University Diaries » Snapshots from Home

A few years ago, I wrote an essay in the Garrett Park Bugle about why it was important to preserve the architecture and ambience of the town.

The next day, in the mail, I got a silver note card whose careful, beautiful calligraphy read:

MARGARET SOLTAN

TOWN PHILOSOPHER

I was especially flattered because it came from Donal McLaughlin, an eminent Garrett Parker — architect, designer, fellow writer.

Donal was famous around town for being very old — he just died at 102, and the New York Times has a long obit — and for being very political. His calligraphy was all over town on homemade signs which urged us to vote for various Town Council candidates (he supported Mr UD in his successful Council run). There were tons of other signs, most expressing some view of local, national, or international politics.

Donal objected to the expansion of the town’s main commercial building, Penn Place, and after the town voted to go ahead with the project, one of his signs appeared at the entry to the post office:

IF YOU HAVE TEARS,
PREPARE TO SHED
THEM NOW.

Brooding gray letters, funereal background.

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

We used to brood, Mr UD and I, about the fact that in his hundreds Donal still drove. “I just saw McLaughlin in his car again,” Mr UD would say. “Driving it.” We’d look at each other, wide-eyed.

This is what the world will remain Donal for.

donal

He designed the United Nations logo.

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

And speaking of the UN, UD‘s old friend Peter has been, as you may know, fired. Here’s his account of it.

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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...
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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.
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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...
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From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
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I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
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As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
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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.
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If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
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