools are turning to AI.
By "humans with expertise" I mean trained coaches/tutors who have the skills to help students learn study skills and time management, such as how to take notes on a lecture or strategize out completing an assignment. I mean mental health professionals who can help students learn to ask for help.
I am not at all opposed to accommodations or assistive technology in the classroom. But those accommodations need to be meaningful ones tailored to individual students' needs. Blanket policies don't do that. AI *can't* do that. Humans with expertise *can*.
Many professors made drastic changes to our teaching methods during pandemic lockdowns. These changes were well-intentioned responses to an emergency situation. They should not have been adopted as policy measures by universities trying to avoid lawsuits.
The same is true of lecture notes and slides. Lecture notes are not designed to be read by students. They are a script—often quite a loose one—performed by a subject-matter expert who can ad lib as needed. Glancing at lecture slides or skimming lecture notes is not a replacement for attendance.
Removing all deadlines is an impediment to student learning. You cannot expect a student to learn from a scaffolded assignment when they can turn all five parts in during the last week of the semester without consequences. You’re allowing them to miss out on learning the *process* of learning.
Every disability experience is a little different but the pervasive idea that all learning difficulties can be “solved” by posting the lecture slides/notes online and providing extra time in exams is foolish. These are half-measures that provide cover for the institution, not meaningful assistance.
PSA: Having access to your local classic rock radio station does not make you an expert in music history or analysis.
Some of us are PhDs whose adjunct jobs got cut.
In all seriousness, you guys would not believe how many physicists think they can do musicology at a publishable level.
Solidarity, sister
I was under the impression that humanities courses are a core component of community college education. It’s one of the things that make them great.
Retired Physicists Explain the Humanities to Me by Rebecca Solnit
my musicology PhD was also in a dept housed within the humanities division. it was a shock going back to conservatory-style schools of music.
The UK has a lot of problems but when 16 five- and six-year-olds and their teacher were gunned down in Dunblane 30 years ago, the people banded together to demand strict gun control laws—and they got them.
Now That's What I Call Public Humanities
Bravo
Twinks walk fast, even in outer space.
Ruth Karras liked my post, I can die happy
The expression “kitchen table issues” is infuriating for a number of reasons but chief among them for me is its inherent sexism
This post is about the NFL but it’s also not a bad description of what politics is *really* like in academia
people often ask what’s wrong with gen x, and, like, there are a lot of answers, but i think the AIDS epidemic and the specific people it wiped out is probably an under discussed contributor to the bomber with red dots diagram
“I sailed my longship ‘cross your Channel last night… ooo ah, ooo ah… I’ve got twenty manors, and you’ve got forty-three, I’ve got a brand new Domesday surveyor, I’ll give you the key!”
The reason there are so many poorly drawn elephants in medieval bestiaries is that this song was a top ten hit for the Aachen musicians’ guild
You’re got thirty acres, and I’ve got thirty-three!
If you've ever wondered why Dublin has a church dedicated to St. Werburgh -> A great account here from @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social on Ireland's Anglo-Norman history & the use of English saints "in a kind of sacred imperialism". www.historytoday.com/history-matt...
I actually discovered a medieval manuscript once full of people saying "Ayrnt Theyse Ayges Dayrk, Eh?", but Big Medievalism is suppressing it.
It’s not yet 8am on the west coast but I have already learned from the discourse that the concept of a “Dark Ages” is an ahistorical exaggeration is woke, somehow
Platforming an early modernist over a medievalist, typical normie move (This is a JOKE I am JOKING)
It’s obviously a rubbish take but the false equivalency between periodization and vaccines is truly wild
Trump doing this "bad Jew"="Palestinian" bit over and over again is a form of priming. It establishes a frame that draws on both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism at the same time.. His audience can then start blending those antisemitic and anti-Arab narratives into a conspiracy smoothie
By the way, this is indeed what you listen to in the car on the school run when your west country-born dad is feeling nostalgic
As far as I can tell, the mother of one of the Columbine perpetrators did more to try and help than the government.
If you don’t know, prepare to be amazed
The only thing we did after Columbine was harass and interrogate kids who wore jackets that vaguely resembled trench coats, so my expectations remain low.
A little known fact about the Middle Ages is that “I’ve Got a Brand New Combine Harvester” was sung in every tavern in the land
no argument here.
I think one of the sad truths of America is that it has never cared about children except when they are convenient as a political cudgel
no, I don’t think I will
Let us seize the means of production (blue books)
I'm not gonna say this is the reason for tenure but it's not not the reason
I became a teacher for three reasons: to set up course management systems, worry about AI dissolving my profession, and be broke in my 40s.
This should probably be a blog post but I have a list of things I won’t be doing anymore if I ever get back into a college classroom and uploading lecture slides to the LMS is right at the top.
you’ll notice that Third Way isn’t concerned about management speak as much as they want Dems to use *their* management speak.
Occasionally, I’m reminded that as a woman and a historian I’m not to be taken seriously. Recently, someone mansplained to me that women were called a variety of rude things in the past. Me: yes, I know, I’ve literally written books about this. Man: anyway, did you know women were called harlots?
I guess this doesn’t technically apply to Tom but it certainly does to many pundits who share his demonstrably wrong opinions.
That, too!
“Do you want me to carefully consider your work before I assign a numerical score?” Not really, I guess.
Agreed, it is extremely weird watching all of this unfold as an independent scholar who was pushed out of the professoriate.
Not all of my students, of course. But a lot of them. I think some already thought grades were computer-generated because they were very vocal about expecting them to appear immediately.
Can you imagine thinking the Naval College is led by leftists? I stand by “buffoon”.
Damn, you’re right. In that case it’s “I’m 64 and I don’t understand why my academic colleagues hated me”
I couldn’t even get my students to use the Canvas to-do list. They wanted me to tell them to do things, but it was unclear how they expected to receive that message—presumably by the emails they never read or classes they didn’t attend.
12
You say “the left” as if it’s Democratic politicians but what you are actually describing is “a loud minority of social media users who don’t fully understand what those terms mean”.
Hire me, you cowards. (…I’m much nicer in person.)
Maybe I should go into ed tech so I can at least get paid to tell other people how poorly thought out the ed tech is.
PS. Markdown sucks.
It shouldn’t take 3 hours to make a functioning table that I can write in HTML in ten minutes.
I actually do think ed tech can be useful for teaching but as someone who has built both syllabuses and websites from the ground up, Canvas is a hot mess.
They wouldn’t have deleted medical research institutions because they were making money off them, what are people not getting??
I can’t tell you how many hours I spent trying to make Canvas work instead of actually, you know, teaching. Unfortunately, using Canvas was required by the universities that employed me.
The way he’s managed to make those books levitate next to the desk is truly impressive
Oh my god. He was quoting a PhD. What a buffoon.
This is empirically incorrect with respect to boards who are the ultimate leaders of universities. edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1212
Big “B+ mad that the prof didn’t round up to an A- energy” on this website today
At this point whenever I see staff writers from the Atlantic shopping the “universities are hotbeds of radical leftists” narrative I just read it as “I didn’t get into a PhD program and I’m mad about it.” Yeah, you have to be willing to learn things if you want to go into academia.
“Liberal elites are bad! Not me, though”
He’s talking about how terrible it is that universities are full of liberal elites and his response to criticism boils down to “if you disagree with me, you’re uneducated”. Okay, “democracy defender”.
Anyone who confidently blurts out a statement this demonstrably false is not someone whose opinions about academia should be taken seriously.
People have embraced authoritarianism in large part because they've been sold individualistic explanations for social problems. If you think people are poor or unhoused because they've made "bad choices," then you'll see appeal in authoritarian leaders who promise to punish those who are "bad."
Yes. Yes. Yes. The solution to education polarization is for Dems to campaign more effectively to non-college voters, not dismissing the important insights we get from academics, activists and researchers. But this is ideological. Many centrist Dems oppose the policies that research points to.
"babe, are you ready to go?" "totally, I just need to look at this troubadour chansonnier real quick"
idk what your taste in podcast humor is like but Best Friends with Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata is just delightful
that model looks very similar to a friend from grad school who sensibly left academia. every time I see it I have the urge to text her and make sure she hasn't changed her mind.
would read
sickos dot gif