I was a little bit stunned to realize yesterday that my working conditions — as a lowly graduate student at the University of Chicago — are in a sense markedly better than those of a typical French public university professor. You see, the University of Chicago owns a building in Paris where they give us, [...]
Kind of amazed to read this article, “The Power of Place on Campus,” by one Earl Broussard, in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (temp link). Striking because it is so obviously a further step in the marketization of every aspect of campus life. The sacred is invoked as a new fund-raising activity. Is this what [...]
From a post on a New York Times blog specifically about college admissions: My daughter is a senior from a public school with a class size of 589. She has a 4.0 GPA with mostly advanced and AP classes, except required classes. She has an SAT of 2,250, ACT 36. So she is a National [...]
Marc Bousquet has commented in great detail about the deliriously bad conditions of student employment in some places (particularly at UPS in Louisville, TN). As of his figures of last year, in 1964 it would have taken 22 hours of minimum-wage work per week to pay for public university education (room and board and all), [...]
At NYU. This is a picture of an art gallery from the street. The street reflected in the background. Some random art in the bottom. But really I was just tremendously entertained that the DEPARTMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY & IMAGING stuck its name right next to a surveillance camera. I guess they are afraid someone might [...]
According to a hilarious article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, “a troop of 80 to 100 of [rhesus macaque] monkeys have terrorized the campus [of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences] for several years, entering waiting rooms, biting people, and grabbing food from patients and visitors.” Apparently the administrators have tried to have [...]
Department Head “His kingdom isn’t large, but still He rules it with a royal will And, as his colleagues sometimes moan, Needs but a scepter and a throne. Part teacher only, he’s between A full professor and a dean. More like a congressman, by rights, He represents his field and fights For added space and [...]
I was stunned the other day to discover that my campus has plans for a temporary morgue in case of emergency. They read as follows: The Hospital morgue has a limited capacity to store the deceased. If the Hospital is no longer able to accept the deceased they will contact the Chicago Department of Public [...]
Sometimes you hear people, non-academic people, telling you that postmodern writing is gibberish. But remember the old Yankee saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” Likewise with writing: what’s gibberish to my parents is, I must admit, pretty comprehensible to me. This is because academic language is a tool of social differentiation, used to [...]