Sports Illustrated offers some commentary on the SUNY Binghamton fiasco (details here):

… [T]he lessons of Binghamton, a state school 140 miles northwest of New York City, were no shock to college basketball insiders.

“What’s happened there really should come as no surprise to anyone that was in the league or following that league,” former Boston University coach Dennis Wolff said. “They were making a recipe for disaster by the way they were going about their business.”

… “The concept of giving kids transferring in (a scholarship), I don’t think anyone’s against that,” Wolff said. “But the idea that almost every guy that came in had been asked to leave where they had been before, that puts it in a different light in my mind.”

… “The problem with Binghamton was simply that the course that they chose, they were under suspicion from the beginning,” [another observer] said. “People said, ‘Whoa, whoa, this guy’s been at three schools. This guy’s been at four schools. … What price glory here?”…

The lessons of Binghamton will not get learned. Universities have spun off their sports programs — they throw lots of money at them but avert their eyes. Who wouldn’t. It’s sordid over there.

Somebody hires a coach who recruits criminals, and the shit hits the fan as anyone not averting her eyes could predict.

Simple matter of negligence. We pay university presidents a lot, but most of them don’t know anything about what’s going on in the big campus sports, and they don’t want to know.

That’s how you get drunkard coaches, coaches who beat up their assistant coaches, coaches who recruit criminals. Every one of these coaches costs an American university between a million and four million dollars a year. Their contracts make it close to impossible to fire them without costing the school many more millions.

The New York Times notes:

At least nine students at N.Y.U. have committed suicide since 2002, including four in 2004.

This student, Andrew Williamson-Noble, jumped from the library atrium.

Two earlier student suicides took place there, so the university “made several changes in 2005, including the installation of plexiglass panels around the perimeter of the atrium. …The plexiglass panels — which are about eight feet high — apparently did not prevent Mr. Williamson-Noble from jumping to his death.”

… at one hundred years of age. I’ll have more commentary in a moment. Gathering my thoughts about him. I’ve just returned from the beach.

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

Here’s the best piece on him so far, full of wonderful British skepticism and humor.

… While Lévi-Strauss’s capacity for creating complex intellectual jigsaws was never in question, it was not always obvious what relation his hypotheses bore to reality. The English anthropologist Sir Edmund Leach drew attention to the Frenchman’s propensity for discovering exactly what he was searching for.

“Any evidence, however dubious,” Leach complained, “is acceptable so long as it fits with logically calculated expectations; but wherever the data runs counter to the theory, Lévi-Strauss will either bypass the evidence or marshal the full resources of his powerful invective to have the heresy thrown out of court.”

… The son of a painter, Claude Lévi-Strauss was born in Brussels on November 28 1908. When the First World War broke out he was sent to Paris to live with his grandfather, a rabbi, in whose household he soon lost his faith.

… After completing his studies, Lévi-Strauss taught in secondary schools. Among his colleagues was Simone de Beauvoir, who remembered him warning his students “in a deadpan voice, and with a deadpan expression, against the folly of the passions”. [And this is coming from de Beauvoir, queen of the ice queens.]

… After the fall of France he escaped to the United States, where he took up a visiting professorship at the New School for Social Research in New York City. In this post he was greatly influenced by Roman Jakobson, who had developed a mathematical view of language which stressed not so much the meaning of individual words as the overall configuration of the grammatical relationships between them.  [Three degrees of separation:  Jerzy Soltan, UD‘s father-in-law, was a close friend, and a close neighbor in Cambridge, of Roman Jakobson.]

… A work of enormous erudition if, at times, almost ludicrous complexity, [Les Structures Elémentaires de la parenté (1949)] established Lévi-Strauss as one of the foremost anthropologists of his generation.

… [His masterpiece, Tristes Tropiques (1955)]… was an intellectual autobiography concentrated on his pre-war travels in Brazil. Lévi-Strauss described how the book sprang out of depression: “So I said, ‘I had enough, I shall never come to anything, so I can write very freely about whatever passes through my head.’ I wrote without scientific scruples, without worrying whether the result was scientifically sound. The result was a sort of wild fantasy.”

In the book, Lévi-Strauss formulated his distinction between “Nature” and “Culture” based on language and man’s unique ability to see an object not merely as itself, but also as a symbol. It was in this ability to symbolise, a characteristic shared by all humans, no matter how primitive, that he sought the unconscious similarities of the human mind.

These “universal attributes” were the inspiration for Lévi-Strauss’s intellectual quest. But in detecting them, he was also accused of reductionism. Even his severest critics would not deny his importance, however, his immense influence beyond his chosen field, or the sense of intellectual excitement he was able to generate. This lay in his highly original interpretation of data, in the poetic scope of his associations and in his methodology, which was always capable of shedding new light on established facts even if his conclusions were sometimes subject to doubt…

From The Telegraph.

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

A good definition of structuralism, from Edward Rothstein:

… Levi-Strauss rejected Rousseau’s idea that humankind’s problems derive from society’s distortions of nature. In Levi-Strauss’ view, there is no alternative to such distortions. Each society must shape itself out of nature’s raw material, he believed, with law and reason as the essential tools.

This application of reason, he argued, created universals that could be found across all cultures and times. He became known as a structuralist because of his conviction that a structural unity underlies all of humanity’s mythmaking, and he showed how those universal motifs played out in societies, even in the ways a village was laid out.

For Levi-Strauss, for example, every culture’s mythology was built around oppositions: hot and cold, raw and cooked, animal and human. And it is through these opposing “binary” concepts, he said, that humanity makes sense of the world.

This was quite different from what most anthropologists had been concerned with. Anthropology had traditionally sought to disclose differences among cultures rather than discovering universals. It had been preoccupied not with abstract ideas but with the particularities of rituals and customs, collecting and cataloguing them.

Levi-Strauss’ “structural” approach, seeking universals about the human mind, cut against that notion of anthropology. He did not try to determine the various purposes served by a society’s practices and rituals. He was never interested in the kind of fieldwork that anthropologists of a later generation, like Clifford Geertz, took on, closely observing and analyzing a society as if from the inside…

There are certain universities – Southern Illinois, Brandeis – where the students are smarter and more mature than the administrators.

The administrators are childish, impulsive, absurd. The students, as expressed in their newspapers’ editorials, are constantly hushing and calming them.

And so it is again at Brandeis University, whose hot-tempered president — most recently seen shutting down its museum for no good reason and creating an ongoing scandal — has exploded with rage at a Harpers magazine article that says his university hasn’t handled money well lately. He’s threatening to sue.

Of course it’s true that Brandeis, like many other American universities, has fucked up its endowment this way and that way and this way and that way. But Harvard bleeds a billion every minute, and do you see Harvard suing people?

University President Jehuda Reinharz recently sent an e-mail to the faculty listserv in response to the November 2009 Harper’s Magazine article “Voodoo Academics: Brandeis University’s hard lesson in the real economy.” In this e-mail, Mr. Reinharz explained the problems he had with the article and claimed that the article’s financial figures were inaccurate or, at times, completely false. Additionally, Mr. Reinharz explained that the article’s author, Christopher R. Beha, was motivated to write an article casting Brandeis’ finances in a negative light because his aunt Ann Beha’s architectural firm was rejected by the University in its bid for a 2004 building project. [This is so embarrassing. Look at the world view the president of a major university harbors. The aunt did it!] In response, says the e-mail, Brandeis is considering taking legal action against Harper’s. While this editorial board believes that the University should take action to correct any incorrect facts Harper’s published, we do not believe legal action is the correct choice.

While Harper’s Magazine’s descriptions of the University’s economic woes may be exaggerated, there is no denying that Brandeis’ financial status is less than ideal; thus, another lawsuit is the last thing the Brandeis community needs straining its pocketbook. The University is currently playing defendant in two high-profile lawsuits – one involving the Rose Art Museum-and recently reached a settlement on a third involving the demolition of the Kalman Science Building, and we imagine these lawsuits are coming at a hefty cost to the University, win or lose. At a time when Brandeis is looking to cut funding to nearly every one of its departments, Brandeis simply does not have the resources to spend on a lawsuit that Mr. Reinharz admitted in his e-mail “is an arduous task and one that is difficult to prove.”

“He allows you to see that life is full of different moods and emotions… Whatever you do… however long you live… there’s one thing you’re sure of … that you’ll go … That’s the language Purcell is wonderful at speaking…. He’s writing this devotional stuff for church, and in the middle of it you suddenly realize you’re hearing the song of an anguish.”

Pete Townshend, in this
interview, is far
better than UD‘s
been at explaining – as
she’s tried to do, all these
years on this blog – why
Henry Purcell is the fairest
one of all.

… of a striated stone from Rehoboth.

I found it this morning on
the beach, which was very
windy and chilly.

Most of today’s stones have been
tossed all the way to the dune
grass by the heavy waves, so
you don’t get the pleasure of
moving in and out with the tide
as you follow the stones’
snaky mosaic.

I like the roughness and the
complexity of this stone, with
plenty of white lines that go
all the way around the piece,
and with the mismatch of
that burst of pure white
at one end.

But there’s much to be
said for the classic purity
of the flat black stone
with the strong white line.

Vision Statement.

… rules.

Supreme leader Khamenei usually holds conferences with top students who are pre-selected to speak. These students usually go on stage and praise Khamenei. Then Khamenei usually speaks and talks about how much he values their ideas.

But this Wednesday October 28th, the conference was different. After the students spoke, Khamenei asked if anybody had any questions. Mahmoud Vahidnia, a math student from Sharif University who is also winner of the International Math Olympics, stood up and said courageously:

“Yes, I have some words with you.”

Here is a summary translation of what the student said to Khamenei:

“Why can’t anyone criticize you in this country, isn’t that ignorant? Do you think that you make no mistakes? Why have they made an idol out of you that is so unreachable and that nobody can challenge? I have never read an article about your performance in any newspaper because you have shut down all the media that is against you in the country. Why does national TV show all the events untruthfully? For example all the events after the election. Why do you support them [national TV shows], when everyone knows they are lying? Since the president of national TV is directly selected by you, then you are responsible for all this.”

——————————–

Khamenei evades answering the student and calls his words not truthful. He claims that people criticize him every day and he listens to them and then fixes his errors.

… Rumors say that the student has been arrested.

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

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Here you’ve got an article in the Daily Egyptian, the student newspaper at Southern Illinois University, and it’s all about how their school of education is so fantastic that …

The College of Education and Human Services is not part of the national call to significantly change teacher training, university officials say.

According to the New York Times, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a speech Thursday at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York that all universities needed a revolutionary change in the way they prepare teachers. Duncan said many, if not most, colleges and universities are doing a “mediocre job” of preparing teachers for the realities of the classroom.

Jan Waggoner, director of teacher education, said she believes SIUC’s program is not one that needs changes. Waggoner said the college was cited as one of the top 100 colleges of teacher education programs and works to ensure the students are as prepared as possible for the classrooms.

“I don’t know that we would fall into the mediocre category that (Duncan) is naming or needing for the revolutionary change…”

UD looked at the US News rankings, about which Waggoner’s school indeed boasts in its publicity material, and she finds that Southern Illinois is not ranked at all. It’s listed along with all the other schools surveyed, but given no ranking.

To see a ranked school, look at the University of Illinois – Urbana. They’re ranked 24. See?

The thing SIUC’s education school’s best known for — giving SIUC’s current president a PhD in education even though he plagiarized much of the document — probably didn’t help much in this whole process.

But anyway. Kind of cute to see the campus paper playing along.

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

UPDATE: This page, on the SIUC school of education website, deepens the pathos.

The director of teacher education tells the school newspaper reporter that the school was “cited as one of the top 100 colleges of teacher education programs.” It wasn’t. Why not?

Last year our Education programs together were ranked in the Top 100. Unfortunately, the data we provide for this year’s ranking was in advertently incomplete and so we could not be included. We have no doubt, however, that if we had been appropriately considered, we would have achieved that lofty (Top 100) ranking again.

So they’re a Top 100 school… in principle… but they can’t appropriately fill out a questionnaire from US News and World Report. Would you want to go there?

… helped build Chicago’s image as a top destination for serious-minded graduate students and faculty. Over 80 Nobel Prize winners have studied, taught or researched at Chicago. “That’s part of the magic of Chicago,” says Robin Lester, who wrote a book about … Chicago football. “That’s their thing. It’s still a serious place for kids to get an education.”

… “We’re still being true to the notion that it’s not in the interest of universities to create mass-entertainment spectacles,” says John Boyer, dean of Chicago’s undergraduate college.

… has died this academic year.

Andre Narcisse, nineteen years old, was found dead in his bed by his roommates. No cause of death has yet been given, but it was not foul play.

Annie Le, a pharmacology graduate student, was murdered; Sylvia Bingham, who had just graduated, was hit by a truck while riding her bicycle to work.

From an article in the Globe and Mail:

The world gasped last week as rotund, owl-browed author Salman Rushdie, 62, attended a writers gala – with 26-year-old Harvard grad and stunner Min Lieskovsky on his arm.

… Mr. Rushdie has become the poster boy for the intellectual who routinely lands babes much to the bewilderment of everyone.

… The brainiac holds a particular sex appeal for women. From Woody Allen, who dated Diane Keaton and married Mia Farrow, to Malcolm Gladwell, who according to the Daily Beast’s Sean Macaulay is quite the “love guru,” and Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner, who reportedly gets hit on by breathy groupies at book signings, it’s clear that geeks can captivate.

… “The idea of dating or hooking up with a prof [remarks one female student] is one of those kinky dreams I’m sure many girls have.”…

Nothing kinky about it, and it happens so often… and the student gets pissed and tells on her professor so often … that University Diaries constantly has to decide whether to blog about the latest imploding professor/student affair.

But what UD finds strange about the Globe and Mail story’s effort to explain this phenomenon is this: The article never considers, as it maunders on about power, the most likely explanation of all.

People with highly educated, original minds know stuff. They are much more cerebrally organized, and thus probably much more interesting, than other people. They have wit. They may even – a few of them – have wisdom. As we stagger about in the dark, desperate to understand the world and ourselves, we’re drawn — sometimes deeply — to people who seem to shed lots of light.

… involves Scathing Online Schoolmarm complaining about headlines.

Take this one, from an opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about Michael Pollan and others like him with controversial ideas about the food industry, and the way some universities don’t want these people invited to give talks on campus:

FRANK TALK ABOUT FOOD SOMETIMES QUASHED

Point One: Shouldn’t this at least be FRANK TALK ABOUT FOOD SOMETIMES SQUASHED? Then you get frank and squash, two foods.

Point Two: We could be yet more clever and write FRANK SPEAKERS SOMETIMES BEANED.

Point Three: More rad: FRANK… ‘N FRIES.

… Slight tightness in chest… But put that aside…

We’re now officially off to the beach. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware — a three-hour drive.

Later.