Laura Jones-Pettit
@jonespettit.bsky.social
Artist, writing teacher, nature lover, judgmental Wheel of Fortune watcher. A bit too interested in higher ed and public policy.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
This is my rant:
Like Mike said above, "What is the purpose of the university?" And I'll add, "What is the purpose of a university athletic department?"
If it's not to advance the purpose of the university then what are we all even doing here?
Universities in the US are in an existential crisis.
Like Mike said above, "What is the purpose of the university?" And I'll add, "What is the purpose of a university athletic department?"
If it's not to advance the purpose of the university then what are we all even doing here?
Universities in the US are in an existential crisis.
Yet another college football Saturday with absolutely no discussion on the telecasts about how higher education in the United States is in dire straits because of various Trump Administration policies.
November 30, 2025 at 5:57 PM
This is my rant:
Like Mike said above, "What is the purpose of the university?" And I'll add, "What is the purpose of a university athletic department?"
If it's not to advance the purpose of the university then what are we all even doing here?
Universities in the US are in an existential crisis.
Like Mike said above, "What is the purpose of the university?" And I'll add, "What is the purpose of a university athletic department?"
If it's not to advance the purpose of the university then what are we all even doing here?
Universities in the US are in an existential crisis.
Waking up from a dead sleep with the refrain neoliberal multicultural productive inclusion rattling around my subconscious because I’ve got this theory paper due soon.
a man with a mustache is making a funny face while wearing a red shirt .
Alt: a man with a mustache is making the sort of funny face that indicates losing patience, long suffering, low-key irritation
media.tenor.com
December 1, 2025 at 3:38 AM
Waking up from a dead sleep with the refrain neoliberal multicultural productive inclusion rattling around my subconscious because I’ve got this theory paper due soon.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special.
November 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special.
My most pretentious academic opinion this Thanksgiving morning is that you could write an entire book about neoliberalism, culture, and Lil Jon's Turn Down For What float in the Macy's parade.
November 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM
My most pretentious academic opinion this Thanksgiving morning is that you could write an entire book about neoliberalism, culture, and Lil Jon's Turn Down For What float in the Macy's parade.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
This is the scandal. Trump isn’t targeting dangerous people. He’s targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively.
November 26, 2025 at 2:10 PM
This is the scandal. Trump isn’t targeting dangerous people. He’s targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively.
Academic writing is taking 1500 words and 16 sources to prove one sentence.
(But anyway, I did it in 1494.)
(But anyway, I did it in 1494.)
November 24, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Academic writing is taking 1500 words and 16 sources to prove one sentence.
(But anyway, I did it in 1494.)
(But anyway, I did it in 1494.)
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
Who invests in critical thinking and who invests in an AI chatbot to help you think will be really telling.
November 23, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Who invests in critical thinking and who invests in an AI chatbot to help you think will be really telling.
I think a lot about temporality and learning. If you want to be someone who is good at doing hard things, you have to spend time grappling with the difficulties. You can’t skip the work. You can’t fast forward to competency.
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 2:22 PM
I think a lot about temporality and learning. If you want to be someone who is good at doing hard things, you have to spend time grappling with the difficulties. You can’t skip the work. You can’t fast forward to competency.
If you had told me in 2011 that in 2025 I’d have an emotional support fantasy football team carrying the vibes through the SAD season, I simply don’t think I’d have expected that. And I wonder what 2040 hobbies I’ll end up with.
November 20, 2025 at 7:50 PM
If you had told me in 2011 that in 2025 I’d have an emotional support fantasy football team carrying the vibes through the SAD season, I simply don’t think I’d have expected that. And I wonder what 2040 hobbies I’ll end up with.
Answering a million student emails before classes the week before Thanksgiving Break: "No worries. Thanks for the heads up. Feel better!"
November 19, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Answering a million student emails before classes the week before Thanksgiving Break: "No worries. Thanks for the heads up. Feel better!"
My hope here is that there IS a full ongoing investigation, that Harvard’s hands are currently tied with HR and legal office hurdles, and that before long this guy gets gone. It’ll happen faster if students protest and refuse to attend his classes.
Update from The Harvard Crimson on Summers: he’ll step back from public commitments, but remain in the classroom, continue his directorship of a center, & keep his University Professorship. How is this in any way holding him accountable for his actions? www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Summers To Step Back from Public Commitments Amid Epstein Scandal | News | The Harvard Crimson
Former Harvard President Lawerence H. Summers will step back from all public commitments in an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me,” he wrote in a statement...
www.thecrimson.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:51 PM
My hope here is that there IS a full ongoing investigation, that Harvard’s hands are currently tied with HR and legal office hurdles, and that before long this guy gets gone. It’ll happen faster if students protest and refuse to attend his classes.
My husband has been watching The Last Frontier while I’m falling asleep so I’ve been listening to it eyes closed basically as an audiobook and it’s great but I just turned it on and this is simply not how I imagined ANY of these characters looked. Surreal.
November 15, 2025 at 2:44 AM
My husband has been watching The Last Frontier while I’m falling asleep so I’ve been listening to it eyes closed basically as an audiobook and it’s great but I just turned it on and this is simply not how I imagined ANY of these characters looked. Surreal.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
A direct email exchange from 2011 between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, just released by House Oversight Committee Democrats.
November 12, 2025 at 1:48 PM
A direct email exchange from 2011 between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, just released by House Oversight Committee Democrats.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
Hey so it's also extremely weird that "journalist" Michael Wolff was giving Jeffrey Epstein advice on how to handle his pedophilia PR
November 12, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Hey so it's also extremely weird that "journalist" Michael Wolff was giving Jeffrey Epstein advice on how to handle his pedophilia PR
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
Silver lining is Mike Johnson has to come up with new reasons not to release the Epstein files
November 10, 2025 at 3:56 AM
Silver lining is Mike Johnson has to come up with new reasons not to release the Epstein files
What you say is, “The problems that are facing the country are CAUSED by these people and I’m not going to collaborate with them to make your life worse.”
Shaheen: "When I talk to my constituents in New Hampshire, you know what they say to me? They say, 'Why can't you all just work together to address the problems that are facing this country?'"
November 10, 2025 at 2:07 PM
What you say is, “The problems that are facing the country are CAUSED by these people and I’m not going to collaborate with them to make your life worse.”
So Senate Dems despite having the strongest strategic position in years blink on the gov shutdown with NO concessions whatsoever and mere hours later Trump pardons insurrectionists. Love that for us. Great. What next?
NEW: President Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani and others involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Trump's pardon attorney says.
Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani and others involved in bid to overturn 2020 election, pardon attorney says
The pardons may be largely symbolic as none of the people listed were convicted of federal crimes, which the presidential pardon covers.
nbcnews.to
November 10, 2025 at 2:05 PM
So Senate Dems despite having the strongest strategic position in years blink on the gov shutdown with NO concessions whatsoever and mere hours later Trump pardons insurrectionists. Love that for us. Great. What next?
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
RFK Jr's response to someone collapsing nearby him was to haul ass out of the room as quickly as possible
November 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
RFK Jr's response to someone collapsing nearby him was to haul ass out of the room as quickly as possible
Ok but I’m waiting for a bunch of people to get fired for saying Dick Cheney’s approach to political power and transparency was monstrous and unforgivable.
Dick Cheney Was Doing War Crimes in Exactly the Right Way, by Ezra Klein.
November 4, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Ok but I’m waiting for a bunch of people to get fired for saying Dick Cheney’s approach to political power and transparency was monstrous and unforgivable.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
So many people were detained extrajudicially, were tortured, or died because of Dick Cheney. You can't get to the danger we're in now without everything he did. The weapons he helped forge are ones we need to take away from U.S. presidents forever.
November 4, 2025 at 12:52 PM
So many people were detained extrajudicially, were tortured, or died because of Dick Cheney. You can't get to the danger we're in now without everything he did. The weapons he helped forge are ones we need to take away from U.S. presidents forever.
I hate 2025.
thank you for all the support; the statement from our union is now live here with some more reporting.
now that this is public I can confirm that the majority of today’s layoffs were women of color. there are no longer any Black women working at Teen Vogue.
now that this is public I can confirm that the majority of today’s layoffs were women of color. there are no longer any Black women working at Teen Vogue.
November 3, 2025 at 11:52 PM
I hate 2025.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
As Thanksgiving draws near, I think a lot about how the white people who settled here were always, definitionally, people who couldn’t get along with others too well.
They literally chose ~the depthless sea~ over one more minute of barely trying to tolerate everyone they’d ever known or heard about
They literally chose ~the depthless sea~ over one more minute of barely trying to tolerate everyone they’d ever known or heard about
November 3, 2025 at 2:16 AM
As Thanksgiving draws near, I think a lot about how the white people who settled here were always, definitionally, people who couldn’t get along with others too well.
They literally chose ~the depthless sea~ over one more minute of barely trying to tolerate everyone they’d ever known or heard about
They literally chose ~the depthless sea~ over one more minute of barely trying to tolerate everyone they’d ever known or heard about
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
The Senate is still meeting and holding votes as normal despite the shutdown.
The House has not held a vote in a month and a half now solely because Mike Johnson wants to prevent the release of the Epstein Files.
They've killed our government to save their pedophiles.
The House has not held a vote in a month and a half now solely because Mike Johnson wants to prevent the release of the Epstein Files.
They've killed our government to save their pedophiles.
A quick reminder that the House is not in session because Speaker Johnson CANCELED it, not because of the current shutdown.
October 29, 2025 at 12:04 PM
The Senate is still meeting and holding votes as normal despite the shutdown.
The House has not held a vote in a month and a half now solely because Mike Johnson wants to prevent the release of the Epstein Files.
They've killed our government to save their pedophiles.
The House has not held a vote in a month and a half now solely because Mike Johnson wants to prevent the release of the Epstein Files.
They've killed our government to save their pedophiles.
Reposted by Laura Jones-Pettit
Every single university needs to firmly stand united on this.
This has always been the plan.
Divide and make examples of specific universities, then attack every single center of higher education in the country.
Fascists always come for the academics first. Then the judges. Then...
This has always been the plan.
Divide and make examples of specific universities, then attack every single center of higher education in the country.
Fascists always come for the academics first. Then the judges. Then...
As expected, the first 9 compacts were a trial run.
They have now come for all of us.
And each of us, and all of us, should say no.
Scoop via @liamknox.bsky.social at Bloomberg:
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
They have now come for all of us.
And each of us, and all of us, should say no.
Scoop via @liamknox.bsky.social at Bloomberg:
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT
The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in re...
www.bloomberg.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Every single university needs to firmly stand united on this.
This has always been the plan.
Divide and make examples of specific universities, then attack every single center of higher education in the country.
Fascists always come for the academics first. Then the judges. Then...
This has always been the plan.
Divide and make examples of specific universities, then attack every single center of higher education in the country.
Fascists always come for the academics first. Then the judges. Then...