Monthly Archives: September 2021

Those were the days: Kalaivanar with a big heart, NS Krishnan used comedy as reform tool – DTNext

Posted: September 26, 2021 at 4:52 am

Chennai:

The pioneering actors introduced to Tamil talkies in its first decade of the 1930s had an incalculable responsibility. They had to chart the paths for others to follow.

Nagercoil Sudalaimuthu Krishnan took on that ground-breaking role for comedy. As a hangover from silent movies, slapstick comedy was the principal focus in early talkies. People tripping, stumbling or animals charging them brought the laughter relief.

But with the movie having dialogues, humour had to be meaningful. It also had to be clean for family audiences. NSK is hugely responsible for making it thus, almost forcing those who followed in his way to stick to the rules he set. NSKs humour was rib-tickling and yet thought-provoking comedy. In fact, he used his comedy track to spread his beliefs in rationalism and social reformation.

NSK was born in the Tamil speaking district of the princely state of Travancore and in a very financially underprivileged background. He reportedly even pulled carts for family sustenance. As a youngster, he loved watching plays but could not afford the tickets and was so struck by the idea of selling soda water in the intermissions. Thus, he got to see all the plays for free.

Naturally, he joined a drama troupe and his phenomenal memory as well as intellectual smartness for improvisation on stage, made him an instant crowd puller.

His first feature film was Sati Leelavathi, directed by Ellis R Dungan which opened the gates for many actors to become household names. MGR, Baliah and reportedly Thangavelu (though uncredited) entered Tamil cinema through this movie. But not all clicked immediately. It would take a decade for MGR to act in 10 films and graduate to a hero status (and another decade to become a superstar). The person who found great accomplishment immediately was NSK. He acted in 70 movies by the next seven years, which means he was appearing almost in every alternate Tamil movie filmed and was given the title Kalaivanar (Lover of arts).

Krishnan was introduced when religion-themed movies ruled the roost. He unflinchingly talked about rationalism, removal of superstitions and denial of caste barriers all laced with humour. His daring anti-casteist dialogues in a movie impressed Anna who was surprised that Krishnan was speaking in favour of social transformation and that too without party indoctrination. Anna felt NSK had to meet Periyar his leader. Periyar, who was on record saying cinema was violence perpetuated on human thinking was impressed with NSK.

Right from then on, the Dravidian movement looked at him hopefully as a publicist but he would keep away from actual politics. Some would even reason this describing him as a Gandhian in the heart but publicly a Dravidian sympathizer. True to that, he even built a memorial for Gandhi in his hometown.

The husband-wife duo of Krishnan and Mathuram were the first to introduce the separate comedy track, often waiting for the main film to be shot to write his role. He also produced comedy shorts which were shown with the main film.

Krishnans songs and mannerisms were a much welcome relief in heavy devotional themed movies. His entry scene was always eagerly awaited. Krishnan would never walk into the camera frame, always hiding in a big basket or container obviously after some misdemeanour. A still room shot and the lid of the container would shake and the audience would instantly start giggling.

Though his very presence evoked humour, he never let go of his social messages. Nandhanar, a story where a Dalit denied entry into a temple but with great devotion attaining it, was a very popular theme in early Tamil cinema. NSK would make a parody on it called Kindanar.

With films and money flowing in, Krishnan was also a man with a big heart and an easy giving hand. A whimsical man with a big heart, he once organised a function to honour his chauffeur. Krishnan even printed an invitation and called dignitaries like Anna and Jeeva to honour his driver with a shawl. This inspired the chief guest Anna to organise a function for his own tailor.

It was then that fate changed. A blackmailer Lakshmikanthan was writing articles on the supposed misdeeds of the rich and famous. Lakshmikanthan was stabbed (a second time) in a Vepery road. The next day the city was agog with rumours of who could have killed him and who stood to gain most. NSKs name along with superstar Thyagaraja Bagavathars was mentioned in many gossip circles.

NSKs Coimbatore residence was searched by the police and he was arrested becoming the accused no 4 in a sensational Lakshmikanthan murder case. The jury voted 6-3 that Krishnan was guilty and judge Mockett sentenced him to transportation for life.

Krishnan worked as a bookbinder in Madras prison. After appeals and disappointments and finally the privy court in England which ordered a retrial, Krishnan was released after 27 months. In the privy council celebrity lawyer DN Pritt (Lee Kuan Yew the father of Singapore would once be his junior counsel).

NSK picked up the trail in his talkie career and the audience treated him just as same (unlike Bagavathar who was utterly rejected) Krishnan did comedy roles in more than 50 movies after his release dying at the age of 49.

The government unveiled the NS Krishnan statue on GN Chetty road in 1969. The Tamil Nadu Assembly has been often held in the hall named after him Kalaivanar Arangam.

The writer is a historian and an author

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Those were the days: Kalaivanar with a big heart, NS Krishnan used comedy as reform tool - DTNext

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Act against elected representatives accused of land grabbing, HC tells bureaucrats and police – The Hindu

Posted: at 4:52 am

Complaints of elected representatives indulging in land grabbing are far more serious than similar complaints filed against others. Therefore, such politicians must be prosected without any leniency, the Madras High Court has said and impressed upon the need for the bureaucrats and the police to take stringent action against them than end up being accused of colluding with the perpetrators of the crime.

Justice S.M. Subramaniam made the observations while disposing of a writ petition filed by an individual accusing a panchayat president of indulging in land grabbing. Elected members involving in land grabbing activities are to be viewed seriously Whenever such allegations are brought to the notice of the authorities, an enquiry without delay is imminent and the offenders are to be prosecuted without any delay, the judge said.

He impressed upon the need for the elected representatives to maintain utmost integrity, honesty and devotion towards their duties. The judge said those who indulge in offences such as land grabbing must be prosecuted mercilessly since such acts amount to crimes committed against the society. He also observed that the elected representatives were bound to uphold the trust imposed upon them by the people.

Unfortunately, large scale allegations of land grabbing by the members of the political parties or the persons in power are being traced out not only by the authorities but also by the people of the locality concerned, the judge said. Taking judicial note that a common man seldom lodges complaints against politically influential people, the judge said the officials must therefore crack the whip even on the basis of anonymous complaints.

Lamenting that at times, some revenue and police officials too collude with the land grabbers, the judge said the majesty of the uniformed services must be maintained at all times. The discipline in the police department is slowly deteriorating, which is not only visible, but being experienced by the public at large. Thus, restoration of work discipline and rationalism of work allotment are of paramount importance to improve the efficiency level in such uniformed services, he concluded.

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IBM CIO: ‘Quantum computing will be important in the IT landscape’ – Siliconrepublic.com

Posted: at 4:51 am

The CIO of Big Blue discusses the importance of AI and hybrid cloud, along with emerging tech such as quantum computing and cryptography.

Kathryn Guarini is the CIO of multinational tech giant IBM. Big Blue has been switching its focus to AI and cloud services in recent months, following the news that it is set to undergo a major restructuring.

Guarini and her team are responsible for developing, deploying and transforming the companys internal IT including hardware, software and services across more than 170 countries.

Her tenure at IBM spans more than two decades. Prior to being named CIO earlier this year, she was COO of IBM Research and vice-president for Impact Science, a research team within IBM that sought to apply deep technical expertise to the most pressing global challenges facing society while advancing the underlying science.

Guarini told Siliconrepublic.com that her CIO team supports every part of the business including digital workplace services, as well as thousands of business applications used by professionals in HR, sales, marketing, finance and more.

The recent rise in sophisticated cyberattacks requires us to take innovative approaches to secure the enterprise KATHRYN GUARINI

There are many major IT initiatives that we are focused on at IBM. Let me highlight three here.

First, Kyndryl. My team is playing a key role in supporting the separation of IBMs managed infrastructure business into an independent market-leading company called Kyndryl. IT plays a critical role in ensuring Kyndryl is set up for success with robust and secure infrastructure and applications, segmented to protect data and configured to run each business.

Second, hybrid cloud. We are adopting hybrid cloud at scale in IBM. That means we are moving IBMs internal IT workload from legacy data centres into public and private cloud environments to get the benefits of hybrid cloud from faster deployments to better availability to improved sustainability. Hybrid cloud offers a unified experience with end-to-end security and observability, harnessing the power of the open community.

Third, AI. AI is critical for business agility, resilience and growth. We are applying AI to automate business processes, modernise applications, predict outcomes and secure everything. As one example, we have applied AI to personalise and automate the IT support experience for IBMers, with AI-powered voice response, chat and search that improve the user experience.

Our CIO team is made up of more than 10,000 IBMers with a wide range of technical skills and expertise required to architect, develop, modernise and run IBMs internal IT systems. Our global team is organised into empowered agile squads doing iterative development in support of specific business solutions.

We partner with IBMs businesses, who simultaneously serve as stakeholders for our IT delivery and providers of differentiating technology and services that we adopt on behalf of IBM.

We recognise that building, fostering and advancing a pipeline of diverse talent is key to our long-term success. Weve made focused investments in critical skills that enable transformation, including software development, design, AI, automation, cloud computing, cybersecurity and software-defined networking.

We also have domain expertise in areas like human resources, sales, marketing and finance to help us better serve the IBM company and improve the employee experience.

Like most enterprises, IBM is on its own digital transformation journey, leveraging technologies like hybrid cloud and AI to unlock new business value and accelerate innovation. Hybrid cloud is the foundation of our cognitive enterprise. AI helps make better decisions, automate tasks, streamline processes and enable self-service across the enterprise.

Our CIO team is responsible for modernising our infrastructure and application environment and redesigning our business architecture into end-to-end intelligent workflows.

For example, we have transformed IBMs sales processes, launching a new solution that offers simplification and insight. The solution involved consolidating more than 160 different sales tools into one scalable, global platform to optimise IBMs relationship with our customers.

In another example, we transformed IBMs global client support process, providing improved experience, operational efficiency and AI-driven insights.

Ive already talked about how hybrid cloud and AI are hugely important technologies today to drive business transformation. Were using both to enable intelligent operations, modernise applications and automate insights.

Whats next? Quantum computing will become an important part of the IT landscape, offering competitive advantage to those who can capitalise on the unique capabilities of this new computing paradigm.

Quantum is maturing quickly, with rapid advances in the technology, software ecosystem and use cases across industries. Along with quantum computing comes advanced quantum-safe cryptography solutions that enable encryption that even large-scale fault tolerant quantum computers cant crack.

Theres a tremendous amount of technology innovation happening here that promises to have outsized impact on our industry and the world.

Cybersecurity is a business imperative and the recent rise in sophisticated cyberattacks requires us to take innovative approaches to secure the enterprise.

We have adopted a zero-trust framework, which includes advanced identity protection, vulnerability management and threat detection.

We are adopting security-by-design approaches in the development of our IT solutions to ensure they are foundationally secure against growing threats. And we are adopting IBMs confidential computing technologies to protect sensitive data at all times.

Dont miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for theDaily Brief, Silicon Republics digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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Trailblazing Supercomputer Will Enable Scientists And Engineers To Optimize Its Hardware To Support Groundbreaking Research – Texas A&M University…

Posted: at 4:51 am

The system will let researchers perform calculations and solve problems that current supercomputers cannot handle.

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Backed by a multi-million-dollar federal grant, a research team from three major universities will soon start working on a pioneering supercomputing system that allows scientists and engineers to align its processors, accelerators, memory and other hardware components to best serve their needs.

This innovative system will operate increasingly complex levels of software while sidestepping the hardware bottlenecks that often hinder high-level computations. This system will let researchers perform calculations and solve problems that current supercomputers cannot handle.

On Oct. 1, 2021, researchers from Texas A&M University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) will begin collaborating on a prototype for what they call the Accelerating Computing for Emerging Sciences (ACES) system.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will provide $5 million for ACESs development and an additional $1 million per year over five years to pay for system operation and support.

Texas A&M Interim Vice President for Research Jack Baldaulf expressed gratitude to the NSF for its substantial investment in the ACES project. We are thankful to NSF for the opportunity to lead such an important initiative and to our Texas A&M HPRC staff and collaborators at UT Austin and UIUC for making this a successful effort, Baldauf said. Computational science is critical to our national needs and the ACES platform will not only advance research but also help educate the future workforce in this area.

The teams goal is to develop an all-inclusive system that will serve researchers across a wide range of scholarly disciplines and computer skills, according to Honggao Liu, executive director of Texas A&Ms High Performance Research Computing (HPRC) and the projects principal investigator.

These disciplines include artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, health population informatics, genomics and bioinformatics, human and agricultural life sciences, oil-and-gas simulations, new-materials design, climate modeling, molecular dynamics, quantum-computing architectures, imaging, smart and connected societies, geosciences and quantum chemistry.

The ACES system will support the national research community through coordination systems supported by the NSF, Liu said. In this way, the ACES system will provide invaluable support to cutting-edge projects across a broad spectrum of research disciplines in the nation. ACES will also leverage HPRCs efforts that promote science and broaden participation in computing at the K-12, collegiate and professional levels to have a transformative impact nationally by focusing on training, education and outreach.

Researchers should think of ACES as a cyber-buffet, said Timothy M. Cockerill, director of user services, TACC at UT Austin, and a co-principal investigator on the ACES project. Theyll be able to essentially build the custom environment they require on a per job basis and not be constrained to the contents of a physical server node, Cockerill said.

ACES will open new avenues to scientific advancement, said Shaowen Wang, head of the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, professor at UIUC and a co-principal investigator on the ACES project. Exciting advances on many science frontiers will become possible by harnessing the hybrid computing resources and highly adaptable framework offered byACESto enable increasingly complex scientific workflows driven by geospatial big data and artificial intelligence, Wang said.

Also serving as co-principal investigators are Lisa M. Perez, associate director for advanced computing enablement, and Dhruva Chakravorty, associate director for user services and research, both from HPRC at Texas A&M.

Research that generates breakthrough discoveries will require highly advanced computer designs that can meet the challenge, Texas A&M Senior Associate Vice President for Research Costas N. Georghiades said. With the increasing complexity of computational problems in the big-data era we live in, it is no longer sufficient to use traditional supercomputers which rely only on optimizing the software, Georghiades said. The ACES system will also be able to adapt hardware resources on the fly to tackle complex computational tasks more efficiently. Texas A&M is proud to lead this effort in collaboration with our university partners at UT Austin and Illinois.

Technical description

ACES leverages an innovative composable framework via PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) Gen5 on Intels upcoming Sapphire Rapid (SPR) processors to offer a rich accelerator testbed consisting of Intel Ponte Vecchio (PVC) GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), Intel FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), NEC Vector Engines, NextSilicon co-processors and Graphcore IPUs (Intelligence Processing Units).

The accelerators are coupled with Intel Optane memory and DDN Lustre storage interconnected with Mellanox NDR 400Gbps InfiniBand to support workflows that benefit from optimized devices. ACES will allow applications and workflows to dynamically integrate the different accelerators, memory and in-network computing protocols to glean new insights by rapidly processing large volumes of data and provide researchers with a unique platform to produce complex hybrid programming models for effectively supporting calculations that were not feasible before.

About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the worlds leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M generated annual expenditures of more than $1.131 billion in fiscal year 2020. Texas A&M ranked in the top 25 of the most recent National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development survey based on expenditures of more than $952 million in fiscal year 2019. Texas A&Ms research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental, and applied contributions resulting in economic benefits to the state, nation, and world. research.tamu.edu

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CSC-IT: Finnish businesses start cooperation to capture the benefits of quantum technologies – Science Business

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As the global quantum computing market is forecast to reach over EUR 50 billion by 2030, Finnish companies have started cooperation to capture the business opportunities emerging from advances in quantum technologies.

OP Financial Group, Accenture, CSC IT Center for Science, and globally recognized quantum technology companies Bluefors and IQM are the first to join BusinessQ, a VTT-coordinated network to support businesses in the adoption and development of quantum technologies and solutions. The companies will work together to build a business roadmap for Finland around the opportunities of quantum technologies.

Bringing together companies and organisations with quantum expertise, as well as potential end-users, BusinessQ works to position Finnish businesses to the global forefront of adapting new quantum-enabled technologies.

Developments in quantum technologies will create new opportunities for Finnish companies. At VTT, we have decades of experience in turning emerging technologies into viable business, and now we want to foster an active community and support Finnish industries and society in capturing the benefits of quantum technologies early on, says VTTsErja Turunen, Executive Vice President, Digital technologies.

BusinessQ wants to grow and attract new companies from different industries to join the network. Cooperation and dialogue can benefit both companies and the quantum research community as it provides a better understanding of the different industry challenges that quantum-based technologies could tackle in the future.

Discussions with our first BusinessQ partners have shown that Finnish businesses have curiosity, ambition, and an open approach to quantum technologies. We are eager to welcome more companies from different industries and want to build an active business community around the opportunities of quantum technologies,explainsHimadri MajumdarManager of Quantum Programmes at VTT.

Finland also has an active research community that fosters innovation around quantum technologies. In April 2021, Aalto University, Helsinki University, and VTT announced InstituteQ: The Finnish Quantum Institute aims at raising the readiness of Finnish society for the disruptive potential and implications quantum technologies will have for society and the economy at large. In this context, it coordinates operations that foster collaboration in research, education, innovation and infrastructure in the field of quantum technologies. BusinessQs activities share the mission of InstituteQ in strengthening Finlands growing quantum ecosystem. VTT also hosts Finlands first quantum computer that is being built in Espoo in partnership with IQM.

This article was first published on September 22 by CSC.

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TECH TALK WITH MIKE: How to optimize your Google My Business listing – Evening News and Tribune

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Initially known as Google Places for Business, Google My Business is an important tool for businesses looking to leverage location-based marketing. It is a free marketing tool from Google that enables business owners to manage the visibility of their business on search engines. GMB is best suited for businesses looking to improve their brand awareness and visibility to local clients.

However, like other digital marketing strategies, making the most from Google My Business goes beyond setting up your account and waiting for results. You should optimize your business listing to enable search engines to display your business as part of the search results. Below is a guide on how to optimize your GMB and its benefits.

Google My Business is part of Googles Knowledge Graph. This is a service that businesses and individuals can optimize to position their services on the first page of Google search results. Knowledge graph displays various information, including phone numbers, operational hours, address, customer reviews, offers/promotions, and photos.

Below are Google My Business optimization steps:

Create or claim your business Begin by creating or claiming your business listing on Google. Some businesses, especially those that have been operational for some time, can show up automatically on Google maps. If your business doesnt show up, you can easily create a business listing. If it shows up, simply claim the business.

Verify your listing After creating or claiming your business, Google will send a postcard with detailed instructions on how you can verify your business within five days. Ensure that you verify the listing. Otherwise, your performance and visibility on Google will be affected negatively. Without verification, Google wont display the business, allow edits to your business information, or provide insights.

Complete your business profile Like social media accounts, you should complete your business profile with accurate information for the listing to rank higher. The main goal of completing your profile is to provide customers with sufficient information about your listing.

The basics include, choosing an accurate business category, writing a clear description, and completing all other important fields. Also, remember to include your phone number and local area code. Some other important tips to optimize your business profile include:

The main benefit of optimizing your Google My Business is to improve your businesss local search visibility. Current Google algorithms factor user intent as search queries increasingly become location-specific.

For instance, if youve searched for a business near you before, Google often shows results of open business within your current locality. The businesses displayed have GMB pages and are one step closer to getting online customers than businesses without GMB listings.

Some of the other benefits of optimizing your Google My Business listing include;

Making it easier for customers to find your business. Customers wont be frustrated by old phone numbers and wrong addresses anymore.

It is an additional website citation. Information provided through GMB is displayed on Google search and Google Maps.

Google My Business provides beneficial insights about your business, helps to collect reviews and gives your business better credibility.

You should ensure that your business has a detailed and updated Google My Business page. If you havent, you are missing out on this simple method of ranking higher in Googles search engine results. Therefore, you could be missing out on crucial traffic and potential customers.

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Google Meet will automatically adjust webcam brightness in your browser – TechCrunch

Posted: at 4:50 am

Kris Holt is a contributing writer at Engadget. More posts by this contributor

Google Meet will soon make it easier for you to see all of your co-workers or friends properly on video calls. The web version of the app can detect when someone is underexposed due to bad lighting. Meet will then increase the brightness so its easier to see your cohorts and perhaps make your feed clearer if you have a terrible webcam.

The low-light mode hit the Google Meet iOS and Android mobile apps last year. It uses AI to examine light levels and tweak the brightness. Theres no admin control for the feature, though users will be able to switch it off Google says having it enabled might slow down your device.

The feature is coming to all Workspace and G Suite basic and business users. Google is rolling it out to Rapid Release domains starting today and Scheduled Release domains on October 4th. The rollout will take up to 15 days in both cases, so by mid-October, bad webcam feeds could be a thing of the past on Meet calls.

Editors note: This article originally appeared on Engadget.

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UT Austin’s Liberty Institute? What’s that, professors ask – Inside Higher Ed

Posted: at 4:48 am

Faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin still have lots of questions about the Liberty Institute, a think tank apparently coming to campus. Thats even after the university provost addressed the matter at a recent Faculty Council meeting.

What more do professors want to know?

Everything, said Domino Renee Perez, chair of UT Austins Faculty Council and associate professor of English. The faculty need to hear directly from the president, since he is the one who identified this as a priority for the university.

Most professors first learned of the Liberty Institute idea late last month, via a Texas Tribune investigation finding that university leaders had been working with private donors and Texas Republican lieutenant governor Dan Patrick for eight months to launch it. Internal proposals describe the institute as dedicated to the study and teaching of individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise and free markets, according to the article.

The Tribune found that Texas legislators had already approved $6million in initial funding for the institute in the 2022-23 state budget. The university reportedly committed another $6million, and a private donor promised $8.5million to a center back in 2016. No details about the project had been made public, and the university did not provide them, according to the report, which was based largely on documents obtained via open records requests.

The article names Jay Hartzell, UT Austins president, as being involved in the project, along with Patrick and Kevin Eltife, a Republican former state senator who was appointed to a second term to the University System of Texass Board of Regents this year by Republican governor Greg Abbott. Donors Bud Brigham and Bob Rowling, both conservatives, are also involved, per the report.

Following the Tribune report, faculty members have sought more information about the project and expressed concerns that the Legislature is earmarking money for an academic endeavor that few, if any, professors seem to know anything about.

Members of the council, for instance, submitted a list of eight questions to the university, including whether the Tribunes account is accurate and how the institute will uphold intellectual freedom and faculty governance. What will the institute offer that is not already available or possible within existing programs in law, government, business and public affairs, the council also asked. How exactly is the institute funded, and are any strings attached?

What role will the faculty play, including in faculty recruitment? And how will the center be structured?

Provost Sharon Wood attempted to answer some of these questions at the council meeting earlier this week. Yet Wood, who became provost in July, said she didnt have answers to some of their questions because discussions about the institute predated her arrival in the presidents office.

The goal is to provide students who cross traditional boundaries and consider problems from multiple points of view, Wood said. The institute will help students understand how regulatory and legal environments are going to impact markets. They also will have the analytical and quantitative skills to solve complex problems and understand more economic drivers.

Regarding the Tribunes report, Wood said it ignored the role of faculty governance and faculty hiring and also developing new degree programs and implied there was no interest among students. But she did not share a clear plan for faculty governance or the faculty role in hiring.

Jeffrey Abramson, professor of government and law, said after the meeting, The normal thing for a self-respecting university to have done, once it raised the money for the institute, would have been to go to the regular faculty and empower them, in the exercise of academic freedom, to make the hiring and curricular decisions. Abramson said the possibility that the institute could stand outside of the normal ways mature universities make academic decisions is a threat to the integrity of UT and gives far too much power to private donors over who teaches what to our students.

Centers dedicated to the study of free enterprise, individual freedom and limited government exist elsewhere. Many are funded by the Charles Koch Foundation and are seen by their supporters as a counterpoint to the less conservative systems and approaches students encounter in the classroom. The BB&T bank foundation also used to offer Moral Foundations grants to colleges and universities, stipulating that they offer classes on or provide students a copy of Ayn Rands pro-free market novel Atlas Shrugged. In some cases, these grants came with stipulations about faculty hires. A 2011 Western Carolina University advertisement, for instance, said applicants for its BB&T Distinguished Professor of Capitalism should be at least familiar with, if not actively receptive to, the writings of Ayn Rand. Also in 2011, it was revealed that in cases at more than one university, Koch grant agreements stipulated that the foundation have a say in faculty hiring. A third institution, George Mason University, said in 2018 that some of its earlier agreements with Koch involved donor influence in faculty hiring.

Koch has since said that it always valued academic freedom, and that it has purposely moved away from agreement language of this nature. Its also released a template for current donor agreements. BB&T has also ended its Ayn Rand-based program to concentrate on financial literacy-based philanthropy.

Faculty concerns about these centers remain, beyond the issue of donor influence in faculty hiring. Academic freedom advocates worry, for instance, that the underfunding of higher education makes public institutions, in particular, at risk for compromising on faculty rights to secure private funding. The state of Texas appears committed to funding this particular project, but that raises eyebrows, as well, given that politicians may know more about it than professors.

Another concern is that these institutes may be used to promote political ideas as academic research. Immunologists at Stanford University, for instance, worried about this with respect to Scott Atlas, a fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution, when he was challenging the effectiveness of wearing masks as the Trump White Houses coronavirus adviser. Atlas wasnt working directly for Hoover in this role, but his academic credentials, including his medical degree, were often cited regarding his public comments.

Elsewhere faculty members have rejected proposed centers on the grounds that they would compete with existing academic departments, namelyeconomics.

The Hoover Institution is reportedly one model for the UT Austin institute. Wood also said at the council meeting that Tom Gilligan, former dean of the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin, had been helping plan the Liberty Institute before he left for the Hoover Institute, in 2015. Gilligan, who is now a fellow emeritus at Hoover, did not respond a request through Hoover Thursday.

Abramson said that in the current political climate, Americans are divided, and rightly argue about the proper balance to strike between individual liberty and the public good. But he said his fear is that the Liberty Institute, while promising to bring diversity of thought to campus, will in fact be stacked in its hiring and course decisions to favor only one side of this essential debate.

Not all professors are so skeptical of the Liberty Institute, as they understand it thus far, however. Richard Lowery, an associate professor of finance, said during the council meeting that he was confused by some of the criticism, as the university already funds various programs that are "explicitly political," including social justice and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Lowery declined an interview request but provided the following written statement:

The University of Texas at Austin administration, with the enthusiastic support of the faculty, has implemented a diversity, equity and inclusion plan, the original version of which was described by the Foundation [for] Individual Rights in Education as follows: [T]he proposals mandates present a serious threat of establishing a viewpoint based litmus test for both hiring and promotion, with the final version being, in my opinion, as bad or worse than the original draft. Thus, not only are the supposed concerns about a political test in a potential Liberty Institute hypocritical, but in light of this explicit, and many implicit, political tests being used at the university, it is absolutely essential to establish some structure at UT-Austin where academic freedom can be restored. While I support the principle of establishing such a structure, the Provosts plan is clearly designed to give control over such a unit to the existing faculty, who generally oppose academic freedom, and thus would serve as little more than a fig leaf.

Daniel Brinks, chair of government, said he knew little about the institute but that hed heard it could involve a cluster hire of faculty members who research areas including collective decision making, government regulation and its effects on economic and other outcomes, market design and social welfare, and drivers of social prosperity.

Speaking only for himself, he said, I imagine that whether our department would support a hire within this cluster would depend on how the scope of the cluster is defined, and how well it lines up with our priorities and disciplinary standards. And as with any hire, he said, Im sure we would all expect that our normal governance processes will be respected, including our normal role in selecting the faculty we hire.

J. B. Bird, spokesperson for the university, said he was conferring with the provosts office on a request for comment or an interview. Late in the day, he shared a link to a new bullet point-style information page on the institute. Bird highlighted the following point: Any new professors will be hired within normal university protocols, which include deans anddepartment chairs." Hedistinguished new professors from current professors who become affiliated with the institute. As for academics, the page says, we plan to do an inventory of existing courses to develop a list of new classes that may be added.

Bird added that the institute is still in a planning phase.

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UT Austin's Liberty Institute? What's that, professors ask - Inside Higher Ed

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FROM THE OPINION PAGE My literary palate continues to expand with each passing year – Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Posted: at 4:48 am

Most of my children are readers, especially my oldest daughter, who is quite busy but makes time for a lot of reading.

I have always taken that for granted, I guess, but a mutual friend told me the other day she does not really have time to read any more and listens to books instead.

In recent years, I have heard others say the same thing and I have also realized I do not read nearly as much as I once did, other than articles or research materials. But I have not yet switched to audio.

Listening may have the same impact, but I am a visual learner and retain and understand information much better if I actually see it rather than hear it. So I am not sure what I will do and my inclination is to simply make time for more reading, a routine pastime for me when I was growing up.

Other than the Bible, which I grew up with of course and, believe it not, have read in its entirety, the first book I remember having a profound impact on me was Call of the Wild by Jack London. I was convinced it would always be my favorite book of all time.

For a boy who loved the outdoors and dogs and adventure, yep, it was quite an experience. I think it came at a time when I was also reading The Hardy Boys mysteries, devouring every one of them as soon as I can get my hands on them.

These books are still popular, thank goodness. The characters are basically solid, steady and believable personalities who use a lot of common sense and logic.

With maturity comes a taste for more complicated reading fare, of course, so I graduated to Ian Flemings James Bond series.

Just like The Hardy Boys, I loved every one of those books. They went from small city shenanigans by the bad guys to global confrontations often involving the use of nuclear weapons or other devices of mass destruction.

If I wanted to be Frank Hardy when I was 11, James Bond took his place when I was 14. Both characters were smart, quick-thinking and fearless, of course. Things a boy aspires to be.

Obviously, James Bond also possessed a knack for attracting women, which, by the time I was 14, was a far more interesting element than when I was 11. Not that it mattered. I was no James Bond, or Frank Hardy for that matter. Fantasy is a wonderful thing.

Most of that time, I actually felt more like Buck, the dog in Call of the Wild, trying to overcome adverse circumstances and to be free, hoping to find a safe haven from the trials and tribulations of being a teen.

I also enjoyed Agatha Christie and still love Edgar Allan Poe. Of course, my literary palate kept expanding, from Ayn Rand to Kurt Vonnegut. My favorite books changed as I got older too, with Rands Atlas Shrugged taking that top spot for years.

This happens to everybody who reads, I think, as we explore the world of experiences, cultures, philosophy well, about everything. We always find things that make a difference in our lives and thoughts. Cinema and TV can do the same thing, depending, just like books, on the quality of the material.

Fortunately, I also had good teachers who always urged me to read and praised me when I did.

Gosh, for those of us who grew up in these mountains, isolated in many ways from the rest of the world, reading opened up the world to us. We could go everywhere and experience countless things, learning about the world and ourselves in the process.

Reading presents the most diverse, intense, in-depth, profound and often life-changing impacts. And those of us who loved to read traveled to every corner of the universe of experience and emotion and thought, never being satisfied with the here and now.

After all, curiosity and the desire to learn and experience and understand are the foundations of being rational human beings.

Every now and then, I make a list of my favorite books, usually my top 10 based on the impact they had on my life. But that list changes every time with only a few exceptions.

The Bible is in a category all by itself, so that list includes my favorite books, with the top one in the Old Testament Job and in the New Testament Galatians. For anyone who discounts the Bible as not having any literary, creative, historical or philosophical value, you have no idea what you are missing.

And for anyone who doesnt read, well, remember what those wonderful teachers told you.

They were right.

Charles Boothe is a reporter for the Bluefield Daily Telegraph and can be reached at cboothe@bdtonline.com

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Poker Online Free | Free Texas Holdem Game

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Poker Online Free | Free Texas Holdem Game

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