Journalist Steven Thrasher, PhD (The Viral Underclass, The Overseer Class) is suing Northwestern University and the US Government after NU terminated his appointment as the Daniel Renberg Chair for (ahem) Social Justice following GOP (and apparently trustee) pressure over his actions in solidarity with #Gaza and campus #GazaSolidarity protests.

The Dean of the Journalism School and all of Northwestern's administration look like cowards and lickspittles in the face of threats to #AcademicFreedom and #HumanRights.

I'm glad he's suing (am very interested in what discovery turns up) and furious that he has to.

lithub.com/when-we-fight-we-wi…

#AcademicChatter #USHigherEd #HigherEd #USPol

I'll be teaching a course in the fall on data communication.

One of the assignments I hope to put together is a lesson on how data is manipulated. I want to show how easy it is for climate change deniers, anti vaxxers, etc to crop data, stretch or flip an axis and suggest the opposite of what the data is actually showing. Still thinking through the assignment and I'm thinking of having them make an honest representation and one less so.

I think there's value to such a lesson given how much downright lying we have from not just randos but even political circles these days.

Was just going to use publicly available data sources but then I am thinking that there must be researchers here who have awesome data they wouldn't mind seeing put into visual form. If you do have data you'd be willing to let me use, please drop me a comment or PM and let me know how to access it. Thanks!

(P.S. would appreciate a share for wider reach)

#academicChatter

An interesting observation this quarter... 4/5 of my students in one class are hand writing notes on real paper again. And most of my advisees are, too.

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