Harry Haysom for The Chronicle.

Dear Commons Community,

L. Maren Wood, the director and chief executive of the Center for Graduate Career Success, has an article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, warning college graduates of the “worst job market” in a generation. Here is an excerpt.

“As a long-time observer of hiring trends, I’m (L. Maren Wood) increasingly concerned about the career prospects of graduate students and postdocs in the next few years. This will very likely be the worst job market in a generation, and many of them lack strategies and support to manage the tumult.

I work with nearly 80 universities as director and chief executive of the Center for Graduate Career Success, and I can tell you, the hiring outlook has rarely looked this grim:

• Faculty hiring will almost certainly be at a near standstill in the next academic year. Universities were already facing an enrollment cliff driven by the decline in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States, and the fact that fewer high-school graduates are planning on attending college. Fewer students mean fewer faculty members. Now that outlook is being exacerbated by political factors. The hostility toward immigrants and international students may deter many from studying in the United States. Federal funding cuts have already led to hiring freezes at many institutions.
• In other economic downturns — such as the Great Recession of 2008 or the Covid pandemic — graduate students could extend time in their programs or move into postdoc positions. But this time, federal cuts have eliminated many postdoc positions and constricted funding for existing grad students.
• A shrinking federal work force means fewer job opportunities in that sector for Ph.D.s. The highly skilled federal workers being laid off have years of experience and are now moving into state and local governments, further diminishing opportunities for new graduates.
• Meanwhile, hiring in the private sector has slowed to rates not seen since 2009. When people expect a recession, they act accordingly. Uncertainty caused by tariffs and the trade war threatens to slow hiring further.

So this time is different. In 2008, President Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress quickly passed a stimulus bill to revive the economy. During Covid, the federal government passed stimulus bills to mitigate the worst economic effects of the pandemic. But today’s looming economic downturn is a direct result of federal government policies: The Trump administration’s attack on higher education is intentional. Deterring international students is the plan. Tariffs and cuts in the federal work force are the fulfillment of campaign promises.”

The entire column offers advice for graduates but the future is indeed gloomy.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A video of two nuns on a Catholic TV show in Brazil beatboxing has gone viral. It is being likened to the hit movie, Sister Act that starred Whoopie Goldberg.  The nuns were using their performance to recruit new members to their order.

Take a look below.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again yesterday, but fell short of the main objectives when the spacecraft tumbled out of control and broke apart.  As reported by The Associated Press.

The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off on its ninth demo from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas.

CEO Elon Musk ‘s SpaceX hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning as it skimmed space toward an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” or burst apart. “Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test,” the company said in an online statement.

Musk noted in a post on X it was a “big improvement” from the two previous demos, which ended in flaming debris over the Atlantic. Despite the latest setback, he promised a faster launch pace moving forward, with a Starship soaring every three to four weeks for the next three flights.

It was the first time one of Musk’s Starships — intended for moon and Mars travel — flew with a recycled booster. There were no plans to catch the booster with giant chopsticks back at the launch pad, with the company instead pushing it to its limits. Contact with the booster was lost at one point, and it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico in pieces as the spacecraft continued toward the Indian Ocean.

Then the spacecraft went out of control, apparently due to fuel leaks.

“Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” said SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot. The company had been looking to test the spacecraft’s heat shield during a controlled reentry.

Communication ceased before the spacecraft came down, and SpaceX ended its webcast soon afterward.

The previous two Starships never made it past the Caribbean. The demos earlier this year ended just minutes after liftoff, raining wreckage into the ocean. No injuries or serious damage were reported, although airline travel was disrupted. The Federal Aviation Administration last week cleared Starship for another flight, expanding the hazard area and pushing the liftoff outside peak air travel times.

Besides taking corrective action and making upgrades, SpaceX modified the latest spacecraft’s thermal tiles and installed special catch fittings. This one was meant to sink in the Indian Ocean, but the company wanted to test the add-ons for capturing future versions back at the pad, just like the boosters.

NASA needs SpaceX to make major strides over the next year with Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — in order to land astronauts back on the moon. Next year’s moonshot with four astronauts will fly around the moon, but will not land. That will happen in 2027 at the earliest and require a Starship to get two astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back off again.

SpaceX is not having a good time with its rockets.

Tony

Jake Tapper

Dear Commons Community,

The cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline might be a bigger scandal than Watergate, CNN host Jake Tapper acknowledged on Monday in an interview with Piers Morgan.

Tapper, the co-author of a new book, Original Sin,  detailing Democratic efforts to hide Biden’s deteriorating health from the public during his 2024 re-election campaign, was asked by Morgan why he concluded in the book that the efforts to prop up the octogenarian former president were not akin to the 1972 burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters that eventually forced Richard Nixon to resign.

“Joe Biden is not Richard Nixon, and the hiding and cover-up of his deterioration is not Watergate.’ I am not entirely sure I agree, Jake, with that conclusion,” Morgan, host of “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” told Tapper, quoting from his book.

The CNN host noted that he considers the Biden health cover-up “an entirely separate scandal” from Watergate but “a scandal” nonetheless.

“It is a scandal. It is without question – and maybe even worse than Watergate in some ways,” Tapper admitted, adding, “Because Richard Nixon was in control of his faculties when he was not drinking.”

Tapper insisted that he and “Original Sin” co-author Alex Thompson didn’t “mean to exonerate” by concluding the Biden scandal was “not Watergate.”

“The only reason that we have the Watergate thing in there is because we quote Archibald Cox, who was a Watergate investigator, talking about how powerful the presidency is and how presidents get surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping that president propped up.”

“This is an entirely separate scandal,” Tapper reiterated. “Maybe even worse … maybe even worse.”

While promoting his book, the CNN host has drawn criticism over his past coverage of Biden, including accusations that he insufficiently reported on the former president’s health concerns during his term.

“I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest,” Tapper told CNN earlier this month.

“Of me, certainly. I’m not going to speak for anybody else, but knowing then what I know now, I look back at my coverage during the Biden years — and I did cover some of these issues, but not enough,” he added. “I look back on it with humility.”

Asked point blank by Morgan if he owed the American people an apology, Tapper responded: “I feel like I owe the American people an acknowledgement that I wish I had covered the story better.”

In their book, released last week, Tapper and Thompson chronicle Biden’s mounting health struggles during his term in the White House and his inner circle’s attempt to cover up the decline and get him re-elected.

I am currently reading Original Sin and while suspicious of Biden’s condition for quite a while, I am appalled by the extent of the cover up especially by his wife, Jill.

Tony

Jessica Tarlov of Fox News’ “The Five” admitted cable news can enrage viewers. John Lamparski/Getty

Dear Commons Community,

Jessica Tarlov, one of Fox News’ few (maybe only) credible news personalities, acknowledged how toxic cable news has become—and admitted she’s part of the problem.

Tarlov, the progresive panelist on Fox’s top show, The Five, asked Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics founder and director, what issue enraged him the most.

“I watch more TV news than I ever have before,” he said on the Prof G podcast, which Tarlov co-hosts. “TV funnels what’s selling on social media, I think, more than the reverse. That makes me rage.”

Tarlov said she is part of the problem.

“It does,” she said. “As someone who’s on cable news, I apologize to the entire world for what we export.”

Sabato laughed at Tarlov’s remark, saying during the Friday interview that the main issue is social media’s dominance of political discourse. “There’s nothing we can do about social media,” he said.

“The one thing I’ve been waiting for that I was promised as a young person was a time machine,” he added. “We still don’t have one, cause I’d love to go back and make it impossible to create social media. I don’t know how I do it, but I would try to do that.”

Sabato told the Daily Beast in further remarks that he was disappointed by the “sane-washing” of Trump from multiple media outlets, who he said underestimated Trump’s penchant for retribution.

“I’ve personally seen the effects of Trump’s intimidation of media companies, law firms, and yes, universities,” he said in an email. “The solution they’ve adopted seems to be, ‘Let’s keep our heads down, stick to a lot of both-sides coverage, and then Trump will target others.’ It hasn’t dawned on some that Trump will eventually get around to slamming them too, as well as misusing the power of government to exact revenge.”

Several other cable news hosts have rebuked the sector in recent years.

Chuck Todd, the former NBC News anchor who hosted Meet the Press before leaving the network earlier this year, told Mediaite last month that he had grown demoralized by cable news’ content.

“I had it on in my office all the time,” Todd said. “But most cable news felt like a whole bunch of people trying to game an algorithm. It stopped being informational.”

Former Fox News and NBC star Megyn Kelly said on podcast The Megyn Kelly Show last year that, after watching cable news during the election, she was sad to see that “nothing’s changed.”

“The people don’t look as good—that’s changed,” she said. “But they’ve changed nothing. They’re having the same stilted, guarded, fake conversations that last four minutes long with, like, the stupid panels. It’s amazing how out of date they are.”

The three major cable news channels Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC have become embarrassments to the news profession.  They are indeed “toxic” with Fox News being the worst.

Tony  

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading, The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary,  by Simon Winchester.  It is an historical account of the development of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).   I decided to read it as a follow-up to the historical novel The Dictionary of Lost Words  by Pip Williams that I read a few weeks ago.   

Winchester has done a fine job of tracing the development of the OED.  He is masterful in chronicling  the individuals who took on this monumental task. James Murray, the main editor, receives a good deal of attention and rightfully so for steering the OED development for most of its 70-year development.  Winchester also does an excellent job of describing the tensions between Oxford University Press and the editors much of which related to the cost and length of time it took to produce the OED.  Originally, it was estimated to cost £9,000. and take ten years to complete. It actually ended up costing £375,000.  and seven decades to complete.

Lastly, Winchester also includes a number of photos and images that are fascinating to examine.

In sum, I highly recommend The Meaning of Everything for anyone interested in how the OED came to be.

Below is a brief review of The Meaning of Everything… that appeared in Publishers Weekly.

Tony

Publishers Weekly

THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Simon Winchester, . . Oxford Univ., $25 (260pp) ISBN 978-0-19-860702-1

We thank our military men and women past and present for their service to our country. We especially honor and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Kermit the Frog Gave University of Maryland Commencement Address.  Allison Robbert/For The Washington Post via Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

Kermit the Frog’s dream has always been to spread joy and happiness — and that’s exactly what he did with a recent visit to a graduation ceremony.

The beloved green amphibian delivered a commencement speech to the University of Maryland’s class of 2025 on Thursday, where he was met with resounding applause. Draped in what the Muppet himself described as “a very tiny cap and gown,” he delivered words of encouragement and inspiration, along with a forecast with a “100% chance of frog.”

“I am honored to share some words of wisdom about three things that are close to my heart: finding your people, taking the leap, and making connections,” Kermit said.

The green legend noted that Muppets creator Jim Henson, who died in 1990, attended the institution.

The school’s campus boasts a statue of the man and frog sitting on a bench, apparently deep in conversation.

Kermit said Henson taught him about “finding your people” and taught him that “what’s unique about you should always be shared.”

“There is no guarantee that the show is always good or that it’ll go off without a hitch, or it doesn’t have its, uh, hecklers,” he said. “But the show must go on. And if you’re with your people, then you won’t have to do it alone, because life is not a solo act.”

Kermit went on to discuss the importance of friendship and community, and reminded graduates to “always be on the lookout for old friends you’ve just met.”

The character then hopped into his second theme — “taking the leap” — and continued to offer more sage words of wisdom to anyone who was willing to “take advice from a frog.”

“Rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand, and taking the leap side by side,” he advised. “Life is better when we leap together.”

Finally, the Muppet spoke about the importance of staying connected — to your people, your values and your purpose.

“If I know a thing, it’s important to stay connected to your loved ones, stay connected to your friends and most of all, stay connected to your dreams,” the amphibian concluded.

As good a commencement message as I have ever heard!

Tony

MacKenzie Scott and Warren Buffet. Courtesy of The India Today Group / Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett ushered in a new Gilded Era of philanthropic giving, likened in influence to the Rockefellers and Carnegies. But charity work is about to look a whole lot different as higher taxes are threatened on liberal institutions, and new methods of giving are popularized by women mega-donors. As reported by Fortune.

“We’re likely to see more women come out of the shadows.”

How philanthropy will look in a new era

Many billionaires have started foundations as a way to channel their philanthropic efforts, but a recent decision from the U.S. House of Representatives may upend that practice. Just this week, a budget reconciliation package was approved, which stipulated a tax of 10% on foundations with more than $5 billion in assets.

“The reason this is insidious is that it’s going to really hit the big liberal foundations like Gates, Ford, and Soros,” Kathleen McCarthy, director for the center on philanthropy at CUNY, tells Fortune. “Whereas the conservative foundations are much smaller and they will pay a much lower rate.”

Thousands of liberal foundations led by billionaires including Gates, Scott, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg could be hit hard by these tax hikes. This could entirely change how billionaires approach philanthropy. 

“[Billionaires] will start looking at alternative mechanisms once they realize that they’re going to be forced to sunset foundations,” McCarthy says. “That’s what’s being jeopardized right now.”

But some ultra-wealthy donors are already rewriting the rules; MacKenzie Scott’s “stealth giving” practice entails anonymously giving money directly to non-profits, trusting them to handle the funds as they see fit, with no expectations. 

According to McCarthy, as billionaires are driven away from the foundation-based model, they are pulled towards alternative ways of giving. This includes being inspired by Scott’s inconspicuous, direct giving strategy as a way to get around the new taxes.

“I think she’s a trendsetter and sort of moral ballast to the way that Gates has been,” Bella DeVaan, associate director of the charity reform initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies, tells Fortune. “I do see that being not just a trend, but shifting common sense towards trust-based philanthropy.”

Scott donates through her Yield Giving foundation, which has given over $19.25 billion to date across 2,450 non-profits, and experts say billionaires could be inspired to donate directly to organizations to ease the tax hit. DeVaan also predicts that Melinda French Gates will be a pioneer of the philanthropic LLC, an alternative to traditional foundations.

Experts have pulled on a common thread between who is innovating philanthropy, and how the general make-up of mega-donors is changing: women are in the spotlight. With more than 200 new billionaires minted in 2024 alone, nearly four every week, more players are entering the field and women are stepping into wealth. Women being the face of philanthropy may become the status quo. 

Women are becoming the new philanthropic frontrunners 

When tasked with naming the rising stars of philanthropy to fill the big shoes of Gates and Buffett, experts are already noticing a few frontrunners. The one person on everyone’s mind: charitable vagabond MacKenzie Scott.

“This is a woman making a pretty bold statement about how she’s going to give her money away: by trusting the recipients, and not asking for any reporting back…She’s in contrast to the very technocratic way that Bill Gates has approached matters.”

And in 2025—when U.S. women have even more access to wealth and power than ever before—this group will only be supercharged. Not only have they come into stable, high-paying executive positions, but many women have also grown to be financially savvy as they’ve gained control over their money and careers. 

“You’ll see women becoming much more prominent mega donors,” McCarthy says. “They’re very comfortable handling money. They’re very comfortable doing research, and they’re looking for ways to change the system.”

If they are like MacKenzie Scott, the world will be a better place.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Allison Burroughs, a U.S. judge yesterday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, a policy the Ivy League school called part of Trump’s broader effort to retaliate against it for refusing to “surrender its academic independence.”  As reported by Reuters.

The order provides temporary relief to thousands of international students who were faced with being forced to transfer under a policy that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university called a “blatant violation” of the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws, and said would have an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders. 

“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school said in its lawsuit, filed earlier on Friday in Boston federal court. Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in its current school year, equal to 27% of total enrollment.

The move was the latest escalation in a broader battle between Harvard and the White House, as Trump seeks to compel universities, law firms, news media, courts and other institutions that value independence from partisan politics to align with his agenda. Trump and fellow Republicans have long accused elite universities of left-wing bias.

Harvard has pushed back hard against Trump, having previously sued to restore nearly $3 billion in federal grants that had been frozen or canceled. In recent weeks, the administration has proposed ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status and hiking taxes on its endowment, and opened an investigation into whether it violated civil rights laws.

Leo Gerden, a Swedish student set to graduate Harvard with an undergraduate degree in economics and government this month, called the judge’s ruling a “great first step” but said international students were bracing for a long legal fight that would keep them in limbo.

“There is no single decision by Trump or by Harvard or by a judge that is going to put an end to this tyranny of what Trump is doing,” Gerden said.

In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation. It said the revocation was a punishment for Harvard’s “perceived viewpoint,” which it called a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

The Trump administration may appeal U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs’ ruling. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”

Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, his administration has accused several universities of indifference toward the welfare of Jewish students during widespread campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Harvard’s court challenges over the administration’s policies stand in contrast to its New York-based peer Columbia University’s concessions to similar pressure. Columbia agreed to reform disciplinary processes and review curricula for courses on the Middle East, after Trump pulled $400 million in funding over allegations the Ivy League school had not done enough to combat antisemitism.

In announcing on Thursday the termination of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without providing evidence, accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Harvard says a fifth of its foreign students in 2024 were from China. U.S. lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns about the influence of the Chinese government on U.S. college campuses, including efforts by Beijing-directed Chinese student associations to monitor political activities and stifle academic speech.

The university says it is committed to combating antisemitism and investigating credible allegations of civil rights violations.

HARVARD DEFENDS ‘REFUSAL TO SURRENDER’

In her brief order blocking the policy for two weeks, Burroughs said Harvard had shown it could be harmed before there was an opportunity to hear the case in full. The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, scheduled hearings for May 27 and May 29 to consider next steps in the case. Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s lawsuit over the grant funds.

Harvard University President Alan Garber said the administration was illegally seeking to assert control over the private university’s curriculum, faculty and student body.

“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence,” Garber wrote in a letter on Friday to the Harvard community.

The revocation could also weigh on Harvard’s finances. At many U.S. universities, international students are more likely to pay full tuition, essentially subsidizing aid for other students.

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Harvard’s bonds, part of its $8.2 billion debt pile, have been falling since Trump first warned U.S. universities in March of cuts to federal funding.

International students enrolled at Harvard include Cleo Carney, daughter of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Princess Elisabeth, first in line to the Belgian throne.

Keep up the fight, Harvard!

Tony