Thu: So Stupid It Hurts.

The Brain Drain Will Make Flori-Dumb Dumber

A survey of more than 4,250 faculty across four states, including Florida, highlights growing concern over political involvement in higher education and a widespread desire to find new employment.

Close to half the 642 respondents in Florida said they planned to seek employment in a different state within the next year.

“The brain drain that we’ve been concerned about, and the trends that we’ve been wondering about, based on what we’ve seen here, are certainly happening,” said Andrew Gothard, president of United Faculty of Florida, the statewide faculty union.

The survey was administered by faculty groups in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, including local chapters of the American Association of University Professors. Faculty in those places had been hearing their colleagues talk anecdotally about wanting to leave their states after lawmakers passed legislation that restricted tenure, gutted diversity programs and targeted other long-standing practices in higher education.

Members responded to the surveys from Aug. 14 to Sept. 1. Two-thirds of them held tenure.

Lower ranked faculty were more likely to look for other jobs. About 41% of assistant professors had interviewed for a new job, compared to 26% of associate professors and 23% of full professors.

Across all four states, 31% of those surveyed said they were “actively considering” interviewing in a different state this year. In Florida, it was about 46% — and 28% said they’d already interviewed.

The top destinations included California, New York, Massachusetts — and North Carolina, by faculty in the other three states.

Almost 85% said they would not encourage a graduate student or faculty member in another state to come to Florida, and about 36% said they planned to leave academia.

New laws in Florida and elsewhere are pushing faculty to leave, survey says

That's in Addition to Elementary and High School Teachers Leaving

Vivek Is Introduced to the Truth





RamaSlimy Wouldn't Recognize the Truth If It Hit Him Over the Head.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, in what some might call a bizarre twist of fate, was briefly interrupted mid-campaign speech when a sign bearing the word "truth" briefly fell over on him.

Russian Tanks Are Getting Worse.  Ukraine Anti-Tank Weapons Are Getting Better

The US has announced it will send controversial weapons to Ukraine as part of more than $1bn (£800m) in military and humanitarian aid.

Russia condemned the move to equip US Abrams tanks with shells strong enough to pierce conventional tank armour.

They are made of depleted uranium - a by-product of uranium enrichment stripped of most radioactive material.

The QOP Is Just Making It a Huge Hassle for Women.  So, What Else is New?

New research indicates that the number of abortions increased in the first half of 2023 in most states where they were legal this year.

Data collected by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access, gives the clearest picture to date of where people are seeking abortions in the U.S., more than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The increases were especially pronounced in places that implemented policies to preserve abortion rights — such as Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois and Washington — as well as in states like Kansas and  New Mexico, which border states with abortion bans.

In New Mexico, the number of abortions from January to June more than tripled compared to the same period in 2020 — the last year for which the Guttmacher Institute has comparable data. That’s an indicator that people are crossing state lines to terminate pregnancies, said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute who helped conduct the research.