From The Chronicle's own forums, here's an interesting disclosure: A team of academics who regularly play World of Warcraft say they have received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for an effort to recruit more scholars to the online game. [Correction]
The group's ambassador, "pantherleader," is soliciting applications from scholars who can boast of both an advanced degree and a familiarity with the film work of Rutger Hauer. Of course, the privileges of membership aren't the kind that will ever grace a CV: "Chosen applicants," according to pantherleader, "will receive up to five silver coins in startup funds and access to a vent server." Nevertheless, the group's "membership includes a MacArthur fellow and an emeritus of the Institute for Advanced Study," pantherleader says.
A number of scholars have done serious research in online virtual worlds (The Chronicle, September 30, 2005), so there may be more to World of Warcraft than the attendant talk of "mendicants and feckless gobshites" suggests.
But as one academic points out, even the most sympathetic professors may not want to risk growing obsessed with life in a virtual world: "I won't leave my house. I won't publish. My job will disappear as I ascend to Level 60 with addictionlike tenacity," writes the scholar. "No sir, you won't have me in your guild." –Brock Read
Correction: The National Endowment for the Arts contacted us today refuting the claim made by a participant in our forums this week. "The National Endowment for the Arts did not award a grant to Tiger Team One or any other organization or individual associated with a report appearing on the Chronicle of Higher Education website and forum," writes Felicia K. Knight, director of communications for the N.E.A.
