From the Editor: On Suit Jackets and the Robes of Academe
Paula M. Krebs
Button up your suit jacket for the start of the new semester. In this issue of Academe, Ronald Lemos argues for standards of etiquette in the profession that would include some serious attention to attire in the interests of increasing civility on our campuses.
We feature two clusters of articles in this issue. One fills us in on how it is that colleges and universities make the changes, some after many years, that get them off the AAUP censure list. The other cluster brings together fascinating reflections from three creators and moderators of influential academic electronic discussions: VICTORIA and SHARP-L, interdisciplinary forums in Victorian studies and the history of the book; WMST-L, the huge women’s studies list; and CCL.NET, the computational chemistry forum.
Alvin M. Saperstein takes on the challenge of “Teaching Science to Biblical Literalists” in his contribution to this issue, while Richard A. Cherwitz and student Ana Lucia Hurtado offer useful suggestions for ways to engage at-risk students through internships on campus and off.
Norman Birnbaum, in a compelling interview with AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen, takes us on a journey through U.S. and British higher education and politics from the McCarthy era through today. His winning manner and the fascinating historical detail he offers put us on the scene at the birth of the New Left in Europe in the early 1960s. The interview is a real gem.
And speaking of gems—Nancy G. Westerfield’s “The Robes of Academe” truly sparkles. Hers is a quietly moving reflection on a lifetime both in and on the fringes of academe, and her poet’s voice makes this an article you’ll want to share with your friends and colleagues.
I’m curious about how you like articles such as Westerfield’s. Would you like more such creative pieces in your magazine? What about interviews, how-to stories, or overviews of trends in higher education? We’re going to be sending out a survey with just these kinds of questions to a sample of Academe readers to help us gather information about what does and doesn’t work for our readers. If you receive the survey, please respond. But don’t feel that you can only give us feedback if you get a direct-mail request. Write to us any time at editor@aaup.org and respond to individual articles on our blog at http://academeonline.blogspot.com/.
Neil Hamilton sees recent failures in the “social contract” between the public and higher education as at least partly the fault of the faculty’s refusal to hold each other accountable.
And, oh—that Harvard ad? We’re just kidding. Or, rather, Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George are. Someday, they’ll go too far, those two . . .
Academe mourns the passing of Ellen Willis, public intellectual and professor of journalism at New York University, who served on Academe’s advisory board.
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