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Colorado’s rural schools serve more than 130,000 students, and their superintendents want more pay for their teachers

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Robert Mitchell, Associate Professor, College of Education, University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Leaders of Colorado’s rural schools are more likely to encourage a total stranger to go into teaching than a member of their own family, according to a Colorado-based survey published in October 2025.

The results come at a time when nearly every state in the United States faces critical teacher shortages.

We collected data in the fall of 2023 with the goal of describing the perceived strengths and limitations of rural schools in Colorado as understood by the people leading them. We sent an electronic survey to the 146 rural school principals and superintendents in the state, received 100 responses and analyzed 98.

Nearly every respondent mentioned issues related to the declining number of people who want to teach, which also reflects national trends. The number of individuals completing educator preparation programs annually in the United States has declined by more than 200,000 since its high point from 2008 to 2021.

When pressed for additional detail about the primary problems affecting their local schools and districts, more than 85% of respondents identified recruiting and retaining talented teachers as one of the most important issues. This was closely followed by concerns about supporting underprepared and underperforming students and poverty’s effect on student learning.

The Colorado context

In Colorado, more than 80% of school districts are rural. They serve more than 130,000 students.

Rural leaders are most concerned about recruiting and retaining talented teachers − the Kim School in southeastern Colorado, above, included.
Courtesy of Robert Mitchell

For the past decade, I have worked closely with Colorado’s rural school districts. I also worked as an administrator with the Colorado Department of Higher Education from 2013-2016. These positions have taught me a great deal about the challenges facing smaller schools throughout the state – both in Colorado’s agricultural areas and in the resort regions. Issues related to small budgets, student safety and community poverty are common challenges to schools throughout the state.

As a faculty member at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, I routinely spend extended time at several of these small schools – even serving as a fill-in classroom teacher and principal when needed.

Colorado’s remote and rural schools remain difficult to staff. The salaries offered by these schools are consistently below state averages. Some rural districts have average salaries of $33,000. That’s far below the state average teacher’s salary of $65,838.

In addition, the challenges of living in towns that may not have a grocery store or any entertainment options is less appealing to many teachers. That’s especially true for newly certified teachers right out of college.

Multiple challenges, with a few bright spots

Our survey shows some deep concerns from the state’s rural education leaders. Only 2% of rural Colorado education leaders believe their district was very effective in working with English language learners and students who are performing below grade level. More than 13% of Colorado’s English language learners are attending school in rural areas, equating to more than 15,000 students. When working with LGBTQA+ students, only 3% believed their district was very effective in supporting these students.

In contrast, nearly 60% of school leaders think their district is either effective or very effective in supporting students performing above grade level. Half of these rural educators see their work with supporting homeless or foster students as effective or very effective.

While nearly half of respondents do not have positive feelings about the current state of education in the U.S., 76% are excited about the future of their individual school districts.

Only about 14% believe that schools today are better than at any other time, and nearly 60% reported that they believe American public schools can be fixed only with major changes.

How to fix rural school challenges

The school leaders we surveyed are very concerned about the realities associated with finding and keeping qualified teachers in their schools.

We asked respondents to rank a series of commonly stated solutions related to teachers shortages. The options ranked highest included higher wages for teachers, more respect for the teaching profession, lowering barriers that allow people to become teachers and better benefits.

Wealth of experience, depth of doubt

Despite some bright spots, rural school and district leaders in Colorado are not enthusiastic about the future of American education overall.

Many school districts consistently have unfilled positions. Some have resorted to filling vacant classroom positions by hiring retired teachers or long-term substitutes. With fewer educators per school, teacher effectiveness is reduced, reducing overall student learning.

The results of our study are exceptionally notable to me and my research team because most of the respondents in this study have 15 or more years of K-12 education experience and more than six years of experience as a rural school leader. Going into the project, we thought these dedicated educators would be more positive about the current and future state of American schools. Yet, this does not seem to be the case.

If these leaders are not optimistic, it is difficult to believe that parents or other members of rural communities would feel any differently.

The Conversation

Robert Mitchell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Colorado’s rural schools serve more than 130,000 students, and their superintendents want more pay for their teachers – https://theconversation.com/colorados-rural-schools-serve-more-than-130-000-students-and-their-superintendents-want-more-pay-for-their-teachers-268332

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Community health centers provide care for 1 in 10 Americans, but funding cuts threaten their survival

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jennifer Spinghart, Clinical Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences, University of South Carolina

Community health clinics provide primary care to 1 in 10 people in the U.S., but they often operate on razor-thin margins. Ariel Skelley/Photodisc via Getty Images

Affordable health care was the primary point of contention in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which hit 43 days on Nov. 12, 2025.

This fight highlights a persistent concern for Americans despite passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act 15 years ago.

In 2024, 27.2 million Americans, or 8.2% of the population, lacked health insurance entirely. A significant number of Americans have trouble affording health care, even if they do have insurance. The tax and spending package signed by President Donald Trump into law in July 2025 puts a further 16 million Americans at risk of losing their health care insurance by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Many people who lack or have insufficient health insurance seek health care from a network of safety net clinics called community health centers. Even though community health centers provide care for 1 in 10 people in the U.S. – and 1 in 5 in rural areas – many people are unaware of their role in the country’s medical system.

As an emergency physician and the director of the student-led community health program at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville, I collaborate with the community health center in Greenville and am closely familiar with how these types of providers function.

These clinics often operate on razor-thin margins and already function under continual demands to do more with less. Slated cuts to health care spending from the tax and spending bill and funding uncertainties that were driven by the shutdown threaten to destabilize them further.

What are community health centers?

Community health centers are clinics typically located in low-income areas that provide affordable health care to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Their history is rooted in the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1964, as activists traveled through the South to register Black voters, a group of doctors, nurses and social workers that called themselves the Medical Committee for Human Rights formed to provide emergency first aid and to support civil rights workers, volunteers and the local communities they engaged with.

Witnessing how intimately poor health in some of these communities was tied to living in conditions of extreme poverty, the group embraced the mission of providing health care as a way to fight the injustice of racism. Their idea was that treating illnesses and chronic conditions that stemmed from poverty would enable people to rise out of poverty and shape their own destiny.

Federally funded community health centers have their roots in the Civil Rights Movement.

The original community health centers were called Neighborhood Health Centers, and the first two – one in Boston and the other in Mississippi – opened in 1966. They were funded as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, which introduced legislation that launched safety net programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, designed to support Americans experiencing economic hardships.

Community health centers quickly multiplied over the following decades and became a cornerstone of the U.S. health care system. These health centers took a broad approach to patient care, focusing on preventive nutrition and health education. They also sought to help with challenges that weren’t strictly medical but also affect people’s health, such as language barriers, lack of transportation and housing insecurity.

Different types of community health centers

Most community health centers receive the majority of their funding from the federal government. These clinics, called Federally Qualified Health Centers, must fulfill some specific requirements.

For one thing, they must be strategically located to be accessible to people in low-income communities with fewer available medical professionals. They must also minimize other barriers to care – for example, by providing language interpreters and offering telehealth services if appropriate. Additionally, they must be governed by a board in which at least 51% of the members are people who live in the local community.

In 2023, such clinics received over US$5.6 billion in federal funding. In addition to direct federal government support, they often rely on reimbursements from Medicaid to cover their costs. Some also receive state funding and private funding, as well as money from private insurance of the few patients who do carry it.

People who lack Medicaid or private insurance, or who are underinsured, receive care at no cost if their income is below 200% of the poverty level, and on a sliding scale otherwise.

Another type of community health center is often referred to as a “free clinic” or a “look-alike” clinic. These clinics typically rely on private grant funding or charitable donations. They are usually run by volunteers, and they often operate on limited schedules and have limited access to specialists.

In 2024, there were more than 1,500 federally funded health clinics providing services in over 17,000 different locations and more than 775 documented free or charitable clinics across the U.S. Together, these two types of community health centers provide free care to over 30 million people.

Lots of people sitting in a health clinic waiting room
Community health clinics deliver care at no cost to people whose income is below 200% of the poverty level.
ADAM GAULT/SPL/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

The community health project that I direct, called Root Cause, falls into a third category of free safety net health care generally referred to as “pop-up” or makeshift medical clinics. These projects vary widely, but Root Cause, which is run by medical students, operates as a monthly health fair that provides simple screenings for high blood pressure and diabetes as well as education on preventive care and healthy lifestyles.

Pop-up projects like ours are more precarious than other types of community health centers, but through grants and partnerships with organizations in Greenville, we have managed to keep this program funded for eight years.

Compounding stressors

Community health centers are extremely cost-effective, providing primary care to more than 10% of the U.S. population at the cost of just 1% of the country’s total health care spending. But with health care costs rising and Medicaid and insurance reimbursements failing to keep up, community health centers are increasingly being asked to do more with less.

The 2025 government shutdown added further uncertainty to community health centers’ operations. Although government funding and reimbursements through Medicare and Medicaid continued, having fewer government workers to complete the administrative tasks that these clinics rely on slowed their access to funds.

In the long term, cuts to Medicaid of up to $1 trillion included in the government’s tax and spending package are likely to decrease community health centers’ funding by limiting Medicaid reimbursements.

Simultaneously, those cuts and other policy changes, such as new work requirements for Medicaid, are likely to strip millions of Americans of health coverage – pushing more people to seek free or low-cost care. Cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits would increase food insecurity as well as stress – both factors that directly affect health – and thus may have the same effect.

Given that community health centers provide a kind of long-term stopgap for health care in high-need areas, decreasing their capacity could destabilize other elements of local health care delivery systems. For example, uninsured people who can’t access care at community health centers may turn to already overburdened hospital emergency rooms, which are required by law to treat them.

As funding cuts imperil health care access, the need for safety net health care only grows. These opposing forces may be putting an untenable strain on a vital service so many Americans rely on.

The Conversation

Jennifer Spinghart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Community health centers provide care for 1 in 10 Americans, but funding cuts threaten their survival – https://theconversation.com/community-health-centers-provide-care-for-1-in-10-americans-but-funding-cuts-threaten-their-survival-267582

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String theory: scientists are trying new ways to verify the idea that could unite all of physics

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Marika Taylor, Pro-vice-chancellor, Professor, University of Birmingham

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Adam Ginsburg (University of Florida), Nazar Budaiev (University of Florida), Taehwa Yoo (University of Florida); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called “Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?”

Hawking, who later became my PhD supervisor, predicted that a theory of everything – uniting the clashing branches of general relativity, which describes the universe on large scales, and quantum mechanics, which rules the microcosmos of atoms and particles – might be discovered by the end of the 20th century.

Forty-five years later, there is still no definitive theory of everything. The main candidate is string theory, a framework that describes all forces and particles including gravity. String theory proposes that the building blocks of nature are not point-like particles like quarks (which make up particles in the atomic nucleus) but vibrating strings.

It suggests that, if we could look deep inside electrons, we would see loops of strings, vibrating just like those on a violin. Different patterns of string vibrations correspond to different particles.

String theory unifies all the forces of nature. Forces that seem very different, such as gravity and electricity, are deeply related to one another. The forces are linked by so-called dualities: the same underlying phenomena can be described in different ways.

The force of gravity is described in terms of geometry, shapes and positions. Other forces are described in terms of different mathematical concepts, including algebra and numbers.

The unification of forces hence implies profound relationships between branches of mathematics. Such relationships had previously been proposed by mathematicians, particularly by Robert Langlands, and string theory gives physical explanations for the relationships.

Although string theory could be the correct theory of everything, it is hard to test experimentally. The effects of string theory become visible at very small scales and very high energies.

Particle accelerators explore the internal structure of particles by colliding them and breaking them apart. However, even the biggest colliders at Cern in Switzerland don’t have enough energy to break particles down into strings.

Clues in the cosmos

How can we test string theory experimentally if we can’t reach high enough energies in colliders? The answer may lie in looking up to the skies.

The very early universe was dense and hot, and the primordial soup would have been made up of strings. We can see the history of the universe imprinted in current day observations, from surveys of galaxies through to measurements of the cosmic radiation that permeates all of space and is a leftover from the big bang.

In the early 20th century, American astronomer Edwin Hubble showed that the universe is expanding. Galaxies are moving further apart from each other.

At the end of that century, detailed observations of the expansion showed that it is in fact accelerating. Galaxies today are moving apart faster than they were a million years ago.

What is driving this acceleration? Gravity is an attractive force so it slows down the expansion of the universe. The acceleration of the universe is driven by a new kind of energy, which is spread throughout the whole of space. Scientists call this dark energy and it makes up about 70% of the energy of the universe.

We don’t know exactly what dark energy is. The most plausible explanation is that it is the inherent quantum energy of the universe. In the quantum world, particles can never just sit still, with no energy. There is always a little bit of quantum jitter and associated energy.

Atoms cooled down to absolute zero temperature still have energy because of their quantum motion. Dark energy could potentially be explained as being the underlying quantum energy of all the forces and particles in nature, including gravity.

Experiments are pinning down the properties of dark energy. Desi is an observatory based in Arizona, US, which is mapping out galaxies and quasars. The space based telescopes Euclid and Roman will measure the universe in unprecedented detail, mapping out the history of billions of galaxies over billions of years.

Desi sits in the dome of the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Desi sits in the dome of the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
wikipedia, CC BY-SA

Recent results from Desi suggest that dark energy is changing in time in a way that is consistent with string theory models – although this is yet to be fully verified by further measurements.

This doesn’t prove string theory because string theory can produce a variety of different universes, with differing patterns of dark energy. However, the Desi results suggest that interpreting dark energy as quantum energy of strings may be on the right track. There are of course phenomena other than strings that could explain the change in dark energy.

Euclid and Roman will make very precise measurements and will be able to exclude many such theories of dark energy and some specific versions of string theory – helping to narrow down the bits theorists should focus on.

Another way to verify string theory may be via black holes. Once something falls inside a black hole, it cannot escape. Inside a black hole there are very strong forces and particles are torn apart. We still don’t understand exactly what happens inside a black hole, but string theory teaches us how a black hole retains information about what has fallen inside.

That’s because string theory assumes there is no “singularity” inside a black hole – a point of infinite density and gravity – but instead that the objects are spread out as balls of strings called fuzzballs.

Future, more precise, measurements of gravitational waves (ripples in the fabric of spacetime) will be looking for the subtle signals of the quantum behaviour inside black holes predicted by string theory. If black holes are fuzzballs, they should produce a different signal when they merge, lasting longer and containing echoes. What’s more, if extra dimensions exist, as string theory proposes, black holes may oscillate in different ways which we could also detect.

In addition to cosmological measurements, scientists can run thought experiments, just as Einstein did with his theories of relativity. String theory has led to new insights not just in mathematics but also in other areas of science. For example, string theory has proven to be useful in understanding how quantum systems can be used in computing.

I don’t think a complete understanding of a theory of everything is just around the corner, but in the 45 years since Hawking’s Lucasian lecture we have certainly learned a lot. And right now, things are looking up for string theory.

The Conversation

Marika Taylor currently receives funding from EPSRC, STFC, UK government deparments and the European Horizon programme.

– ref. String theory: scientists are trying new ways to verify the idea that could unite all of physics – https://theconversation.com/string-theory-scientists-are-trying-new-ways-to-verify-the-idea-that-could-unite-all-of-physics-268149

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Exhausted employees don’t want it – so why has Greece introduced a 13-hour work day?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Elena Papagiannaki, Lecturer in Economics, Edinburgh Napier University

Hospitality workers are likely to be hit hard by the law. Mulevich/Shutterstock

The Greek government has passed a law allowing private employers to extend shifts to 13 hours per day, framed in terms of “flexibility” and “growth”. It’s marketed as voluntary and fairly paid, but effectively it dismantles the standard eight-hour day, despite survey data showing workers overwhelmingly oppose it.

But while critics question its legality, technically it does comply with the European Union’s working time directive. For many, especially in hospitality, it simply formalises what already exists: long hours, low pay, little rest.

The reform mirrors a broader European and global shift towards deregulated work. And it proves that the fight for shorter hours is far from over, as I set out in a chapter in the forthcoming book Global Futures of Work: A Critical Introduction.

After Greek workers’ 1936 victory securing the eight-hour day, the country has now reached a point where Greeks are again among the most overworked in Europe. Data from the EU’s statistics office and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show full-time employees log about 1,900 hours a year, compared with 1,510 in the UK and 1,330 in Germany.

Weekly hours add up to 41-42 on average, the highest in the EU. Yet wages and productivity remain low. This paradox of working more but earning less reflects a regime centred on labour intensification and wage suppression, weak collective bargaining and precarious jobs.

Since 2005, Greece has loosened its working time regime under “flexibility” reforms. A 2005 law allowed daily shifts to be stretched by two hours, another change in 2021 redefined overtime, while a third law two years later revived the six-day week.

And now the fair work for all bill permits 13-hour days on a “voluntary” basis. Together, these measures have eroded the eight-hour norm, substituting collective bargaining for the needs of employers.

The Greek government claims that workers want longer days, but the evidence suggests otherwise. The drive to extend working hours masks a refusal to raise real wages and household income. Since the 2008-09 financial crisis, GDP has shrunk by 27% and remains below pre-crisis levels, while household disposable income has fallen by 35 percentage points.

Even the recent minimum-wage hike (a 6% increase to €880 (£775) per week for full-time workers) offers no real gains in purchasing power, leaving workers poorer than before the crisis. Instead of higher pay, the government’s solution is longer days – stretching time when it cannot stretch income.

A survey earlier this year by the Greek labour institute found that 94% of workers support shorter hours with no pay cut, and nearly 60% reject a 13-hour day outright. Among those already working such hours, 70% say the “voluntary” label is meaningless, with workers forced to put in these hours to make ends meet.

For many, the new law simply confirms the overwork they already face. For others, it represents a return to the 19th century. The wave of nationwide strikes demanding its repeal raises a clear question. If workers reject it, and EU law supposedly guarantees the opposite, how can the measure pass?

EU – protector or enabler?

Most opposition parties questioned the 13-hour workday’s legality under EU law, but the EU working time directive itself provides the loophole. It stipulates a 48-hour weekly average and 11 hours’ daily rest, yet imposes no cap on daily hours.

Member states may grant opt-outs, allowing workers to “voluntarily” exceed the limits, effectively legalising overwork. In response to a Greek MEP, the European Commission confirmed that Greece’s reform complies with EU rules. It admitted that the directive allows the 13-hour workday if the 48-hour weekly average is met in the reference period of four months. It is presented as “worker protection”, but this logic simply permits exhaustion now, rest later.

The UK government’s rebuke of South Cambridgeshire District Council for trialling a four-day work week shows that resistance to shorter hours is hardly unique to Greece. Across advanced economies, longer working time has been normalised.

And NHS staff reportedly performed more than 1 million hours of unpaid overtime every week before the pandemic. By 2025, it has been claimed that inefficiencies and delays have added another 7.5 million extra work hours every week across the NHS workforce.

Amazon workers in the US work ten-hour shifts and 55-hour weeks during peak seasons, with similar patterns in the UK. Amazon said its work patterns offer flexible career opportunities and that its staff were the “heart and soul” of its operations. Another elite tech firm looks like following suit: Google’s Sergey Brin actually called for a 60-hour week.

The push to extend working hours is not an anomaly in Greece, but part of a broader trend across advanced economies – the normalisation of overwork in the name of flexibility and growth.

Workers are expected to adapt, erasing boundaries between work and life. Greece’s 13-hour day doesn’t mark progress but a retreat from hard-won labour rights. And it threatens to undo historic victories on working conditions in pursuit of further productivity increases and profits.

The Conversation

Elena Papagiannaki is a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future of Work (ifow.org)

– ref. Exhausted employees don’t want it – so why has Greece introduced a 13-hour work day? – https://theconversation.com/exhausted-employees-dont-want-it-so-why-has-greece-introduced-a-13-hour-work-day-269118

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Emetophobia: what it’s like to have a fear of vomiting

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Molly Sheila Harbor, PhD Candidate in Psychology, University of Reading

Emetophobia can have a serious impact on a person’s daily life. Nicoleta Ionescu/ Shutterstock

It’s safe to say nobody likes vomiting. But while it’s not a pleasant experience by any means, few of us really give much thought to it – except maybe when we’ve had a few too many drinks or when stomach flu is doing the rounds.

But for around 2%-7% of the population, vomiting) provokes anxiety so severe they’ll do anything to avoid it. This specific fear of vomiting is known as emetophobia. Though much about the condition remains unknown, research is beginning to explore the debilitating impact it can have on sufferers.

Emetophobia affects everyone differently. For some, this fear centres around vomiting themselves, while for others it’s a fear of seeing somebody else vomit. Many also experience a combination of both fears. Some people can also pinpoint a specific traumatic event related to their phobia, while for others there is no distinct cause.

Emetophobia can also have varying degrees of impact on a person’s life – ranging from mild to debilitating, according to a recent review my colleagues and I published.

The most common characteristic of emetophobia is avoidance. People with the condition often steer clear of situations where they think vomit might be a risk. Many avoid public transport, crowded places, theme parks, dining at restaurants or consuming alcohol. Some even go so far as refraining from saying or typing the word “vomit.”

This fear and avoidance can even influence long-term life decisions – with some people avoiding pregnancy and children due to concerns with morning sickness and the illnesses (such as stomach flu) that kids are prone to.

Not only can these avoidance behaviours affect social and professional life, they can also have an impact on physical health. For example, some people with emetophobia restrict their diet or avoid certain foods – such as meat, due to perceived risk of Salmonella (a food-borne illness that can cause vomiting). This can result in nutrient deficiencies and becoming underweight.

People have also been shown to engage in compulsive behaviours such as hand washing, magical thinking (the belief that certain habits or specific thoughts can stop vomiting from happening) and excessive cleaning to avoid being sick. These symptoms overlap with other psychiatric disorders – specifically anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This has often led to misdiagnosis, with patients referred to services who are not specialised in treating emetophobia.

A young boy refuses the breaded meat which is being offered to him on a fork by another person.
Some with emetophobia will avoid certain foods out of fear of getting sick.
Ground Picture/ Shutterstock

Another common and often overlooked symptom of emetophobia is nausea – with the majority of people experiencing feelings of sickness on a daily basis, despite having no underlying medical condition. As emetophobia goes hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with vomiting, there’s usually a heightened awareness of bodily sensations which can cause anxiety.

Everyday mundane experiences such as feeling overly full after a meal or getting a headache from too much screen time can trigger the automatic thought: “I am going to be sick.” This creates a vicious cycle, as the more attention a person gives to these sensations, the more likely they are to misinterpret them as signs of illness. This in turn reinforces and entrenches the fear.

Treating emetophobia

A lack of research into emetophobia means treating the condition currently remains a hurdle.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) seems to be the most evidence-based treatment investigated so far. This treatment approach aims to change thought patterns and behaviour. For emetophobia, this involves changing beliefs about vomiting and slowly reducing avoidance habits through exposure – such as visiting feared places and reducing excessive hand-washing.

Although some studies have shown promising results from using CBT for emetophobia, these studies only investigated a small number of participants. This means it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions about the treatment’s effectiveness until larger studies have been done.

Another option is exposure therapy, which has been tried and tested on people suffering from other phobias and has shown great outcomes. Exposure therapy involves gradually facing feared situations with the help of a therapist to teach the brain these things are not dangerous and reduce overall fear.

But it’s worth noting that although exposure therapy is recommended for other phobias, only 6% of people with emetophobia would be willing to try it. This doesn’t make exposure therapy a very accessible option for the majority of people struggling with this disorder.

Further complicating matters is the fact that people with emetophobia often avoid places such as GP surgeries and hospitals because of the risk of seeing someone who is unwell or catching a vomiting bug. This means they struggle to access what help might be available.

There’s a clear need for increased awareness of this condition, from both the general public and doctors. Awareness can help limit misdiagnosis, show sufferers treatment is available and reduce misconceptions.

Emetophobia is more than simply not liking vomit. It can affect every aspect of life. Our continued research aims to explore effective treatment options for this complex disorder.

The Conversation

Molly Sheila Harbor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Emetophobia: what it’s like to have a fear of vomiting – https://theconversation.com/emetophobia-what-its-like-to-have-a-fear-of-vomiting-269310

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How the market for international students puts pressure on universities’ academic freedom

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Yates, Senior Lecturer in Accounting, University of Sheffield

Ground Picture/Shutterstock

It is difficult to ignore the intertwined nature of the commercialised UK higher education model and its reliance on international student fee income. One in four students enrolled in higher education courses in the UK in 2023-24 is of non-UK origin. This is an increase from just over one in five in 2019-20. A total of over £10 billion of universities’ student fee income is raised from non-UK students.

Recent reports that Sheffield Hallam University stymied an academic’s research as a result of pressure from China has thrust the influence that foreign nations may have on UK universities into the spotlight.

Sheffield Hallam has denied that commercial interests played a part in the decision. “For the avoidance of doubt, the decision was not based on commercial interests in China,” a university spokesperson said. “Regardless, China is not a significant international student market for the University.”

For many UK universities, though, international student fees are a vital part of their income. This has followed the reduction of government financial support for universities and successive steps towards marketisation of the higher education sector.

Marketisation means universities compete with each other to attract students, who pay fees for their education. However, fees in the UK are regulated (and Scottish and Welsh governments subsidise students from their respective juridictions) and often do not cover the total cost of teaching and administration of courses. Universities have responded by increasing recruitment of international students to plug the funding gap.

In a marketised model, international students are attractive as their fees are uncapped, meaning that institutions can charge much higher amounts for the same number of students.

Universities are also judged in rankings that include things like how international their student body is, and the ratio of staff to students. Recruiting more international students helps keep the ratio of staff to students lower because higher international student fees mean that fewer students are needed to fund a course.

In 2016-17, international student fee income made up 15.2% of an average institution’s total income. This has risen to 24.6% in 2022-23. This greater reliance on international student fee income as a percentage of overall revenues has been driven by several factors.

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency also shows how important individual regions are as part of the overall international student cohort. In 2023-24, the top two countries are India and China. India provided 107,480 students to the UK higher education sector, 25.1% of all international students. China contributed 98,400 students, 23.0% of international students.

Financial risk

The implications of such rises in the proportion of revenues being raised from international student fee income are vast. Most apparent is the increased risk that this exposes UK universities to in terms of volatility in international student numbers.

This is much more unpredictable than changes in government finance, which tend to be announced in advance. Simply put, fluctuations in international student numbers have a big effect on income. And this is a key factor in the current financial crisis in UK higher education.

Marketisation has been linked to cuts that universities are imposing on departments, closing courses and making significant redundancies. This is because greater volatility means that institutions are likely to seek to cut costs such as staff in response to lower revenues, as staff costs represent a large portion of the overall cost base for universities.

The Universities and Colleges Union estimates total job losses within the sector to be in the region of 15,000. Such widespread and rapid cuts are likely to have severe knock on effects for the UK economy as a whole and the universities sector. Industrial action is already affecting the delivery of courses, research activity, and key knowledge exchange and practical impact activities.

Current government policy implies a perseverance with the marketised model, although a proposed 6% levy on international student fees seeks to encourage institutions to pursue more diverse sources of revenue. However, this is unlikely to have any material effect on where institutions draw their students.

The Higher Education Policy Institute has suggested that such a levy could cost an already financially precarious sector in the region of £621 million. Universities may well react by increasing the volume of international students they take on board, as increasing domestic fees may deter home applicants.

Back view of students walking
International student fees are a key part of university revenue.
Daniel Hoz/Shutterstock

Such behavioural effects may well exacerbate such risks in the future. Alternatively, further staff cuts are likely to have prolonged effects for the sector in terms of the quality of education it can provide, and the value delivered to students. Courses may become shorter, student-staff contact time reduced, and optional modules cut.

Rather than focus on one incident, it is the marketised model itself that has landed universities in this the current crisis. They find themselves beholden to the fee income that the market provides. Currently, the need to promise – and provide – a superior experience to their prospective student applicants is driving many financial decisions in the sector.

This includes large amounts of spending on capital projects that has left many institutions with budget deficits and in some cases, heavily depleted cash reserves.

Incentives are required that will encourage sustainable stewardship of our higher education institutions. Until that happens, it is unlikely that anything will change. Capital remains all powerful. The pursuit of it will continue to supplant traditional ideological values of the university, with seemingly no cost too high for universities seeking to “remain in the game”.

The Conversation

David Yates has historically received research funding grants from the British Accounting and Finance Association, the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, all for projects unrelated to this article. He is a former member of the Labour Party.

– ref. How the market for international students puts pressure on universities’ academic freedom – https://theconversation.com/how-the-market-for-international-students-puts-pressure-on-universities-academic-freedom-269007

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Apocalyptic images of melting glaciers and sinking islands won’t help anyone imagine a better future

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natalie Pollard, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Culture, University of Exeter

What do you picture when you think about climate change? For many of us, it is the same set of dramatic images: melting glaciers, sinking landforms, rising seas or extreme weather.

These are powerful visuals. They shock, grab headlines and galvanise environmentalism. However, this imagery offers a partial account of transformation, often underplaying political responsibility and colonial history. In my new book, 21st-Century Climate Imaginaries, I call these charismatic images “climate memes”.

Monumental images of melting or calving glaciers lend drama to earth’s changing form, but tend to bypass the thorny social and economic roots of ice loss. Research shows that glacial melt is accelerating especially in regions at the frontline of resource extraction and colonial occupation. My research asks: why is this?

glacier crashing into sea
The polar effect: house-sized blocks of ice come crashing down into the sea.
Troutnut/Shutterstock

Imagine a glacier melting in the Andes. Blood-red threads of wool – like streams of meltwater – are running down the mountain. It is 2006. This is an activist intervention by Chilean-born artist Cecilia Vicuña. It is the first in her series of performances and soft sculptures, The Blood of the Glaciers. Her giant-order red threads spell out the effects of foreign direct investment in the wake of Augusto Pinochet’s regime, which sparked a dramatic rise in overseas mining corporations in Chile.

Here, as in many regions of the developing world, mining and industrial transportation make the glaciers bleed. The problem is acute because glaciers are water savings banks, essential in years with low rainfall. Glaciers sustain life. Industry-heavy sacrifice zones bleed life dry. Vicuña’s artistic activism shows how extractive mining is a primary driver of glacial recession. Melting is not just a “climate” issue or “natural” disaster. The cause is human activity.

Standing knee-deep in seawater on the shoreline of Tuvalu, the country’s foreign minister addresses Cop26 delegates with these words: “We are sinking”. Simon Kofe’s 2021 speech was broadcast globally from a point that had recently been above sea level. From his semi-submerged podium, Kofe made visible to the world the situation people endure in low-lying Pacific islands.

Tuvalu’s foreign minister, Simon Kofe, delivered his “we are sinking” speech from a podium knee-deep in water.

Since the 1980s, sinking islands have become a powerful shorthand for climate crisis. Apocalyptic spectacles of raging seas symbolise planetary transformation. An often-cited example is the documentary of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It showed Tuvalu engulfed by tides, alongside the incorrect remark that “Pacific nations have all had to evacuate”.

In 2009, Marshallese activist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner joined forces with Greenlandic climate poet Aka Niviâna and environmentalist organisation 350.org. They produced an influential video-poem: Rise: From One Island to Another. The performance connects changing Greenlandic ice and Pacific waters with Indigenous resistance to fossil capitalism.

Rise: From one island to another.

Climate images of melting and sinking often go hand-in-hand with colonial narratives of Indigenous vulnerability. In contrast, Rise brings to life the history of Greenlandic and Marshallese opposition to development for extraction and scientific exploitation. The two activists highlight the nuclear colonial legacy of the Pacific Proving Grounds and Greenland’s Camp Century, linking military histories in the Arctic and Pacific: “nuclear waste / dumped / in our waters / on our ice”.

It is not always easy to remember that environmental change is caused by specific technological, military and political acts. Indigenous arts activism helps by showing how climate memes make sense only in the context of histories of exploitation and resistance, which often take place in developing countries.

Today, activists and artists across the world are challenging popular, generalised climate memes, such as those of melting and sinking. As I show in 21st-Century Climate Imaginaries, attention to the local and specific helps people process how social and environmental violence are intimately linked. Arts activism, working directly with people’s lived experiences of change, can offer much-needed, grounded alternatives to spectacular climate soundbites. How far these interventions are positively reshaping how we understand our responsibilities to a fast-changing world is yet to be seen.

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The Conversation

Natalie Pollard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Apocalyptic images of melting glaciers and sinking islands won’t help anyone imagine a better future – https://theconversation.com/apocalyptic-images-of-melting-glaciers-and-sinking-islands-wont-help-anyone-imagine-a-better-future-268909

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Want to make America healthy again? Stop fueling climate change

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jonathan Levy, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University

Extreme heat can threaten human health, but it’s only one way climate change puts lives at risk. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

If you’ve been following recent debates about health, you’ve been hearing a lot about vaccines, diet, measles, Medicaid cuts and health insurance costs – but much less about one of the greatest threats to global public health: climate change.

Anybody who’s fallen ill during a heat wave, struggled while breathing wildfire smoke or been injured cleaning up from a hurricane knows that climate change can threaten human health. Studies show that heat, air pollution, disease spread and food insecurity linked to climate change are worsening and costing millions of lives around the world each year.

The U.S. government formally recognized these risks in 2009 when it determined that climate change endangers public health and welfare.

However, the Trump administration is now moving to rescind that 2009 endangerment finding so it can reverse U.S. climate progress and help boost fossil fuel industries, including lifting limits on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants. The administration’s arguments for doing so are not only factually wrong, they’re deeply dangerous to Americans’ health and safety.

Health risks and outcomes related to climate change.
Health risks and outcomes related to climate change.
World Health Organization

As physicians, epidemiologists and environmental health scientists who study these effects, we’ve seen growing evidence of the connections between climate change and harm to people’s health. More importantly, we see ways humanity can improve health by tackling climate change.

Here’s a look at the risks and some of the steps individuals and governments can take to reduce them.

Extreme heat

Greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources accumulate in the atmosphere, trapping heat and holding it close to Earth’s surface like a blanket. Too much of it causes global temperatures to rise, leaving more people exposed to dangerous heat more often.

Most people who get minor heat illnesses will recover, but more extreme exposure, especially without enough hydration and a way to cool off, can be fatal. People who work outside, are elderly or have underlying illnesses such as heart, lung or kidney diseases are often at the greatest risk.

Heat deaths have been rising globally, up 23% from the 1990s to the 2010s, when the average year saw more than half a million heat-related deaths. Even in the U.S., the Pacific Northwest heat dome in 2021 killed hundreds of people.

Climate scientists predict that with advancing climate change, many areas of the world, including U.S. cities such as Miami, Houston, Phoenix and Las Vegas, will confront many more days each year hot enough to threaten human survival.

Extreme weather

Warmer air holds more moisture, so climate change brings increasing rainfall and storm intensity, worsening flooding, as many U.S. communities have experienced in recent years. Warm ocean water also fuels more powerful hurricanes.

Increased flooding carries health risks, including drownings, electrocution and water contamination from human pathogens and toxic chemicals. People cleaning out flooded homes also face risks from mold exposure, injuries and mental distress.

A man carries boxes out of a house that flooded up to its second story.
Flooding from hurricanes and other extreme storms can put people at risk of injuries during the cleanup while also triggering dangerous mold growth on wet wallboard, carpets and fabric. This home flooded up to its second flood during Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Climate change also worsens droughts, disrupting food supplies and causing respiratory illness from dust and dry conditions as well as wildfires. And rising temperatures and aridity dry out forest and grasslands, making them more vulnerable to catching fire, which creates other health risks.

Air pollution

Wildfires, along with other climate effects, are also worsening air quality around the country.

Wildfire smoke is a toxic soup of microscopic particles (known as fine particulate matter, or PM2.5) that can penetrate deep in the lungs and hazardous compounds such as lead, formaldehyde and dioxins generated when homes, cars and other materials burn at high temperatures. Smoke plumes can travel thousands of miles downwind and trigger heart attacks and elevate lung cancer risks, among other harms.

Meanwhile, warmer conditions favor the formation of ground-level ozone, a heart and lung irritant. Burning of fossil fuels also generates dangerous air pollutants that cause a host of health problems, including heart attacks, strokes, asthma flare-ups and lung cancer.

Infectious diseases

Because they are cold-blooded organisms, insects are directly influenced by temperature. So as temperatures have risen, mosquito biting rates have risen as well. Warming also shortens the development time of disease agents that mosquitoes transmit.

Mosquito-borne dengue fever has turned up in Florida, Texas, Hawaii, Arizona and California. New York state just saw its first locally acquired case of chikungunya virus, also transmitted by mosquitoes.

A world map shows where mosquitos are most likely to transmit the dengue virus
As global temperatures rise, regions are becoming more suitable for mosquitoes to transmit dengue virus. The map shows a suitability scale, with red areas already suitable for dengue transmissions and yellow areas becoming more suitable.
Taishi Nakase, et al., 2022, CC BY

And it’s not just insect-borne infections. Warmer temperatures increase diarrhea and foodborne illness from Vibrio cholerae and other bacteria and heavy rainfall increases sewage-contaminated stormwater overflows into lakes and streams. At the other water extreme, drought in the desert Southwest increases the risk of coccidioidomycosis, a fungal infection known as valley fever.

Other impacts

Climate change can threaten health in numerous other ways. Longer pollen seasons can increase allergen exposures. Lower crop yields can reduce access to nutritious foods.

Mental health can also suffer, with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress following disasters, and increased rates of violent crime and suicide tied to high-temperature days.

A older man holds a door for a woman at a cooling center.
New York and many other cities now open cooling centers during heat waves to help residents, particularly older adults who might not have air conditioning at home, stay safe during the hottest parts of the day.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Young children, older adults, pregnant women and people with preexisting medical conditions are among the highest-risk groups. Often, lower-income people are also at greater risk because of higher rates of chronic disease, higher exposures to climate hazards and fewer resources for protection, medical care and recovery from disasters.

What can people and governments do?

As an individual, you can reduce your risk by following public health advice during heat waves, storms and wildfires; protecting yourself against tick and mosquito bites; and spending time in green space that improves your mental health.

You can also make healthy choices that reduce your carbon footprint, such as:

However, there are limits to what individuals can do alone.

Actions by governments and companies are also necessary to protect people from a warmer climate and stop the underlying causes of climate change.

Workplace safety can be addressed through rules to reduce heat exposure for people who work outdoors in industries such as agriculture and construction. Communities can open cooling centers during heat waves, provide early warning systems and design drinking water systems that can handle more intense rainfall and runoff, reducing contamination risks.

Governments can ensure that public transit is available and not overly expensive to reduce the number of vehicles on the road. They can promote clean energy rather than fossil fuels to cut emissions, which can also save money since the cost of solar energy has dropped spectacularly. In fact, both solar and wind energy are less expensive than fossil fuel energy.

Yet the U.S. government is currently going in the opposite direction, cutting support for renewable energy while subsidizing the fossil fuel industries that endanger public health.

To really make America healthy, in our view, the country can’t ignore climate change.

The Conversation

Jonathan Levy receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Aviation Administration, the City of Boston, and the Mosaic Foundation.

Howard Frumkin has no financial conflicts of interest to report. He is a member of advisory boards (or equivalent committees) for the Planetary Health Alliance; the Harvard Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment; the Medical Society Consortium on Climate Change and Health; the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education; the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health; and EcoAmerica’s Climate for Health program—all voluntary unpaid positions.

Jonathan Patz receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. He is affiliated with the Medical Society Consortium for Climate and Health, and its affiliate Healthy Climate Wisconsin.

Vijay Limaye is affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

– ref. Want to make America healthy again? Stop fueling climate change – https://theconversation.com/want-to-make-america-healthy-again-stop-fueling-climate-change-269269

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Sulfur-based batteries could offer electric vehicles a greener, longer-range option

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Golareh Jalilvand, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina

Sulfur is abundant and inexpensive, making it an attractive ingredient for making batteries. Alanna Dumonceaux/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Picture an electric car that could go 600, 700 or even 1,000 miles on a single charge. That’s much farther than the longest-range electric vehicles on the U.S. market, according to Car and Driver magazine – and twice as far the official rating for the long-range, rear-wheel-drive Tesla Model 3, which has a maximum rated range of 363 miles.

Current EVs use lithium-ion batteries, which are also found in smartphones, laptops and even large-scale energy storage systems connected to the power grid. A standard for decades, these batteries have been tweaked and improved by generations of scientists and are now close to their physical limits. Even with the best materials and most optimized designs, there is only so much energy that can be packed into a lithium-ion battery.

I’m a materials engineer who studies these batteries and seeks alternatives with better performance, improved environmental sustainability and lower cost. One promising design uses sulfur, which could boost battery capacity significantly, though some key roadblocks remain before it can be widely used.

Lithium-sulfur vs. Lithium-ion

Any battery has three basic components: a positively charged region, called the cathode; a negatively charged region, called the anode; and a substance called the electrolyte in between, through which charged atoms, also known as ions, move between the cathode and anode.

In a lithium-ion battery, the cathode is made of a metal oxide, typically containing metals such as nickel, manganese and cobalt, bonded with oxygen. The materials are layered, with lithium ions physically between the layers. During charging, lithium ions detach from the layered cathode material and travel through the electrolyte to the anode.

The anode is usually graphite, which is also layered, with room for the lithium ions to fit between them. During discharge, the lithium ions leave the graphite layers, travel back through the electrolyte and reinsert into the layered cathode structure, recombining with the metal oxide to release electricity that powers cars and smartphones.

A schematic diagram of the inner workings of a lithium-sulfur battery.
Lithium-sulfur batteries like this one have different chemistry than more commonly known lithium-ion batteries.
Egibe via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

In a lithium-sulfur battery, the lithium ions still move back and forth, but the chemistry is different. Its cathode is made of sulfur embedded in a carbon matrix that conducts electricity, and the anode is made primarily of lithium itself, rather than graphite layers with lithium in between.

During discharging, the lithium ions travel from the anode, through the electrolyte to the cathode, where – rather than sliding in between the cathode layers – they chemically convert sulfur in sequential steps to a series of compounds called lithium sulfides. During charging, the lithium ions separate from the sulfide compounds, leave the cathode behind and travel back to the anode.

The charging and discharging process for lithium-sulfur batteries is a chemical conversion reaction that involves more electrons than the same process in lithium-ion batteries. That means a lithium-sulfur battery can theoretically store much more energy than a lithium-ion battery of the same size.

Sulfur is inexpensive and abundantly available worldwide, meaning battery manufacturers do not need to rely on scarce metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are unevenly distributed on Earth and often sourced from regions such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has limited worker safety regulations and fair labor practices.

Those advantages could deliver batteries with far more capacity and that are cheaper and more sustainable to produce.

Why aren’t lithium-sulfur batteries widely used yet?

The biggest obstacle to mass production and use of sulfur-based batteries is durability. A good lithium-ion battery, like those in an electric vehicle, can go through thousands of cycles of discharging and recharging before its capacity starts to fade. That amounts to thousands of car rides.

But lithium-sulfur batteries tend to lose capacity much more quickly, sometimes after fewer than 100 cycles. That’s not very many trips at all.

The reason lies in the chemistry. During the chemical reactions that store and release energy in a lithium-sulfur battery, some of the lithium sulfide compounds dissolve into the liquid electrolyte of the battery.

When that happens, those amounts of both sulfur and lithium are removed from being used in any remaining reactions. This effect, known as “shuttling,” means that with each round of discharging and recharging, there are fewer elements available to release and store energy.

In the past couple of decades, research has produced improved designs. Earlier versions of these batteries lost much of their capacity within a few dozen discharge–recharge cycles, and even the best laboratory prototypes struggled to survive beyond a few hundred.

New prototypes retain more than 80% of their initial capacity even after thousands of cycles. This improvement comes from redesigning the key parts of the battery and adjusting the chemicals involved: Special electrolytes help prevent the lithium sulfides from dissolving and shuttling.

The electrodes have also been improved, using materials such as porous carbon that can physically trap the intermediate lithium sulfides, stopping them from wandering away from the cathode. This helps the discharge and recharge reactions happen without so many losses, making the reactions more efficient so the battery lasts longer.

The road ahead

Lithium-sulfur batteries are no longer fragile laboratory curiosities, but there are significant challenges before they can become serious contenders for real-world energy storage.

In terms of safety, lithium-sulfur batteries have a less volatile cathode than lithium-ion batteries, but research is continuing into other aspects of safety.

Another problem is that the more energy a lithium-sulfur battery stores, the fewer cycles of charging it can handle. That’s because the chemical reactions involved are more intense with increased energy.

This trade-off may not be a major obstacle for using these batteries in drones or grid-level energy storage, where ultrahigh energy densities are less critical. But for electric vehicles, which demand both high energy capacity and long cycle life, scientists and battery researchers still need to sort out a workable balance. That means the foundation for the next generation of lithium-sulfur batteries is likely still a few years down the road.

The Conversation

Golareh Jalilvand receives funding from NantG Power LLC, and the US Department of Energy for research on lithium-sulfur batteries.

– ref. Sulfur-based batteries could offer electric vehicles a greener, longer-range option – https://theconversation.com/sulfur-based-batteries-could-offer-electric-vehicles-a-greener-longer-range-option-263896

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How a Sudanese university kept learning alive during war

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Gihad Ibrahim, Assistant Professor and E-learning Department Head, Mashreq University

The civil war in Sudan began in April 2023, causing death, hunger, displacement and destruction on a huge scale. Gihad Ibrahim, head of e-learning and senior manager at Mashreq University in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, spoke with The Conversation Africa about how his institution continued to educate thousands of students despite the destruction of its campuses during the ongoing conflict.

What was Mashreq University like before the war?

Mashreq University (established in 2003) was a thriving academic community of over 10,000 students across 10 faculties, including healthcare, engineering, information technology and business. We were known for innovation, being the first in Sudan to offer degrees in fields like artificial intelligence and mechatronics engineering. We ranked highly in both global and national rankings.

Our status as a private university allowed us agility in decision-making and investing in digital infrastructure early, a crucial factor in our later survival. However, our success was also rooted in operating within a national system that, before the war, permitted and accredited such innovation. This highlights a vital policy lesson: governments can foster resilience not by micromanaging, but by creating a regulatory environment that allows universities the autonomy to adapt and invest in their own futures.

Our main campus was in Khartoum North, a hub of student life.

While teaching was primarily in-person, we had already begun integrating online elements for some courses. This digital foundation, though modest, would later become our lifeline.

We established a learning management system back in 2013. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, we were among the few Sudanese universities that could transition seamlessly online.

That crisis was a dress rehearsal; it forced us to build a system for blended learning that saved us when a far greater crisis emerged.

What happened when the fighting broke out in April 2023?

The war began on a Saturday morning – a normal teaching day. Students were already commuting. I remember I had a morning meeting with three female students working on their graduation project. I called one of them immediately and told her to warn the others and return home. Unfortunately, one didn’t get the message and was trapped near campus for two weeks – a harrowing reminder of the immediate human cost.

Our first priority was evacuation. But in those first chaotic hours, our information technology team performed a critical act: an emergency cloud backup of all academic records. It was a decision born of foresight, and it preserved the academic history of thousands.

Within weeks, our main campus was occupied by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). They looted laboratories and burned lecture halls. Because of the buildings’ height, they used them as military positions. Our campus was not just damaged; it was weaponised.

How did you keep teaching after such devastation?

Khartoum became a ghost city. With people fleeing in all directions – to other states or across borders to neighbouring countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia – our university community scattered. The first step was to find them. We launched an online survey to locate our displaced students and staff.

Using that data, we established a network of “teaching centres” in safer locations. We created hubs in Port Sudan (after relocating from the city of Atbara), and internationally in Cairo (in Egypt), Jeddah (in Saudi Arabia), and a virtual campus in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE group was smaller, but because many students there held temporary “war victim” visas that restricted travel, we offered live virtual classes instead of physical ones.

How does this new teaching model work?

We had to be strategic. We categorised every course:

Non-applied courses (like many in business or theory) moved entirely online.
Applied courses (like lab sciences) were delivered face-to-face at the teaching centres.

Advanced specialised courses were taught live online to all centres simultaneously.

Consistency was key. Each course had a “lead lecturer” who coordinated content across all locations to ensure every student received the same quality. We partnered with local hospitals and factories for practical training, turning a constraint into an opportunity for real-world learning.

Exams were held online on university tablets, but invigilated in person at the centres to ensure integrity. The system was built on flexibility, but also on rigorous standards.

What lessons has Mashreq University learned?

We learned three profound lessons:

Technology is a lifeline. Our pre-war investment in digital infrastructure was what allowed us to survive.

Flexibility and compassion must replace rigid bureaucracy. We focused on the goal – education – not on the old rules.

Crisis can fuel innovation. Many students gained deeper, more relevant experience training in real hospitals and factories than they ever would in a simulated campus lab.

The most powerful moments have been the messages from graduates. They write to thank us, often noting that their peers at other universities are still waiting, their education frozen. One message captures it all:

You gave me my future back.

This reminds us that education is not a luxury; in times of war, it is a testament to normalcy, hope, and the future.

What comes next?

We have already begun refurbishing our main campus in Khartoum North, hoping to return soon. But the old model is gone for good.

This experience has taught us that education has no borders. It can reach anyone, anywhere, if guided by compassion and strategic purpose.

For universities everywhere, our story is a stark lesson: investing in resilient, flexible systems is not just about innovation; in today’s world, it is fundamentally about survival.

The Conversation

Gihad Ibrahim works as the Head of E-learning department at Mashreq University

– ref. How a Sudanese university kept learning alive during war – https://theconversation.com/how-a-sudanese-university-kept-learning-alive-during-war-269325