STUDENTS’ ABSENTEEISM: A NEW REPORT BY THE UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA DE BARCELONA

My post refers today to L’absentisme a les aules universitàries de la UAB: per què val la pena anar a classe [Absenteeism in UAB’s university classrooms: why attending classes is worthwhile], a report coordinated by José Luis Muñoz Moreno and Edelmira Badillo Jiménez, and authored by Patricia Olmos Rueda and Dolors Márquez Cebrián. You can […]

THE ENDOGAMIC NATURE OF THE SPANISH UNIVERSITY: THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES

Today’s post is partly inspired by Ana Bravo-Moreno and Francisco Javier Ogáyar-Marín edited collection Los males de la academia: Abuso de poder, endogamia, acoso, corrupción y otras violencias (Peter Lang, 2026), which can be downloaded for free here. This is a necessary book to animate a conversation carried so far discreetly away from public attention, […]

COUNTING THE HOURS: SUPERVISING A PHD DISSERTATION

So that you know, according to the current regulations of my university, and following Catalan legislation, a full-time teacher (24 ECTS) is supposed to devote 640 yearly hours to teaching, out of the 1640 we’re supposed to work annually. Actually, if I multiply the 215 working days of the current academic year 2025-26 by 7,5 […]

A LIMINAL POST: BETWEEN 2025 AND 2026

I’m writing today out of stubbornness, because if I let a third blank week go by I fear that I might give up entirely this blog. I’m procrastinating my proper academic writing (an article and a book chapter have been waiting for too long), and I worry that if I also delay writing yet another […]

WHY WE NEED TO BE WARY ABOUT INTRODUCING AI INTO OUR TEACHING AND RESEARCH: COMMENTING ON GUEST ET AL.

Today I’m using my post as an excuse to read an article titled “Against the Uncritical Adoption of ‘AI’ Technologies in Academia” by Olivia Guest and 18 other authors based mostly in the Netherlands. This text can be found in a pre-print repository (https://philarchive.org/rec/GUEATU) where it was filed on 7 September of the current year. […]

FIVE YEARS AGO: THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON EDUCATION

Five years ago today, on 13 March 2025, Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez declared the state of emergency, in view of the alarming expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing Covid-19. Today, many other persons and media are considering the impact of the pandemic on our lives and, in particular, on education. I don’t have anything to […]

 A DEPARTMENT OUTING AND A BIT OF HISTORY: TO PARADISE

When the new Head of Department was appointed back in February 2023, we also appointed informally a ‘party planning committee’, constituted by two of my colleagues and myself. Perhaps you are part of that kind of Department in which people meet regularly for coffee breaks and lunch, and after hours for drinks, meals, or partying, […]