Associate Vice President for Communications, Wesleyan University | Prior: Center Theatre Group, Lincoln Center, AMNH | Columbia Journalism Alum | Air Force Veteran đşđ¸âď¸ | Arts & Theatre Geek đ Film/TV, Media, HigherEd & Democracy âĄď¸
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đ¨EXCLUSIVE: Federal judges tell NBC News the Supreme Court has got to do a better job of explaining emergency rulings, with frequent decisions in favor of Trump at least appearing to validate harsh criticism of the judiciary at a time of rising threats: www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...
âWe must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other.â #HigherEd
âI pledge to you that we will defend our students, our faculty, and our staffâs ability to provide this kind of education at this time.â âWesleyan University President @msroth.bsky.social speaking to our newest parents this afternoon #HigherEd
(AXIOS) - MAGA is seizing on President Trump's trade war with India to mount a broader crusade against Indian immigration, influence and culture. @axios.com www.axios.com/2025/09/04/t...
The only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them. Kudos to Harvard for holding firm. Those who cave to Trump only feed the beast and make everyone else more of a target. In these perilous times, we must stand with those defending core principlesâand call out those who wonât.
âI pledge to you that we will defend our students, our faculty, and our staffâs ability to provide this kind of education at this time.â âWesleyan University President @msroth.bsky.social speaking to our newest parents this afternoon #HigherEd
Trump's effort to bring Harvard "to heel" runs aground, at least temporarily. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...
I'm always blown away by how smoothly @kateshaw.bsky.social can synthesize and communicate her impossibly vast knowledge of the law and court cases with such insight and precision, but even by that standard this convo w @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social is top tier stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/o...
Arrival day at Wesleyan University!
It's not Trump who normalizes autocracy. It's the rest of American news media. The Guardian can and should stand apart as the one outlet unafraid to declare autocracy is here. Stop asking. Declare. Has Trump succeeded in normalising American autocracy? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
The assault on civil society: âTrump did not invent this playbook,â said Thomas M. CountrymanâŚâIt depends on the squelching of all independent centers of thought, and that includes universities, law firms and scientists.â www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/s...
âI am heartbroken to report that after thirty-five proud years, the program I currently direct at USC, the MFA in Dramatic Writing, is being sunsettedâŚI feel the acute message being sent here; four of its five professors are people of color.â â @luisalfaro.bsky.social #TheaterSKY
Just saw someone refer to Cheryl Hines as The Marvelous Mrs. Measles and đđđđđđ
âThe Education Department has cut off funding for campus-based child care at over a dozen colleges, objecting to child care providers teaching young children about gender and race.â @washingtonpost.com
L.A. Taco is an incredible locally sourced organization that does a lot of old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting.
My jam (on a scone).
She was a traitor then, is a traitor now and she will always be in the future.
âI am heartbroken to report that after thirty-five proud years, the program I currently direct at USC, the MFA in Dramatic Writing, is being sunsettedâŚI feel the acute message being sent here; four of its five professors are people of color.â â @luisalfaro.bsky.social #TheaterSKY
âToday, many of the communities that rely most heavily on federal dollars are in Republican-led states, which tend to spend less on #education and often have higher child poverty rates.â
@sarahgollust.bsky.social, PhD, has been quoted in the Wesleyan University article, âStudy: News Coverage, Race, and DEIâ. www.wesleyan.edu/about/news/2...
đ¤Żđ¤Żđ¤Ż âDisney had made $724 million from skip-the-line products from late 2021 to June 2024.â
Cue the pitchforks and torches.
The only NYT reporter who reliably understood, loved, and dove headfirst into the beautiful complexities of our city -- Ginia Bellafante -- will now stop doing that. This sucks. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/n...
Lopez: L.A. parks get low marks, but opening schoolyards could improve grades
âOnly 13 percent of Americans hold views that could be categorized as âstrong liberalâ and only 11 percent as âstrong conservative.â But it is the remaining three-quarters of Americans who are fascinating to categorizeâthey defy what many people may think of as Americaâs political center.â
RFK Jr.âs next press conference on Americaâs health should happen in Passamaquoddy. His snake oil would go over great!
So that's Pritzker and more Krasner saying Trump's goons can be prosecuted. Start of a trend among Dem officials, I hope.
Making them wear high-visibility vests over camo is such a good joke you couldnât write it
Why do you think Kirk had to steal some from the 1980s
âChicago has long helped to keep alive tiny fields & esoteric areas of humanistic studyâŚWithout the universityâs support, and the continued training of grad students who can keep these bodies of knowledge going, entire spheres of human learning might eventually blink out.â #HigherEd @theatlantic.com
Read @danagoldstein.bsky.social âŹâŠ âThe administration is using the Education Departmentâs Office for Civil Rights, which was established to protect racial and ethnic minority groups, to try to end programs meant to help some of those same students.â www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...
âFox keeps insisting Newsomâs SnarkPosting is a big fail, but the numbers would suggest otherwise. Since the beginning of August, the governorâs press office account has gained 250,000 followers and more than 225 million impressions.â Via @lorraineali.bsky.social www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
âOne of the things potential dictators do is go after the universities. The reason is simple: historically, universities have told the truthâŚ[Trump] is following the signs of what Adolf Hitler did, what Viktor OrbĂĄn has done in Hungary.â âSam Chauncey
âTrump has been known to lean heavily on the FIRE rankings, effectively using them as a higher-education version of the Hollywood blacklist.â @airmail.news #HigherEd
There are still good, kind, decent people in the world You just need to know where to look www.newsweek.com/florida-loca...
Don't miss @caitlindickerson.bsky.social on the explosive growth of ICE under Trump www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtSK...
Anthony Appiah relevant to so much: "This isnât a matter of shirking your duties; itâs a matter of stewarding your capacity to assist." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/m...
Get ready for Kid Rockâs Duck Lake.
Read @epress.bsky.social "all of this is being done under the pretext of protecting Jews, who alone are entitled to protections that other groups apparently donât merit. It is hard to imagine a more effective way to breed anti-Jewish animus." @newyorker.com www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
Impressive
Newsom: I mean, even poor Kid Rock â these guys, theyâve gotten a little precious, havenât they? The folks at Fox are like, âOh, this is so unbecoming of a governor. Oh, oh.â And meanwhile, they sit there reading his tweets every single day. Are they really that out of touch?
Count me in!
Last year, Anna Deavere Smith joined Wesleyan University as its Artist in Residence, leading workshops with students and faculty and further developing âThis Ghost of Slavery: A Play of Past and Present.â Wesleyan University Magazine highlights her journey in our latest video feature. #TheaterSKY
One of the biggest cultural issues we have is that no major media or journalistic institutions have been reinforcing norms of what things *should* look like. That corruption isnât normal, that cronyism isnât normal, that lies and scandals should be punished, that incompetence is disqualifying.
I wrote about Chris Smith's Devo documentary, a story about how resistance can also be dumb fun.
Last year, Anna Deavere Smith joined Wesleyan University as its Artist in Residence, leading workshops with students and faculty and further developing âThis Ghost of Slavery: A Play of Past and Present.â Wesleyan University Magazine highlights her journey in our latest video feature. #TheaterSKY
"In the McCarthy era, the attacks on academic freedom were attacks on individual faculty and demands for loyalty oaths and those sorts of attacks on individuals, not on institutions...in the current moment, academic freedom is under its most fundamental attack weâve ever seen." @aaup.org #HigherEd
Two Brennan Center studies show that racist attitudes are linked to distrust in the 2020 election results and support for the January 6 insurrection.
America is destroying one of its strongest forms of soft power.
Headline fixed: Trump Extorts Americaâs Education
âwhile Ms. Halligan does not have experience in the museum sectorâŚ[she]has competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageantâŚ[and]her confidence and discipline came from a background participating in pageants and sports like basketball.â www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/a... via @nytimes.com
"How bad slavery was" is worse. Much worse. Much worse than you think, much worse than you're taught, much worse than museums depict. Worse.
According to the @nytimes.com, my reading Joan Didion makes me a âPerformative Maleâ?!?
âWe believe itâs crucial to have a concerted, coordinated effort to make sure that the stations that most critically need these funds right now have a pathway to get them.â @knightfoundation.org #PBS #NPR
Since MSN originally stood for Microsoft Network, this new meaning of the old acronym sounds like it was written by AI. Also, the loss of NBCâs brand equity is a big deal. âAs part of a corporate spinoff from Comcast, MSNBC is changing its name to My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW, for short.â
"Democracy isnât just something weâre given. Democracy is something we have to fight for in every generation." On the pod @joycewhitevance.bsky.social is great on Trump's DC crackdown. "Theyâre counting on most Americans to sit back and let it all happen." Listen: newrepublic.com/article/1991...
A message from @mollyjongfast.bsky.social to anyone looking to build the base: go everywhere and have a shot at winning an election!
Did someone say summer luau in Colorado to end our vacation?
scoop: Guy Campanile is being replaced as EP of "CBS Evening News," to be replaced by Kim Harvey, a senior producer, per a source familiar with the matter. He's expected to return to "60 Minutes," where he was a longtime producer.
âThe top official overseeing theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is stepping down, throwing into question the stability of one of the venueâs most important sources of box office revenue as President Trump seeks to transform the institution.â #TheaterSKY
All about the GLEICHSCHALTUNG âthe review âaims to ensure alignment with the presidentâs directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.â www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/a...
The American press and public really need to figure out how to simply dismiss Trump's pretextual claims for authoritarian attacks and then resist the attack itself, not debate the claim. We have spent months asking "but is the Ivy League really antisemitic?" and now "but is DC really crime-ridden?"
Itâs beyond chilling and goes against our nationâs principles. â[Foreign student journalists are] afraid that even reporting something the wrong way could get them shipped out of the country.â #journalism #highered
ââŚThe monuments, in Hitlerâs eyes, served to defame the army and perpetuate hatred against the nation. Their eradication was thus necessary to restore Germanyâs reputation and protect it for posterity.â
Authoritarianism is not about academic personality conflicts. We canât claim to value neutrality, freedom of inquiry & speech if we only pursue truths that donât annoy the administration. Education should encourage practices of freedomânot tyranny. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
BREAKING: A San Francisco-based judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore hundreds of science research grants to UCLA, more than a third of the $584 million in funds the government has cut: www.latimes.com/california/s...
Slightly diminish a band: Credence Backwater Revival
Excited to see Jeanine Tesori celebrated this fall as @lincolncenter.bsky.socialâs visionary artist. Highlights include a production of her opera âBlueâ and her musical âViolet,â performed in American Sign Language by Deaf Broadway.
Seems to be a favorite authoritarian pastime.
ââŚThe monuments, in Hitlerâs eyes, served to defame the army and perpetuate hatred against the nation. Their eradication was thus necessary to restore Germanyâs reputation and protect it for posterity.â
Rewriting history was certainly part of the playbook of Nazi GermanyâŚ
BREAKING WSJ: The Trump White House plans to conduct a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of America's 250th anniversary to ensure the museums align with "Trump's interpretation of American history." www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
I'll say it a thousand times -- any account of the past that only celebrates the good parts of a nation without reckoning with the bad is not what we call "history" It is propaganda, pure and simple.
George Washington University now finds itself the target of the White House under the guise of antisemitism claims. Again, Trump and his extortionists are not looking to help us Jews. They are looking to destroy #HigherEd.
Harvard is reportedly nearing a âsettlementâ with Trump. Hereâs a great podcast episode from @knightcolumbia.org with Wesleyan President Michael Roth, U Chicago First Amendment guru @genevievelakier.bsky.social, and journalist @cristianfarias.com. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
"Untitled (America Doesn't Need Scapegoats)," 1983, by Miles Stanley Hamada. In the collection of the Blanton: blanton.emuseum.com/objects/2178...
âWhat does it mean for somebody whoâs running an organization which has had its struggles over the years integrating women and trying to understand existential questions about womenâs role in combat?⌠Does this church reinforce his cultural chauvinism?â âWesleyan University prof. Joseph Slaughter
âTrump administration efforts to scale down the size of the VA by about 30,000 positions and to dismantle the Department of EducationâŚhave caused funding delays and are hampering studentsâ ability to understand and get answers about their education benefits.â #highered #veterans @latimes.com
No.
A successful search requires time and personal attention to detail. Speaking of which, Iâm currently on the lookout for the next member of my UComms team at Wesleyan University.
Lord help us if human interaction is considered âretro.â I have never led a search without personally looking at 100s of applications and having actual meetings with first, second, and third-round candidates.
I was about to reply with the same GIF.
12 August 1944 | The first transport of Polish men, women, and children deported by the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising arrived at #Auschwitz from a transit camp in PruszkĂłw: 1,984 men & 3,853 women. See our lesson "From the Uprising Warsaw to Auschwitz": lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_8_warszawa/
@jvl.bsky.social: "Andry, Khalil, and ĂztĂźrk have all been released. I doubt that they would have been without the public outcry on their behalf. They will get due process nowâbut only because people were loud about it." Only @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/how-to-mak...
âHarvard has spent the last four months at the forefront of the opposition to the Trump administrationâs pressure campaign against higher education. A settlement between the White House and the nationâs oldest and wealthiest university would reverberate throughout academiaâŚâ #HigherEd
Exactly this. Remaining silent as America heads towards full-blown authoritarianism is an act of complicity.
Wesleyan University students received Political Engagement Fund grants this summer to support volunteer and internship opportunities. They used the funds of up to $5,000 to cover expenses related to work in politics or issues advocacy, from legislative internships to affordable housing advocacy.
Colbert out. UFC in. Paramount is clear on its virtue signaling.
Been saying, will keep saying: I would love for a Democratic candidate to run on "ending the loneliness crisis" as a framework for their policies.
Skin cancer. Measles. And COVID. The American way! đşđ¸đ¤Ż
NEW: last spring, Trump's nominee for director of the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, asked Harvard's president, Alan Garber, to intro him in his confirmation hearings Garber said he was willing it never happened now NIH is withholding big $$ from Harvard www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/11/m...
Hate to think about how much Trump idolizes Putinâs playbookâŚ
âHe has threatened us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine, unless we do his biddingâŚWe will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom on this extraordinary public institution.â @governor.ca.gov in support of UCLA #highered
Yes, please.
Colbert out. UFC in. Paramount is clear on its virtue signaling.
âI donât see many people sounding the alarm that this is an assault on the integrity of one of the most successful systems in America, the higher education system.â âWesleyan Universityâs @msroth.bsky.social talks to @cnn.com about the lack of voices in #HigherEd sounding the alarm
Just putting this here for no particular reason.
When in Colorado Springs visiting the conservative in-laws, rebel by going to a drag show.
âIn our polarized times, for every left-leaning fan comforted by [King of the Hillâs] Hankâs fundamental decency, another might see his brand of conservatism as a nostalgic gloss on an increasingly ugly movement.â @newyorker.com