Links for 12/2/10

Mike Antonucci

Doug Gablinske is a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. A Democrat, Gablinske lost in the primaries to a challenger supported by organized labor, then launched an unsuccessful write-in campaign to retain his seat.

“Doug Gablinski” is someone pretending to be Doug Gablinske. He sent e-mails during the campaign that made misrepresentations about Gablinske’s political stances.

A police investigation determined “Doug Gablinski” was really NEA Rhode Island assistant executive director John Leidecker. He was arrested and charged with “use of false information” under the state computer crimes act.

“The NEA is really organized crime and [to] resort to these types of tactics during campaigns – they should be embarrassed, ashamed,” Gablinske said. “People on the outside have no idea the types of tactics used by unions during the campaigns and I don’t think the membership does either. They should be asking questions.”…

Eric Kelderman

The researchers who conducted the study found that an increase in need-based aid resulted in higher tuition and fees at both public and private institutions in the state…

Scott McLemee

“I received two journals in the mail recently and beheld in their book review section mention of enough titles relevant to my interests to keep me busy until Social Security kicks in…”
This can be framed eulogistically, of course, as evidence of the accelerating “production of knowledge.” But the essayist maintains that an obsession with publication for its own sake has taken hold…

And in a passage that may seem literally incredible to younger scholars today, he cites a piece of advice by one professor in the early 1970s – an epoch when “faculty who worried about publishing too much, thereby alienating colleagues and damaging their own careers” still wandered the earth. To be safe, this scholar suggested publishing “an article a year and a book every five years.”…

Ben Wildavsky

managers in the United Kingdom can earn a no-cost McDonald’s degree in business management. Accredited by Manchester Metropolitan University, the “foundation degree” program is a vocational qualification roughly equivalent to the career-oriented associates degrees offered by U.S. community colleges…

India’s Infosys, for example, runs what The Economist terms “one of the world’s largest corporate universities” on its 335-acre campus in Mysore. With a permanent faculty of 250, it trains about 10,000 workers – known as “Infosysians” – each year. The campus motto is “no caste, no creed, only merit.” There is plenty of other evidence that the line between business training and what is traditionally viewed as higher education is eroding. In England, a BBC report notes, the tony department store Harrods now offers a degree for its staff in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University. Microsoft, of course, has become well-known for its IT certificates. And Wal-Mart made headlines earlier this year when it announced a partnership with American Public University, a for-profit, online provider, that would give the company’s 1.4 million U.S. employees access to discounted classes and degrees…