More blogging in the news, academics this time

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article up titled, “Scholars who blog.” The overarching question asked is whether blogging is simply an ephemeral bit of intellectual fashion that will disappear in a few months. Heaven knows the Internet is famous for such things. (Internet users of a certain experience will remember “the age of Gopher,” which immediately preceded the explosion of the Web.)

And no, this blog didn't get mentioned. [pout]


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Today is the first day of summer session, which means students are back on campus. That is not necessarily a good thing for me. I had one of my students from last semester who needed a particular grade in one of my classes to graduate -- and didn’t get it. So he came into my office asking if there was something he could do to raise his grade, like an extra paper or something. “An extra paper” seems to be some sort of student stock solution to all problems, judging from how many students have asked me about this. But from my perspective, if I do something to help out one student that I don’t make available to all the rest... not very fair to the rest of the students in the class, is it?

Nonetheless, while I am happy to stick to my principles, it still really sucks to be the one to have to say, “No, I’m sorry, I’m not raising your grade” (not in so many words, mind you), which translates into, “No, you can’t graduate.”


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A few entries back, I mentioned my theory about the infinite credulity of the human brain. To give credit where it’s due, that particular line of though may have been prompted by a comment by Teresa Nielsen Hayden. In her blog, said succinctly, “Folly is fractal. The more you look, the more of it there is.”