The University of Texas at Austin is one step closer to removing the name of a Ku Klux Klan leader from a dormitory on the campus. According to an announcement today, the university’s president, William Powers Jr., endorsed the recommendations of a review panel and will recommend to the Board of Regents that the building, Simkins Residence Hall, be renamed Creekside Dormitory. The 55-year-old building was named for William Stewart Simkins, a law professor at the university in the early 20th century and former organizer for the Klan.

via Klan Leader’s Name Should Be Dropped From Dorm, U. of Texas President Says | The Ticker | Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ha ha. Well it is really great to know the University of Texas is taking all the necessary steps before deciding on something so difficult and controversial. We look forward to the final decision, in ten years, after it is tabled by the Board of Regents and goes back to the Ad Hoc Subcommittee On Renaming Dormitories Named After KKK MEMBERS for further review, for the 1,000th time.

This is maybe worse than “Go to Grad School for Homeland Security!”

“It is vitally important that research start immediately into the oil and dispersant’s impact, and that the findings are shared fully and openly,” said BP chief executive Tony Hayward. “We support the independence of these institutions and projects, and hope that the funding will have a significant positive effect on scientists’ understanding of the impact of the spill.”

via Three Gulf Research Institutions to Receive First Round of $500 Million Funding | BP PRAVDA/PRESS RELEASE.

What Tony Hayward wants to understand is, “Perchance there is a way we could maybe unspill this oil?”

America’s brightest academics will soon find out! Thank you for supporting Higher Learning, BP.

[W]hen Elena Stover finished her doctorate in September, she headed to the poker tables. Frustrated with the limited opportunities and grueling lifestyle of academia, Stover, 29, decided to eschew a career in cognitive neuroscience for one playing online poker. She got the idea from a UCLA career counselor, who was trying to help her find employment.

via After 6 years to get Ph.D., some graduates back at square one | Alana Semuels | KansasCity.com.

YOU CAN’T BE A TENURE-TRACK INTERNET GAMBLER UNLESS YOU HAVE A PH.D. OKAY? It’s called j-o-b s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y.

Forbes isn’t just a successful company that makes lots of money: It’s also a Clan, from Scotland! They have a castle in Aberdeenshire.

Tomorrow, Part III!

Steve Forbes is very handsome. He went to Princeton.

Tomorrow, Part II!

[T]oday’s college students, the scientists found, exhibit the least empathy of students studied over the past 30 years.

According to the data, which involved 72 studies of college students collected between 1979 and 2009, today’s students are 40% less empathetic than their counterparts from the 1970s. They were less likely to agree to statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me,” or “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective.” They were more likely to display self-centeredness during crises by agreeing to statements such as “When I see someone who badly needs help in an emergency, I go to pieces.”

via College Students Short on Empathy | Alice Park | Time.

Yes, this rings True. If you went hiking with a group of college students do you think they’d tell you if you had a deer tick sucking on the back of your leg? Heck no, those college students would wait three months and then tag your lyme disease on Facebook. And could you really blame them?

Nope you couldn’t, because today’s college kids are part of Generation Fuck You I’m Buyin’ Whatever Steve Jobs Shoves Down My iThroat, and honestly, is it so bad to love only yourself and Steve Jobs, forever?

It’s simply a matter of opinion, an opinion you should keep to yourself because college students don’t want to hear it, if it got hit by a bus they wouldn’t help it, go away and die.

Obviously there’s no way Ann’s research intern could have known that Norton, Massachusetts wasn’t in Wheaton, Illinois. Such is life, so poor Ann thought she was talking to a bunch of Nuke The Gay Whales Christians who are taught God’s words are the only truth and that the wisdom of man is silly, Amen. An unfortunate miscalculation, because the Wheaton in Massachusetts subscribes to quite a different philosophy, namely: hating God and helping Barack Obama redistribute the White Man’s hard-earned wealth.

And yup, the entire Internet immediately pooped its adult diapers, because doesn’t Ann Curry’s fact-check intern know about Wikipedia or Hulu?

And yup, everyone is very upset because Hello, Billy Graham is 1,000 years old and when he was of college-goin’ age Wheaton in Massachusetts was for Girls Only No Boys Allowed so how could Billy Graham possibly be a Wheaton alum doesn’t Ann Curry’s history intern know anything about history? Probably nope.

But who can say which Wheaton is which, or who went to which Wheaton and who didn’t, or who is a girl or a boy or just bi-curious? Can a post-modern world really distinguish between Wheaton and Wheaton? Besides, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if Billy Graham actually has a secret vagina and is just pretending to be a dude, like Gwyneth Paltrow in that famous romcom, Shakespeare in Love. (This is what the liberal arts is all about: making interdisciplinary connections between Billy Graham and Shakespeare.)

And I’m a graduate from a liberal arts college, so I’m perfectly comfortable with Billy Graham’s secret vagina, and I’m also A-OK with Ann Curry’s commencement address. Listen, I got to meet Ann Curry, she is a lovely woman and she even made a nice comment about my soft serve ice cream cone hat:

So what’s the takeaway?

Go to grad school where the real learning is done and then you will find out, the end.

Harvard, full of hurt

Oh woah hey apparently Harvard (the university, not the clothing line) is really upset at some dude, “Adam B. Wheeler,” because he used a make-believe application full of la-la land lies to fake his way into The University and also a whole bunch of scholarship money. This is very severe because Harvard is in love with Integrity and Reputation and what does it mean if some nobody can just fake his way into Harvard? What does that say about the admissions process, you know?

“This defendant seriously undermined the integrity of the competitive admissions process, compromised the reputation of some of the finest educators and educational institutions in the country, and cheated those who competed honestly for what he fraudulently received,” Leone said in the statement.

via Ex-Harvard senior charged with fabricating life history, stealing grant money | John R. Ellement | The Boston Globe.

Yes, this Adam fellow should get life in prison for taking a poop on the Integrity of Harvard’s admissions process! Does he have no respect for all the exaggerated baloney teenagers stuff their Common Apps with? Does he not have the decency to pay a college counselor $40,000 to give Harvard Admissions a rim job, you know, to “put in a good word for him”? Does Adam not even have the common courtesy to be a legacy?

Ha ha, come on Harvard! Integrity? Blow it out yer butt.

Today is Wednesday, May 5 — and you know what that means! Yes, it’s Mexican Liberation from France/the Aztecs/Whitey Day. Maybe there is also an election in Olde England, something about Tories (some of them escaped the Tar and Feathers? Odd.) and Labour (sp) and the Queen Mother.

May 5 also marks the ten-day anniversary of MY COMPUTER TOTALLY EXPLODING OH COME ON WHY?

Because of all these cold hard facts, and also because of “senior seminar papers,” the Diploma Mill will be out of commission for a few days…hopefully no more than four or five of them, max.

What a drag, we dropped the ball on some major stories. Good gravy, did you hear about how goons from The University of Phoenix are using sophisticated techniques (hazing, free snacks) to recruit homeless men and stray cats, because every homeowner and domesticated animal already has at least three online degrees in nursing so homeless dudes and feral LOLcats are obvious target markets?

And then there was that thing at that college in Maine. Something involving female boobs and protesting (for the Boobs, not against them).

A big news week indeed, and a seriously inconvenient week for hard drives to self-destruct/essays about Nazi architecture to be due.

Computers are stupid,

Riley