The Lexington Herald-Leader notes that Wendell Berry has

express[ed] his displeasure when his university, the one where he both studied and taught, crawls in bed with an industry that blasts mountains apart, fills adjacent valleys with rubble and destroys or pollutes waterways in the pursuit of profit.

UK — indeed, the whole state of Kentucky — endured a few days as the butt of a national joke after the school’s trustees agreed to paste “Wildcat Coal Lodge” on an unnecessary new basketball dormitory in exchange for donation of the $7 million construction cost.

Now, we’re seeing a more serious consequence of the decision to sell the university’s soul — a severing of ties between one of Kentucky’s most esteemed men of letters and the state’s flagship institution of higher education…

He’s taken his brain and gone home. Or in search of a university.

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“A heartbreaking thing for me.” — Berry talks about his repudiation of UK.

It’s about the writer Wendell Berry, who has withdrawn, in protest, his papers from the University of Kentucky.

Read all about it.

Sordid story out of South Korea about university corruption and one response to it: Suicide.

This particular suicide was accompanied by a long, tell-all note and is therefore receiving a lot of press coverage.

And Tom Petters gave millions to Miami University of Ohio to set up an ethics center. (Miami has returned the money. Not to Petters. He’s in prison for fifty years. To a court-appointed receiver.)

What are we to make of Merkin, Blagojevich, and Petters?

Well, read your Elmer Gantry.

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[UD thanks Daniel for correcting her on the name of the university.]

… at Health Care Renewal says most of what needs to be said about the latest university overcompensation story, this one at the University of Maryland.

Here’s the Baltimore Sun account, which includes a statement from Governor Martin O’Malley:

This is an outrageous case of excessive executive compensation in a public institution. This sort of ‘golden parachute’ has no place in the public sector.

Lucky Temple University now gets this retiree, who says he “completed the Program for Health Systems Management at Harvard University,” but I can’t find that program.

Sometimes he renders it lower case: program for health systems management.

I’m looking all over the School of Public Health at Harvard, but I can’t find it. Has it changed its name? What sort of degree was conferred? This is the closest thing I can find.

… Texas.

After threatening colleagues, literary journals and newspapers with legal action last week, Orlando Figes has revealed this morning that it was not his wife who anonymously rubbished fellow historians in comments on Amazon: it was him.

In a statement released to the Daily Mail the professor of history at London’s Birkbeck College said that he takes “full responsibility” for what he called “foolish errors”….

UD thanks Dave for the link.

Background here.

This guy tells you why you should consider signing this petition.

(I’m signature #1089.)

Edward Shorter of the University of Toronto keens over the bloated corpse of the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

The pharmaceutical industry, writes Shorter in the Wall Street Journal, “seeks the largest possible market for a given drug, and advertises huge diseases, such as major depression and schizophrenia, the scientific status of which makes insiders uneasy.”

The DSM provides pharma a market-expanding facade of empiricism. Its ever-broadening girth is a result of “increased specificity” of diagnosis within these immense major disease categories, but the specificity “is spurious. There is little risk of misdiagnosis, because the new disorders all respond to the same drugs, so in terms of treatment, the differentiation is meaningless and of benefit mainly to pharmaceutical companies that market drugs for these niches.” As a commenter on Shorter’s piece puts it, “We’re slicing up illnesses in small portions, we’re treating illnesses with very different names and symptoms with basically the same medications, and we’re at least partly doing this because drug companies have discovered the primary marketing mantra of differentiation. ”

Smartly tricked-out pills for your tailor-made depression; a whole other set for your very own anxiety. Yet “these indications are more marketing devices than scientific categories, because most depression entails anxiety and vice versa.”

The latest draft of the DSM fixes none of the problems with the previous DSM series, and even creates some new ones.

A new problem is the extension of “schizophrenia” to a larger population, with “psychosis risk syndrome.” Even if you aren’t floridly psychotic with hallucinations and delusions, eccentric behavior can nonetheless awaken the suspicion that you might someday become psychotic. Let’s say you have “disorganized speech.” This would apply to about half of my students. Pour on the Seroquel for “psychosis risk syndrome”!

DSM-V accelerates the trend of making variants on the spectrum of everyday behavior into diseases: turning grief into depression, apprehension into anxiety, and boyishness into hyperactivity. [One of Shorter’s commenters calls this disgusting development “psychosprawl.”]

If there were specific treatments for these various niches, you could argue this is good diagnostics. But, as with other forms of anxiety-depression, the SSRIs [a major category of pills] are thought good for everything. Yet to market a given indication, such as social-anxiety disorder, it’s necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on registration trials to convince the FDA that your agent works for this disease that previously nobody had ever heard of.

See why your placebo with strong side effects costs so much?

And we haven’t yet touched on advertising and litigation budgets.

With DSM-V, American psychiatry is … defining ever-widening circles of the population as mentally ill with vague and undifferentiated diagnoses and treating them with powerful drugs.

As details emerge of the failure of Canada’s First Nations University (background here), it’s clear that this was a textbook case of institutional failure.

Or, rather, comic book. You have to laugh at the maniacal thoroughness with which its overseers inflicted upon FNU every conceivable injury you can inflict on a university. Only the story of Yusupov’s plot against Rasputin chronicles as many wounds.

Kajoko Kifuji, a professor at Tufts, prescribed homicidal amounts of anti-psychotics to a child.

I mean, of course, she handed the prescriptions to the child’s parents – the child was only four at the time.

Kifuji had been giving her powerful drugs since she was two.

Rebecca Riley’s parents killed her (the mother has been convicted of second degree murder; the father’s trial begins soon) via doses of the multiple non-FDA-approved (for use in children) drugs Kifuji gave them.

Kifuji – who prescribed the same drugs to the parents’ other two children – based these prescriptions on what the mother told her about her children.

Kifuji testified that her diagnosis was primarily based on Carolyn Riley’s description of her daughter as aggressive and disruptive. She in 2004 prescribed Clonidine to Rebecca for ADHD; the next year, she prescribed Depakote to treat bipolar disorder.

Kifuji went on to approve a double dosage of the medication after Carolyn Riley told her that she was giving Rebecca twice the daily recommended amount.

That’s from the Tufts newspaper. Here’s Lawrence Diller with more detail:

Dr. Kifuji determined that Rebecca at age two had hyperactivity and began prescribing drugs to her at that time. Kifuji changed her diagnosis to bipolar disorder at age three. She also made the same diagnosis for Rebecca’s brother and sister who were nine and seven. All three were receiving variations of these sedating psychiatric medications. Kifuji, who was granted immunity against prosecution to gain her cooperation, testified during the trial that she relied almost exclusively on reports from Rebecca’s mother on the children’s aggressive behavior, sleep problems and history of mental illness in the family to make the diagnosis for the three children.

… [A] three year old was prescribed three psychiatric drugs for bipolar disorder…

… Joseph Biederman, head of Harvard’s Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, has long espoused the bipolar diagnosis in children. He and his group have claimed the diagnosis can be made in children as young as two and should be followed by aggressive psychiatric drug interventions…

Once Kifuji’s finished with her busy court appearance schedule, she will be hiring lawyers to defend her against a malpractice suit from the estate of Rebecca Riley.

Tufts thinks she’s great. Happy to have on her board.

… a lawsuit over excessive compensation.

Next up: Mark Emmert!

A University of Minnesota task force that proposes one-on-one remedial work with school of education students who fail to adopt mandated political views has attracted a lot of negative attention to that school. All sorts of people have pointed out that this profoundly anti-democratic initiative violates freedom of conscience.

Here’s the Minnesota damage control guy:

“It’s not at all what they’re suggesting — that it’s some sort of litmus test — it’s just making sure that teachers are prepared to deal with the different situations that they might have for each and every student — which has been a challenge in the past,” he said. “Teachers obviously come from one perspective, so if they’ve got 15 other people of different backgrounds in their classrooms it’s a completely different situation.”

No, actually teachers don’t come from one perspective. No one – except, it seems, the ideologues on the task force – comes at life from one perspective. Americans especially, for obvious historical and social reasons, tend in fact to be remarkably culturally flexible. It’s sickening and insulting that anyone in a position of responsibility would take what’s best in us, what’s made this country a success — our high levels of assimilation and tolerance, our ability to imagine our way into foreign worlds — and gut it on behalf of a witless reeducation program.

The absolute catastrophe that the corrupt state of New Mexico has visited on its public university assumes, with each new scandal, the dimensions of a novel by Cormac McCarthy.

Maybe the darkest pages of All the King’s Men get closer to it. Or the film Mad Max, with its apocalyptic gore. Never, in UD‘s memory, has a university fallen so low.

A local writer, Joe Monahan, attempts to come to grips with the reality that an American campus has been buried. He asks whether it can be unearthed.

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The slow motion destruction of the credibility of the University of New Mexico continues inexorably. It seems no one can or will stop it. Not the UNM Board of Regents. Not the Governor. Not the Lieutenant Governor who would be Governor. Not the powers that be in the Legislature. And not depressed university boosters who remain silent.

The university sails alone in troubled waters, captained by the politics of cronyism. The ship is listing badly, struck by too many torpedoes–the coach Locksley scandal, the faculty vote of no-confidence in the UNM president, the hiring of multiple Governor-backed political appointees and the blatant politicization of the UNM regents.

The leading figures at the helm of the university are locked so deeply in politically incestuous relationships that no one will check the other’s actions. What is to be done?

THE PRESIDENT

The time for bashing university president David Schmidly is past. This administration is effectively over.

Now we can only beseech him to announce that he will resign his position within a year and spend that time attempting to clean up the mess (Ditto for Schmidly’s right hand man, the politically connected executive vice-president David Harris). The president’s best chance to preserve any legacy is to acknowledge that his has been a very troubled tenure, but that in the end reality was recognized.

Once his resignation is announced the president will need to dismiss UNM athletic director Paul Krebs and his key associates. He will also have to hand walking papers to UNM football coach Locksley which could mean a large severance payout, but there is no choice. The damage is done, and irrevocable if the same players remain. The cover-up culture must be purged and with it the elitist salaries and perquisites.

After securing Krebs’ resignation, the president should then consider giving the title of athletic director to UNM Lobo basketball coach Steve Alford. Through this violent storm he has retained his credibility nationally and locally. Paid $1 million a year, Alford should have no problem handling both jobs on a temporary basis.

The search for permanent replacements for Locksley and Krebs should be confined to New Mexicans. There are many fine coaches and administrators at area high schools. UNM alumni, athletic boosters and the sports media cheerleaders need to have expectations dialed down.

In short, the bar needs to be reset on the aspirations of Lobo athletics. Student athletes–especially those in the football and basketball programs–have been subjected to unreasonable expectations which in turn leads to the chaos we now confront. Basketball coach Alford seems to be finding a balance–another reason why we see him as a prime choice for an interim athletic director.

THE GOVERNOR

There is apparently no chance that Governor Richardson will take any action to acknowledge the manifold messes strangling UNM. His forceful political personality, so effective in other matters, overwhelmed the institutional strength of the university and set in motion the events that are consuming the school. But if he were to see the light, he would call for the regents’ resignations and begin replacing them with appointees who are not from the world of politics. (Is that possible?)

THE SENATOR

There is still a chance for the Legislature to prevent a complete shipwreck. We warned during the 2009 legislative session that the decision of state Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Linda Lopez not to hold an intensive confirmation hearing on the reappointment of regent Jamie Koch and the turmoil-ridden campus sent a signal that legislative oversight of UNM was not to be. Lopez could still hold that hearing in January and appropriators could start demanding change in exchange for dollars.

THE HOUSE

In the state House the current leadership is so deeply entwined with regent Koch and regents president and former longtime NM House speaker Raymond Sanchez, we don’t know where to look for reform. But university area state representatives and senators are a start. That would be Sen. McSorley and Rep. Chasey. They have safe seats for life. Where are they?

THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish has made education a banner issue, but she has yet to wade into the UNM waters. That will come when the campaign for Governor begins in earnest. But she needs to know now that deep concern is being expressed among major donors and supporters of UNM about her long political relationship with former Democratic Party chairman and regent Koch. It is causing worried speculation that her election as Governor would be more of the same–which in this case means an endless spiral of controversy, cronyism and damage to UNM’s reputation. Will she have the political will to break with the past? Will she send any early signals?

THE OTHER REGENTS

And where are the regents you hear little from–Santa Fe attorney Gene Gallegos, car dealer Don Chalmers, attorney Carolyn Abieta and Farmington’s Jack Fortner? These are all distinguished volunteers, but the time for being bumps on the log is long past. They have the power to pressure the UNM president and even the governor who appointed them. Being an “honorific” regent in the breaking point year of 2009 is not an option.

Change must and will come, but this rudderless ship is headed into the sandbars. How much more damage it will suffer before the rescue party arrives is the dreaded unknown hanging over the home of the Lobos and those who fret for its future.

Joe Monahan, New Mexico Politics

America’s worst university is also its filthiest: As per tradition, thousands of drunken tailgaters have dumped … let’s see.. seventy tons of trash on campus after a recent football game.

“[P]olice estimate we have 15,000 to 25,000 people who come here to tailgate and spend the day with no intention of attending the ballgame,” says the university’s sports-mad president, Michael Adams, who deserves everything he gets, since his asshole-friendly policies created the problem.

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The headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution states the school’s quandary:

IS THE TRASHING OF UGA DUE TO TAILGATING OR DRINKING?

Hm, yes, take your pick. The regular transformation of an American university campus into a puke and piss dump is maybe because of its y’all come on down tailgating policies, or maybe because y’all doesn’t even know there’s a football game going on … doesn’t even know it’s on a campus…

So you don’t gotta choose, really. It’s tailgating and it’s drinking.

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Got my headline for this post from a remark someone made on the article’s comment thread.

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Here’s another comment: “It was just shocking to see the aftermath,” said Andy Carter, 37, who works at the UGA Library and only recently moved to Athens.

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What are these people seeing? Let’s not be coy:

Whole tailgate tents left half-standing. Abandoned portable grills. Urination in campus doorways. Defecation. Trash strewn everywhere.

Oh and they got all sorts of folk comin’ up with all sorts a jackshit excuses — Blamin’ it on the media ’cause they want UGA to have night games and you know how somehow I dunno but somehow folks just do that much more shittin’ in classroom doorways when it’s dark out…

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No one’s saying that the university campus has to be a meticulous little monastery. Have your games. Expect noise and mess. But America’s worst university holds that title in part because it’s lost all sense of decorum, all sense that it’s supposed to be a serious place, where people like librarians can go about their business without stepping in Bubba’s shit.