cross-posted from howtheuniversityworks.com

Before I get to the proper business of this post, here’s something that really deserves a post of its own, but I know I’ll neglect if I don’t just link to it now.

Must-read bloggery over at Historiann on workplace bullying in higher ed. If you want to learn more on this topic, check out the thoughtful, gentle, amazing David Yamada and his New Workplace Institute.

Now to the advertised matter.

This just in from...

I DVR’d Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” last week, specifically because a promo mentioned that Dennis Miller was going to have some choice words for Barack Obama on that episode. I was intrigued. And Miller didn’t disappoint. He even admitted that he took the initiative and contacted the O’Reilly folks himself, since he was so unhappy with some of Obama’s recent comments.

When I finally found the time to watch that segment, which was just last night, I got a large dose of Miller railing against Obama for being “tedious” and hypocritical — and all in Miller’s idiosyncratically high-octane and metaphor-riddled way: “[Obama] went back on that public funding promise more quickly than a Chinese acrobat checking...

Friday, 27 June 2008

Tomorrow, my husband and I head off to Idyllwild, Calif. (in the San Jacinto mountains, east of L.A.), to be visiting artists at Painting’s Edge. This is one of several art colonies (like MacDowell, the Vermont Studio Center and Skowhegan) that are popular destinations for artists who want to get away from it all —it being their own regular studios, day jobs, families, and friends. We’ll be two of 17 artists and critics who pass through for a few days, giving lectures and critiques to the (mostly) youngish painters who are in residence for two weeks.

For many artists, a residency at an art colony is just what the doctor ordered. It permits an artist to set up a temporary studio, meet other artists, subject his or her work...

Yesterday I did something both mad and responsible — I flew to Montreal just for the morning to give a talk to the annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses. I had not realized that “American” in AAUP referred to the continent, but in fact Canadian presses are members, and the chair of the meeting was Phil Cercone of the University of Montreal Press. Phil had written me about 10 days ago trying to put together a last-minute panel on open access. I said I could not do it, even though I had a paper on the subject, since my wife and I had to be in New York City Friday evening for a dinner with friends from out of town. But Phil is not easily put off, and after his third request (accompanied by information on airline schedules), I agreed. So I spent Saturday evening at a grungy motel across the highway from LaGuardia airport, caught a 6:30...

cross-posted from howtheuniversityworks.com

This begins an occasional series. Tomorrow’s post will feature The Other USC: Graduate Students on Food Stamps in South Carolina.

Thomas Boyd, In Time of Peace (1935). “Hicks’s voice was sharp as he swung around. ‘Except when I was in the army, people have tried to make me feel like that all of my life — that, if things went wrong, it wasn’t that there was something the matter with the system, but that there was something the matter with me. Well, I don’t fall for it any more. And I don’t want you to think that I’m just going to lie down and take it, either, because I’m not.’”

Veteran Hicks returns to a job at a metal lathe, acquiring conciousness of his...

Let’s remember that any lesson we learn, we’ve probably learned before:

1. From “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911—17” [Ed. Jane Marcus]

“Sex, which ought to be an incident of life, is the obsession of the well-fed world. With all the wonderful things to do in life, men are constantly distracted by the desire of beautiful, luxurious women. But the women, using their double power of sex and superior economic position, make their own terms. Men cannot have them unless they undertake to support them — an undertaking which becomes more and more exacting every year as this expensive worship of sex raises the women’s standard of living and incomes remain stationary. So most men have to wait until their prosperous maturity...

I’ve always liked obituaries. They appeal to the undergraduate history major that lies deep within me. Usually brief, they encapsulate not only the story of the deceased life, but also if you read them with a third eye tell something of the years during which the person lived. There are references to wars, businesses, and professional events, to relatives and universities — all very interesting. I read a book the other day called, Farewell, God’s Speed a collection of excellent eulogies, edited by Cyrus Copeland.

And then this morning, my wife brought me a clipping from The New York Times, the headline of which is, “Vic Hershkowitz, Dominant Handball Star,...

This is my final post as guest blogger and I must say that many of the responses demonstrate what’s wrong with higher education.

My first set of posts built on my recent Chronicle article, “America’s Most Overrated Product: A Bachelor’s Degree.” It continued to discuss the dismal results of undergraduate education and the terrible lack of disclosure to prospective students about their prospects of success and growth there, and proposed solutions. Rather than engage on the issues, most of the responses were deflective: for example, blaming the problem on K-12 education, that hermeneutics was more valuable than literature’s universal themes, or most often and most surprising, ad hominem attacks. For example, commenters called me, not just my ideas, for example,...

For the first time in its history, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst has rescinded an honorary degree, the one awarded in 1986 to Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe. According to The Boston Globe, the chairman of the Massachusetts house’s Joint Committee on Higher Education, Kevin J. Murphy, had urged UMass “to take the step in light of escalating state-sponsored violence.” He went on to say that “he did not blame the university for the initial decision to honor Mugabe,” saying at the same time he “appeared to represent the hope of a self-determined Africa.” Times change, people change — in this case, not for the...

The infrastructure of higher education is remarkable. Over the years I have been astonished to learn how many formal organizations there are that network specialists of one sort or another in university administration. And of course there are at least as many informal networks. One of them is a group that calls itself “Ivy Plus,” a multiple network of administrators in the Ivy League, MIT and Stanford.

In September I am addressing the Ivy Plus session for development officers. On Tuesday I spoke to the Ivy Plus alumni-relations specialists. The theme of their meeting was “tradition and modernity,” and they asked this question: “How do our institutions preserve and perpetuate the best of our pasts, while still remaining flexible and agile enough to respond to...