Monthly Archives: December 2008

The year that was 2008 at EMUTalk.org

Posted on December 31, 2008 by | Leave a comment

More or less in this chronological order, here are some of my favorite posts of 2008 (after the “Read More” break). I have to say that I think that my favorite headline for last year was Does the EMU student center smell like poo? But feel free to take a look through these and the archives and nominate some favs of your own.
Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

MLA 2008: David Horwitz Meets His Critics

Posted on December 30, 2008 by | 3 Comments

The Modern Language Association convention is going on right now. This is the largest conference/meeting/whatever of faculty-types in English departments, though for complicated reasons I’m not going to go into right now, I do not think it is a conference that accurately reflects the interests of many faculty in English departments, and it is a conference I personally loathe.

Most of the convention is too field-specific for the news that comes out of it to really qualify as “news,” though the Chronicle of Higher Education blog has posted a number of MLA stories nonetheless. I thought what might be interesting for the more “general audience with a higher ed emphasis” crowd here was this post, “MLA 2008: David Horowitz Meets His Critics.” The two most common questions I get from my non-academic relatives about life as a professor over the holidays are a) what is this “academic freedom thing,” and b) what do you mean you have tenure and can’t get fired. Those topics are related of course, and both appear to be issues discussed during this panel.

Here’s the opening paragraphs of the CHE article:

David Horowitz is no stranger to the MLA. His campaign for an “academic bill of rights” and his criticism of what he says is classroom indoctrination have earned him the enmity of many scholars — not just in literary studies, a frequent target of his barbs, but other disciplines as well. But to hear him tell it, the extreme attacks on him have blocked any real discussion. In fact, Mr. Horowitz’s appearance at the MLA here today, he said, is the first time that a scholarly group has ever asked him to appear to defend his views.

And that was either cause for dismay, as some here viewed it, or a step forward for the MLA. Mr. Horowitz appeared on a panel called “Academic Freedom?” along with Mark Bauerlein, Norma V. Cantú, and Cary Nelson. It was a tightly formatted event: The speakers were given 12 minutes to make their comments, and audience members 30 seconds afterward to raise questions — limits that were actually enforced, even if it meant audience members shouting out “your time is up!” to Mr. Horowitz when he went over a bit.

Also, here’s a link to Horwitz’s remarks, “Teach the Controversy, Don’t Preach It,” from his blog.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Academics, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, In the media...

Ramsey choking not just on the basketball court

Posted on December 29, 2008 by | 15 Comments

This just in from the AANews: “Student says Charles Ramsey violently choked him; Eastern Michigan coach says he was concerned for his own safety.” The opening paragraphs:

Eastern Michigan University officials concluded that basketball coach Charles Ramsey grabbed a student and used profanity in November, and that led to a three-day suspension earlier this month.

Whether more than that took place and what precipitated the Nov. 22 incident with Shawn Quinn, an EMU senior and roommate of basketball player Zane Gay, remains unclear.

EMU athletic director Derrick Gragg informed Ramsey in a Dec. 8 letter that he was suspended without pay because of the altercation following the Eagles’ loss to the University of Detroit-Mercy at Calihan Hall in Detroit. Ramsey missed his team’s Dec. 8 game against Wayne State. Ramsey’s base salary is $169,269.

That letter from Gragg, along with accounts of the incident, were made available Monday by university officials through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The story as reported here is a sort of “Quinn vs. Ramsey” tale, with both of them telling very different accounts of the event. Regardless, it doesn’t exactly make Ramsey look good. This behavior and the team’s record might mean that he and Genyk can get together and reflect on old times at EMU next year.

→ 15 Comments

Posted in In the media..., Sports

I’m back/a photo tour of Ave Maria

Posted on December 27, 2008 by | 1 Comment

Not that I was ever that “gone,” since my internet access was better than I thought it might be. But now I have returned to the EMUTalk.org world headquarters, where I am sure to spend much of the next few days a) being cold and damp, and b) working to get ready for the winter 2009 term teaching I’ll have to do as part of my day-job.

But at the risk of disclosing the location of my in-laws’ home, I thought I would post a link here to a post I wrote on my own blog about a topic of Ypsi-Arbor interest. My wife and son and I took a little tour of Ave Maria, the town and university founded in Ypsi-Arbor and (in the process of being) moved down to the middle of the swamp in southwest Florida, a place where you will rarely see the words “zoning laws” in the same sentence. It was, um, strange.

Here’s a link to my blog entry.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Ann Arbor, Blogosphere, Ypsilanti

Something to make you think on a Christmas night…

Posted on December 25, 2008 by | 4 Comments

I know nothing about the source of this, but the information/detail on this entry about recent EMU honoree George “The Iceman” Gervin is too hard for me to pass up:

A well-known thug who lives in San Antonio was arrested in 1989 for drunk driving and an assortment of petty crimes. Naturally, he jumped bail but was forgiven when he finally showed up. 36 years ago, while a sophomore at the illustrious “institution of higher learning” called Eastern Michigan University, he caused a riot during a basketball game and was thrown out, but not before he broke the jaw of one of his opponents. Because George was not backed up by the school for his behavior, he immediately dropped out. Some years later, while visiting friends at EMU, he took pop shots with his BB gun at passers-by from a window in a dormitory. The incident was laughed off by school authorities with a “That’s George for you” attitude. After retiring from his career as a professional basketball player, George was named as one of the 50 greatest basketball players of all time and inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame. Today, George receives the adulation and adoration of all citizens of San Antonio and has a school named for him. In fitting tribute to his virtues, last week EMU awarded him an honorary Bachelors degree. If you are so out of the loop as not to know his last name, let’s keep it that way. Why sully your brain cells?

Hmm. If it’s true, it makes me wonder about our honorary degree program….

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Sports

Bunsis goes out of EMU-AAUP Prez with a bang (and with a lot of good points)

Posted on December 22, 2008 by | 5 Comments

While here at the undisclosed locale of my in-law’s, I have been surprised to enjoy better than expected internet access. It is still dicey; right now, I am sitting outside (it’s in the upper 50s/lower 60s here) and I am pirating borrowing a wifi signal from a neighbor who has not locked down their network with a password. Yet.

In any event, while sorting through my email, I came across one from Howard Bunsis I thought I’d post here in its entirety for a couple of reasons. First, Howard raises a lot of good and interesting questions regarding budget cuts, the badly explained cuts in faculty hires, and the very expensive hiring of a new football coach. Second, this is Howard’s last post as president since Susan Moeller is taking over, I believe starting in the winter 2009 term. Thanks to Howard for doing an overall bang-up job, and good luck to Susan.

Here’s his email:
Continue reading →

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Administrator Life, Budgets, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life, Sports

“Ron English headed to EMU”

Posted on December 20, 2008 by | 34 Comments

Just a brief interruption from my blogging break here: according to this at the Detroit News, Ron English, who is a former U of M defensive coordinator, is going to be the head football coach at EMU.

→ 34 Comments

Posted in Sports

Happy holidaze/Re-visioning EMUTalk.org?

Posted on December 17, 2008 by | 4 Comments

Very soon, sitedad is going to retreat to the in-laws to celebrate the season. This undisclosed locale has better weather and spotty internet access, so I will probably not be online my usual 8-10 hours a day for the next week or so. Be patient regarding approvals, and don’t expect any new news around here. In the meantime, I thought I’d leave folks with a little bit of holiday entertainment and some food for thought for EMUTalk.org enthusiasts.

I did a search on YouTube this morning for “EMU Christmas,” and I came up with a link to a band called Relient K singing a Christmas song at the EMU convocation center last year. Unfortunately, the embed feature was disabled for some reason, so you’ll have to follow the link.

And for a more, um “abstract” Christmas song, check out this remix by DJ CLown, which won Total Recut Remix contest for 2008:

Along the lines of warped Christmas songs, let em also share this small bit of video sent to me by a colleague via Facebook about the Jolly Boots of Doom:

Anyway, while watching these videos and enjoying your own holidaze, I would be curious to hear any comments about the direction of EMUTalk.org– sort of a state of the blog, so to speak. I’m planning a visual overhaul of the site, hopefully early in the year, but realistically, it might take longer. But beyond that, I’m wondering once again about opening the door to more posters.

Basically, I am beginning to think that it might be time to re-open the doors to posters other than me to EMUTalk.org. Might– I have some ideas, but I’m curious to hear what folks here might think.

On the one hand, I don’t want to return to the way things were. My goal way back when was for EMUTalk.org to be a forum where lots and lots of different writers could post their views. What ended up happening though was that a few very persistent and loud voices drowned out and/or scared others off. And by the way, I say this with love and respect for the likes of Mark Higbee and Abby Coykendall: I don’t think they were intending to do harm, and they both brought a lot of attention to important issues. I just thought it got to a point where their tenacity and forcefulness in their writing and their ideas took up too much space.

On the other hand, the hopes I had for getting more and different people involved in EMUTalk.org have been lukewarm at best. No one has taken me up on my suggestion that they start their own blogs and let me know so I could link to it, and only a handful of people have emailed me items to run on EMUTalk.org– though there have been some really good items passed along to me that way. So it’s getting a little lonely around here with just me doing the posting, and it is getting away from one of the goals of EMUTalk.org in the first place: it feels less like a community place and more like a sitedad blog.

So I guess the thing I am contemplating and asking for opinions and advice about is where to go next. Returning to the past is not really an option, but what sorts of ideas or thoughts do folks have about opening up posting options a bit more? Is there anybody reading this who wants to become a regular EMUTalk.org blogger/poster/contributor? Do people just like it the way that it is? Anybody got a better idea?

Just some questions to contemplate over the holiday cheer. Feel free to discuss; again, I’ll approve new comments when I can. And I’ll be back next week.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, College Fun, EMUtalk.org News

The EMU-AAUP election results are in

Posted on December 16, 2008 by | Leave a comment

This wasn’t exactly a “contentious” election cycle for the EMU-AAUP; in fact, all of the officers in the union ran unopposed. I actually take this as a good sign since faculty tend to only get involved when they aren’t happy with the leadership. In any event, congrats to the new executive committee, and good luck in leading us through these “fiscal follies” on campus and beyond.

All the results below the “Read More” part.
Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life

The Iceman cometh

Posted on December 16, 2008 by | 1 Comment

According to a press release I received a couple days ago, George “The Iceman” Gervin is going to be receiving all kinds of honors at the basketball games this weekend. I don’t really know how long Gervin was at EMU since the wikipedia entry says he played college ball at both EMU and Long Beach State, and that he left college for the pros (the ABA in those days) after an “altercation.” But scholar or not, he’s a hall of fame basketball great.

I’ll be out of town, but it could be good weekend fun. The press release is after the “Read More” part.
Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in In the media..., Sports