Faculty Rogues and Rascals

More Lesson of the Past

In Groundhog Day sad sack Bill Murray keeps reliving the same day over and over again, until finally he evolves to a different person, with a different outlook on life and solutions to its travails. As I watch Hampshire College from afar, it’s as if I were watching another version of Groundhog Day, with the college in Murray’s starring role.

Like everybody else who read the sobering…

Lessons of the Past: Boston State College Then and Hampshire College Now

Thirty-seven years ago, almost to the day, the Massachusetts State Legislature did what many higher education experts—then and now—would have thought impossible: it forced the consolidation of two very different campuses, the upstart University of Massachusetts Boston, founded in 1965, and the moribund Boston State College, a descendant of the 19th century normal school that trained teachers for…

Not My Favorite Things

Things to NOT be thankful for: 1) Fashion trends a. cold shoulder style–an excuse for manufacturers to reduce fabric costs while maintaining retail prices–see also slits in sleeves and flutter sleeves b. hi-lo hemlines–who wants to look at the unfinished inside of your skirt? c. “stretch” in every single garment–Talbots I’m looking at you. d.asymmetrical hemlines on tops, especially fat-lady tops.

Incredible: Christine Blasey Ford’s Sorry Testimony

I admit it. I was spellbound throughout the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing September 27.

I listened to Professor Ford as I was driving, which turns out was a good thing; otherwise, I’d’ve been tempted to turn all of the times she said “I don’t know” or “I didn’t know that” or “I didn’t know how” into a drinking game. A sip of beer every time those…

The Vicious Bigots Who Call Themselves Parents: When You’ve Got Nothing to Say, Insult a Childless Person

Most of the time I like Facebook. I get to keep up with people I like, and with whom I share a love of good food, art, books, music and a host of other things. One of the things I don’t share with many of these folks is the same political opinions. But because I believe that diversity is our strength and something to be cherished, I don’t revile them for their views—and most return the favor and…

Chelsea Manning is NOT a Fellow. I Thought We Had Established That.

So Chelsea Manning is no longer a “visiting fellow” at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Manning’s still on the docket to speak and to meet with students eager to learn, presumably, how one betrays ones country. While others begin foaming at the mouth that Harvard–well, the Institute of Politics (IOP) at the Kennedy School–is giving convicted felons the time of day, I just shrug and ask the offended to…

Listen Up, Tucker Carlson: Put the Blame for Intellectual Genocide Where it Belongs

Note: An earlier version of this issue appeared on the American Thinker website. Recently sixteen faculty members from three of our most distinguished universities—Harvard, Princeton, and Yale—wrote an open letter to the Class of 2021. The letter, short and to the point, advises freshmen to eschew “fashionable opinions” and to think for themselves. Scrupulously devoid of falling on either side of…

Separating Feelings from Facts is Hard to Do–Just Ask Terry Hartle

Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, has an interesting essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Hartle, who at one time worked for the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Cape Pogue), is a policy wonk—and I mean that in the nicest possible way. There is no one whose take on what’s happening in higher education from a federal funding or regulatory…

Inside the Ivory Tower, Where the Wild Things Are

Fess up. Just like me, you’ve been spending lazy summer afternoons pondering the question of the moment: why can’t higher education get no respect? Put another way, why have U.S. college and university campuses become the collective laughingstock of thinking people everywhere? Look no further that today’s home page of Inside Higher Education, an on-line newsletter dedicated to current events in…

Not My Choice: Massachusetts’ Failed Health Insurance Fiasco

The sooner the evil Republicans kill Obamacare, the better. And by “kill” I mean obliterate, smash to smithereens, crush the life out of, grind into dust. Do I make my self clear? I’m one of those poor unfortunates who fall into the category the likes of Jonathan Gruber and various “lawmakers” call “there’s not enough of them to worry about”: I must buy my own health insurance, and I do not…

Where Credit Is Due

One of my go-to websites is RealClearPolitics; every day its compilation of editorials, op-eds and longer polemics contains a raft of worthy articles. If you’re not checking it out, you should be. Case in point. On May 30 RCP published Richard Cohen’s meditation on the punishments Middlebury meted out to the anti-free speech bullies it has nurtured at its bosom, Campus Muzzling Leaves its Mark.…

Case Closed: Middlebury Puts the Past Behind

Miss emerging from her safe space. Miss has emerged from her safe space, at least temporarily, to remark upon the denouement of the free-speech melodrama played out earlier this spring on the campus of Middlebury College in snow-flakey Vermont. The college has just released a report on the riotous antics of its students and “outside agitators,” whose noble if disruptive activities successfully…

Will your Valentine be Unbearable?

So my sister, who is “mother” to my nephew’s second-grade class, just finished baking, decorating, and glassine-wrapping enough heart-shaped cookies so that all the little tiny terrors in Ms. Wilson’s room will receive a Valentine that provides, according to sis, “enough sugar to last them the weekend.” Twenty-seven sets of parents are sending bad vibes her way. I, on the other hand, applaud her…

Lady Professor Puts the “Con” in “Connecticut”

Funny thing about English professors. They spend a lifetime explaining to their students about “perception” and reality.” It’s easy to understand why they do: literary masterpieces through the ages have been built on the premise that things are not always what they seem. So Minatu Roychoudhuri, an associate professor at Capitol Community College (Hartford, CT), can perhaps be forgiven her failure…

The University of Eastern Washington Denies the Truth about Rachel Dolezal

When a university issues a public statement that is factually incorrect, and, worse yet, when it’s easy to verify that the statement is factually incorrect, I think “there but for the grace of retirement go I.” Not so long ago I was in the business of shilling for higher education. My penance for having performed such work is that I now dedicate myself to outing the antics of the folks I once…

Sisterhood Ain’t What It Used to Be: Meet Triplets Caitlyn Jenner, Rachel Dolezal, and Carrie Bradshaw-Crowther

Coming of age in the 1970’s I knew one thing for certain: sisterhood is powerful. As a college student, the halls of my university were chockablock with female professors of all ranks, and, in the rarified air of the administration building, women held powerful leadership positions. So I grew up thinking not that women could be anything they wanted to be, but that women actually were being…