Good for her. Brown is a thousand times better school in every respect.
 

Most, maybe all, of these denials are sincere for the moment. But no sitting president can indicate any interest in the job without undermining her authority, angering her board and damaging her own institution. "No comment" is not enough.
Notice none of these statements is Shermanesque. (On the other hand: what is a president to say? Rejecting an offer that is not made is not a dignfied posture either.) So: don't take the words seriously at this point. If you must make predictions look at the objective factors. How long the person has been president, what kind of Harvard connection, the record so far, and how likely it is that Harvard would appoint this kind of person.
 

Wonder if an article like Tina Wang's (excerpted below, appeared in the Crimson) would appear at Brown?

Don’t Get Caught By Expensive Textbooks



Published On Monday, August 28, 2006 10:28 PM

By TINA WANG

Crimson Staff Writer


When I first came to Harvard, I made the same mistake that almost every freshman does: I bought all my books.

Whichever paperback, textbook, or coursepack my class reading lists said I needed, I bought——at list price—from the Coop or Harvard’s Printing and Publication Services. I spent more than 500 dollars on books during the first week of my first semester alone.

Getting a small rebate check from the Coop in the mail almost a year later was only a small comfort. Having since learned many other ways to save on textbook and sourcepack costs, I still regret that naive September shopping spree.

Probably the most cost effective way to deal with your reading lists is not to buy the books at all. I’m serious. Because the truth is, you won’t read them. You probably won’t even read 25 to 30 percent of the gigantic textbooks and coursepacks you buy, especially for social science courses. Many students are busy with too many extracurricular and social commitments to tackle the behemoth reading lists professors compile. They find that they can usually get by in class with a few comments, which need not necessarily be based on the readings.

For large classes, come exam or paper time, many students rely on study guides that float around over e-mail. Others form their own study groups and assign one another small clusters of readings to summarize, so many students will only have touched a few sections in their individually-owned, mint condition, comprehensive class notes.

Courses like Historical Studies A-12, “International Conflict and Cooperation in the Modern World,” which students attend by the hundreds, require massive and costly coursepacks that get dumped at the end of the semester, often still in mint condition, into Habitat for Humanity bins.

hour time limit they have with the book.

There are, of course, the other popular fall-back methods for scrimping on textbook costs, such as buying used books from other Harvard students or vendors on Amazon.com. You might also try gathering a group of fellow classmates, buying one coursepack at regular cost, photocopying it (thus bypassing copyright costs--not to mention copyright laws...), and splitting the costs among the group.

From experience, this tact works. Last semester. I didn’t buy a single book or coursepack on my course reading lists. I saved alot of money, and I got my best grades yet.