Erika
@ladyoftallness.bsky.social
Community college evangelist.Teaching general education humanities courses in the south. Yes, you’ll use these skills again in your “real job.”
Reposted by Erika
December 25th. The day the Fellowship departs Rivendell to destroy the One Ring.
Whatever you celebrate, may you have the courage to take the first steps to defy and endure against the dark, and rekindle light into the world.
Whatever you celebrate, may you have the courage to take the first steps to defy and endure against the dark, and rekindle light into the world.
December 25, 2025 at 3:52 PM
December 25th. The day the Fellowship departs Rivendell to destroy the One Ring.
Whatever you celebrate, may you have the courage to take the first steps to defy and endure against the dark, and rekindle light into the world.
Whatever you celebrate, may you have the courage to take the first steps to defy and endure against the dark, and rekindle light into the world.
I teach “western civ” courses that would, on the surface, adhere to these loose guidelines, but how I cover the material wouldn’t. It’s a lot of fun. I think “the canon” is useful as an idea to teach with even at an introductory level. It’s not a perfect metaphor here, but I try to tell it slant.
December 15, 2025 at 2:55 PM
I teach “western civ” courses that would, on the surface, adhere to these loose guidelines, but how I cover the material wouldn’t. It’s a lot of fun. I think “the canon” is useful as an idea to teach with even at an introductory level. It’s not a perfect metaphor here, but I try to tell it slant.
A large portion my BA to PhD was completed at a small window table at Borders, usually accompanied by a chai latte or one the delicious cheese stuffed soft pretzels they made. So yummy. I miss those pretzels. They were open til 11, 7 days a week.
I’m pretty sure that when I was in high school in the early 2000s I’d often go to a Barnes and Noble that was open until midnight a couple of nights a week, like Friday and Saturday?
But it sounds so crazy I don’t even trust my own memory of that now.
But it sounds so crazy I don’t even trust my own memory of that now.
Wal-Mart is open until midnight for the holidays and there’s a bunch of high school kids here giddy that they can run around the store “so late.”
Heartbreaking. They have no idea what was taken from them.
Heartbreaking. They have no idea what was taken from them.
December 14, 2025 at 4:49 AM
A large portion my BA to PhD was completed at a small window table at Borders, usually accompanied by a chai latte or one the delicious cheese stuffed soft pretzels they made. So yummy. I miss those pretzels. They were open til 11, 7 days a week.
November 3, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Erika
ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT
October 6, 2025 at 4:10 PM
ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT
I’ve repeatedly said to admin if you want me to devote SLAC level attention to my students, I need you to give me SLAC course loads and seat caps.
Giving students thoughtful, personalized feedback and instruction is not a problem that originates from the difficulty for an instructor to generate feedback, it is a problem that originates from institutions pivoting to student:instructor ratios where that dynamic is not logistically feasible.
September 28, 2025 at 6:37 PM
I’ve repeatedly said to admin if you want me to devote SLAC level attention to my students, I need you to give me SLAC course loads and seat caps.
“the tent shrank” translation, “the tent got bigger, AND I was asked to think about my own complicity in structural inequalities, where before I could be assured in my liberal bonafides, and that made me feel icky in my tummy.”
Again, I see the politics of most of Clinton’s campaign and Biden’s presidency very differently from what Ezra suggests here, drawing from one part of one nuanced speech as symbolic of the attitude of Democratic leaders.
September 28, 2025 at 5:37 PM
“the tent shrank” translation, “the tent got bigger, AND I was asked to think about my own complicity in structural inequalities, where before I could be assured in my liberal bonafides, and that made me feel icky in my tummy.”
Reposted by Erika
Reposted by Erika
We have allowed the lazy, grifting Silicon Valley charlatans into the front door, & in doing so, we have learned just how many of our own colleagues & administrators simply are not interested in the actual business of education. It's incredibly demoralizing.
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Thanks so much for your reporting on this, Ben. I just got an email from my campus's IT office triumphantly advertising free student access to four different AI models -- at the same time as we have a hiring freeze, caps on grad enrollment, and a 7% budget cut -- and wanted to scream.
September 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
We have allowed the lazy, grifting Silicon Valley charlatans into the front door, & in doing so, we have learned just how many of our own colleagues & administrators simply are not interested in the actual business of education. It's incredibly demoralizing.
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Reposted by Erika
Indeed.
LLMs are LLMs.
Machine learning is machine learning.
AIs are Astro Boy, Robby the Robot, Cmdr Data, the Ghost in the Shell Puppet Master, etc. I will not use the term for anything less.
Don’t feed the hype machine. Don’t call it AI.
LLMs are LLMs.
Machine learning is machine learning.
AIs are Astro Boy, Robby the Robot, Cmdr Data, the Ghost in the Shell Puppet Master, etc. I will not use the term for anything less.
Don’t feed the hype machine. Don’t call it AI.
There is absolutely no good faith reason to use the term “AI” for any technology one is selling.
It serves only for dazzling people into thinking the technology has capabilities that it doesn’t.
If one wants a technology to be trustworthy, just use a transparent, informative term without hype.
It serves only for dazzling people into thinking the technology has capabilities that it doesn’t.
If one wants a technology to be trustworthy, just use a transparent, informative term without hype.
September 27, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Indeed.
LLMs are LLMs.
Machine learning is machine learning.
AIs are Astro Boy, Robby the Robot, Cmdr Data, the Ghost in the Shell Puppet Master, etc. I will not use the term for anything less.
Don’t feed the hype machine. Don’t call it AI.
LLMs are LLMs.
Machine learning is machine learning.
AIs are Astro Boy, Robby the Robot, Cmdr Data, the Ghost in the Shell Puppet Master, etc. I will not use the term for anything less.
Don’t feed the hype machine. Don’t call it AI.
Reposted by Erika
I hope some newspapers use a crop where you can easily read the sign.
September 19, 2025 at 6:11 PM
I hope some newspapers use a crop where you can easily read the sign.
Reposted by Erika
You also need to say this shit when people get fired for mentioning their personal gender or get roughed up for looking at ICE the wrong way.
Come the fuck on. If you believe this, believe it for everyone.
Come the fuck on. If you believe this, believe it for everyone.
Chris Murphy: "Our entire democratic experiment is going crumble if people don't believe they are safe when they express their political views."
September 11, 2025 at 1:53 AM
You also need to say this shit when people get fired for mentioning their personal gender or get roughed up for looking at ICE the wrong way.
Come the fuck on. If you believe this, believe it for everyone.
Come the fuck on. If you believe this, believe it for everyone.
Reposted by Erika
Found an even better image of it on face thing:
September 10, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Found an even better image of it on face thing:
Reposted by Erika
April 13, 2025 at 8:46 AM
I mean, everything about this thread is correct. However the shoehorning of learning outcomes or skills unrelated to a course’s objectives is something those of us in the gen ed trenches have had to do for at least a decade. I don’t teach writing but boy do I have to teach writing. So, uh, welcome.
Shoehorning "AI literacy" into every single class strikes me as the same way "AI" and "productivity" is justified in the workforce. "AI" may save time (which it doesn't by many empirical studies), but the time taken on new tasks (e.g., checking outputs) has added much more time to the task.
4/
4/
September 8, 2025 at 3:49 PM
I mean, everything about this thread is correct. However the shoehorning of learning outcomes or skills unrelated to a course’s objectives is something those of us in the gen ed trenches have had to do for at least a decade. I don’t teach writing but boy do I have to teach writing. So, uh, welcome.
Would read this and the series that followed.
Hear me out: a dark academia murder book that opens at a department beginning-of-the-year celebration on a boat (I know a department that does this) and a professor goes overboard. The intrepid department chair must figure out who did it. Everyone is a suspect, including the chair herself.
August 30, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Would read this and the series that followed.
Reposted by Erika
Why do I follow any given account? I saw them say something funny/interesting or they liked one of my stupider/more obscure jokes.
August 30, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Why do I follow any given account? I saw them say something funny/interesting or they liked one of my stupider/more obscure jokes.
I am to be this prof. Sometimes I succeed. Mostly I’m just 90% cringe.
Concerned that we are losing the necessary ratio. 15% of teachers/faculty should be irretrievably strange eccentrics. Every learning experience should have some element where in later life you can reflect with former classmates about how bizarre at least one (1) class per year was.
August 30, 2025 at 4:26 PM
I am to be this prof. Sometimes I succeed. Mostly I’m just 90% cringe.
Reposted by Erika
NEW: A federal grand jury has REFUSED to indict sandwich guy! I imagine the DoJ will keep trying. They have two weeks, at which point they’ll have to drop the charges or reduce it to a misdemeanor. 🥪 www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...
Grand jury declines to indict man who threw a sandwich at federal officer in D.C.
The former Justice Department attorney who threw a sub at federal officers in Washington, and came to be known as "Sandwich Guy," was not indicted on a federal felony charge.
www.nbcnews.com
August 27, 2025 at 3:52 PM
NEW: A federal grand jury has REFUSED to indict sandwich guy! I imagine the DoJ will keep trying. They have two weeks, at which point they’ll have to drop the charges or reduce it to a misdemeanor. 🥪 www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...
Reposted by Erika
Since this place is new & today is the anniversary of Gettysburg, I'll re-up my periodic reminder that Union Day/April 9 should be our 2nd most important federal holiday, where we hold ceremonies at Appomattox NP & recall how Ely Parker absolutely owned the racist traitor Robert Edward Lee.
July 3, 2023 at 10:31 PM
Since this place is new & today is the anniversary of Gettysburg, I'll re-up my periodic reminder that Union Day/April 9 should be our 2nd most important federal holiday, where we hold ceremonies at Appomattox NP & recall how Ely Parker absolutely owned the racist traitor Robert Edward Lee.
Reposted by Erika
To put all this much shorter: the right's vaccine denialism is not the left's fault. They didn't arrive at that skepticism because of something the left did. They SAY that, of course, because they blame the left for everything, but liberals don't have to take them at their word! They lie a lot!
August 23, 2025 at 8:33 PM
To put all this much shorter: the right's vaccine denialism is not the left's fault. They didn't arrive at that skepticism because of something the left did. They SAY that, of course, because they blame the left for everything, but liberals don't have to take them at their word! They lie a lot!
Reposted by Erika
BREAKING: Baptist minister, James Grote, was just arrested under the Terrorism Act.
His alleged crime? Holding a placard outside his church in Oxford which said: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action"
His alleged crime? Holding a placard outside his church in Oxford which said: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action"
August 24, 2025 at 12:23 PM
BREAKING: Baptist minister, James Grote, was just arrested under the Terrorism Act.
His alleged crime? Holding a placard outside his church in Oxford which said: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action"
His alleged crime? Holding a placard outside his church in Oxford which said: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action"
Reposted by Erika
genuinely difficult for me to get into the headspace of someone so insanely narcissistic that their response to criticism and dislike is to say "everyone who disagrees with me isn't an actual human being."
August 23, 2025 at 9:34 PM
genuinely difficult for me to get into the headspace of someone so insanely narcissistic that their response to criticism and dislike is to say "everyone who disagrees with me isn't an actual human being."
Reposted by Erika
Cardinal Zuppi leads seven-hour prayer, naming every child killed in Holy Land war
It took him 7 hours.
www.ncronline.org/news/cardina...
It took him 7 hours.
www.ncronline.org/news/cardina...
Cardinal Zuppi leads seven-hour prayer, naming every child killed in Holy Land war
The head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference took turns with dozens of other members of his diocese reading the names and ages of the 16 Israeli children and the 12,211 Palestinian children who have be...
www.ncronline.org
August 23, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Cardinal Zuppi leads seven-hour prayer, naming every child killed in Holy Land war
It took him 7 hours.
www.ncronline.org/news/cardina...
It took him 7 hours.
www.ncronline.org/news/cardina...
Reposted by Erika
ICE, DC Police, Park Police, DHS, and HSI brutally arrested a man who refused to provide identification after being stopped for eating in public. Goons attempted to stop community members from recording his injuries during the incident.
August 22, 2025 at 8:06 PM
ICE, DC Police, Park Police, DHS, and HSI brutally arrested a man who refused to provide identification after being stopped for eating in public. Goons attempted to stop community members from recording his injuries during the incident.