'In 2023, UK universities spent a total of £500m on education agents – but there is very little oversight of how these agents operate.'
'Once students got their offers, they were passed on to the visa team, and finally delivered to universities as a fully wrapped, fee-paying package.'
Human judgment tells me this is a v v v v v bad idea.
Anni Albers is the best visual artist in the world (says me)
'Sexism in football - a problem that isn't going away', covered by BBC Sport including an interview with @staceypope.bsky.social as a leading expert on female football fans and gender inequality in sport.
Take a look at the full BBC Sport piece: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
The read of all PullRequest reads, compliance and incompetence.
"He read the laws, decided compliance was the correct response, and went to work."
www.sambent.com/the-engineer...
Our spin-out company Nevrargenics has won the @bionow.bsky.social Project of the Year Award for its pioneering work on a potential new treatment for neurodegenerative disease.
Learn more: www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...
I had a massive, humiliating brain-block in a lecture today. But a student's email reminded me why refusing to be flattened into a 2D data point is an act of institutional defiance.
We are running on neuro-burnout and fumes while the modern Higher Ed machine demands perfectly sterilised engagement metrics. They don't give a flying f*** if students actually learn, just so long as the spreadsheets are green and the consumer surveys hold steady.
Read about how British companies profited from slavery in Brazil longer after abolition, from our @durhamhistory.bsky.social Honorary Fellow Joe Mulhern, in @theguardian.com.
@anthempress.bsky.social @tiagorogero.com
The modern "diversity" hustle is just a bureaucracy of dissent - designed to pacify anger, not redistribute power. I wrote about the relentless EDI tax, the physical toll of being a disabled woman in academia, and why my new default boundary is the hardboiled, uncompromising "no."
The algorithm demands we be searchable, but some truths are too visceral for the feed. 🌊
My new post is a meditation on "The Metadata of Silence." Moving from Viola’s disguise in Twelfth Night to Prospero’s release in The Tempest, I’m exploring why we exist in the Uncategorised folder.
Article on equitable health AI for #LGBTQIA+ people and communities.
open.substack.com/pub/cervixsa...
I legitimately think Sam Altman should be tried for crimes against humanity
Honestly never could have predicted that My Temu Therapist™️would figure prominently in AI adoption
Even if this system had been trained by real therapists, I would be very concerned about it not having any kind of supervision.
A close up of an Earth-like planet with the blackness of space behind. Text on the image reads "Our scientists are involved in the search for habitable worlds."
Did you know that @durhamphysics.bsky.social researchers are involved in the search for life on distant planets? They're investigating how a UK-led team could design and build a core instrument for the new NASA Habitable Worlds mission due to launch in the 2040s 👉 tinyurl.com/3fmwfyur
Oh we must read and appreciate the composition of sudden find-outness.
‘Andrew’s aghast eyes echo The Scream’: is the arrest photo the ultimate royal portrait?
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
My view on the Time Allocation Survey that UK university staff must complete to log how they have spent their time:
It is tiresome, burdensome, technologically clunky, bureaucratic, financialising, and generally symptomatic of contemporary university management. I have always hated it.
We’ve been told our #neurodiversity is a "#superpower" only when it produces a Return on Divergence.
I’m done with that script. open.substack.com/pub/thatprof...
Willow’s Valentine 🏹🐾
Cupid napped;
Willow swiped his spark to fire her Caturday spa day.
This grooming bath is a sovereign cure for the soul!
I hied a distempered guest, only to find my heart’s heat where Cupid first found his: in those calico eyes.
#caturday
Black and white image of Professor Mariann Hardey, looking straight to camera with the background out of focus.
🖥️Who holds power in a digital world?📱
💡 @thatprofmaz.substack.com from our Business School researches how AI, digital culture & accessibility intersect to influence modern life.
Her work pushes for tech that supports everyone, not just those it already empowers 👉 bit.ly/4tsBR7j
To watch someone through a digital ledger is to pay for stale data in the currency of your own time.
On the Patricia Highsmith Paradox, the physics of the emotional "Pang," and the mathematical certainty of becoming unreachable. The signal is now encrypted by the simple act of being truly gone. ⬛
I must add, as Willows person-butler, I adore when she sets her paws on her tail. So cute ☺️
A regal calico cat named Willow sits poised and upright on a wooden stool. She has a striking "split-face" marking—the left side of her face is orange and black mottled tortoiseshell, while the right side is solid black. She wears a bright white "tuxedo" chest and has white paws neatly tucked together. Behind her is a shelf filled with books and lush green houseplants.
In the flickering light of the Yorkiwara, one must possess eyes that see both the light and the dark.
My face is split like the dawn and the dusk-a mask worn for the sake of justice. 🏮
To catch a thief, one must move like the mist and strike like the mountain wind.
#Caturday
The SaaSpocalypse is a Case of Identity. 🕵️♂️
I woke up a Professor. By 10:39 AM, the air had turned thin, and I was a fugitive. While we play with "prompts," $830B has been spirited away into the Highland mist.
The boat is leaving. The land is yours.
E.M. Forster predicted this in 1909. The Machine Stops isn't sci-fi; it’s the 2026 job description.
We are “strangled in the garments we have woven.” We are physically static, digitally frantic, and swaddled in convenience until we atrophy.
I’ve spent 20 years acting as an unpaid PR agent for the Information Age.
Every year, I sold my students the “glossy brochure” of digital labour. The beach. The coconuts. The "Digital Nomad."
This year, I couldn’t get the words out.
"Love is the quality of time and space you willingly give to someone. It isn’t about what you can extract from them; it is about holding the line so they can exist safely with you."
open.substack.com/pub/thatprof...
We are often taught that love is "grabby" - that it’s about status or possession.
But inspired by the novel The Ministry of Time, I’m arguing for a different definition:
