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Headlines @ U.Va.
Rekindling family friendships
When U.Va. won the NCAA men’s lacrosse championship May 28,
it further cemented a long friendship between the Starsias and
the Rotellis. Cavalier coach Dom Starsia was a college teammate
of Pete Rotelli at Brown University. Pete’s son, Chris, was
Virginia’s — and the nation’s —best player
this season. But Dom Starsia and Pete Rotelli share something
else: Both have 17-year-old children who are mentally challenged.
Richard Rotelli and twins Maggie and Emma Starsia were classmates
at a Providence, R.I., school for children with disabilities and
developmental delays. “We have common family issues that
the nature of Chris’ career wasn’t going to affect,”
Dom Starsia said. “But having it go well is just icing on
the cake. It’s just made for a really, really nice four years.”
(Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 23)
Smoothing
out hiring cycle
The boom-or-bust cycle of state funding for public colleges and
universities is “not conducive to building an exceptional
faculty,” economics professor William R. Johnson recently
wrote in a Chronicle of Higher Education commentary. In good times,
departments are under pressure to fill many vacancies at once
— and at the same time that other public universities are
also hiring. They face the choice of compromising on faculty quality
or leaving vacancies they fill with temporary faculty. In down
times, temporary faculty are the first to go, leaving a department
understaffed. Johnson suggested a three-step plan designed to
smooth out the peaks and valleys in hiring.
(Christian Science Monitor, June 6)
Bush
reluctantly follows predecessors
President Bush, who once criticized Bill Clinton for becoming
too involved in Middle East peacemaking, has now plunged into
the effort. It was inevitable, politics professor William Quandt
told the National Post of Canada. “There are tangible American
interests in the Middle East that are sufficiently compelling
that no American president can for very long just turn his back
on the region,” he said.
The depth of Bush’s interest remains to be seen, Quandt said.
“If the president is really serious … it
is going to take more than one meeting.”
(National Post, June 5)
All
lawyer jokes aside …
Addressing the graduates of the Dickinson [Pa.] School of Law,
history professor Julian Bond — also chairman of the NAACP
— recalled when he first needed a lawyer. As a young Morehouse
College student, he was arrested during a sit-in at the Atlanta
city hall’s “whites-only” cafeteria. Knowing he
was technically guilty — he failed to leave on a policeman’s
orders — he wasn’t sure how to respond when the judge
asked how he wanted to plead. Looking to his right, he was stunned
to find one of his lawyers asleep. Fortunately, the lawyer on
his left whispered, “Not guilty, you fool.” “Fortunately,
I left out the final two words when I spoke to the judge,”
he told the graduates.
(Harrisburg [Pa.] Patriot, June 1)
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