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
June 21st, 2010 at 9:23AM
Pitt’s a public university. By charter it’s a quasi-public, like other Pennsylvania publics (Penn State and Temple). But it’s safe to say that Pitt considers itself a public. By the way, where’s the link on this one?
June 21st, 2010 at 9:46AM
The so-called BigTen had Pitt as one of their possible schools for addition. Unfortunately, Pitt would embarrass at least half the schools in the BigTen – academically – by outperforming them. We couldn’t have that, could we? Ergo, Nebraska.
June 21st, 2010 at 9:57AM
Before we get all gushy over Pitt…
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_446555.html
http://chronicle.com/article/Company-Says-Research-It/48319/
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/25/us/despite-scandal-research-trials-thrive.html
June 21st, 2010 at 10:05AM
anon: Thanks – link is now in.
June 21st, 2010 at 10:18AM
GTWMA – that would make Pitt fit right in with many BigTen Schools that have their own share of scandals.
Failure to disclose financial links to industry?
Faked data in papers?
Interference with the admission process for political donors?
I could go on, and on, and on and UD has already done serious spade work.
Academically, I am afraid Pitt still has a slight edge over Nebraska. And they usually have a competitive football team.
June 21st, 2010 at 1:12PM
I am second to none in my admiration for Pitt academics, however your views on their football team are misguided. In the last five years, Pitt finished with more wins than Nebraska a total of zero times. Over the last ten years, it was just two times. And that doesn’t even get us to the early 1990s, when Nebraska had two #1 rankings.
Maybe I just hit on the real reason 🙂
June 21st, 2010 at 4:06PM
My point is that Pitt usually has a competitive football team, not that they they are currently of the caliber of Nebraska.
As Wiki puts it:
“Pitt has claimed nine National Championships,[1] is among the top 20 college football programs in terms of all-time wins,[2] and its teams have featured many coaches and players notable throughout the history of college football, including, among all schools, the eleventh most College Football Hall of Fame inductees,[3] the eighth most consensus All-Americans,[4] and the seventh most Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees.[5]”
Pitt has retired 8 jerseys of former outstanding football players
* #13 Dan Marino, Quarterback, 1979–1982
* #33 Tony Dorsett, Running Back, 1973–1976
* #42 Marshall Goldberg, Running Back, 1936–1938
* #65 Joe Schmidt, Linebacker, 1950–1952
* #73 Mark May, Offensive Tackle, 1977–1980
* #79 Bill Fralic, Offensive Tackle, 1981–1984
* #89 Mike Ditka, End, 1958–1960
* #99 Hugh Green, Defensive End, 1977–1980
Not chopped liver…
We’d best let this drop. UD will be pissed.
June 21st, 2010 at 6:36PM
Full disclosure:
I grew up in Pittsburgh. My first job was at Pitt as a lab tech. It was that or working in the analytical chemistry department of a coal mine. Niels Jerne was the chairman of the Microbiology Department. He later won a Nobel Prize. In this department, Jonas Salk did his outstanding work on the polio vaccine. Before Salk, polio was a terrible scourge and many of my friends wore arm (and leg) braces from its effects. Go PITT!
June 21st, 2010 at 9:53PM
I’ll risk her wrath.
Ancient history. You’ll notice those retired numbers end in 1982, and that’s when good Pitt football ended, too. Since 1981, they have a record of 141 and 123.
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:57AM
The Big 10’s fixation on Nebraska is evidently a desire to add a “marquee name” to the football schedule to get more money in the next TV contract (cf. Notre Dame). There are much better fits out there in terms of academics, overall athletic program, geography, etc. (I’d have gone for Maryland, as there are advantages to having games in the DC area). Since football reputations rise and (mostly) fall, and changing leagues can hurt as well as help, the Nebraska choice may prove short-sighted.
June 22nd, 2010 at 8:12AM
There is a potential natural rivalry between Nebraska and Iowa. The Cornhusker faithful are also known for being willing to travel a long way for away games, and some of the perennial weak sisters in the Big Ten with not-so-great attendance are also within a day’s driving distance: e.g., Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, and Indiana.
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:09PM
Yes, indeed, Nebraska fans love to visit the U of M(innesota).
Think numbers like 84-13, 56-0 …