Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Thursday, June 29, 2006
A unversity leader’s shocking death
There is a shocking story in the San Francisco Chronicle today about University of California-Santa Cruz President Denice Denton’s suicide jump from a 42-story building.
This is a horrible tragedy. Denton was known as a real fighter. Just last year, she was one of the first women to confront Harvard’s then-president Larry Summers about his comments that women are not cut out for science. It’s a terrible loss in many ways, and leaves us with one less strong voice for women among university leaders.
Which raises an important question.
Despite being a strong personality, Denton apparently was severely depressed about her personal and professional problems. She had been president of the school just over a year and had been at the center of a couple of controversies about her pay ($600,000 annually) and the hiring of her partner by the school. At one point, someone threw a brick through her window last year.
One observer suggests to me this might be an example of a need for better support for top women administrators in academia. Denton was part of what is still a very small group of women university presidents — this realm still is largely a boys’ club.
Certainly Denton had deep issues that were unique to her situation, but effective mentoring could have helped lower the stress of some heated situations.
It also makes me worry about the way university debates can become inflamed and sometimes get very personal. Criticism is part of the job description, but it’s easy to demonize a university president and forget that she is a real person.
Do you think this story might show that women university professors need more support?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Colleges and Universities
Not it! Playground games banned!
USA Today reports the trend toward banning simple playground games is expanding as more schools fear kids will get hurt.
This is an insane trend, probably driven by lawsuits much like the removal of high diving boards that I wrote about earlier this week.
When will the pendulum finally begin to swing back away from the rampant over protection and suffocating lawyering that is taking all the fun out of childhood?
Let me make it clear that I am in favor of sensible precautions. We made fun of kids for wearing bicycle helmets when I was a kid and I glad that trend has reversed, just to choose one example. And there are dangers out there, like pedophiles and fast-moving cars, for which kids need to learn some basics about how to protect themselves.
But how far should it go? Do four-year-olds really need self defense classes? Should kids be forbidden from even RUNNING at school?
How can reasonable people help return sensibility to places where fear has taken us over the edge?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: School Violence
