@paulinecouper
Geographer. Geographical thought & practice, philosophy of geog, epistemic pluralism, geomorphology, higher ed. Assoc Prof & Head of dept, York St John Uni, UK. FRGS, PFHEA, CGeog. #academicsky #geosky
"References to anthropogenic climate change are disappearing from earth science departments. Historians are being told that they can only teach primary sources, with all second-order reflection on those sources — what we used to call “history” — being stigmatized or even banned."
"Higher education has a choice. We can continue to treat technology as a series of technical problems to be solved in a vacuum, or we can recognise that place and the solidarity found within it still matter. Knowledge is not a cloud-based commodity. It is a grounded, political and collective act."
A keynote. I watched the whole thing, & I'm not a fan of online lectures.
As a bonus, the photos/slides are fab. 🐦🕊🦉
youtu.be/9Mj3yeSon3A
An excellent online series of short lessons by Bergstrom & West. Well worth a look.
thebullshitmachines.com/index.html
...a couple of links follow, e.g. for thinking about the balance of incentives (costs & benefits) for individuals, how norms & institutions are slow to respond to technological disruption, how language use intersects with belonging...
Last semester I experimented with addressing AI with students. Won't go into detail here but I learned a lot, ending up with more questions and concerns than answers. Now finding much food for thought in @carlbergstrom.com's work, so for anyone who hasn't come across them...
#academicsky #HigherEd
I reviewed a grant application that cited a nonexistent paper apparently by me. 🙄
"Mountains are more than scenery: They are ecosystems, cultural landscapes, and homes. Treating them as empty canvases for spectacle normalises commodification and erases both fragility and meaning"
blog.geographydirections.com/2026/02/17/c...
"More academics left roles than started them in 2024-25 for the first time ever.....About 60 per cent of Universities UK members saw a fall in academic staff numbers last year"
@timeshighered.bsky.social
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/number-...
"Assessment that is both authentic and accountable cannot be implemented through anonymous submission and blind marking alone. It requires relational engagement between students and assessors."
Interesting piece on assessment in an age of genAI.
#HigherEd #AcademicSky
I think “floaty boats murder monster” is how I’m going to refer to all bears from now on
I have some bad news. One, if you need to use ChatGPT for your graduate application letter, you are not ready for graduate school.
Two, no, not "everyone is doing it" and those who don't do it aren't "losing out." ChatGPT is not an advantage.
Geology matters in Olympic curling. 2-minute video on the source of the stones.
⚒️
www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...
When AI was added to a tool for sinus surgery: “Cerebrospinal fluid leaked from one patient’s nose. In another… a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull. In two other cases, patients suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured”
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
It was a first, that's for sure! Then for an individual task in the afternoon session they went completely silent for 15 minutes. Not a whisper, just focused. Hoping the rest of semester is as good!
What a morning. Module intro session of my new MSc module, 'Research Design & Practice'. The level of student engagement was off the scale. Several students standing up shouting at each other simultaneously across the room; all entirely good-natured, focused on topic. Amazing energy in the room.
Critical Perspectives on “AI” in Education – a free, one-hour, Zoom interview series starting Monday Feb 17, 12 noon PT / 3pm ET / 8pm GMT, continuing Tuesdays from Feb 23.
Come and chat with us! 🧵
🧪💙📚 🗃 #earlymodern #histsci #education #politics #AcademicSky #technology #AI
1/
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
View down open valley and across wider landscape showing old and new growing pine forest. Photo credit: Regenerating Pine Forest, National Trust for Scotland, Mar Lodge, Scotland
📢 Call for papers and discussion participation:
Into the Wild Conference & Discussion Meeting - 21st & 22nd May 2026, Glasgow.
Multidisciplinary event of interest to researchers, practitioners & policy makers.
Deadline: 2 March 2026.
Details: tinyurl.com/8twry2zc
Please share 🙏
Epstein managed different networks. The UK media has rightly centred the powerful pedophile ring. It has maintained an uncanny silence about the global, anti-democratic, far right political network. Farage is up to his neck in it. If it weren’t for unprecedented double standards it’d be career over.
At least the AI overview is accurate on this occasion 🫤
📖 What if land isn’t property, but relationship? Using Maasai pastoralist struggles in Tanzania, this paper contrasts colonial ways of knowing land with Eramatare, a Maasai inhabitation mode that reimagines nature. Toward decolonial ecological transformation. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Anyone fancy a new university league table? Laundry costs causing a local stir here in York. YSJU's social justice ethos in practice.
@yorkstjohn.bsky.social
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
I couldn't possibly comment 🙊
Here's a curious thing. I'm able to say quite categorically that I've never received payments totalling $75,000 from anyone (excluding work, of course). Not "I have no recollection"... 🤔
On narratives of discovery and ethical use of LiDAR
1. The thing about science that these jokers don't understand is that science cannot be vibe-coded.
Whatever its flaws, the point with vibe coding is that you're trying to quickly make something that sorta works, where you can immediately sorta see if it sorta works and then sorta use it.
The old test in moral philosophy ‘what if everyone did that?’ is coming back to haunt us. LLMs only work because the information they are sucking up was not generated by LLMs. But as they drive more and more real researchers out of business they are building layers and layers on their own quicksand.
#AIHype #enshittification
📢 In 2025, the UK Rights of Nature movement quietly crossed a threshold. Not through a single law or campaign, but through a thriving ecology of ideas, innovations, learning, and practice.
Here’s a short summary thread… 🧵 1/5
#ukrightsofnature