Bill Harder, PhD
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wlharder.bsky.social
Bill Harder, PhD
@wlharder.bsky.social
Director of #FacultyDev & Teaching Excellence & Political Science Prof. at Goucher College | critical & inclusive pedagogies | presidential/executive politics #highered #Faculty #EduSky #woodworking #cats | he/him
Three-year anniversary or my greatest piece of short-form writing ever. I am no longer on the garbage fire of X, so please accept this screen shot in its memory. #Foucault #Chomsky
October 20, 2025 at 7:45 PM
A roundup of some recent Goucher College #facultyscholarship.

[Full disclosure: I had nothing to do with selecting the key art for this website.]

www.goucher.edu/news/faculty...

#HigherEd #LiberalArts #Faculty
Recent Faculty Scholarship | Goucher College
www.goucher.edu
October 13, 2025 at 7:47 PM
As someone who just did an unplanned 30-minute explainer on the government shutdown, this is your periodic reminder that sometimes you’ve got to call an audible and throw out the lesson plan. #HigherEd #Faculty #Teaching&Learning.
October 2, 2025 at 9:03 PM
So thrilled to celebrate these exciting new #GoucherCollege #faculty projects this afternoon. Really excited to hear about this wide ranging research. #scholarship #liberalarts
September 24, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Mark this moment as the unequivocal return of the thought police.
aaup.org AAUP @aaup.org · Sep 14
These firings, with zero due process, are violations of widely accepted principles of academic freedom & are completely unacceptable. College & university administrators MUST NOT exploit these shocking events to censor protected speech & concentrate their own power.

www.wsmv.com/2025/09/12/t...
September 15, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Listen, I don’t know anything about the upcoming Marky Mark film “Play Dirty,” but it seems gross that they are happy to play the hell out of the Sampa The Great song ‘Final Form’ in the trailer while never once using the chorus which loudly proclaims “Black Power, Louder!”
September 15, 2025 at 1:40 AM
I don’t need a 3 min ad for a show disguised as a ‘presenter’ for you to shame an award winner to for taking an extra 3 seconds. The bit feels gross #emmy but what else would I expect from a gutless capitulating network like @cbsnews.com (cbs get a Bluesky account so I can yell at you, cowards).
September 15, 2025 at 1:16 AM
So lucky to have @sonjaardoin.bsky.social join us at Goucher College today to talk with Faculty and staff about supporting #FirstGen college students.
August 20, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Only the most recent example of why I am and always will be a vocal and committed advocate for #DCstatehood. It is an imperative.
Trump announces he's placing the DC police department "under direct federal control" and deploying the National Guard in the city
August 11, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Bill Harder, PhD
America now has the foreign policy of a personalist dictator. New piece from me in @foreignaffairs.com

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
Imperial President at Home, Emperor Abroad
American foreign policy in an age of unrestrained executive power.
www.foreignaffairs.com
June 16, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Bill Harder, PhD
And again, they were about 15-20 times as large as the April 2009 Tea Party protests, so I'll sit back and wait for 15-20 times as many stories from political pundits explaining that this was a decisive rebuke to the sitting president that Changes Everything.
Just to say it again, the Big Beautiful Protests (the No Kings marches) involved 5 million people and were likely the largest day of protest in America EVER. News outlets that downplay this fact, are lying.
June 16, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Honestly there were more people lined up at the opening of the new #Rockville #TraderJoes earlier this week. And that was 8:30 am on a Thursday. #MoCo @themocoshow.bsky.social
Pikachu's birthday party vs. Donald Trump's birthday party
June 15, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Reposted by Bill Harder, PhD
Today, I opposed the OPM's proposed "Schedule P/C" rule that kills due process rights for thousands of federal employees. Instead of emphasizing empirically the harm this rule will cause (see great insights from @donmoyn.bsky.social), I focused more on legal and constitutional grounds. (1/2)
Comment on Schedule PC Proposed Rule- Resh.pdf
drive.google.com
June 6, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Ridiculous way to frame the story. Brown in no way disciplined the student. It says so in the article:

"Brown eventually cleared all three students of wrongdoing ... the university followed a standard procedure for students accused of conduct violations, and that this case was no different."
A conservative student newspaper at Brown University sent DOGE-style questions to thousands of administrative employees, questioning their work. Two days later, the publication’s writers were summoned to disciplinary hearings.
Brown Disciplined a Student Who Asked Questions in the Style of Elon Musk and DOGE
A conservative student newspaper had DOGE-style questions about the work of Brown University staff. Its writers were summoned to disciplinary hearings.
trib.al
June 6, 2025 at 6:04 PM
I’m prepping for a talk I’ll be giving in a few weeks about the way Directing a #Teaching&Learning Center—and being an academic administrator more broadly—can cause us to complicate our view of our own academic professional identities. #HigeherEd #FacultyDev [Thread]
June 5, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Goucher and our university-based retirement community are getting some national attention on @npr.org's @marketplace.org! Love to see the work we've been doing to create meaningful co-generational learning experiences getting noticed. #HigherEd #LiberalArts
Today, we’ll visit a college outside of Baltimore that offers retirees the benefits of campus life. Also: strong growth at a Michigan small business and low credit appetite among consumers.

Today on Marketplace.
Redefining the "college senior"
Today, we’ll visit a college outside of Baltimore that offers retirees the benefits of campus life. Also: strong growth at a Michigan small business and low credit appetite among consumers.
www.marketplace.org
May 19, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Update: turns out in the original 1982 book Steven King even got the 2025 year correct.
Can’t believe that it is going to turn out that the only thing the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film “The Running Man” got wrong was thinking that we would be at this point in the hellscape by 2019 instead of 2025.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/u...
A Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for U.S. Citizenship? D.H.S. Is Considering It.
www.nytimes.com
May 17, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Can’t believe that it is going to turn out that the only thing the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film “The Running Man” got wrong was thinking that we would be at this point in the hellscape by 2019 instead of 2025.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/u...
A Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for U.S. Citizenship? D.H.S. Is Considering It.
www.nytimes.com
May 17, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Bill Harder, PhD
“Bending the knee and precomplying will not stave off these attacks.

Acquiescing to censorship will not stop the threats.

Only engaging in collective, bold, public, strategic struggle & disruption has the potential to do so.

We did not pick this fight, but this is the fight that we are in.”
Letter to Faculty on Self-Censorship and Boldness (opinion)
In a letter to fellow faculty, Nolan L. Cabrera argues that self-censorship is not a strategy for self-preservation.
www.insidehighered.com
March 29, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Today is the day: Goucher Symposium featuring more than 150 presentations of undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative works. One of my favorite days of the year. Thanks to all of our excellent students for sharing their incredible work with us! #LiberalArts

blogs.goucher.edu/symposium.
May 9, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Prepping my #datavisualization slides tomorrow's class means it is once again time for my favorite annual activity: finding new awful charts to include. What a beauty!
April 21, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Bill Harder, PhD
Beating a dead horse here, but higher ed is an incredible source of American soft power

The international students we educate at places like my institution, Harvard Kennedy School, bring their educational experiences to their home countries in ways that greatly enhance US interests
DHS Secretary Noem threatens to terminate Havard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification if it doesn't turn over student records.
April 17, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Bill Harder, PhD
The incoming NIH Director has repeatedly stressed the importance of open science and open data.

Now petabytes of NIH-hosted research data are about to be lost on his watch.

www.404media.co/nih-archives...
Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer's Research Could Be Lost Forever
Days before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that 10,000 HHS staffers would lose their jobs, a message appeared on NIH research repository sites saying they were "under review."
www.404media.co
April 5, 2025 at 12:01 AM