Week 41
October 25-31 - a seasonal shift
Hello friends,
So here we are: October is over. It’s Halloween. Día de los Muertos. The end of Daylight Savings time and election season again.1 It’s a time of harvest, gathering, and honoring those who came before us.2 Time to make decisions and prepare for the cold months ahead.
For forty weeks now, I’ve spent every Friday night working late to chronicle the week’s damage to science and higher ed. But my job isn’t to bombard you with panicked reports. My goal is to identify patterns, understand the context, and make sense of it all. It’s the promise I make to you and myself when I say, “focused, not flooded.” And it just keeps getting more important. All my instincts and analyses tell me that this winter is going to be brutal for science and higher ed. As budgets constrict and oppression expands, I want to gather my strength for the dark stretch to come.
My very first post was about the pacing and discipline that are necessary to stay in this for the long haul. So now I am going to take my own advice.
Rest and maintenance are essential. I need time to catch up on projects I’ve been neglecting, consolidate ideas that are just beginning to take shape, and to take care of my team, my family, and myself. I am never going to find time for this: I have to make it.
I warmly encourage you to take this opportunity to revisit your subscription if you have one. I am so deeply grateful for the material support you have provided for this project, and I am not going anywhere. I’ll continue to track the news and share my analysis on Bluesky and with the incredible team at Unbreaking. I will share updates periodically here in November and December, and will return to the weekly posting schedule in January.
But for now, I’m going to go sit on my porch with the people I love, surrounded by neighbors who started decorating in September(!), and give big fistfuls of candy to everyone I see.
Liz
As ever, thanks for reading & thinking with me.
I’m glad to have Nic Bennett hosting recurring Scientists in Solidarity action hours with us again ⤵️
Meeting the Moment will always be free, but if you want to contribute, you can start a paid subscription.
If this email was forwarded to you, hi! 👋 This newsletter is my part of an ongoing conversation with friends who’ve had a rough week. Every Friday night, I share two or three pieces of news that feel most important to those of us who care about science and higher education. I try to offer a helpful way to think about the problems in front of us, and at least one useful thing to do. If you like what you see ⤵️
If you need to vote, stop reading this right now and go do it! Our local decisions have never been more important. ↩
It’s also SACNAS season! On Halloween 2024, I was at that meeting for a panel on the science of science communication that was all about why we need theory and evidence in addition to good instincts and craft. I updated my title from “Science Communication for Sensemaking” to “Who has time to read papers when the world is on fire?” I thought it was important to make the case for good scholarship and thoughtful reflection, even - perhaps most especially - when the intensity feels sharpest. ↩