Cornell's endowment chief is leaving $6 billion fund, apparently because he wasn't making the endowment enough money?

A.J. Edwards, endowment head of Cornell University, still brought a return on the endowment year after year. It just appears it wasn't enough.

On a $6 billion endowment, Edwards averaged a 10% return every year over a five year period through 2014, but that's slightly below the 10.4% return other universities with an endowment over $1 billion saw.

Remember, this is an endowment. It's essentially money to sit on, which a university will do next to nothing with except to say, "Hey, look how big our endowment is!"

The final straw for Edwards came after the 2015 fiscal season saw only a 3.4% return--again, a positive--which some felt was a stark contrast to Princeton, which had a 12.7% return on their endowment investments.

But it's Cornell after all. It's supposed to pale in comparison to Princeton. Everyone knows this. When you rattle off the eight Ivy League schools, you inevitably stop at after six, pause, and entirely forget Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania are the last two.

Hell, the University of Pennsylvania is just happy if you don't call it Penn State.

The English language is killing off the word "the" slowly.

For you non-English folks, a "determiner" is really just a word that quantifies or identifies a noun. Think of the articles the and a. But a determiner can be possessive (like my or their) or something that alludes to quantity (like some or few), among other words.

It appears the way people write today is killing off the determiner though. More specifically, we're killing off the.

Over at the Language Log, a bit of research has shown a precipitous decline over the last century, with some studies showing the use of the dropping by 8% over the last 25 years, or, as they state, a 28% drop compounded over a century.

The Language Log went one step further though. They examined the use of the in two versions of the Bible's Song of Solomon, published roughly 400-years apart: The King James Bible in 1611 and the Message Bible published between 1993 and 2002.

In the King James translation, the is used as 6.57% of all words. The Message Bible? 4.06%. Same Song of Solomon passage, but two very different interpretations from centuries apart.

Not counting the italicized ones, I used the 13 times just now. I'm so King James-y.

Five college and university presidents made over $2 million last year

He suddenly feels motivated, too!

The big winner was Columbia University's Lee Bollinger, who pocketed $4.6 million. He has been the president at the school since 2002, when he came over from the University of Michigan after he primed his skills as--you guessed it--president there as well for six years.

The four other presidents to earn at least $2 million?

Amy Gutmann, University of Pennsylvania:   $3 million

Nido Qubein, High Point University:   $2.9 million

Richard Joel, Yeshiva University:   $2.5 million

Nicholas Zeppos, Vanderbilt University:   $2.1 million

In case you're wondering, Nido Qubein isn't the name to a second rate club DJ in Miami. His Wikipedia profile says he's not only a college president, but chairman of Great Harvest Bread Company and a motivational speaker as well. Do you suddenly feel motivated to make $2.9 million at a no-name college? I know I do.

Overall, median compensation was $436,429 for a private college or university president, up from just under $400,000 for the year 2012, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education.

In other words, college presidents should know better than anyone how to motivate a salary to drastically increase.

Penn professor has some thoughts on free speech. She's not a fan.

Anthea Butler, professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote an article in USA Today in which she argues for the arrest of the filmmaker--'Sam Bacile'--behind the movie which incited riots throughout the Middle East.

While most Americans agree the film--which disparages Muhammad and Islam through historical falsehoods--is horrible, Butler believes the deaths of Americans in Libya also revokes the filmmaker's right to free speech.

Her reasoning? The film "denigrates" a religion and created riots in foreign countries which "don't understand or respect our right" to free speech--and because the movie is hateful and caused deaths thousands of miles outside American borders, Bacile should be arrested, says Butler.

But don't get confused, Butler reminds us--"If there's anyone who values free speech, it is a tenured professor!"

Sigh.

[[[grabs some Advil for my headache]]]

Not only do Libyans not understand how the first amendment in the United States works, it seems neither does Butler.

Yet, President Obama spoke to the United Nations General Assembly today and had this to say about the movie and the deaths in Libya (transcript from the New York Times):

That is what we saw play out in the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world...I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.

I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video. And the answer is enshrined in our laws: Our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech.

Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. As President of our country and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day --(laughter)-- and I will always defend their right to do so.

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Don't tell this to Professor Butler though. She might demand your arrest for disagreeing with her.



UPDATE 9/28:
Anthea Butler must be made of magic and gypsy tears--because 'Sam Bacile' was arrested, per her demand.

Sadly, for Anthea Butler, her magical powers are limited. Bacile was arrested because he's a shady guy with roughly a million probation violations against him, and cops enjoy it when criminals kind of just fall into their lap.

Professor dies. School forgets to tell the students.

University of Pennsylvania political science professor, Dr. Henry Teune, didn't have a pleasurable springtime this year. He died.

The university still allowed students to enroll in his class for this fall though.

Lo and behold, no one told the students Teune died months earlier and, uhhhhh, that class was cancelled. So students showed up to class and waited for Teune to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

An hour after class started, someone in the Poli-Sci office emailed all the students the news that--hey! guess what?!--you'll be waiting a long while for Teune! Because, you know, he's dead!

At least Teune had the decency to not show up. Who hasn't had a class where the professor was dead but still taught week after week?