June 22nd, 2019
On this morning’s pick up trash walk.
Informative plaque about Garrett Park.

June 16th, 2019
Excess signage around Garrett Park’s Black Market Bistro.

Seen on today’s early morning pick up trash walk. UD thought she’d have plenty to pick up – Saturday was insane with activity all over town – but the town crew must have swept through late yesterday, because the streets were frustratingly pristine. She did collect one half-full bottle (calorie free health drink, natch) in Wells Park, and a black plastic fork in front of the tennis courts, but that was it.

UD also lays some of the blame on fellow Garrett Parkers, who, all day long every day, do exactly what UD does.

May 29th, 2019
Slurp. Turtle eats worm…

… in UD’s back garden. Photo: Frances Eby.

May 23rd, 2019
After this afternoon’s torrential rains…
… Rokeby Avenue gleams.
May 18th, 2019
UD’s Cousin Karen as Miss Prism…

… in The Importance of Being Earnest.

May 18th, 2019
Some town wag…

… has placed a flamboyance of flamingos in Garrett Park’s Porcupine Woods.

As seen on UD‘s morning walk. She’s back from Harpers Ferry, having taken the MARC train to get there and the Amtrak from Chicago (an hour late) to get back.

It’s an insanely busy Saturday in town – there’s the farmer’s market, a plant swap (UD has nothing to swap, but would like to take, if they’ll let her), yard sales everywhere, etc. If you’re local, it’s a good day to see GP.

May 15th, 2019
Off for a short trip to Harpers Ferry.

Trying to get there via the MARC train that stops right by UD’s house. We’ll see if this works. Will try to blog from there.

May 13th, 2019
Rabbit.
The view as you open UD’s front door on a rainy Monday morning.
May 12th, 2019
We have memorial bookshelves.

This is the one for my mother, Mitzi Rapp, a historian.

May 5th, 2019
The Woods So Wild.

Variations.

Bird cage brought back from Bali. On a rainy Sunday morning.
May 4th, 2019
Garrett Park Farmer’s Market…
… this morning.
May 3rd, 2019
Time to make your bid…

… for one of the Soltans’ Fangors. Bonham’s auction, May 15, New York City. (Scroll down to Lot 7 here.)

Details when you enlarge the image.
May 3rd, 2019
Peonies, Day Four
Here they are after a brief, violent storm yesterday afternoon. It left picturesque raindrops all over them.

Also seen all over town on this morning’s walk: Political signs. Details of the pitched battle for town council here. One sign – très Garrett Park – features first name only and an allusion to the trains that run through town. Indeed this candidate is a self-professed choochoophile who bought a house near the tracks so he could hear freight being hauled all the time.

I would have designed the poster with the train pulling in the same direction as the dynamically rendered PHIL. As it is, he seems not on track, but rather at odds with himself.
May 2nd, 2019
Morning fog; deer; downed trees chopped and ready to be dragged into the woods.
Their silhouettes in the fog are elegant. UD‘s backyard is way primeval.
May 1st, 2019
A wealth of globed peonies…

abounds along UD‘s early morning Garrett Park walks. She’s been following one planting in particular (see photograph a few posts below this one) as “the fist of a bud / sprung into petals” begins to do its petaling thing. So here’s a picture of the same peonies twenty-four hours after that first picture.

Just beginning to unfold. Loosening their green sheathes.

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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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