Various Watches ...
Columbia Watch: This New York Times editorial about Columbia's report on complaints about the University's Middle Eastern studies program is highly critical of the University's handling of the matter. The editorial so outraged the University of Michigan's Juan Cole that he's cancelled his subscription to the newspaper. I've read both the editorial and Professor Cole's criticism of it. It seems to me that Cole is wrong here. The University's failure to have appropriate grievance procedures in place, the composition of the review committee, and the narrowing of its mandate merited the Time's criticism. If you take Cole's critique of the report seriously, University programs would be entirely without significant oversight and review.
Pluss Watch: My sense is that Professor Jacques Pluss may not be worth a lot of our time, but one of his former students, Dennis W. Johnson, posted these interesting comments at Cliopatria. I can't vouch for the accuracy of or prove the charges of fabrication inaccurate, but they certainly raise interesting matters for consideration. The history department at the University of Chicago may want to take note.
Sepoy Watch: Sepoy has unveiled himself and, behold, he is a Cliopatriarch! Manan Ahmed. But Sepoy has also multiplied, as Chapati Mystery has become a group blog. Now that we know that Sepoy is a Cliopatriarch and has a dissertation to defend, we'll have to cut back on the running buck naked through the streets of Dayton, Ohio, with a serpant draped around his neck. Let's show a little more Cliopatriarchal dignity over there, Sepoy!
S**t Watch: At University Diaries, Margaret Soltan continues to give a s**t. And Harvard students wearing white t-shirts with"No S**t" symbols on them are protesting the University's not knowing s**t.
Utopia Watch: Word is in from the Utopian World Championship, 2004-2005. The winner of its competition is Cyril Belshaw, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, for his essay,"From Youth Maturity to Global Government – The Utopian Tapestry." Among other things, Belshaw proposes to re-organize the United Nations so that it is composed by"peoples" rather than nation/states and to replace schools with"Youth Maturity Institutes" that would"bring together all agencies and interests concerned with the whole life of the child. They would emphasize the development of values such as risk taking, courtesy, lifetime interests outside the classroom and the abhorrence of violence in any form." It sounds dreadful to me. I'm always suspicious of total institutions.