Yeah. Well. This blog’s tag line up there says UD wants to change things. But you’ll never change this thing. These guys are too smart.
And, you know, they run the universities, their boards, and their endowments.
*********************************
UD thanks Ralph for the link.
Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=26680
Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times
George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil
It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo
There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub
You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann
Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog
University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog
[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal
Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education
[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University
Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University
The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages
Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway
From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law
University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association
The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog
I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes
As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls
Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical
University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life
[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada
If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte
October 4th, 2010 at 2:12PM
Apparently economics faculties at mid-majors aren’t major enough, as we seem to have missed this gravy train, if in fact it is a gravy train.
October 4th, 2010 at 2:17PM
Stephen: I know – one doesn’t want to overstate what’s happening, as I think the author of the Chronicle piece does… But I think it’s true enough for many high-profile schools.
October 4th, 2010 at 2:19PM
Off-topic, but thought you’d enjoy this approach to the laptop problem..
http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2010/10/auctioning-the-right-to-use-laptops-in-class.html#tp
October 4th, 2010 at 2:21PM
david: What a scheme!
October 7th, 2010 at 9:48AM
A nice Larry-Summers bashing. There is some truthiness (sic) in the article, although I miss some reference to Fanny Mae and Freddi Mac.
Regarding the allegations in the header of the post: most economists (econprof included) are too theoretical to cash in. Although most of us would not object to some charitable gift from the outside world. We would not think of it as a “bribe” – just a reward for our good works. Like a church – which also accepts (even solicits) gifts from sinners.
We believe in free markets in everything, so the business model of popes of the renaissance selling papal indulgences does not seem that outrageous for us: So constructing economic models for hire is a respected job.
So in a way, many of us will see the article’s description of the econ department as a badge of honor – very much like English departments trying to emulate David Lodge’s books.
October 7th, 2010 at 9:56AM
econprof: Well, there are a few economists who don’t, I think, believe in free markets in everything. James Galbraith? I’m sure there must be a few others.
October 7th, 2010 at 11:26AM
UD: This does not contradict our belief in free markets in ideas: If the price is right – why not?
October 7th, 2010 at 11:42AM
I’m not sure what “this” means in your comment. If I can point out quite a few high-profile economists who aren’t radical free-marketeers, doesn’t this mean that your “our” refers not to economists as such, but to a subset of them?
October 7th, 2010 at 12:47PM
UD: I was a bit sarcastic, because for some obvious reasons I do not agree with the linked article and the headline of your post. So take my posts with a grain of salt.
What you call “compromised by conflicts of interest” I would call “when the price is right, supply and demand meet on the free market of ideas”.
Secondly a research economist’s work is mostly drab mathematics: If you have JSTORE, just look up the present issue of “Econometrica”, one of the top journals in our field. Now assume you have not only to read an article there, but also write one – isnt it perfectly understandable to dream of greener pastures?
Academic Economists may have higher salaries, less teaching loads and very good chances for a TT position – but also do not have an exciting life like humanities profs.
June 8th, 2011 at 5:34PM
[…] tip to the Naked Capitalism blog. See additional comments on the University Diaries blog and on Felix Salmon’s […]
July 4th, 2011 at 8:19AM
[…] tip to the Naked Capitalism blog. See additional comments on the University Diaries blog and on Felix Salmon’s […]
July 30th, 2011 at 2:42AM
[…] tip to the Naked Capitalism blog. See additional comments on the University Diaries blog and on Felix Salmon’s blog. Tags: boards of directors, boards of trustees, Citigroup, […]
August 28th, 2011 at 4:20AM
[…] tip to the Naked Capitalism blog. See additional comments on the University Diaries blog and on Felix Salmon’s […]