FIRE helped secure a victory this week for two educators in Oregon when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sent Damiano v. Grants Pass School District back down to the federal district court, as FIRE had asked it to in our amicus brief.
When their school district passed a policy requiring teachers to address transgender students by their preferred names and pronouns, the plaintiffs, Oregon assistant principal Rachel Sager and teacher Katie Medart, started the grassroots campaign “I Resolve” to voice their opposition to the policy. Following complaints by students, parents, and community members, their local school district fired the teachers but later reinstated them to different roles.
The teachers sued. But the lower court ruled the school district was entitled to fire the teachers and granted summary judgment, meaning it did not see a need to go to trial.
FIRE saw things differently. And now, so has the appellate court. Our brief to the Ninth Circuit argued that Sager and Medart’s speech on a matter of public concern — as speech on the debate around gender issues undoubtedly is — must be properly balanced against the school district’s interest in providing services to the public. FIRE wrote:
Almost twenty years ago, this Court held “it is well-settled that a teacher’s public employment cannot be conditioned on her refraining from speaking out on school matters.” … Yet the district court here held that, under Pickering, Grants Pass School District could do exactly that. The court incorrectly concluded that the district did not violate the First Amendment by firing an assistant principal (Rachel Sager, née Damiano) and teacher (Katie Medart) for speaking out against the District’s gender identity policy … because their actions—namely, publishing an alternative model gender-identity education policy and accompanying video called “I Resolve”—allegedly caused significant community disruption.
The lower court put too much weight on the discomfort and controversy the teachers caused with their advocacy, and too little weight on their First Amendment right to speak as private citizens on a matter of public concern.
On top of that, the court found a genuine dispute to be resolved over whether the teachers’ advocacy actually disrupted the school’s operation. As such, the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court’s opinion — meaning the educators’ First Amendment claim can now proceed to trial.
With its ruling, the Ninth Circuit has sent a pointed reminder that public employees don’t surrender their constitutional rights just because they work for the government.
Temple University President John Fry this week signaled that officials expect to eliminate jobsas the public institution in Philadelphia navigates choppy fiscal waters.
University leaders forecast a $60 million structural deficit for fiscal 2026, Fry said in an announcement to the Temple community. That comes after the university shrank an $85 million projected deficit to $19 million for fiscal 2025.
As the university tries to close the persistent structural deficits, Temple leaders have asked vice presidents and deans to reduce their total compensation spending by 5% across units, Fry said. “Unfortunately, this will result in the elimination of some positions,” he added.
Dive Insight:
Over fiscal 2025, Temple shrank its deficit by tightly controlling hiring, travel and other discretionary spending. Nonetheless, long-term enrollment declines have weighed on the budget.
“For the previous years that we had a structural deficit, university reserves were used to cover expenses, which is not a sustainable practice,” Fry said. “We must work toward achieving a structurally balanced budget where our expenses do not exceed revenues going forward.”
Specifically, Fry pointed to a drop of 10,000 students from fall 2017 levels, with much of that dip occurring during the pandemic.As of fall 2023, Temple’s enrollment totaled 30,205 students.
The declines, Fry noted, have translated into a roughly $200 million falloff in tuition revenue.
However, Fry pointed to “positive indicators” for the class of 2029. He said Temple is on track for its second consecutive year of increases in first-year students.
But while enrollment is still being rebuilt, state appropriations have remained flat and operating costs have increased.
“For this reason, fiscal year 2026 — and the next two years — will continue to be challenging until we significantly grow overall enrollment and identify new revenue sources,” Fry said. “In short, we have some difficult but necessary decisions to make over the next three fiscal years.”
Employee compensation accounts for 62% of operating expenses, which is why university leaders are homing in on those costs. Even so, the university is planning a 1.5% increase in the budget for merit salary raises.
The university is also making capital investments, including building a new home for its public health collegeand an arts pavilion. Fry noted that these projects are funded with donations and state money.
Temple is far from alone in its austerity measures.
In recent months, both public and private universities have undertaken some combination of hiring freezes, furloughs, layoffs, tuition hikes and other measures to address funding challenges from both the state and federal level. The Trump administration, for example, has unilaterally slashed grant funding, and congressional Republicans are eyeing policy changes, such as eliminating Grad PLUS loans.
A federal judge ordered that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and student protest leader who was detained by ICE agents in March, be released from a detention center in Louisiana. News outlets reported that he walked out of the detention center around 6:40 Central time Friday evening.
U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled on Friday that Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has not been accused of any crime, should be released on bail and that continuing to hold him was highly unusual and could constitute “unconstitutional” punishment for his political beliefs. The Trump administration had sought to keep Khalil imprisoned based on a minor alleged immigration infraction after another judge ruled earlier this month that it could not continue to hold him purely based on the State Department’s claim that his continued presence in the U.S. posed a foreign policy threat.
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With diversity, equity and inclusion efforts facing scrutiny under the Trump administration, school districts and states looking to diversify their teacher workforces are in a precarious situation.
Nearly a month into President Donald Trump’s second term, for instance, the U.S. Department of Education slashed $600 million in “divisive” teacher training grants — specifically through the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Program. The department said in February that those cuts were made to grants that “included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race.” Advocates for the federal grants said the decision particularly impacted funding for programs aiming to improve teacher diversity in classrooms.
For years, there’s been a push for more policies to support the recruitment and retention of teachers of color as the nation’s K-12 public school student population grows more racially diverse and as teacher shortages persist. Advocates often point to research that shows when schools hire teachers who look like their students — particularly students of color — student achievement improves and disciplinary rates go down.
While research from the National Council on Teacher Quality found that teacher diversity slowly grew between 2014 and 2022, those findings also suggested that teachers of color are opting out of careers in education as teacher diversity lags behind the rate of the broader workforce.
But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that repealed race-conscious admissions in higher education and the Trump administration’s ongoing push against DEI, some experts advise districts and states to be cautious when approaching teacher diversity efforts moving forward. On the flip side, advocates say the need for these initiatives remain.
A ‘scary’ time for teacher diversity initiatives
Before Modesto City Schools began its teacher workforce diversity partnership with California State University, Stanislaus, there was a “mismatch” in representation between students of color and teachers of color in its elementary schools, said Shannon Panfilio-Padden, an associate professor at the university’s college of education.
During the 2021-22 school year, elementary enrollment for students of color in Modesto City Schools could range from 60% in some buildings to as much as 98% in others. That’s compared to the range of 13% to 66% among elementary teachers of color in the district, said Panfilio-Padden, who helped oversee the partnership between the district and university. “What Modesto had been working on for years was diversifying their teacher workforce, but no matter what they tried, it wasn’t working.”
By improving collaboration and identifying workforce barriers with Modesto City Schools, CalState Stanislaus — which has a majority Hispanic student population — was able to double the number of candidates who are teachers of color, from 6 to 16, who entered the district’s classrooms between the 2021-22 and 2023-24 school years, said Panfilio-Padden.
At a time when such initiatives are being targeted at the federal level, Panfilio-Padden said “it can be scary.” But, she said, she’s dedicated to supporting her students, who are aspiring teachers from diverse backgrounds.
“We need teachers so desperately in California, and we need highly qualified teachers,” she said. Panfilio-Padden said the university can’t predict the amount of federal aid or state grant money that will be available to aspiring teachers, but “at the same time, when they continue to come to us with an enthusiasm to teach elementary kids, it just puts everything into perspective.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Massachusetts enacted the Educator Diversity Act in November 2024 as part of the state’s economic development package. The legislation looks to address barriers to recruiting and retaining educators of color by allowing multiple pathways for teacher certification, creating a statewide dashboard for tracking educator workforce diversity at the district level, and increasing uniformity in hiring practices to support candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.
Students of color make up more than 45% of public school enrollment in Massachusetts, while only 10% of teachers in the state are people of color, according to Latinos for Education, a nonprofit advocacy group that supported the Educator Diversity Act.
The Educator Diversity Act is “going to help all communities” and not just aspiring educators of color, because the legislation creates more equitable opportunities to enter the teaching profession — and that ultimately benefits everyone, said Jorge Fanjul, executive director for the Massachusetts chapter of Latinos for Education. If the law included a quota based on race, that would be discriminatory, he said, but that’s not the case here.
While Fanjul said he’s hopeful about the efforts to improve teacher diversity in Massachusetts, parts of the broader movement in the U.S. “may be wounded” because of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies.
Elsewhere, a 33-year-old Illinois state law aiming to boost teacher diversity, known as the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program, is being challenged in court by public interest law firm Pacific Legal Foundation, which claims the program discriminates against nonminorities. A motion to dismiss the case is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois.
Since the program’s beginnings in 1992, 13,000 scholarships have been awarded to aspiring teachers through the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program, said Bravetta Hassell, director of communications for Advance Illinois, an organization that supports the state’s scholarship program.
Applicants must be a minority student to receive the scholarships, which are “intended to help diversify the teaching pool and provide a supply of well-qualified and diverse teachers for hard-to-staff schools,” according to the program’s website.
Over the last decade, teaching candidates of color have jumped from 20% to 36% in Illinois, Hassell said. That’s not enough, considering over half of all K-12 public school students in the state are students of color compared to just 18% of the state’s teachers being educators of color, she added.
‘Tread carefully’
The lawsuit challenging MTI alleges that not allowing nonminority students to receive a scholarship on the basis of race is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. For Erin Wilcox, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, MTI is a pretty clear example of a government program that gives out a benefit based on race.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based admissions practices in 2023, Wilcox said, courts are starting to implement a stricter standard for when the government can discriminate on the basis of race for many different programs.
The latest challenge against the MTI program “is one more example of how states have really got to take a hard look at their laws and start cleaning up their act” as they approach similar programs that promote teacher diversity, Wilcox said.
“The race-based programs, ones that specifically admit or exclude applicants based on their race, I think those are on a collision course with the U.S. Constitution. I think it’s unavoidable,” Wilcox said.
While schools “desperately” need teachers nationwide, Wilcox said, districts and states need to continue encouraging people to become teachers — but “you can’t do it based on the race of the person who’s applying for your program.”
Though there’s promising research on the importance of having a diverse teaching staff, districts should “tread carefully,” on teacher diversity initiatives, which are now increasingly at risk of potential legal scrutiny, said Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education policy think tank.
Districts have to make sure their policies and practices don’t discriminate against Black or Hispanic teachers, Petrilli said. While they seek to expand their pipeline to include those candidates, districts must also avoid discriminating against White or Asian teachers. Rather, he said, the district workforce strategy should be “opening the door to everybody.”
The point, Petrilli said, should be, “How can we get as close to a non-discriminatory approach and a non-biased approach as possible, and can that help us improve our diversity?”
Dr. Raquel MonroeHoward University has named Raquel Monroe dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. In that role, she Monroe will oversee academic, performance, and research programming for visual arts and design, music, and theater arts at Howard. Monroe currently serves as a full professor and associate dean of graduate education and academic affairs at the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT Austin) College of Fine Arts. Monroe will begin her new role Aug. 4, 2025.
Monroe is a founding board member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance and a member of Propelled Animals, a multimedia, interdisciplinary arts collective. Before her work at UT Austin, she was a professor in dance and an administrator at Columbia College in Chicago.
Monroe earned bachelor’s degrees in dance and theatre and a master’s degree in communication from Arizona State University. Monroe also holds a doctorate in culture and performance from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Andrew J. SeligsohnHigher education in the United States has come under increasing scrutiny — but not always for the right reasons. Critics claim that colleges and universities award degrees with little economic value, limit ideological expression on campus, and operate primarily for their own financial interests, rather than as institutions of shared public value. While much in this narrative is false, it nonetheless affects the public’s attitude toward higher education and individuals’ decisions about pursuing a postsecondary degree, which may be detrimental to their economic interest.
When these critiques are made in bad faith, we should counter them with facts about the value of college attainment. It remains true for example, that a college degree is likely to yield a significant boost in earnings. Nonetheless, anyone who cares about higher education must also ask why these arguments resonate so deeply with the public. Where real frustrations are fueling legitimate skepticism, addressing those concerns can both improve higher education’s reputation and enhance its value for students, families, and society. Since the experiences that give rise to frustration and receptivity to attacks on higher education are personal experiences, it pays to drill down into the particulars to figure out what’s going on.
In that spirit, Public Agenda, in partnership with Sova and the Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board, set out to deepen our collective understanding of learner experiences with the credit transfer process. We knew from research on enrolled students that transfer was a source of pain for many learners. But we didn’t know how many people were affected, how much it mattered to them, and how it shaped their views of higher education more broadly. With support from ECMC Foundation, we fielded a national survey of adult Americans that interrogates transfer experience and outcomes.
Dr. Lara CouturierThe findings were striking, and they should serve as a call to action for institutions of higher education. Nearly 4 in 10 respondents reported that they had tried to transfer credit toward a college degree or credential. This included credits earned at a previous college or university, as well as credits earned from nontraditional sources. In fact, more than a third attempted to transfer credits earned from workplace training, military experience, industry certification, vocational or trade school, or other prior learning. With more households feeling the cost of inflation and needing to upskill to survive in this economy, and more higher education institutions facing enrollment declines, we should be finding ways to develop more on-ramps and clear the path to a college degree.
Unfortunately, the survey revealed that Americans who attempt to transfer encounter convoluted paths, often losing credit hours, money, and motivation along the way. One in five respondents reported having to repeat a class they had already taken because their credits didn’t transfer. Thirteen percent reported running out of financial aid as a result of having to repeat courses. And, most concerning, 16% reported that they gave up on pursuing a college degree or credential because the process of transferring was so difficult. It’s clear difficulties with transfer are not only inconveniences — they’re significant financial burdens and barriers to completion.
We also sought to understand how these direct experiences shape individuals’ broader attitudes toward higher education. We found it profoundly troubling that 74% of respondents who had tried to transfer credit agreed with the statement that two- and four-year higher education institutions care more about making money than about educating students. In fact, respondents who had tried to transfer credit were more likely to hold this jaded view than those who had attended college but had not transferred or those who had no prior experience with higher education. So while some of the current attacks on higher education may be in bad faith, it should not be surprising that they find a receptive audience among so many Americans who recall feeling personally misled.
We know, then, that credit transfer needs reform — but what exactly does that look like? Public Agenda also surveyed Americans about potential interventions, and the results are promising. First, when asked what should happen to a college with a track record of not accepting many credits for transfer, Americans felt public accountability would be more helpful than heavy-handed punitive approaches. Fifty-four percent of Democrats and 47% of Republicans agreed that institutions should have to make a plan to improve credit transfer rates. Conversely, just one-third of Republicans and Democrats thought colleges should lose their funding. But what might go into a plan for improvement? Our survey found broad support among Republicans, Democrats, and independents for a variety of policies intended to make it easier for students to transfer credits. Support is notably strong for requiring that students have free and easy access to their transcripts, credentials, and degrees; requiring institutions to create public databases with transfer information; and requiring that prospective transfer students are quickly told how many credits will be accepted.
The benefits of a better transfer process are clear and compelling. Students would face fewer obstacles to completing their degrees, leading to higher graduation rates, better individual economic outcomes, and broader prosperity. Just as importantly, higher education would rebuild trust with the public by showing that institutions are committed to serving students—not just collecting tuition dollars. And the benefits of this renewed trust extend beyond the higher education system. The perception that public institutions don’t care about ordinary Americans is a key element of the challenge our broader democracy is facing. Since the education system is a direct way many people interact with our government, restoring confidence that higher education works for all Americans can further inspire faith in public institutions.
If we ignore issues like the broken credit transfer system, skepticism about higher education will continue to fester. Worse, more students may give up on college altogether, missing out on opportunities for personal and professional growth—all of which ultimately erodes our democracy. Pushing back against misinformation isn’t the only way to defend higher education; we must acknowledge and address the real barriers students face. Credit transfer is an experience shared by many with cross-partisan support for reform—now is the time to act. Reforming the transfer process won’t solve every challenge facing higher education, but it’s a clear and necessary step toward improving the system for the good of both students and institutions themselves.
Dr. Andrew J. Seligsohn is president of Public Agenda, a national research-to-action organization. Dr. Lara Couturier is a partner at Sova, a higher ed advocacy organization.
Roughly half of middle and high schoolers report losing interest in math class at least half the time, and 1 in 10 lack interest nearly all the time during class, a new study shows.
In addition, the students who felt the most disengaged in math class said they wanted fewer online activities and more real-world applications in their math classes.
Feeling bored in math class from time to time is not an unusual experience, and feeling “math anxiety” is common. However, the RAND study notes that routine boredom is associated with lower school performance, reduced motivation, reduced effort, and increased rates of dropping out of school.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study found that the students who are the most likely to maintain their interest in math comprehend math, feel supported in math, are confident in their ability to do well in math, enjoy math, believe in the need to learn math, and see themselves as a “math person.”
Dr. Heather Schwartz, a RAND researcher and the primary investigator of the study, noted that the middle and high school years are when students end up on advanced or regular math tracks. Schwartz said that for young students determining their own sense of math ability, “Tracking programs can be a form of external messaging.”
Nearly all the students who said they identified as a “math person” came to that conclusion before they reached high school, the RAND survey results show. A majority of those students identified that way as early as elementary school. In contrast, nearly a third of students surveyed said they never identified that way.
“Math ability is malleable way past middle school,” Schwartz said. Yet, she noted that the survey indicates students’ perception of their own capabilities often remains static.
The RAND study drew on data from their newly established American Youth Panel, a nationally representative survey of students ages 12-21. It used survey responses of 434 students in grades 5-12. Because this was the first survey sent to members of the panel, there is no comparable data on student math interest prior to the pandemic, so it doesn’t measure any change in student interest.
The RAND study found that 26% percent of students in middle and high school reported losing interest during a majority of their math lessons. On the other end of the spectrum, a quarter of students said they never or almost never lost interest in math class.
There weren’t major differences in the findings across key demographic groups: Students in middle and high school, boys and girls, and students of different races and ethnicities reported feeling bored during a majority of math class at similar rates.
Dr. Janine Remillard, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and expert in mathematics curriculum, said that in many math classes, “It’s usually four or five students answering all the questions, and then the kids who either don’t understand or are less interested or just take a little bit more time — they just zone out.”
Over 50% of students who lost interest in almost all of their math classes asked for fewer online activities and more real-world problems, the RAND study shows. Schwartz hypothesizes that some online math programs represent a “modern worksheet” and emphasize solo work and repetition. Students who are bored in class instead crave face-to-face activities that focus on application, she said.
During Remillard’s math teacher training classes, she puts students in her math teacher training class into groups to solve math problems. But she doesn’t tell them what strategy to use.
The students are forced to work together in order to understand the process of finding an answer rather than simply repeating a given formula. All of her students typically say that if they had learned math this way, they would think of themselves as a math person, according to Remillard, who was not involved in the RAND study.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
For more news on STEM learning, visit eSN’s STEM & STEAM hub.
Norah Rami, Chalkbeat
Norah Rami is a Dow Jones education reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah at [email protected].
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The increasing exposure of higher education sectors worldwide to market mechanisms (eg privatisation in and of higher education, platformisation and assetization) generates market-making pressures, technologies and relations that are changing university missions and academic practices in both research and teaching, altering not only forms of knowledge production but also academic identities (Lewis et al, 2022). These corporate, competitive systems operate in and through regimes of time acceleration and compression (Rosa & Trejo-Mathys, 2013; Wajcman & Dodd (eds), 2017) that enable capitalist accumulation via a proliferation of calculative practices and surveillance techniques driven by instrumental logics. In essence, the timescapes of the ‘accelerated academy’ (Vostal, 2016) have come to be not just dominated but defined by the linear rhythms of knowledge production, accumulation, consumption, and distribution.
In this context, ever-present tensions continue to pit institutional time scarcity/pressure against the often non-linear times, rhythms and practices that characterise the craft of intellectual work. These are acutely visible in doctoral education, which is considered both a liminal space-time of profound transformation for students and a rite of passage through which doctoral candidates enter the academic community.
Doctoral students in the accelerated academy experience tremendous institutional pressures to complete their research projects within tight timeframes punctuated by developmental milestones. At the same time, they are pressed to publish and participate in externally funded projects before completing their course of studies, to secure a positional advantage in a hyper-competitive, precarious job market.
Much less attention is devoted to reading as an autonomous practice in relation to educational research. Reading is generally approached instrumentally for research and mostly equated with a strategic, extractive process whereby academics retrieve, survey or review the information needed for writing to maximise efficiency and speed (Fulford & Hodgson (eds) 2016; Boulous Walker, 2017).
Doctoral students are taught to tackle the volume of readings by deploying selective, skim and speed-reading techniques that ‘teach’ them a practical method to ‘fillet’ publications (Silverman, 2010 p323) or ‘gut(ting) an article or book for the material you need’ (Thomas, 2013 p67). Without dismissing the validity of these outcome-oriented techniques, I argue that reading should be approached and investigated as research, which is to say as a philosophical orientation whose intimate relation with thinking (meditation and contemplation) and writing (as a method of inquiry) constitutes a conjuncture with transformative potential for both the reader and the text (Hoveid & Hoveid, 2013; Dakka & Wade, 2018). [RC1][FD2]
In 2024, I was awarded a BA/Leverhulme grant that allowed me to examine, in collaboration with Norwegian colleagues, the under-researched area of reading habits, rhythms and practices among doctoral students in two countries, the UK and Norway, characterised by a markedly different cultural political economy of higher education. The project set out to explore how a diverse group of doctoral students related to, made sense of, and engaged with reading as a practice, intellectually and emotionally. Through such exploration, the team intended to examine pedagogical and philosophical implications for doctoral education, supervision, and, more generally, higher education through a distinct spatiotemporal lens.
The project experimented with slow reading (Boulous Walker, 2017) as an ethico-political countermovement that invites us to dwell with the text and reflect on the transformations it can produce within the self and the educational experience tout-court. Examining the practice of reading is, therefore, vital to foster the development of the criticality and creativity that inform the students’ thinking and, ultimately, their writing, helping to create better conditions for meaningful educational engagement.
As briefly mentioned earlier, there is a dearth of literature in educational research focused explicitly and directly on reading as a research practice. Conversely, Reading Theory and Reader-Response criticism (Bennett, 1995) are well-established strands in literary studies.
Two contributions inspired the project in the cognate fields of philosophy, pedagogy, and education ethics, underpinning the theoretical and methodological framework adopted: Aldridge (2019), exploring the association between reading, higher education and educational engagement through the phenomenological literary theorisations of Rita Felski (2015) and Marielle Macé (2013). Reading here is considered as a phenomenological ‘orientation’ with ontological character: the entanglement of body, thought, and sense makes reading an ‘embodied mode of attentiveness’ with ‘rhythms of rapprochement and distancing, relaxation and suspense, movement and hesitation’ (Felski 2015, p176). Lastly, Boulous Walker (2017) introduces the concept of ‘slow reading’, or reading philosophically against the institution. This practice stands in opposition to the institutional time, efficiency, and productivity pressures that prevent the intense, contemplative attitude toward research that is typical of active educational engagement. The author calls, therefore, for slow reading, careful reading, and re-reading as antidotes against institutional contexts dominated by speed and the cult of efficiency.
Bridging cultural sociology and philosophy of education, the project combined Hermeneutic Phenomenology (Schutz, 1972; Ricoeur, 1984) and Rhythmanalysis (Lefebvre, 2004) to gain insight into the lived experiences, embodied and cognitive processes of meaning-making, and spatiotemporal (rhythmic) dimensions of reading among doctoral students.
The complementarity of these frameworks enabled a richer and deeper understanding of the phenomenon from a socio-cultural and philosophical perspective. The rhythmanalytical dimension drew on the oeuvre of the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre. Conceived as both a sensory method and a philosophical disposition, Rhythmanalysis (2004) foregrounds the question of the everyday and its rhythms, offering insightful takes on repetition, difference, appropriation and dwelling. Lefebvre’s analysis of the conflicting rhythms of the social and the critical moments that revive/subvert the humdrum of the quotidian pivot on the experience and resonance of bodies in space-time, their imbrication with the fabric of the social and the multiplicity of their perceptual interrelations with human and more-than-human environments. Methodologically, Rhythmanalysis enabled a closer look at the students’ reading habits, rhythms and practices in relation to their doctoral studies. The emphasis on spatio-temporality and (auto-)ethnographic observations made it possible to register and grasp the tensions that derive from clashes between meso institutional constraints and demands (eg set timeframes for completion; developmental milestones), micro individual responses and circumstances (eg different modes of study, private and/or professional commitments) and macro societal context (eg cognitive, extractive capitalism).
The phenomenological facet of the project drew on the hermeneutic, existential, and ontological dimensions found in Ricoeur’s and Schutz’s philosophy, which are concerned with grasping experiential meanings and understanding the complexity of human lifeworld. Acknowledging the entanglement of being and Dasein as an ontological standpoint, human lived experiences are situated within a contingent spatiotemporality and understood through an interpretivist epistemology founded on intersubjectivity, intentionality and hermeneutics.
This phenomenological-rhythmanalytical inquiry was therefore designed to explore students’ cognitive and affective experiences and practices of reading as they unfolded in the spaces and times of their doctoral education. The project involved two groups of doctoral candidates based in the Education department of, respectively, a teaching-intensive university in the West Midlands of England (Birmingham, UK), and a large, research-intensive university in Norway (Trondheim).
The first phase of data collection involved Focus Groups and Reflective Diaries. It foregrounded the times, places, and rhythms of reading, considering reading modalities and patterns of doctoral students in the context of institutional demands vis-à-vis personal and professional constraints. Rhythmanalysis was employed both as a method (reflective diaries) and as an interpretive, diagnostic tool to uncover and critically reflect on arrhythmias (ruptures) and/or eurythmic pockets in the reading patterns of doctoral students.
The second data collection phase relied on hermeneutic phenomenological techniques, such as Episodic Narrative Interviews (Mueller, 2019), to delve deeper into the affective, material, and cognitive experience that connects and transforms students and their readings.
The final stage of data collection involved an experiment in collective slow reading and re-reading against the institution, inspired by Boulous Walker’s philosophical reading and Felman’s description of the interpretative process as a never-ending ‘turn of the screw’ (Felman, 1977) that generates a hermeneutical spiral of subsequent, ever richer, and different textual interpretations.
Initial findings point to a complex and layered reading time experience, captured in its nuanced articulation by a rhythmic analysis of the students’ everyday practices, habits and affective responses.
Commonsensical as it may sound, reading takes time. Engaging with a text to interpret and understand it is time-consuming, and most of our respondents in this project discussed this. Reading seems to project an experience of oneself as a slow reader, followed by a feeling of guilt for ‘just’ reading.
Interestingly, clock time and phenomenological time appear to be juxtaposed in the reading process, creating conflicts and productive tensions for most of the PhD students in the project. For example, the students often welcome writing deadlines, as they create a linear rhythm that provides structure to their reading time. At the same time, the idea that reading should be done quickly and targeted to extract material for their thesis hovers over many participants, generating performance-related pressure and anxiety. Procedural aspects of reading, particularly managing volume and note-taking, are treated as a sign of success or failure, reinstating Rosa’s neoliberal equation of fast-winner, slow-loser in the accelerated, competitive academy (Rosa, Chapter 2 in Wajcman & Dodd (eds), 2017).
However, a deeper engagement with reading both opposes and coexists with this tendency, evoking the notion of Barthes’ idiorrhythmy (Dakka, 2024) to describe the process of discovering and imposing one’s own rhythm. This rhythm typically resists linearity and dominant structure, requiring slowness as a disposition or a mode of intense attention to oneself and the world through the encounter with text. Even more intriguingly, slowness as heightened focus and immersion often occurs within short and fragmented bursts of reading, strategically or opportunistically carved into the students’ everyday lives, resulting from an incessant act of negotiation over and encroachments with personal, professional, and institutional times.
The project explored, examined, and interpreted the rhythms and practices of reading in contemporary doctoral education along three axes: times (institutional, personal, inner, tempo, duration); spaces (physical, digital, mental); and affects as ways of relating (joy, guilt, anxiety, surprise, fantasy, etc). Together, these elements combine in unique and shifting configurations of dominant rhythms and idiosyncratic responses (rhuthmόs or idiorrhythmy), exposing the irreducibility of students’ experiences to harmful binaries (eg fast versus slow academia) while revealing the pedagogic affordances of a rhythmic and phenomenological analysis for contemporary universities. Spotlighting different approaches to reading, thinking, and writing enhances awareness of and attunement to developing one’s voice, listening and resisting capacity.
Fadia Dakka is an Associate Professor in Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education at Birmingham City University. Her interests lie at the intersection of philosophy, sociology and theory of higher education. She is currently working toward theorising Rhythm as a form of ethics underpinning critical pedagogy in higher education. She recently received a BA/Leverhulme small grant (2024-25) to examine doctoral reading habits and practices in the UK and Norway.
Everyone makes mistakes. To be credible you have to fess up when you get things wrong. Doing so doesn’t make you look bad. It shows you care about the truth.
Let’s face it, the news cycle is a pretty gloomy place at the moment, so we’ve decided to take a different perspective. This is our attempt to find our happie place (notice the pun we’ve got going here?).
This regular column aims to bring you positive news, flashes of inspiration and a warm, fuzzy feeling that will nourish your soul. We want to celebrate international student success and colleagues who go above and beyond. Get involved and send us the good stuff so we can share the love.
We recognise that in this unpredictable market, real challenges exist – and that this is nothing more than a sticking plaster – but sometimes there’s strength in looking for the positives.
I was born in Lagos, but I was made in Swansea Michael Ijaiyemakinde, international student
This week, we decided to check in with some of the international graduates we’ve met in the UK over the years to see how they’re getting on.
These stories are a simple reminder of why we believe in the transformational power of study abroad and the power to change individual lives (including our own).
Franka Zlatic – Studying abroad reinvigorated my worldview
“Spending six years studying in the UK profoundly shaped my academic and personal development.
“Immersed in a diverse, intellectually stimulating environment, I gained both theoretical grounding and the confidence to pursue independent research. Living abroad also allowed me to travel extensively across Europe and beyond, which broadened my horizons in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
“I met people from all walks of life, encountered different worldviews, and had the time of my life – experiences that have deeply influenced how I relate to others and approach my work. Later, working at a law school in India further deepened my understanding of migration, identity, and postcolonial dynamics – topics central to my academic focus.
Franka cuddling an elephant while teaching in India
“Engaging with students and scholars in a culturally different yet intellectually rich context challenged me to adapt, reflect, and grow. Both experiences, academic rigour in the UK and practical, cross-cultural engagement in India, equipped me with a unique combination of analytical insight, global perspective, and resilience.
“Returning to my home country, Croatia, I brought back not only knowledge but also a sense of purpose and a desire to contribute to local academic debates with a broader, transnational understanding.
“These international experiences positioned me competitively for a postdoctoral role in Croatia and reaffirmed my commitment to inclusive, globally engaged scholarship.”
Michael Ijaiyemakinde – studying in Wales was the making of me
“I was born in Lagos, but I was made in Swansea.
“Every time I say this, I get the same reaction – raised eyebrows, shocked expressions, and sometimes even pushback: you’re not patriotic.
“But here’s what I really mean. Growing up in Nigeria, life was fast-paced, driven by results, and often defined by expectations. While it gave me resilience, it didn’t speak my love languages or give me the space to find myself. I was always doing – but rarely being.
“At 17, I moved to study at Swansea University in Wales. Swansea’s a small city, often overlooked. But for me? It became a sanctuary. It was in Swansea that I experienced support that wasn’t transactional. I met managers, mentors, and everyday people who lived out values like empathy, service, and patience – people just like you who are reading this now.
Michael found his happie place on the southwest coast of Wales thanks to people just like you
“You didn’t just teach me – you showed me. Through kindness. Through consistency.
“You helped me shed temper issues, rebuild my self-esteem, and rediscover my voice. Swansea didn’t change who I was. It simply gave me permission to become it.
“What positive message am I trying to pass on here? What thoughts to help my colleagues stay positive in difficult times?
“The right environment can change everything: not because where you’re from is bad – but because sometimes you need a new setting to unlock the next chapter of your growth.
“Is the current environment you’re in helping you become the best version of yourself? Or is it holding you back from discovering who that version really is?
“If not, maybe it’s time to find your Swansea.”
Filip-Matej Pfeifer
Born in Slovenia, Filip attended the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Sport, then transferred to the UK in September 2024 to pursue his master’s degree and continue his rowing career.
This summer he will not only graduate with his degree in international business from Oxford Brookes University (OBU) – he will also compete at the world-famous Henley Royal Regatta in July.
Imagine if we could get everyone in the sector all rowing in the same direction. Kudos to Filip for showing us the way.
Filip represented OBU at the 2025 BUCS Regatta where he took the silver medal in the men’s Single Sculls, setting a new rowing record for his UK university team and has competed internationally in both the European Rowing Championships and the World Rowing Cup.
On May 30, he reached the semi-finals of the Single Sculls at the 2025 European Rowing Championships in Bulgaria.
Huge thanks to the Student Sports Company for keeping us up to speed with Filip’s achievements as an international student athlete in the UK. We’re all cheering him on!
Have you got some positive news to share?
Help us to showcase the best of international education by sending us your testimonials, love letters and inspirational thoughts to [email protected] labelled ‘Happie place’. And remember – good vibes only.
