If it wern't posted right here on a University of Illinois-Champaign campus event calendar, this might seem like an Onion spoof headline. [[Either way, not funny.)

Is Graduate Education the Detroit of Higher Learning?

Yup, that's the topic of "a special presentation" for two hours this Friday [[9/25) by Carol Van Hartesveldt, a National Science Foundation program director for Integrative Graduate Education and Research. Her special presentation and panel discussion with 3 faculty members is sponsored by the campus' Graduate College and Office of the Vice Chancellor.

Sure, kick away . . . it's just an American city.

Plus, as a Facebook friend wondered today: What does that even mean?
Oh please, let it NOT be a ghetto allusion . . . p l e a s e.

The lecturer's publicly posted office email address, on the chance anyone wants to send a polite note [[really - you represent Detroit), is: cvanhart@nsf.gov

[ Hat tip: Jim McFarlin ]