Not only that, but Dzau sits on a shitload of corporate boards, which pay him hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The dude is raking it in.

Which bothers a few divinity school types at Duke, who note that

the university paid the bonuses even as it was cutting jobs and eliminating raises for most other workers.

… In recent years, Duke has frozen pay and eliminated jobs in an attempt to pare its annual operating budget by $100 million.

Nearly 400 workers have accepted buyout offers since early 2009. Their jobs were then eliminated.

“During a time when the administration is saying we all needed to tighten our belts and make sacrifices…as it turns out, some of the folks who lost money for Duke [she’s talking about investment managers, who also got bonuses] were giving themselves bonuses,” said Amy Laura Hall, a tenured professor of Christian ethics. “I think that’s obscene.” …

Some of Hall’s students have taken to the quads dressed in Depression era gear and selling apples: “With all the cuts we have around here and all the bonuses we have to give to the big guys, we need to raise all the money we can.”

UD will be sending an executive bonus donation to Duke this evening, and she encourages you to do the same. At a time of real fiscal distress, Duke remains foursquare in its defense of its executive reward system. Its executives themselves are equally remarkable for their fidelity, through thick and thin, to the principle of unlimited personal enrichment.

A letter in the University of Georgia newspaper.

The incident that led to the resignation of The Red & Black’s editor-in-chief is not particularly surprising, given the extraordinary emphasis placed on alcohol and partying in your paper this fall.

The relentless “No. 1 Party School”-themed articles and link on The Red & Black’s website speak volumes — volumes of vodka, as it turns out.

Since 2004 I have contributed 85 published columns to The Red & Black.

But this fall I chose not to submit anything at all, primarily because of my disappointment with the direction of the paper.

I hope the forced shake-up in leadership is a turning point for The Red & Black, which in past years has been the best newspaper in Athens.

John Knox
Assistant professor Athens
Geography

Corporate denial consulting turns out to be a perfect career niche for Chad. Fortune 500 companies are calling him all the time. There’s a lot to deny and Chad is good at it.

Gregg Easterbrook’s immortal satire of a Christmas letter to friends includes this intriguing occupation: corporate denial consulting.

The corporate denialists are no doubt in full combat mode this morning, helping the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, the University of Miami, and Yale University deny suggestions that high-profile professors at their schools put their name on pharma-generated, ghostwritten, articles and books.

[Amanda Busch is] accused of stealing more than $70,000 in jewelry and currency from a [Cincinnati] home

… Busch, 27, also confessed to breaking into two other homes – one on Nov. 7 and the other on Nov. 12 – though police suspect she is involved in more area burglaries.

… Busch’s attorney Rich Vande Ryt said his client has just one more year to go before getting her college degree at University of Cincinnati.

… After members of the faculty voiced concerns regarding laptop use in their classrooms, [the Committee on Academic Technology] took the admirable first step of consulting with the student body before considering formal regulatory action.

… Professors should make clear where they stand on personal electronic device use in their classrooms. The syllabi that are given to each student at the beginning of the semester would be the ideal medium for professors to express their individual policies…

As students and faculty become increasingly frustrated by rude and destructive classroom laptop use, more and more universities are holding these discussions, debating the relative merits of across-the-board bans and case-by-case choice on the part of professors.

Longtime UD readers know what UD has predicted: In time, students will be allowed – nay, encouraged – to use laptops only in radically PowerPointed classrooms. If you’re a professor who wants to be left alone to read slides aloud for fifty minutes twice a week, what’s not to like about laptops? They’re your salvation.

In my experience, the pharmaceutical company would pay a communications/marketing company to write the manuscript, who would then go out and find academics who would be willing to become the “authors” of the manuscript and paid an honorarium. I’ve worked with some authors who do absolutely nothing on the manuscript, requiring an additional ghostwriter to be hired, and still demand an honorarium for their time. These academics are willing to enter into this relationship because of the importance of authorship to their careers. You can’t entirely blame the pharma company. Universities encourage academics to play this game.

A ghost writer betrays a little annoyance with some of UD’s fellow professors.

…. sentiment.

Unfortunately, the horse has been out of the barn on this campus for many years.

… universities, we should remind ourselves that there’s a whole other world of legitimate education out there, one which students are more and more ably defending.

Here, in an opinion piece titled Fordham Rightly Resists Offering Online Classes, a Fordham student gets it said. His writing’s a bit awkward, but he gets it said. Excerpts:

… The foundations on which Jesuit universities, particularly Fordham, have been built upon are not in accordance with online courses. Though it may be convenient for students, it does not provide the degree of education we are paying for. The realm of learning and studying is completely altered under these conditions, with a less hands on approach.

If Fordham were to offer online courses, its credibility in teaching would be strongly questioned. Even if a student was able to get beyond the idea of no personal interaction with professors and no thought-provoking ideas of classmates, there is still no guarantee that the quality of education in the online classes will be up to par with that which Fordham instills.

… Sure, online classes can reach a larger amount [should be number] of people, especially those looking to attend part time. This, however, compromises the integrity of the order devoted to education by lacking a creation of relationships and the true development of the whole person that cura personalis stands on…

Serious, legitimate education isn’t just for Jesuits.

Andy Hutchins congratulates the University of New Mexico.

Yes, yes, the woman in charge of spending EU money on Bulgarian farms claimed a university degree she didn’t have. The Agriculture Minister rails against her lying ways…

Yet, you know… You’re supposed to check credentials.

A Nashville paper writes a long, thoughtful piece on the corruption of American medical education and practice.

The reporter interviewed – or tried to interview – some highly paid pharma shills. One of them, a professor at Meharry, said

he would need to check with the school’s communications department before commenting, but did not respond by press time.

Poor man can’t open his mouth without permission — either from his university, or from Eli Lilly.

As if the University of New Mexico didn’t have enough embarrassments.

… UD‘s beloved Henry Purcell.

The former head of Duke University’s bariatric surgery program has been charged with embezzling $267,000 from the school.

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

The cover of his book.

If you’ve been with me awhile, you know my kid performed with a gospel group at last year’s Kennedy Center Honors. (Here’s a YouTube of her group’s performance with Sting. La Kid‘s the blond in glasses who shows up at 1:43.)

She’ll do the same thing this year, in front of a new group of honorees. Including the cute Beatle.

UD will of course cover this event on her blog. (UD knows the spectacular singer her kid will accompany for this performance; she also knows the spectacular songs her group will sing. But she’s not allowed to tell you.)