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
August 8th, 2010 at 9:05AM
Just apply an “overhead” percentage to all specifically-directed contributions, as is done with research grants…”Phil, thank you very much for your willingness to consider this big contribution…of course, 50% is allocated to the university general fund, just as I’m sure your product line managers at Nike have to help pay for the company headquarters and headquarters staff rather than retaining all their margin for their own businesses…”
August 8th, 2010 at 9:22AM
And the U of M wants to spend big bucks for a new practice facility for the (men’s) basketball team…
Of course the claim is that the funding will be private. But someone from the U development is out raising the money as is often the case. This happens a lot. And not just in athletics.
Something that the admin knows will be perceived as a boondoggle by the legislature is not even brought up, not even with the academic community. But then, voila, the decision is a fait accompli, usually with an unspoken commitment from general funds and sometimes even with an appeal to the lege with the plea, but we have already raised x$.
Examples, past and ongoing: football stadium, Northrop auditorium rehab (a mega project in drag, with long term financial implications), the biomedical discovery district, MoreU Park, etc. etc.
And so it goes.
As UD puts it: “Nonsense, they can turn down gifts.”
To which I add: Stop soliciting gifts for the wrong things…
August 8th, 2010 at 9:39PM
UD, do you know why Nike thinks this is a good investment for them? And do you know if Nike is paying anything for the maintenance of the building? That could start running into serious money after a few years.
Bill, Which “U of M?” Massachusetts? Mississippi? Maryland? Montana? Missouri? Michigan?
August 8th, 2010 at 10:17PM
AYY: I’ll forward your questions to Nathan and see what he says. Here are my guesses:
1. I don’t think Nike thinks of any of its large contributions to sports at Oregon as an investment. My sense is that this is a grateful, sports-mad, insanely rich alum simply doing his thing, loving his school, enjoying the ego-thrill of having his name on lots of buildings and of being a power in UO sports. Knight has a great deal of influence in the running of athletics at the university, I believe.
2. I assume maintenance of the building is also taken care of by the donor.
Bill’s U of M would be Minnesota.
August 9th, 2010 at 9:05AM
Usually maintenance of the building is NOT taken care of by the donor. Yale made waves some years back by instituting a rule that they would not accept gifts for new buildings unless they came with a maintenance endowment.
August 9th, 2010 at 10:07AM
Crystal: I’m going to email Nathan Tublitz and ask him about this. UD
August 9th, 2010 at 4:04PM
Crystal, AYY: Here’s Nathan:
“It is my understanding that the University will pay for maintenance. I don’t have the numbers handy but it is an ultra high tech facility that will likely cost a bundle to run.”
So, Crystal, it looks as though you were right.
As to Nike’s motives, Nathan says he hasn’t a clue…