'An official with the National Institutes of Health said Poehlman's case marked the first time a researcher would serve time in prison for falsifying data to obtain federal grants.'

A former University of Vermont professor convicted of research fraud has asked a judge for leniency.

In a letter to the court last week Eric Poehlman said he has been punished enough by the consequences of his decision to fabricate research and should not have to serve time in jail.

Poehlman said his actions have cost him his job and relationships with friends and colleagues and ruined his national reputation.

"I have not only already been severely punished in a way that sends a clear message to the scientific community and the community at large, but have sharpened my focus on community service," Poehlman wrote to U.S. District Judge William Sessions III. "I hope you will conclude that the goals of sentencing in my case can be met without imposing a term of jail."

Poehlman, who was employed at UVM from 1987 to 1993 and as a tenured professor from 1996 until he retired from the College of Medicine in 2001, is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday. He faces up to five years in prison, three years on supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Poehlman wants the judge to impose a sentence of probation and community service.
He is accused of requesting $11.6 million in federal funding for 17 grants using false data.

In April he agreed to plead guilty to fabricating research data to obtain a $542,000 grant from the National Institute of Health. As part of the plea deal, federal prosecutors do not plan to seek additional charges.

The case is the most serious incident of scientific misconduct in this country in more than 20 years, officials have said.

It is the first time a researcher has been permanently barred from ever receiving federal research grants again.

In the letter to the judge, Poehlman said he fabricated data so that he would have a better chance of winning grants. He also said he wanted to excel as a scientist.

"When I falsified data, I convinced myself that it was acceptable," he wrote. "My remorse is profound and impossible to express in words."

Poehlman lost his job as a professor at the University of Montreal when the Vermont allegations were discovered. Since then he has been working as an elementary and high school teacher.

Look, I don't know what happened at that house that night. And neither do you. And I wouldn't have done some of the things that the prosecutor has done to this point -- he started the media onslaught, after all. And neither probably would you. It is possible that a savage rape occurred. And it is possible that the young men who have been accused are victims, themselves, of an irresponsible accuser. The point is that we don't know. We haven't seen all of the evidence, haven't examined all of the testimony; haven't had the privilege of seeing the case unfold at trial the way it is supposed to.

journalists are tripping all over themselves to quickly and repetitively report the biased view of the young men's defense attorneys, family members, and other supporters. And the prosecutor, after saying a bit too much too early about his case, now is saying nothing at all, leaving the defense spin unchallenged and gaining both in perceived credence and volume. There is nothing wrong with this defense strategy -- I would do it, too, I suppose, if I were representing the alleged rapists -- but just because it's a good idea for lawyers doesn't meant it is good journalism. There is no balanced coverage in the Duke case. There is just one defense-themed story after another. …The presiding judge long ago should have stepped into this case and shut up the defense teams with a gag order. Failing that, the media should have exercised more discretion in allowing advocates to dictate coverage.

Campus sources said the chancellor had disappeared from campus three times since arriving in February 2005, and had skipped official events with such regularity that they were not surprised when she didn't show up at commencement exercises earlier this month.

The first incident was about two weeks into her turbulent tenure, when Denton called her assistant in a panic from Yosemite National Park and said she couldn't get home.

A University of California official confirmed that Denton visited Yosemite after a trip to Sacramento and that someone was sent to the national park to help her. The source said the chancellor "had a reaction to medication she was or wasn't on," and it was so debilitating that it was unsafe for her to drive back alone.

Campus spokeswoman Liz Irwin said she knew nothing about the Yosemite incident.

However, she said the chancellor's mother, Carolyn Mabee, had authorized her to say that Denton had been treated that month for "an acute thyroid condition."

Denton's next extended absence occurred in November and December, when she disappeared for several weeks, the sources said. Campus officials trying to reach her were never given an explanation for the absence.

Denton's mother said Monday, through Irwin, that her daughter had a benign ovarian cyst removed in November and "was away for the surgery and the recovery period."

Denton had retreated from campus life in the weeks before her death, penciling out appointments and clearing her calendar. She began a medical leave on June 15; Irwin would not disclose why. Few people knew about this last leave until her apparent suicide on Saturday.

Irwin said Denton's medical leaves were not publicly announced at the time "because most people think of medical conditions as confidential. The people needing to know did know."

Nearly every aspect of higher education in America needs fixing, according to a draft report of a national commission that calls for an overhaul of the student financial aid system, better cost controls by colleges and universities and more proof of results, including testing.

The report by the panel appointed last year by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was highly critical of the nation's institutions of higher education. It said there was a lack of accountability to show that students were learning, that college costs have risen too high, and that "unacceptable numbers of college graduates" were entering the workforce without skills that employers say they need.

In addition, the draft said, "rising costs, combined with a confusing, inadequate financial aid system, leave some students struggling to pay for education that, paradoxically, is of uneven and at times dubious quality."

"Among the vast and varied institutions that make up U.S. higher education," the 27-page paper added, "we have found equal parts meritocracy and mediocrity." It also added, "Change is overdue."

The 19-member commission, led by Charles Miller, a private investor and former head of the University of Texas Board of Regents, was formed to study how to increase access, affordability and accountability in higher education. Its recommendations could prove important for the country's 17 million college students and their parents.

…..Among its recommendations, the report called for "an unprecedented effort to expand college access and success" partly through substantial increases in need-based financial aid. And it said the current federal financial aid system, comprising 17 federal programs of direct aid or tax benefits, should be consolidated and streamlined.

The report said that teachers needed to be better prepared, and that colleges of education needed to be revamped. It suggested that students who were not well prepared might not belong in college.

"A troubling number of undergraduates waste time and taxpayer dollars mastering English and math skills that they should have learned in high school," it said.

The draft also advocated testing. It recommended that states require public institutions to measure student learning using tests like the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a recently devised test of student skills in math, reading and critical thinking. And it said colleges should then post the results of such tests to show how much students had learned in a manner that would allow students to compare the performance of colleges.

'Despite top grades at law school, two years as an intern and success at the bar exam, Simon Caille faced the prospect only of temporary work and low-paid assistantships as a new lawyer in Paris.

Instead, brandishing the English he picked up along the way, Simon landed an internship in New York that paid better than some entry-level salaries in Paris. Soon he had a full-time position as a lawyer for an investment bank.

"That's the way it should work in France, but the truth is you spend almost a year looking for a real job offer," he said during a visit to Paris. "Everyone knows that hanging around too long is unattractive to employers, so I just left."

France's famously rigid labor market survived intact this spring when street protests tripped up Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's proposal to liberalize job contract laws for young people.

Its inflexibility is blamed for high unemployment and has prompted an exodus of young, well-educated French to look for work abroad.


…"They're looking for a hiring system that's more flexible than in France. And they're heading to countries where the 'casual job' culture is more developed," says Olivier Galland, a sociologist at the French National Research Center.

Last autumn's riots by poor suburban youths -- mostly children of immigrants -- highlighted youth unemployment of 22 percent overall and 40 percent or more in some poor suburbs.


…"France may remain attractive for older people who set themselves up under the sun in some beautiful countryside, but it's no longer the case for a young, dynamic workforce," said Herve Le Bras, a sociologist at the School for Advanced Social Studies in Paris.'

BOULDER, Colo. -- The top official at the University of Colorado's flagship campus said Monday he intends to fire Ward Churchill, the firebrand professor who compared some of the World Trade Center victims to a Nazi and then landed in hot water over allegations of academic misconduct.

Churchill displayed "a pattern of research misconduct committed over a period of time," Interim Chancellor Philip DiStefano said.

Churchill has 10 days to appeal the decision to a faculty committee, DiStefano said. Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, has denied allegations of plagiarism and other misconduct and has said he would file suit if fired.

Churchill did not immediately return telephone messages.

…University officials said Churchill had been relieved of all academic work including teaching and work on committees but will remain a paid faculty member as long as the firing is in the appeals process.

Churchill is currently on a leave and is not teaching any classes.

A note to say that [higher education] in Europe and the UK has many big problems, and that US HE retains many advantages. Europeans also, as a general rule, are very skeptical about their own reform efforts -- often with good reason. The Bologna Agreement, for example, is uneven in its successes; reform is too slow in the view of many. But there is actual reform going on, and with the first signs of actual results.

There are important indicators of long-term shifts and actual gains in BOTH access and graduation rates in a growing group of OECD economic competitors. It is not the current state of comparison so much as the trajectory.

Since the Inside HE article did not include some of the relevant statistics, and perhaps many do not actually read my study which, I think, is fairly balanced and notes many caveats, here is a section that may interest readers:

'On average, the postsecondary participation rate for those aged eighteen to twenty-four in the United States is a mere 34%, according to a recent study by the Education Commission of the States. Rhode Island has the highest rate at 48%, while Alaska has the lowest at 19%. 5 In California, Florida, and Texas—states with large and growing populations—approximately 36%, 31%, and 27%, respectively, attend some form of postsecondary education. And in the majority of states, these rates have steadily declined over the last decade.

In contrast, within a comparative group of fellow OECD countries, on average almost 50% of this younger age group participate in postsecondary education, and most are enrolled in programs that lead to a bachelor’s degree.

Perhaps most importantly when compared with other industrialized nations, in 2002 the United States ranked only 13th in the percent of the population that enters postsecondary education and then completes a bachelor’s degree or higher. In other words, the US has decently competitive rates of participation in tertiary education, but meager and declining rates of actual degree attainment.

In some states, such as California, access to higher education for the traditional age cohort has declined significantly over the past two decades. In 1970 in California, some 55% of high school graduates moved directly to tertiary education, among the highest figures in the nation; in the year 2000 the rate was a mere 48% and it appears to be declining. This drop has occurred in an economic environment that needs a labor pool with more postsecondary training and education. In the US, there are healthy increases in the participation rate of older students—important for lifelong learning in the postmodern economy and for facilitating socioeconomic mobility. But even in this regard, a number of OECD countries are consciously attempting, through national policies, to expand participation and to meet or exceed the rates found in the US.'

So...she becomes chancellor at UCSC, taking a large but not unusual compensation package which includes a trailing spouse position. She arrives, full of hope that she can do something worth moving herself and Kalonji from Seattle. In less than a year, she's got students stopping her car, people throwing things through her windows and pounding on her door demanding attention. No honeymoon while she gets her bearings and works out where she wants to lead the university. No support from the community she was led to believe wanted her leadership. People are acting like she's there for the money...the same people who criticize her for her lack of attention to her appearance. She's become a symbol for every academic who others think is overpaid, for lesbians, for the clash of science and engineering with liberal arts, for diversity efforts, and who knows what else. From all that has been written about her, can we tell how she planned to do anything at UCSC? Or was she written off as an archetype?

We should start to learn soon what the proportions of [Denton’s] despondency were: how much was due to professional frustration and how much to Gretchen Kalonji [her partner. It‘s rumored that Kalonji had just broken up with Denton].

What was clear from the recent grapevine was that she had alienated almost everyone by now. One leak out of the Council of Chancellors said they were all fed up with her -- anyone who disagreed with her was met with shouting, rage and denunciation for homophobia (her universal response to being thwarted). Another from her office staff said much the same thing -- turnover in what had been thought to be plum jobs was astonishingly high.

Dean-level meetings on campus produced similar reports. Significantly, she fired her number two person within minutes of meeting her and installed in his place perennial yes-man David Klieger [it‘s spelled “Kliger“] --a pathetic character respected by almost nobody. (On becoming Dean of Nat Sciences some years ago Klieger immediately instituted a "Campus Scientist of the Year" award and then gave the first such award to himself.)

"[I]t was just a bad fit….She might have been unused to dealing with people outside of science and engineering, because she never had to deal with them before."

…Criticism of the chancellor escalated to the point that Denton worried about her personal safety.

"People were coming to her house and banging on the door wanting to talk about issues," Regan said.

…In April, she received dozens of threatening phone calls and e-mails from people upset that student anti-war protesters forced military recruiters off campus, a campus spokeswoman said. And earlier this month, Denton was followed across the campus by chanting protesters against "institutional racism" at the university. They blocked her from leaving until she agreed to watch them perform a skit. She left before the performers finished.

'Today in San Francisco is the annual Gay Pride Parade and Celebration. My mind whirls at the craziness of it all - our openly lesbian chancellor may have been going through a break-up of her seven year relationship. Her mother said she had been depressed about work and personal issues. I know she had a rough landing at our little campus, with lots of bickering about her salary (too high, they said) and the whole town gossiping about the dog run she had built at her campus home (we don't allow dogs on campus) because it - supposedly - cost twenty thousand dollars. And a couple of weeks ago she was surrounded by a group of angry protestors as she left a meeting. They surrounded her car and made it difficult for her driver to manuever out of the small back parking lot. She was no doubt scared, but she decided not to bring judicial action against those students.

Who knows what demons, fears, illnesses she was wrestling with? Ours is a harsh community, and I've seen many staff and administrators beset by angry faculty, staff and students, who make the issues extremely personal. I don't know if the nasty reception she received played a role in her depression. Probably we will never know. I just hope that people come away from this with a renewed sense of compassion and kindess towards one another. I'm still reeling from this news and can't imagine how awful it is going to be to go to work on Monday morning. Many people in my office worked fairly closely with her. There are going to be a lot of heavy hearts, and dazed and confused minds.'

'Denton was noticeably absent from the university commencement exercises earlier this month, and some employees said she had not been at work for at least two weeks. When asked about her absence, university officials told them she was ill.'

You haven't heard the last of this story. Denice Denton's financial situation was becoming news.

It's pride weekend in San Francisco! If there was any time to be a happy, rich, lesbian chancellor, it would be now.

I just saw this on the news and was gonna share but you beat me to it. Not a hoax. I feel horrible; she didn't deserve to be our chancellor, but I didn't want her to DIE. I'm totally shocked.

I just wanted her to get fired. But suicide? Harsh.

chancellor denice denton committed suicide in san francisco today.
jumped off a building.
even though i didn't really know her..had only met her a few times...i feel sad at this news.
mostly i feel guilty for the times that she was made fun of, or disliked because of things she did. (our show BUZZZ made fun of her a great deal)
she didn't show up to our graduation because of health reasons and we all thought that it was because she just didn't care enough to show up. then a week later she was so depressed she killed herself.
i wonder if the buzzz had any affect on her? i mean i'm sure it was a myriad of things that caused her to be sad, but i'm sure us doing a show that made fun of her did not help.
i don't know what to feel or how to feel right now.

Ripped from the pages of a naturalist novel.

'She had been on medical leave from the university since June 15 and was expected to return to work this week, said UC Santa Cruz spokesman Jim Burns. …Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, was in the building at the time of her death, police said. She told authorities that her daughter was "very depressed" about her professional and personal life.'

'Denton's maternal uncle, Gilbert Drab, of Gun Barrel City, Texas, said …"It's a real tragedy. That's what happens when you get really bright people -- too much on their mind."'

I so admire the direction she has provided contemporary Canadian society on abortion and terminal illness, and so disagree with her on the subject of same-sex marriage, that I am longing both to learn from her as well as to question her about her wrong-headed views on gay marriage (versus gay civil unions, of which she approves).

You have to hand it to Ryerson. When it bestows honours, it is a comprehensive exercise: DSc (Doctor of Science), BH (Branded Homophobe) and POM (Pariah of the Month). The process was not entirely negative, though: Bloodied as she was, Somerville was able to return to Montreal wiser than when she arrived.

In preparation for that fine day, there are useful books out there that feed directly into an understanding of the ivory tower of academe. When Petrified Campus: The Crisis in Canada's Universities (Random House) was first published in 1997, the screed by David Bercuson, Robert Bothwell and Jack Granatstein was received with both enthusiasm and more than a smattering of turned-down thumbs. Well, it was bound to have its enemies, since it was ferociously attacking what many believe is the principal scourge of campus life today -- political correctness.

Their critique of the forces of intellectual intolerance in Canadian universities (a critique, of course, not restricted to Canada) remains devastating. An emblematic observation points out that whenever there is a battle royal on campus over race, creed or gender, and there is no hard evidence of discrimination, the word "systemic" is sure to be wheeled into the fray. Once "systemic" is deployed, all counterarguments are automatically trumped. The more you argue against the point, the more you are thought to expose your pre-conscious intolerance. As an argument in a post-faith age, it is unbeatable and chilling.

Yet political correctness has honourable enough roots within our universities. Big battles have had to be fought. There are many people still living today, for example, who remember when Jews in Canada were subject to discreet quotas in medical and law faculties. As for women's rights, as recently as three years ago, illustrious teachers and researchers such as Ursula Franklin and Phyllis Grosskurth of the University of Toronto were still having to prove, during a vicious pension struggle, that they deserved equal treatment with their male colleagues.

So academics have had to fight for justice within the campus and that struggle has often preceded reform in society at large. On the other hand, the struggle on campus can become endlessly more toxic than on the outside and the reasons for that are both complex and alarmingly obvious. Perhaps the single most devastating account of campus life gone seriously amok is The First Stone: Some Questions About Sex and Power (Pan Macmillan Australia, 1995), Helen Garner's scorching account of what happened to an Australian academic administrator at the University of Melbourne accused of sexual harassment by two women students.

Garner is a noted Australian novelist, journalist and front-line, pioneer feminist who reported how the master of an illustrious college, found innocent of all charges of impropriety or harassment -- in other words an innocent man -- was hounded out of his high office as well as academic life by misplaced persecution and an appalling conspiracy of silence in which fellow academics felt too terrified to join in the fray for fear of the accusations that might come their way.

The First Stone caused a major controversy in Australia when it came out, and was a particular focus of enmity among younger feminists, who were accused by Garner of misusing the positions of strength and power delivered to them by vanguard feminists.

It remains a hugely gripping tale and anyone interested in the kind of hysteria that can be whipped up on the campus -- like that which greeted Margaret Somerville -- will profit from reading it. The role of the media in reporting the case also added to the general misery of everyone involved and probably did as much to undermine the victim at the centre of the tale, and secure his unhappy fate, as anything his accusers managed.

At its worst, campus controversies can be so totally debilitating and vicious not, as Henry Kissinger is supposed famously to have said, because "the stakes are so small," but because they leach out of the university and into everyday life. This is the dark side to all the extraordinary gifts and breakthroughs the academy has always bestowed on our ever-aspiring society. Yet even the dark side has its uses, and sometimes you just have to shake your head and laugh at the abounding absurdities. For this, you cannot find a more brilliant satirical work than Tom Sharpe's comic novel, Porterhouse Blue (Secker, 1974).

Through Sharpe's merciless gaze, political correctness becomes a vehicle for scholarly promotion and an excuse for scoundrel academics to cite "reform" for unconscionable acts of intellectual impiety and dishonesty. His depictions of lazy senior scholars and vapid, stupid administrators are as wicked and hilarious as any that exist in the English language, although no funnier than the statement of the Ryerson awards committee that if its members had known about Prof. Somerville's views "as presented to Parliament and reported in the media," they would never have recommended the honorary degree.

It is getting increasingly difficult to write good satire these days.

'YOU SUBSIDIZE COLLEGE ATHLETES

North Carolina taxpayers will give more than $5 million next year to out-of-state students who come to North Carolina's public universities on scholarship. Most will be athletes.

For example, UNCW is expected to get 25 scholarship students under the program. Twenty three are athletes. They will cost North Carolina taxpayers roughly $248,375.

The Honorables created this subsidy last year to please one of the richest political action committees in Raleigh. Its members lobby for what they believe are the best interests of UNC-Chapel Hill - particularly its athletic programs. Boosters were sick of paying rising out-of-state tuition for athletes.

The providers of academic scholarships, notably the Morehead program, also were fretting because their money was covering costs for fewer out-of-state whiz kids. (They're imported to improve the student body's intellectual muscle tone and possibly stay in the state after they graduate.)

So the new law allows our public universities to admit more out-of-state scholarship students - forget the 18 percent cap on out-of-state admissions - and to charge in-state tuition to the organizations that finance their scholarships.

At Chapel Hill, because of the Morehead program, 61 of these scholarship winners will be ordinary students. Thirty-nine will be students who - it is fervently hoped - can sack opposing quarterbacks or hit three-pointers with two defenders in their faces.

Across the system, 145 students will get scholarships for academic reasons. Three hundred and eleven will get them for athletic ones.

The UNC Board of Governors opposed the law. But the Honorables knew better.

Their generosity will cost us about $5.2 million next year, and more in the future.

Might as well go to that ball game. You're paying handsomely to hire the players.'

I’ve been home from hospital for a few days, and I can focus on fine print. I’ve cut my fingernails so I can type again. Bread tastes funny and I can’t tolerate coffee. I’ve been away a lot longer than we expected.

My first conscious memory after my bowel resection is one of the worst things you can confront in a hospital – an apologetic surgeon. I’d been hit by a medical emergency which was fifty years in the making.

When I was very small I had some kind of unidentified infection, which stopped one kidney from growing. Instead, the bowel had occupied the space, which meant the spleen had moved too. Reorganising my unexpected gut design, the doctors nicked my spleen, which collapsed and had to be removed, while I bled badly.

Two days later, I responded to the trauma with a small heart attack.

The next ten days became a blur of disconnected vignettes, my bed a nest, pushed from scan to scan and ward to ward.

With all that morphine I made friends with a huge bear in the corner. I lost control of my visual cortex and lay for days in a muddle of spontaneous images, some viciously ugly, most collaged from shattered pieces of coloured Perspex cut with frozen, scanned memories. In my own naturally verbal sensorium, I suppose this was the pictorial equivalent of voices in my head. I puzzled for hours over the way that could happen but still be under control, which I guess is the way visual artists function, in a parallel to the stream of words coming from my fingers to this screen.

I twisted back and forth on a mobius strip of recursive identity, trying to work out who I was if the drugs had seized my brain. The “I” that I needed being a creature which could ask questions, organise my bedclothes and work out whether to put my hearing aids in or not.

I rowed on through the hospital, my bed a dinghy, across rivers of knowledge. Bowels. Spleen. Hearts. I saw slices of my own heart beating, which were slowed down and repeated with their own sound track. ‘Beat’ is not the right word – the thing flutters, endlessly precise, fabulously fragile, each dancing move identical for every second from the womb to the grave.

I am standing on an unmoored raft, a punt moving on the flexing, flowing face of a river. It is precarious. The unknowing, the taut balance, the jolts and the instability spread in widening ripples through all my thoughts. Peace? There was never any in the world. But in the pliable water, under the sky, unmoored, I am traveling now and hearing myself laugh, at first with nerves and then genuine amazement. It is all around me.

[T]he legal profession is actually losing lawyers every day, a silent drain of talent to banking, business and premature retirement. …[L]arge law firms, those employing more than 500 lawyers, lose nearly 40% of their associates within four years of hiring them. After six years, the ratio climbs to 60%. …42% of lawyers in small firms (and 50% in solo practices) have changed jobs within three years of graduation, and two-thirds of them have switched two or more times… [A] significant percentage drop out of the legal profession entirely.

Of the things keep me out of law school, there are two things foremost in my mind. The first is that it is massively, crushingly, chokingly expensive… And thus the second - as a corollary to the first - is that law school is full of people who want to make lots of money. And I suppose that is inevitable and unsurprising: if you're going to spend three miserable years paying through the ass to listen to three lectures by some fourth-rate hack teaching critical legal studies (or any number of "soft law" classes, which is to say, "not law at all" classes) for every one bright, shining class of CrimPro or ConLaw … and graduate into - in Michael Dorf's phrase - "the ranks of one of the most hated professions in history," under a pile of debt comparable to the mortgage on a decent-sized house in a nice suburb, it should hardly be surprising that these people want to make money…

I think a lot of lawyers do hate their jobs. There is a lot to hate […], including cynicism, long hours, boring work, and in many parts of the law, experiencing a lot of aggression. Indeed, I have always wondered about all the women going to law school - a lot of them can't be all that happy with the level of aggression required for a lot of the practice of law. (Yes, I am being a bit sexist here, but I am also intentionally not talking percentages - I don't know if this is 10% or 90%, just that much of the practice of law requires this, and men seem to enjoy it more, on average).

Another problem with being a lawyer is that you have to deal with lawyers on a regular basis. Not only the loyal opposition, but those on your side too. In many firms, you have to watch your back a lot more than your front. Innumerable lawyers are thrown out of firms or firms break up for no sin greater than that some other lawyers in the firm covet their business or the money you are making. I doubt that there are many professions out there where the practitioners are anywhere as vicious to those on their own side. And it isn't easy for many to live in this sort of environment.

'Last night, in contrast to many previous days full of much complaint, was a lot of fun. KD (who no longer has a blog to which he can be linked and identified) and I had dinner with the very gracious UD, who lives in Our Town, a place where everyone gets their mail at the Town Hall and there is a Peace Pole, though UD denies every having seen it. While somewhat weirdly utopian, it was obviously much nicer than downtown DC…'

Greetings from America, where everyone's so bloody friendly and laid-back and nice it makes you want to puke blood in their faces. [My only complaint about this fine sentence is that the repetition of “blood” weakens its punch.] Earlier today I found myself sharing an elevator with one of the bellboys, and, to make conversation, I asked him whether they had any celebrities staying in the hotel.

"Every guest is a celebrity to us," he replied, without pausing. [The writer has a good ear for the inane.] And then he smiled.

A few minutes later I'm standing in a corridor, when an engineer walks by.

"Hello there," says the engineer. "My name's Frank." He taps his nametag. It is indeed. He smiles. "You need anything fixing, any trouble with the TV in your room, computer problems, anything - just call the front desk; ask for me."

"Um, OK," I say. "Thanks Frank."

"You're welcome," says Frank. "Have a great day now." Then he taps his cap and ambles away, whistling.

I almost have to pinch myself. I've just experienced precisely the sort of benevolent human encounter that only occurs in pre-school children's programmes, except it was real. [I like the way the writer combines pleasure at our friendliness with a recognition that much of it is infantile in nature.]

In the afternoon I visit a high-street clothing store. Nothing posh; part of a chain. I examine a pullover, but I'm not sure if it's my size. XXL appears to be the only one available. I turn to look for an assistant, and discover one's already beside me, standing at precisely the right distance - close enough to be of use, not so near as to seem invasive.

"I think we still have those in other sizes," he says. "Want me to check?"

A few minutes later, I'm buying the pullover. While he's folding it perfectly, the assistant (whose name is Milo) asks if there are any cool bands in England he should know about. He'd been holding out hope of seeing the Libertines, but they split up, which sucked. [The Brit correctly registers the rapid process whereby American salespeople and other sorts of employees turn to personal chat.] I rack my brains, but can't think of any cool new bands. Not one. Lamely, I offer the Arctic Monkeys. It turns out Milo's heard them, and thinks they're pretty good, but something about his manner implies he's a touch underwhelmed.

In an excruciating bid to curry favour with my new friend, I say I hear there's this new girl called Lily Allen who's been getting a lot of coverage. Milo writes her name down on a piece of paper and tells me I'm awesome. I walk out of the shop feeling young and fashionable. But I've never heard Lily Allen. What I just did was almost unbearably pathetic; somehow Milo made it seem OK.

Everywhere I turn, members of the service industry are smiling at me, holding doors open, straining to help. I know most of the time they're angling for tips [Actually, I doubt that‘s true], but I don't care. Sometimes they're just being nice. In London, Frank the engineer would've told me to piss off. The clothes shop guy wouldn't have said anything. I'd be nothing. I'd be less than dirt. Here I'm treated like Sir Lordship of Kings. [This is very nicely written.]

Now it's getting late. I'm in my room, typing this. There's a problem with the TV. But I don't call reception and ask them to send Frank up. We've already built a rapport in the corridor. Now he's my buddy, I'd feel uncomfortable expecting him to do chores for me. So I don't call him. He doesn't fix the TV. He doesn't get the tip. Spin on THAT, Frank.

Last week I went to an Irish friend's Bloomsday celebration, writes John L Walters. Food, drink, music and readings from the work of James Joyce (Bloomsday, June 16, is the day of the fictional Leopold Bloom's odyssey through the Dublin of 1904 in Ulysses). I didn't know quite what to expect, having only ever attended one Bloomsday event in the past, an afternoon lecture by Anthony Burgess at University College.

This was more relaxing, but also stimulating, as guests dug out their copies of Ulysses and Dubliners and read out extracts. Someone played a fiddle; another played guitar. There were jigs and songs such as She Moved Through The Fair. There was even a pub-style Bloomsday quiz. I felt a bit out of depth, having read Ulysses when I was too young to understand it, but it was a privilege to hear people take delight in words in this way.

My contribution was to read a couple of poems from Chamber Music. I feel quite possessive about these works because I once set four of them to music. When Susan Abbuehl's album Compass (ECM) turned up for review in the Guardian I had mixed feelings. One of Abbuehl's settings is Chamber Music number II, the one that begins: "The twilight turns from Amethyst, to deep and deeper blue," but I can't help thinking of that as mine.

Joyce's words are a gift for musicians - in metre, timbre, meaning and "singability" - which is why they are so often turned into songs. Chamber Music I, which begins "Strings in the earth and air," was set by Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band; also Syd Barrett, Luciano Berio and Samuel Barber. And it's possible that the catchiest piece John Cage ever wrote was The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, for "voice and closed piano" (the pianist thumps the instrument). Robert Wyatt, Cathy Berberian and even Joey Ramone recorded it once. And there's Samba do Joyce, a charmingly non-avant-garde homage to the writer by his namesake, the Brazilian singer-songwriter Joyce.

I suspect that musicians like James Joyce because they recognise him as one of their own. Sound obsessed, single-minded, a bit bonkers. His words are more than mere words.

In his lecture, Burgess said that Joyce wrote like a composer: a phrase used early in the book might become a motif that could be repeated, developed, inverted, transposed and re-used later in the work. With Joyce, it's not about words and music - the words are music. That's why we love him. Even when we're baffled, he sounds great.

But next year, if I get invited to a Bloomsday party, I'll be more adventurous. I'll play Samba do Joyce. Or maybe I'll track down that Joey Ramone recording ...

'At one point, Judge Arterton asked [the prosecutor] to detail the evidence the government was prepared to bring had it tried Mr. Smiley. The prosecutor said he had experts to testify that wormholes in the maps found on Mr. Smiley lined up with wormholes in the books on Yale's shelves that contained the maps.'

Our World Cup Edge

Going into today's World Cup match against Ghana, no American player has managed to put a ball into the back of the net, but the U.S. team does lead the world in one vital category: college degrees.

Most of the American players attended college. Eddie Pope went to the University of North Carolina, Kasey Keller attended the University of Portland and Marcus Hahnemann went to Seattle Pacific.

Many of the elite players from the rest of the world, on the other hand, were pulled from regular schools at early ages and sent to professional training academies. Among those sharp-elbowed, hypercompetitive Europeans, for example, Zinedine Zidane was playing for A.S. Cannes by age 16, Luis Figo was playing for Sporting Lisbon at 17, and David Beckham attended Tottenham Hotspur's academy and signed with Manchester United as a trainee at 16.

The difference in preparation is probably bad for America's World Cup prospects, but it's good for America's economic and political prospects. That's because the difference in soccer training is part of a bigger phenomenon. American universities play a much broader social role than do universities elsewhere around the world. They not only serve as the training grounds for professional athletes, unthinkable in most other nations, they also contribute more to the cultures and economies around them.

The American university system was born with expansionist genes. As early Americans spread out across the frontier, they created not only new religious sects, but new colleges, too. The Dartmouth College case of 1819 restricted government's efforts to interfere in higher education. As the centuries rolled on, government did more to finance higher education, starting with the Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862, but the basic autonomy of colleges and universities was preserved. They remained, and remain, spirited competitors in the marketplace of ideas, status, talent and donations.

The European system, by contrast, is state-dominated and uncompetitive. During the 19th century, governments in Spain, France and Germany abolished the universities' medieval privileges of independence. Governments took over funding and control, and imposed radical egalitarian agendas. Universities could not select students on merit, and faculty members became civil servants.

The upshot is that the competitive American universities not only became the best in the world — 8 out of the top 10 universities are American — they also remained ambitious and dynamic. They are much more responsive to community needs.

Not only have they created ambitious sports programs to build character among students and a sense of solidarity across the community, they also offer a range of extracurricular activities and student counseling services unmatched anywhere else. While the arts and letters faculties are sometimes politically cloistered, the rest of the university programs are integrated into society, performing an array of social functions.

They serve as business incubation centers (go to Palo Alto). With their cultural and arts programs, they serve as retiree magnets (go to Charlottesville). With their football teams, they bind communities and break down social distinctions (people in Alabama are fiercely loyal to the Crimson Tide, even though most have not actually attended the university).

State-dominated European universities, by contrast, cast much smaller shadows. A Centre for European Reform report noted "a drab uniformity" across the systems. Talented professors leave. Funding lags. Antibusiness snobbery limits entrepreneurial activity. Research suffers. In the first half of the 20th century, 73 percent of Nobel laureates were based in Europe. Between 1995 and 2004, 19 percent were.

The two systems offer a textbook lesson in how to and how not to use government. In one system, the state supports local autonomy and private creativity. In the other, the state tries to equalize, but merely ends up centralizing and stultifying. This contrast might be worth dwelling upon as we contemplate health care reform, K-12 education reform and anything else government might touch.

The dynamic American university system is now undergoing yet another revolution — globalization. More foreign students are coming to the U.S., and more want to stay after they get their degrees.

This is bound to be great for American society. It will probably do almost nothing for our future World Cup prospects.

All three traditional domains of higher education — sports, teaching, and research — as well as that new, distinctively modern monstrosity called "administration," replicate the same processes that have subverted the honor of the professions of law, medicine, the ministry, the military, politics, and business. All show what happens when commerce is substituted for morality and ethics throughout society.

Performance is all that counts in society, in politics, in the arts, in business, and in our entertainments. …As in most large-scale business enterprises, such as, say, Halliburton or Bechtel or Microsoft, NASA, the pharmaceutical industry, Big Oil, Morgan Stanley, the military, the prison system, and the police, there is not much chance of reforming the college-sports scene — as little chance as there is of reforming the education "business" that needs its athletes the way the entertainment business needs its "idols."

Likening watching sports to a religious experience, as Gumbrecht [White’s colleague and sparring partner] does, diverts attention from the sleaziness and ugliness of the institutions of college sports — in much the same way that certain ideologues in the 1930s distracted attention from the violence of war by celebrating the "sublimity" of battle.

…the most obvious explanation for the widespread popularity of sports is their aesthetic appeal, as powerful as the experience of a beautiful work of music or art. A perfectly executed double play in baseball, a quarterback's pass to an open receiver, or a complex routine in women's gymnastics are epiphanies of form and of bodily grace. Experienced as such, they can help us recuperate a positive feeling for the physicality of our existence in a physical universe — and in this potential effect, they converge with the effects of a Mozart opera, a painting by Jackson Pollock, or a novel by Toni Morrison.

Whenever the soprano Jennifer Winn, who portrayed Alice, sang a relatively unaccompanied vocal line, her pitch was true, despite the angular leaps in the vocal writing, and her diction clear. But for the most part she had to fight to be heard above the sustained, high-pitched singing of the chorus, which often sounded like some curious mix of Gesualdo madrigals and Ligeti atmospherics.

dissidents are trying to get a foothold on the governing board through alumni elections. The unfolding controversy is being watched closely by other universities.

"The old way of doing business, where people get their degree, lead their lives and the only source of information about their institution is the alumni magazine, that's just gone," said Peter Robinson, Dartmouth class of '79, a speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan and a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, who was one of the insurgents who won election to the board last year.

Conservative alumni at Colgate University and Hamilton College in upstate New York have also tried to reach the board as petition candidates, so far unsuccessfully.

At Hamilton, the dissent flared after a campus club issued a speaking invitati