Oh goodness.

The UNC Board of Governors is now requiring every campus to form “compliance committees” to audit whether hiring, training, and departmental practices are sufficiently ideologically neutral.

www.theassemblync.com/education/hi...

The latest in the fed attack on higher ed, & why collective response is critical. How one campus, one faculty member, responds sets precedent for us all. Higher ed leaders + their faculty need each other, within and across institutions. More on #MADC strategy here: tinyurl.com/55kv7b2z #AcademicSky

“I’ve never heard of anything like this in K-12 or higher education.

The full scope of the monitor’s role is not even clear.

Will this person be policing what is taught? Who is hired? Who is admitted? This is dangerous.”

WU-TANG FOREVER 👐🏽

Summers opposes (most) government control of Harvard, but encourages Harvard central admin's consolidating power. A crisis exploited. #AcademicSky @aaup.org

Are we - higher ed folk of various sorts - able to agree that Jim Ryan should NOT have resigned? Please discuss.
#AcademicSky

But don't get me wrong, things are bleak.

I've got Mark Twain's line in my head about this - in part because shared governance is a group effort, not a gift. (Maybe more a team sport really - qigong meets mixed martial arts.) I say a bit more about that here: tinyurl.com/bdeadd4r

#AcademicSky @aaup.org #sharedgovernance

Re-watching The Handmaid's Tale as validating documentary vs. apocalyptic sci-fi.

The feds tying $ to civility is a red flag combo. Higher ed leaders: please don’t use this to curry fed favor | chase dollars | tighten control on your campuses. Civility-&-civics-as-compliance (to the govt, of your community) is not leadership, something I wrote more on here: tinyurl.com/2j9bmf7t

I deeply respect Cornel West. But this piece, like so many calls for "civility" in higher ed, aims faculty & students without examining leaders' arguably greater role in shaping the conditions that make such engagement possible. I try to unpack that part of things here: tinyurl.com/2j9bmf7t

Higher ed presidents' not standing up, not standing together (#MADC), and not standing with their institutional communities (#sharedgovernance) will mark the end of American universities and colleges.

I haven't posted in a while because I'm doubting the impact of anything. The UVA president's resignation put me over the edge from a higher ed standpoint. A longer-form piece somewhat on that: tinyurl.com/2j9bmf7t

We feed you.
They hunt us.

And the answer is also definitely not this (so angry at and aliented from my alma mater)

I was a Michigan undergrad in the late '80s when anti-apartheid shanties became a feature of the "Diag." We - administrators, faculty & students - must TOGETHER figure out how to balance avoiding harm (different than hurt) w/ preserving voice. Hint: "civility" (tinyurl.com/5fjh9nuj) is not it.

The town hall should have come before the decision, which was top-down and leaves affected faculty cut-off, confused, and in the lurch. It did not need to go this way. Shared governance and "managerial prerogative" are not antithetical, but the combo does require some time & emotional intelligence.

The seeming lack of faculty input here is alarming. With fed attacks, higher ed needs collective defense across institutions + inclusive strategizing w/in them. Faculty, esp. those most impacted, must help shape responses or we risk undermining the academic freedom we aim to defend. #AcademicSky

These are the proactive steps states need to be taking right now. Another thing: every Democratic governor needs to have a sit-down now with the state adjutant general to carefully review that person's understanding of their responsibilities to their state, its citizens and the federal constitution.

I got involved in faculty governance 5 years ago because libraries and IT were both vectors of corporate influence over the core functions of the university that went mostly unnoticed by faculty.

And now here they just come out and say it in the NYT. It’s not too late to get involved, y’all.

‪Appreciate @drkevinrmcclure.com's/ @chronicle.com's coverage of faculty organizing, but a major example was omitted: one campus sparked a collective academic defense effort that spread to 60+ university senates in 3 months. It's now a movement, and a testament to faculty power. #MADCs

In this new piece, I reflect & invite your thoughts on the urgent need to reclaim full-spectrum, not methodologically siloed, MSW education. I share ideas and models already in use, explore barriers to doing this work, and invite an exchange about what’s working in your own SW training experiences.

This is going to be an unusual and busy summer for "academic year faculty." LET'S GO