Married to Murder?

The most famous resident of our Sugar Hill-Franconia community for over two decades was film star (with two Academy Awards) Bette Davis (1908-1989). She bought the Butternut Farm near the Peckett's-On-Sugar Hill Resort. Her mother Ruthie moved into the farm house. Soon afterward Bette bought a dairy barn in Vermont and had it carted in pieces across the mountains to her farm. She then reconstructed the barn into a magnificent home called Butternut Lodge. The second picture above shows Bette Davis as a young woman in 1940 when she lived on Butternut Farm. This is when she married her Sugar Hill neighbor Arthur Farnsworth in 1940. In 1943 she was investigated and suspected but never charged with his mysterious death.

After he died, she purportedly placed a bronze memorial plaque on the rock at the bottom of a mountain brook where Farnsworth rescued her in 1939 before they were married. This plaque still exists and is shown in the top photograph above.

Butternut Lodge looks like an old dairy barn. It's now a private residence and is not visible from a public road or walking trail.

On top of being a famous Oscar-winning actress, Bette Davis was known for heavy drinking and fights with a succession of four husbands. In Sugar Hill and Franconia, however, she was considered to be an active and beloved resident and model participant in community affairs. Last Friday, on July 27, 2007, the Union Leader carried a special feature about our local museum tribute to Bette Davis ---
Click Here 

She was one of the most acclaimed actresses of the time, but in the little mountain town of Sugar Hill, Bette Davis was a friend and neighbor who came here to escape the rigors of Hollywood.

This summer, more than 60 years after the era when Davis came north, the Sugar Hill Historical Museum this summer pays homage to one of the town’s most famous residents with the exhibit, "Bette: Her Romance with Sugar Hill." An afternoon at the museum is a delightful way to spend a rainy afternoon or to get out of the hot summer sun.

"The Keeper of Stray Ladies" --- http://mzwrite.tripod.com/lorna/id4.html

Her piano is not the only legacy Davis left to Sugar Hill. There are a wealth of memories still in the recall of older citizens. The historical society has some of her memorabilia and the woods of neighboring Franconia hold a tribute to the man she loved and lost during her Sugar Hill years.

Built in 1903, the piano was reputedly rescued by Davis at a New York auction house and brought to her home, an old barn she turned into Butternut Lodge. When the house was purchased about 40 years ago by Peckett`s on Sugar Hill, the inn where she first stayed, the piano was among the acquisitions and provided the music for many a party and even accompanied the Bretton Woods Boys` Choir. The inn closed in the late 1960s and the piano given to the town in 1970. For several years, it sat in the meetinghouse before its new incarnation with the chamber players.

Arthur Farnsworth was her second of four husbands. He died of mysterious circumstances. She was in fact investigated but not charged for his murder. Before they were married her then neighbor Farnsworth rescued her when she was supposedly alone and lost on Coppermine Trail leading to Bridal Veil Falls.

"A Valentine's Day Story: New Hampshire's Bette Davis Connection," by Janice Brown, Cow Hampshire, February 14, 2007 --- Click Here

Bette Davis arranged for a bronze memorial plaque to be placed on the rock, in Coppermine Brook, where she was originally rescued.  The plaque is hidden from view by the casual passerby beside the brook. It reads: In Memoriam to Arthur Farnsworth "The Keeper of Stray Ladies" Pecketts - 1939 Presented by a devoted one."

"The Keeper of Stray Ladies" --- http://mzwrite.tripod.com/lorna/id4.html

According to the lore and legend, Davis was immediately smitten (after having met her neighbor Arthur Farnsworth at the former Peckett's-on-Sugar Hill Resort) and even got herself lost in the woods of Franconia, knowing that Farnsworth would be the one to come searching for her. They married in 1940, but their union brief, ending with his death in 1943.

Two weeks after falling down a flight of stairs and knocking his head at Butternut, Farnsworth collapsed on a Hollywood sidewalk and died a few days later. After that, Davis` visits to Sugar Hill were less frequent.

Butternut was sold about 20 years after she first came to the town and it`s said that after that, a plaque appeared on a large boulder in Coppermine Brook, which can still be seen today.

*Additional Reading*

-2003 Photographs of Coopermine Trail and Bridal Veil Falls-

-Photograph of Plaque, and more Bette Davis/NH History-

-NH Magazine: Romancing the Granite

-Murder in New Hampshire DVD

Addendum
Peckett's-On-Sugar Hill was one of four "luxury" resorts in Sugar Hill. All have since been torn down. Peckett's is known in history as once having the best-known ski school in the United States --- http://www.skicoupons.com/groups.cfm/r/36/g/16/s/history

In 1929, Katherine Peckett imported German and Austrian ski instructors and opened a ski school on a hillside adjoining her family's country inn in Sugar Hill, near Cannon Mountain. Although not the first ski school in the country, Peckett's-on-Sugar Hill was the best known, which was open to anyone with the means to pay. Through the '30s a host of flamboyant luminaries of the ski world passed through the ski school's doors, either as instructors or students---Sigi Buchmayer, Otto Lang, Lowell Thomas and Minot Dole to name a few. As Peckett's heyday was ending, Harvey Gibson over in North Conway was busy importing the Austrian Alps' most renowned instructor: Hannes Schneider. Schneider, who was held prisoner by the Nazis (for refusing to join the "party") was released in 1939 after Gibson used his banker's muscle to twist the Nazi's arms. Wars require financing, after all.

Bob Jensen's features one of the other luxury resorts known as the Sunset Hill Resort in an earlier edition (with an old photograph) of Tidbits at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070326.htm

He also features Mittersill on Cannon Mountain at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070515.htm

Tidbits on August 1, 2007
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Google's search engine for video --- http://video.google.com/

Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfz2XDXaeqc

The Americans Are Coming --- http://www.wishyswavs.com/americanscoming.html?1158520005859

One giant YouTube leap, for 2008 White House hopefuls --- http://physorg.com/news104300959.html

"If My Nose Was Running Money" (country humor) by Aaron Wilburn --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egCeIwjIuZM

A Family's Bad Day --- http://www.metacafe.com/watch/728520/bad_day_family/

Jessica the Pet Hippo --- http://www.glumbert.com/media/pethippo

Strange Cosmos --- http://www.strangecosmos.com/

TV Disaster (ABC news entertainment reporter Merry Miller - worst interviewer ever) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbpUwx_YLGc

Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Mary Lou Williams, 'Perpetually Contemporary (54 minutes of great big band era music) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11904062

The Rose (Bette Midler) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/a001/likearose.html

Wind Beneath My Wings (Garry Morris) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c002/myhero.html

You've Got A Friend In Me (Randy Newman and Lyle Lovett) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/a001/friendinme.html

You've Got A Friend (Carole King) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/a001/gotafriend.html

Where Have All The Flowers Gone (Joan Baez) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c004/flowersgone.html

Walk Through This World With Me (George Jones) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c004/walkworld.html

The Magic Touch (The Platters) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c001/magictouch.html

Talk To Me (Mickey Gille) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/cw001/talktome.html

Ten Commandments Of Love (The Moonglows) --- http://www.barb-coolwaters.com/c004/ten-commandments-of-love.html

Naxos Classical Music and Music Education Site --- http://naxos.com/education/links_other.asp

Classical Music Samples --- http://www.naxos.com/

Photographs and Art

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Library of Congress: Poetry --- http://www.loc.gov/poetry/

Google Book Search --- http://books.google.com/

From the American Library Association Library Support Staff Resource Center --- Click Here

LibriVox Free Audio Books --- http://librivox.org/ 

Free Classics (audio books) --- http://www.freeclassicaudiobooks.com/ 

Emma by Jane Austen --- Click Here

Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll --- Click Here

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens --- Click Here

Kim by Rudyard Kipling --- Click Here

UNIVERSITIES and big accounting firms (in Australia) are recruiting high school students for free accounting degrees in a desperate attempt to alleviate the skills shortage in the profession. Talented Year 12 students are being offered part-time jobs and free university degrees by firms, even before they have applied for a university place. First-year students are also being poached by companies to work full-time with incentives such as sign-up bonuses, rumoured to be as much as $10,000 for each student. Universities are also setting up post-graduate conversion courses where students who did not study accounting can cram an undergraduate course into just one year. Latest figures show there are four vacancies for every one accountant and the shortage is expected to get worse because not enough school-leavers are choosing to study the field. Universities and accounting professional bodies are running advertising campaigns to make accountancy more appealing to students by changing perceptions that it is just number crunching.
Milanda Rout, The Australian Higher Education, July 25, 2007 --- Click Here

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
May West --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_West

Just don’t get me a book (as a gift). I’ve already got a book.
May West --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_West

When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.
May West --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_West

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
Edward De Bono --- Click Here

...but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force...
Stephen King, Danse Macabre --- Click Here

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.
Earl of Lytton --- Click Here

The limits to the potential of a talented person with no work ethic exist at the median, but the limits to the potential of an untalented person with a sound work ethic are infinite.
Darrin Hinkel

As far as the university is concerned, the core of the human being, his or her emotional and spiritual life, is dealt with as a necessary evil, on the sidelines, and the less heard about it the better.
Jane Tompkins, A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned, as quoted by Laurence Musgrove --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/23/musgrove 

The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.
King Edward VIII.as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-07-25-07.htm

But recently something has changed. A student makes an appointment and then walks in, accompanied by his mother. The mother does all the talking. She tells me that Johnny has a problem with his Japanese teacher who is a strict grader, emphasizes writing over speaking, and is too meticulous with deadlines for class work. Johnny sits by silently, listening to his mother making his case. Johnny is 22 years old.
Diether H. Haenicke, "Helicopter Parents - Stop Hovering!," The Irascible Professor, July 25, 2007 ---  http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-07-25-07.htm

Walk into a massage parlor in this Chinese enclave, and you'll likely meet beautiful young women -- some of whom aren't there voluntarily. So it goes in Asia's sin city, where gambling and legalized prostitution go hand in hand. That Macau has a thriving sex industry is not news. But many of these women are victims of modern-day slavery. So says the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report, which puts Macau on the Tier-2 watch list for the second year in a row and earned it a personal visit last month from Mark Lagon, the U.S. ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons.
Malia Politzer, "Sin City of the East," The Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2007 --- Click Here

The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth.
Harold Evans --- Click Here

The turn in the polls against the Republican Party appears to be stunning in its ferocity.
John Podohertz, "The Liberal Edge," New York Post, July 27, 2007 --- Click Here

Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network. MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos. The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot...
David Bauder, Free Republic, July 28, 2007 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1872851/posts

Karl Rove, President Bush's political lieutenant, told a closed-door meeting of 2008 Republican House candidates and their aides Tuesday that it was less the war in Iraq than corruption in Congress that caused their party's defeat in the 2006 elections. Rove's clear advice to the candidates is to distance themselves from the culture of Washington.
Robert D. Novak, "Rove's Diagnosis," Townhall, July 28, 2007 --- http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2007/07/28/roves_diagnosis

Somebody may be pouting at the White House over the collapse of the comprehensive amnesty legislation. For seven years, the Bush administration has been unable or unwilling to enforce the immigration laws, leading to an out-of-control deluge of illegal aliens across the nation's Southern border. Suddenly, the feds are about to do what they said couldn't be done. They've been winking at employers who shrug at the widespread custom of taking prospective employees at their word that the Social Security card they offer is genuine, even when the employers suspect it is not and sometimes even when they know it...
Wesley Pruden, "The curious timing of a crackdown," The Washington Times, July 27, 2007 --- http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070727/NATION01/107270100

Partisan, debt-ridden and reckless CALIFORNIANS like to think of their state as a democratic laboratory, busily inventing ideas that are copied elsewhere. When it comes to budgeting, though, the rest of the world should follow almost any other example. As The Economist went to press, the legislature was debating a budget that one senator described as having been written by chimpanzees . . . Partisan, debt-ridden and reckless!
"California's budget: The penny drops," The Economist,  July 26, 2007 --- http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9546767

A potentially groundbreaking case is underway in the U.S. Tax Court in Boston where a former man is arguing that the medical expenses relating to her sex change operation should be allowed as a medical deduction on Schedule A of her income tax return.
AccountingWeb, July 26, 2007 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=103810

Squabbles over the remote control or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher are the bedrock of daily family life. But mothers and fathers who insult each other in front of their children may now find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Australian courts have begun ordering parents to refrain from making offensive remarks, claiming that constant carping between couples can damage young minds. The orders relate not only to expletive-laden abuse, but to any remark that might be...
Barbie Dutter, "Parents may be prosecuted for insults, Sunday Telegraph, July 22, 2007 --- Click Here

Massachusetts hopes to rescue 550,000 people from the ranks of the uninsured. But a shortage of primary-care physicians is making it hard to see a doctor and threatening to undermine the state's universal health-care plan . . . On the day Ms. Lewis signed up, she said she called more than two dozen primary-care doctors approved by her insurer looking for a checkup. All of them turned her away . . . State officials have acknowledged the problem. "Health-care coverage without access is meaningless," Gov. Deval Patrick said in March.
Zachary M. Seward, "Doctor Shortage Hurts A Coverage-for-All Plan," The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2007; Page B1 --- Click Here 

A woman aged 108 has been told she must wait 18 months (under England's health care plan) before the Health Service will give her the hearing aid she needs. Former piano teacher Olive Beal, one of the oldest people in Britain, has poor eyesight and uses a wheelchair. The delay could mean she will be unable to communicate and listen to the music she loves.
Steve Doughty and Nick McDermont, Daily Mail, July 29, 2007 --- Click Here

If you haven't noticed, the major presidential candidates—Republican and Democratic—are dodging one of the thorniest problems they'd face if elected: the huge budget costs of aging baby boomers. In last week's CNN/YouTube debate, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson cleverly deflected the issue. "The best solution," he said, "is a bipartisan effort to fix it." Brilliant. There's already a bipartisan consensus: do nothing.
Robert J. Samuelson, "When Silence is Golden," Newsweek, August 6, 2007 --- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20010728/site/newsweek/?from=rss 

Whose Ox Is Gored After Bush's victory, liberals shouted "Voter fraud!" Why have they changed their tune?
John Fund, The Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2007 --- http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010400

The diabetes epidemic is taking a large and growing toll on New York City, a new Health Department report shows, as death rates, debilitating complications, and hospitalization costs soar. Some 500,000 New Yorkers – one out of eight adults – have been diagnosed with diabetes. Another 200,000 have diabetes but don’t yet know it. The death rate from diabetes rose by 75% between 1990 and 2003.
PhysOrg, July 24, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news104496141.html

Americans' icy attitudes toward nuclear power are beginning to thaw, according to a new survey from MIT. The report also found a U.S. public increasingly unhappy with oil and more willing to develop alternative ...
Stephen Ansolabehere, PhysOrg, July 24, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news104419182.html

If you see something suspicious, 'Shut up'
Democrats favor lawsuits against anti-terrorist tipsters . . . That appears to be the way Senate Democrats want things. They're now pressuring a conference committee to remove language from the final homeland security bill that would confer civil immunity on citizens who "in good faith" report such suspicious behavior . . . The "John Doe provision" passed the House in March by a bipartisan vote that included every Republican and 105 Democrats. But in the Senate, opponents including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., argue it "could invite racial and religious profiling." . . . Democrats expect Omar Shahin and his provocative pals to throw considerable new business to their most valued constituency -- our old friends, the trial lawyers.
"If you see something suspicious, 'Shut up'," Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 24, 2007 --- http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/8677417.html 

Picture in your mind a white supremacist who accuses blacks of operating a "wicked web of control and exploitation"; who explains genocidal treatment of blacks as "divine punishment"; and who foresees the "total extermination" of blacks at the hands of whites. Would such a speaker be a welcome presence on Canada's tightly regulated airwaves? We suspect not. But change "white" to "Muslim," and "black" to "Jewish" in the above hypothetical, and you are word-for-word describing the published statements of Israr Ahmad, an anti-Semitic Pakistani preacher who has appeared on Canadian cable network VisionTV several times -- most recently, on Saturday...
"Hateful Vision," Canada's National Post, July 24, 2007 --- Click Here
Jensen Question
Shouldn't this be considered a hate crime appeal?

Barack Obama's latest pronouncement on Iraq should have shocked the conscience. In an interview with the Associated Press last week, the freshman Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate opined that even preventing genocide is not a sufficient reason to keep American troops in Iraq.
James Taranto, "It Didn't Happen," The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2007, Page A12 --- Click Here

Taliban militants shot and killed one of 23 South Korean hostages because the hostage was sick and immobile, a police official said he was told Wednesday.
NPR, July 25, 2007 --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12218711

Freed doctor describes torture ordeal inside Libyan jail · Medic left with scars after being caged with dogs · Bulgarian nurses raped. The Palestinian doctor who was held in Libyan custody along with five Bulgarian nurses on charges they infected hundreds of children with HIV, has described in detail how they were tortured during their eight-year ordeal. Ashraf Alhajouj, 38, said he was beaten, held in cages with police dogs and given electric shocks, including to his private parts. He said that he and the nurses were sometimes...
Kate Connolly, The Guardian, July 30, 2007 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/libya/story/0,,2137485,00.html
Jensen Comment
This makes Gitmo look like a country club prison.

The Must-Have Iraq Book of 1943 — and 2007? --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/27/iraq

Professor Wichman eMail from Michigan State University --- http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wichman.asp

Dear Moslem Students Association at Michigan State University:
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey ), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt , the imposition of Sharia Law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland , and the rioting and looting in Paris, France . This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel your dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests." If you do not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment - You are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially,
I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Michigan State University

The Terrorist Roundup, July 28, 2007 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1872839/posts

The surge has just started. But Iraq is in significantly better shape than it was six months ago, and the trajectory of events is positive.
Peter Wehner, "General Petraeus Needs Time," The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2007 --- Click Here

It's difficult to believe this was found in The New York Times
The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place. Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the...
Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, "A War We Just Might Win," The New York Times, July 30, 2007 --- Click Here

It's evident that Murtha and Pelosi do not want to read what the NYT printed
Murtha/Pelosi blueprint for defeat July 30, 2007
With Congress's August recess less than one week away, it should hardly come as a surprise that Rep. John Murtha, the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, is readying more legislative mischief. Mr. Murtha, a close political ally of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has made it clear that plans to use the $459.6 billion defense appropriations bill, which comes to the floor this week, to short-circuit the current military campaign against jihadists in Iraq and shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo). Mr. Murtha plans to offer three amendments...
"Murtha/Pelosi blueprint for defeat," Washington Times, July 30, 2007 ---
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070730/EDITORIAL/107300002
 

In four short years he met his every goal
He seized the whole southwest from Mexico
Made sure the tariffs fell
And made the English sell the Oregon territory
He built an independent treasury
Having done all this he sought no second term
But precious few have mourned the passing of Mister James K. Polk, our eleventh president
Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump
Lyrics to a 1996 Song entitled "James K. Polk" --- http://tmbw.net/wiki/Lyrics:James_K._Polk

World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

Random Thoughts (about learning from a retired professor of engineering) ---  http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Columns.html

Dr. Felder's column in Chemical Engineering Education

Focus is heavily upon active learning and group learning.

Bob Jensen's threads on learning are in the following links:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm

Elite Researchers No Longer Need Peer Reviewed Elite Journals?

"Peer Review in Peril?" by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, July 26, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/26/economics

“What I worry about,” Ellison said, “is you get to a point where you can’t make a reputation for yourself by publishing in the peer-reviewed journals. That locks in today’s elite.”

In “Is Peer Review in Decline?,” Ellison argues that the peer-reviewed journals, traditionally relevant for their quality control and dissemination functions, have become less important for well-known economists in the Internet age. When papers can be posted on personal home pages, conference Web sites and online databases, an article written by a professor who has already established a reputation can immediately “be read by thousands.”

Professors in the top five economics departments, as ranked by the National Research Council — Harvard University, the University of Chicago, MIT, Stanford and Princeton Universities – published 86.4 papers in 13 high-profile journals in economics subfields from 1990-93, compared to 71.2 from 2000-3. That 18 percent drop happened even as many journals were “substantially” increasing the number of papers they published, Ellison writes, with the share of papers contributed by scholars in top departments dropping from 4 percent in the early 1990s to 2.7 percent in 2000-3. Meanwhile, Ellison said, scholars in the top departments seem to be writing as much as they ever were, and citations of Harvard scholars are increasing even as their number of peer-reviewed publications has declined.

“The well-known people are going to cut back on their publishing in top journals because they don’t need the peer review anymore. They can get attention to their work without it,” Ellison said. The “slowdown” in the revisions process for peer-reviewed journals also seems to be a contributing factor to the decline in peer-reviewed publications by top department members with less to gain from the effort: It typically takes about three years for a paper to be published after its submission.

Ellison did not find much evidence to support the alternative theory that the trend could be a result of high-profile scholars being “crowded out of the top journals by other researchers,” though he acknowledges that may be a factor. A 2006 study by scholars from the Universities of Chicago and Michigan, “Are Elite Universities Losing Their Competitive Edge,” found that elite universities have lost their edge when it comes to research productivity — in part because of changes brought about by the advent of the Internet.

“There’s a question of whether it’s a trend on publication or a trend on the professors. I hate to say that, but if they don’t publish and others do, maybe it says something,” said Ehud Kalai, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and editor of Games and Economic Behavior, one of the 13 field journals analyzed by Ellison.

“The other thing that’s a bit puzzling in this whole theory, it seems to me, is that with this explosion of information on the Internet, peer review has become even more needed because there are so many more papers,” Kalai said, adding that the number of economics journals has exploded in recent years. “They’re just multiplying like mad. If there is a trend not to publish, why are so many starting them?”

Ellison does find that even as they’ve shifted their energies away from the 13 specialized journals examined, academics in the top departments are still publishing as much as ever in five of the most prestigious general interest economics journals: the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Studies. But, beyond those publications, Ellison said, “it’s fairly high up that we see people pulling out.” He added that there are hundreds of academic economics journals.

Ellison’s working paper is available on his Web site or online through the National Bureau of Economic Research with a subscription or $5 payment. And no, it has not been peer reviewed.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Flawed Peer Review Process --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#PeerReviewFlaws

Peer Review in Which Reviewer Comments are Shared With the World --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#PeerReview

Question
What are 120-20 and 130-30 funds?

These funds are called 120-20 or 130-30 funds, reflecting their proportion of assets held long and sold short, with the proceeds from the short sales used to leverage the long position with borrowed funds, so that the long exposure is more than 100 percent. “The idea seems to have caught on,” said Barry P. Barbash, a Washington lawyer who once headed the investment management division at the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Public funds using this strategy seem to be multiplying almost daily.”
Robert D. Hershey, Jr., "This Fund Concept Blurs Old Lines," The New York Times, July 8, 2007 --- Click Here

"Twenty-Five Ways to Reduce Investment Risk," The Aleph Blog , July 21, 2007 --- http://alephblog.com/?p=186

The Aleph Blog (Helping Institutions and Ordinary People Invest Better by Focusing on Risk Control) --- http://alephblog.com/

Book Review
An American Hedge Fund by Timothy Sykes --- Click Here

Bob Jensen's investor helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm

Arguments for and against the firing of Ward Churchill

The Churchill Firing — I

The University of Colorado protected both academic freedom and academic integrity, writes Hank Brown. more

The Churchill Firing — II

Research misconduct is in the eye of the beholder, writes Gary Witherspoon. more

Bob Jensen's threads on the Ward Churchill saga are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm

"Ward Churchill Fired," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/25/churchill

More than two and a half years after Ward Churchill’s writings on 9/11 set off a furor, and more than a year after a faculty panel at the University of Colorado at Boulder found him guilty of repeated, intentional academic misconduct, the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted 8-1 Tuesday evening to fire him.

The vote followed a special, all-day meeting of the board, in which it heard in private from Churchill, a faculty panel and from Hank Brown, president of the University of Colorado System, who in May recommended dismissing Churchill from his tenured post. The regents emerged from their private deliberations at around 5:30 p.m. Colorado time and voted to fire Churchill, but they did not discuss their views and they quickly adjourned. A small group of Churchill supporters in the audience shouted “bullshit” as the board vote was announced.

While the firing is effective immediately, Churchill is entitled under Colorado regulations to receive one year’s salary, which for him is just under $100,000.

Churchill predicted prior to the meeting that he would be fired and vowed to file a suit against the university, as early as today. In a press conference after the vote, Churchill repeated his argument that the board fired him primarily because of his political views, which he said are “inconvenient and uncomfortable” to the powerful. He vowed to keep “fighting the fight” and said that the impact of the case goes “way beyond Ward Churchill” and will hinder freedom of expression generally. Churchill was upbeat during the news conference, which also featured Native American drumming and chanting by supporters.

In an interview Tuesday night after the vote, Brown, the system president, said that the evidence against Churchill for scholarly misconduct was overwhelming. “I think it was the depth of the falsification that ultimately led to the outcome,” Brown said. “It wasn’t just one or two or three or four, but numerous incidents of intentional falsification,” such that Brown believed that in the end board members “felt like they didn’t have a choice.”

Brown, who was present for the board’s discussions with Churchill and the faculty panel that reviewed the case, but not for the deliberations, said that board members seemed focused not on the question of Churchill’s guilt, but of the punishment. Brown said that the lone regent who voted against firing did so based only on the issue of firing him, not out of any disagreement with the finding that he had committed misconduct.

The meaning of the Churchill case has been heatedly debated over the past two-plus years. To Churchill and his defenders, he is a victim of politics and of a right wing attack on freedom of thought. To Brown and others at the university, Churchill’s case is not about politics at all about enforcing academic integrity and punishing those who don’t live up to basic rules of research honesty. To many others in academe, the Churchill case has been less clearcut. Many academics have said that they are troubled by both the findings of research misconduct against Churchill and by the reality that his work received intense scrutiny only after his political views drew attention to him.

Churchill has been working at Boulder since 1978 and has been a tenured professor of ethnic studies since 1991. In the years before 2005, he gained a reputation at Colorado and on the college lecture circuit nationally as an impassioned speaker and writer on behalf of Native Americans. Most of his speeches were attended by supporters of his views, so he did not attract widespread criticism.

All of that changed early in 2005, however, when Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College. Some professors there, who did not feel Churchill was an ideal speaker, circulated some of his writings, including an essay with the the now notorious remark comparing World Trade Center victims on 9/11 to “little Eichmanns.” Within days, the controversy spread — with Hamilton under pressure to uninvite Churchill and Colorado under pressure to fire him. Hamilton stood by its invitation, on academic freedom grounds, but in the end called off the appearance, based on threats of violence.

As the University of Colorado considered what to do, a series of accusations against Churchill started to come in that involved his scholarly practices. While Churchill repeatedly has portrayed his critics as conservatives, a number of those who brought complaints against him share his fury at the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans. The complaints included charges of plagiarism, of false descriptions of other scholars’ work or historical evidence, and of fabrications. The university first determined that it could not fire Churchill based on his statements about 9/11, but that it could investigate the other allegations of misconduct, which it then proceeded to do. Three separate faculty panels then found Churchill guilty of multiple instances of research misconduct. The various panels had splits on whether Churchill deserved to be fired and those splits were complicated.

For example, the Boulder faculty panel that first found Churchill guilty of misconduct had five members. One member suggested that Churchill be fired. Two recommended that he be suspended for five years without pay. And two recommended that he be suspended for two years without pay. But the two panel members who preferred a five-year suspension said that they — like the panel member who favored dismissal — would find revocation of tenure and firing to be “not an improper sanction” for Churchill, given the seriousness of the findings. Thus Churchill’s defenders were able to say that the panel didn’t want him fired and his critics were able to say that the panel’s majority saw firing as appropriate.

Ultimately, the university’s Board of Regents alone had the authority to fire. Board members have widely been expected to dismiss Churchill, but they have been circumspect about the case for months. With Churchill threatening to sue, regents were sensitive to any suggestion that they were doing anything except follow standard procedures for allegations of misconduct serious enough to merit firing a tenured professor.

Continued in article

As he pledged to do, Ward Churchill sued the University of Colorado Thursday — the day after he was fired for research misconduct by the Board of Regents. The Rocky Mountain News reported that his suit was filed in state court, in Denver, even though the litigation alleges a First Amendment violation of Churchill’s rights to political expression. Churchill’s lawyer has said that the process would be speedier in state court and the News noted that federal judges tend to defer to the personnel decisions of colleges and universities.
Inside Higher Ed, July 26, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/26/qt

"Why I Fired Professor Churchill," by Hank Brown, The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2007; Page A13 ---

University of Colorado Ethnic Studies Professor Ward Churchill was fired this week after the university's Board of Regents approved my recommendation to dismiss him for academic fraud. The ongoing drama now moves to state court, where Mr. Churchill has filed a lawsuit against the university alleging that it violated his First Amendment rights. Mr. Churchill drew considerable attention to himself in an essay that compared 9/11 victims to notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann. While no action was taken by the university with regard to his views on 9/11, many complaints surfaced at the time about his scholarship from faculty around the country. The university had an obligation to investigate. The complaints led to the formation of three separate investigative panels -- which included more than 20 of his faculty peers and which worked for over two years -- to unanimously find a pattern of serious, deliberate and repeated research misconduct that fell below minimum standards of professional integrity. The panels found that Mr. Churchill rewrote history to fit his own theories. When confronted, he asserted he was not responsible. According to one report, "Professor Churchill has, on more than one occasion, claimed that certain acts that appear to have been his were instead the responsibility of some other actor: his editor or publisher, his assistant, or his former wife and collaborator." The report goes on to note that "we have come to see these claims as emblems of a recurrent refusal to take responsibility for errors . . . and a willingness to blame others for his troubles." But his case is about far more than academic misconduct. It is about the accountability that public universities must demonstrate. Mr. Churchill's difficulties in facing up to his academic responsibilities are in many ways emblematic of higher education's trouble with accountability. Too often, colleges and universities tend to insulate themselves in ivy-covered buildings and have not been as diligent as necessary to ensure that the academic enterprise is conducted rigorously and honestly. This elitist attitude is simply outdated, and our university has made tenure reforms -- precipitated by the Churchill case -- that will ensure academic integrity. Universities, particularly public research universities, are accountable to those who have a stake in their success and efficient operation. At the University of Colorado, this includes the people of Colorado who contribute $200 million in taxes annually, the federal agencies that provide some $640 million annually in research funding, the alumni who want to maintain the value of their degrees, the faculty who expect their colleagues to act with integrity and the students who trust that faculty who teach them meet high professional standards. And just as the public has high expectations for us, we expect our faculty members to be accountable for maintaining high standards of scholarship. A public research university such as ours requires public faith that each faculty member's professional activities and search for truth are conducted according to the academic standards on which an institution's reputation rests. The University of Colorado's reputation was called into question in the matter of Ward Churchill. His claim that he was singled out for his free speech is a smokescreen. Controversy -- especially self-sought controversy -- doesn't immunize a faculty member from adhering to professional standards. If you are a responsible faculty member, you don't falsify research, you don't plagiarize the work of others, you don't fabricate historical events and you don't thumb your nose at the standards of the profession. More than 20 of Mr. Churchill's faculty peers from Colorado and other universities found that he committed those acts. That's what got him fired. Even great universities have problems. Places with thousands of faculty and tens of thousands of mostly young students are not immune to trouble. But a university's reputation will only be strengthened when it works to ensure that it remains accountable to those it serves. Mr. Brown, a former U.S. senator, is president of the University of Colorado.

 

Should Academic Left Defend Churchill?
The debate might be summed up in an analogy offered by one of the faculty panels that reviewed Churchill and found that he committed, intentionally, all kinds of research misconduct. Committee members said that they were uncomfortable with the fact that Colorado ignored serious allegations against Churchill for years, and took them seriously only when his politics attracted attention. The panel compared the situation to one in which a motorist is stopped for speeding because a police officer doesn’t like the bumper sticker on her car. If she was speeding, she was speeding — regardless of the officer’s motives, the panel said.
Scott Jaschik, "Should Academic Left Defend Churchill?" Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/24/churchill

Jensen Comment
It seems like an excellent opportunity for Ward Churchill to go back to college and earn a doctorate. This would legitimize his admission to the academy.

Bob Jensen's threads on the Ward Churchill Saga are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HypocrisyChurchill.htm

Questions
Is accounting an "academic" discipline?
Can somebody provide examples of purely academic accounting research that is both tied to accountancy rather than theoretical economics and is completely “pure” in the sense of having no foreseeable application in mind?”

The (Random House) dictionary defines "academic" as "pertaining to areas of study that are not primarily vocational or applied , as the humanities or pure mathematics." Clearly, the short answer to the question is no, accounting is not an academic discipline.
Joel Demski, "Is Accounting an Academic Discipline?" Accounting Horizons, June 2007, pp. 153-157

Statistically there are a few youngsters who came to academia for the joy of learning, who are yet relatively untainted by the vocational virus. I urge you to nurture your taste for learning, to follow your joy. That is the path of scholarship, and it is the only one with any possibility of turning us back toward the academy.
Joel Demski, "Is Accounting an Academic Discipline? American Accounting Association Plenary Session" August 9, 2006 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm

Jensen Comment
Clearly there are “pure” number theory and other purely abstract research studies in mathematics that have no foreseeable application to anything in the real world. I cannot find any such studies in the academic accounting research literature. Joel's lament is a bit confusing since for the past four decades, virtually all doctoral programs have replaced accounting professional content with mathematics, statistics, econometrics, psychometrics, and sociometrics content to a fault and to a point where very few accountants are interested in applying for accountancy doctoral programs  --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

The decline in doctoral program graduates (to less than 100 per year in the United States) combined with the scientific research (albeit "applied research") requirements for publication in leading academic accounting research journals resulted in the academy serving the accountancy profession less and less over the past few decades:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/03MainDocumentMar2007.htm

It would help if Joel would be more explicit about what types of "pure academic" research studies qualify as "accounting research" and why there is virtually none of it being produced according to his paper and his address to the AAA membership in August 2006. In particular, I would like to know what types of academic "accounting" publications set academic accounting apart from mathematical economics and mathematics disciplines such that these basic research contributions can still be called "accounting" research that is not applied (in the sense of his definition of "academic" research as not being applied).

Following Joel's paper is a paper by the same title "Is Accounting an Academic Discipline?" by John C. Fellingham, Accounting Horizons, June 2007, pp. 159-163. John features the following quotation from Henry Rand Hatfield in 1924:

I am sure that all of us who teach accounting in the university suffer from the implied contempt of our colleagues, who look upon accounting as an intruder, a Saul among the prophets, a paria whose very presence detracts somewhat from the sanctity of the academic halls.
Henry Rand Hatfield, "An Historical Defense of Bookkeeping," Journal of Accountancy, 1924.

I consider this quotation to be inappropriate in 2007. Professor Hatfield was referring to the teaching of truly basic bookkeeping which is no longer the mundane vocational subject matter of college accounting in the past fifty or more years. I consider most of what we now teach in college accountancy to be very appropriate in service to the accountancy profession.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that accountancy is a profession like law is a profession, medicine is a profession, architecture is a profession, engineering is a profession, pharmacy is a profession, etc. Why does the academy need to apologize for teaching to the profession of accountancy when in fact the academy is very proud to serve those other highly esteemed professions? I do not see schools of law and schools of medicine apologizing to the world for nobly serving those professions.

Both Demski and Fellingham made emotional appeals for academic accounting researchers to make noteworthy contributions to the "true academic disciplines" as quoted by Fellingham on Page 163. Not only should this be a goal, but in a sense they are arguing that this should be a primary goal far above the goal of serving the accountancy profession. I fail to note similar appeals being made by professors of law and medicine and engineering. These professions do distinguish between clinical versus research publications and teaching, but in general they do not further glorify their research if it cannot conceivably have some relevance to their professions. Indeed, even the most basic chemical and physiological research in medicine still takes place with an eye toward eventual relevance to human health.

I might also note that both law and medicine also publish some academic research that is not based upon esoteric mathematics and statistics. For example, historical and philosophical research methodologies are still allowed in their most prestigious academic law and science journals, which currently is not the case for leading academic accounting research journals.

By way of example, since Joel Demski took charge of the accounting doctoral program at the University of Florida, every applicant to that doctoral program cannot even matriculate into the program before prerequisites of advanced mathematics are satisfied.

Students are required to demonstrate math competency prior to matriculating the doctoral program. Each student's background will be evaluated individually, and guidance provided on ways a student can ready themselves prior to beginning the doctoral course work. There are opportunities to complete preparatory course work at the University of Florida prior to matriculating our doctoral program. 
University of Florida Accounting Concentration  --- http://www.cba.ufl.edu/fsoa/docs/phd_AccConcentration.pdf

Why does every candidate have to qualify in advanced mathematics rather than allowing substitutes such as advanced philosophy or advanced legal studies?

I might also add that science and medicine academic journals also still place monumental priorities on replications of research findings. Leading academic accounting research journals will not even publish replications and mostly as a result it is very difficult to find replications of most of the top academic accounting research papers published by so-called leading accounting researchers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#Replication

More of my rants on this can be found in the following links:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#AcademicsVersusProfession

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/03MainDocumentMar2007.htm

July 17, 2007 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

Bob,

Your message raises many questions. I beg to differ from some of your answers, but am in substantial agreement in others..

1. Is accounting an academic discipline?

If one defines "academic" negatively as not vocational or applied, I think we can claim that accounting CAN be an academic discipline.

I think there is no Humean guillotine that should separate academic and professional. Even "academic" physics looks to "professional" physics (engineering) to be informed and to inform. In accounting, the purists have erected the Humean guillotine between the two. In fact, it has been fashionable in the "academician" accounting circles to deride those in the professional practice of accounting as "them". This should forebode the death of accounting as an academic discipline; moribund is a moniker that comes to mind.

2. Can accounting be a "pure" academic discipline?

We should distinguish between "pure" and "theoretical".

Webster's defines "pure" as: __________

1. Separate from all heterogeneous or extraneous matter; free from mixture or combination; clean; mere; simple; unmixed; as, pure water; pure clay; pure air; pure compassion.

2. Free from moral defilement or quilt; hence, innocent; guileless; chaste; -- applied to persons. ``Keep thyself pure.'' --1 Tim. v. 22.

3. Free from that which harms, vitiates, weakens, or pollutes; genuine; real; perfect; -- applied to things and actions. ``Pure religion and impartial laws.'' --Tickell. ``The pure, fine talk of Rome.'' --Ascham.

4. (Script.) Ritually clean; fitted for holy services. _________

The only sense I can think of accounting research of the D&F variety "pure" is the fourth sense above.

In the Social science disciplines, for example, you have "Theoretical" Sociology (a fascinating field; I took one graduate course as a student, but wish I had more of it. See the book by one of my mentors, Tom Fararo,  "theoretical" psychology ( http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/istp/ ), "theoretical" anthropology ( http://ezines.onb.ac.at:8080/www.univie.ac.at/Voelkerkunde/theoretical-anthropology/welcome.html)  and so on.

"Pure" is a loaded word, and is used almost exclusively in mathematics (and to some degree in chemistry, although the usage there today is probably archaic). Even physicists use "Theoretical" Physics, not Pure Physics.

I think "theoretical" would be a more meaningful term, but I am not sure. For what D&F probably meant, the appropriate term might be "applied economics" or "applied finance" rather than "pure" or "theoretical" accounting?

3. Why is the doctoral population in accounting is declining?

My guess is that to be a successful accounting academic these days, one has to live a lie. On the one hand, in the classes one is forced to pretend that we have an abiding interest in what happens in the professional world. On the other hand, in our "research" endeavours, to be successful, we have to ignore all the richness of the profesional real world and live in a make-believe world of least squares.

Those who have any idea of this will resist entry, and those, like me, who get into accounting by accident, decide not to live the lie but decide to stay, fall by the way side by working outside of accounting, and in accounting working outside of the mainstream.

There are exciting possibilities for research IN accounting, but the mainstream research for the past three decades has been, Stirling would say, mostly research ABOUT accounting. The distinction that used to be chiseled into our brains in the old days is gone, and the subsequent generations have lived in a make-believe world where profession is to be tolerated in the academia.

4.Does mathematics have a role in accounting research?

I think mathematics has a pivotal role for research IN accounting. Much of auditing and informartion systems should have a sound mathematical basis, but at present it does not. Requirements of mainstream empirical research does not encourage it.

I will not comment on managerial and financial accounting since I haven't done research in a very long time. But I suspect that mathematics (and NOT ordinary or extra-ordinary regression) CAN play an important role.

However, I am not sure a mechanical procedure of the Florida kind can do much. Mathematics is best learnt IN A CONTEXT. In the schools, the context is usually provided by physics, and in the old days, in college it used to be provided by economics. There is no reason doctoral programs can not develop mathematics courses where the context is accounting (managerial accounting would provide a great context for much of calculus and optimisation). But who has the motivation to spend time develop courses of that kind?

Mathematics that I have studied and practiced has played a very crucial role in my development as a person, but it hasn't in any way hindered my deep interest in philosophy as well as law. It is a matter of attitude, of humility to accept the importance of what one may not know, and the curiosity to learn it.

On another note, mathematics does not have a privileged status. There is no reason why philosophy, history, or one of the social sciences (including economics) can not share that exalted status. That has been the case in medicine as well as in law, and there is no reason why it can not be the case in accounting..

With kind regards,

Jagdish

July 17, 2007 reply from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU]

If you go into a Chinese shop that sells porcelain figurines (statuettes), you will invariably see a reclining woman figurine. These reclining woman were used by doctors. Because a male doctor in China could not touch a woman that was not his wife, he would use the figurine instead. He would touch the figurine in a particular spot and say does it hurt here. The woman would also point to the figurine instead of herself.

Accounting research makes me think of those reclining women. We accounting academic researchers are truly outsiders in the accounting professions. Accounting firms are VERY reluctant to let us look at audit work papers--and then they are VERY, VERY restrictive what researchers can say about what they conclude based on those work papers. Users of accounting data are not any more open. Could you imagine going to a banker, an investment house, or a debt rating agency and trying to get detailed information on how they use accounting data to reach their conclusions.

We researchers are left looking a outputs (audit opinions, bond ratings, etc) and then we test hypotheses on what the inputs might have been and how those inputs may have been weighted and processes. Because we HAVE to do research, we keep using this model (look at output, guess at input and process) going because that is the best we can do. In this world it is not surprising that econometric (and other "mathematical") research wins out because they have an almost unlimited combination of outputs and inputs to test in terms of publicly available data supplied to regulatory bodies by companies.

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business & Economics
California State University, Northridge
Northridge, CA 91330-8372
818.677.3948
http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f

July 17, 2007 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

True. Except that we talk to SURROGATE patients (student or other subjects in behavioural research to infer behaviour of realworld professionals, and gross aggregated evidence from database mills in "archival" research to link individual behaviour and macro-level data).

It is true that the academician's access to data is limited, but my experience is that most professionals are quite willing to talk about the problems they face. Once the problem is known, it is our task to find a way to solve it (by developing an algorithm, a plan of action, or a methodical way to address the issues). These research activities do not need real world data, but need abstractions from the real world to make the problem manageable. It is up to us to build models (mathematical or otherwise) which can be used to study the problems and develop solutions. That kind of work is just about taboo these days in mainstream accounting. After all, in the mainstream, our professed objective is to "describe" the situation, not to solve it.

There is a Humean guillotine between the academia (descriptive way of looking at the world) and the profession (need to solve real world problems; normative) in many disciplines (including medicine and law). Most "sciences" social as well as physical have, however, not forced the guillotine to come between the academia and the profession in shared understanding of problems; but unfortunately, in accounting, we have let it come between us and the profession.

I attend some conferences in computing and linguistics. I see a healthy but furious dialogue between the two; it is exciting, and both sides benefit. And the corporate folks who attend them too do not share the data with the academicians, but they discuss the problems and possible solutions.

Then I attend the accounting meetings (as I will, in a few weeks, at an expense that is almost half of my yearly GA stipend as a student many years ago) to just about waste my time (but for the recruiting efforts on behalf of my department) intellectually, except to meet old friends and speak with the VERY few with whom I share common research interests.

Unless we can stand up to the rigorous scrutiny by the profession of all the research work we do, accounting academia might as well outsource our work to the trade schools who actually might be more efficient in training the students.

Jagdish

July 18, 2007 reply from Paul Williams [Paul_Williams@NCSU.EDU]

Jagdish, et al Anthony Hopwood made some rather trenchant remarks in his presidential address at last year's AAA annual meeting. As he stated (correctly in my opinion) accounting is foremost a practice. A practice, by the way, that has significant consequences for all of us.

Jagdish, your observation about item four below is spot on. What we are dealing with in the US academy is theology, not the discipline of the academy. Note the program for the annual meeting in Chicago: we get Posner, Hayek, and neuroeconomics. Why not Sunstein, Krugman, or neuropsychology? All we ever get is propaganda, a controlled intellectual agenda that privileges the imaginary world of neoclassical economics. It is laughable that the theme for this year's meeting is IMAGINED WORLDS (plural) of ACCOUNTING in which the irony of the program ( unimaginative and one world) seems to be lost on the planners. Even as rebellion begins to grow within the discipline of economics (Heterdox Newsletter, Post-autistic Economics Journal) accounting stays wedded to an economics that any intellectually honest person must admit has done more harm to accounting as an academic and professional discipline than good.

In the spirit of being a contrarian: mathematics has nothing to do with accounting. Accounting is linguistic and is primarily a moral and political discourse. If only more academics noted Jagdish interest in philosophy and law and legal reasoning. Our math fetish is the illusion that because accounting generates numbers, it is a quantitative discipline (and perhaps because accounting academic salaries are much higher than those of truly imaginative mathematicians). But the numbers we deal with in accounting are operational numbers (fair value accounting carries this to an extreme case), i.e., not "quantities" but more indices, like exam scores, which we always pair with WORDS (e.g., liability, asset, expense). The "numbers" are subjective and the words? -- the same blessed imprecision that makes language such a useful thing. One reason that orthodox economics has failed completely as a predictive science is the illusion that because economics deals with prices, which have the appearance of "quantities", mathematical modeling is the way to go ( something we will learn in Chicago is that Hayek was adamately opposed to the mathematization of economics because economics is historically contextual). But prices are operational numbers -- subjective, not objective (this argument is from Donald Gillies, "Can Mathematics Be Used Successfully in Economics?" in A Guide to What's Wrong with Economics edited by Edward Fullbrook, 2004, London: Anthem Press).

And when we consider the arbitrary recipes we currently have for generating accounting "quantities" the conviction that the only way to understand accounting as a practice is via "rigorous" mathematical modeling makes one wonder what drugs these people are taking. Why would any intelligent person with a genuine commitment to scholarship (rather than a high paying job with good benefits and tenure) and a modicum of imagination want to do what the neoclassical theologians of the world compel them to do to be admitted to the academy's inner sanctum? Silly superstitions and mindless rituals may be fine for securing one's place in heaven, but for a "discipline" whose putative purpose for being is to LEARN something about a piece of the world, such exercises are less than useless. Anthony Hopwood rationalized the creation of AOS in an essay "Accounting from the Outside."

Now, by his own admission, we learn why Jadgish's contributions to this conversation are always so incisive and interesting -- he has chosen to be on the outside. I have just returned from the APIRA conference in Auckland. One of the Americans in attendance observed to me what a contrast this conference is from the AAA annual meeting. Of course, because the people in attendance at APIRA have, like Jagdish and I, chosen to remain on the outside where the conversation is much more interesting because we speak (often loudly and emphatically) with different voices and because, frankly, you meet a better educated class of people

Question
What parts of a high school curriculum are the best predictors of success as a science major in college?

New research by professors at Harvard University and the University of Virginia has found that no single high school science course has an impact beyond that type of science, when it comes to predicting success in college science. However, the researchers found that a rigorous mathematics curriculum in high school has a significant impact on performance in college science courses. The research, which will be published in Science, runs counter to the “physics first” movement in which some educators have been advocating that physics come before biology and chemistry in the high school curriculum. The study was based on analysis of a broad pool of college students, their high school course patterns, and their performance in college science.
Inside Higher Ed, July 27, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/27/qt

Jensen Comment
Now we have this when some colleges are trying to promote applications and admissions by dropping the SAT testing requirements for admission. In Texas, the Top 10% of any state high school class do not have to even take the SAT for admission to any state university in Texas. Of course high schools may still have a rigorous mathematics curriculum, but what high school student aiming for the 10% rule is going to take any rigorous course that is not required for high school graduation? The problem is that rigorous elective courses carry a higher risk of lowering the all-important grade point average.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Grades are even worse than tests like the SAT/ACT tests as predictors of success

"The Wrong Traditions in Admissions," by William E. Sedlacek, Inside Higher Ed, July 27, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/07/27/sedlacek

Grades and test scores have worked well as the prime criteria to evaluate applicants for admission, haven’t they? No! You’ve probably heard people say that over and over again, and figured that if the admissions experts believe it, you shouldn’t question them. But that long held conventional wisdom just isn’t true. Whatever value tests and grades have had in the past has been severely diminished. There are many reasons for this conclusion, including greater diversity among applicants by race, gender, sexual orientation and other dimensions that interact with career interests. Predicting success with so much variety among applicants with grades and test scores asks too much of those previous stalwarts of selection. They were never intended to carry such a heavy expectation and they just can’t do the job anymore, even if they once did. Another reason is purely statistical. We have had about 100 years to figure out how to measure verbal and quantitative skills better but we just can’t do it.

Grades are even worse than tests as predictors of success. The major reason is grade inflation. Everyone is getting higher grades these days, including those in high school, college, graduate, and professional school. Students are bunching up at the top of the grade distribution and we can’t distinguish among them in selecting who would make the best student at the next level.

We need a fresh approach. It is not good enough to feel constrained by the limitations of our current ways of conceiving of tests and grades. Instead of asking; “How can we make the SAT and other such tests better?” or “How can we adjust grades to make them better predictors of success?” we need to ask; “What kinds of measures will meet our needs now and in the future?” We do not need to ignore our current tests and grades, we need to add some new measures that expand the potential we can derive from assessment.

We appear to have forgotten why tests were created in the first place. While they were always considered to be useful in evaluating candidates, they were also considered to be more equitable than using prior grades because of the variation in quality among high schools.

Test results should be useful to educators — whether involved in academics or student services — by providing the basis to help students learn better and to analyze their needs. As currently designed, tests do not accomplish these objectives. How many of you have ever heard a colleague say “I can better educate my students because I know their SAT scores”? We need some things from our tests that currently we are not getting. We need tests that are fair to all and provide a good assessment of the developmental and learning needs of students, while being useful in selecting outstanding applicants. Our current tests don’t do that.

The rallying cry of “all for one and one for all” is one that is used often in developing what are thought of as fair and equitable measures. Commonly, the interpretation of how to handle diversity is to hone and fine-tune tests so they are work equally well for everyone (or at least to try to do that). However, if different groups have different experiences and varied ways of presenting their attributes and abilities, it is unlikely that one could develop a single measure, scale, test item etc. that could yield equally valid scores for all. If we concentrate on results rather than intentions, we could conclude that it is important to do an equally good job of selection for each group, not that we need to use the same measures for all to