Clean-Up and Special on Aisle 9
An article with the attention-grabbing headline of “Home Depot, The Place to Go for Toilet Paper?” in Friday’s issue of The Wall Street Journal made some interesting points about how to drive consumer traffic. Yes, I do not like to use that term either or to apply it to higher education, but that seems to be where…
"Alt-Ac"? Maybe We Need to Dig Even Deeper
Faculty Cuts at Quinnipiac
On the evening of Monday, May 5, the deans at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut received an email informing them of a staffing meeting the next day. At that meeting, the deans of certain schools were told that they had a grand total of two days–during final exam week–to consult with department chairs and determine which 16 full-time faculty would be…
An Acerbically Brilliant Analysis of Media Analyses of Spiraling Higher Ed Costs
What follows is about 10% of a long but very engaging article, “Colleges Are Full of It: Behind the Three-Decade Scheme to Raise Tuition, Bankrupt Generations, and Hypnotize the Media,” published today in Salon. Its author is Thomas Frank, who edits The Baffler magazine (which, if you haven’t read it, is well worth a visit:…
I Don’t Wish to Start Any Rumors, Especially if There Is Any Chance That They May Be Accurate
But rumor has it that Rudy Fichtenbaum, the President of the AAUP, has been nominated to be a candidate for the presidency of Florida State University. The basis of this rumor is the following letter, which appeared in my mailbox with the mysterious headnote, “WTF,” which I assume is some sort of clandestine code that…
The Academic Bathroom
I remember at one point in my career working in an old building that clearly needed to be renovated. But as those things go, funds are at times allocated for different projects on campus and priorities change. Long story short, the building was not renovated but it was decided to renovate instead the bathrooms inside…
National (In-)Security: Fifty Notable American Espionage Novels: 11-13.
Gilman, Dorothy. The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax. New York: Doubleday, 1970. Under her full name, Dorothy Gilman Butters wrote a dozen well-received novels for young adults from 1949 to 1963. Then, in her mid-forties, she shifted gears considerably, developing a series of adult suspense stories around the quiet adventures of an unlikely intelligence operative. Published under…
Organized Irresponsibility
Henry Giroux, in his new book Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, defines “organized irresponsibility” as “a practice that underlies the economic Darwinism and civic corruption at the heart of American politics.” The culture this has engendered is going off the rails, as the sauntering gangs of “open carry” proponents, among so many other things, demonstrate. Unfortunately, it…
University President Has Sex Change–Twice
This kind of headline or link would likely get quite a few clicks as members of academe browse the virtual newsstand. Some purists, or are they Puritans, no doubt frown at the Internet habits of successful professionals, but is it really any better to author or consume articles with colons? Are they more serious, even…