Higher Education News From Around The Web

Dan Mithcell’s UCLA Faculty Association Blog:

  • Graduation Speakers
    We noticed two announcements of UCLA graduation ceremony speakers recently:One of UCLA’s most iconic alumni is coming home to celebrate the next generation of Bruins. Six-time Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee will deliver the keynote address at the 2026 UCLA College commencement ceremonies on Friday, June 12, in Pauley Pavilion… “It is truly an honor to return […]
  • Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? – Part 166
    From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences could lay off up to one quarter of its staff this summer as part of a sweeping administrative overhaul that would consolidate departments, centers, and institutes into shared administrative “clusters,” according to two people familiar with the plans. The proposed structure, developed by the FAS […]
  • Straws in the Wind – Part 353
    From The Dartmouth: Former communications office assistant director of social media Micky Bedell posted three projects she used as part of a “knowledge base” to create and edit social media content for the College on the Dartmouth Claude enterprise portal. One of the projects, titled “Dartmouth Social Caption Writer,” was last edited in March 2026, […]
  • Confident Retiree Webinars
    Confident Retiree Webinars provide you with the knowledge, tools and resources to enjoy a comfortable retirement.Attend the final webinar in our new Legacy Planning series, Essential Steps for Survivors of UC Retirees: Accessing UC Benefits and More and learn about: What UCRP (pension) payments are made after a retiree’s passingHow to apply for UCRP benefitsImportant documents […]
  • Straws in the Wind – Part 352
    From the Washington Post: MIT is doing less research and enrolling fewer graduate students as a result of federal actions, the university president warned… Federally funded research on campus is down more than 20 percent compared to this time last year, MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, told the campus community in a video message, and the […]

Chris Newfield & Michael Meranze’s Remaking the University

  • UC Irvine Is Once Again Laying Off Faculty and Staff to Pad Its More than $800 million in Core Reserves (Guest Post)
    by Chris Newfield
     UC Irvine on April 13, 2018     by Trevor Griffey, School of Humanities, UC IrvineLast May, 2025, I had the radicalizing experience of successfully lobbying for three months as part of a labor union coalition to prevent $270 million in proposed cuts to the University of California (UC) general fund allocation from the State of […]
  • From Community Benefit to Rent-Seeking Scam: UC Irvine's Division of Continuing Education (Guest Post)
    by Chris Newfield
     510 E. Peltason Dr, UC Irvine  by Trevor Griffey, School of Humanities, UC Irvine The idea of continuing education— sometimes also called “lifelong learning”— is old and venerable. It taps into some of the best humanist ideals of self-improvement and the democratization of access to skills and knowledge. But the management of contemporary continuing education programs […]
  • Standing Up for the UC Means Standing Up Against Zionism (Guest Post)
    by Chris Newfield
    Venice, Italy on May 8, 2026   by Sean L. Malloy, Department of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES), UC Merced In September 2025, I wrote a guest post for this blog entitled “Why Should We Stand Up for the UC?” that placed much of the blame for the current federal assault against the University of California on the […]
  • Liner Note 53. AI and the Public Good
    by Chris Newfield
    Wayne State, Detroit on April 12, 2019   This is the corrected text of a talk I gave online to the Wayne State University conference, “Public Budgets, Public Good,” on April 30, 2026.  Many thanks to the audience, whose questions about theory and practice were excellent. Thanks also to the sponsors: Labor@Wayne, AAUP, HELU, and Public […]
  • Liner Note 52. Fighting for an Interdiscipline: The Humanities' Future
    by Chris Newfield
    New Haven People's Center on April 18, 2026  I gave this talk at the 45th Anniversary Conference of the Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University,  April 17, 2026. Many thanks to the organizers, speakers, audience, and my co-panelists. I’m going to talk about humanities ambition in a time of diminished authority for its fields,  and I’ll say […]

National higher education blogs of interest, starting with AAUP’s Academe Blog:

  • An Authentic Learning and Assessment Strategy for Interprofessional Education
    by Guest Blogger
    BY JAMES THOMPSON Think of the term “huddle” and you probably think of professional athletes gathered shoulder to shoulder in a circle, intensely discussing their next play strategy, often at critical junctures of the game. If we explore some of the core elements present, themes of communication, problem solving, strategizing, teamwork, and uniting members in…
  • The Hidden Costs of Productivity Theater in Higher Education
    by Guest Blogger
    BY MICHAEL LaGIER Lights, camera, action. In more and more workplaces, leaders unintentionally reward visible busyness over meaningful results, a dynamic often called productivity theater, a term popularized by organizational psychologist Adam Grant. In colleges and universities, this phenomenon can be especially damaging. When faculty and staff are evaluated primarily on how much they appear…
  • From the Editor: AI in the Corporate University
    by AAUP
    BY MICHAEL FERGUSON Following is the editor’s introduction to the spring 2026 issue of Academe, “AI in the Corporate University,” out this week. The full issue and table of contents can be found here.  The AAUP’S 2025 report Artificial Intelligence and Academic Professions concludes with a call for fac­ulty members to assert authority over their working conditions and their…
  • First Amendment Hero Harry Keyishian Has Died
    by Guest Blogger
    BY MARJORIE HEINS Harry Keyishian, the last surviving plaintiff in the most important Supreme Court academic freedom case of the twentieth century, died on April 4 at the age of 93.  He was one of only five University of Buffalo professors who in 1964 refused to sign an anti-communist loyalty oath and was the first…
  • Apostasy or Enlightenment
    by Guest Blogger
    BY B. M. RYAN Imagine a junior scholar, anxious about tenure, grants, and professional recognition, carefully preparing a manuscript that sits at the intersection of two fields, seeking to connect them in a way that could advance knowledge. The scholar submits the work to a journal affiliated with a public university. That journal is staffed…

Higher Ed Labor United:

  • May 2026 HELU Chair’s Message
    by Tracy Berger
    From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121: What’s next?  In the months leading up to May Day, higher ed workers from coast to coast built power around a simple but powerful set of demands to assert a worker-centered vision for higher ed. More importantly, workers, students, and alumni on campuses and metro […]
  • Don’t Let California Public Funds Bankroll Attacks on Higher Ed
    by Tracy Berger
    From AAUP National and the California Faculty Association: California educators, researchers, staff, students, retirees, and public education beneficiaries should not have their pension, retirement, or university endowment assets used to bankroll attacks on public higher education. CalSTRS, CalPERS, the UC Regents, and UC Investments have a responsibility to manage public education pension, retirement, and endowment […]
  • Due Process Resolution for Contingents at AFT Convention
    by Tracy Berger
    By Geoff Johnson, At Large member of HELU and President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus At the AFT National Convention in Washington, DC on July 16-19, 2026, the Adjunct/Contingent Caucus will present a resolution calling for AFT to create model language and legislation for Due Process rights for Contingent faculty. This resolution is backed by […]
  • How the Crackdown on the Encampments Revealed Higher Ed’s MAGA Consensus
    by Tracy Berger
    Helena Worthen with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, HELU individual member, historian of American colleges and universities, author of Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Inventing the Liberal University (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of Degrees of Liberation (SUNY Press, forthcoming). Listen to […]
  • Resistance to right-wing state interference with Florida’s colleges and universities: An interview with Robert Cassanello, President of United Faculty of Florida
    by Tracy Berger
    The United Faculty of Florida (UFF) is a statewide union representing close to 10,000 public higher education workers in Florida. UFF has chapters in all public universities (12 in total). We have 16 chapters in the state college system and 4 graduate student chapters. UFF represents mostly instructional faculty and instructional support faculty. HELU asks: In […]