'This fall, for the first time, Yale students have the option of taking “Beginning Cherokee I.” The university is the only Ivy League institution to offer a North American Indigenous language for credit, according to Claire Bowern, a professor of linguistics who was instrumental in getting the language added to the curriculum.'
Powerful and Continuing #Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of #patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. #Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
Disdain for the Recognition of #HumanRights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, and long incarcerations of prisoners.
Supremacy of the #Military
Even when there are widespread #domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Rampant #Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional #gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to #abortion is high, as is #homophobia and anti-#gay legislation.
Controlled #MassMedia
Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation or by sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Government #censorship and #secrecy especially in war time, are very common.
Obsession with #NationalSecurity
Fear of hostile foreign powers is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
#Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
Protection of #Corporate Power
The #industrial and business #aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
Suppression of #Labor Power
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor #unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
Disdain for #Intellectuals and the #Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to #HigherEducation and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other #academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
Obsession with #Crime and #Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the #police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego #CivilLiberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Rampant #Cronyism and #Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
#Fraudulent#Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by #SmearCampaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control #voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
This post is a summary of Fascism, Anyone? by Lawrence W. Britt published in 2003 by Free Inquiry magazine."
As students' costs to attend #university continue to spiral, one might conclude that this was all part of a plan to make #highereducation unaffordable for the children from poorer families...
Not so much 'widening participation' as 'narrowing participation'.
Its almost like the Govt. was suspicious of an educated electorate?
The president of #Barnard College lost a faculty-wide vote of no confidence on Tuesday, as criticism mounts over the school’s response to a pro- #Palestine 🇵🇸 encampment
It is the first no confidence vote against a president in the college’s history.
Rishi Sunak has pledged to crack down on "rip-off" degrees that do not lead to graduate jobs.
Apart from all the problems with the way they evaluate degree outcomes, the absolute nerve of calling courses ‘rip off’ when your own party insisted on introducing sky high fees & marketisation against huge opposition instead of properly funding the sector
Half thinking of starting an #AcademicVenting hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.
Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail. #Universities#AcademicChatter#neoliberalism
Accountability isn’t ever for them. It’s that old approach to crises from “Yes, Prime Minister”:
Bernard Woolley : What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley : What's that?
Sir Richard Wharton : Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton : In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton : In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
Are you in #academia? If you’ve got a moment, please take part in this survey: “Eco-Anxiety in Higher Education Staff and Their Beliefs About Institutional Responses to Climate Change: A global survey”.
Boosts appreciated!
The only requirement is that you are “employed to deliver teaching and learning, research or in academic leadership within a higher education setting, such as a university or college”.
York University have lowered the entry requirements for non-UK students (as they pay higher fees & the university needs the money).
This will undoubtedly spark outrage, but the problem is complaining about universities acting like this, when legislators have forced them into a business model that sees earning partly dependent on non-UK students.
If you need to capture higher paying customers, you make it easier from them to buy, that's market logic!
And if you're wondering how we might better pay for our very necessary #highereducation system, here's some thoughts on that I had a while ago for @NWBylines
Now that #twitter has effectively destroyed itself as a platform for sharing news, are there any more rumblings about #HigherEducation and similar institutions sorting out their own #Fediverse presence?
#Universities are warning that they are heading towards a (renewed) financial crisis, as support from the EU evaporates, costs spiral & questions about how to fund #HigherEducation remained mired in the #culturewars...
What we see in international comparisons is that the UK has (so far) managed to maintain a world class university system on the cheap... but as economists say 'If something cannot go on for ever, it won't! - tie to fund HE properly, not by extracting more money from #students!
"Arts education is essential – yet on both sides of the Atlantic, the humanities and critical thinking are under attack"
The scale of forced redundancies in English Higher Education is currently unbelievable, & it's mostly arts, humanities & critical social sciences affected.
The Agile Metabolic Health project is supported by UC Berkeley’s Open Platforms for Powering Science and Society initiative, which will use the outcomes and insights generated to develop new #OpenSource platforms to improve data capacity in basic science, human welfare, social justice, and sustainability.
The UW Board of Regents fired the Chancellor of UW-La Crosse today for creating consensual porn with his wife on Only Fans (plus sex positive activism). They cited reputational harm, but he was going to retire at the end of this academic year anyways, so now the regents are going to learn about the Streisand Effect. Some of their public comments seem hyperbolic and puritanical to me, like they're kowtowing to the GOP in the state legislature.
"A new estimate from researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto finds that the worldwide value of all open-source software is about $8.8 trillion."
California Faculty Association (CFA) has called off their strike, after reaching a tentative agreement with the CSU (California State University) system. #strike#highered#highereducation#csu#union
Is it your campus' #LMS, #CMS, #Portal, #Email, etc. that provide value, or your academic programs, faculty, research, etc.?
"Actors in the private sector [#HigherEducation] need to distinguish between the algorithmic technologies and data that are key to their intellectual-property and business model and the secondary ones that eventually support the former."
Continuing their hypocrisy on (hatred of) #highereducation, after forcing #universities to rely increasingly on fees from #international#students, in their wish to show they are doing something about rising 'legal' #migration, the #Tories are reviewing (with the intent of tightening) the conditions on student #visas.
Higher education is one of the few remaining areas where the UK remains a world leader, so of course you'd want to damage that if you were a wrecker, James (so-called) Cleverly!
Anyone who follows me will know that I tend to avoid political issues on my feed; but it is difficult when such issues impact my profession and sector. The consequences were abuntantly obvious to everyone, and yet the government pressed ahead with another chaotic, ill judged policy which does nothing more than destroy a Great British success story: #HigherEducation.
Penn president Elizabeth Magill resigns amid backlash over congressional hearing comments (abcnews.go.com)
The University of Pennsylvania's president has voluntarily resigned from the post, the university's board said on Saturday.