… essay by Peter Brooks in the New York Review of Books. But there’s something in his vague, high-minded tone that marks him as floating above the problems he claims to be taking seriously.
… essay by Peter Brooks in the New York Review of Books. But there’s something in his vague, high-minded tone that marks him as floating above the problems he claims to be taking seriously.
… which has the lowest graduation rate – 5% – of any university in the country, new settles in for some more good news: In cahoots with an Information Technology specialist on campus, one of its mechanical engineering professors stole $150,000 from the place.
I’ve said there will be more and more of these university hospital Medicare stories, until they become A Story.
Indeed I foresee (Les UD’s finally got around, last night, to watching Ed Wood — which UD laughed through and Mr UD found “depressing” — and I’m thinking here of The Amazing Criswell’s predictions.) the larger story featured in a long Page One piece in the New York Times.
This particular story, out of the SUNY system, features spine-tingling allegations from a staff doctor who also served as “quality improvement officer” for the neurosurgery department. (He works now at Boston University.)
The chair of the hospital’s neurosurgery department – who fired the whistleblower shortly after he started blowing the whistle – was himself eventually brought down by his Nazi fetish.
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Update: Note that I’ve changed Syracuse to SUNY. Syracuse sold the hospital to the SUNY system. UD thanks Mr Punch for the correction.
Yes and no.
The taste of Jim Calhoun still lingers on the palate; Robert Burton’s letter echoes in the ear; and now there’s Professor Kenneth Dautrich. All at the University of Connecticut.
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(UD thanks Dave for the link to the Burton letter.)
Mark DuVall, a democrat in the Mississippi House of Representatives, has introduced a bill mandating the playing of certain songs at all University of Mississippi football and basketball games.
In the New York Times, David Leonhardt points out that
most dropouts today are not students unable to keep up with college work. Instead, they generally attend colleges that, research shows, are neither very rigorous nor very engaged in students’ lives. Many of these colleges devote little energy to thinking about — let alone improving — their graduation rate. Changing the funding rules could help change that mind-set.
He calls for cutbacks on badly targeted, inequitable college loan programs.
For value investors, there’s no funner game!
Getting the boys on board at University of South Florida Polytechnic.
National Public Radio tries to wrap its brain around five percent six year graduation rates.
The latest in campus security.
… is much on people’s minds as they try to get a grip on the Tucson killings. In a New Republic piece, William Galston (a friend of Mr UD‘s) notes that
The story repeats itself, over and over. A single narrative connects the Unabomber, George Wallace shooter Arthur Bremmer, Reagan shooter John Hinckley, the Virginia Tech shooter—all mentally disturbed loners who needed to be committed and treated against their will. But the law would not permit it.
As with Jared Lee Loughner, so with Seung-Hui Cho — both had generated enormous anxiety and fear among their professors and fellow students.
Galston concludes:
[T]hose who acquire credible evidence of an individual’s mental disturbance should be required to report it to both law enforcement authorities and the courts, and the legal jeopardy for failing to do so should be tough enough to ensure compliance. Parents, school authorities, and other involved parties should be made to understand that they have responsibilities to the community as a whole, not just to family members or to their own student body. While embarrassment and reluctance to get involved are understandable sentiments, they should not be allowed to drive conduct when the public safety is at stake. We’re not necessarily cramming these measures down anyone’s throat: I’ve known many families who were desperate for laws that would help them do what they knew needed to be done for their adult children, and many college administrators who felt that their hands were tied.
… (Texas Tech, the University of New Mexico, Yeshiva University) are scandal magnets, always in the news for fuck-ups big and small.
Among the scandal magnets, the University of Miami has long been notable for its combination of sports violence and criminal associations. A blogger at the Miami New Times updates us:
The University of Miami sure has a problem with getting caught up with Ponzi schemers. First, high profile athletic booster Nevin Shapiro was busted for a scheme, and now the university is being sued for its involvement in the alleged Ponzi scheme run by Allen Stanford. The suit claims that UM kept nearly $6.4 million it received from Stanford’s company that it doesn’t deserve.
More editorial comment on the U CAL 36, the most litigious, larcenous, and just plain ludicrous group of public employees this side of Naples.
UC regents should not be cowed by this despicable threat… Neither should some of them claim that lavish pensions may be needed to keep and recruit good people to UC.
Good people don’t threaten lawsuits against a cash-strapped state to enrich themselves.
Sacramento Bee