The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on April 17, 2024, 08:18:43 AMA bit of grading and a bit of T1 today.

Acceptable progress.

Quote from: apl68 on April 16, 2024, 07:43:33 AM

Quote from: spork on April 16, 2024, 02:20:05 AMDipak Panigrahy, Harvard Medical School, submitted 500 pages of plagiarized word salad as expert testimony in a federal class action lawsuit. The judge rejected it.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/15/hms-professor-plagiarized-report/ 

More egg on Harvard's face.

Sounds like it is not plagiarism in the truest sense (he cited his sources), but a hack job in which he cut-n-pasted large sections of other people's real scientific work without proper identification, so it looked like valid original research, and cherry-picking what he found to reach a solution convenient to his client.

I've wondered why out court system allows this version of paid "expert opinion" in the courtroom.

Quote from: dismalist on April 17, 2024, 03:01:56 PM

Quote from: apl68 on April 17, 2024, 02:35:32 PMDon't know much about the Columbia situation, but evidently things have gotten pretty hot on campus there over the issue.  One has to feel sorry for their leadership caught up in this.  At least their head has so far learned lessons from the spectacular career suicide that occurred over at Harvard.

The leadership of Columbia has allowed Columbia behavior. No people to feel sorry for.

The lesson, rather, is, that the incentives facing university administrators are to let local interest groups run wild, the consequences be damned. No skin off the admins' back. Or, there's too much money around! :-)

How does college leadership "allow" this kind of behavior?  How does one stop "local interest groups" from "running wild" on a college campus?

Half the time I don't know what you are talking about, Big-D.

Quote from: secundem_artem on April 17, 2024, 08:50:06 AMFinal decisions are soon to be made for who and what lives and dies here at Artem U.  The atmosphere is a toxic soup of pain, anger, resignation, and finger pointing. Factions are being formed.  Rumblings about the nuclear option - votes of non-confidence - are heard in quiet corners.  Magical thinking abounds for possible solutions to what some refuse to believe is a crisis.

Twelve months ago, I would have said it was inconceivable that we would find ourselves in this situation.  But here we are. 

As the saying goes, at first you go broke slowly, and then all at once.

Right now, we are in a fight to avoid the "all at once" stage of the process.  I think the president and provost have a reasonable approach to do that.  Unfortunately, with remarkably little support from the faculty.

So sorry, man. It is so demoralizing and worrying.  Are you safe?  I will say that at least hitting an iceberg does not prolong the anxiety and uncertainty; at least you can plan.  A slowly weakening uni means you are constantly waiting for a shoe to drop.

I hope your job survives in some form or other.

Not quite the university-ending kind of dire straits, but a 93% vote of no confidence in the president from the faculty of Indiana University:

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/04/whitten-rebuked-iu-faculty-vote-no-confidence-in-whitten-shrivastav-docherty]https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/04/whitten-rebuked-iu-faculty-vote-no-confidence-in-whitten-shrivastav-docherty]https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/04/whitten-rebuked-iu-faculty-vote-no-confidence-in-whitten-shrivastav-docherty

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 17, 2024, 01:05:28 PMYork University faculty group recommends defining support of Israel as 'racism'

QuoteA York University faculty committee has recommended that the school henceforth define any acknowledgement of Israel's existence as evidence of "anti-Palestinian racism."

According to an April 5 "recommendations report" leaked to National Post, an official committee within York's Department of Politics has proposed that any defence of Israel be viewed as "anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, and anti-Arab."

An odd addition:

Quote"The struggle for Palestinian self-determination will support the liberation of all humans and non-humans from colonial oppression," it reads.

U Toronto grad here.  Sounds about right for York. 

Quote from: downer on April 17, 2024, 01:54:32 PMWhy do so many undergraduates write the word "utilitarianist" when they have never heard anyone say it?

Because they've never heard the word "utilitarian", either.

Quote from: apl68 on April 17, 2024, 02:35:32 PMDon't know much about the Columbia situation, but evidently things have gotten pretty hot on campus there over the issue.  One has to feel sorry for their leadership caught up in this.  At least their head has so far learned lessons from the spectacular career suicide that occurred over at Harvard.

The leadership of Columbia has allowed Columbia behavior. No people to feel sorry for.

The lesson, rather, is, that the incentives facing university administrators are to let local interest groups run wild, the consequences be damned. No skin off the admins' back. Or, there's too much money around! :-)

Quote from: Langue_doc on April 17, 2024, 11:06:56 AM

Quote2) hs teachers are very eager to be shown deference and respect from their students

Hah! Not here in the city. My neighbor, a high school teacher reports that she's been called every name under the sun except hers, especially the b-word. I've also been called the b-word by at least a couple of male students.

If I witnessed somebody doing that to a staff member here, he would be out on his rear end.

Don't know much about the Columbia situation, but evidently things have gotten pretty hot on campus there over the issue.  One has to feel sorry for their leadership caught up in this.  At least their head has so far learned lessons from the spectacular career suicide that occurred over at Harvard.