From the Yeshiva University student newspaper:

… [L]ack of communication is a systemic problem at Yeshiva. Controversy still surrounds a tenure process that deals decisions with nary an explanation, leaving talented faculty members and caring students in the dark. Sy Syms accounting majors experienced similar frustrations this year, when the school failed to communicate to its students recent changes in New York State’s CPA requirements. And the wall of secrecy surrounding our endowment has long been a problem, stinging us with failing grades in our annual Sustainability Report Card ratings and leaving us vulnerable to the likes of Bernie Madoff.

Bravo. But the real wall of secrecy Yeshiva students should be worrying about is the university’s trustees.

From The Australian:

Melbourne University and its university partners in Universitas 21 are to take a step back from their disappointing foray into online learning, Singapore-based U21 Global.

Under a new business plan being developed, Indian education and healthcare company Manipal Group is expected to assume a controlling stake in the joint venture as Universitas’ 50 per cent stake is partly diluted, including Melbourne’s 20 per cent interest.

… Melbourne has channelled about $15 million into the loss-making business since it started in 2001 and doesn’t plan to invest any more.

… The brain child of former Melbourne vice chancellor Alan Gilbert, U21 Global was established amid high hopes it could capitalise on an anticipated boom in online education.

An original business plan had predicted the business growing to 27,000 students by 2005 with the potential to rise to a wildly ambitious 500,000 by 2011. But student numbers have only reached something over 5,000…

Roughly 10 to 20 people, including several University students, were involved in a “large fight” on Saturday evening at a dance hosted by the Caribbean Connection at the Carl A. Fields Center, Deputy Chief of Public Safety Charles Davall said in an e-mail to The Daily Princetonian.
The conflict escalated until Borough Police sprayed the crowd with pepper spray, Davall added.

Around 1:20 a.m. on Sunday, Public Safety officers received several calls from party attendees who said a fight had broken out in the dance venue.

One Public Safety officer had been assigned to security detail for the event because of its size and nature, Davall said, adding that three officers were on scene when the fight broke out because of an earlier confrontation around midnight at the same event.

At the time of the incident, around 200 people were present, and about 10 to 20 of them were “pushing, shoving and punching each other,” Davall added.

Though two officers tried to stop the violence, the large crowd pushing toward the fight prevented them from calming the situation and separating the combatants.

It soon became clear that the officers and combatants were both in “jeopardy of significant harm,” and other attendees were being hit as well, Davall added.

The crowd dispersed quickly, though, when a Borough Police officer patrolling the area arrived on the scene and sprayed pepper spray over the crowd. The police sprayed the crowd twice before the combatants stopped fighting, Davall said…

The Daily Princetonian

… student newspaper.

As finals become a frightening reality for students, professors need to be reminded that finals week is for finals.  [Yes, it’s gotten this bad.  Students admonishing professors to do their job.] It has become customary for professors to schedule finals or place deadlines on lengthy term papers during dead week or the week before, often times violating Rule 79 of the WSU Academic Regulations. The rule states, “No examinations or quizzes (other than laboratory examinations, make-up examinations and make-up quizzes) may be given during the last week of instruction.” Professors are using the lax dead week schedules to turn finals into a two-week marathon of test-taking. Of the five members of The Daily Evergreen Editorial Board, we have 12 finals or papers due during “dead week” and only six finals or papers due finals week between us. We highly doubt that we are the only students facing an incongruous lineup of exams and deadlines.

Administrators have to take violations of Rule 79 more seriously. [Admonishing administrators too.  The students are correct to do so.] With the cost of tuition increasing nearly every year, students deserve every dollar of that education. The 16-week semester schedule does not provide enough time to cover course material in enough detail, especially when professors take an early holiday vacation by turning dead week into finals week. [It’s really not a good idea for professors to make students cynical.] By removing a week of instruction from the semester, professors also cut down on the amount of time they can tell stories about their children and pimp their latest book.  [Piling it on a bit here, but why not?  Students see the rip-off and are pissed.]

A weak economy, poor performance and a disregard for regulations are all adequate grounds for removing a professor. Given the cutbacks in numerous departments and custodial services, students would assume that professors are working harder than ever to make their courses as intellectually stimulating as possible. However, evidence points to the contrary.

Though this is no laughing matter, maybe underperforming professors should be replaced with custodians. We are not convinced that would negatively impact our education – that is how high we hold WSU’s current line-up of “educators.”  [Drop the quotation marks.  The word educator is vile enough without them.] Who knows, WSU might have a janitor who is a savant like the one played by Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting.” Dead week is designed to provide students adequate time to prepare for finals. Digesting 15 weeks of lectures is a daunting task for students who actually care about their education. Of course, some students will use dead week to party, but the irresponsible behavior of a few students does not justify the actions of professors who schedule early finals.

Students should be aware of their rights and report abuses of Rule 79 to the Office of the University Ombudsman in Wilson Hall Room 2.

Tenured academics are insulated from reality, and allowing them to keep their jobs while remaining ineffective is a disservice to everyone who is paying to be here.  [It’s certainly true that tenured professors are insulated from all sorts of realities, including the need to take angry editorials like this one seriously.  Pity.]

BBC:

My first outing with the Welsh Labour leader, in September last year, was pure Rhodri.

There we were on a flight to Louisville, Kentucky for the prestigious Ryder Cup golf tournament.

From my seat in economy, I could see him up ahead, reading James Joyce’s fiendishly difficult novel, Ulysses. And wearing the scruffiest pair of jeans I have ever seen in business class…

The man who’s led the Welsh Assembly Government for nearly 10 years has no time for the modern obsession with image.

His advisers, though, would have loved him to have given it a bit more thought, especially when trying to boost Wales’ standing abroad.

On arrival at Louisville airport, his battered old suitcase actually began to fall apart as his welcoming party helped him get it into the waiting limo…

Sign in the University of Michigan dormitories:

I won’t ruin Bruce Springsteen’s surprise by disclosing that La Kid’s chorus is even as we speak singing The Rising for him at the Kennedy Center Honors.

Who are they singing with?

Sting.

A blast from the past. La Kid in the sea of red behind Springsteen at the inauguration.

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

UPDATE:

John Mellencamp sang “Born in the U.S.A.,” Jennifer Nettles from Sugarland did “Glory Days” with a country twist, Melissa Ethridge rocked the house with “Born To Run” to a standing ovation and Sting ended the musical tribute with “The Rising” with help from a choir.

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

Another Update, from Rolling Stone:

Finally, Sting came out and was soon joined by a… gospel choir for “The Rising,” which got all of the tuxedo-and-gowned masses out of their seats and end[ed] the evening in an uplifting, change-the-world mode, as only Bruce’s music can.

But why not get it directly from a wee-small-hours-of-the-morning gchat with the Aretha Franklin of ‘thesda herself, Ania Soltan:

From The Independent:

He is a Turner-prize winning artist who has represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and made an award-winning film capturing the athletic beauty and grace of the French footballer, Zinedine Zidane.

Celebrated as a former YBA and seminal figure on the international arts scene, one might assume that Douglas Gordon’s artworks would be revered in his Scottish homeland.

Not so, according to Gordon, who has vowed never again to accept a public commission in Scotland after a particularly unpleasant experience in which his proposed artwork was heavily criticised and he was left to cover his own expenses.

The University of Edinburgh invited the artist – whose work has been shown and bought by the National Galleries of Scotland – to create a work for its Main Library. It was due to be unveiled in the autumn this year, when the library’s redeveloped ground opened.

Instead, the artist pulled out of the project in disgust after his first proposal for the space was frowned upon for not being positive enough. Later, he was informed that he would have to cover travel and accommodation expenses to the launch of the project.

Gordon, who is represented by the powerful Gagosian Gallery, said he felt “humiliated” and that he would “never again accept a public commission in my home country”.

“I felt I was being treated like a 16-year-old apprentice and not a professional,” he added.

He took the bold step to speak out about his grievance after saying that he was not the first artist to be handled so shabbily by institutions commissioning public artworks. “Many artists are treated disrespectfully by the institutions they are making commissions for,” he said. “Most think they cannot afford to say no, but I can, so I had to.”

His initial idea was to inscribe the words, “Every time you turn a page, it dies a little” in gold letters on a wall inside the library. But several members of the advisory board took against it for being too negative when he handed in his sketches early this year….

Encounters with accused killer Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani led several local Muslims to take steps to avoid him when they saw him on campus or elsewhere in the community.

Al-Zahrani, the man accused of fatally stabbing Binghamton University Professor Richard Antoun on campus Friday, had accused fellow Middle Eastern students of following him, [had] answer[ed] a greeting of peace with an obscene insult, and [had] disparaged a local mosque, according to three students interviewed Saturday night.

“Tell these students not to follow me,” Awni Qasaimeh, a Jordanian studying for his doctorate in industrial and systems engineering, said Al-Zahrani told him last week. “Do not make me trouble.”…

… a ghost.

From Fox News:

People who lived and studied with the graduate student accused of fatally stabbing a Binghamton University anthropology professor say the younger man was confrontational and threatening.

Souleyman Sukho says that Abdulsalam al-Zahrani came at him with a knife during the three weeks they shared an apartment with another student, Luis Pena.

Pena says he recalls the 46-year-old sitting on the sofa and suddenly blurting out, “I just feel like destroying the world.”…

Harvard is not a business. It’s a public trust – protected by nonprofit laws, free of most taxes, recipient of billions of government dollars – and its success shouldn’t be measured in its rate of return on investments.

Boston Globe

La Kid just called to tell me what a dress rehearsal for the Kennedy Center Honors is like.

I can’t tell you who her chorus sings with because the honorees are supposed to be surprised (the show’s tomorrow), but wow.

More later.

WAFB.com:

Southern University’s former system president lost his wrongful termination lawsuit against the board of supervisors Thursday.

… [Ralph] Slaughter filed the lawsuit after the Board of Supervisors voted not to renew his contract earlier this year.

District Judge Tim Kelly did not mince words when he issued his ruling, saying after his dismissal, Slaughter emptied his office and stadium suite of just about everything that was not nailed down.

Judge Kelly also said Slaughter created chaos when he took those things, therefore Southern’s failure to pay his unused vacation and sick leave was justified. Kelly also ruled that Slaughter is not entitled to penalties or attorney fees.

… [The judge] called testimony from … Slaughter the “least credible” he has ever heard.

December 2009
Garrett Park, Maryland

I begin my final lecture for the semester — a review of the course, with an eye toward the final exam, an in-class essay scheduled for next week.

I note that instead of Rome Hall 109, I am in Westminster Abbey. In place of a class of thirty young Americans, there’s pew after pew of international tour groups.

I cannot remember the subject of the course.

“Somebody in the front row who brought your syllabus,” I begin, raking the faces of a line of people who look Greek. “Can I take a peek?”

Silence. Some seem angry, glaring at the gorgeous carpet at their feet.

How can I lecture at this enormous podium? I’m lost behind it! Was this English or American lit?

I bounce down the long steps from the podium for a little audience shmoozing… Do some comic patter… “Hey (smile) where are you from?… Nice cathedral they’ve got here…”

“WE CAN’T HEAR YOU. WE CAN’T SEE YOU.”

“Oh right. I’m so short nobody can see me down here. Wait, I’ll hop back up to the podium. But hey it’s not much better here! I’m so short…”

What the hell was the course about? Assume American…

“What does it mean to be an American? Or – let me back up. What does the word American mean?… When I say the phrase dialectic of enlightenment, what does it make you think of? … If you were writing a final exam for this course, what sort of questions would you choose?…”

The Queen of England enters the room in State Opening of Parliament dress. At first I don’t notice her so I keep talking. “Paradox and promise is what I think of when I think of America. And believe me those themes are implicit in our literature.”

“Shh. It’s the Queen,” says someone behind me.

“Oh. WHOOPS,” I say, exaggeratedly placing my hands over my mouth for comic effect. No one laughs. As the Queen glides in front of me I wave to her.

“You don’t wave to the Queen, idiot,” says the person behind me. “Look what she’s doing.”

Sure enough the Queen is staring at me and laughing with loud haughty contempt.

At this point, I wake up.