The president denied tenure, overturning faculty recommendations. The professor studies border security and surveillance.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/07/21/border-surveillance-scholar-denied-tenure-ut-austin

This sounds like a vent but not really. My chair asked me to take one course overload but I could not take it anymore. Teaching seems like a drag. Last semester, I was dragging my feet to the classroom. Although students still appreciate my teaching for the most part, I have mentally quit. Exhausted. Gone.

So, I said no although I still need to rely on my chair for future promotion. My mind said no. My body said no. My mental well-being was screaming no!

I am a graduate student going into my first semester as an instructor of record at a public university in Texas. I have recently started transitioning (MTF) and have wondered about the introduction of pronouns to my students this upcoming semester, but have worries that in the current political climate, this may result in the loss of my job as the state of Texas has had many firings of university faculty over the last couple of years for speech contrary to the beliefs of the Republican party. I don't want to have to resort to being misgendered by my students in fear of losing my job though.... Any advice?

How are you dealing with the rampant AI usage? Have you changed the way your courses are structured? I am getting more and more AI slop each semester, and it is taking the joy out of the job.

Here we go. You have a zoom meeting with a student to review how something was graded and now the student wants a call for every little thing! I am responsive, but I do not want to be THAT responsive, especially on the day something is due. Help!

TLDR: How? Just how?

How do you keep up with you email? How do you organize it? Tell me more please. I've always struggled to keep up with email and now that I'm teaching 400 students a semester I know it's going to get worse.

My only tip for fellow drowning folks:

• Class-specific email address: For my intro class (300+ students) that I co-teach, we have a class specific email ([email protected]) to try to capture those emails. Once we respond, we move the email to the "answered 2026" folder.

I don't know if I want to do that for my other classes (particularly my 100ish person classes), ideally I would mimic it in my normal inbox through folders and filters, but I'm curious to hear what you all do.

If you use GTD, did you modify it somehow? It seems like a good system, but hasn't worked so far.

I can't recall this ever happening before, certainly not at my current institution. We have these 6 week intensive semesters and when admin sends out notifications for that schedule I pretty much arrange my life around it. This has worked well for the last two years.

Yesterday I get a late night email that tells me starting next week I'll be taking on more classes after the semester had already begun (started like 3 days ago). This is incredibly frustrating, as I have both personal and academic obligations I've already scheduled around the original schedule. Technically I'm able to move things around, but it's super frustrating and feels like I just got caught up into a whirlwind.

Perhaps this is more common than I'm lead to believe? What's yalls take.

I teach mostly high school juniors. I am typically asked by 30-40 students each year to write a recommendation letter. I spend several hours working on each letter. It is a huge process.

Given the increased prevalence of AI these days, I’m wondering if there has been any change in the weight that recommendation letters have in the admissions process this coming year? I don’t mind spending that much time, but it is a sacrifice and if the letters aren’t really needed, I’ll take a different approach.

Also, what might be a different approach I should take if there are changes to how recommendation letters are used?

Thank you!

I’ve just learned that I need surgery for a health issue that has progressed much faster than expected. If I do not address this issue very soon, I will have permanent nerve damage that fundamentally impacts my ability to both do my job and perform daily personal care tasks. I’m already suffering with extreme daily pain interrupting my sleep and normal activities.

The issue: I am meant to start a new cc faculty position this fall. I obviously won’t be eligible for leave to address the issue and surgery at the start of a new job isn’t a great way to learn the ropes. I really want this position and I really do not want to leave the department in a bad spot.

I just got the news today and won’t have a surgical date for another week for so. How do I handle this will protecting my health and the college/department?

Hello! I am entering my fourth year of teaching full time and I am thinking through potentially restructuring my courses. For context, I primarily teach introductory economics courses.

I currently give my intro students one homework per week over the course content. However, I have noticed that I don’t always have time to finish everything in class. As a result, I either rush through content or drop questions from the homework.

This year, I am thinking of dropping a chapter altogether to give myself more breathing room. But this means I need to rethink my homework. I’ve thought of the following options and would love thoughts on which you’ve found to be best or even other alternatives. Thank you!

Option 1: keep weekly deadlines, move questions over content I may not get to onto the next week’s assignment (what I am leaning towards).

Option 2: keep homework as is and expect students to do additional reading outside of class (I expect this to not go over well with students).

Option 3: move away from weekly deadlines and just have homework due after we finish the content (I like structure especially in classes with a lot of freshmen so I don’t love this option).

Hi, I recently graduated with my PhD and was fortunate to get a position at a TT Assistant Biology Professor. I was offered a ~7k of equipment funds from my department, which is separate from my startup funds of a similar or lesser amount. I was curious what other researchers have purchased with their department equipment funds, particularly new professors who have yet to acquire funding.

Field: Organismal biologist in aquaculture animals (fish and shrimp). Immunology, nutrition, and genetic interests but wanting to expand to disease ecology and environmental physiology.

As the title goes, I am hearing of this journal for the first time. When I googled, the discussions around it are very few. I have been preoccupied with springer and Elseiver. Peer J was mentioned by someone and I checked the website, and it seems a bit colorful for an academic platform. Please share your thoughts and experiences with this journal.

There's a new document out by Michael Kratsios, the OSTP director:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Science-A-New-Golden-Age.pdf

He's testifying about the report today at a congressinal hearing https://science.house.gov/2026/7/full-committee-hearing-unleashing-golden-age-science-ostp-research-enterprise-priorities-fy27

I think the document has lots of good ideas about how to fix the problems with the current system, but of course it's going to get a huge blowback because certain people/institutions really profit from the current system.

Some points from the report:

Theres too much administrative friction in the current system. Professors spend way too much time on paperwork proposing to do something instead of doing something.

They see a very different role for R1 universities:

Move away from the system of graduate education that is supported by grants to universities/professors who choose grad students. Change to a system where the grants go directly to grad students who choose which universities/professors they want to work with.

They expect more professional research staff and fewer students/postdocs working on research. Along with this, fewer foreign graduate students.

There's a good bit of complaining about academia system because it has established thought leaders/defenders of the status quo, making it hard for new ideas to emerge since those thought leaders control everything from funding review panels, tenure decisions, and publications.

Observing older peers, our scientist has learned that taking the long shot to challenge established paradigms may threaten her ability to deliver results and advance to tenure; yet by the time she achieves tenure, a substantial portion of her most creative years will be behind her. She notices, too, that the tenure and promotion system seems to reward quantity over quality. Cutting work into the smallest publishable units, which researchers call “salami-slicing,” often pays off more than making an ambitious attempt at transformative discovery.