Fiat lux
Last Saturday afternoon I had an opportunity to see the film “Lincoln”, $10 very well spent. On the assumption that the events depicted therein bear some reasonable resemblance to actual... More
Dean’s Blog
Teaching assignments
Anyone connected to university life – be they faculty, staff, or students – will tell you that the academic year has certain rhythms. For that matter, so too does the academic “life”. We... More
Fall Reading Week?
A faculty member wrote to me this week to express his concern about the mental health of his students. His note was prompted by a specific incident, but he went on to observe that many seemed to be... More
The Eternal City
Rome in early November is alive with the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of the autumn season, and I have a particular fondness for pasta stuffed with pumpkin, as well as the pervasive aroma of... More
Shades of grey
I had an interesting discussion last week with one of the FASS associate deans, following a long afternoon of “academic integrity” offense hearings which had left her rather disillusioned. What... More
Lessons from the AGO
Last Saturday I attended the morning session of a symposium held to honour the remarkable achievements of Diana Nemiroff, who retired last summer as the Director of the Carleton University Art... More
Two for the show …
It has been a rather good week. Last Wednesday I began my annual autumnal practice of visiting the FASS First-Year Seminar classes. I usually wait until after the Thanksgiving weekend to do this,... More
One for the money
For some mysterious reason, an extraordinary amount of paper crosses my desk … and at least some of it is actually quite interesting. A case in point is a recent report prepared by the Carleton... More
A la recherche …
We all have things in our lives that drive us crazy, some small and some large; and the university offers no shortage of these in my own daily existence, from the frequent total lack of any response... More