Read Good Riddance by David Halperin. ‘Tis all ye need to know.
Read Good Riddance by David Halperin. ‘Tis all ye need to know.
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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.
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 6th, 2016 at 4:34PM
those last two points of his are the key, follow the money and shut off the taps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/business/itt-educational-services-closes-its-campuses.html
September 7th, 2016 at 7:15AM
Meanwhile, our newspaper reported this morning the local owner of a very large McDonald’s franchise will receive an honorary degree from our not-for-profit Podunk Tech.
The franchise owner was quoted in the paper as being honored to receive the degree, and he noted he’d employed thousands of Podunk Tech GRADUATES (emphasis mine). Somehow, I want to believe that’s a misquote.
September 7th, 2016 at 8:53AM
What would you call a college with a 9% graduation/certificate completion rate?
Our local nonprofit community college.
Oh, but they’re all transferring to 4-years!
Actually, under 15% transfer anywhere, and there is dead silence when it comes to discussion of their success rate at other places.
September 7th, 2016 at 9:44AM
the prof, indeed the idea that all (or most) people will get degrees in higher-ed that will lead to related employment is a serious mistake in terms of understanding the learning capacities( a good deal of which is all too often failed by poor developmental environs) of most folks (as is the assumption that they have jobs waiting for them requiring such degrees/education). community colleges are swamped with kids who didn’t get much of an education from their public educational systems and end up mired down in remedial ed classes if they make it to campus and have little to no supports for time/energy for schoolwork, but what does any of this have to do with outright fraud?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/us/politics/donald-trump-pam-bondi.html
September 7th, 2016 at 10:27AM
DMF, our local community college advertises (heavily, I might add) that its degrees and certificates are essentially a pipeline direct to the workforce. Some of the features they tout are true–for example, small class sizes. They are limited to 20 to 25. One of my offspring attended this CC and consistently reported that by the end of the semester, 50-75% had dropped. Mysteriously enough, large numbers of drops occur around the time Pell checks arrive. The coursework is not a joke, but the idea that the courses equate to what we do here in what is supposed to be the same course IS a joke. They cover 2/3 of the material. The academic advising that is promised is a joke–think “make an appointment three weeks ahead of time for someone who neither knows you nor can deal with anything other than a handful of standardized tracks.”
And the “straight to workforce” BS–nope, not for my program-completing offspring.
There is plenty of misrepresentation and outright fraud enablement going on in higher education. By all means, let justice roll like a mighty river–but let’s not build dykes around some and not others.
September 7th, 2016 at 12:11PM
that sounds like classes in all too many state and private 4yr schools (and not a few grad programs including professional schools), the mad scramble to try and keep butts in the seats (and the unfortunate older turn of ag&tech land-grant schools in liberal arts factories) against demographic/economic trends is everywhere.
I’m all for ever more accountability (and less student debt!) but the line between incompetence and fraud is worth holding onto.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/future-employment-%E2%80%93-going-back-to-square-one/7700584
September 9th, 2016 at 7:23AM
There is an interesting article about this on Boston.com this morning.
September 9th, 2016 at 7:52AM
Below is a comment under an ITT-related article from a guy who worked in student loan collections:
“I worked for a student loan collection agency and I received bonuses far exceeding what I collected because the Obama adminstration was making up the rules as we went along. They allow the student to rehab the loan based upon income and we would receive a fee based upon the size of the loan not the size of payments taken, that isn’t how other collection agencies operate.
For example, if the student has no income they would let you take 9 payments of 5 dollars and the company would receive thousands of dollars in credit. In an honest world, it wouldn’t have been worth my bother to call this person as the phone call wouldn’t justify my salary.”