Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Aftermath

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WHEN WE WALK into our classrooms and on our campuses today, we will think of Virginia Tech.

A sampling from the academic blogsophere:

University Diaries remembers Professor Liviu Librescu, seventy-six years old, who blocked the advance of the gunman into his classroom and saved his students' lives.

The Paper Chase is penned by an assistant professor at Virginia Tech.

Educated and Poor writes about one of her Methodist College colleagues whose son was among those killed.

Bardiac muses about the events--and about spring, cedar waxwings and humanity.

Berkeley: Academic Freedom and industry-sponsored research



AS YOU KNOW, the trustees and chancellor of our benighted community college district are inclined to bypass faculty input when developing major projects. For instance, the SOCCCD’s big ATEP project in Tustin has been developed with virtually no faculty input, despite its alleged focus on instructional programs.

At UC Berkeley, many faculty members have been hopping mad about a decision, announced earlier this year, to accept a $500 million “biofuels research deal” with the oil company BP, despite a failure to bring the campus’ faculty into the discussion.

In this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle: A divided UC faculty to debate BP deal:
UC Berkeley faculty members will debate academic freedom and industry-sponsored research this week at a meeting on the $500 million BP biofuels research deal announced earlier this year.

The oil company's funding of a proposed Energy Biosciences Institute to study alternatives to environmentally damaging petroleum-based fuels has created sharp divisions among faculty members over how the deal was designed and its impact on the university.

A group that includes faculty members from the humanities and environmental science, policy and management is urging Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to delay signing a contract that would finalize the partnership with BP. They will ask the Academic Senate on Thursday to support a resolution calling for the delay as well as for a formal review of the partnership by the full academic community, something that was not done before the deal was disclosed two months ago.

...The debate will take place at Thursday's special meeting of the Academic Senate….

In February, a consortium led by UC Berkeley won a competition to host BP's Energy Biosciences Institute. In a bid to dramatically lower consumption of gasoline and counter global warming, the institute will develop new, carbon-neutral sources of ethanol and a new generation of high-tech biofuels.

…George Breslauer, UC Berkeley's executive vice chancellor and provost, said the institute has widespread support among faculty because it will make the campus a world leader in combatting global warming….

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...