Thursday, 2 February 2006

Idle inquiry of the day

What possible value could a search committee for a non-tenure-track teaching position find in a sample of my research? I’ll concede that recommendations are valuable (if something of a chore to orchestrate), but I simply fail to see how a writing sample could be of any use whatsoever.

The Swedes are coming

Today’s Duke Chronicle reports on the results of Ted Roof’s latest efforts to dupe impressionable 18-year-olds into coming to Durham to play a sport other than basketball rebuild Duke’s football program on the recruiting trail, said efforts yielding (of all things) a pair of Swedes. As in kids from Sweden. I shit you not. I didn’t realize Malmö was such a hotbed of gridiron talent…

Meanwhile the best football player on campus is still pursuing the revenue sport Duke doesn’t suck at. Go figure.