Thursday, September 13, 2007

Win Some, Lose Some
Money, Politics, and the
Law School Deanship at UC Irvine

update 9/17/07

UD reports (LA Times) that the Marriage has been saved.

Law school politics is very interesting. Such a small group of people. So much money. And the profession is very portable. Put your brain in its case and trundle off to the next watering hole. No lab to pack up... But these law faculty are very bright and interesting. Look at their blogs. Like a moth to the flame Mr. B. is drawn.

While doing some digging into things at the BigU law school, Mr. B. stumbled upon an interesting development at the new establishment at the University of California, Irvine. He let UD, his favorite academic blogger, know about it and she has now posted an interesting commentary.

Executive summary: High profile law prof offered dean job. Impeccable credentials. Liberal. Explosion. Job withdrawn. Even people at Pepperdine say this is a near fatal mistake. UD post more juicy and interesting.

Off to another day of violating picket lines. My teaching will be over on Tuesday, to resume only near the end of the semester when, hopefully, the strike will be over. I feel dirty. Really not easy to move my show off campus. Envy English teachers. Incredibly bad moves on the part of the Administration. Any incremental good will generated by "Driven to Discover," which cost BigU multiple millions of dollars, will be wiped out by this avoidable disaster. Settlement costs will probably be a lot less than DtD.

Ciao, Bonzo