Higher ed has a PR problem. I recently griped on Twitter that when the name of a university is trending, you know it's for one of two reasons: sports or a shooting.

That's an idle complaint, I know. And there's a certain extent to which you can't really expect the general public to give a crap about research. I mean, I don't give a crap about a significant percentage of the research that's out there. (CERN did trend, briefly, however!) Still, universities are run like corporations now, and they have PR people. Shouldn't they get on this? Don't we want to be known for something other than sports and violence? What ever happened to ye olde teaching, research, and service?