Mortimer Adler’s Syntopicon

This photo cracks me up:

It’s from this NY Times book review:
In “A Great Idea at the Time,” Alex Beam presents Hutchins and Adler as a double act: Hutchins the tall, suave one with a gift for leadership; Adler “a troll next to the godlike Hutchins,” with a talent for putting students to sleep. Making the [...]

Graduate Students: Worst People in the World?

Decided to go for the attention-getting, deceptive headline for this Television Report.
Season premiere of 30 Rock, which I like a lot though sometimes find just a bit too antic & pleased with itself, this week.  A funny one overall; there was one line that somewhat mystified me, as Liz and Jack discuss the ethical dubiousness [...]

Remorseless Eatin’ Machine

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education,
Obese diners at all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants were more likely than other customers to sit closer to the buffet, face the food bar, use forks rather than chopsticks, use larger plates, and serve themselves immediately rather than first browsing the food, according to a study reported in the August issue [...]

English Professors as Therapists

I loved this, from Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression:
In an important study done in 1979, researchers demonstrated that any form of therapy could be effective if certain criteria were met: that both the therapist and the patient were acting in good faith; that the client believed that the therapist understood the [...]

Tenure Bleak House

A poignant tale about a comp lit professor denied tenure in 1976 and still fighting it:
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i08/08a00104.htm

From the issue dated October 17, 2008

The Tenure Lawsuit of a Lifetime
By ERIC KELDERMAN
Joseph M. Hayse’s three-decade quest for tenure is littered with bodies. It has outlived the careers of most of the people involved — and several of the people [...]

Professors Gone Wild

Impressive to realize how low the bar can be set for professional behavior by university professors.
An argument between two debate coaches escalates into a war of words, each showering the other with a string of obscenities before an audience of seemingly unfazed students. Before long, one coach has mooned the other, and the video — [...]

Prof. Sha Na Na

I have to say, Sha Na Na (stupidest band name ever?) is just about the last group whose members I would have expected to go into academia. Also, can I observe that Sha Na Na did not “make doo-wop avant-garde,” they just turned it into an irritating parody and paved the path for Happy [...]

Local news story of the week

Local news story of the week:

Police: Funny fudge made with lavender, not pot
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Indiana University police say brownies a girl gave to dorm workers didn’t contain marijuana at all. The leafy substance mixed in was lavender.
IU Police Capt. Jerry Minger said the 13-year-old girl came forward after the case was publicized to [...]

Failed English PhD student sues

A cautionary story for English profs:
6 years of Ph.D. work denied, so he sues
Not knowing any of the specifics, what’s weird here is the implication that the PhD should be awarded on the basis of generally good work over the graduate career, as opposed to a dissertation of acceptable/passable quality. So, the guy says [...]

Biodegradable Couches

An amusing lit-crit prof cameo in this article from the NYTimes House & Home session about biodegradable furniture.
In any case, there is something quixotic and poignant about makers of home goods — particularly large home goods, like sofas — advertising their wares for their evanescence.
Their longevity, in the past, has always been part of the [...]