it doesn't last
/People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing -- that's why we recommend it daily. -Zig Ziglar
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
the strongest political bias of all
/The strongest bias in American politics is not a liberal bias or a conservative bias; it is a confirmation bias, or the urge to believe only things that confirm what you already believe to be true. Not only do we tend to seek out and remember information that reaffirms what we already believe, but there is also a “backfire effect,” which sees people doubling down on their beliefs after being presented with evidence that contradicts them. So, where do we go from here? There’s no simple answer, but the only way people will start rejecting falsehoods being fed to them is by confronting uncomfortable truths.
Emma Roller writing in the New York Times
Recent data science articles - Oct 16
/Why reducing the costs of training neural networks remains a challenge
Data poisoning—a series of attacks targeting machine learning and deep learning models
Machine learning with less than one example
Defending the defense industrial base from ransomware
80-year-old man pulls driver from sinking car
/#GOODNEWS
Articles of interest about journalism, writing, fakes, & social media - Oct 16
/***THE VIRUS
A Global Data Effort Probes Whether Covid Causes Diabetes
When COVID-19 superspreaders are talking, where you sit in the room matters
This company is giving away bacon-scented face masks
Study: COVID-19 transmission risk on airplanes 'virtually non-existent' when passengers wear masks
***JOURNALISM
Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s record on press rights issues
Most in US say anonymous sources in news are OK only in special cases
***JOURNALISM & THE ELECTION
National News Outlets Prepare for an Election Night that Might Turn into Days, Weeks
How Not to Cover Voter Fraud Disinformation
How The Associated Press Plans to Report The Election Results
***WRITING & READING
People Are Recommending Books For People Who Haven't Read Since High School, And it is Wonderful
Your Local Bookstore Wants You to Know That It’s Struggling
Reading C. S. Lewis in the Time of Covid
***FAKES & FRAUDS
How to Deal With a Crisis of Misinformation ($)
“It’s been really, really bad”: How Latinx voters are being targeted by disinformation
Podcast discussion of a paper titled the online competition between pro- and anti-vaccination views
***QANON
YouTube bans QAnon, other conspiracy content that targets individuals
QAnon is tearing families apart ($)
How the "QAnon Candidate" Marjorie Taylor Greene Reached the Doorstep of Congress
Conspiracy Theories, Such As QAnon, Appear To Gain Ground In Britain
How a dangerous virtual cult is going global
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook says it will finally ban anti-vaccination ads
64% of Americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going
TikTok passes Instagram as second-most popular social app for U.S. teens
'Freedom of speech is no longer free.' Ohio man says he was fired over a TikTok video
***PRIVACY & SECURITY
Google is adding cross-app account security alerts on iOS
DuckDuckGo, EFF, and others just launched privacy settings for the whole internet
Gmail users: Expect to see these new security alerts, says Google
Google is adding cross-app account security alerts on iOS
***LANGUAGE
The origin of Nicaraguan Sign Language tells us a lot about language creation
The pandemic is changing the English language
In Language Learning, Mistakes Are Not Bad
In many Asian languages, 'LGBTQ' doesn't translate—here's how some fill the gaps
***POETRY
The Future of Poetry in 10 Poems ($)
Louise Glück, American poet, wins Nobel Prize in Literature 2020
Kendrick Lamar’s Poetic Awakening
The Gift of Blindness and Poetry
The New York Times project on Young Black Poets ($)
***PRODUCING MEDIA
Prezi introduces dynamic video teaching tools as education moves online
Apple iMovie vs Adobe Premiere Elements
Be careful
/A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies. -Oscar Wilde (born Oct. 16, 1854)Chick-fil-A employee saves choking child in drive-thru
/#GOODNEWS
Zack Kokenzie (known as Cowboy to his friends) heard a child choking while he was working the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru in Columbus, Georgia. The Eagle Scout jumped into action and helped free the child from a seat belt that was wrapped around the child's windpipe. (Click on the picture to read more)
Articles of Interest about higher ed - Oct 15
/***HIGHER ED & THE VIRUS
Pandemic presents an opportunity for small liberal arts colleges to change
List of employees with COVID-19 at Volunteer State Community College emailed by mistake
How Transparent Is Your College's COVID Dashboard?
***K-12
Schools are 2 months into reopening under Covid-19 and no one's keeping track of how it's going
Up to 1 million California students may still lack connectivity during distance learning
***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
University of Memphis braces for layoffs as COVID-19 takes its toll
D'Youville College to lay off employees furloughed since spring
Ithaca College to cut 130 faculty positions due to low enrollment
Duke University to lay off 75 employees due to COVID-19 disruptions
***COLLEGE FINANCES
Cornish College of the Arts Declares Financial Emergency and Exigency
***HIGHER ED
University of Florida ends use of prison labor after mounting student pressure
Texas A&M shortens spring break to a single day
Colleges cancel diversity programs in response to Trump order
***HIGHER ED IN COURT
Princeton will pay nearly $1M in back pay to female professors in sweeping discrimination settlement
***HUMANITIES
Colleges are dropping courses in humanities
***ONLINE CLASSES
Coursera Founder Launches Zoom Challenger For Higher Ed
A college student says a professor told her not to breastfeed her baby during online class
Fine Arts majors say they struggle with online and distance learning
***ONLINE CHEATING
150 University of Missouri students caught cheating on exams held online amid COVID-19
More Mizzou students are cheating — and you can blame the pandemic. Sort of
California bar exam takers say facial recognition software rejected them
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Professors endure a summer of cancellations: recent assaults on academic freedom
Harvard professor Charles Lieber sues university over legal fees
***ADMINISTRATORS
Notre Dame president ends quarantine after COVID diagnosis
***CHRISTIAN COLLEGES
Ohio Wesleyan cuts 18 majors, consolidates departments to save $4 million
Facebook bans Liberty University's Falkirk Center co-founder
Former Student Claims Moody Bible Institute Put Her on ‘Warning Status' for Being Lesbian
Moody Bible Institute Must Face Sex Discrimination, Retaliation Lawsuit ($)
***CHRISTIAN COLLEGES & COVID
Notre Dame’s President Faces an Angry Campus After Getting the Coronavirus ($)
Baylor suspends football activities due to COVID issues
Point Loma Nazarene University reports jump in COVID-19 cases
***SEMINARIES
Court Dismisses LGBT Anti-Discrimination Lawsuit Against Fuller Seminary
SBC seminary votes to retain slaveholders’ names on buildings
***RESEARCH
Science has been in a “replication crisis” for a decade. Have we learned anything?
How One Prominent Journal Went Very Wrong ($)
Journals’ English copy-editing services are inadequate and unethical ($)
Publish, profit, predate, perish and peer review
Retraction Watch on The Data Skeptic podcast
***STUDENT LIFE
College kids get creative to get out the vote
A college refuses to accommodate students who are afraid of being on campus
On college campuses, resident assistants in dorms adjust to a new role: COVID cop
Students continue to be stressed about college, their futures
Latinx DACA Students Contend with Adversity at Universities
***STUDENTS IN COURT
College baseball, racial epithets, and free speech
***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS
Duquesne University fires professor who used racial slur in class
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
U.S. Department of Education fines Baylor $462K for violations of Jeanne Clery Act
LSU releases new regulations addressing sexual harassment under Title IX
Why Is It So Hard to Fire a Tenured Sexual Predator? ($)
The path to holiness
/The path to holiness lies through questioning everything. –M. Scott Peck
Motivated reasoning
/Motivated reasoning is thinking through a topic with the aim, conscious or unconscious, of reaching a particular kind of conclusion. In a football game, we see the fouls committed by the other team but overlook the sins of our own side. We are more likely to notice what we want to notice. Experts are not immune to motivated reasoning. Under some circumstances their expertise can even become a disadvantage.
People with deeper expertise are better equipped to spot deception, but if they fall into the trap of motivated reasoning, they are able to muster more reasons to believe whatever they really wish to believe.
Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up
Optimists
/Optimists are nostalgic about the future.
Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy
/The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.
Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out.
James Clear, Atomic Habits
feeling inferior
/No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -Eleanor Roosevelt, born: Oct. 11, 1884
Strict Materialism
/If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brian, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true.. and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.
JBS Haldane, Possible Worlds
Acting The Part
/The late Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack once told me that he was at a loss when he first moved behind the camera, so he simply acted like a director.
The feeling of not being up to the job, the belief that the role is too big, is something every leader has felt. It is evidence that the role is greater than the individual—and thus worth taking on. Pollack made the leader's requisite leap into the unknown, accepting the risk of failure that is the first step in becoming a leader—and he excelled.
That adaptive capacity is the most important attribute in determining who will become a leader. It's also the defining trait of the best actors. Inhabiting roles other than the one most of us think of as self is essential to both. So is the empathy needed to project yourself into someone else's skin.
Like great actors, great leaders create and sell an alternative vision of the world, a better one in which we are an essential part. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote that Churchill idealized his countrymen with such intensity that in the end they rose to his ideal. Mahatma Gandhi made India proud of herself. Washington and the other Founding-Fathers shared that great leader's gift of making people believe they could be—and were—part of a great nation. Martin Luther King Jr. had that same genius.
When you consider such towering and theatrical leaders, you realize leadership may be the greatest performing art of all—the only one that creates institutions of lasting value, institutions that can endure long after the stars who envisioned them have left the theater.
Warren Bennis, The Essential Bennis
yesterday's tools
/Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's jobs with yesterday's tools. -Marshall McLuhan
An optimist
/An optimist is the human personification of spring. ~Susan J. Bissonette
the Dictatorship
/Many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity – that is, Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride.
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
Articles of Interest about Higher Ed - Oct 6
/***THE VIRUS
CDC revises coronavirus guidance to acknowledge that it spreads through airborne transmission
Most hospitalized Covid patients have neurological symptoms, study says
As cold weather arrives, U.S. states see record increases in COVID-19 cases
***HIGHER ED & THE VIRUS
Under the cloud of the coronavirus, fall U.S. college enrollment takes a hit ($)
Partying frustrates colleges’ work to keep campuses safe ($)
***THE VIRUS AT SPECIFIC SCHOOLS
Brown University, Providence College Begin Reopening Process
19-year-old Appalachian State University dies from COVID-19 complications
Merrimack College temporarily moves to remote learning after COVID-19 outbreak
Few UC San Diego students test positive for COVID-19, but many shun campus housing
University of Tennessee to hold in-person graduation ceremonies in November
A Student Dies, and a Campus Gets Serious About Coronavirus ($)
***VIRUS TESTING ON CAMPUS
Many Colleges Aren't Aggressively Testing Students For Coronavirus
CDC Issues New Testing Guidance for Colleges
Colleges Learn How to Suppress Coronavirus: Extensive Testing
***K-12
The Students Left Behind by Remote Learning
What We Know About Coronavirus Cases in K-12 Schools So Far
5 ways parents can help kids thrive amid remote learning
Student Discipline Rates Show Black Girls Are Disproportionally At Risk ($)
***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
Marquette Professors disheartened by potential layoffs
Staff cuts, furloughs announced amid $107 million Ohio State athletics budget deficit
Pandemic spurs more layoffs at Dartmouth College
Mass Layoffs Typically Boost Enrollment at Community Colleges
Erie Community College lays off 3 executive staff, along with undisclosed number of employees
Lack of trust and fear of long-term damages loom after University of Akron faculty layoffs
Pandemic prompts Ball State to cut 128 jobs
Western Oregon University announces layoffs
University of Florida's Board of Trustees approves furlough policy
Arizona University Professors Struggling After Layoffs, Pay Cuts During COVID
Miami University votes on President's pay raise, furloughs 115 members of athletics department
***COLLEGE FINANCES
'Budget Crisis' At Connecticut Community Colleges, State Universities
Colleges: Financial Toll of Coronavirus Worse Than Anticipated
***HIGHER ED
The Enrollment Cliff, Mega-Universities, COVID-19, and the Changing Landscape of U.S. Colleges
Study: The majority of college recreation programs do not have ADA compliant websites
More Doctoral Programs Suspend Admissions. That Could Have Lasting Effects on Graduate Education
Universities continue to block athletes from talking to the media. That's got to stop (opinion)
Why Colleges and Universities Should Update Their Codes of Conduct
***HUMANITIES
The Crowding out of a Humanities Education
***ONLINE CLASSES
The Hidden Expenses of Remote Teaching
Microsoft Teams and OneNote bring these new features for remote learning
Make video presentations more interesting with filters, polls and live animals
Professor Teaches Class While Stuck in an Elevator
***ONLINE CHEATING
Distance Learning, With Shades of Big Brother
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing how students cheat – and get caught
Academic fraud spikes as students study from home
Students Are Rebelling Against Eye-Tracking Exam Surveillance Tools
AI proctoring won’t stop students from cheating, it is just added stress for students (opinion)
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Professors union to investigate Keuka College
The Virus Moved Female Faculty to the Brink. Will Universities Help? ($)
White male New Hampshire professor allegedly posed as woman of color on Twitter
How remote learning’s flaws pushed me to leave my university teaching job
Midwestern State University investigates controversial social media comment by professor
CMU professor fired for ‘hostile learning environment’ after using racial slur, reports show
***ADMINISTRATORS
The Three Lessons That 2020 Has Taught Every University President
Retirement Wave Hits College Presidents
Notre Dame president faces heat for not wearing mask or distancing at Barrett event
Less than a year on the job Wichita State president resigns
Four resign from Beloit College board of trustees
***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Pandemic leads to faculty layoffs at Anderson University
Seattle Pacific University will cut tuition 25% in fall 2021
Notre Dame president tests positive for COVID-19
Lubbock Christian University sees drop in enrollment amid pandemic
***PLNU
The Metaphysics of Modern (Same-As-The-Old) Media (interview with Dean Nelson)
***LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
Liberty University enrollment spikes, despite statewide drop in new college students
Liberty University pays Jerry Falwell Jr.
Ex-Liberty student sentenced in sexual battery case involving Liberty Instructor
***RESEARCH
5 ways to improve the quality and credibility of preprint
What do you do if you suspect research misconduct?
Could Einstein Get Published Today? ($)
5 ways to increase peer review transparency to foster greater trust in the process
***COVID RESEARCH
The rush to research COVID-19 risks compromising research integrity and impact
The carnage of substandard research during the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for quality
***RESEARCH IN CHINA
China Uses Social Credit System to Punish Academic Misconduct
Chinese graduate students’ perceptions of plagiarism: A mixed-methods study
***RETRACTIONS
How language in retraction notices obscures culpability
A look at retractions for failure to disclose conflicts of interest
***STUDENT LIFE
2 college students plummet four floors while taking selfie at rooftop party
***RANSOMWARE
Treasury Department warns against paying hackers involved in ransomware attacks
How School Districts Should Respond to Ransomware Attacks
New Details on Cyberattack on Montgomery College
Surge in ransomware attacks threatens student data
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Notre Dame Provost creates committee to alter Title IX procedures to comply with federal law
Hundreds of stories of sexual assault at colleges shared on Instagram