Sunday, October 16, 2022




Seven Australian institutions in Times Higher Education top 100

I have impressive pieces of paper from two of the universities listed below, plus I taught at a third. On a per head basis, Australian universities do very well. Consider that there are 300 million Americans and only 25 million Australians. Australia produces roughly twice as many top universities per head as the USA does. It's not a small difference

So why the difference? I know why but it would be vastly incorrect for me to spell it out so I think I should refrain from doing so. Let me just mention the undisputed fact that Australia has very few Africans


Australia now has seven universities in the world’s top 100 as ranked by Times Higher Education with the University of Adelaide joining the elite group. The University of Melbourne remains Australia’s most highly ranked institution, slipping to 34th this year from 33rd last year.

Monash University is next at 44th place, after rising from 57th last year.

The University of Queensland (53rd), the University of Sydney (54th), the Australian National University (62nd) and UNSW (71st) also make the top 100, along with the University of Adelaide at 88th, up from 111th last year.

The University of Adelaide said its success in entering the world’s top 100 universities was a significant milestone for higher education in South Australia. “A top 100 university is only possible with top ranked staff. They should be proud of their achievements,” said UA vice-chancellor Peter Hoj.

Times Higher Education chief knowledge officer Phil Baty said Melbourne was the city with bragging rights. “It now boasts Australia’s number one and number two universities, with Monash University leapfrogging ahead of Brisbane’s University of Queensland and pushing it into third place,” he said.

Monash University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner said the results were a landmark for her university. “This achievement will inspire exciting opportunities to access new research funding, build new partnerships and attract additional students,” she said.

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell said the rankings reflected the global standing of Australian universities highlighting their contribution during the pandemic and their value to society.

There are signs that US universities are trending downwards in the Times Higher Education ranking. The number of US universities in the top 100 continues to fall, from a peak of 43 in 2018 to 34 this year.

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Notre Dame Professor Offers Abortion Assistance to Students

A sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame offers to help students in procuring chemical abortions and “morning after” pills, a student newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Irish Rover, a conservative Catholic publication, reported that the professor, Tamara Kay, had advertised her willingness to assist in abortions on her office door with a sign reading: “This is a SAFE SPACE to get help and information on ALL Healthcare issues and access—confidentially with care and compassion.”

Kay’s actions came after the Indiana Legislature passed a law Sept. 15 to ban abortion statewide. Notre Dame is a private Catholic university, and the Catholic Church has explicitly pro-life teaching on abortion.

Kay’s sign included her personal email address. Her office door also was adorned by the letter “J,” which denotes a Notre Dame professor willing to help students seeking abortion.

It isn’t clear how many Notre Dame professors display the symbol. Kay since has removed the sign from her office door, The Irish Rover reported.

Kay, a professor of global affairs and sociology at Notre Dame for six years, recently was part of a panel discussion titled “Post-Roe America: Making Intersectional Feminist Sense of Abortion Bans.”

During the event, she discussed “why she thought abortion bans are ineffective and immoral, complementing her work to bring abortion to Notre Dame students,” The Irish Rover reported.

In a Sept. 16 tweet, Kay wrote: “Will help as a private citizen if you have issues w access or cost. DM [direct message] me,” according to the Rover.

The Rover also reported that, during the week of Sept. 26, Kay changed her Twitter profile from “Dr. Tamara Kay—Notre Dame abortion rights expert.” It now reads: “Dr. Tamara Kay: Abortion Rights & Policy Scholar.”

Kay’s Twitter feed regularly features retweets of messages from Catholics for Choice and Abortion Finder. She has deleted tweets regarding students and abortions, the Rover reported.

Merlot Fogarty, president of Notre Dame Right to Life, a pro-life student organization, told The Daily Signal in an email that he commends Notre Dame for being a pro-life institution, but that the university should do more to protect women and unborn children from chemical abortion.

“We want to emphasize our support for Notre Dame as one of the few institutions still formally committed to protecting life, but [Notre Dame] needs to be doing more to protect women and children to truly promote a culture of life on campus,” Fogarty said. “We look forward to a public response from Notre Dame on this situation and [to] working with [the] administration and residential life to educate students and faculty on the danger of chemical abortion.”

Fogarty emphasized Notre Dame’s role as setting an example for other Catholic institutions, and the responsibility that comes with being a prominent Catholic university.

“Notre Dame is poised as the preeminent Catholic university to be the model for Catholic institutions across the nation in the onset of the battle against chemical abortion and the culture of death,” Fogarty said.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/10/13/notre-dame-professor-offers-abortion-assistance-to-students/ ?

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Fuming NYC parents rip DOE over faulty new grading, attendance system

Exasperated parents are ripping into the New York City public schools’ faulty new system that has been barring them from readily accessing their children’s grades or easily contacting teachers.

The Department of Education has been rolling out its own free grades, attendance and messaging applications, to replace banned third-party software that was involved in a data breach of more than 800,000 students last school year.

But families and teachers say the new system freezes or does not show data, and its features slow to roll out — leaving many without a sense of how their kids are faring in school.

“We’re having a lot of issues, parents having a lot of issues, schools having a lot of issues,” said Shirley Aubin, co-chair of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council (CPAC), where families on Thursday blasted the new platform during a meeting with DOE Chancellor David Banks.

“The parent interface is not there — and to put it more bluntly, it should’ve been ready before the first day of school,” Aubin said.

More than 500 schools have signed on to using the DOE system this school year, officials said last week — many to replace the breached products from software company Illuminate Education, including Skedula and Pupil Path.

The department announced its software rollout last May, saying at the time in a news release that the applications would be available before the first day of the school year.

Banks conceded to the parent council on Thursday he had heard about issues with the new applications before. “The system that we had before, the system itself worked fine enough, but the company that was responsible for it was in a position where people’s personal information was being co-opted,” Banks told the irate parents at the CPAC meeting.

“So we had to break ranks with them. We would have liked to have more time, more preparations so everything runs smoothly — but sometimes you’re thrown into a situation where you have to make a change. “And there’s nothing we can do about it. We just have to figure it out as we go.”

But David Irons, a parent of five teenage foster and adopted children on Staten Island, said he can’t check if his kids regularly attend class or are passing their classes.

“The DOE has a $38-billion budget, and they can’t get this simple thing done,” said Irons, also a high school special education and English teacher on the same borough. “The new system is all aspirational. None of it is ready to go.”

Irons told The Post that the old platforms used to have a messaging feature connecting teachers and parents.

Now, if involved families want to reach out to a teacher, they have to rely on the school or hope an online staff directory is updated. And if teachers want to reach out to families and let them know how their students are doing in school, they need to look up their contact information and hope its up-to-date — or find alternate messaging platforms. “I feel like we have no connection with the parents now,” Irons said.

While hundreds of schools are using the applications, other principals have opted for pricier third-party technology in lieu of the city’s free system — even while three-fourths of schools face budget cuts this fall.

Arthur Goldstein, an English as a second language teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, said his school bought third-party tech last week, more than a month into the school year.

Goldstein told The Post he didn’t give tests until last week because of the unworkable grading software, and found many of his students failed.

“It’s my fault,” said Goldstein. “But it’s also the fault of this system that requires me to approach my work differently, because I’m waiting for something that works.”

After that, he asked his administrators for his students’ contact information, and got a wonky spreadsheet with some functional phone numbers — while others didn’t work and some were missing. He said he “absolutely” would’ve made those calls earlier, had he had a better way to call home. “My classes are running much better since I made 20 or 30 phone calls.”

One high school parent at Susan Wagner on Staten Island told The Post she hasn’t been able to access the grades or attendance of her son, who had a 90-average pre-pandemic. Now, his grades have been slowly slipping, to 70s and 80s in recent school years.

Some class time has also been lost to teachers sitting down with students to manually show them their grades, a teacher at the school added.

“I’m afraid I missed something,” said the parent, “if I missed an alert I should’ve been able to see — to keep up with my son and his work. I’m afraid that he may fail something.”

The mom said she’s tried talking with her son, but wishes she had a better grasp of his progress to help guide him. “He tells me he does the work, but I’m really not sure because he’s never working at home,” she added. “I hope I’m getting through to him — but I really don’t know.”

The DOE did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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