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The Valley of Death…

… is what professors at the University of Kentucky call the entire academic side of their university.

If you’ve read University Diaries for any time at all, you know UD has long argued that only prodigious bourbon intake can explain the way the school is run.

Now, UK goes from the valley to the Peek — Joe Peek, UK professor of finance and newly-elected faculty member on the university’s absurd board of trustees.

Peek talks all kinds of amazing shit. Here’s some of it:

At the June Board of Trustees meeting, the budget that was approved included another $6 million for Coldstream [Research Park]. …My understanding is that Coldstream was supposed to be profitable long ago, and UK has already invested over $11 million in it. …I have heard, but do not know for sure, that an evaluation of Coldstream is on the agenda. Why would UK give Coldstream more money and only afterwards evaluate it?

Is UK really number 129 [on the US News and World Report ranking]? … Facts [like this one] don’t cease to exist because UK administrators choose to ignore them. … We are supposed to be Kentucky’s flagship university; it is about time we start acting like it.

Readers’ comments on the article are also intriguing:

[UK] has been held captive by basketball for as I long as I can remember (5+ decades).

UK [:] excellence in pharmacy and basketball…

Lets work together to end UKs idiotic sports obsession…

Margaret Soltan, September 8, 2010 11:57AM
Posted in: the university

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5 Responses to “The Valley of Death…”

  1. theprofessor Says:

    Their prez, Lee Todd, is supposedly packing it in after this year.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Yes, tp, I just read that. If it were any other campus, I’d say it means an opportunity for change. Not Kentucky.

  3. University Diaries » All Eyes on Kentucky! Says:

    […] the president who helped steer the University of Kentucky into the ground about to retire, but, as reported here, a loud, contrarian faculty member is about to take a seat on the board of […]

  4. University Diaries » “The leaders of our state’s flagship university – where our young are supposedly taught values – have just hired a slick law firm to gloss over the latest caper at what some in the country now laughingly call: ‘ Says:

    […] of Tennessee v. University of Kentucky: A race to below the […]

  5. University Diaries » Ain’t that great. Says:

    […] University of Kentucky has so much to be proud of: Its sports program; its stewardship of the state’s arts and letters… And now there’s […]

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