Missing Freshman Comp – Lingua Franca – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Have you hugged your college’s freshman writing course today? (Not the students, not the teachers—we don’t want disciplinary hearings. The course.) Like most who have worked in English departments, I was rarely excited to be assigned freshman rhetoric (as it was called where I started). The essay-grading was back-breaking and social-life-destroying, to say nothing of…

Reports suggest UVa board wanted president to eliminate language programs

Apparently, her defense of the classics and German was among the reasons UVa recently ousted the presudent. As a grad student needing to beef up my foreign kanguage credentuals, I took the summer German course Herr McDonald comments on here. William C. McDonald, director of undergraduate studies in German at the university, stressing that he…

Father’s Day Kirktopus

via Rainbow Hector Weblog Similar:Yesterday my stack of unmarked assignments was about 120, so this is not bad.Nothing in this stack is pressing, but t…AcademiaMSU asks faculty & staff to volunteer in short-staffed dining halls; @MSU_Football tweets …MSU, instead of asking your profs to vol…AcademiaHow We Found Tom Price’s Private JetsGreat behind-the-scenes story of the…

Teresa Sullivan fired from UVA: What happens when universities are run by robber barons.

On Monday Dragas, sensing that the university community might want some explanation for such a radical act, sent out a second message: “The Board believes this environment calls for a much faster pace of change in administrative structure, in governance, in financial resource development and in resource prioritization and allocation. We do not believe we…

My daughter playing “Alice in Wonderland” in her dollhouse

Stop drinking from random bottles, child! Similar:Again with the chess.I try to go to Planet Fitness or chess w…PersonalGame Design Program for Education & TrainingI haven’t tried GameSalad yet… and won…AcademiaInternet Explorer and Murder Rates: More Fun with Causation and Correlation IE.png – mlkshk.AmusingDress rehearsal for Mamma Mia.PersonalTook the whole day off and spent part…

Kindle iOS Update

I find it really amazing that it has taken this long for Amazon to finally shrink that ridiculously huge margin, which persisted like fake stirrups on a horseless carriage. Similar:Blender GriffinTo celebrate yesterday’s on-time submiss…AestheticsThe Harry Potter Decision, as text – UpdatedGroklaw has a good analysis of the recen…BooksPitching a Magazine Article: Resources for Beginning…

9-Year-Old Who Changed School Lunches Silenced By Politicians

This young blogger has learned a very important lesson about power and privilege. I’m sure the story does not end here. We anguish about getting kids to be enthusiastic about healthy, sustainable food — to not prefer the bad stuff, not waste the good stuff, and not be entitled little monsters who whine about when their next…

Happy Flag Day from Stage Right Musical Theatre Campers (Greensburg, Pennsylvania)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BYkuRBVXN4 Similar:Rest assured, there will soon be enough Rey toys to monetize the imaginations of the littl…The problems of female characters being …BusinessEducators approve national campaign to halt high stakes, “toxic tests”Not a news item, but an announcement fro…CultureUSDA's MyPlate – Home page I have mostly a good first impressi…EducationHow Technology Has Changed The Way…

Grocery Store Lesson

As a kid, I loved the feeling of confidence that came when my mom handed me a few bucks at the pool and told me I could get what I wanted from the concession stand. Since my main responsibility for the afternoon was to keep the kids occupied, and I was in no rush to…

Testing

I’ve been having some problems with the WordPress iOS app. Just testing. This should be a robot inspecting a donut. Similar:In August 1999 I was blogging about Poohsticks Bridge, penmanship, Archimedes, and ebooksIn August 1999, I was blogging about …BooksInternational Studies Association proposes to bar editors from blogging “I think it’s a really strange propo…AcademiaIn…

Pride and Pedantry

“What’s a meme?” I took my daughter to the birthday party of a 12-year-old friend yesterday, and hung around with the adults as the kids splashed in the pool. After a round of Chuck Norris jokes with his dad (“When Chuck Norris goes into the water, he doesn’t get wet, the water gets Chuck Norrissed”),…