Dr Amanda Dillon

Track & visualise the growth of cold spots in course provision across the UK in SHAPE subjects (which 56% of UK undergraduates and 58% of taught postgraduates study) in the link below. The impacts are especially acute for lower tariff HEIs, which disproportionately serve lower socioeconomic groups.

'This would require a national body responsible for monitoring regional subject provision, it said. It suggests this could sit within the Office for Students or a revived form of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which was closed down in 2018.'

'In a policy paper sent to MPs, the University and College Union (UCU) branch at the University of East Anglia has called for urgent action after analysing the state of provision across the East of England.'

'“Minimum provision guarantees” should be introduced across English regions, a report has argued, with universities being encouraged to work closer together on course offerings to stop academic “cold spots” from opening up.'

An impressive, important policy brief and proposal for higher education provision in the East of England from UEA's UCU Branch, with much broader national relevance. An essential addition to your reading list.

'While the dire situation facing the sector will likely mean higher education continues to shrink in the short to medium term, it is our contention that university leaders are now naively rushing towards “specialisation” without fully understanding the needs of the region they are there to serve.'

'There has been a tendency across the East of England for the arts and humanities to be the first to bear the brunt of cuts. This tendency not only has negative economic effects on the creative and cultural industries, but also erodes...underlying skills...developed by these course profiles.'

For any exec type going ‘oh obvs lecturers are work shy/don’t have enough to do’: babe, I’m on a 0.5 and pull 25 hr weeks minimum. I have receipts too, going back 7 years. And it’s not like I’m not working in reading week. Let me have my moment to breathe in rather than endlessly breathing out.

More from my local branch.

And frankly, those two points alone should lead any moral country to reform the way it funds its higher education system. It's structurally destroying what made it good in the first place. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri... Westminster Hall debate about #UKHE funding on Wednesday morning

Minus one meeting I have actually managed to keep my reading week almost 100% clear.* HOW. HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED? First time in THIRTEEN YEARS. *important meeting Monday morning but aside from that!!

Excited by the "distinctively British" approach to AI, presumably we'll be nicking the bots from some other part of the world and allocating them by social class

An extraordinary piece of work by my local branch (I think I corrected a typo and added a now deleted sentence). A Strategy to Avoid Geographic and Subject Cold Spots in the East of England

An extraordinary piece of work by my local branch (I think I corrected a typo and added a now deleted sentence). A Strategy to Avoid Geographic and Subject Cold Spots in the East of England

As a former gifted kid: signed. There are ways of enriching education for everyone that doesn’t destroy one population and make the other feel inadequate.

literally this comic except he apparently lives in Czechia instead of Nebraska

University of Nottingham, right now, is cutting 560 jobs. Do we need to rebrand universities as very large, very clean, land-based oil rigs to get government support?

Kage Baker with another correct prediction back in 1999 (Sky Coyote).

Sometimes the research leans on your mind in odd ways in the current HE hellscape.

Yeah cause the AI bots can’t distinguish puns from facts

🧵

It’s the same exact, uncreative, opportunistic, parasitic consultants. Wonder if they at least changed the institution’s name in Word this time… -‘strategic and data-informed’ -‘program realignment’ -‘strategic growth opportunities’ -‘timely and supported manner’ -‘nimble and responsive’

Guess the chant ‘we are Penn State’ needs to be changed…

Saw this quoted post last night and woke up thinking about it.

A haunted house where every room is another university-sponsored AI workshop by yet another recently-minted AI expert.

A reminder for those at the back.

Listen: if you care about History, especially history written for broad audiences, we need review sites. It’s basically impossible for me to sell book reviews the mainstream media applications now. So I’m asking you to subscribe to this one.

THIRTY THOUSAND. Thirty THOUSAND. THIRTY thousand. And the government does nothing why?

30,000 job losses in one of the few sectors we are still genuinely world-leading, and zero national conversation beyond tuition fees and loans. UK Higher Ed is sinking and apparently no-one has noticed.

Very much enjoying the story of AI bros going to religious leaders and asking them to say that machines have souls, only to be told: a) no they obviously don’t and b) if they did then what the AI guys are doing is literally slavery and that would be BAD.

So my frequent flyer points didn’t transfer into my account like they normally do and I decided to hunt down my boarding pass. Couldn’t find it. Cue me having a full on existential crisis thinking, however briefly, my return to the UK was but a fever dream (the cold is better).

God bless @atherton.bsky.social for this succinct wisdom

I frequently wonder if one thing that might help financially in UK HE is a cooperative model - y’know, rotating people in charge, no extra pay, all that. But then I realised that that’s probably how it started, and grifters gonna grift…

Jet lag + bad cold + trying to sort new term. 0/10, would not recommend, would like to speak to a manager.

The loos in the arrivals hall in Heathrow 3 play Elgar at *volume*. This is now a thing you know.