Wednesday Notes
Alan Finder,"Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concern," NYT, 20 November, is a shocking report on faculty-staffing in our non-elite institutions. Margaret Soltan cites this stunning example from the article:
The psychology department at Florida International University in Miami has 2,400 undergraduate majors but only 19 tenured or tenure-track professors who teach, according to a department self-assessment. It is possible for a psychology major to graduate without taking a course with a full-time faculty member.
"But at least they have an enormously expensive football team with the nation's current biggest loss record," Soltan says.
Victor Davis Hanson,"Iran – and the Final Bateman Reply," Works and Days, 16 November replies to LTC Robert Bateman,"Carnage, Culture and Crapola, Part IV," Blog Them Out of the Stone Age, 15 November.
Ann Marlowe's"Anthropology Goes to War," Weekly Standard, 26 November, is challenged by Dave Dilegge's"On Anthropology Goes to War," Small Wars Journal, 20 November.
Our colleague, KC Johnson, who is on a Fulbright at the University of Haifa, has been guest-blogging this week at Shmuel Rosner's Domain at Haaretz.com.
Finally, please take the time during Thanksgiving holidays to nominate your favorite candidates for The Cliopatria Awards. Thanks to all of the history bloggers who have helped to spread the word: Martin Rundkvist's Aardvarchaeology, AHA Today, Brent tenPas's American Religious History, Ancarett's Ancarett's Abode, Another Damned Medievalist's Blogenspiel, Manan Ahmed's Chapati Mystery, Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory, Sharon Howard's Early Modern Notes, Devonte Mann at hgecom, Rebecca Goetz's Historianess, Tim Lacy & Co's History and Education, Jonathan Dresner at History Carnivals Aggregator, Mary Dudziak's Legal History Blog, Miriam Burstein's Little Professor, Moyen Age, Jeremy Young & Co's Progressive Historians, Lisa's Real History Blog, Brandon Watson's Siris, Marc Comtois's Spinning Clio and Miland Brown's World History Blog.