Click on the pic below to hear a quick interview with Gordon Gee by the The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he makes a glib remark that I found to be illuminating:

In responding to how Universities should deal with Washington’s increased scrutiny on how we function (from endowments to athletics), he is quick to point out that we need to stop reacting so defensively. But that isn’t as interesting to me as when he describes how we should go about it; specifically, in our communication, he says we need to “not be so damn academic about it: we’ve got to be able to communicate and communicate wisely and communicate well.”

The implied argument is rather scathing and obvious so I’ll skip over flushing out all the connections. But the call for a change in our communication patterns is well worth taking not of, I believe – how do we go about getting “academese” to mean “elegant argument.”

Or is it too late?

Check out our sister site – another rhetoricalcommons gem:

Glossa Technologia

Professor Ben McCorkle is a key player in this brilliant project, and I’m sure we’ll all be thanking him profusely a few years down the road as the site grows.

Although the link will take you to a more than adequate description of their project, I’ll just briefly mention here that it’s a wiki-bibliography on matters relating to digital technologies in rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies. Right up our alley, eh?

The site is still in its pre-launch-beefing-up stages. For those of us studying for comps (or for those that just beat the hell out of ’em – congrats Vera), there’s plenty of spaces for contribution.

Get to work Harlots . . .