UD‘s sister-in-law, Joanna Soltan, reads Sonnet 90. In Polish.

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Sonnet 90

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah, do not, when my heart hath ’scoped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come; so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might,
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.

Here’s how the new chair of the board of trustees at one of the major public universities in this country writes.

It’s his letter of application to the university for the position.

I am Chris Kennedy and I am interested in being nominated to the Board of Trustees for one of our nation’s most prestigious universities – The University of Illinois… An institution that embraces innovation, embraces new ideas. An institution that embraces new ideas, embraces its future. The confident attitude that the people from Illinois embrace comes from their comfort with being surrounded by organizations like the University of Illinois that are the best in the world. The University of Illinois has taught us all how to embrace the future. The University of Illinois is an economic incubator. Each year it retains the state’s brightest minds and attracts thousands to our state to live here for four years. Most of them fall in love with the state, with its beautiful lakes and state parks, its vibrant culture, the welcoming nature of its people, and its wonderful communities and neighborhoods in which to raise a family.

Straight from the grave of Leonid Brezhnev. If I were a student — let’s not even talk about a professor — at the University of Illinois, I’d be disgusted. The guy obviously doesn’t give a shit about the place and can’t be bothered to show any respect to the nominating committee.

And they made him chair.

… responds to the controversy described here [subscription], in which a new book about Heidegger’s Nazism goes beyond intellectual attack and calls for the criminalization of his writings as hate speech.

UD thinks, by the way, that the New York Times, in quoting Richard Wolin about the issue —

Richard Wolin, the author of several books on Heidegger and a close reader of the Faye book, said he is not convinced Heidegger’s thought is as thoroughly tainted by Nazism as Mr. Faye argues. Nonetheless he recognizes how far Heidegger’s ideas have spilled into the larger culture.

“I’m not by any means dismissing any of these fields because of Heidegger’s influence,” he wrote in an e-mail message referring to postmodernism’s influence across the academy. “I’m merely saying that we should know more about the ideological residues and connotations of a thinker like Heidegger before we accept his discourse ready-made or naïvely.”

— should have revealed that he signed a petition in support of the book. He is more partisan than he appears in his remarks to the Times.

… Duke.

UD began to sense the dimensions of the contact hours controversy in the UK when La Kid came back from visiting a friend in school in Scotland. “She never sees a professor! She doesn’t have classes!”

This had to be an exaggeration; but it wasn’t that far off.

Students studying subjects such as languages, history and philosophy have access to less than nine hours a week “contact time” with lecturers or tutors, research reveals today.

The study by the National Union of Students and HSBC shows huge differences in the student experience. Those doing medicine and dentistry have an average of 22.6 contact hours a week, compared with 14.8 for biological sciences, 12.2 for law and 8.7 for languages, the study found.

Those at the most prestigious universities receive significantly more time with academics through lectures, individual tutorials and drop-in sessions than those at other institutions, despite the vast majority of universities charging students up to the maximum fee level of £3,225 per year – whatever their subject.

The issue of contact hours has becoming increasingly contentious since fees were raised in 2006 and will be further scrutinised tomorrow when the government announces the details of a review. Some university vice-chancellors want to see the cap raised to £7,000 a year.

“Given that there has been no demonstrable improvement in the number of contact hours since fees went up in 2006, I don’t believe there can be any justification for an increase now,” said Aaron Porter, vice-president of the NUS…

UD‘s reminded of University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs, whose revolutionary, cost-cutting approach to higher education has the same unbeatable feature we see in the UK — gather income from students, but avoid expenditure on actually educating them in classrooms with teachers. Computers and podcasts cost far less than faculty.

The downloadable university degree takes its cue from generations of diploma mills that got there before.

In the UK, though, I don’t think they’ve even got the technology with which to fob off students. I think they’re still making due with lies.

Five hundred dollars an hour — more than that, actually — is what medical school professors who whore for industry make; it is what doctors who whore for celebrities make; and it is what law firms who investigate filthy university sports programs make.

Does this seem a lot to you?

Put it in perspective. When the last president of Harvard University worked a one-day-a-week job for a hedge fund (while running Harvard), he made $20,000 a hour.

So the law firm investigating the SUNY Binghamton sports program and charging this public university $520 per hour is giving them a major break.

Not only that, but $520 an hour is “a 20 percent discount off the firm’s normal blended hourly rate.”

Opinion piece, University of Maryland Diamondback:

… [E]very professor, both future and incumbent, [should] be required to take a technology proficiency assessment prior to the start of the semester to make sure he or she understands the use and functionality of the technology used both in and out of the classroom. This assessment will ensure professors are well informed of these technologies and can easily navigate through multimedia extensions — a Professor 2.0, if you will.

Before Dr. Stonewall Jackson has a heart attack, this assessment will in no way prevent a professor from lecturing; failing the assessment will simply result in a mandatory classroom technology workshop..

From a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News about having real mustangs (the horses) be the new mascots for the Southern Methodist University football team:

… Although I generally love tradition, I have reached the conclusion that it is time to make a new tradition for SMU and its football program, which is itself making huge strides this year to break away from the doldrums that have clouded the program since the 1987 “death penalty” season.

Real Mustangs and the beauty, grace and strength of such magestic steeds enhance, not detract from, the image of the athletic program that the university, Director of Athletics Steve Orsini and Coach June Jones are trying to build…

Let’s mount this magestic steed. Why does it fail to break away from the doldrums?

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First: It’s a short letter, but still manages to feel wordy, cumbersome. Why?

Although I generally love tradition, I have reached the conclusion that it is time…

Redundancy (Two uses of the word I; two uses in this sentence of is; three uses of it.) Just too many words, too many teeny clauses; comes across as pompous somehow. Condense and simplify: I love tradition, but it’s time…

Second: The latter part of the sentence is full of mixed metaphors:

… making huge strides this year to break away from the doldrums that have clouded the program since the 1987 “death penalty” season.

Here the football team walks on water as it strides away from doldrums.

Doldrums are windy, not cloudy.

Third: The writer includes unnecessary quotation marks, which make murkier an already murky sentence. Is he worried that some readers will think the 1987 team was sentenced to death? Does he fret that if he doesn’t put a phrase like sudden death overtime into quotation marks his reader will assume a game’s loser is guillotined?

Write simply, clearly and directly. Anything – verbal or graphic – that complicates things should be tossed.

Fourth:

Real Mustangs and the beauty, grace and strength of such magestic steeds enhance, not detract from…

Nothing brings on sudden prose death like misspelling your most important words. Here, a list of attributes (beauty, grace, strength) functions to lead us to the summarizing high point of majestic… Only everything collapses into laughter when the climactic word turns out to be magestic, like magnesium… And anyway, since majestic steed is a terrible cliche, the writer should have avoided it.

Enhance, not detract from goes back to the wordiness problem. Drop not detract from. It’s pointlessly fussy.

Since I’m following the faculty plagiarism case at Central Michigan University, I’m checking the local paper, where I just found this letter, from an ed student there:

Having been a student involved in the secondary education math program, I feel as though I should express my frustrations with those leading me in my schooling.

To graduate with a degree in secondary mathematics, one must take a series of cohorts that covers various math topics. While one going into the teaching field would expect to be taught various strategies and approaches to teaching math, this was not the case in several of these classes.

Throughout my course of study, I learned how to use the N-Spire, an expensive calculator that my professors expect administrators and math teachers to incorporate into the curriculum. I felt as though I was being taught to use an expensive piece of equipment to market to my future employers.

While I was not pleased with the education I was paying for, I kept my mouth shut because my professors stressed the importance of students being able to explore mathematics using tools such as the N-Spire.

They constantly reassured us that what we were learning was based on research that proved that this calculator is a crucial tool for learning through exploration…

The student concludes by complaining about the faculty plagiarists… I think. It’s a badly written letter. Very confusing. But it’s obviously got something to do with the multiple, still-anonymous plagiarists on the math faculty.

As UD scrutinized the letter, it seemed to her that the student was complaining about the commercialization of CMU’s classrooms. She seemed to be saying that, like medical school professors who in various ways hawk pharma’s newest pills to their students, some education school professors at her university turn their classrooms into extended advertising for devices a corporation is hoping Michigan’s teachers will buy for their classrooms.

So UD went here, to a page featuring Dennis St. John, one of the math professors listed on the plagiarized NSF grant.

This page, announcing a course featuring N-Spire and sponsored by its maker, Texas Instruments (you can register for the course through TI’s website), is offered at an off-campus location, but is a CMU course… St. John is pretty much described as a TI salesman:

He has presented workshops and institutes for Texas Instruments for the past twelve years. He … has published numerous activities and one book with Texas Instruments…

What’s going on?

Here’s the newly elected mayor of Balch Springs, Texas, Dr. Carrie Gordon. Dr. Carrie, who always calls herself Dr., positively boasts on her campaign web page that she earned the right to call herself Dr. because she got a doctorate at Columbia Pacific University — a notorious, now-defunct diploma mill.

Here’s another campaign web page, in which Dr. Carrie announces her victory in the contest for mayor by saying All Praises and glory to God Almighty!!!

Which makes UD worry a tad about the separation of church and state in her administration. But UD doesn’t live in Balch Springs, so it’s not that big a deal for her…

The Dallas Morning News reports that more and more people are beginning to question that pesky, illegal Ph.D.

…When she ran for mayor of Balch Springs this year, Gordon used the title of “doctor” extensively – including more than 20 times on her campaign Web site, on campaign signs and T-shirts, and in campaign filings. She’s listed on the Balch Springs City Council’s Web site as doctor.

Gordon did not respond to requests for comment.

Columbia Pacific appears on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s list of “institutions whose degrees are illegal to use in Texas.

I think Dr. Carrie should respond to requests for comment. She should say what her hundreds of outed diploma mill precursors say at this point in the process: I will not dignify this smear with a response.

If she follows the well-worn path of all the shabby fake Drs. in this country, she’ll continue with variants of this for awhile: It’s sad that my political foes feel compelled…

After that, the comments will be like this: I’m far too busy doing the people’s work to respond to …

As things heat up for her, Carrie Gordon can be expected to say I entered that program in good faith, worked my butt off for it, and am the victim of a scam.

If things get even hotter, here’s what she’ll say: I was a young, hard-working wife and mother. I had no time to attend a traditional university. If in my haste to improve myself through higher education I made some wrong moves, I apologize to my constituents.

She will graciously announce at the next council meeting that the residents of Balch Springs no longer need feel obliged to address her as Dr.

From the Baltimore Sun:

Kingsley Blake Price, a retired philosophy professor who taught at the Johns Hopkins University for more than three decades, died Oct. 27 of multiple organ failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 92.

… He was 3 years old when he fell ill with scarlet fever, which left him blind. As a boy, he was encouraged by his parents, who sent him to a boarding school to learn Braille, to do things for himself.

He was a graduate of University High School in Berkeley, and earned his bachelor’s degree with the highest honors from the University of California at Berkeley in 1938.

After earning his bachelor’s degree, he considered seeking a career as a concert pianist but decided to pursue an academic career in philosophy.

Dr. Price received his master’s degree and doctorate from Berkeley in 1942 and 1946, respectively. His dissertation, colleagues said, was on John Locke’s theory of knowledge.

… [One friend said that Price] “lived alone throughout his adult life” and had “traveled extensively abroad, usually going alone.”

… “He was a man who had a wide range of knowledge. He was very learned in literature, art and music, which he coupled with a prodigious memory, and was very centered morally,” he said.

… Dr. Price never relied on a seeing-eye dog or carried a cane.

“He used to walk from his office in Gilman Hall, down to Charles Street and over to St. Paul. He walked all the way by himself and without help or reliance on a dog or cane.”

Dr. Price was a prolific contributor to philosophical journals, edited two books and was the author of “Education and Philosophical Thought,” which has been called a standard in the field.

“One book he edited was on the philosophy of education and the other on the philosophy of music,” [a colleague] said. “In later years, he concentrated on aesthetics. One topic he dealt with concerned how to explain the sense in which music can be said to be joyful or sad.”

… He was an accomplished gardener and a connoisseur and collector of fine antique furniture. Earlier in his life, he made furniture in his home workshop.

… On Sept. 11, 2001, Dr. Price was flying back alone from California when all of the airliners were suddenly grounded because of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

“He was stranded in the middle of the country without adequate resources,” [a friend] said.

“Fortunately, he had struck up an acquaintance with his seatmate, who lived near where the plane had stopped. This man so enjoyed Kingsley’s company that he took him home as a houseguest and entertained him until flights resumed,” he said…

Current background,
from my office window: A big
pileated woodpecker stabbing –
very loudly – a series of hollows
in a semi-dead tree out front.

Foreground: Thickets of
cheepy wrens — I guess
they’re wrens — over and
under the azalea bushes
by the window.

In the back garden,
it’s all robins.
They’re diving into
our leafy gutters.

Nest material? I have
no idea what birds
do in November.

Raking has been a
pleasure on these
cool, light, and windy
autumn mornings.

Right now, on the
back deck, mourning
doves mass around
the birdbath.

In the evenings, from
the deck, I can just
make out full moons
behind all the high
branches in our forest.

I think back to my time
at the beach last week,
and how the cosmos
comes right up to your
balcony there. I love
Garrett Park’s arboretum,
but I miss the night sky.

From Czech Press Survey:

One … infamous student suspected of gaining the title of doctor of law fraudulently is Marek Benda, a deputy for the [Czech Republic’s] Civic Democratic Party (ODS)…

In his capacity as head of the lower house’s constitutional and legal committee, Benda is supposed to supervise the strict observance of law. Caught cheating, Benda said he would not resign from his parliamentary post. He said he would not use the title of doctor of law…

We’ve recently seen two math professors at Central Michigan University (whoever they are; the school won’t say) plagiarize both their NSF grant application and research conducted in their project itself. CMU must now repay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the NSF.

Now there’s the Auckland University English professor who cut and pasted his way through his latest novel (and probably did something similar in earlier novels, though no one, far as UD knows, has checked):

Plagiarism was revealed in Witi Ihimaera’s newest novel when a book reviewer googled phrases from The Trowenna Sea.

… In her blog, Jolisa Gracewood said that while reading the novel, she had a feeling something was not right with parts of the text.

“Google was my first port of call – it turns out that Google Books is bad news for authors, in at least one more way than previously suspected …”

However, there was “no joy” in stumbling across 16 examples … [The author’s university department forgave him immediately, calling sixteen examples of plagiarism from a variety of sources ‘an oversight.’]

Gracewood said that as a writing teacher, “I’d occasionally come across a phrase or a paragraph that was somehow out of kilter with the surrounding text. It’s a curiously physical phenomenon: the hairs on the back of your neck go up, and your heart sinks.

“Sometimes it’s a false alarm,” she said. “But I never expected to encounter that feeling as a book reviewer, let alone with a new work by a respected writer.”

Ihimaera, a professor at Auckland University, declined to be interviewed, but he apologised for “inadvertently” using other authors’ work [in sixteen inadvertent instances].

… Listener examples of Trowenna passages put to Ihimaera include paragraphs from author and journalist Peter Godwin, American academic Karen Sinclair and works edited by Charles Dickens.

“The tragedy is that this is a very, very fine piece of New Zealand fiction,” he said. [Tragedy. Sniff.]

“It deserves to be read and it’s a terrible shame that this has happened.” [Not that he did this. That this happened.]

It wasn’t really, as Gracewood graciously claims, Google Books that outed this man. It was Gracewood’s impressive sense of prose — the way style always displays the mark, subtle or not, of one person only; the way language flows or doesn’t flow — that revealed this imposter of a book.

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Update: Commentary in the New Zealand Herald:

… What is curious is the attitude of the university. The Dean of Arts, Jan Crosthwaite, says the university has investigated “and is satisfied there was no deliberate wrong doing”.

Excuse me? How do you plagiarise in a way that is not deliberate? How do you plagiarise by accident? If you have plagiarised, presumably you had the other author’s work next to you as you typed, knowing you were using another person’s sentences. How do you do that unconsciously?…

Pretending it didn’t happen is the sort of thing a very provincial university will do.

Someone should check through this professor’s other books. UD is pretty confident, having followed tons of plagiarism cases on this blog, that he’s done it before.

If so, it will be amusing to watch his university immediately dismiss, say, five books worth of plagiarism as inadvertent.

… and now this. Things are getting seriously weird at the University of New Mexico.