September
29, 2003
Great Expectations for the School of Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine and Physiology Samuel C. Dudley
Jr. adds his own welcome and advice for Emory's new president.
He addresses the medical school's relationship to Grady Hospital,
the dilemma of the clinician/scientist, Emory's building boom,
and the opportunity for stronger ties between Emory College and
the School of Medicine, among other issues: "Do we really
need to compete directly with private hospitals and doctors, or
can we have a unique market position that marries clinical skill
with academic achievement? . . . Do we need to be full service,
despite some programs never turning a profit?"
His essay is available on the web at
http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2003/sept/dudley.html
September
24, 2003
New York Times interview with Sheldon Krimsky,
author of Science in the Public Interest
The September 23 edition of the New York Times includes
an interview with the Tufts University chemist who outlines in
his new book the growing relationships between commerce and academic
medicine. He argues that the trend renders universities "no
longer the independent, disinterested centers of learning that
the public has long depended on." He further suggests that
the ties between research and industry have brought "dangerous
drugs to the marketplace," and that biologists who involved
in both basic research and commercial enterprise have the most
prestige in their fields.
The entire interview is available on the
web at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/23/science/23CONV.html
September
5, 2003
Health Sciences Receives News of Federal Funding This Week
This week, Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center both received
a $1.9 million National Cancer Institute Planning Grant for the
Winship Cancer Center, and was named part of a six-university
consortium in the Southeast to develop a biodefense initiative
against infectious diseases and bioterrorist attacks. The Southeast
Regional Center of Excellence for Emerging Infections and Biodefense
will be centered at Duke University and will receive more than
$45 million from the Department of Health and Human Services over
the next five years. Emory will receive approximately $12 million
of those funds.
Duke was one of seven universities nationwide
named to lead the regional centers. The awards, totaling $350
million, also will go to Harvard Medical School, the University
of Chicago, the University of Maryland at Baltimore, the University
of Texas Medical Branch, the University of Washington at Seattle,
and Washington University in St. Louis.
For further reading, visit
http://www.emory.edu/WHSC/HSNEWS/releases/sep03/wci_grant.html
http://www.emory.edu/WHSC/HSNEWS/releases/sep03/biodefense.html
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2003/09/2003090501n.htm
http://www.ajc.com/friday/content/epaper/editions/friday/metro_f3859270513cd01300eb.html
http://www.ajc.com/wednesday/content/epaper/editions/wednesday/news_f35538bab39f115b00b1.html
June
30, 2003
More on commerce and the culture of the academy
National Public Radio host Terry Gross interviews Derek Bok today
on Fresh Air. Bok, emeritus President of Harvard University,
spoke at Emory during the Sam Nunn forum on the Commercialization
of the Academy in 2002. His new book, just published by Princeton
University Press, is Universities in the Marketplace: the Commercialization
of Higher Education. For a transcript or audio archieve of
the broadcast, visit Fresh
Air's website. For more background on this subject, read
the Academic Exchange story Money
Changes Everything
(December 02/January 03).
May
20, 2003
Bobby Paul named Emory College dean
Emory has selected Robert A. Paul as dean of Emory College and
of the faculty of arts and sciences following a national search.
Paul has been serving as interim dean since fall of 2001. Prior
to that, he had been dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
since fall of 2000.
Paul is no stranger to Emory; he has been on the faculty since
1977, and serves on the faculty of four departments or institutes
at the university. Since 1986 he has been the Charles Howard Candler
Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies. Paul
also is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry
and Behavioral Science and holds a joint faculty appointment in
anthropology and the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. He
is a past chairman of the latter two. He is an associate teaching
analyst at the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute, where
he also holds the position of training and supervising analyst.
Paul's professional interests within anthropology include psychological
anthropology, comparative religion, myth and ritual, and the ethnography
of Nepal, Tibet, the Himalayas, and South and Central Asia. His
extensive scholarly publications in these areas include "The
Tibetan Symbolic World" (University of Chicago Press, 1982)
and a special issue of Cultural Anthropology, "Biological
and Cultural Anthropology at Emory University," which he
edited. He served for many years as editor of ETHOS: Journal
of the Society for Psychological Anthropology and was president
of the Society for Cultural Anthropology from 1992-1994.
May
16 , 2003
Political Science Professor Named Carnegie Scholar
Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, associate professor of political science
at Emory University, has been named one of thirteen new Carnegie
Scholars by Carnegie Corporation of New York, the first Emory
scholar ever selected for the prestigious honor. Each scholar,
chosen in a highly competitive process, will receive up to $100,000
over the next two years to pursue pathbreaking research in his
or her respective field, which in turn will be communicated to
the broader public.
Wickham will use her grant to research and write "The Path
to Moderation: Lessons from the Evolution of Islamism in the Middle
East." Her project seeks to identify the environmental conditions
and policy choices that have fostered or inhibited the moderation
of Islamist rhetoric and practice in the Middle East among current
groups as well as historically.
"I want to look at why some Islamist leaders have been more
inclined than others to break from the dominant revivalist or
'fundamentalist' positions on such issues as democracy, pluralism
and human rights," says Wickham. Drawing on theoretical and
policy perspectives, she will conduct a comparative study of Islamist
opposition groups in five Arab nations plus Turkey to analyze
how different types of political and civic participation have
affected Islamist goals and behavior. "I hope to figure out
whether moderation is a strategic adaptation or an outcome of
'political learning' involving change in leaders' core values
and beliefs."
Another goal of Wickham's is to clarify how religion-based activism
affects the prospects for democratization in Muslim societies
and states. "New research suggests that the rise of strong
civic associations can either bolster or undermine democratization,
depending on the political environment in which they are embedded
and the orientations of their actors," says Wickham. "My
goal is to identify the conditions under which political Islam
can support rather than threaten democratic reform."
The Carnegie Corporation selects scholars
doing work that expands the intellectual margins of the corporation's
program areas: education reform, widening global income gaps,
violence in societies, the politics of federal judicial selection,
economic growth and development, legal reform in Russia, the political
and economic questions facing Africa, the making of U.S. foreign
policy over the years, and the implications of Islamic politics
and identity.
This year, 144 nominations were received
and 48 were invited to provide complete project descriptions.
The finalists were then evaluated by committees including both
Carnegie Corporation program leaders and external advisors. Up
to 20 scholars are selected annually, and this year 13 finalists
were then presented to Carnegie Corporation's board of trustees.
March
20, 2003
Classroom on the Quad set for Wednesday, March 26
U.S. & Iraq: Many Voices
A forum embracing Emory's multiple perspectives and communities
in a dialogue that promotes reflective thought & informed
arguments
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
1:00pm - 3:30pm
On the Quadrangle
(In case of rain, at Glenn Memorial Church Auditorium)
Speakers include:
President William Chace
Faculty from Political Science, Public Health, Philosophy, Sociology,
History, Religion, Journalism, Middle Eastern Studies
Staff & Students from various departments and organizations
Moderators:
Chris Richardson (SGA) & Purvi Patel (College Council)
Jim Grimsley, Bruce Knauft & Donna Wong (Co-Chairs, Planning
Committee)
President Chace encourages all classes, students, faculty &
staff to attend.
NO signs or banners are permitted.
For additional information, contact:
The Office of Multicultural Programs & Services
404-727-6754
www.emory.edu/MULTICULTURAL/
March
10, 2003
Chace Responds to Faculty in AJC
President William Chace's response to a letter from Professor
of English John Bugge, Samuel C Dobbs Professor of Anthropology
Melvin Konner, and Samuel C Dobbs Professor of History James Roark,
in which they criticize the Emory administration's cuts to the
university employee benefits program last year, appears in today's
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"Emory University is not immune to
the economic downturn that the entire nation is experiencing,"
he writes. "Among our peer institutions, Stanford has announced
that it is freezing faculty and staff salaries and making layoffs
to offset a $25 million deficit; Duke has said it will eliminate
about 50 faculty positions over three years."
Click
here to read the full text of the letter to the AJC.
Click
here to read "Staying Power," the Academic Exchange's
September 2002 coverage of debates around issues of faculty recruitment
and retention.
March
6, 2003
Bugge, Konner, and Roark Speak Out on Benefits Cuts
In a letter to today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Professor
of English John Bugge, Samuel C Dobbs Professor of Anthropology
Melvin Konner, and Samuel C Dobbs Professor of History James Roark
criticize the Emory administration's cuts to the university employee
benefits program last year.
"This broken promise has undermined
trust and demoralized our faculty; it bodes ill for Emory's future,"
they write. "As a result, we have lost excellent colleagues,
and retention and recruitment of quality faculty is now more difficult.
The positions of president, provost, dean of arts and sciences,
and vice president for finance are vacant, creating an additional
leadership vacuum."
A similar statement also appeared in the
February 28, 2003, Chronicle
of Higher Education. Chronicle subscribers may
find the item in the site's searchable archive
Click
here to read the full text of the letter to the AJC.
Click
here to read "Staying Power," the Academic Exchange's
September 2002 coverage of debates around issues of faculty recruitment
and retention.
March
3, 2003
This Can’t Be Mud Wrestling
An Interview with William Germano, Vice President and Publishing
Director of Routledge, on Scholarly Publishing
AE: What prompted you to write Getting It Published: A
Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books
(Chicago UP, 2001)?
WG: At both Routledge and the house where I worked previously,
Columbia University Press, authors seemed largely clueless about
how to make contacts. They showed no evidence that they had been
given direction about how to approach a publisher. People tell
me there are two things you are expected to know how to do when
you finish a Ph.D.: how to teach and how to publish. And you’re
usually trained in neither one. I think there’s been a certain
turn, though, at least in awareness of these gaps. This is particularly
a problem for the humanities. I think in order to find a way forward,
scholars need to better informed and, frankly, they need to write
better than they do.
AE: Was there a time when people knew how to get published
and how to write, or have the tastes of acquisition editors changed?
WG: One of the things that happened is that the market
has become so poor, it’s eliminated the luxury of writing
at great length, and writing not terribly well. Library budgets
have been radically cut, thereby limiting the ability to move
books. That means we have to think harder about what we produce.
And that was part of the impulse behind this book. I spoke with
so many people who said, “My book was turned down. I don’t
know why.”
AE: After the proposal stage, manuscripts often face external
reviews. What do you think about the charge that the review process
is sometimes tainted with vitriol, cruelty, or personal bias?
WG: A successful editor will understand who is likely to
use it as an opportunity to skewer somebody. An editor needs to
be adroit at selecting a reviewer who can contribute in a useful
way. But there are different kinds of reviews. For example, if
someone has published a couple of books with a major university
press and wants to do his or her next book with us, we are likely
to be interested on the basis of the person’s publishing
history. Perhaps we will offer the author an advance contract
on the basis of the proposal. When the project comes in and I
read it, I may say to the author, “I love it. But I don’t
want you to misconstrue my enthusiasm as a guarantee that everything
in it is correct. Let’s find someone who can provide another
reading for you.” As projects get complicated, there is a
need to have scholars in more than one discipline examine them.
But I don’t see it as a contentious experience. Often a scholar
will say, “I’d love to have X read my work, but I don’t
know her and feel awkward asking her to do it. If you could get
her to read it for the press, that would be perfect.” So,
in a way, we become an intermediary with the goal of strengthening
the manuscript. And useful things come from those reports.
AE: That’s an interesting reflection on the relationship
between scholarly publishing and the academic community itself.
WG: You know, this can’t be mud wrestling. It’s
got to be a partnership. The stakes are high. The goals are the
same. Scholars and academic publishers want to produce the best
books they possibly can. But we can’t have the quality if
the market isn’t there. Those two things become joined at
the hip. And, yes, occasionally we’ll do a book because it
will bring glory and we don’t expect to sell many copies.
But there are very few of those being published.
AE: Jerome McGann recently argued in the Chronicle of Higher
Education that publishers must bring out scholarly editions in
a digital format. And Jason Epstein, in Book Business: Publishing
Past, Present, and Future, predicts that in the not-too-distant
future, individuals will download books from a publishing consortium
and print and bind them individually for about what they cost
now. What do you think about the future of digital technology
and publishing?
WG: I’m never certain whether these are utopian or
dystopian visions of publishing’s future. Every publisher
I know is thinking hard and discussing how the digital environment
will impact the future of publishing. We’re taking pains
to exploit the digital possibilities wherever we can within a
sensible economic framework. These are not cost-free initiatives.
Websites don’t just happen. There are lousy and good ones,
and they need maintaining and updating.
What we’re doing is creating digital files and we will be
able to produce digital versions of texts. No one is getting rich
doing this yet. I think that ancillary technologies will develop.
But they’re going to be additive rather than substitutive.
Want to learn more about scholarly publishing?
On Wednesday, March 19, 2003 the Provost's Program in Manuscript
Development will host a panel discussion featuring Nancy Grayson,
associate director and editor-in-chief of the University of Georgia
Press; Todd Hallman, M.E. Sharpe executive editor; Lara Heimert,
Yale University Press executive editor; Michelle Tessler, literary
agent with Carlisle &
Company; and Laura van Dam, Houghton Mifflin acquisition editor.
The event will take place from 3:00-5:00 p.m. in the Carlos Museum
reception hall. For more information, see the Emory Report article
"Panel
to discuss scholarly publishing."
February
25, 2003
Comments
on “Academic Freedom in Times of War”
Are current critiques of university
faculty in Middle Eastern studies analogous to mid-twentieth-century
McCarthyism? Paul H. Rubin of the Department of Economics and
Harvey Klehr of the Department of Political Science respond to
essays in the February/March 2003 issue of AE on perceptions of
threat to the university's mission and how the academy might respond.
Click
here to read the responses.
Click
here to read the original essays.
Click
here to read Emory Report coverage of the recent visit
of Daniel Pipes, founder of www.campus-watch.org,
an online forum that monitors and critiques Middle Eastern studies
programs in the United States and Canada.
February
24, 2003
Making a Place for Wisdom and Experience
Emory’s Emeritus College, the brainchild
of Professor Emeritus of Religion Eugene Bianchi, was founded
in 2000 to provide retired Emory professors with opportunities
for intellectual exchange and support for continued research and
teaching. In February/March 2000, Bianchi and John Bugge, professor
of English and president of the local chapter of the American
Association of University Professors, co-authored the essay “The
Merit in Emeritus: Aging gracefully in the academy” for the
Academic Exchange. In this essay they outlined their vision of
the types of services and activities a center for retired faculty
members could provide, including interdisciplinary seminars, “think
tank” research, teaching, and mentoring.
Three years later, Emory’s thriving Emeritus College is garnering
national press. An article titled “Gray Expectations: Emeritus
centers bring retired professors back to campus” in the February
7, 2003, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education profiles the
Emeritus College as one among a growing number of university-sponsored
programs across the country for retired faculty members. The article
features interviews with Bianchi; Bugge; Harriet King, senior
vice provost for academic affairs; Elizabeth Sharp, associate
professor emeritus of nursing; and Jay Knopf, distinguished professor
emeritus of psychology.
Chronicle subscribers can find “Gray Expectations” in
the archives at http://www.chronicle.com.
“The
Merit in Emeritus” is available in the Academic Exchange
archives.
February
10 , 2003
A Cautionary Tale of Academic Integrity
Several major news outlets have reported
that a recent British government report on Iraq, cited by U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell as "a fine paper" in
his speech to the U.N. last week, quoted without attribution from
several academic articles. According to the New York Times,
critics of government policy noted that "parts of the articles--or
of summaries posted on the Internet--were paraphrased in the report.
In other cases, they were plagiarized--to the extent that even
spelling and punctuation errors in the original were reproduced."
A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged that the
material should have been more accurately attributed.
Click on www.nytimes.com/2003/02/08/international/europe/08BRIT.html
for New York Times coverage of the issue.
Go to www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A42276-2003Feb7.html
for the Washington Post story.
For the Academic Exchange February/March
2003 cover story on academic integrity, go to http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2003/febmar/lead.html
February
7 , 2003
Academic Highlights Online
The Office of Institutional Research is
pleased to announce that the document Highlights of Excellence
and Achievement is now available online. Highlights of Excellence
and Achievement is intended to inform the Emory community of the
successes of our academic programs, as well as the university's
nationally recognized intellectual activity. Beginning in 2000-2001,
IR began releasing Selected Academic Highlights twice a year in
order to emphasize national and international faculty recognition,
academic research and teaching, leadership appointments and achievements,
and community service and awareness.
www.emory.edu/PROVOST/IPR/ipr_highlights.htm
January
29, 2003
Making Some Green
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.
November 14, 2002
Buying Time for Academic Parents
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.
September 30, 2002
Belt-Tightening at Other Universities:
A follow-up to Staying Power: Challenges in Faculty
Recruitment and Retention in the September 2002 issues of the
Academic Exchange
Emory is not alone in its struggle with difficult economic times.
Recent articles in the Chronicle of Education document how
shrinking endowments are forcing tough decisions at colleges and
universities across the country. Nationally, the decline in the
stock market has affected both the value of schools’ endowments
and their ability to raise funds from donors and granting agencies.
The squeeze is hitting not only small schools with smaller budgets,
but also large institutions with substantial endowments like Dartmouth
College and Boston University.
In August, Dartmouth officials announced that it will delay construction
and renovation projects that had been scheduled to begin. While
they remain committed to not eliminating faculty positions or decreasing
financial aid, Dartmouth administrators are considering some layoffs.
Boston University, however, has declared its plan to cut 450 jobs,
including some full-time faculty positions, over the next two years
to cope with its financial losses. Attrition and retirement are
expected to account the majority of the positions eliminated.
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.