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
January 26th, 2009 at 8:57PM
Ok, I read your blog constantly and you never respond to my comments, and that’s cool, half the time I’m wine-drunk, whatever, so no worries. BUT.
Could you help me a bit?
I’m a junior faculty and on my first search committee. You’ve been there, done that, right? So I ask, bowing. I need to come up with some "good interview questions," asked by the head of the committee. I don’t want to show up and go, "So, what attratced you to the university?" or "What are your plans in 5 years?"
BLAH. YAWN.
Do you have any keen questions I should ask that would actually give me insight to the candidate? We are hiring for a screenwriter/poet job. We ar down to 10 finalists.
Help me.
S
January 26th, 2009 at 9:22PM
I can think of a few, sure. They’re probably ones you’ve thought of too, but:
Who are your favorite poets? [Then, when she lists only people born after 1950:] Do you like any dead poets? [This may be a way of finding out if the person has any literary depth at all.] Do you like any non-American poets? [Ethnocentrism is unappealing, especially in a screen-writer.] What did you think of Elizabeth Alexander’s inauguration poem?
Do you really think writing can be taught? [Of course she’ll say yes enthusiastically. But if she’s an interesting person she’ll at least be familiar with arguments that it really can’t be, and she’ll make an effort to refute them.] Screenwriting and poetry must keep you very busy, but are you at all familiar with literary criticism and theory? If so, what are some critics whose ideas interest you? Do you think students should be exposed, in creative writing courses, to various theories of art?
Could you tell us a few precise things about how you teach? Do you, for instance, ask writing students to keep journals? Do you think it’s worthwhile for them to critique each others’ work in class? Do you spend much time showing your students models of great writing, doing close readings of them, etc? Or are your classes mainly about the students’ own work?
This is a time of economic uncertainty, and it’s possible programs and courses could be cut. How would you go about defending the importance of creative writing to a dean thinking of cutting it back to save money?
January 26th, 2009 at 10:15PM
Travel well – and enjoy the water!
I leave for Freiburg im Breisgau on Saturday…though I’m not promising that I’ll go skiing, it will indeed be back to the winter for me.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:25AM
Well, Wikipedia says it’s the warmest part of Germany…
Enjoy your time there, Michael.
January 27th, 2009 at 10:48AM
Those sabbaticals really DO test the intellectual stamina of professors ("A swim. Definitely some snorkeling — around Key West, but also, I hope, in nearby places like the Caymans and Cozumel. So some cruising too.")
Enjoy!
January 27th, 2009 at 10:50AM
Thanks, jeff.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:50AM
Hey! She writes about beauty! She needs to experience some non-literary versions on occasion.
Me, my idea of fun is an 8 week immersion in German language rather than the ocean. But then I’m a medievalist.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:27PM
Hey, where were you in San Francisco when I needed those questions?
Drop me a line if you end up anywhere north of Miami on your Florida jaunt; it would be grand to have coffee, or dinner.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:32PM
I’ll do that, Mark. It’d be wonderful to meet up.
As for the MLA: UD at the MLA would be as unthinkable as… UD’s daughter at the Super Bowl…