Stanford University has announced a $225
million research alliance with Exxon Mobil. Over the next ten
years, the Global Climate and Energy Project (G-CEP) will develop
new technologies for producing clean energy and reducing harmful
emissions from existing processes. According to the Chronicle
of Higher Education, Exxon, which is one of the largest oil companies
in the world, in the past has publicly denounced research on links
between fossil fuel consumption and global climate change. Critics
of G-CEP, including some Stanford professors and students, worry
that Exxon will exert undue influence over research agendas and
that the project focuses too much on producing commercially viable
technologies and not enough on basic science or policy.
Subscribers to the Chronicle can read “Greening the World
or ‘Greenwashing’ a Reputation?” in the January
10, 2003 issue, available online at http://chronicle.com.
For a consideration of how corporate sponsorship affects research
close to home, see the cover story of the December 2002/January
2003 Academic Exchange “Money
Changes Everything.”
January
2 , 2003
Your Attention, Please
Today's New York Times reports on professors' growing frustation
with students' unrelated use of laptop computers in the classroom.
According to the article, "The moment [the professor] loses
the thread, or fumbles with his own laptop to use its calculator,
screens flip from classroom business to leisure. Students dash
off e-mail notes and send instant messages. A young man who is
chewing gum shows an amusing e-mail message to the woman next
to him, and then switches over to read the online edition of The
Wall Street Journal." When one law professor at Yale tried
to ban Internet use in the classroom, students "'went ballistic,'he
said, and insisted that their multitasking ways made them more
productive and even more alert in class." But others argue
that the benefits of classroom technology far outweigh the problems
with distraction.
To read the article on line (but not during class), visit http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/technology/02WIRE.html
November
19, 2002
Race and Retention
“People move around in academia; it’s just the nature
of the beast,” said Tom Insel, director of the Center for
Behavioral Neuroscience, in an interview with the Academic Exchange
for the September 2002 cover story “Staying
Power: Challenges in faculty recruitment and retention at Emory.”
In Emory’s Department of Political Science, that means the
departure of three professors—all of them African-American.
Richard Joseph, the former Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political
Science, now directs Northwestern University’s Program in
African American Studies. Robert A. Brown, Assistant Professor
of Political Science, is leaving due to tenure decisions, and
Michael Leo Owens, Visiting Assistant Professor, has accepted
a tenure-track position at Penn State. The November 1, 2002, issue
of the Chronicle of Higher Education
reports that the department has started a search for job candidates.
The November 11 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education contains an essay by Joan Williams on how some academics are trading a portion of their salary for more time for their families. She describes the case of a single mother who took a 20-percent pay cut in order to reduce her course load for the next five years, until her daughter turns eight. In another case, however, university policy dictated that a tenured professor with two small children would lose her benefits if she cut back to a 75-percent work schedule. Williams advocates more flexible university policies and more viable part-time, tenure-track jobs in academe.
To read the article in full, if you subscribe to the Chronicle, click here to search the site.
Also read Carol Hogue's Academic Exchange
essay on "The Value of Children: Should the university partner
with parenting faculty?" at www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2002/sept/hogue.html
November
5, 2002
Shrinking Budgets at Private Universities
Today's New York Times contains an article about how private affluent universities nationwide are facing sharp investment declines and spending cuts. "Boom's End Is Felt Even at Wealthy Colleges" examines postponed building projects, hiring freezes, and layoffs of faculty members at institutions such as Stanford, Duke, MIT, Dartmouth, and Emory. Layoffs are under consideration at Stanford and Duke.
The article is online at www.nytimes.com/2002/11/05/education/05COLL.html
November
4, 2002
Resources for Crossing the Great Divide
Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Karen Stolley consulted the following sources while composing an essay titled "Crossing the Great Divide: Enhancing faculty-trustee communication" for the October/November issue of the Academic Exchange.
Academe (Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors). May-June 2001. "In It Together: Faculties, Administrations, and Shared Governance."
Baldwin, Roger. "Put A Professor On Your Board?" Trusteeship (Bulletin of the Association of Governing Boards). November-December 2000. 13-17.
Burgan, Mary. "The Faculty and the Budget." Academe. March-April 2001. 108.
-----. "Governance: A Practical Guide." Academe. May-June 2001.
Chait, Richard. "Trustees and Professors: So Often at Odds, So Much Alike." Chronicle of Higher Education 8/4/2000. vol. 46. no. 48. p. B4.
Clinton, Patrick. "University Endowments." University of Chicago Magazine. April 2002. 21-25.
Gaff, Gerry. "The Changing of Faculty and Administrators." Liberal Education. Summer 1997. 12-17.
Glotzbach, Philip A. "Conditions of Collaboration: A Dean's List of Do's and Don'ts." Academe. May-June 2001. 16-21.
Hamilton, Neil. "Are We Speaking the Same Language? Comparing AAUP and AGB." Liberal Education. Fall 1999. 24-31.
-----. "The Academic Profession's Leadership Role in Shared Governance." Liberal Education. Summer 2000. 12-19.
Ingram, Richard T. "Faculty Angst and the Search for a Common Enemy." Chronicle of Higher Education 5/14/99. vol. 45. no. 36. p. B10.
"The President's Cabinet Responds to the College Executive Council." Emory Report. May 13, 2002.
Scott, Joan Wallach. "The Critical State of Shared Governance." Academe. July-August 2002.. 41-48.
American Association of University Professors (AAUP) website: www.aaup.org
Association for Governing Boards (AGB) website: www.agb.org
October
21, 2002
From Fat Jeans to Fat Genes?
Excerpts from "Fat Politics and the Will to Innocence"
"My work participates in the struggle
to renegotiate what fat means in our culture. Americans understand
fatness as some kind of failure—certainly as an aesthetic
affront. But fat often gets framed as a kind of moral failure
too, a failure of will . . . . It also gets framed as a failure
of citizenship. Literature from World War II described fat people
as treasonous for consuming more food than needed. . . . And anti-fat
bias is often rife with classist and racist bias too. When white
America fears fat, it fears the loss of privilege that goes along
with the idealized slim, white body.
"I've begun to think about how to change this. There are
some arenas where fatness is recognized in more positive ways.
In the fashion arena, for instance, fat is morphing from an aesthetic
affront to something that has a place in market culture. Fifteen
years ago clothing in stores aimed at fat women were always terrible—poorly
made, bad fabric, no style. Now that's not true anymore. Last
year, the "plus size" segment of fashion retailing grew
by 11 percent while all other areas of fashion remained even or
declined. But is success really measured by having a consumer
market recognize you? Equal rights in fashion are not the same
as equal rights in the workplace.
"Queer Studies and Disability Studies are two lines of inspiration
for Fat Studies. Like discourse about gay identity, there's a
similar interest in figuring out what causes this. For instance,
there's the search for the so-called 'fat gene,' just as there's
been a search for a 'gay gene.' And both queers and fat folk are
deemed in our culture as immoral; both are accused of 'flaunting
it' if they don't hide their bodies. But there's also quite a
bit of sizism in queer communities . . . . So I also look to disability
studies. There's a lot of connection in the representation of
bodies as abjected. One difference, however, is that the disabled
are generally not considered culpable for their condition (although
that's not true for all disabilties)."
—Kathleen LeBesco, Assistant Professor of Communication Arts,
Marymount Manhattan College, speaking at a Women's Studies colloquium
on October 2, 2002.
For more information, explore the articles
below, if you subscribe to the Chronicle. Click here
to search the site.
Fallout From Wall Street Hits Colleges Hard from the August
9th Chronicle
Endowment Losses Force Dartmouth to Cut Its Budget from
the August 26th Chronicle
Boston University Plans to Cut 450 Jobs from the September
3rd Chonicle
September
12, 2002
A Poem by Lucas Carpenter, Charles Howard Candler Professor of
English at Oxford College
WHERE WAS GOD ON SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH?
Answers Sunday at 11 AM
Prophetic Deliverance Services
—Roadside Rent-A-Sign
I wish I could say
He was with me
Sitting in a dive on Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
"TV does it better than the Bible
Grace works and it's fun
Just ask the Jews
Who ought to be used to it
Faith's a ploy to keep you focused
There's no secret
No victimless heaven
No truth without
A knowledge of nothing
Not known about"
Language is genetic
I reach for my drink
And history is late
Babi-Yar or Belsen
Nanking or My Lai.
Suicidal slaughter of innocents
Well within the sharp edges
Wording your worlds
Unspoken and vacant
See Perils of the Affect (Edwin Mellen
Press 2002) for more poems by Lucas Carpenter.