“Without the athletic teams, nobody outside the state of Maine would even know the university exists.”
“Without the athletic teams, nobody outside the state of Maine would even know the university exists.”
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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...
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
April 8th, 2010 at 12:51PM
“…but there is no way to say with any certainty that either athletics or academics are more important to the quality of a university.”
That’s a rather breathtaking statement, even by the standards of student journalism. Are we to assume, then, that if offered a choice between a bachelor’s degree and season tickets for life, the young man would have to flip a coin?
April 8th, 2010 at 2:12PM
I can hear my dad: “Why compare yourself with the worst?”
I will confess to enjoying the Northern Illinois BCS run a few years ago, although that’s a mixed blessing as far as recognition goes. And what has happened to the academic programs at Wisconsin as football and both basketball teams gained visibility pains me to note.
April 9th, 2010 at 5:44AM
This of course is largely true. In terms of national recognition, athletic success beats academic distinction, with very few exceptions – and those at the very highest levels of academic distinction (e.g., Cal Tech). At a first approximation, nobody in America knows that there’s any such thing as the University of Pennsylvania, as opposed to Penn State.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:40AM
I’ve always found this argument – no one knows your college or university exists unless you have Division I teams – confusing, Mr Punch.
Colleges and universities are very specific things. They exist to appeal to a rather small subset of humanity. (State schools, like U. Maine, exist primarily to appeal to people who live in the state and are of course fully aware of their public university’s existence.) Does your proctologist have a Division I football team so that everyone will come to his office?
How many applications does teeny unsporting Amherst get every year? Answer: Tons. Why? Because it’s known to every single inhabitant of Vestal, Utah?
Sure, everyone knows where the University of Georgia is. On game days, everyone from far and wide meets on campus to get drunk and trash the place.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:43PM
Even out of state, does UMaine really need to advertise its existence? It’s not exactly shocking that the State of Maine has a university called the “University of Maine”, or even that it’s the state flagship. I bet they have a state song and a highway department, too.
When I start my diploma mill, I’m not going to name it “Harvale” or “Ashford” or some other vaguely-English suburban subdivision name. I’m calling it “Wyoming State University”.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:47PM
“Harvale” is an inspired name, Jason.