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Lee Gardner

@leegee.bsky.social
846 followers 438 following 1.3K posts

Reporter at @chronicle.com, music nerd, lotsa other kinds of nerd too. Half of @essentialpod.bsky.social and all of @vgplusrecs.bsky.social. He/him

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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 7h
It seems like the schema behind most contempo tech-bro thinking is to maximize throwing the baby out with the bath water into a firehose of babies.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Email subject line du jour: “Lawn-Care Burnout Is Real”
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
In re: Johns Hopkins and its recent Homewood construction project 💯
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Attention fellow olds
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
John Coltrane was born 100 years ago today. We should all get off work and schools should close.
An image of a young John Coltrane in the studio with his tenor, later used on the cover of Blue Trane
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Strongly recommend this deep cut if you need some sass in your day.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Brb bailing out from the tsunami of ranking emails.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I wrote about why the long-awaited advent of workforce Pell hasn't resulted in a flood of approved programs, or even a flood of applications for approval!
chronicle.com
Why Workforce Pell Programs Have Been Slow to Materialize
The federal policy is seen as a game-changer, but mismatches with the ways colleges actually work have curbed its rollout.
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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 19/09/2026
The workforce Pell program is starting slowly (which I think is a feature, not a bug), as only about five programs have qualified since July 1 in spite of a lot of media attention. This tidbit from here in Tennessee made me chuckle. Implementation is tough. www.chronicle.com/article/work...
Colleges also face a challenge in spreading the word about the new aid. Workforce Pell is big news among people who work in higher education and state labor departments, but the message is slow in getting out to the public. A couple of students in Tennessee landed on the Workforce Pell site meant for colleges to sign up their programs and started filling out the application. “Obviously,” Roberts says, “our comms aren’t as clear as they need to be.”
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
💸
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Just so you know, flannel shirts should not have button-down collars. Follow me for more critical fashion rulings.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So many assumptions bound up in this term, and all reliably off base.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Once again feeling pretty good about my long-ago decision to reclaim the section of my brain I had previously allowed to be overgrown by half-hearted attention to sports.
espn.com
Inside the SEC's tangled legal battle with LSU and Lane Kiffin
It's a twisted tale of grandstanding politicians, colorful characters and college football's most polarizing figure.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I feel like having gambling on our phones is going to turn out to be a bad idea.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Only the Americans, and it wasn’t easy. Wish we could have gotten figures for everyone.
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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 08/09/2026
A cool new article by @jchoi.bsky.social finds that public research universities operating under RCM budget models increased faculty salaries relative to non-RCM universities and also increased the assistant professor share of faculty. This is great work!
link.springer.com
How decentralized budgeting shapes faculty salaries and employment: Evidence from responsibility center management (RCM) - Higher Education
Amid calls for greater efficiency, public research universities in the U.S. have increasingly adopted Responsibility Center Management (RCM), a decentralized budget model granting greater fiscal auton...
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
My (very common) word-processing software has just started asking me if I’d like AI to help polish the graf I just finished writing NO THANK YOU DO NOT WANT
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Eric Kelderman @erickelderman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The rumors are true. @shenandoahkate.bsky.social and I are starting a newsletter! This is for decision makers -- department chair, associate director, or college president, etc. -- and we'll be break down how they manage the tough calls on campus. Sign up here: www.chronicle.com/newsletter/d...
chronicle.com
Decision Points
Decision Points is a knowledge community for the next generation of higher-ed leaders. Delivered every Tuesday.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I wrote about Neeli Bendapudi, president of Penn State, for our People to Watch issue. Running a big public university is challenging in the best of circumstances, but political frictions and structural issues make her job even tougher.
chronicle.com
Neeli Bendapudi’s Balancing Act
She is shrinking Penn State. Can she save it?
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Make a novel smaller Their Eyes Were Watching Hulu
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I have no pithy remarks to accompany this.
nytimes.com
Wildfires Are Turning Forests in the American West Into Shrubland (Gift Article)
Towering woodlands in the West are being permanently replaced by tracts of spiky shrubs. Conditions “just aren’t normal anymore,” one researcher said.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
An image of the cover of Al Green’s Greatest Hits, featuring the singer shirtless
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
1000 x this
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Well wouldja lookee there?
chronicle.com
Colleges’ Tenure-Track Faculty Numbers Rise, While Staff Counts Show Steep Drop
The rise in tenure-track faculty members represented the largest single-year increase since 2016, according to new data from CUPA-HR.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I really wish all the software I use would stop trying to talk to me or to get me to talk to it.
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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
There are only 2 reasons to write a piece about this non-story right now. First is because you are a transphobe bigot and want to keep the hate train going. Second is because you think writing about this lady is good for business and don't care about trans people, which also counts as being a bigot.
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Greg Britton @gmbritton.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Now available: John Thelin's magisterial History of American Higher Education, fully updated in its fourth edition. www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/... @hopkinspress.bsky.social @universityofky.bsky.social #HigherEd
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
So, basically, a small cadre of highly motivated individuals could send this country back to the 19th century (technologically speaking) without too much trouble. And they’ve already been practicing.
nytimes.com
The Blackout That Could Devastate America (Gift Article)
The power grid relies on thousands of aging, hand-built transformers. If enough fail, the blackout could last years.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Always remember: Never punch down.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Hey Baltimore, the Charles is screening Frederick Wiseman’s Boxing Gym this Saturday at 11:30 am and Monday at 7 pm, and you should go. It’s my favorite of his many films, and I all but guarantee you won’t have another shot at seeing it projected down the street before the sun goes out.
A woman punches a speed bag in a still from Frederick Wiseman’s documentary Boxing Gym
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
It's a good book! What do you have to lose?
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Where’s the readable musicological exegesis on the siren’s song from Nolan’s Odyssey, aka the tune that’s launched a thousand reels?
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Post you from a different era in your life
A picture of me at my messy desk at Baltimore City Paper many years ago wearing a Best of Baltimore paper crown and looking a lot younger than I do now
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Fells Point’s streets and sidewalks are public property, last I looked, meaning open to the public.
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Chronicle of Higher Education @chronicle.com · 10/08/2026
Landmark College was created for students with autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities. As accommodation requests soar, other colleges are turning to the small Vermont college for advice. chroni.cl/45SeEka
chronicle.com
As Disability Accommodations Soar, This College Offers a Playbook
The tiny Landmark College is showing other campuses how to adapt.
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Grandiloquent Word of the Day @grandiloquentwords.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Lethologica [leth-uh-LOJ-uh-kuh] (n.) - The temporary inability to recall a specific word or name. Used in a sentence: “The professor’s lectures might have concluded in half the time had lethologica not so frequently left him stranded mid-sentence, groping for tantalizingly elusive mots justes.”
A vintage-style "Grandiloquent Word of the Day" meme for “Lethologica,” defined as the temporary inability to recall a specific word or name—the “tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon. An example sentence describes a professor whose lectures are prolonged by frequently becoming stranded mid-sentence while groping for elusive mots justes. At right, an antique black-and-white illustration shows a robed man standing sitting with his hand to his chin in perplexed contemplation.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Hey Baltimore, John Woo’s The Killer is playing the Charles Theater Revival Series this Thursday at 9 pm!
Chow Yun-fat and another stylish gunman pointing automatics at each other’s faces from about a foot away in a still from John Woo’s 1989 Hong Kong crime classic The Killer
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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 05/08/2026
This is the best piece I have seen about Howard dropping 500 students from its incoming class due to not making sufficient payments. It's a complicated situation for students and the university alike, and Parent PLUS loan limits are a contributing factor.
chronicle.com
Howard U. Disenrolled Hundreds of Students. Was It for Their Own Good?
Newly popular, Black colleges struggle to meet their mission and their bottom line.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
In other news, hotel conference facilities still lean into Tabasco, which is still trash
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
If you’re looking for me, I’m at SHEEO Policy 👋🏻
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Not a *band*, but Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, and Another Green World slaps pretty hard. Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street is likewise a pretty impressive run from around the same time.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
A Letterboxd “last four watched” grid featuring thumbnails for I Shot Andy Warhol, Conversation Piece, The King of Marvin Gardens, and The Asphyx
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
It seems like half the stories I write these days involve a college cutting programs and jobs. This week I got to write about one trying to do something else to stop the bleeding.
chronicle.com
What Can a Struggling University Do if It Can’t Cut Any More? Change.
Instead of continuing to shrink, Southern Oregon U. is trying to shift how it functions.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I'm usually on vacation at this time of year, but this year I'm not and am discovering that it's challenging to try to do my job, because everyone else is on vacation.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
About 100 years ago, my great grandfather was working in a trainyard. He and some others were eating lunch under some empty cars to get out of the sun when an engine bumped the line of cars to move it. He was cut in half. My grandfather was a teenager. He worked factory jobs his whole life.
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
In re: the current discourse about criticism, as I used to tell budding arts critics, your “yes” is only as good as your “no.” If you’re positive about everything, why should anyone take your word about anything?
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Lars Gotrich @totalvibration.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
billy woods + ELUCID + Kenny Segal + Human Error Club + Ryan Crosby = Armand Hammer x Tiny Desk Really enjoyed cooking this one up with Kenny, who has made many of my favorite beats. This is basically the first time Armand Hammer's played with a band on-camera. youtu.be/uP23-YE-T30?...
youtu.be
Armand Hammer: Tiny Desk Concert
YouTube video by NPR Music
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Currently trying not to swallow my own tongue over the fruits of today’s higher-ed email newsletters.
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JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 24/07/2026
Listening to a podcast at 2x speed while answering emails isn’t "learning." It’s just noise with a productivity badge. If you want real leverage, turn off your phone, sit in silence, and read a damn book.
joanwestenberg.com
Read More. Read Often. Read Every Day.
Stop Looking for Productivity Hacks. Pick Up a Damn Book.
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Dan Sheehan @dansheehan.memyon.org · 23/07/2026
Farewell to saxophonist Plas Johnson, who played the iconic tenor sax solo for the "Pink Panther" title theme. He said: "We only did two takes, I think... When we finished, everyone applauded, even the string players. And that's saying something. They never applaud for anything." #filmsky #musicsky
Plas Johnson playing tenor saxophone
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