… leadership for stifling free speech.
… [T]he administration informed the ethics committee that if [Senator Grassley’s] aide spoke, no administrator would be allowed to partake in the [conflicts of interest] panel. As students at Tufts, it is crucial for us all to recognize the administration’s misstep. While it is understandable that Tufts wants to avoid any conflict regarding the investigation, it seems unreasonable that the topic could not be avoided for the educational purposes the event could provide.
The symposium is intended to provide the audience with multiple views and stances on the medical issues of today. Mr. Thacker has firsthand knowledge and experience about a subject that would have provided a unique and fresh viewpoint at the conference. His voice differs from the professionals of Harvard or Tufts, allowing for some diversity and debate at the symposium itself.
Possibly most outspoken on the issue is ethics committee co-chair Sheldon Krimsky, who removed himself from the issue and the organization of the event when the decision was passed. We praise Krimsky for standing behind his belief and the purpose of the ethics committee as a whole…
Background here.
… when she lived on Capitol Hill, died too soon.
But before he died, Judge Graae had a chance to do something brave and important. He had the guts to put the DC housing authority in receivership, and many, many people benefited from this.
The drama at Clemson University, starring a retired French professor, is kind of like that. John Bednar has obviously decided, at an advanced age, to do something brave and important. He has very publicly accused the Clemson administration of serious corruption, and he continues to do so.
For this, he has been pilloried by Clemson’s leadership, and by many in the Clemson community.
We should all be so lucky.
John Montague, Independent.ie:
“The urge to comprehend is so deep. … It would make little sense to live a life if you didn’t understand what you had done. Then you try to make a shape out of it, in a poem or a story. Also, it’s a kind of judgement, you sit on yourself — the things that I’ve done that I can’t stand over and can stand over — accepting it all. You’re trying to emulate the divine vision.”
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Beryl Bainbridge, Guardian:
“I went to a psychiatrist in my thirties. I didn’t realise that you did all the talking and they just sat there, so I got embarrassed and just kept talking and making things up. After about six visits he looked very solemn and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m emigrating to Canada.’ And I said, ‘Oh, lovely!'”
Former UC Irvine Professor Ronald A. Sherman is making new headlines using an old technique: maggot therapy. Although the practice of maggot treatment dates back many centuries, recent scientific studies generated by Sherman have spawned a renewed interest in the procedure.
Maggots are selective eaters, so they will eat dead flesh while leaving the live tissue intact. This makes them excellent wound cleaners because they are able to remove dead and infected skin on open sores without slowing the growth of new skin.
A recent study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) compared maggot therapy to other mainstream treatments. The research team followed the progress of 270 leg ulcer patients and found that the maggots were actually able to clean out the dead skin faster than traditional ulcer therapy. However, they did not decrease the overall rate of recovery, and they seemed to be more painful.
“In people with leg ulcers, we didn’t find that larval therapy increased healing rates,” said Nicky Cullum of the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York. “It cleans it more quickly, but it didn’t heal it more quickly. It comes down to the aim of treatment. If for some reason rapid debridement is important, then you would choose larval therapy — for example if someone was having a skin graft.”
… Although some are disgusted by the idea of live maggots being placed on them, patients seem to be surprisingly receptive.
“One thing we did find is that patients were not put off … The patients were very enthusiastic,” said Pam Mitchell of BTER.
… Fatiguée, as Nigella Lawson notes, is what the French call greens that have lost their crispness, from sitting around too long, or from too much dressing.
Writing can be wilted in the same ways – from sitting around too long, or from being drizzled with too many words.
The problem of tired writing compounds when your subject is itself superannuated.
Yet most subjects are old. Not much crisp under the sun. The point of being a good writer is taking something new to the plate. Plumping things up so people see some aspect of the world fresh.
Consider, for instance, a seasonal problem.
Everyone knows big time university basketball is a rank enseamèd dish, stew’d in corruption. Every March sports writers get up on little ladders and scrounge in their pantries for the canned indignation.
But why? Why do that? Limp writing makes nothing happen. It’s mere ritual. It’s filing a story because you’ve got space to fill by Tuesday. Jim Calhoun has a job to do, and so do you.
But if you had the scruples whose lack you attack in Calhoun, you wouldn’t inflict this sort of futility on your readers.
… From showcase summer camps, to AAU tournaments, to street agents, to runners from professional agents, this is the landscape schools live in. This is the basketball culture, and for all of the NCAA’s attempts to control it, it always seems to get worse, a cesspool of inherent corruption. To the point where the NCAA recently ruled that a seventh-grader is now regarded as a “recruitable” athlete.
Think about that for a second.
Which is not to say that all schools break the rules.
It is to say, though, that this is the basketball world all schools operate in, to the point where virtually all big-time programs are fragile, a deck of cards that has the potential to crumble at any minute, whether it’s off-campus problems, allegations of recruiting violations, rumors of being carried academically, or other supposed atrocities that highlight the fact that players often are not like the other students on campus, regardless of the hype to try to convince people that there are.
Suffice it to say there are no virgins here.
Let’s scathe through that, shall we?
“From showcase summer camps, to AAU tournaments, to street agents, to runners from professional agents, this is the landscape schools live in. [The list’s okay, though all the tos are a bit awkward. Ending on in is weak; remember that you always want to end your sentence on a strong word. And keep an eye on that landscape metaphor.] This is the basketball culture, [This is. This is. Repetition can be effective, but in this case it feels weak, in part because the language is so blah. We begin to doubt the writer’s conviction.] and for all of the NCAA’s attempts to control it, it always seems to get worse, a cesspool of inherent corruption. [It gets worse because the NCAA doesn’t attempt to control it, so here the writer signals his refusal to take on the heavy labor of actual critique. Things get more tired by the minute. And a cesspool of inherent corruption tells you everything you need to know about l’écriture fatiguée. Forget the quick transmutation of a landscape into a cesspool, and think instead about the lazy effort to lend a lifeless salad some life by suddenly spicing it way up. Cesspool is a big ol’ word, way out there. You want to reserve it for something really big, like your suicide note (“Dear World,” wrote George Sanders, “I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.”), or for a piece of your best writing, in which you demonstrate conviction.]
To the point where the NCAA recently ruled that a seventh-grader is now regarded as a “recruitable” athlete. [Dump the quotation marks.]
Think about that for a second.
Which is not to say that all schools break the rules.
It is to say, though, that this is the basketball world all schools operate in, [Note the clumsy wordiness, the overuse of the to be verb, the ineffective repetition.] to the point where virtually all big-time programs are fragile, a deck of cards [Dead metaphor.] that has the potential to crumble at any minute, whether it’s off-campus problems, allegations of recruiting violations, rumors of being carried academically, or other supposed atrocities [Tone problem. What does he mean by calling these things supposed atrocities? I don’t get it.] that highlight the fact that players often are not like the other students on campus, regardless of the hype to try to convince people that there are. [There instead of they. Mistakes will occur when you’re doing automatic writing.]
Suffice it to say there are no virgins here. [Off we go to another dead metaphor.]”
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Update: UD is grateful to James, a reader, for pointing out that both of her fatiguées take an extra e.
No, James. You are not a pest.
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Another Update: This is more like it. The guy actually cares.
Four New York University freshmen reportedly have dismantled a secret marijuana den called “Narnia” that was entered through a hole in the back of a wardrobe.
By the time it was dismantled last week, hundreds of students allegedly had visited the den, crawling through a large hole carved in the back of a university-issued wardrobe placed to hide a doorway to an alcove, the New York Post reported Sunday.
The 10-by-8-foot alcove on the seventh floor of the Hayden Hall dormitory was decorated with Christmas lights, a set of bongos, a stuffed raven and a poster of Narnia’s Prince Caspian, the Post reported.
Narnia is the kingdom in the C.S. Lewis novel “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” in which three children enter an enchanted land through an old wardrobe…
… What must KU faculty members think about the steady and successful efforts by the sports side of the university to raise millions of dollars while about all the academic side of the university can talk about is cuts in state support and the harmful consequences those cuts have on the university, its students, faculty and the state?
… [Current candidates for chancellor] must wonder about the relationship or level of emphasis and importance at KU between athletics and academics. Who or what runs the institution and what is the indebtedness of the athletic department?….
Lawrence Journal-World
“Emanating Connections” by renowned artist Chakaia Booker was unveiled Thursday in front of New Theater.
Booker explained artwork is never completely alive and finished until everyone has experienced looking at it for themselves.
Her sculpture has finally found a resting spot in the art corridor by New Theater. It has been two years since she was first approached to bring her artwork to Indiana State.
“I visited in the summer so it (the area) was more lush, more organic-ness,” Booker said.
Booker recycles old tires and turns it into art, whether it is a sculpture or wall relief.
“Michelin Tires donated the old tires,” Booker said. “I usually use radial tires, but not for this piece,” Booker said.
A person might see Booker walking along the streets of New York, where she lives, or out at her studio in Pennsylvania looking for useful materials.
“If I see something, I pick it up,” Booker said. “It may be at a gas station for less quantity or along the street.”
The idea for the recycled sculpture has to do with connectiveness, forms and shapes. The sculpture brings to life a reverse motion on a wheel, Booker explained.
Paul Reed, director of ISU Recycling Center, said recycling was about used and abandoned materials and expanding its lifestyle.
Reed also stated the artwork makes us all stop and ponder our own feelings.
Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett also attended the dedication.
“What’s interesting about this community is its diversity,” Bennett said during his address to the large audience. “People feel like there is something unique.”…
… and St. Olaf College won the annual Rube Goldberg Machine contest.
The annual competition aims to bring to life Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg’s drawings of complicated machines and gadgets that accomplish simple tasks. Using as many whimsical, counterintuitive steps as possible, the machines must complete a task determined each year by contest organizers.
This year’s task was to replace an incandescent light bulb with a more energy-efficient light-emitting design, and the Oles designed a machine that broke a light bulb and replaced it with 150 light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that spell out “St. Olaf.” They began working on the machine in September as part of a course taught by Assistant Professor of Physics Jason Engbrecht, and devoted thousands of hours — and almost every weekend this semester — to preparing it for competition.
… Team members built a record player from scratch that, as it spins, allows lasers to fire through pre-drilled holes. The lasers are picked up by light sensors, which trigger several other steps and eventually enable a gate to open and release a ball.
The team also constructed a Gauss rifle, a mechanism that uses a magnetic chain reaction to launch a metal ball at a very high speed, and a simple harmonic oscillator, a system that employs simple harmonic motion and magnetic induction to trigger the start of a car moving along a track. They even turned an ice auger into an Archimedes’ screw that caught pool balls and took them from the machine’s lower level to an elevated track…
A once-prominent art dealer was arrested on Thursday on an indictment charging that he stole $88 million from investors, collectors and artists who had consigned paintings and sculpture to his Upper East Side gallery, the authorities said.
The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said the dealer, Lawrence B. Salander, sometimes sold the same painting to more than one buyer. Aides to Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Salander sold one painting to three people, promising each a 50 percent share.
“Why sell it once when you can sell it three times?” Mr. Morgenthau said at a news conference called to announce a 100-count indictment accusing Mr. Salander of grand larceny, falsifying business records, scheming to defraud investors, forging documents and perjury.
Mr. Morgenthau said the charges covered transactions with 26 victims going back to 1994, among them the tennis star John McEnroe. Mr. Morgenthau said the investigation was continuing, raising the possibility that the extent of the theft could climb. One official with direct knowledge of the investigation said the authorities believed that Mr. Salander’s take actually exceeded $100 million.
… Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Salander used the money he pocketed “to finance his self-imposed mission to corner the market in Renaissance art” and to support “his extravagant lifestyle,” which included travels in a private jet. Mr. Morgenthau also said Mr. Salander had spent $60,000 on a party for his wife at the Frick Collection, around the corner from the Salander-O’Reilly Galleries on East 71st Street.
The arrest came 17 months after Mr. Salander’s gallery was shut down and 16 months after he filed for bankruptcy. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison on each of 13 counts of first-degree grand larceny and up to 15 years on each of 10 counts of second-degree grand larceny, along with additional time for the other charges…
What a delicious synergy it would be if Salander were Ezra Merkin’s dealer…
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Update: They were neighbors!
… Hofstra University … saw a board member, 1960 graduate Bernard Madoff, arrested for fraud. It … escaped financial consequences. The school … has a ban on investing with board members.
“Not a cent,” said Stuart Vincent, Hofstra’s assistant vice president for university relations. “There is a policy on our board that none of our trustees are allowed to do business with the university. It wasn’t just happenstance.”
Other nonprofits weren’t so lucky. Board members such as Madoff and those who channeled money to him made nonprofits casualties of both bad investments and faulty board policies.
Madoff was treasurer of the board of trustees at Yeshiva University, which lost more than $14 million after fellow board member J. Ezra Merkin, chair of the board’s investment committee, funneled money to him…
… Most athletes at NCAA Division I-A schools receive unlimited free tutoring. More and more schools require mandatory class attendance for athletes. Athletes generally are ushered into classes where their chances to succeed are, shall we say, outstanding.
It takes more work by an athlete to fail these days than to succeed. Eric Hyman, [University of South Carolina’s] athletics director, says time and again that mandatory class attendance has a direct correlation to success in the classroom. How can they not graduate?…
From the University of Maryland Student Government president:
After one of the longest meetings that I have attended, the Senate amended the Post-Tenure Review policy nearly 10 times before rejecting the final version. Faculty members of the Senate called this a direct “assault” on tenure and echoed each other on how terrible this proposal was.
The faculty members of the Senate should be absolutely ashamed of how this debate went. For whatever reason, the Senate limits their meetings to an hour and 45 minutes, which was extended to two hours 15 minutes at one point during the meeting. As soon as the clock hits 5:00 or in this case, 5:30 the Senate is automatically adjourned. Myself and the President of the Graduate Student Government (GSG) were next in line when one of the Senators motioned for a vote. This took place after hearing not a single other perspective to their endless barrage of hate for this proposal and after not hearing a single student speak on the value of this proposal.
The truth is that the student body, undergraduates and graduates, were united in support of the new Post-Tenure Review process. Professors, tenured or not, should be accountable to the taxpayers of Maryland and face consequences if they are grossly underperforming.
Some of the debate was also disgusting in suggesting that faculty are not “employees” but rather above the system because they are academics. When, in reality, they are accountable to the taxpayers of Maryland who sign their checks just as anyone who works for the University and is a member of the community would be.
Everyone seemed to get overly fixated on the salary-reduction aspect of the proposal, which only happens if a professor repeatedly fails, even after composing for them a development plan to avoid any reduction from happening.
Real objections, as in what this would mean to administer the process, like that of Professor Karol Soltan from BSOS were hushed by overly antagonistic and personal decrees of any idea of salary reduction even for “deadbeat” professors. Professors who would be in violation and subject to a salary reduction are professors that are an embarrassment to our University and our community and weigh departments down.
The faculty Senators should be ashamed of how they behaved yesterday and the Senate should amend their by-laws to allow for healthier debate and time divided equally among differing viewpoints.
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Update: Mr UD speaks, in response to a question a commenter on this thread asked:
We already have of course annual review of all faculty for merit increases. The proposal claimed that the new form of post-tenure review could be just blended in, but when you considered the actual detail of how it would be implemented, it began to look like we would need two committees doing very similar evaluations every year, or we would have to seriously compromise on the way both tasks are done.
The key point in any case is that we already have post-tenure review, every five years (a lot of reporting misses this rather crucial point). It is apparently not implemented in some (many? I don’t know) departments. But in mine, for example, it is implemented. And every five years one can do a far more serious and long term review. So for those departments like mine the proposed change would increase administrative cost, and lower the quality of the review.
Given the great variety of departments and other units that we have, that any large university has, it is very unlikely that one system will work well everywhere. Through the debate I became convinced that the system we have is not implemented across the board, because it is hard to implement in small departments (I am in a large one), so the solution is to allow a number of systems of post-tenure review, different ones for different units. It would have been very difficult to amend the proposal we were considering in the way that would incorporate what I think is the necessary diversity. So I voted against it.
K