The American Way of Punishment
This week the Chronicle of Higher Education has published a series of articles from the Chronicle Review under the above heading that explore the issue of mass incarceration in America from academic perspectives. No one, including myself, will agree with everything in the five articles that have appeared, but all are thoughtful, informative, eye-opening and…
My Predictions about What Will Be Revealed and What Will Occur in the Finale of Season Two of True Detective
After this past week’s penultimate episode, it is clear that the crime that set much of the current action in motion occurred two decades earlier. During the 1992 L.A. race riots, several corrupt Vinci police officers committed an armed robbery of a jewelry store, with the most conspicuous loot being a set of exquisite blue…
NCAC and FIRE Support AAUP’s Defense of LSU Professor
On July 9, 2015, the AAUP sent a letter to Louisiana State University (LSU) President and Chancellor Dr. F. King Alexander indicating that a supplemental report to the public record relating to the LSU administration’s existing presence on the AAUP’s censure list had been authorized. This letter came in response to the administration’s dismissal of Associate Professor…
University Bureaucracy as Organized Crime
Vincent J. Roscigno, a Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University, has published a clever and insightful piece under the above title in the online magazine Counterpunch. The entire article is worth reading, but here are some choice excerpts: Equating the administrative bloating of public universities and the harm it has caused as akin to…
The Cosby Scandal and Higher Education
Over the past three to four decades, Bill Cosby has received honorary degrees from the following 23 institutions that, to date, have not rescinded the degrees: Baylor University Bennett College Boston University Carnegie Mellon Colgate University Drew University Fordham University Haverford College Marquette University Oberlin College Paine College Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Sisseton Wahpeton College Swarthmore…
Evidence That There Is Still a Place for Satiric Political Folk Songs
Yesterday, my wife and I drove to Columbus, Ohio, for the annual Dublin Irish Festival held in the suburb at the northwest corner of the I-270 beltway around the Columbus metro area. It is a festival that lives up to its advertising, with all sorts of great Celtic music and great food (Irish and otherwise)—as…
I got 99 problems but AWP ain’t 1
Step Aside, Deanlettes. The Provost Fellows Have Arrived.
The following news item has appeared in this week’s digital newsletter from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education: “A Google search for the term ‘chief diversity officer’ delivers 5.6 million results. Many colleges and universities across the world have added an administrative post with the title of chief diversity officer in recent years. At…
The Popularity of College Football—and the Very Thin Line between the Cute and the Macabre
Writing for the Lansing State Journal, Judy Putnam reports that a taxidermist named Nick Saade (well, at least it’s not “de Sade”) has attempted to capture the passionate gridiron rivalry between the Michigan State Spartans and the Michigan Wolverines in a diorama featuring 22 stuffed chipmunks wearing tiny versions of the football helmets worn by…