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
September 2nd, 2014 at 11:11AM
I hesitate to defend Trachtenberg, but is what he said so unreasonable? Of course rape is always the fault of the rapist. But surely suggesting that young women who drink themselves into oblivion in a frat house might be taking a foolish risk is … I dunno … obvious?
September 2nd, 2014 at 1:20PM
Colin: I agree with you that there’s some reasonableness behind Trachtenberg’s statement. But as uttered, the statement falls pretty short of reasonableness and makes him vulnerable to the claim that he’s focusing on all the wrong things. Like Gee, he seems incapable of speaking with care.
September 2nd, 2014 at 1:26PM
Of course this has become an issue of political correctness. I believe that that has happened because those eager to “advise” young women to avoid certain actions are often sexists eager to control them, to deprive them of freedom.
And yet one would advise one’s daughters that certain behaviors are risky and do increase the chance of assault. It is easy to go from there to “fault,” in an ordinary language sense, for not avoiding the behaviors, which in turn could be seen to (and in the worst minds does) put a criminal and a victim in some sort of parity of fault.
It is best to see these things on different planes. On one plane, or in one sense of fault, a victim of a crime is never at fault for exercising her freedom. On another one, some behavior raises the risk of being a victim. One needs to speak carefully when advising, up front or after the fact, about which risks are/were worth taking given the payoff versus the unfortunate potential for crime. It is easy, indeed natural, to do this in the language of “fault.”
Is it reasonable for a young woman to go hiking alone – sure if it means enough to her to take whatever risk is involved based on facts available about the locale ets. Likewise with dressing as she would like. Absolutely her right. Rock climbing is risky, and yet, worth it to those who want to exercise that sort of freedom.
After the fact, one might consider speaking of a victim’s fault. And perhaps that’s just not a good idea, given the possibility of conflation. But, if one so speaks, it should be made clear that we are talking about things on two very different planes. That sort of fault in no sense justifies or redeems criminal action.
A few years ago when I did lots of martial arts, all students (men and women) in my dojo were advised that avoidance of conflict, care walking down the street, perhaps avoiding certain places etc. were often desirable, though, of course, not at too high a price. The suggestion was to think about these things, because, after the fact, one might be wrong (expressible as negligent) even based on one’s own preferences. Of course in taking a particular risk, one often is right. No one was offended by this suggestion, made in that context.
September 4th, 2014 at 11:19AM
UD, How many times have I told you that if your goal is to change things, then cut down on the snark and give more substance? I’ve been telling you that for years,no? All this time and does it do any good?
Your post rests on so many unstated assumptions that your point is incomprehensible, Maybe all the snark is personally gratifying but how is anyone supposed to know what in the world you’re talking about, except that maybe you’re jumping on a bandwagon.
Maybe there’s a meta text that Trachtenberg is being treated unfairly. Could be.