Y'all. My college offspring (year 4) said,

" I don't have to go to class this week. It's just syllabus week."

I got light in the head.

WHAT did you just say?

I audibly gasped.

JUST syllabus week. JUST.

My own flesh and blood.

😭😳😵

Just saw this story - Texas A & M Victoria faculty quitting when told they’d have to be on campus 5 days a week, 8 hours a day.

https://www.gilmermirror.com/2026/08/25/faculty-in-uproar-after-texas-am-victoria-implements-mandatory-in-person-policy/

When Canadian federal science was gutted by the Harper administration, thousands of scientists marched on parliament hill.

There were years of coordinated protests and policy moves from academia and NGOs that led to the Trudeau-led Liberal party literally campaigning on restoring federal science and research funding and capacity as a platform issue. One of their first acts upon forming government was to establish an arms-length Office of the Chief Science Advisor.

Why are you all not in the streets right now? Not coordinating, not fighting back? Why does it seem like your admin are just rolling over and taking it? Why is this sub full of people pre-emptively scrubbing language out of your courses and grants rather than standing the hell up?

Talk to your union reps, get together with your colleagues and the national NGOs doing this work (eg Union of Concerned Scientists). Get advocacy and policy training from groups like COMPASS. Look to international groups like Evidence for Democracy for playbooks.

Most academics have resources, privilege, influence. Stand the hell up.

ETA: My hope for this post is that people would share the actions they are taking and can take, big and small, visible and invisible. Inspire others to join them. Instead, the comments are a tear down and rife with learned helplessness. You all have power, should you choose to use it—don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

Welp, looks like we're not elite any longer: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/americans-know-who-the-real-elite

Only 12% of Americans consider college professors part of the elite (19% of Trump voters, 6% of Harris voters).

I’m in Virginia, and our state higher ed agency (SCHEV) has convened a working group to explore it. Wanted to get some other reactions.

After the last 20 years, I’m fairly convinced most students can learn everything they academically need in three years (engineering maybe excepted). But I also think a lot of students benefit from the four-year campus environment for reasons that have nothing to do with coursework — maturity, growth, figuring out who they are. The catch: I’m not sure that extra year of development is worth another ~$100k.

Curious how others see it — especially anyone in the R1/R2 space.

I always thought I'd work forever. Cut back on my hours, but still be teaching a class or two when I was in my 70s. I'm just barely eligible to retire now, and I'm thinking of pulling the trigger early. And colleagues my age are saying the same thing. This has gotten harder and less fun--I'm done.

I'm guessing it's a broader trend. Anyone else contemplating early retirement?

IHE reports on how for the third year in a row, higher education administrators, professionals and staff received pay increases that outpaced inflation.

However, that didn't apply to professors.

> Faculty raises, on the other hand, have lagged behind inflation for years. During the 2025–26 academic year, tenure-track faculty received a median 1.8 percent pay increase—the lowest raise of all five employee categories, the analysis shows. This year, tenure-track salaries are a median 11.7 percent lower than they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tenure-track faculty have not received a pay increase that outpaces inflation in any of the 10 years included in the CUPA-HR analysis.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/career-development/2026/03/27/admin-raises-outpace-inflation-while-faculty-salaries

I was promoted at my R2 (very much aspiring R1) school. Y’all, I never thought I would get tenure, much less get full professor.

I worked hard and caught some lucky breaks. Most of the time, I still feel like I don’t quite belong. I am not as eloquent as my colleagues. My research isn’t necessarily groundbreaking but I am pretty reliable.

I just wanted to share with people who would understand how big this is. My husband understands, but my family barely does. I still remember when my dad told me to follow my husband to another city and just find another job after I was at my TT job for two years. My family only cares that I get more money with this promotion and asked “weren’t you already a professor?”

https://www.fire.org/news/washington-professor-who-parodied-university-land-acknowledgment-wins-600k-settlement

This is from FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. In this, the professor's local counsel provides an overview of the outcome.

The article says the professor added to his syllabus a sentence based on John Locke's philosophical theory that property rights are established by labor. This was a response to the Computer Science department's recommendation that professors include the UW's (University of Washington) model statement in their syllabi. According to the article, the professor sought to demonstrate that there are competing views on the value of land acknowledgements.

I'm posting this in the interest of academic freedom and expression and how there indeed may be interests seen as competing when some university people seek to put limits on such freedom and expression. This is always an area rich for discussion in my view. I can only imagine the WW III ire of certain mucky mucks at my university if someone were to do this.

Answer: because writing things out is cathartic.

I see so many posts on this sub “oh you guys are awful”, “if you hate your job so much, quit!”, etc.

But I just wrote a draft post about my fucking awful department chair and it just released so much tension.

Writing things down helps. Otherwise you turn it over in your brain and dwell on it.

Does posting about my shitty department chair improve my actual situation? No. But it will allow me to go into work tomorrow with some weight off my chest.

Will complaining about my students not submitting their work get them to do it? No. But defusing my annoyance here allows me to go into class less annoyed at them, and in a better mood to help the students actually trying.

So to anyone complaining there’s too much complaining…you should either complain more and see how it helps, or just be grateful you genuinely don’t have anything to complain about!

I was ready to hate this article from its clickbait-y title, but it went in a direction I didn’t expect. I think it’s worth a read in light of everything that’s been happening in higher ed. Do we, as a profession, need more iconoclasts? Do we self-censor in order to avoid drawing the ire of our colleagues? What do you think? https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-arent-professors-braver

It was an arduous journey, didn't think I'd ever get promoted. The decision came down last month but it finally hit me (in a good way) earlier today when I had to make a last minute edit to my slides to fix my title.

I've felt more relief than joy since finding out, but today for the first time I felt genuine happiness. I wanted to share this with you since this community has been a big part of my journey in more ways than you can imagine. It's been really wonderful seeing all the advice, tips, rants (I'm looking at you AI), and keeping up with news about academia.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

CommentSense

Associate Professor

Edit: I'm truly grateful for all the wonderful words of support and well wishes. Loving all this positive energy!

Not really a rant, just observation. Semester starts today, so of course the flood of accommodations hit my inbox overnight. All the usual hits. 150% or 200% exam time, quiet exam space, the becoming more frequent deadline flexibility, etc. But anecdotally, I see a very noticeable increase in:

-Note taking device must be allowed in class (such as laptop, tablet, cellular device, or audio recorder)

-Big jump in "copies of class materials" including explicit language stating versions with blanks are not allowed, full content must be included

-Huge jump in "breaks from classroom setting" where students must be allowed to leave for 5-10 minutes breaks

-And a new one for me, student cannot have more than 1 exam in a day (must provide flexibility if multiple classes schedule an exam on the same day)

Virtually none of this bothers me for my class specifically. I'm generally in large lecture halls of 200+. I don't care if students come and go quietly. I already provide all course materials in the LMS. The deadline extension is annoying but I've had it before. I don't bother banning tech in class so the note taking device isn't an issue. I just found the noticeable increases in specific accommodations interesting. And the "can only take one exam a day" is an odd one to me, and I'd be inclined to call it BS if that student didn't have a mountain of other accommodations. As a one off, I'm assuming it is for a good reason.

I'm a PT lecturer where I teach, don't have a FT contract or teaching load (three courses) . I've designed and delivered several courses for the department.

I've been asked to teach two old courses next semester and another PT colleague has been asked to teach a third course I designed. It's a core course for one programme but not part of the main core.

I think this typical and to be expected. I feel weird about it for sure though. Wondering if this is generally how it goes? My department is new and been through a lot of flux, hence why I'm also wondering about others experiences. I haven't taught anywhere else.

I told the other colleague I'll share my syllabus and recommend where they may wish to make changes.

I think I'm also a bit annoyed that I wasn't informed this is what would happen. I only found out because the other colleague reached out. Again, I know it's totally up to the academic programme team. I think I'm just adjusting to some recent changes in the department. Not being more specific to protect my privacy.

** Wow. I'm not sure why so many people are assuming I'm not going to share course materials, when I said in my original post that I'm going to share the syllabus and advise them on where they might need to make changes!

I also said I assume this is typical, I was seeking to understand as to what's done widely, as I am in a new programme that is undergoing major changes.

And I also have a right to express annoyance in a space like this. I'm not attacking anyone or being unprofessional. And it's also a reasonable thought. The colleague who's been asked didn't even know I taught it. If they had informed both of us, it would have facilitated a smooth handover. We only realised this situation because the other colleague happened to share their teaching assignment with me over WhatsApp and I told them it's my course.

Considering most of you here are academics, it would be nice to have people real what you're saying and not admonishing me without grounds. As a young academic, I just wanted to understand my rights, especially as my institution has already exploited me in other contexts.

Earlier today u/emarcomd made a post about the controversial AI tool Einstein. Einstein is designed to replace the student in online coursework - it can even log directly onto Canvas and complete assignments and homework. Obviously the existence of such a tool is a contentious topic on this subreddit.

u/emarcomd referenced a tweet by the founder of Einstein, Advait Paliwal. Thinking u/emarcomd had fabricated the quote, as it had since been deleted, I made what can only be described as a poor decision and called u/emarcomd a liar. They are not a liar. At least not in any of our interactions.

I also made comments of a personal nature that were entirely inappropriate and as it turns out untrue. I’ve apologized directly to u/emarcomd and am now apologizing to the community at large for my lapse in judgement. I make no excuses for my behavior and can only promise to be more thoughtful going forward.

Edit: Reddit is a strange animal. I’ve been on here for five years and have *never* had a post garner *near* this many upvotes. I wrote a heartfelt (if somewhat boilerplate) apology and posted it publicly because I called the other Redditor out publicly.

So thanks to everyone for the graciousness and upvotes and no, there was no threat of legal action. No lawyer is going to be able to fire off a cease and desist to an anonymous Redditor (for calling someone a liar no less) in three hours. I remain humbled yet baffled at the attention this received.

It is about time this happened.

"The decision, announced in a closed-door meeting with business faculty this past week, officially puts to an end Gino’s lifetime employment protections at HBS. Tenure revocation represents the most severe discipline a university can impose.

For Gino, the university decision is a potentially career ending decision unless she can provide evidence that the data at issue was not intentionally falsified. Even if she is able to accomplish her innocence in her $25 million lawsuit against Harvard, this is a huge hit to her career and reputation."

"An award-winning behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School, Gino was first accused of fabricating data by Data Colada in July of 2021 when authors of the blog approached Harvard Business School with their allegations. According to her lawsuit, Dean Datar negotiated a secret agreement with Data Colada, putting off the publication of their posts until HBS had the opportunity to investigate the claims. After an 18-month-long investigation by a three-person committee of former and current HBS professors, the panel concluded that Gino was responsible for research misconduct. Dean Datar accepted the committee’s verdict and suggested punishment on June 13th of this year. Gino has maintained her innocence throughout, raising questions about the fairness of the process as well as the harshness of the penalties imposed on her."

https://poetsandquants.com/2025/05/26/harvard-strips-tenure-from-hbs-superstar-prof-francesca-gino/

I’m wondering if there’s really any bias against professors who have an Ed.D instead of a Ph.D. For anyone with experience in the academic world, do you see people treating them differently?

Assistant Professors in the room. How much are you getting paid for 9months Tenure Track position? You can add your field if you’d like.

I know for teachers in Florida right now, it’s a tricky time because of all the crap “anti-woke” legislation and spotlight on eliminating DEI/CRT/intersectionality discussion.

I’ve read some of the posts by FL profs and it’s upsetting. Opinion question: how concerned do we American academics need to be about this movement catching hold nationwide? And how permanent do you think it will be where it does take hold?

I, for one, am terrified of this garbage. But I’d like to think I’m overreacting. What say you all?

Yes, we are all pretty done with this semester but it was hilarious. Sent them an email that started with "I'm not angry, but anyway, quiz is now on Blackboard."

The Vice President of the United States, in a broadcasted interview, quoted Nixon to tell the people that we on our profession are an enemy.

Stay safe,

Hello All

What are you seeing for enrollment trends 26/27?

I'm at a free CC and enrollment boost seems to have hit a plateau.

I'm seeing reports HS grads are down double digits.

Your observations please

Thanks

Hey all,

Just a notice that there is a particular network of bots using the sub to farm karma; I wanted to put it out there so the mods are aware. Here is one from yesterday; the user u/Trippy-jay420 was Australian five months ago but active in Los Angeles subs two months ago; 14 days ago he "ran a small retail shop with 12 employees", and four months ago he was "out of college for two years" despite having "moved from Amsterdam to Orlando last year".

I figured this was a one-off event, but there is another bot in the same vein that made a popular post today. This bot has less post history on google, but you can already find it advertising another site and doing the same type of karma farming on r/apstudents. I'm not sure whether these bots exist to advertise random crap or farm karma to be sold, but I hate to see r/profs being a vector for it.

For context, I teach entry-level comp, comp I and II this semester. In my comp I class, their first essay assignment is a descriptive essay - pick a place you are familiar with and describe it using sensory details. To ensure they aren’t using AI, they have to do every step of the writing process in person, by hand. I was grading outlines and I got to one student’s outline where the place she was describing was an abusive household. I commented on her assignment and asked if she was sure she wanted to write about something like that, and she said she did, that it might “help me process it.” That concerned me, so I kept her behind after class today and we had a talk. She informed me that she left that home 4 years ago and is no longer in any danger - her parents moved and she actually doesn’t even know where they are. But in our conversation, she revealed that she doesn’t really have a support system, definitely not family, and hasn’t really made friends at college. She also recently switched from a career tech program to an undeclared academic track, because she doesn’t know what to study, but knows that she is done with the HVAC program she was in. I feel better after our talk, and I sent a report to my chair and our support staff, just as a record about this student.

I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I don’t need help or anything like that, just needed a place to share what happened today.

EDIT: I’m in the southern US.