For #Rural #Students, Going to #College is Not Easy
A professor of #education examines the barriers to #highered that #ruralstudents face
https://barnraisingmedia.com/for-rural-students-going-to-college-is-not-easy/
I’m super excited about the upcoming Generosity and Leadership in Higher Education virtual panel event, being held by University of Bath on 25 June, 10-11.00 EDT.
In a time when academia often rewards competition over collaboration, how can we lead with generosity, compassion, and care? Join me and Bath’s Kate Elliott and Professor Davide Mattia as we explore how generous leadership can reshape research culture for the better.
This is a free online event as part of the University of Bath’s Research Culture Month. Register here: https://www.bath.ac.uk/events/generosity-and-leadership-in-higher-education-webinar/
Let’s reimagine what leadership in Higher Ed can look like. #GenerousLeadership #HigherEd #ResearchCulture
Entire Fulbright board quits in mass revolt over Trump's "blatantly illegal" assault, who has begun systematically destroying the program, canceling ~200 scholarships awarded to US researchers for intl projects, most b/c of RW ideological objections. https://www.rawstory.com/trump-quit-programs/
"As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more integrated into higher education, institutions find themselves balancing two competing imperatives: promoting data access that is open to all for collaboration to drive innovation and research, and protecting student privacy and institutional autonomy. While AI promises more personalization, predictive insights, and resource optimization for students and educators, its reliance on large-scale student data magnifies the risks of surveillance, discrimination, and educational technology (edtech) vendor overreach. The current higher education landscape demonstrates the diverse ways in which colleges and universities approach their students’ data in the age of AI, ranging from open-arms data sharing to risk-averse data hoarding. A third option—intentional, collaborative data governance—offers a way to harness AI’s potential while safeguarding the core values of higher education."
@TheConversationUS Good! The #NCAA policy allowing payments to ‘student-athletes’ - even *retroactively*! - will ‘kill-off’ #college and #university #sports programs that hemorrhage ‘red ink’.
#HigherEd institutions should focus on their #traditional mission of #teaching , #research and #service.
@guyjantic Agreed, and also counterpoint:
A fair number of #HigherEd faculty and administrators also despise direct communication, taking responsibility for (personal or organizational) faults, and having those faults brought to their immediate attention with evidence backing the assessment with a data-driven recommendation for improving the situation.
In two decades as an educator, I've observed this in multiple institutions where leadership has failed to inspire a positive culture of growth.
Dear undergraduate college/university #students in the USA,
I know you've been taught that it is "professional" to use #business #jargon like "reach out," "circle back", etc., and phrases euphemistically avoiding direct disagreement (e.g. "How can we resolve this?") or responsibility (e.g., "An error was made...").
You should know that many of us became professors partly because we did not want to be bankers or middle managers. In fact, many of us have issues with the commodification of the world in general and absolutely reject its intrusion into higher education.
For those of us in this boat (and I think it's quite a few professors), I am letting you know:
We fucking hate that language. Hate it.
"This experience, of existential fear, that the community will be ripped apart, is not something Harvard is used to. And the parts of Harvard that are being wrecked do not deserve it; there won’t be layoffs in the economics or political science department, but among the people working on medical research or infant mortality
That said, there is still broad confusion about the moral implications of what’s happening. Do we realize that the cruelty visited on us is cruelty we visited on mill towns all over America, many times over? When Larry Summers, once President of Harvard, lied to open up American markets to China, or helped destroy Russia, well, that was in our name, hurting people we would never know, as I, in my own minor way, approved of killing working class Americans and Iraqis I would never know. Thousands of Harvard affiliated staffers and members in Congress and clerks and judges and general counsels crafted the world of elite lawlessness we are in today. Facebook, one of the most destructive companies in history, one that has fostered many teenage suicides, was born at Harvard in the early 2000s. That is not something I heard much about at the reunion.
So the introspection seemed real, but limited. People talked about how they had to slow down their career as high-powered consultants because it was destroying their family, but without an acknowledgement that this job had likely destroyed the families of many others. The Silicon Valley engineer working on technology to make it easier to vote, while also building AI tools that destroy journalism, was baffled anyone might question the moral fiber of her company or of Mark Zuckerberg. It’s not that we are bad people. I did talk to a former Facebook insider trying to atone for his sins by building software for kids. We are just people."
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-the-best-and-the
"OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has a plan to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life.
If the company’s strategy succeeds, universities would give students A.I. assistants to help guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized A.I. study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice job interviews. And undergrads could turn on a chatbot’s voice mode to be quizzed aloud ahead of a test.
OpenAI dubs its sales pitch “A.I.-native universities.”
“Our vision is that, over time, A.I. would become part of the core infrastructure of higher education,” Leah Belsky, OpenAI’s vice president of education, said in an interview. In the same way that colleges give students school email accounts, she said, soon “every student who comes to campus would have access to their personalized A.I. account.”
To spread chatbots on campuses, OpenAI is selling premium A.I. services to universities for faculty and student use. It is also running marketing campaigns aimed at getting students who have never used chatbots to try ChatGPT."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/technology/chatgpt-openai-colleges.html
A federal Judge has ruled that #college and #university ‘student athletes’ can be paid! Including *back pay* for former #NCAA athletes! Payments commence July 1st. https://www.newsweek.com/some-ncaa-athletes-can-now-paid-schools-what-know-2082354
This is going to kill off sports programs that already bleed millions 
annually, interfering with the primary #HigherEd mission of, wait for it… #education. 
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5166938 “Based on our review, none of us would recommend these tools to our students at this time” #AI #HigherEd
US brain drain is in full swing.
This is a wonderful example of competitive advantage, and how to squander it.
The US' science dominance is unlikely to ever recover, for better or worse.
"In the first few months of the Trump administration, there were jumps in the the number of U.S. applicants looking for jobs in Canada (+41%), Europe (+32%), China (+20%) and other Asian countries (+39%), compared to the same period in 2024."
Good.
American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan lawsuit forces US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reinstate Michigan college students’ immigration status
Americans are turning against #Israel in record numbers. And with good reason IMO. Does this constitute #Antisemitism? I think not. Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism in reality; but the #TrumpAdministration along with #AIPAC and the Netanyahu government in Israel are equating the two. Is this in the best interests of American Jews? Definitely not. Is going after #HigherEd and #Universities for the #FreeSpeech of their students a good idea? Nope. https://theconversationus.cmail19.com/t/r-l-thkydya-otyjukldkk-b/
While there have been a few high profile examples - from cracking down on student protests to faculty firings - the widespread censorship of pro-Palestine voices in #academia is not widely known.
I highly suggest this article from a Middle East historian, and good friend, detailing his personal experience being deplatformed along with the current state of the field.
TLDR: selected quotes below.
@academicchatter #Palestine #Gaza #HigherEd
1/4
@Phosphenes It's a real shame that you didn't attend any classes in which you were comfortable being honest. It is the responsibility of the person teaching to create an atmosphere where critical feedback is not possible without any fear of retribution, but also welcome and acted upon. I make a point of doing something else in the time that students discuss and write down what works or doesn't work for them and I genuinely do not know who wrote/contributed what on the pieces of A4 that I collect afterwards. #HigherEd #teaching
I once taught undergrads who almost all had weak writing skills. On monthly evaluations though, they reported that they felt the course made the right level of demands on them. And that they had spent on average *25 hours a week* on their full-time education. 
Hoping those familiar with #LaTeX can give me some advice here. I've started using it to create my assignments for school. I'm not writing technical papers yet, but I find using LaTeX with #Zotero in #VSCode more #accessible with a #ScreenReader than most other setups I've tried.
Since my discussion posts have to follow #APA style, I’m using LaTeX for those as well as full papers. That part is going well—but I’m running into trouble when I need to actually post what I’ve written.
My school uses Brightspace, which allows discussion posts in either rich text or #HTML. I have #Pandoc installed, so I tried converting my LaTeX source to HTML and pasting the code. But Pandoc didn’t include my references section in the output.
I also tried copying from the PDF, but that stripped all formatting.
Does anyone know how I can get a clean HTML version of my work—with references included—that I can paste into Brightspace?
Here’s the command I’ve been using:
pandoc main.tex \
--bibliography=references. Bib \
--csl=apa.csl \
--standalone \
-o main.html
It creates the HTML file, but the references section is missing.
Any tips?
#Accessibility #AssistiveTech #Pandoc #APAstyle #Brightspace #EdTech #AcademicWriting #InclusiveTech #BlindTech #HigherEd #CitationTools #OpenSource #WritingWorkflow
"Federal science budgets have been slashed. Stricter immigration policies have spread fear among international scientists working in the United States, and those who had hoped to. Graduate and postdoctoral students have had their visas canceled, or worry they will. The administration cut off funding for international students at Harvard — a judge blocked the move, but other universities worry about being next.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students in what he called “critical fields,” which almost certainly includes science, where labs often have more Chinese than American-born graduate students and postdocs.
Jacinda Ardern Thinks World Leaders Need More Kindness
In Search of Anyplace but the ‘Most Charming Village in France’
Take This Quiz Before You Take Your Summer Vacation
President Trump has worried about the nation losing its scientific edge to “rivals abroad,” as he wrote in a letter in March to his science adviser, Michael Kratsios. He urged Mr. Kratsios to continue Vannevar Bush’s vision, “recapturing the urgency which propelled us so far in the last century.” Yet Mr. Kratsios argues that philanthropies and industry should pick up more of the cost, and that too much federal science spending goes to bureaucracy.
“Spending more money on the wrong things is far worse than spending less money on the right things,” he said in a speech at the National Academy in May.
But even at Johns Hopkins, which has benefited from the philanthropy of former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, those dollars can’t make up the shortfall. Industry doesn’t typically fund basic research, and it costs more to do research in industry in part because companies, unlike university labs, have to pay competitive wages.""
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/us/trump-federal-spending-grants-scientists-leaving.html
