October 27th, 2023
Good career move

Law enforcement found Card’s body around 7:45 p.m. ET, Sauschuck said at a news conference Friday night, adding that he died from an a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His body was found near the Androscoggin River in the Lisbon Falls area, some 10 miles from Lewiston, where the Wednesday night shooting rampage unfolded.

October 12th, 2023
‘Even if it survives, Hamas has by its own deeds shed any hope of acquiring anything that resembles political legitimacy; the path to some Sinn Féin–like rebirth is permanently closed off. Events of the past week have established for all time that Hamas is nothing but a pack of cold-blooded killers.’

Timothy Noah.

September 7th, 2023
“It’s like I was two separate people.”

One robbed one Seattle non-profit, and the other robbed another Seattle non-profit.

Susana Tantico told the court she – She #1 – is a good person, but she has an evil twin – She #2 – that spent years and years and years embezzling money intended for suffering impoverished children. She #2 seems to have killed She #1, because She #1 never did anything. It was all She #2, stealing, stealing, stealing, stealing.

**********************

Certes, UD could have chosen from about twelve trillion almost identical stories in the last six months or so. Everyone, as you know, steals.

No, no, UD: Not everyone. Not everyone!

August 22nd, 2023
Price fixing, bribery, lying about the danger of the opioids they push…

Even by pharma standards, Israel’s Teva is a real ugly standout. Where’s the long punishing article about this dirty enterprise in the NYT? Far as UD can tell, the place has long been a committed bad actor, and one wonders, with its latest massive settlement, whether anyone will bother looking at its scandalous history and writing about it. I mean, it’s clearly able to handle hundreds of millions in penalties every year as the cost of doing business, so pressure needs to come from elsewhere if we are going to stop these predators.

June 29th, 2023
Endless thoughtful analysis and updates at the NYT…

…. on the Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action.

**********************

In an email to “members of the Harvard community,” the university’s president, Lawrence S. Bacow, and other senior leaders said it would comply with the ruling. Noting that Chief Justice Roberts had said that colleges could still take into account essays in which applicants discussed how race had affected their lives, they said they were writing to reaffirm the importance of diversity in “backgrounds, perspectives and lived experiences.”

**********************

 [S]ome scholars say that dire predictions over sharp declines are alarmist and that schools will ultimately return to more racially diverse classes as they adjust to the new paradigm. They point to the University of California, which increased outreach in low-income communities. Over time, the number of Black and Hispanic students increased at most schools in the system.

Richard Sander, a law professor at U.C.L.A. who opposes race-based affirmative action, said that graduation rates for Black students improved after affirmative action was banned in California.

**********************

Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School and an expert on the Supreme Court’s education rulings, predicted that the affirmative action decision could cause some state universities to move to race-neutral strategies for increasing diversity, such as the “top percent” model used in Texas.

In that state, students with the highest grade point averages at each high school are guaranteed admission to a public university, including the system’s flagship, the University of Texas at Austin.

**********************

Wuh Oh…!

College admissions experts anticipate there will be increased pressure on elite schools to end preferential treatment for children of alumni, who are more frequently white and affluent, as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision.

Next thing you know we’ll be hearing there was something wrong with admitting dummy Jared Kushner to Harvard because his father gave the school 2.5 million dollars! Where the hell is this going?

*************************

From another source:

Democrats and blue-chip universities ought to move toward merit and income-based admissions while striving to eliminate legacy preferences.

*************************

Back to the NYT:

In 2020, with Donald Trump on the ballot, Democratic leaders in California launched a campaign to reinstate race-conscious affirmative action in California.

The governor and U.S. Senators and state legislators and a who’s who of business, pro sport and labor elites banded together, outspent opponents 19 to 1 and declared that restoring affirmative action in college admissions and hiring was a matter of racial and social justice.

Yet in a state dominated politically by Democrats and liberals, this referendum, Proposition 16, lost badly, with more than 57 percent of voters opposing it.

A recent Times analysis of that vote exposed a gulf between the party establishment and its voters. The analysis found that the opposition included a majority of Asian American and white voters and half of all Hispanics. Only Black voters offered majority support for the referendum. [See also… And see, from a scholar at the Progressive Policy Institute…]

The California results suggest the issue — and the Supreme Court decision — might have far less political salience than some Democratic activists predict.

June 26th, 2023
‘Critics Say Submersible Should’ve Been Tested With Poorer Passengers First’

The Onion weighs in.

June 22nd, 2023
Awful. Possibly imploded.

A debris field has been found.

Some experts have speculated that it could have suffered a catastrophic implosion as a result of a hull failure. The minivan-sized submersible was owned and operated by the private company OceanGate Expeditions.

The firm’s co-founder, Guillermo Söhnlein, told the BBC that he believes there may have been an “instantaneous implosion” of the craft.

June 20th, 2023
Headline of the Day, from Golf Digest

Donald Trump Says He Lost Track of

Of Classified Nuclear Documents

In a Pile of Golf Shirts

May 10th, 2023
Under the Volcano 2023…

… a postmodern revision of Malcolm Lowry’s modernist masterpiece, featuring protagonist George Santos:

The criminal charges follow a mountain of scandals that have weighed Santos down since before he was sworn into Congress in January.

April 27th, 2023
Breaking: Reports indicate DeSantis has sent the National Guard to Disney World…

… with orders to shut its doors.

But if this photograph from the scene

is authentic, the troops are deserting.

April 20th, 2023
What goes up…

… Musk come down.

April 1st, 2023
‘PRINCETON ACCEPTS 0.00% OF APPLICANTS TO CLASS OF 2027’

Princeton beats Harvard’s 3.41% acceptance rate.

Even more impressive, while 88% of Harvard’s accepted students are expected to accept the school’s offer of admission, Princeton’s matriculation yield is predicted to be 000.00%.

March 2nd, 2023
Shot to Death

Apple Permanently Close[s] Down a Store

in a North Carolina Mall after 3 Shootings

at the Mall in just 75 Days

February 22nd, 2023
Shit for Brains

LAXATIVE USE MAY BE

LINKED TO DEMENTIA RISK

January 31st, 2023
Rats.

George Santos Won’t Serve on House Committees

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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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