About the Author

Stan Katz teaches public and international affairs and directs the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is a past president of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society for Legal History. He comments frequently on policy issues relating to higher education, particularly liberal education, and on the humanities and social sciences, philanthropy, scholarly relations with Cuba, and the interplay of civil society, constitutionalism, and democracy. And on his beloved Cubs.

About Brainstorm

Brainstorm is The Chronicle Review's team of bloggers on ideas, culture, and the arts.

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Gina Barreca
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
Laurie Fendrich
Dan Greenberg
Stan Katz
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
Bob Zemsky

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Recent Posts

Can You Use Orphan Works? | Comment [9]

SNAAP Judgments | Comment [6]

Thanks, Karen | Comment [5]

Symphony Orchestra as a Team Sport | Comment [2]

Is the E-Book in Trouble? | Comment [2]

Featured Articles By the Author

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Thanks, Karen

This morning The Chronicle reports a really important story — the departure of Karen Arenson from The New York Times.

Anyone who is reading this blog is likely to be a higher-education news junkie (bless all of you!), but for many Americans Karen was one of the few mainstream reporters who provided coverage of higher ed. She was the best the Times had, and I will always be grateful to her for turning her Metro Desk beat into a perch from which to comment knowledgeably and intelligently on what was going on in our colleges and universities. Karen took a buyout, in part to deal with pressing family issues, but also, I think, because of the increasing difficulty of doing her job well on a paper that is having a hard time deciding what it wants to be in an era of declining print readership and killing electronic competition.

I first met Karen about a decade ago when she came to Princeton to write a story on Jewish admissions to our University. Typically, she had picked up on the story by reading a brilliant investigative series in The Daily Princetonian by a freshman reporter (Richard Just, now with The New Republic). I was the “president” (= board chair) of the Center for Jewish Life, and Karen interviewed me at length. She wrote a long and acute piece which featured a large photo of me, and produced a series of quizzical responses from old friends who wondered when I had become a rabbi. My first encounter with Warhol-fame. My more important encounter, however, was with a reporter who has become a very good friend, someone with whom I have discussed higher-ed policy on a regular basis. I think I have occasionally been helpful to her in providing a sounding board for her story research, and even, much more infrequently, in giving her information. But, as a very well-informed and highly skeptical insider, she has been more important to me as I have tried to understand the larger higher-education picture.

I have learned a lot about how a good reporter operates from observing Karen. To be sure, she has had (thanks to the Times) the sort of job that permitted her to take the time to develop a story properly, and she has worked with fine editors — even if their news sense about higher ed was not always hers, or mine. She has worked hard to get the story right, and she has evinced the skepticism required to uncover the truth. She has frequently challenged my confident assertions about what was going on in the field, and she has more often than not been correct. Her knowledge of economics and her comfort with statistics has been a big part of her professional competence, as we saw recently in her reporting on university endowments. And of course she writes beautifully.

Reporters like Karen Arenson cannot be replaced. And it does not seem likely that the Times will even try to fill her position, since they are clearly downsizing their education beat. This will be a great loss to all of us in the field of higher education, since a well-informed public is essential both to legislative policy formulation and to popular support for what we do. We will miss you, Karen, but I thank you publicly for what you have done for us. But please keep calling me!

Comments

1. One of the only reasons I still go to the NY Times online is because of the articles regarding higher ed, and Ms. Arenson’s writing. This news saddens me, as I now no longer have any reason at all to go to the NY Times. I will miss her writing and her insight as well.

   — Lee Bessette · May 1, 02:05 PM · #

2. I applaud and concur in Professor Katz’s remarks. Karen Arenson was not only “the best the Times had,” but the best WE ALL had. We share a collective loss. I’m sure my colleagues join me in wishing Karen well and in hoping we may still hear her voice from time to time.

   — Don Langenberg · May 2, 08:04 AM · #

3. However, in the interest of providing a different perspective, is it not the case that Karen Arenson had an elitist point of view and regularly used as her sources local institutional presidents (such as President Langenberg) or persons from the Ivy League (such a Professor Katz)? If Brown and Columbia were doing something (and that something was really pretty dumb and subsequently abandoned) wasn’t it assessed by Ms. Arenson to be brilliant? If Stanford , Texas or Michigan did something innovative it was also considered superb. However, when Podunk State University or Local Small College did something innovative it was ignored or considered unworthy of New York Times coverage.

   — S. · May 2, 10:16 AM · #

4. S.:

   Thanks for the needed perspective. There’s something about the three “Brainstorm” bloggers I think of as the “Friends in High Places” guys (Katz, Trachtenberg and Zemsky) that, no matter what their nominal subjects, is kind of “all about ME” (and my illustrious institution) in the bargain. To wit:

   “…she had picked up on the story by reading a BRILLIANT investigative series in The Daily PRINCETONIAN by a freshman reporter (Richard Just, now with The New Republic). I was the “PRESIDENT” (= BOARD CHAIR) of the Center for Jewish Life, and Karen INTERVIEWED ME AT LENGTH…

   a reporter who has become A VERY GOOD FRIEND, someone with whom I HAVE DISCUSSED HIGHER-ED POLICY ON A REGULAR BASIS. I think I HAVE OCCASIONALY BEEN HELPFUL TO HER her in PROVIDING A SOUNDING BOARD…”

   If they’d tone down the self-importance just a tad, what they have to say—often insightful, and once in a while right on—would go down a lot better.

   — LuckyJim · May 2, 11:32 AM · #

5. On Comment 4:

   I recall a wonderful article by Vivian Gornick in The Nation back around 1978, written after she had spent a semester at Yale as a Guest Fellow in one of the residential colleges.

   Her article revealed a great deal about the elitist snobbery of the Ivies, of course, but also about the “interesting” expressions of their sexism.

   It ended with a quote from what the wife of a Yale senior faculty member told her one day (I paraphrase from memory, not having the article at hand): “My husband isn’t a bad man. But every morning, when he looks in the mirror while shaving, he says to himself: ‘Jesus Christ, I’m at Yale!’”

   — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · May 2, 06:01 PM · #

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