But this article makes clear why within five years (UD predicts), at least ten American universities will have coaches as presidents.
But this article makes clear why within five years (UD predicts), at least ten American universities will have coaches as presidents.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
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Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
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The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
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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...
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From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
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As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
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If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte
August 6th, 2014 at 11:17PM
In the S.I. story, Jim Tressel was said to have a title at University of Akron that is new to me: executive vice president for student success. Go figure!
August 7th, 2014 at 6:46AM
adam, I believe you’re right. Tressel faces very serious labor and other challenges. A staff union contract expires Aug. 15. The faculty union contract expires Aug. 17. Tressel enjoys local goodwill, but I’m not sure that really means anything.
Regarding UD’s prediction of coaches as presidents, there may be some rough precedents elsewhere. General Motors displacing production and engineering people with finance and accounting types for top positions. Vietnam combat operations inspired by memo-writing Pentagon policy types. (There may be good examples, too, of executive leadership derived from non-traditional backgrounds.)
August 7th, 2014 at 9:47AM
Ex-Student Affairs frat-boy coordinator inebriate clutching a “Ph.D.” in “Higher Education Administration”?
Been there, done that. Did not work out well. OK, actually it was a disaster. My guess is that the basketball coach probably would have done no worse, sad to say, and most likely had a greater regard for academics. Current head honcho Pres. Peterprinciple is not exactly inspiring confidence in a traditional academician, either.
August 7th, 2014 at 10:55AM
As someone who believes in the “homo economicus” I am a bit doubtful about the prediction. University presidents are paid much less than coaches…
August 7th, 2014 at 10:59AM
econprof: I should have added that I’m predicting the job will go to failed coaches – or coaches like Tressel who have been through major scandals and are badly tainted. The job of university president, by my prediction, will be a third-tier loser job: University coaches are coaches who can’t make it in the professional leagues; university president coaches are coaches who can’t make it in the amateur leagues.
August 7th, 2014 at 11:59AM
Tressel was chosen over a strong in-house candidate, a dean who revived a college demoralized by a behaviorally challenged previous dean, showed intellectual enterprise by introducing new curricula and expanding existing tracks, increased college enrollment despite Youngstown State’s overall enrollment decline, who already knew the campus players and hot issues, who brought in Federal and private donor bucks, who worked with local media and civic leaders, who had an earned doctorate, etc.
Some days you just don’t know what to say(: