Why the Ivy League is so...

When I was the director of the Honors Program at my university, the Honors Committee faculty put me through an inquisition led by a version of Torquemada--a psychology professor, in this case.

What was my sin?  It had to do with one of the essays I had assigned third-year Honors students.  This particular essay, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, was about "shaming" that routinely happens in athletics and questioned whether in academics faculty coddle students.

Yes, my sin was that I had assigned them this essay (not authored by me) from the Chronicle. This inquisition was the icing on the cake of pedantic idiocy--a year earlier, some of my colleagues questioned my decision to assign Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit.   So, a day or so after the inquisition, I wrote to the provost that I was not returning for a second term as the director of Honors. I couldn't be bothered with such colleagues.

I can only, therefore, drool at the reading list that Greg Mankiw has for his freshman seminar. Yes, freshman!

• The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbronr
• Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets, by John McMillan
• Thinking Strategically, by Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff
• Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman
• Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff, by Arthur Okun
• Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
• How the Economy Works, by Roger E.A. Farmer
• The Return of Depression Economics, by Paul Krugman
• The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek
• The Myth of the Rational Voter, by Bryan Caplan
• The Big Idea, by Steven Landsburg

BTW, what was Torquemada's explanation of his behavior?  He wrote in a follow-up email:

I did lack a bit of courtesy; however, if you are going to exist in an administrative/director position at any level at any university I suggest you quickly develop a thicker skin...faculty are frequently, mostly without intention, discourteous and disrespectful.