October 2017
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Blast from the past: “The Myth of the Postmodern University”
February 2004. The myth is less prevalent now, happily.
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PhilArchive
From Bourget & Chalmers: We're pleased to announce the launch of a new site from the PhilPapers Foundation: PhilArchive. As its name indicates, PhilArchive is an open access e-print archive for philosophical works. PhilArchive is a relaunch and rebranding of the archive service that has been present within PhilPapers since 2009. The archive service has…
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Still more complaints about on-line application systems and job ads
Another job seeker writes: I wanted to share with you — and if you think it is worth positing, with your blog readers — an annoyance about some recent job postings that require application through an online system. There was a similar complaint recently about having applications and letters, which must be separately uploaded by…
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Best academic publishers in law?
We haven't done this poll in about eight years, so here it is once again. Choose "none of the above" if you think options not represented are better than the remaining options offered. Remember, this poll concerns solely the quality of scholarship monographs published by different presses (so this is not about publishers of treatises…
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Retired UNC philosophy professor Jan Boxill cleared by NCAA investigation of grading practices for student athletes
News report here. We noted last year that it seemed like she had been railroaded by the university, and this new report by the NCAA seems to confirm that.
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Latest in bad behavior by undergrads…
…this time at a public university, the University of Oregon. You can read the barely literate set of "student demands" here. I would add a demand to their list: "Teach students how to express themselves coherently, clearly and grammatically."
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Doe v. Kipnis, HarperCollins update
The court has granted Doe's request to continue to proceed under a pseudonym; the short opinion is here: Download 36 Jane Doe granted. The reasons given seem to me quite sound, and so I will also continue my practice of using only "Jane Doe" for discussions of the case.
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Wittgenstein, Kreisel and “mining the Baltic”
Mathematician Craig Larson (Virginia Commonwealth University) writes: There's an obscure comment of Crick in his autobiography ("What Mad Pursuit"), regarding his friend Kreisel, reiterated in Crick's Kreiselania piece, regarding Wittgenstein's idea for mining the Baltic in WWII (Crick worked on magnetic mines during the war): "I never did discover exactly what Kreisel was doing at…
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More mischief afoot in the University of Wisconsin system
Philosopher Alan White (UW-Manitowc) sends along this article, and writes: [T]hrough a leak…it became known that President Ray Cross would announce a fundamental reorganization of the 26 campus University of Wisconsin System. Our campuses in the 2-year transfer system–the UW Colleges, 13 such as one entity since the early 1970s–will now return to their status…
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Leading law firms file lawsuit against white supremacists and NeoNazis on behalf of their victims in Charlottesville
Smart strategy, one pioneered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which bankrupted the Ku Klux Klan in many parts of the country by holding them liable in civil court for their misdeeds.
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Chang from Rutgers to Oxford
Ruth Chang (ethics), Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, has accepted appointment as Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford on the law faculty, beginning in January 2019. Although Chang has a law degree, it is a surprising appointment given that she does not work in jurisprudence, unlike the three prior Chair holders going back…
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Huemer’s polemic against letters of recommendation
David Boonin (Colorado) kindly calls to my attention his colleague Michael Huemer's case against soliciting letters of recommendation. Prof. Huemer is always pleasingly contrarian, though it seems to me his case is stronger in this instance when it comes to letters of recommendation for senior candidates rather than rookies. With regard to rookies (1) no…
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In Memoriam: Fred S. McChesney (1948-2017)
A leading law & economics and antitrust scholar, Professor McChesney taught at Emory, Cornell, and Northwestern Universities before taking up a Chair at his alma mater, the University of Miami, in 2011. I will add links memorial notices when they appear. UPDATE: The University of Miami's memorial notice is here.
Rob may be wrong about academic conventions, but he is right about model usage. First, performance will improve significantly with…