Available here.

Stanford University has put out an interesting (98 page) document on dual-career academic couples.  The full report can be found here.  The survey was of 9043 full-time faculty at 13 research universities.   

Some of the more interesting results, at least to me, are as follows:

General statistics

Ÿ         36% of academics have an academic spouse; this is the same percentage as those with a working, non-academic spouse

Ÿ         the percentage of female academics with an academic spouse is 40%; the percentage of male academics with an academic spouse is 34%

Ÿ         woman academics are more likely to be single than their male counterparts (21% vs 10%)

Ÿ         minority academics are more likely to be single than their non-minority counterparts (25% vs. 13%)

Dual Hires

Ÿ         10% of faculty hires are part of dual hires

Ÿ         being part of a dual hires is almost twice as likely for female faculty as for male faculty (13% vs. 7%)

Ÿ         one is more than twice as likely to be part of a dual hire if one is a full or endowed professor than if one is either an associate or assistant professor

Ÿ         the frequency of dual hires is increasing:  3% of all hires in 1970s were dual hires; 7% in 1980s; 9% in 1990s: 13% in 2000s

Ÿ         73% of dual hires have degree in same field

I'd hoped to get some serious reading and writing on metaphysics done this summer.  But that didn't happen.  Maybe this fall.  I did get a lot of editing done--the textbook is being typeset, and the feschrift is coming together nicely.  This time next year, I should have three books on my shelf with my name on the covers.

Tomorrow is the last day of teaching summer school for me; then a little more than a week off before the fall term starts. 

I have two book reviews I'm working on and need to finish up, but hope to spend most of the fall doing ontology.

Or for those of you who (falsely) don't believe that witches exist, be a highly overpaid teenage actress.

There is an interesting story here about USD.  I haven't been to the office since I found out about the story, so I don't know what the buzz is around the campus.  I have read none of her work, and am making no claim about it or whether or not she should have been asked to be a visiting faculty:  But here are my initial thoughts:

• According to the story, Ruether says that "the academic freedom of San Diego faculty members had been hurt by having her appointment blocked."  First off, I've not seen any enfringement on academic freedom at USD.  (The closest I've seen is petty politics in the guise of restrictions on academic freedom.)  But I fail to see how her not coming to USD is an affront to our academic freedom.
• It's not like our theology (or, more technically, "Theology and Religious Studies") department is particularly conservative theologically.  Nor is the university for that matter. 
• It's sad that the announcement of Ruether's appointment was made on the USD website before she was ever "officially appointed."  I'd like to know if this was the result of ineptitude or malfeasance.  I'd believe either one.
• Since Al works in the controller's office, and they're the department that deals with gifts and endowments, like the one behind the chair in question, I know that restrictions on gifts are more the norm than the exception.  So long as a gift is over $5k and an endowment is over $50k, the donor can put on basically whatever restrictions they want (so long as it is within university guidelines).

You can visit it here if you like.

Eleonore Stump, "Knowledge, Freedom, and the Problem of Evil," International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 14 (1983): 49-58.

My university's library doesn't have e-access to IJPR that far back.  Thanks in advance.

UPDATE:  And prize for quickest response goes to Tim.  Did I mention that the prize is a ball of cat fur?  Congrats, and thanks, Tim.

I'm presently writing the introduction for the other volume I am editing, which is due to Routledge in December and is tentatively scheduled to appear next June (on Al and my anniversary, in fact).

I'd hope to get the majority of my notes for the lectures prepared this summer, but I'm quite sure now that that's not going to happen.  I did finish up the first draft of the syllabus this morning (available

I'm going to try two new methodological approaches in this course.  First, while I've required substantial writing in past courses, I'm going to devote part of this course to teach students philosophical writing, in part by using Vaugn's good volume on the topic.

Second, I was really intrigued by Nadalhoffer and Nahmias' recent article on "Polling as Pedagogy," and so am going to devote a number of class periods to some thought-experiments and exercises meant to get students thinking about certain metaphysical issues before we read the chapters on those issues.  (Two of the exercises are

Thoughts or suggestions for improvement are welcome.

I'm hesitant to know what my score adjusted for the current decade (century) would be.  I also took the test as a 1930s wife and scored less than half as high.

(HT: Feminist Philosophers)

1. additional terms it would be good/helpful for the reader to add
2. suggestions for improvement on extant definitions
3. the minor grammatical stuff that I'm so very bad at

"I don't think you can ever really get over the death of the few people who matter most to you.  It's too big.  Oh yes, the badly broken leg does heal, and you walk again, but always with a limp" ~Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions

Two summers ago, I wrote about our continued struggle with the grief and loss of Allison's mom here.  Looking back at that posting now, I see that in some ways Jameson has changed how I view things.  For example, he makes it easier to look toward the hope of the future and to sometimes escape the gravity of the loss of the past.  But in other ways, every good vision he blesses us with is also a reminder that our joy can be, at best, incomplete; that our family is deprived of a great and wonderful good; that this world is fractured; that we limp, and always will.

Even more so now that she's a mother herself, there is much about Allison that reminds me of Jeanene.  I love Allison for giving me a constant reminder and image of her mother to live with, even if it is painful to see it at times. 

(My first blurb is here.)

I also noticed that Continuum has put an endorsement of my free will book by John Fishcer on their website: