A magazine to make it work.

Judith Scott-Clayton, assistant professor at Teachers College, suggests that offering college students too many choices leads to frustration and procrastination and proposes instead giving college students more structure. Because no one ever procrastinates in Core classes! (NYT)

Some schools pay their commencement speakers tons of money. Maybe POTUS should start having some bake sales? (NYT)

If you’ve got a million dollars, you can buy a 212 phone number so you seem like you lived in Manhattan before it was cool, even if the closest you came in the ’90s was watching Seinfeld. (NYDN)

Advice to liberal arts majors who can’t find a job: Start tweeting! (NYT)

Oh no, the Conservative Canadian government has collapsed! But those hoping for an Egyptian-style revolution will be disappointed; it’s just a parliamentary procedure. (Reuters)

After a botched drug sting yesterday, US Immigration officials opened fire on an SUV outside a McDonald’s in midtown. Reported one bystander, ”I thought it was a movie being filmed.” (NYP)

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Photo via mtv.com

BSchool professor Adam Dell is Padma’s babydaddy.

At long last: beekeeping is legal in New York. GS student Sam Elchert is relieved.

More on GS and the G.I Bill: GS student John McClelland talks to the BBC about his time as an Army medic.

Generally Big Deal Person and History Professor David Eisenbach is writing a book with Larry Flynt called One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents and First Ladies Shaped America. Sounds just like his old History Channel special, “Beltway Unbuckled” (no joke).

Remember the girl who conned Columbia? Now she’s a movie.

Madonna Constantine lost the first of her three lawsuits against Teacher’s College.

Today’s Times has an article on how New York Governor David Paterson (CC ’77) has managed to reach amazingly low poll numbers in part through being perceived as “increasingly remote.” Included as an example of this remoteness is a section telling of how Paterson canceled his scheduled commencement address at Teachers College last Spring two hours before he was supposed to speak–for the second year in a row:

Last May, Mr. Paterson was lined up to speak in Manhattan at the evening graduation ceremony for Teachers College, Columbia University. It was kind of a makeup: he had agreed in 2008 to be the speaker at the same ceremony but canceled at the last minute because he needed emergency eye surgery. University officials were surprised last year when Mr. Paterson canceled again, with just two hours’ notice.

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This afternoon, Teachers College students received an email from the offices of President Susan Furman and Provost Tom James announcing that “earlier today, several faculty members received envelopes containing hate mail.”

“We have alerted the Hate Crimes Unit of the New York City Police Department,” the email continues, “which is still investigating the October 2007 hate crime incidents.We anticipate that the New York City Police Department will be at Teachers College to investigate this matter.  We encourage all members of the community to cooperate fully.” Full email after the jump. Read more…

Although the list-topper for Vh1’s 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons needs no further accolades, your university casually handed over a Klingenstein Leadership Award to Oprah Winfrey last week in Chicago.

The Klingenstein Center for Independent School Leadership, a Teachers College entity, recognized Oprah for her work towards improving education. The award specifically cites Oprah’s Book Club, and the two-year-old Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy For Girls, a posh boarding school in Johannesburg, South Africa. Also singled out for funding scholarships and new schools were three separate Winfrey-driven philanthropies: The Oprah Winfrey Foundation, The Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program, and Oprah’s Angel Network.

Did a last-minute candidate for Class Day Speaker just enter the ring? Class of 2009, start hoping. Walking out of here with a free car would probably ease the pain of the current job market.

Teachers College to save the Dominican Republic.

It’s an art house with an uncertain future.

Do you remember CPR from your sixth-grade babysitting course?

Turn off your TV for two minutes today — thankfully Gossip Girl airs Mondays.

Spec’s rainy day political laundry list.

The trek to the Gottesman Library at Teacher’s College was arduous, and TC itself a seemingly impenetrable maze.  Initially arriving at the wrong entrance, Bwog stood for several moments at an automatic door that refused to open. The bells at Riverside Church chimed ominously. Bwog eventually sheepishly located the entrance to the building, perhaps 15 feet to our left.  

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Bwog’s Teachers College tipster has forwarded us an email saying that on October 21st Obama and McCain’s education advisors will debate over “Education and the Next President” at Teachers College and will be moderated by TC President Susan Fuhrman. 

Don’t expect any heartbreaking lotteries this time: only TC faculty, students and staff are allowed. But Bwog is hopeful that there will be alternative viewing arrangements for the rest of us.  Stay tuned, we will update as more information comes in.  Until then, the full email is after the jump. Read more…

Good morning, Columbia, hope you’re all set for some more Madonna Constantine updates. Oh good, let’s get started. First, according to last night’s AP report, Constantine has decided to appeal her termination, claiming that she was fired because of the noose incident and that the plagiarism charges are “baseless.” 

And speaking of nooses, it’s finally time for the Village Voice‘s sequel to its exciting series on “Knotty Noose Problems”. When we last left off, a bunch of people accussed Madonna Constantine of plagiarism, so she made one of them organize some stuff in her office over winter break, which was mean. Meanwhile, Darlene Bailey, VP of Academic Affairs at TC, launched counter-investigations against a women who wanted to look into the allegations against Constantine.

So now that we’re all caught up, on to this week’s article, and we’ve once again distilled everything you need to know in reader-friendly bulletpoints.

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Today, the Village Voice ran the first part of a billion part article that’s something like the definitive account of everything that happened surrounding Madonna Constantine. You might recall October’s noose-hanging incident and the whole multiple charges of plagiarism thing, for example. Anyway, we’ve distilled everything that’s new and important in the article in easy-to-digest bullet points below (Spoiler Alert: She plagiarized.) 

• “As many as 10 people complained about Constantine over several years, and these sources say the college did little to intervene.”
• “Constantine attempted to silence her accusers in the spring of 2007 by sending them letters threatening to sue unless they dropped their claims. She used college stationery and the college mailing account.”
• “Despite [former student Karen Cort's] accusation [of plagiarism], Constantine never pursued official sanctions. Instead, as punishment, she ordered Cort to cancel plans for the January break and come to her office. Constantine had her mark each book in her office with the professor’s stamp. The shelves in the office held hundreds of books. The job took several days to complete.”
• This particular plagiarized text was a second-year research paper written by the aforementioned former student, Karen Cort. Constantine told Cort to list Constantine’s name as the primary researcher, despite Cort actually writing and researching the paper. For whatever reason, Cort agreed.
  
  Read more…

Boo dearth of housing for GS kids.  Hooray Manhattanville!

Boo hateful speech on Juicy Campus.  Hooray censorship!

Boo unclear CUIT back up policies.  Hooray transparency on the Information Super Highway!

Boo rigid Physics major requirements. Hooray to superficial study of sciences through opinion columns!

Boo plagiarism scandal.  Hooray record donation?!

 

Well Teacher’s College, maybe November will see better days.

CU wants u 2 b safe. 

What does “wadding up” mean?

Columbia Spectator is one-sided, ignores “kill whitey.” 

The core is useful beyond just cocktail parties.

Peter Gordon probably isn’t travelling to West Virginia any time soon. While being interviewed about his research on the Piraha, a tribe in the Amazon, for The New Yorker, the Teachers College Speech and Pathology prof made an unfortunate reference to one of America’s most persistent regional stereotypes. “If there is some kind of Appalachian inbreeding or retardation going on,” he said, defending the tribe from such charges, ”you’d see it in hairlines, facial features, motor ability. It bleeds all over. They [the Piraha] don’t show any of that.”

Now, Gordon is under fire, and Columbia has been targeted as well. “The quote splattered against academic computer screens in Appalachia this week like a large cud of chewing tobacco,” wrote the Lexington Herald-Leader (we’re not quite sure if they were trying to be ironic or not). A professor at Daemen College had this to say to Gordon: “Shame on you and on the institution you represent for perpetuating such ugly and untrue stereotypes”. Ohio University prof Jack Wright compared the gaffe to “cultural strip-mining”.

For his part, Gordon has apologized, and called the experience “humbling”. After receiving complaints, Provost Brinkley said that he disagreed with Gordon’s sentiments, but that the prof would not be censored.

-CJS 

Girls discuss sexist ageism, M. Cheney talks about forthcoming bundle of joy (Today’s New York Times has great coverage of the fem-fest here)

Prez Bo: Columbia has a new…wife?

There are five gazillion books in Butler (Could it be more impressive than the iPhone?)

Staff to Columbia, re: M’ville: Please don’t embarrass yourself again

A student who hasn’t liked his many-an-internship

Bwog tipster John Shekitka sends in the following news about what they’re really learning over at Teacher’s College.

I was in Horace Mann last night, a building at Teacher’s College, and noticed their monthly newsletter entitled ‘The Stall Street Journal.” I kid you not; this a newspaper that is affixed to the back of the stall door in the bathroom so that you can read it while you are on the toilet. It has interview and resume tips. The best part, though, has to be the tagline that reads “getting information out to students in any way we CAN”—emphasis theirs. Last month, I thought it was a joke, but they’ve already come out with the October issue.

Something tells Bwog that this publication will be FLUSH with helpful information. Eh? Eh? No? Ok.