Another Accepted Post!

 David writes:

"This may be off-topic, but your post reminded me of something from a few days ago:

"I had been looking into this Knight Professorship program because of the controversy around tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones at UNC, and found out that Michael Pollan is a Knight Professor at UC Berkeley.

"It seems, on one hand as if it is laudable for a foundation to facilitate getting people, who could be exceptional professors, but who lack the normal academic credentials, in front of students.

"In the case of NHJ, it looks like a colossal mistake—her work doesn’t come close to academic standards, she hasn’t really broken new ground in journalism and hasn’t done any teaching.

"In the case of Michael Pollan, this seems like a perfect example of why the program is great. He is a very compelling speaker and has written a bunch of books which are journalistic and very influential. One thing that comes to mind with Pollan: Was the Knight money really the only thing stopping Berkeley from offering the professorship?"

Althouse posted it Here but my response was to this post.  In fairness, she had two Michael Pollan posts in one day and I was admittedly on a tangent--to both of them.