The Week's Reading

Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really liked this book. It was a lot of fun, and I liked the unusual cast of characters.

I did not like, however, that there is a short scene in the middle that alludes to a rape. I mean, I guess you could read it as not going that far, but I don't see how, and it seems really, really unnecessary in what is otherwise a delightful YA fantasy novel. It's literally like two paragraphs long, and the book would have been better for the pruning of it.

With that caveat, I think this was a very enjoyable read.



View all my reviews

Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate by Charles E. Glassick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This report is the follow-up to Scholarship Reconsidered which seeks to begin answering the question: if we're going to expand the definition of scholarship, how should we assess the newly defined scholarship for promotion and tenure purposes?

I didn't find anything new in this report, but I did find some useful suggestions for taking evaluation of teaching beyond student evaluations, and I think the suggestion that promotion and tenure committees (along with the administrators who will make those decisions) receive training in how to evaluate scholarship is a very good one.



View all my reviews