October 6th, 2025
Life goes on, with pastels.

Diurnal reassurance, at once placid and thundering.

From our second floor balcony, 7:25 AM, Rehoboth Beach, DE.

October 4th, 2025
Les UDs are off for their autumn…

… stay at Rehoboth. Blogging continues.

May 15th, 2025
Last day, Rehoboth.

Les UDs will return in the fall, when excess heat and excess crowds go away.

May 10th, 2025
Sunrise Rehoboth.
May 5th, 2025
Off to Rehoboth Beach…

… where blogging continues.

March 11th, 2025
UD goes to Rehoboth Beach today…

… for a brief visit. Blogging continues.

November 5th, 2024
The Atlantic coast, late autumn, late afternoon.

The main thing to convey is the silver blue of the sand; but all elements – all – shone with overwhelming clarity.

Words like pellucid, electrical. Gulls cut hard against the ultramarine. You could feel the sunlight on your back at four pm in November.

The unseasonable. The uncanny. The great calm of the ocean summoned a mirage of whales. The great sweep of beach and water.

And so your psyche sought the same level, the same evenness of temper; and the land and seascape was so overwhelming

That it wasn’t serenity but absence: The surrender of your turbulence to an airtight argument.

May 24th, 2024
Two croissants, plus an apricot, and an almond, confection.

And UD’s little beachstone collection. Breakfast on the balcony – from the iconic Papillon! – as a thunderstorm readies itself.

May 22nd, 2024
A wag placed cardinals in a seaside tree.
May 18th, 2024
Sacred and the Profane…

… in Rehoboth Beach.

May 16th, 2024
Simplicity of Seaside

Sun floods the room at six 
Two steps to the balcony to watch
Tai chi social media bagpipe cigar
Distant gaze usual metaphysical confusion

Boardwalk stroll for latte and scone
Superhearty good mornings from fellow oldies
Translation: GRATEFUL LIKE HELL I'M HERE
Here meaning the world rather than

Whatever's behind the metaphysical curtain
Latte machine broken so cafe person
Climbs almost to the top of it while cafe people
On the ground make inadequate latte after latte

All apologize I'm fine take your time
Boardwalk stroll back to the balcony
More greetings from gratefuls
And now: Grateful metaphysical breakfast



May 15th, 2024
Just kidding about the not business!

A sign in Rehoboth Beach. Scathing Online Schoolmarm remains fascinated by the idiotic things people do with quotation marks.

May 11th, 2024
Les UDs are off to Rehoboth Beach.

Blogging continues.

November 9th, 2023
Battalions of Gulls at Sunset
November 6th, 2023
Christmas decorations went up this morning…

… in Rehoboth Beach.

In other exciting news, UD got up from lying on the beach and waved goodbye as the president’s helicopters passed over her on their way back to DC.

AND: It may be November, but UD has a serious sunburn on her face.

Next Page »

UD REVIEWED

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

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