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 19th, 2013 at 11:43AM
Again, where the hell is the alumni, the student body? Did attending your university entail no more than several years of sitting on your thumb, or thumbs, if you’re somewhat gifted? No critical thinking, no proverbial fire in the belly, nothing, in order to condemn what the hell is taking place at your school? State unis have grifted their student bodies, and instead of rage, it’s nothing more than sanguine complacency. Your “education” served no purpose if it isn’t capable of recognizing frauds and cons that make up much of university administration.
And what of the general population of these states? You guys are on the hook for the massive and useless buildout of these institutions. Again, nothing. James Garfield was correct, what he said of Congress is applicable to our universities, to wit, “Now, more than ever, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress/universities. If those bodies be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption.” What was true in July of 1877, is certainly true today. And with the case of Westfield State, they don’t have a football team of any note to distract them from the administrative bullshit….
August 19th, 2013 at 11:52AM
And further, where the fuck is the Faculty Senate? Where are those god damn tenured satraps, who seem to do nothing more than to fret of what will become of their pensions, their research dollars, their benefits? How many FS’s have stood up and demanded accountability of their administrations? I had a neighbor who was on the CAL FS back in the 60’s, when I was a kid. My parents told me later that the body was instrumental in supporting the Free Speech movement at the school, and condemning the depravity and lies of the Vietnam War. It was their job to be the conscious of the nation, the best and brightest, who were given their tenure in order to speak truth to power, not just get a paycheck for the rest of their fucking lives. If the FS at U of Oregon is any example of the degradation of that institution, with their prostration to Phil Knight’s Nike money, and the attempt to privatize a public institution, then these jackasses should get their pensions taken away, as well as tenure. If you cannot do what is expected of you, then why bother….
August 19th, 2013 at 7:11PM
The document http://www.westfield.ma.edu/uploads/visitorsguide.pdf is illuminating. Westfield has nearly 6000 students, over half of whom are commuters. Looking at the lists of the standing faculty under the various majors, their claimed 18:1 student:faculty ratio is impossible, so it means that they employ a lot of adjuncts. Thus you don’t have a majority of the students and faculty having a strong interest in the campus as a community. Most of the humanities and social departments serve mainly to provide a second, or “content”, major as required by the state of students who are actually majoring in education. Often, this is chosen not out of interest but out of how its course offerings can be conveniently scheduled among their required education classes. This profile fits a lot of institutions, sadly.
August 20th, 2013 at 9:46AM
Polish Peter, thanks so much for the link, and you analysis is illuminating. It seems that many universities have copied the business model of those home improvement crooks, the guys who prey on older, poor African American women, who own homes with a lot of equity. Those women are conned into taking out loans for repairs, made to sigh bogus documents, don’t get the repairs and are forced to pay loans many times higher than what they were told.
Same thing with college, students are told they’ll get an education, sign up for loans without knowing what they’re signing, get little education while forced to pay far higher balances than what they’re initially told.
October 5th, 2013 at 9:28PM
Charlie asks: “Where is the faculty senate?” Answer: nowhere, because there’s no faculty senate at Westfield. The faculty-led part of the governance structure has no power in matters like l’affaire Dobelle, which are the domain of the board of trustees. Polish Peter’s claim about the standing of Westfield’s humanities and social [science] departments’ status vis-a-vis the Education Department is simply false.