Two items from academia. First, a serious one. Following up on my post about “academic freedom”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001487.html a couple of days ago, Michael Bérubé “argues”:http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php?id=P84 that the Nona Gerard case at PSU and the suspensions at USM are quite different, because there was a formal review process at PSU whereas the USM President just acted like an autocrat. I agree with Michael that the USM case seems wholly indefensible on its face, so maybe it shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the Gerard case, which just looks highly suspicious. As I said “before”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001447.html, there just isn’t enough information available to make a judgment. But I think the bar for revoking tenure is pretty damn high. It took Yale a couple of years to fire “Antonio Lasaga”:http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=18233, and he’d pleaded guilty to specimen charges of sexual abuse and possession of child pornography. Of course I don’t mean that this is the _minimum_ required to get fired, and Yale didn’t handle that case very well. But it reinforces Michael’s argument that “The Penn State decision should be pursued, and the grounds for Gerard’s dismissal made available for broader review,” so we could make up our minds about what kind of case it is.
Meanwhile, via “Invisible Adjunct”:http://www.invisibleadjunct.com/archives/000487.html, the Chronicle “carries a piece”:http://chronicle.com/jobs/2004/03/2004030901c.htm by David Lester, who wants people who complain about the stress of academic life to shut up. It’s a marvelous essay. He starts out sounding like just the kind of straight-talking no-bullshit kind of guy you could have a beer with, but then — just after he tells you about his 300 articles and his third wife — he says “I have made some decisions over the course of my career that have allowed me to be productive, yet not feel overwhelmed,” and suddenly all the wheels come off. Read it yourself and see. He ends up sounding a bit like Dr Johnson in “Blackadder III”:http://blackadder.powertie.org/transcripts/3/2/:
bq. Dr. Johnson: Where is my dictionary?
bq. Edmund: And what dictionary would this be?
bq. Dr. Johnson: The one that has taken eighteen hours of every day for the last ten years. My mother died; I hardly noticed. My father cut off his head and fried it in garlic in the hope of attracting my attention; I scarcely looked up from my work. My wife brought armies of lovers to the house, who worked in droves so that she might bring up a huge family of bastards. I cannot–