Category Archives: Blogosphere

The year that was 2011

Posted on January 1, 2012 by sitedad | Leave a comment

Happy New Year, everybody! I’ve made it back from undisclosed locations and the new year in one piece. I have a whole series of chores and resolutions to attend to, but I thought I’d start my day looking over the most commented on pieces here at EMUTalk in 2011. In brief, last year was the year of budget cuts and layoffs.

From February, “Snyder to EMU (and other state supported universities): Drop Dead.”

From April, “Did the Provost quit? Was he fired? What?”

Also from April, “Meanwhile in budget news: think scenarios and not cuts,” which actually turned into a “discussion” about the Bowen parking lot and the expense of sabbaticals and the like.

Then the end of May was pretty busy/popular, with three heavily commented posts right in a row: “Perhaps we can chant “Education First!” at the games…,” Administration asking for unions to give money back during a “fluid” situation,” and “Martin’s budget update, “givebacks,” tuition, and athletics.”

At the end of June there was “Thoughts as the dust settles on lay-offs.” That turned out to be the most commented on post of the year, by the way.

“Glad Ron English is having “fun” with the increased budget,” back in July. It seems to me that the Emus break-even season will save English for another few seasons, though I still don’t think the “fun” he had with the increased budget was worth it.

“EMU planning 9/11 memorial after receiving steel column from World Trade Center” back in early August.

“Pray-Harrold open–sort of,” which wasn’t necessarily the most commented on post of the year but it sure seemed like a big event for me.

“‘Which Core Matters More?’ (featuring Mark Higbee), an October debate on general education.

“Emus beat horses, 14-10″ in November, which kind of turned into a “discussion” about attendance at games.

“Kwame Kilpatrick is coming to EMU, causing controversy already” back in November, though it was pretty much a non-story in the end.

And then sadly (now), there was this post,“Greg O’Dell returns to Eastern Michigan University as executive director of public safety and chief of police.”

Okay, enough with last year and into this year– even though it doesn’t really feel like the new year to me because it’s really just the beginning of the next semester… you get the idea.

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Posted in Administrator Life, Blogosphere, Budgets, EMU Events, EMUtalk.org News, Faculty Life, In the media..., Staff Life, Student Life

See you next year, folks

Posted on December 20, 2011 by sitedad | Leave a comment

The university closes for the holiday at the end of the day Thursday, but I’m going to (more or less) close up EMUTalk a few days earlier. I’ll be spending the Festivus season at an undisclosed and in-law related locale with family and sketchy internet access, so don’t expect much to be happening here for a while.

In the meantime, I thought I’d point you to a blog post on stevendkrause.com,”Bloom, Iowa, and academic locales: a few thoughts.” I was going to write this here, but it seemed a little too Iowa-centric for EMU, though it does also bend back to the academic life and the common phenomenon of faculty never really identifying with the community where they teach. Give it a read if you’re interested.

And merry/happy whatever!

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Posted in Academics, Blogosphere, EMUtalk.org News, Faculty Life

Two bits of extra credit reading

Posted on December 16, 2011 by sitedad | 1 Comment

I’m not procrastinating from finishing up my fall term– honestly, I’m not! Well, maybe a little. In any event, I thought I’d pass along two links to things that I thought would be of interest here.

First, there’s ”Bowling for Chumps,” by Pete Kotz in The Village Voice. Alert EMUTalk reader Dick Schwarze posted this in the comments and I thought it deserved a promotion to the main part of the site. Kind of a long piece, but an extremely detailed account of the highly dubious world of college bowl games. Makes me glad that the Emus didn’t quite get there this year.

Second, there’s “What is College For?” a column in the “opinionator” part of the New York Times by Gary Gutting. It simply puts out there an answer to the question at hand that is a useful reminder that college is about more than job training and that both faculty and students have an obligation to remember that. I found it an inspiring way to get to that pile of grading.

Speaking of which….

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Posted in Academics, Blogosphere, Faculty Life, In the media..., Sports, Student Life

“The Naming of Ypsilanti”

Posted on December 14, 2011 by sitedad | 1 Comment

I for one am up to my hairline dealing with the day-job this busy last full week of the fall term, so I haven’t had much to post here lately. But while I am busy wrapping things up, I thought I’d share this link from Mark Maynard’s blog of a WCC student project movie about the naming of Ypsilanti. A nice bit of local history.

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Posted in Blogosphere, College Fun, Ypsilanti

Living Social deal on EMU Football tickets

Posted on October 20, 2011 by sitedad | 6 Comments

There’s a Living Social coupon deal going on right now for the EMU Homecoming game against Western on Saturday. For $25, you get four tickets to the game plus a TRUEMU t-shirt.

I think it’d be a good deal if you knew you (and three others) were going to go to the game, but I’m still on the fence for this one because of weather and life. If it’s nice (and right now, the forecast is mid-50s and sunny, ideal football weather), this might be a good game to attend. On the other hand, if it’s nice, that would also be a good day to get some yard work done, and if it’s not nice, well, that’d be a good day to stay indoors.

Anyway, if you know you’re going to the game, you’re looking for tickets, and you have a small group, check out the coupon deal. By the way, WMU is favored by 12 points, so it will again be an interesting test for the Emus to see if they can defy the odds.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Sports

“Who Are You, Really? Activists Fight For Pseudonyms”

Posted on September 28, 2011 by sitedad | Leave a comment

I heard an interesting story on All Things Considered this evening, “Who Are You, Really? Activists Fight For Pseudonyms.” It’s mostly about the ways in which services like Facebook and Google+ have made it increasingly challenging to post online with an anonymous or otherwise disguised identity, but I certainly see it coming back to things like EMUTalk.org.

I have wrestled with anonymous or pseudo-anonymous comments over the years, and generally speaking, I think we’re into a reasonable balance here. But I have to say that compared to some of the crazies that post on annarbor.com, we’re a positive high-brow group. Which makes me think there is something to be said with strategies that discourage the trolls.

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Posted in Blogosphere, EMUtalk.org News, In the media...

“Eastern Michigan at Michigan: A Letdown Against the Eagles Is Highly Improbable”

Posted on September 17, 2011 by sitedad | 1 Comment

This article popped up in my Google newsfeed today or yesterday, from a football fan site called Bleacher Report. I think it sums up my feelings of the likely outcome of the game pretty well, and also more accurately the state of affairs of football at EMU. Here are the opening paragraphs:

I just so happened to catch Inside Michigan Football on the Big Ten Network yesterday at noon, and it was Michigan radio personality Jim Brandstatter talking to head coach Brady Hoke about the Wolverines’ upcoming game this Saturday against Eastern Michigan. Hoke went on to tell Brandstatter how good of a job Michigan ex-defensive coordinator Ron English has done in Ypsilanti so far and that the Wolverines will “have their hands full” this Saturday.

I am going to go out on a limb and just say Hoke was being a nice guy.

Eastern Michigan is one of the worst teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and I think the previous three years can vouch for that statement, seeing as how the Eagles are a quite laughable 5-31 in that span of time. Let’s not forget how many 50- to 70-point games Eastern Michigan allowed their oppositions to rack up.

Yep, 5 and 31– which is better than I thought because I had forgotten that English’s Emus won three last year.

But hey, it promises to be a lovely day today to watch a football game– partly cloudy and high 60s/low 70s– so not all will be lost for EMU fans at the Big House. Personally, I’ll be playing golf….

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Posted in Blogosphere, Sports, University of Michigan

“What Every Central Michigan University Student Needs to Know”

Posted on August 18, 2011 by sitedad | 1 Comment

I did a search just now on “Central Michigan Faculty Strike,” and while I didn’t quickly come across any news on the current status of things (anyone know?), I did come across this from a site called Voice X Change. It’s a nice piece and I hope it is one that someone at the EMU-AAUP reads and considers writing something like it.

It’s all about audience, folks. Most faculty will read this kind of article and scoff, thinking “well, duh, everybody knows that faculty work a lot more than 9 hours a week and have to do all this service and scholarship and such.” But that’s the common writerly mistake of thinking that an audience has the same assumptions about a topic as writer/rhetor. For the faculty to best represent its interests, we have to reach audiences who are most definitely not faculty and audiences (students, staff, and administrators, but also everyday people, voters, and legislatures who have nothing to do with higher education) and do our best to explain to non-insiders what it is that we do. You can’t always persuade audiences with the facts– the current tea party movement in American politics is evidence of that– but you can try.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Central Michigan University, EMU-AAUP, Faculty Life

Glad Ron English is having “fun” with the increased budget

Posted on July 28, 2011 by sitedad | 41 Comments

Here’s a little video of EMU football coach Ron English talking about the upcoming season:

I am not a football hater. Really. I know there are plenty of people out there who think that EMUTalk.org (and yours truly) has nothing positive to say about athletics in general and football in particular. But it does pain me that our budgeting at EMU is upside-down right now relative to athletics in general and football in particular.

Most of this video strikes me as sportscaster cliche blah-blah-blah, but English points out at about the 1:30 mark that he’s really happy with the increased budget and commitment from the institution and the difference it’s going to make. If the money/budget thing was in a “positive” cycle, I’d be fine with this. But in an era in which lots of people have gotten fired and lots of programs on the academic side of things have been cut, this is frustrating. And given some of what I’ve heard recently about graduate assistantships all over campus disappearing with little notice to programs, faculty, or the GAs getting those assistantships, the idea that EMU is committed to a nutrition plan for its players does not exactly me swell with “Education First” pride.

That said, we’ll see how this works out. To me, it kind of looks like they are “all in,” so to speak. If the Emus end up winning a bunch of games and/or snagging an upset against somebody, I suspect that all will be forgiven. But if English’s team doesn’t win more than half their games this year, I think he and Derrick “the payback is that you win” Gragg might have some employment and/or funding problems.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Sports