Kecaman pun mengalir deras kepadanya. Salah satu datang dari Margaret Soltan. Lewat website-nya, Soltan mengusung tajuk bernada sindiran kepada Twitchell.

Which Google Translator renders

Criticism flowed freely to him. One came from Margaret Soltan. Through its website, carried the headline Soltan satirical tone to Twitchell.

This is the post in question.

She doesn’t even have a job to go to. But Dr. Marilyn French Hubbard (she has no right to the Dr. title, having picked it up at a diploma mill, The American Institute of Holistic Theology) can’t seem to be there for Central Michigan University trustee meetings — and she’s vice-chair of the trustees.

And that’s just the beginning. Student editors at CMU’s paper want to know about another trustee, Gail Torreano:

Thursday’s Board of Trustees meeting was the second of the last four that Trustee Gail Torreano has not attended.

Such a record is detrimental to improving Central Michigan University, especially in a time of vital transition and economic uncertainty.

As such, Torreano should respectfully consider resigning from her position on the Board.

… How can the public take Torreano seriously if she is incapable of showing up to meetings that are planned months in advance?

… With the exception of 2009, members of the board only have to attend five meetings a year, all of which are scheduled far in advance.

If she cannot come to the majority of meetings, she should not be part of the important decision-making the Trustees are responsible for.

… Aside from Torreano, the attendance at Thursday’s board meeting was fair, at best.

Trustee Marilyn French Hubbard was available via conference call.

She spoke only to give her consent when votes were taken and did not contribute at all to discussion.

Even Trustee John Hurd left a few minutes early, so only four members were physically there until the end.

And this, only days before a new president comes on board.

Why was attendance this weak for a Trustees meeting?

This is supposed to be CMU’s governing body, the people who have the last say on any major decision at the fourth largest institution of higher education in the state.

Family emergencies and other similarly important matters are excusable, but not much else.

CMU doesn’t need trustees who are absent when they are called upon. Students are expected to be responsible for themselves. The Board of Trustees should do the same.

Really, even by board of trustees standards (UD has learned, in the writing of this blog, just how low these can be), CMU’s lot is disgraceful.

… to “true humanism” and a “compassionate, insatiable mind.”

… “I think she’s wacko,” said Roy Miller, [Amy Bishop’s lawyer.] … “[S]he’s probably one of the nicest ladies you’d meet.” …

WHNT News

… in the sexual assault case involving three lacrosse players at Sacred Heart University. They apologized in court to the woman involved. (Background here.)

The 18-year-old female student from New Jersey had been having consensual sex with [one of the players] in a room of SHU’s Roncali dormitory, according to police, when he suddenly held her down on the bed and called out to two fellow lacrosse players.

One of them seems to have come into the room, though it’s not clear he did anything beyond showing up and taking a look. The third seems not to have been involved at all.

Pay attention because this one’s a little confusing.

From the Associated Press:

A former University at Buffalo addictions researcher hired professional actors to testify on his behalf during an investigation into whether he fabricated data in federally funded studies, state prosecutors said Tuesday.

[Okay, so we start with two levels of fabrication: Fabrication of research, and fabrication of testimony.]

William Fals-Stewart paid three actors to speak by phone during a university misconduct hearing in 2007 – and then sued the state for $4 million when their false testimony helped exonerate him, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office said.

[Right. So the actors did a good job and convinced the university he was innocent of the charges. He then turned around and sued New York state for four million dollars. That was dumb. He should have taken his exoneration and run. But to the two layers of fabrication we must add greed.]

The office charged Fals-Stewart with grand larceny, perjury, identity theft, offering a false instrument and falsifying business records.

[Again, there’s a lesson here. STOP WITH THE HIRED ACTORS. DON’T GO FOR THE MONEY.]

… Fals-Stewart, 48, appeared in Buffalo City Court on Tuesday, where bail was set at $2,500.

[Pretty damn paltry bail for such a bad boy.]

His attorney did not immediately return a call for comment… [Who’s his attorney? Richard Gere?]

… The actors, using scripts written by Fals-Stewart, testified as three people who had worked on his projects at the university’s Research Institute on Addictions or who had access to records, prosecutors said in court documents.

… Fals-Stewart, claiming the allegations had tarnished his reputation, then demanded $4 million from the state to settle a federal lawsuit, Cuomo’s office said.

The attorney general’s office uncovered the fraud when, as the state’s lawyer, it was called on to defend the university and the state against the court action, Cuomo’s office said…

University Diaries‘ webmistress, UD‘s niece Carolyn, works in a building in Austin not far from the anti-IRS crash.

She wrote me a couple of hours ago:

Hi Aunt M. In case you have heard about the Austin plane crash, I just wanted to let you know that I’m OK. The crash was near my office building, and I’ve heard people saying that they can see the smoke if they go outside. I’m going to stay inside to avoid the airborne toxic event….

In the aftermath of an organized shout-down of a campus speech by the Israeli ambassador, UC Irvine’s Erwin Chemerinsky clarifies the way free speech works:

The government, including public universities, always can impose time, place and manner restrictions on speech. A person who comes into my classroom and shouts so that I cannot teach surely can be punished without offending the 1st Amendment. Likewise, those who yelled to keep the ambassador from being heard were not engaged in constitutionally protected behavior.

Freedom of speech, on campuses and elsewhere, is rendered meaningless if speakers can be shouted down by those who disagree. The law is well established that the government can act to prevent a heckler’s veto — to prevent the reaction of the audience from silencing the speaker. There is simply no 1st Amendment right to go into an auditorium and prevent a speaker from being heard, no matter who the speaker is or how strongly one disagrees with his or her message.

From ABC News:

The woman who was at the center of the phony Duke lacrosse rape case was arrested today and charged with attempted murder.

The Durham Police Department told ABC News that Crystal Gale Mangum got into an argument with her boyfriend, Milton Walker, shortly after midnight on Thursday…

This year’s winner of the

Princeton snowman competition
reminds UD that she’s
been meaning to review the
subject of squirrels on campus.

Tame, rampant, clever, and
occasionally threatening squirrels
are a big feature of a lot of
campuses. Students get
particularly excited about them
if they’re black or if they’re white.
Gray does little for them.

Mary Baldwin College
has a squirrel on its seal.

Kent State has a Black Squirrel Festival.

Sarah Lawrence’s many black squirrels
are the college’s unofficial mascot:

When St. Norbert College’s
albino squirrel died, it was
buried with full honors.

University of Texas students
believe that if you see an albino
squirrel on your way to a test,
you’ll get an A.

Universities tired of squirrels
chewing through their electrical
systems sometimes secretly
try to kill them. Or not secretly.

But you have to be careful.

… has been on top of the Why the Hell is Ruth Simmons on the Goldman Sachs Board? story; but there’s also a very strong-minded Brown student who’s been after her. And of course UD‘s had her own wee say on the matter.

Now that Simmons has quit the board, Volokh Conspiracy wraps things up.

**************************

UD thanks Brad for the link.

From the University of Oklahoma newspaper:

… When Kieran Mullen, OU physics professor, noticed that students’ laptop usage was a distraction during his lectures, he planned a scene to get students to pay attention. During a general physics for engineering majors class Monday, Mullen placed a student’s decoy, non-functioning laptop into a plastic container and poured liquid nitrogen on it.

“He said: ‘this is just liquid nitrogen, so it alone won’t hurt the computer. But this will’,” said Lindsey Brinkworth, University College freshman. “Then he threw it to the ground and told him to have IT fix it.”

Most students usually find Mullen to be considerate of students and attentive to their needs, said Jonathan Scranton, University College freshman.

“He is one of those quirky kind of professors but to actually break someone’s laptop seems a little harsh,” Scranton said.

… “I was a little concerned at first, but I thought later that it was a little too convenient that he would have liquid nitrogen and a Styrofoam box in a back room like that,” said Brinkworth. “Either way, he got his point across.” …

The UAH professor who defied Bishop and shut down her massacre speaks.

… [Debra Moriarity] worried that any attempt to tighten security could have negative consequences. “There is evil in the world; it is unfortunate that good people are hurt by that. But a university is a place of free thought and freedom to explore ideas and to search out new knowledge and you don’t want to put anything in place that dampens that.”

Moriarity returned to her office on Wednesday and said she plans to resume teaching next week. She predicted that, with the help of anti-anxiety medication, she would be able to sleep Wednesday night.

“I’ve been talking to family and friends and just getting their support helps you deal with it,” she said. “I think right now most of us want to get back there and get things going, make plans for who is going to cover classes.”…

That’s the first paragraph of the story. There’s a lot more stuff like that after it.

From a blogger at Huffington Post:

Here’s the Cliff Notes version: Player pummels student into coma, flees country. Player knocks over woman while shoplifting condoms from Wal-Mart. Team season assist leader arrested for selling cocaine. Academically unqualified basketball prospects given special waivers. Players caught using stolen debit card. Subtle (and unfounded) hints of racism leveled at admissions officers trying to protect the school’s integrity. Text messages which point towards improper petty cash distributions to players. Smear campaigns leveled at a professor and New York Times reporter who had the audacity to rain on the parade. Head coach placed on indefinite leave. Athletic director forced out. University president announces retirement. University reputation in shambles.