iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Kind of liked it better when we just had varieties of capitalism. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

2 x 2 figure showing four varieties of plutocrats: oligarchs, tycoons, cronies, and kleptocrats

Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I can never get over how these memos are like "boring bureaucratic language, more boring tech buzzwords," then something like this

Text: Following years of unfocused Federal investments weighed down by woke ideology and diversity,
equity, and inclusion initiatives, we are realigning the Federal R&D portfolio to serve its core
purposes: driving economic growth and high-wage employment for all Americans, promoting high

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

"When does finance become speculative?"

Text: talkie-1930
Finance becomes speculative when it is carried on for purposes of profit, and not of legitimate business. Legitimate finance merely provides capital for industrial and commercial undertakings, speculation supplies it for operations of a gambling character. The former keeps money actively employed, and adds to the national wealth; the latter leaves it idleness, and consequently diminishes the national resources. Speculative finance also tends to raise prices, and thus increases the cost of living, which is injurious to the community. Legitimate finance, on the contrary, operates in an opposite direction. Speculative finance, too, has an immoralising influence on society, tempting men to risk other people's money, and to live beyond their means; while legitimate finance promotes habits of prudence and economy. In times of commercial panic, speculative finance usually breaks down first, and legitimate finance afterwards; but in seasons of prosperity they both flourish together.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Can't believe this was an actual sentence I read this morning.

Screenshot of Financial Times: "But money, if you believe the hype, is a neutral medium measuring contributions"

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Love this energy chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

A small middle-aged woman in a fuschia winter coat yells up at a large, camo-uniformed Border Patrol officer, who is leaning back slightly in what looks alarm

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

The hate I can at least understand. The desire to shoot ourselves in the foot, repeatedly, will never cease to mystify me.

Screenshot of tweet from Russ Vought, explaining that the National Center for Atmospheric Research is being broken up for being "one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

trying to figure out what "blue-collar pay" means here; search of BLS website does not suggest this is a standard category?

Screenshot of WaPo: Start with the relationship that matters: wages versus prices. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data on blue-collar pay and the consumer price index for “Food at Home,” we can compare wage growth with grocery inflation over multiple time horizons. Over the past year, blue-collar wages rose 3.8 percent while supermarket prices rose 2.7 percent.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I keep running into Howard Odum the ecologist, and yes, he *is* the son of Howard Odum the sociologist.

Screenshot of wikipedia text:
Biography
Odum was the third child of Howard W. Odum, an American sociologist, and his wife, Anna Louise (née Kranz) Odum (1888–1965). He was the younger brother of Eugene Odum. Their father "encouraged his sons to go into science and to develop new techniques to contribute to social progress". Howard learned his early scientific lessons about (a) birds from his brother, (b) fish and the philosophy of biology while working after school for marine zoologist Robert Coker, and (c) electrical circuits from The Boy Electrician (1929) by Alfred Powell Morgan.[1]

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

There hasn't been a lot of empirical evidence yet -- here's a start from Kim + Hamilton. Faculty hiring of URMs decreases after state introduction (not passage) of anti-DEI legislation. Impact greater for teaching-focused schools, and increases with state revenue dependence. osf.io/preprints/so...

Graph showing relationship between share of faculty hiring going to white men vs. underrepresented minorities at different levels of state revenue dependence with and without introduction of DEI bills.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Organizational Studies at UMich is hiring a full-time lecturer. We're a small but growing program with amazing students at a wonderful university. If this ad sounds like you, please apply. apply.interfolio.com/174964

Description

Job Summary:

The Interdisciplinary Program in Organizational Studies in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan seeks applicants for a full time Lecturer III position to begin August 25, 2026. Organizational Studies is a small but growing selective undergraduate major in the arts and sciences. This is a non-tenure track position with a university year appointment. The initial appointment period will be four (4) years, and the appointment may be renewed (based on programmatic need, funding, and performance). The appointment is subject to final approval by the college.

Responsibilities:

Duties and responsibilities for this Lecturer III position are expected to include four (4) undergraduate courses per year, including both lectures and seminars, as well as departmental service, including undergraduate advising and mentoring equivalent to a third class per semester, and service on appropriate committees. Candidates may also contribute to our core class rotation (micro-organizational behavior, macro-organizational theory, and research methods), depending on program needs and candidate background. A typical full-time (100% effort) load for a Lecturer III in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts is three courses per semester, or the equivalent in administrative and/or service duties.
Qualifications

Qualifications:

Qualified candidates will have a Ph.D. in a relevant social/behavioral science or professional discipline prior to the start date of the position and a range of instructional expertise. Candidates must be able to teach lower- and upper-level classes relevant to the study of organizations that are grounded in social/behavioral science and appeal to students looking to develop practical, transferable skills. Candidates must also be capable of teaching at least one and preferably two of our core classes (micro-organizational behavior, macro-organizational theory, and research methods). We espec…

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Well, this seems normal for October in Michigan.

Image of forecast of sunny weather with highs in the mid/upper 80s

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

What I find inspiring is being forced to fly to another continent in the middle of my workweek to listen to my boss give an unnecessary speech.

Headline: Summoned Military Officers Are Expected to Hear a 'Rally the Troops' Message

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Good review. I particularly like the opening paragraphs.

The sociologist Monika Krause, in her book Model Cases (2021), shows that social scientists have tended to base their concepts and theories on a surprisingly limited range of shared empirical instances. Images of the modern metropolis, for example, have been excessively shaped by studies of Chicago and Berlin. Political theories of populism have been heavily indebted to cases in Latin America, in particular Argentina. The sociology of work developed as a study of car manufacturing. And our thinking about professions relies on the examples of doctors and lawyers. Krause doesn’t seek to challenge this partiality (the natural sciences also use ‘privileged material research objects’, such as fruit flies) but to understand what it tells us about the practices and knowledge claims of the social sciences.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Federally funded R&D (not all of which is spent at universities) as a fraction of GDP is as low as it's been since we started tracking. Which is a different way of looking at it than "line go up." 4/x ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf2332...

Line graph of the ratio of US R&D spending from various sources to GDP, 1953-2021. The federal percent ranges from about 0.6% of GDP to 1.8%, with the peak in the 1960s, and the low point at the very beginning and over the last 20 years.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

In the 1960s over 70% of higher ed R&D came from the federal government! It's just a bigger enterprise now. (from same data source) 2/x

Line graph of the percent of higher ed R&D coming from federal government, 1953 to 2023. The range is from about 53% to 74%, with the peak in the 1960s.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

What woke agenda, exactly, do they think Chest Journal has?

Wiki: Chest is a peer-reviewed medical journal covering chest diseases and related issues, including pulmonology, cardiology, thoracic surgery, transplantation, breathing, airway diseases, and emergency medicine. The journal was established in 1935 and is published by the American College of Chest Physicians. The editor-in-chief is Peter Mazzone (Cleveland Clinic Respiratory Institute).

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Is it just me, or is <checks notes> military.com significantly more clear-eyed about this than most news sources? www.military.com/daily-news/2...

The change reflects the expanding Trump administration censorship across the Department of Defense aimed at erasing acknowledgment of those groups. It also follows a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump and internal policy shifts championed by Hegseth, who has made the erasure of those groups a core goal of his tenure so far.

The administration has labeled materials related to women, minorities and gay people as "diversity, equity and inclusion," or DEI, a term that once described efforts toward racial equality but has been repurposed under Trump as a catchall term used to conduct a government-wide purge.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Just spent an hour of my one wild and precious life replacing tiny fairy light batteries secured by even tinier screws out of a misguided sense that things should not be disposable even if they cost $2 apiece

tiny finicky dissassembled fairy light mechanism

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Is this bad? This seems bad. www.ft.com/content/0005...

Text: One hedge fund manager said: “Those huge hedge funds with trillions of dollars of Treasuries relative value trades will blow up today if the Fed doesn’t bail them out.”

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Yes! Although this bit stuck out as maybe not an obvious end goal right now; even the stuff about "workforce development" appears to be motivated by the needs of capital and opposition to a liberal education, not an ROI-driven vision of the university.

Text: "The Trumpist university would also have its function, but as an even more extreme neoliberal engine of return on investment and tied to the cultural promotion of ‘Western civilization’."

The part about being a neoliberal engine of ROI is highlighted.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

The whole assignment description is long, but this is the key part

Text: Paying for the Party shows how colleges, intentionally or unintentionally, create “pathways” that channel students into particular majors or make some academic paths easier/harder to follow than others, in ways that intersect with social class, gender, and other identities.

In this essay, I would like you to use a close reading of Paying for the Party and your own experience to analyze the ways that U-M creates similar pathways and how they appear to work.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Things are escalating quickly, I see.

Post screenshotting Reddit preppers: People don't realize how difficult subsistence farming is. Many people will starve.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I just keep thinking about this one

Screenshot of Tweet: Well, I'd like to see ol Donny Trump wriggle his way out of THIS jam!
Trump wriggles his way out of the jam easily.
Ah! Well. Nevertheless.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

I think you're all jumping to conclusions, we've got another 2.5 hours left.

Schedule of Tariff Day for Trump, climaxing at 8pm: Global markets respond as the impact of America's renewed strength takes hold.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I think this is more true for Ds but pretty secondary for Rs. But also, a lot of the rising tuition goes to financial aid. Net prices are not skyrocketing. research.collegeboard.org/trends/colle...

Text:
After adjusting for inflation, the average net tuition and fees paid by first-time full-time in-state students enrolled in public four-year institutions peaked in 2012-13 at $4,340 and declined to an estimated $2,480 in 2024-25.
After adjusting for inflation, the average net tuition and fees paid by first-time full-time students enrolled in private nonprofit four-year institutions declined from $19,330 in 2006-07 to an estimated $16,510 in 2024-25.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Having the conversation about trustees is important, and I'm glad this article is making the rounds. But I don't think "none of them are academics" is a convincing argument outside of academia. 1/2 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Text:
Who becomes a trustee? At Columbia there are 21, all of them from business, law and technology, with the exception of a former journalist. Although they are in charge of an academic institution, none of them is an academic. None has ever led a classroom or a lab meeting or medical rounds with interns. None has gone through the process of tenure, where their teaching, publication record and service are rigorously assessed by colleagues in the field both from within the institution and outside it. None has ever had their work peer-reviewed by anonymous readers or panels of experts. None has ever published in academic or scientific journals or presses and had their ideas debated in the public sphere. None has ever framed a hypothesis and tested it on the basis of evidence they have collected. None, in short, has sought truth and had their search confirmed by objective scholars and scientists.

How, we ask, can people be entrusted with running a university when they have no lived experience with or understanding of its core functions and aims? What qualifications do such trustees bring to their office beside the capacity and expectation to donate? And what do those qualifications, which pertain to private profit, have to do with the concerns of scholars and scientists and doctors, which pertain to the public good? Universities are replicating the plutocratic domination of the Trump administration.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

I'm deleting this for now. Given the detail of the email they repost, it seems legit, but I'm not seeing independent verification and it's 16 hours old. Don't want to stoke fear without total confidence.

Screenshot of a post linking to a quote from the following article: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/hundreds-of-international-students-are-waking-up-to-an-email-asking-them-to-self-deport-for-campus-activism-or-even-sharing-posts-on-social-media/articleshow/119679695.cms

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

This might not do what you're looking for but have you tried playing around with the thread preferences? (under Content + Media in Settings)

Screenshot of the options under Bluesky's Thread Preferences

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

We're paying attention to what, four prominent cases? But the State Department says there are another 296. www.axios.com/2025/03/27/t...

More than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks "Catch and Revoke" has been in operation, the official said. There are 1.5 million student visa-holders nationwide.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

The Anti-Authoritarian Academic Code of Conduct -- from 2016 but freshly relevant. We all need to be thinking about where our lines are. dailynous.com/2016/11/29/a...

I will not aid in the registering, rounding-up, or internment of students and colleagues on the basis of their religious beliefs.
I will not aid in the marginalization, exclusion, or deportation of my undocumented students and colleagues.
I will, as my capacities allow, discourage and defend against the bullying and harassment of vulnerable students and colleagues targeted for important aspects of their identity (such as race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.).
I will not aid government or law enforcement in activities which violate the U.S. Constitution or other U.S. law.
I will not aid in government surveillance. I will not inform.
As a teacher and researcher, I will not be bought or intimidated. I will present the state of research in my field accurately, whether or not it is what the government wants to hear. I will challenge others when they lie.
I will not be shy about my commitment to academic values: truth, objectivity, free inquiry, and rational debate. I will challenge others when they engage in behavior contrary to these values.
As an administrator, I will defend my students, faculty, and non-academic staff. I will not allow the expulsion, firing, disciplining, harassment, or marginalization of individuals targeted for being members of disfavoured groups or for expressing dangerous opinions. I will speak up for academic freedom. I will insist on the autonomy of my institution.
I will stand with my colleagues at other institutions, and defend their rights and freedoms.
I will be fair and unbiased in the classroom, in grading, and in all my dealings with all my students, including those who disagree with me politically.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

We need a name for this person. The vice provost for authoritarian compliance?

Text: The new vice provost, appointed by Columbia, will review curriculum, nontenure faculty hiring and leadership "to ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced."

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

This AEI op-ed from December is basically the blueprint for everything that has happened to higher ed so far. I don't really want to link to it but you can read here. archive.is/QaU04

Text: The most interesting actions, though, wouldn't require Congress. To scare universities straight, McMahon should start by taking a prize scalp. She should simply destroy Columbia University.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

"Most selective" private colleges (admitting <25%) among all four-year not-for-profit institutions are the orange box.

Another complex Tableau chart with many little boxes and an orange box of "most selective" private institutions representing under 5% of the total.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Harvard is the blue dot amid all undergrads at four-year not-for-profit institutions.

A complex Tableau visual containing many boxes with a very small box representing Harvard.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

We need one of these charts but for what percent of students attend Ivy League schools. www.ft.com/content/6300...

Screenshot of visualization from the financial times showing the size of university endowments relative to the total. The most visible names are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, and the University of Texas.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

The "good" news is, the Department of Education also just fired half the staff in OCR. edreformnow.org/2025/03/12/t...

Bar graph of cuts to various ED offices versus total employees, with OCR showing almost half of its 575-ish employees let go.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

There's a real collective action problem around universities speaking up with one voice. There are clear benefits to not sticking your neck out. But now we have a list of ten. The leaders of those ten should be speaking out with one voice for the freedom of universities and our nation.

Text from NYT: Two days later, the administration released its list of 10 schools under scrutiny, including Columbia, the site of large pro-Palestinian encampments last year.

It said it would be paying the schools a visit, part of a review process to consider “whether remedial action is warranted.” Then on Friday, it announced it would be canceling millions in grants and contracts with Columbia.

Harvard University, whose former president Claudine Gay resigned last year following a bruising appearance before a House committee, is also on the list.

So are George Washington University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

The whole Dem continuing resolution debate has real xkcd vibes

xkcd cartoon on experts' wild overestimation of what regular people know about their field

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

J.P. Morgan and friends attentively listening to "Gulliver Cleveland"

JP Morgan, Rockefeller, Harriman and Ryan, large and wearing turbans, with a very small Grover Cleveland at a desk shaking a stick at them

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

J.P. Morgan helping out Uncle Sam

JP Morgan as a big guy in a rowboat with a small frail Uncle Sam beside him

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

I have to spend some quality time with my email but thought you could all use some J.P. Morgan cartoons first

J.P. Morgan hugging the city of New York, with "billion dollar merger" written in text over it

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

One of the many ways in which Trump would like to take us back 100+ years is by making boycotts illegal. www.marketingweek.com/x-more-brand...

screenshot of a headline from Marketing Week:
X adds more brands to lawsuit over alleged "illegal boycott."

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

In the next couple of months Congress is going to pass a budget bill that likely takes a pass at federal financial aid. This will make many families unhappy, and universities should be prepared to leverage that. static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics...

Sunset Grad and Parent Plus loans
TBD 10-year savings
VIABILITY: HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW
This option would eliminate parent PLUS loans, which are offered to parents of
dependent undergraduate students, and grad PLUS loans , which are offered to
graduate students and students enrolled in professional programs.
This option would generally eliminate such loans to new borrowers beginning on
July 1 , 2025 , and would eliminate the program altogether by 2028.
Establish new annual and aggregate loan limits for unsubsidized undergraduate
and graduate loans
TBD 10-year savings
VIABILITY: HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW

Accompanying the above option, beginning on July 1 , 2025, this option would
amend loan limits for unsubsidized graduate and undergraduate loans.
In total, CBO estimates this and the former option would reduce direct spending
by $18.7 billion.
Amend the need analysis formula used to calculate federal student aid eligibility
TBD 10-year savings
VIABILITY: HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW
This option would amend the need analysis formula to calculate federal student
aid eligibility using the median cost of attendance of similar degree programs
nationally instead of the cost of attendance of a student's individual program.
End in -school interest subsidy
TBD 10-year savings
VIABILITY: HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW
Currently, the government pays the interest that accrues on a student loan while
the borrower is still enrolled in school full-time, essentially meaning the student
does not have to pay interest on their loan while actively studying. This policy
option would eliminate this arrangement.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Somehow I was in the sociology department at SUNY Albany for a decade and no one ever mentioned that SANDRA HARDING studied there. A real giant and a great loss. digital.sciencehistory.org/works/qlvzx3...

Text: With the women's movement gaining momentum, Harding found herself dissatisfied with the role of faculty wife and decided to join the ranks of wives and mothers returning to school for graduate degrees. She began coursework in sociology at SUNY-Albany.

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