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Colby

@ckdoeswork.bsky.social
1.9K followers 3.9K following 41 posts

Associate Prof of Sociology. Son of a steel mill worker from western PA. #firstgen ORCID: 0000-0002-7582-0375

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Reposted by Colby
Amanda Godsey @amandagodsey.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
“If you don’t use AI, you’ll be left behind…” Ok, but if you do use AI and come upon this “map” of Pittsburgh, you might get left behind trying to find literally anything in this city.
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Certified Illinois Expert @mrillinois.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I have been inside 129 Illinois public libraries and don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this in Sterling: three-story stacks with glass floors to let in more light, original to the 1904 Carnegie building.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
why does it feel like everything is broken
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Patrick Andelic @pkandelic.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The Muppets have to put on a show to save the Kennedy Center. There you go, Disney, that's your premise.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 09/09/2026
Astrophotographer Adam (AJ) Smadi caught this image a few hours ago from Washington state. A thin crescent Moon, sunlight illuminating the rugged lunar surface. And 2,400 times farther away—and on the other side of the Sun—mighty Jupiter, and its moons Io (left) and Ganymede (right).
A crescent Moon seen during the day, arcing from upper left to lower right of the frame. At lower centre is the full disk of Jupiter; the small dots to its upper left and lower right and Io and Ganymede, respectively.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I wrote about Dolly Parton in my latest @nytopinion.nytimes.com column. Thank you. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Greatest Story Dolly Parton Ever Wrote Was Herself (Gift Article)
She didn’t see herself as a saint; she identified as something we needed even more: a writer.
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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Seems relevant: Canada is creating jobs at a rate that is roughly 4x that in the United States.
Line chart titled "The pace of job growth in Canada has outpaced job growth in the United States" showing cumulative percent change in employment since December 2024 for Canada and the United States. Canada's employment has grown 1.34% while US employment has increased just 0.34%, meaning Canadian job growth has outpaced the United States by nearly four to one. Canada's employment growth accelerated sharply from 0.98% in June 2026 to 1.34% in July 2026, the highest rate in the period shown, while US employment growth has remained relatively stable between 0.3% and 0.36% from April through July 2026.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 26/07/2026
New research shows that marriage is more common among people with than without college degrees. But rather than use those findings to argue for investment in higher education, Fortune is blaming college-educated women for rejecting low-earning men w/o college degrees. fortune.com/2026/07/26/c...
fortune.com
College women are snapping up the highest-earning men without college degrees, leaving the rest further behind | Fortune
A new NBER study finds that as college men grow scarce, college-educated women marry high-earning men without degrees—leaving non-college women with a shrinking, poorer pool of potential husbands
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
The entire point of a liberal arts education (the A part in a BA) is that learning (and learning how to keep learning) is intrinsically valuable. College is different from a trade school. Both have value, but not the same value.
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 12/07/2026
the five year old has a point
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 30/06/2026
Top 10 US cities by share of workers commuting by walking: —Cambridge MA —Brookline MA —New Brunswick NJ —Iowa City IA —Columbia SC —New Haven CT —Berkeley CA —Jacksonville NC —Boston MA —Ann Arbor MI On Transport Databook: www.thetransportpolitic.com/databook/us-...
Commute mode share, for top 10 cities by share walking, United States (2020–24 data)
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
The AAUP chapters at Vanderbilt & Wash U have issued a joint statement denouncing the “State of Scholarship” report commissioned by their chancellors. Please, let’s make this as widely read as the gaslighting to which it responds.
Joint Statement on the "State of Scholarship" Report
The Vanderbilt University and Washington University chapters of the American Association of University Professors express our profound disagreement with the "State of Scholarship" report commissioned by our universities' chancellors. The report distorts the state of humanistic and social scientific scholarship at our universities and in the academy overall. Worse, it proposes a shocking intrusion of university administration into faculty governance and portends greater threats to academic freedom that should concern all faculty.
The report currently appears on Vanderbilt's website under the insignia of both Vanderbilt and Washington Universities. It is already receiving public condemnation. As the American Council of Learned Societies makes clear, the report is founded on false premises and anecdotal evidence and thus does nothing to "ensure deeper and more meaningful relations among scholars and members of the public." No doubt more rebuttals from scholars, departments, and professional societies will follow. It suffices for us to say that the report falls far short of the standards of political neutrality and disinterested inquiry it claims to champion. Historians, literary scholars, and anthropologists are singled out for caricature while the authors fail to acknowledge their own public biases against scholarship performed in the name of social justice. Nor does the report divulge its source of funding or conflicts of interest that may entail - standard practice for any work of humanistic or social scientific scholarship. In sum, the report is itself a clear example of "politicized" research that its authors attempt to decry.
What is most alarming is the guidance the report offers to its intended audience of university chancellors and presidents. By falsely arguing that humanities and social science departments are in the throes of an epistemological crisis, the authors lay the groundwork for university adminis…Weakening faculty governance does nothing to solve the real challenges facing our universities, and undermines our ability to effectively address society's most profound problems and challenges, from the inequalities of wealth and white supremacy to the political consequences of climate change.
Indeed, the direst threats to public trust in higher education are not philosophical debates about the nature of truth. Currently, the federal government is dramatically cutting funding for the humanities and social sciences as well as for the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, public health, and the arts. In response, university administrations have instituted austerity measures, even as administrative salaries and administrative positions have taken up an increasing share of decreasing budgets.
The best way for scholars to cultivate diverse opinions and advance knowledge is by strengthening academic freedom. Political threats to higher education have degraded, and will continue to degrade, the quality of all fields of our universities' research, to the detriment of America's global standing.
We note that the organizations now working most actively and successfully to defend academic free inquiry from politicized federal interference are not university leaders but the American Council of Learned Societies, the Modern Language Association, and the American Historical Association - professional societies of the very disciplines chastised by the report.
We call on our chancellors to rescind the report and affirm their commitment to the intellectual autonomy of faculty, academic departments, and governing faculty bodies. Administrative interference into academic departments, as licensed by this report, is a violation of the standards of academic freedom that have made American universities the envy of the world. Rather than undermining these bedrock principles, administrators should vigorously and publicly defend them.
Vanderbilt University AAUP
vanderbiltaaup@gmail.com
Wa…
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
In Mississippi, lawyers on both sides of a court case were caught using AI, essentially two LLMs arguing against each other. The judge dismissed all lawyers from the case and canceled the trial: www.404media.co/judge-learns...
404media.co
Judge Learns Lawyers on Both Sides of Case Used AI, Cancels Trial, Kicks Everyone Off the Case
When two AIs argue against each other, the legal system loses.
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Matthew Boedy @matthewboedy.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Cue Auburn joining the new “state run” accreditation group, the CPHE, after it thumbs its nose at a primary SACS standard. And oh yeah, ending a faculty senate and creating a prez board is what got Spartanburg CC censured by @aaup.org (I was on that investigation)
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
I want to say one thing about this. This has been the hiring process for low wage workers for awhile. Wal Mart et al have been using automated job application systems to gamify everything from postings to schedules. The crisis, such that it is, is that it is now happening in middle skills jobs.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 29/05/2026
This is bad. Bad for researchers. Bad for science. Bad for universities. Bad for professional associations. For example: 1. Every award would be vetted by political appointees, who could overrule peer reviewers and deny the award if it doesn't advance the president's priorities. 1/🧵
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Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
they’re saying it’s his most incomprehensible post ever
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20/05/2026
a reminder that segregation among other things is a form of theft
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G. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 15/05/2026
Good news, everyone www.cnn.com/2026/05/14/h...
cnn.com
Engaging with arts and culture can slow biological aging as much as exercise, study suggests | CNN
When it comes to slowing down our biological aging, engaging with arts and culture is as beneficial as physical activity, a new study suggests.
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 12/05/2026
TIL that Dolly Parton's Imagination Library now enrolls one of every six children in the US to receive a new book in the mail every month from birth to age five (60 books each) @arl.org
arl.org
Seven Takeaways from the Spring 2026 Meeting of the Association of Research Libraries — Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) convened for its 188th meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the end of April. Attended by the representatives of ARL’s member libraries as well as...
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
you know what the real data center is. the human mind. thank you,
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
I'm reminded of the number of times in graduate school and during my early career where I heard supposedly rigorous scholars dismiss work on racism as too radical or unserious. “Things have changed” they assured me.
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hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
the ppl we thank in acknowledgement sections are "a more relevant predictor of publication success than formal collaborations (i.e., coauthorship), even after matching for gender, seniority, methodological orientation, geographical location, and institutional prestige." www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Informal connections outweigh coauthorship ties in academic impact | PNAS
Past work has documented the importance of formal collaboration, particularly coauthorship, in increasing research productivity and innovation. How...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 28/04/2026
maybe a hot take? not only is ziggy sobotka a great character and a great performance (RIP james ransone), but looking back from the vantage point of today, "young man struggling with his masculinity and yearning to be recognized as a man commits catastrophic violence" is incredibly prescient.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
When people talk about self-censorship, they often focus on campus events or classroom discussions. But self-censorship of research is different and more impt. Big difference btw "I don't want to offend others" to "I don't want to speak truth to power" www.chronicle.com/article/near...
chronicle.com
Nearly One-Third of Faculty in Red States Say They’ve Censored Their Research
A new survey of 4,000 academics looked at the effects of state laws barring “divisive concepts” and federal grant cuts.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 15/04/2026
The administration seeks to eliminate the National Science Foundation's main funding social science research. You can take action today to defend it. Short post with tools, inspired @marthastarr.bsky.social aaronsojourner.offprint.app/a/3mjkb…
aaronsojourner.offprint.app
Aaron Sojourner | Aaron Sojourner | Offprint
Economic and social science analysis from Aaron Sojourner
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
NEW: A new pre-print study offers the first causal evidence that outsourcing reasoning tasks to AI can rapidly erode users' independent performance AND their will to persist despite difficulty. "People’s persistence drops... they’re also not willing to try without AI.” futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
AI Use Appears to Have a "Boiling Frog" Effect on Human Cognition, New Study Warns
A new study claims to offer the first causal link between AI dependency and cognitive erosion. Researchers warn of long-term implications.
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.
ms.now
Opinion | Beware conservatives promoting “intellectual freedom”
Victor Ray: This conservative lie about schools like mine is furthering authoritarianism
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Laurel @laurelfynes.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
“…survivor’s guilt for escaping a state where so many trans people remain trapped and struggling… Leaving Florida feels less like a choice now and more like a banishment sentence handed down by a few people who decided she shouldn’t have health care or use bathrooms at the airport.”
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
I joined Amanpour & Company to talk about why "working homeless"—a term that should be a scandal—has become an ordinary fact of American life. 40% of officially-counted homeless people have jobs. And that's before we get to the millions who are rendered invisible, who are never counted at all.
youtu.be
Working and Homeless: The Invisible Population Growing Every Year | Amanpour and Company
YouTube video by Amanpour and Company
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Pam Davis-Kean, PhD @umpamdk.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 02/04/2026
During WWII, the US couldn't find enough women to fill factory jobs. So, Congress used Lanham Act funds to build childcare centers in key defense production locations, offering full-time, high-quality care (and even summer and afterschool care) for <$10/day in today's dollars. 2/
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 02/04/2026
incredible comment on one of my youtube videos
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 02/04/2026
A few people have replied to my Artemis posts with links to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon." Here's a story from Space.com about Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, currently en route to fly around the Moon, and his connection to that piece. www.space.com/space-explor...
space.com
NASA's Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover listens to 'Whitey on the Moon' every Monday. This is why.
"It ain't about racism. It's about the human condition."
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
My students had not heard of AI psychosis. So we talked about it.
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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Well, let's give it a shot again and see what we get.
forms.gle
Adjunct pay/working conditions AY25-26
This form is part of a project to crowd-source pay and working conditions for people who teach and research in colleges and universities during AY2025-2026. This form is for people paid by the course ...
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Jim Dickinson @jimdickinson.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
NEW on Wonkhe: Universities serve purposes beyond market demands. Jim Dickinson asks if the pendulum between planning and markets is about to swing back - and what that should mean to protect student interests bit.ly/3XDc1z6
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Jen the Feisty Librarian @feistywaters.com · 26/03/2026
Our library info literacy school presentation used to teach students to question the reliability of Wikipedia, and now it’s one of the better (starting) internet sources, especially compared with chat gpt. Additional sources and databases are still needed too.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20/03/2026
chat is this bad?
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
In honor of Mr. Rogers’ birthday, here’s your regularly scheduled reminder that the quote of his you keep sharing, that in times of crisis we should look for the helpers, was for his audience of children. We’re adults now. We’re supposed to *be* the helpers.
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Here is the spreadsheet DOGE had ChatGPT produce, to determine which grants were too DEI www.historians.org/wp-content/u...
historians.org
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Shambling Corpse of Randy Herman @randyhermanlaw.com · 10/03/2026
Oh boy you guys that was rough
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Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
AI companies are paying screenwriters, lawyers, and other white-collar professionals to produce the training data needed to automate their jobs. I spoke with more than 30 workers about conditions inside this fast-growing and extremely secretive new gig economy.
theverge.com
The laid-off lawyers and PhDs training AI to steal their careers
Experienced white-collar workers are now part of a miserable gig economy.
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Josh B. McGee @jbmcgee.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Thanks to @chadaldeman.bsky.social for highlighting our work evaluating the impact of Arkansas's min teacher salary increase: Raise the Floor on Teacher Salaries open.substack.com/pub/aldemano...
open.substack.com
Raise the Floor on Teacher Salaries
It could boost recruitment, retention, and academic performance
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
We are so old, look at them
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AAUP @aaup.org · 01/03/2026
Congrats to @ncaaup.bsky.social & all who fought against this surveillance policy that would've allowed admin to hijack microphones in the classroom for secret recordings. This move would've chilled classroom discussion & suppressed students' willingness to ask questions & take intellectual risks.
theassemblync.com
UNC-CH Will ‘Scrap’ New Recording Policy, Chancellor Says
The move comes less than three weeks after the controversial rules were enacted.
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