That's
Professor Barry to You
Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion
Barry may become Professor Barry. Concerned associates of the famously
ineffectual city leader's are discussing a plan to lure Barry away from a fifth
mayoral run this fall. The strategy: offering him a six-figure salary to teach
urban politics at a D.C.-area college. In late March, several schools,
including George Washington University, Howard University, and Georgetown
University, were said to be entertaining the proposal--as was Barry. But after
the Washington Post reported the details of the negotiations in early
April, both sides appeared to back off. A letter to the Post berated the
local academic institutions for endorsing a "thinly disguised payoff." "I think
the mayor might end up in the movies," the Post quoted one aide as saying.
Closing
Down the Shoah
The
brouhaha over Harvard's still-unfilled chair in Holocaust studies continues. Fed up with
the bickering and indecision, Kenneth Lipper, who donated the money through his
family foundation, has decided to pour more than $1 million of his $3 million
pledge into the Harvard Medical School instead. According to reports, the
school's Holocaust studies search committee has disbanded. Daniel Goldhagen,
the author of the controversial Hitler's Willing Executioners , had been
a leading candidate for the proposed professorship, but the committee got
bogged down in infighting. This fall, Goldhagen's supporters and detractors
will have another chance to duke it out when he comes up for tenure in the
Harvard government department.
Fun With
Dick and Jane
Traditionally, most scholars have believed there's only one existing
portrait of Jane Austen, a rather unflattering sketch by the novelist's
sister. But a debate now raging in the Times Literary Supplement
suggests otherwise. Princeton University Professor Claudia Johnson wrote an
essay in the March 13 issue, arguing that an unsigned, undated portrait owned
by descendants of Jane's brother Edward is most likely of the prepubescent
Jane. She cited the work of Richard James Wheeler, the author of The Rice
Portrait of Jane Austen: The Ill-Conceived Controversy , who claims that
Electronic Facial Identification Technique testing performed by independent
experts has all but confirmed that the portrait is of Austen. Curators and
costume historians remain skeptical. "It is a pretty portrait, and one can
understand how many people (including some gullible American academics) wish it
to be an early image of one of our most-loved novelists," wrote Aileen Ribeiro,
a disgruntled costume historian. "But on costume grounds the portrait cannot be
[of] Jane Austen."
Profit or
Perish
After an
uprising by angry readers, the chancellor of the University of Arkansas has
reversed his decision to close the school's press. Chancellor John White had announced that he
would shut down the money-losing operation. "University presses are expected to
be self-sustaining," White explained. According to the Chronicle of Higher
Education , authors, librarians, and editors across the country
protested, noting that most university presses operate with a deficit. Among
the press's defenders was its co-founder Miller Williams, an accomplished poet
who read one of his poems at President Clinton's 1997 inauguration (and is the
father of country music singer Lucinda Williams). A recent $1 million gift from
the Tyson Foundation, established by the family that owns Arkansas poultry
business Tyson Foods, should help keep the press on its feet.
Mold
Over
A twin
plague of lice and fungus has attacked the undergraduate library at the
University
of California-San Diego. First reported last fall, the epidemic has
devastated the entire collection. Eighty thousand books were placed in
quarantine in October, then sent to a local deep-freeze facility where a
weeklong sub-zero treatment was used to exterminate the lice. A thorough
cleaning followed to remove the mold. The volumes are available again but won't
be returned to the stacks until the damp library itself gets renovated. It may
be just as well: The medical press reports the book-eating fungus can cause
hallucinations.
Reading
Comprehension Made Easy
People are
most likely to remember what they've read when the text is printed with a
ragged right margin and a solid line running straight down the middle of the
page. That bizarre finding is reported in the Journal of Scholarly
Publishing 's latest issue, which cites a 1991 study on reader retention of
information. Other exciting patterns tested included: "justified + no rule,"
"flush left/ragged right + no rule," "justified + middle rule." Can a new
speed-reading manual be far behind?
