The for-profit vocational education institution has been completely shut down, casting 45,000 students abruptly adrift. It wasn’t quite instantaneous: everyone should have been able to see it coming. First they were told that federal financial aid could no longer apply to ITT; then California told them they could no longer accept any new students.

Since then, ITT Technical Institute posted a new landing page on its website that states, “We are not enrolling new students.” The website also details that credits earned by current students are “unlikely to transfer.”

You might wonder why this happened. Simple answer: total accreditation meltdown.

In blocking new students from enrolling, the Education Department cited the actions of ITT’s accreditor, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, which determined that ITT “is not in compliance and is unlikely to become in compliance with [ACICS] accreditation criteria.” According to the department, ACICS questioned ITT’s compliance with standards such as financial stability, management, record keeping, admissions, recruitment standards, retention, job placement and institutional integrity, in an Aug. 17 letter sent to the department.

I feel a lot of sympathy for the students who were bilked out of their money at this place, and I would hope that any debt they accumulated their would be wiped clean (although, this is America, so it probably won’t). But I’d also say to any student enrolled in a for-profit college…get out while you can. You are being robbed, and the writing is on the wall.

Just curious — I ran across this article from back in March that rips into Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Stephen Hawking for their ignorant comments about philosophy. I’d like to think better of all three of them. Does anyone know if any of them made any responses to their numerous philosophical critics? Is there any sign that they’ve learned from the criticism?

In yet another misstep by a Trump proxy, Marco Gutierrez from Latinos for Trump made the announcement that will annihilate the Trump campaign. Or, at least, give everyone on the internet a field day.

We must defeat Trump. For great justice, and now for tacos for everyone!

Mondays are just fine. I’ve had a weekend to prepare, I’m rested, all I’ve got on my plate is one lecture. The other days of the week…labs, labs, labs, lectures, etc. By Thursday, I’m dragging and worn out, and my schedule is such that it’s a relatively light day, but because it’s light, everyone crams all their meetings into it. So I’m worn thin and I get a lot of administrative work thrown at me (I’d rather teach, really).

So now Thursday will be my official Worst Day of the Week. Especially Thursdays on which an administrative meeting is scheduled for 7-8:30pm. That’s just uncivilized.

I should take a nap, but I can’t, because I’ve got a meeting scheduled.

Times Higher Education has another of those tedious articles in which some learned academic harumphs that you should not use social media. This one is kind of interesting, though, because his reasons why you should not tell us a heck of a lot about about Gabriel Egan.

How many friends have you got, and how many people do you know? If you use social media such as Facebook and Twitter you can probably quantify these things quite readily, but the answers will be wildly inaccurate as we all routinely overestimate these things.

What is more, the answers will be irrelevant to your work as an academic. We are all quite naturally obsessed with what our friends and acquaintances think of us and we crave evidence of the esteem in which we are held.

In return for feeding our desire for evidence of how we are doing in our social interactions – our narcissistic craving for others’ approval – first Facebook and then a group of other social media corporations persuaded half of humankind to give up their most intimate personal details.

So Gabriel Egan thinks people engage in conversations on social media to run up the score, to get a quantitative tally of how many friends you have? Is that how he thinks?

Gabe, Gabe, Gabe. I know there are some people who think that way, carefully counting their twitter follows and facebook likes, but the people who are really good at social media are using it as a channel for communication and self-expression. They are not keeping score. If you are, and especially if you think that’s the whole reason for using social media (or publishing papers or getting grants), you’re doing it all wrong, and your reasoning about it is invalid.

Do not under any circumstances read The Lego Grad Student. It’s like a comic photo-essay based on a Russian novel: bleak, cynical, despairing.

Grad school really isn’t quite that bad.

My lovely little PowerMac Pro is having conniptions — I suspect a bad connection to the display, because intermittently the screen will decide that white will be displayed as purple, and everything else as shades of green and yellow. It turns out that that color scheme is really hard to read, and writing is even harder. I’ve checked the obvious — like that it is one of the display options I can configure, and it isn’t — and will test it later today with an external display to see if it’s the logic board or the display board.

Writing today will depend on how long it can stay in a normal, healthy, readable mode — I don’t feel like blogging by doing the equivalent of fingerpainting in Fruit Loops tinted vomit.

Jack Horner, the paleontologist who was the model for Dr Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park, has been ‘forced out’ of his position at the Museum of the Rockies, and is now working at the Burke Museum in Seattle. Good for the Burke, was my first thought, but the second was, “Why is the Museum of the Rockies kicking out their most famous scientist?” Then I read the story.

First reasonable reason — he’s 70. That’s a good age to step back from the grind…but ask me again in 10 years.

The second reason Horner gives is politics. The second reason is that museum director Shelley McKamey, the museum director, is married to Pat Leiggi, director of paleontology and exhibits. He says they’ve had it in for him, and criticizes the fact that their marriage creates an automatic alliance that overpowers other obligations. He’s basically objecting to the marital status of other people at the museum, claiming it gives them an unfair advantage. Which answered nothing — why would the fact that a couple of museum directors are married mean he’d be squeezed out?

And then Horner himself explains why they opposed him, and my sympathy evaporates.

The problem started in 2012, Horner said, when he married then 19-year-old undergraduate student Vanessa Weaver. He “adored” Weaver, but the marriage was their way of telling the university — she wasn’t one of his students — to butt out of their relationship after Horner was instructed to officially disclose the nature of their relationship and was told they would be scrutinized.

“And then they could check on it and they could decide on it. They could come say anything they want, so we got married so we could do anything,” Horner said. “And through the whole thing she had a boyfriend. There wasn’t like something nefarious going on. I adore her. She’s adorable, obviously we really like each other.” They’re divorced now, but still friends.

McKamey and Leiggi “went apoplectic” over the marriage, Horner said. “Before that happened they were my best friends. They basically haven’t talked to me since.”

Welp.

OK, so he was fooling around with a student who was less than a third of his age, and thought he could legitimize it with the university by entering into a sham marriage? I don’t think university’s objection would be to sexual activity out of wedlock — this is the 21st century, and as we all know, universities are bastions of liberalism — but to sexual activity with a student. Trying to get around that problem with what he openly admits was a fake marriage makes the problem worse.

And now he’s divorced? Does that mean he’s going to be looking for another sweet young thing?

Now I’m wondering if the Burke Museum is keeping an eye on him.