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
October 4th, 2025 at 7:53PM
The fallout from people who should know better worrying more about the presidential election (which at the margin is something none of us as individuals can affect) than they do about the selectmen or the mayor or the school board (where a few people turning out has a lot of effect) strikes again.
The school board honcho in Des Moines who hired the guy is currently running for Joni Ernst’s Senate seat that will be open next year. Fun times.
October 5th, 2025 at 7:10AM
Stephen: Well, now we know her campaign slogan:
INSPIRING THE KIDS OF IOWA WITH IAN!
October 5th, 2025 at 7:51PM
NYT now running ambivalent, convoluted profile of the guy. Turns out the Des Moines district knew about the fake doctorate claim and just let it slide. The article keeps referring to him as “Dr. Roberts” though, noting that he has a “real” doctorate from someplace called Trident International University, which any sensible person would of course understand is about as real as his fake doctorate from Morgan State. Has the reporter considered looking up his definitely real and definitely not plagiarized dissertation?
Clearly, you’re right that the guy was charismatic and inspiring, because even the reporter seems to want to be taken in. In what world are Coppin State and St. John’s University and this “Trident International University” “brand-name universities,” as the reporter characterizes them? At least the first two are real and accredited, but beyond that… Not only is this story a gift to Trump on the mass deportation front, but it’s pretty clear that a big reason no one wanted to look into this guy’s story too much is that he had the right, shall we say, identities for the people in charge of hiring school administrators, and that overrode their concern for qualifications.
But he is poetic: “As I reflect on my time in Iowa, it is too abbreviated,” Dr. Roberts wrote.
Yeah, hmmmm.
October 5th, 2025 at 8:12PM
Just read the NYT piece. Thanks for pointing me to it.
I’m guessing that few people want these sorts of positions. I’m guessing they’re hard to fill. And yes, you’re probably right that identity politics had something to do with this farce as well.
And yes – has the NYT not heard of diploma mills? Trident?
October 5th, 2025 at 9:03PM
Superintendent of a major urban school district an undesirable position? I doubt it. It’s a political stepping stone for ambitious types – think Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee… Probably a tough job in the sense that you’re in the public spotlight and under political pressure, but that’s true of most high-responsibility public administrative roles. I personally wouldn’t want these jobs, but I don’t think America as a whole suffers from a shortage of political ambition.
October 5th, 2025 at 10:16PM
Well, this is from 2022:
https://hechingerreport.org/who-wants-to-lead-americas-school-districts-anyone-anyone-superintendent-search-is-just-beginning/
October 6th, 2025 at 7:29AM
Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend Trident for their patients who go to college. (Too old?)
Also, FWIW, Trident International University is fully accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, one of the nation’s recognized accreditors. I’m not sure what that says about Trident, HLC, or the US system of higher education. HLC also accredits the Universities of Phoenix, Michigan, and Chicago, so they have, to say the least, a wide range of clients. In any event, Roberts’s doctorate is “real,” at least in the manner that the American higher ed bureaucracy determines these things.
October 6th, 2025 at 8:24AM
TAFKAU: The four out of five thing is NOT too old, if – like UD – you’re old.
Yeah, the accreditors are as scandalous as some of the schools.
October 6th, 2025 at 1:08PM
Hm, interesting. You seem to be correct – other sources corroborate that superintendency has become a more fraught position to fill since the pandemic, though it’s not clear if this is bc there are fewer candidates applying or more complicated and conflicting demands from districts (essentially, the job is more political than ever) that rule most would-be candidates out and leave more people like Dr. Ian in the pool. Maybe superintendency is just another casualty of the politicization of every public office – who needs skills and experiences when you can just do compelling public performance? From the White House to the schoolhouse.
October 6th, 2025 at 2:16PM
Out of curiosity, I pulled up his diss in Proquest. I invite you to guess on which page the plagiarism begins and how long it to took me to find the source he plagiarized from.
LOLLLL Trident University. We stand for the three pointiest prongs of knowledge: fraud, deceit, and plagiarism.
October 6th, 2025 at 3:14PM
Rita: LOL