Defending the university.

We're in another of those cycles in which it has become fashionable to attack American universities.  If you need your spirits raised, check out a recent defense of US universities, Our Universities: How Good? How Bad?, Peter Brook's review of a slew of books on this theme.

Introducing Dave

Hi. A very quick introduction: I'm David Johnson, an Associate Professor in Foreign Languages and Literatures. My field is Classics, so I teach Latin, Greek, and courses in English about the ancient world.

I'm here because I happened to be in on a conversation among a group of people who thought a faculty blog would be a good idea. And because my vain pleasure in seeing my words in print, even virtually, outweighs my well-grounded fear that some of what I say will be foolish. 

SIU faculty and staff blogosphere

We—Namdar Mogharreban of Computer Science and David Johnson of Foreign Languages & Literatures—have set up this blog in the hope that it can help foster discussion among faculty members and other people interested in the issues facing SIUC.

Anyone with any connection to SIUC is encouraged to comment; we encourage you to sign comments with your name and SIUC affiliation, but this isn't required. Though we will of course have a viewpoint of our own (or rather viewpoints of our own), we won't censor comments for their content—we hope to generate some productive debate. But we must of course reserve the right to remove comments that make personal attacks or are otherwise inappropriate.