Academia: January 2003 Archive Page

"It has been confirmed that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, two of the richest teens in America, have decided to attend University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, WI beginning in the Fall of the 2003-2004 academic year." --Olsen Twins Set to Attend University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, WICNN?)

Why the awkward passive that conceals who "confirmed" this claim? Why is this article in the "World" section of what appears to be the CNN website? Thanks, Sarah, for pointing it out!

Interesting discussion of grade inflation, party skewed by early comments that claimed that engineering and other technical majors are immune from the pressures that cause humanities professors to inflate student grades. Sparked by a Washington Post article that few people on Slashdot seem to have read (that's fine with me -- most are drawing on their own experience as students, graduates, or teachers). --Grade Inflation in Higher EducationSlashdot)

"About one-fourth of university-based medical researchers receive funding from drug companies -- ties that sometimes distort study results, according to a review done by two researchers with industry connections of their own."

--Review finds Pervasive Medical Research-Industry TiesAssociated Press)

Ohmigosh ohmigosh oh...my...gosh! Scientific research isn't completely objective? Scientists aren't lofty supreme beings of pure intellect, untouched by such human vices as pride and clumsiness? And when did corporations start funding scientific research? This is an outrage! I'm glad I'm in the humanities, where fraud never happens.

"[B]eing innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass.... [S]ome things?the nature of higher education among them?will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual source of new ideas. " Nicholas Negroponte --Creating a Culture of IdeasTechnology Review)

"Clonaid, linked with a group that believes life on Earth was originally cloned by aliens, said two women had given birth to babies it had cloned. It at first said it would present DNA evidence but has delayed doing so." --A Name for Clone Babies: 'Hoax' Wired)

More news from the department of "duh": the "cloned baby" reports are probably hoaxes. I'm amazed at the amount of press this "scientific" announcment has received, and how little skepticism I've seen in the mainstream media.

"Proposal. Develop a false website and organization concentrating on the newest national concern: videogame addiction and violence. This organization is called Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (MAVAV, www.mavav.org). There is a great amount of stereotypes about people who play videogames (anti-social, depressed, unintelligent) and a lot of videogame violence bashing and blame (scapegoat) by the media and the government. So I decided to play off this, exaggerating all the common stereotypes, creating absurd facts, and officially linking violence in videogames to killers. :)" David Yoo --Interactivity Final Assignment: Create a Hoax. Submission: "Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence" (Parsons School of Design)

For years, undergraduates everywhere will be citing this website in their freshman composition papers. Hint to students: look for peer-reviewed academic journal articles, not web pages that pop up in response to a google.com search!