Happy weekend, ProfHackers!
Over the course of the summer, historians have observed the centennial anniversaries of the First World War. This weekend, one hundred years ago, Europe stood poised on the brink of war. France and England had been issued ultimatums by Germany on July 31, 1914, and mobilization had begun along the Russian and German borders. The Telegraph has outlined the main events. Newsweek ran a photographic feature titled, “The Scars of World War I Battlefields a Century Later earlier this week. British critic Max Saunders asks, “Without World War I, what would literature look like today?” (h/t tp my colleague Melissa Walker for that piece). In a particularly poignant tribute, the Tower of London moat will be filled with ceramic poppies to commemorate the fallen (the installation will not be completed until November 11, Remembrance Day).
At least five campuses in Pennsylvania have received unhappy news of possible faculty lay-offs from the PA State System. Those schools potentially affected include Edinboro, Cheyney, East Stroudsburg and Mansfield Universities. This announcement is only the latest in increased difficulties faced by the fourteen universities in the Pennsylvania State System (PASSHE). In December, Inside Higher Ed reported that the system has been feeling the pinch from decreased state support and lower enrollments for some time now, and “Dean Dad” focused on the mounting tensions in the system in a column titled, “When Secession Moves North.”
While we are on the topic of higher ed, Claire Potter’s latest post at “Tenured Radical,” “Bye-Bye Birdies: Sending the Kids Away to College” is a must read. The piece is aimed at parents with children in college or university, especially those whose kids will be starting their first semester in a few weeks time, but it is also useful for the rest of us who work in colleges and universities.
On a lighter note, while I’m not an much of an iced-coffee drinker, I found this article in the Atlantic, “The Future of Iced Coffee” to be interesting, not only on, well, the future of iced-coffee, but even more so because of the interview with Blue Bottle CEO James Freeman and his team, and their experiences so far in trying to take a local, artisan product national. It’s enough to make me want to try a Blue Bottle from the store. If it makes it to the Southeast, I just might. Also, while I was down the Blue Bottle rabbit hole, I visited their webpage, which has all kind of great information about the different ways to brew coffee (hot or cold). On a tangentially-related note, also from the Atlantic, “I Drank a Cup of Hot Coffee That Was Overnighted Across the Country.” Apparently, this overnight escapade was a publicity stunt from Thermos to promote a new product, which claims to keep a beverage hot or cold for 24 hrs. But the article is more than just an advertisement for the latest Thermos; it is also asking us to think about the local and the mass-produced, and the paradoxical way that these feed each other in much of American culture today.
The New York Times explores “The Digital Divide Down the Wedding Aisle,” those ceremonies that embrace the digital with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and hashtags versus those that try to stay analog, some going so far as to ban cell phones in the ceremony.
And finally, while we are on the topic of the digital and potential boundary breeching, take a look at Tim Carmody’s piece from Kottke.org, “The problem with OKCupid is the problem with the social web,” a smart discussion of the recently revealed “social experiments” performed by OKCupid, an internet dating site, and the less-recent Facebook antics.
Our video for the weekends a throwback to 2011, when the Local Natives performed as part of NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concerts” acoustic series:
[Creative Commons licensed image by Flickr user Paul Reynolds].