Gregory A Jackson

1150 18^th Street NW, Suite 900

Washington DC 20036

1-202-331-5351

I serve as Vice President at EDUCAUSE, the principal information-technology organization in higher education. I oversee the association's efforts to guide policy development and analysis at various levels, both within and across diverse colleges and universities. I manage the various groups that track, address, or interpret current and emerging policy and security issues for colleges and universities, and our interactions with the various agencies whose policies affect higher-education IT, and the Advanced Core Technologies Initiative. (There are also other duties as assigned: I'm the policy administrator for the .edu top-level Internet domain, am responsible for many of EDUCAUSE's activities focused on enterprise technologies and management, and manage its Nominations Committee, plus serve on its Executive Team.) I work with other parts of EDUCAUSE and with colleges, universities, and other higher-education associations to ensure that higher-education IT benefits from the best thinking, the most appropriate data, and the finest and most efficient information technology. EDUCAUSE is a widely distributed organization, and although I head its DC office, I live in Chicago.

My pre-EDUCAUSE curriculum vitae includes thirteen years overseeing information technology at The University of Chicago, most recently as Vice President and CIO. Before moving to Chicago, I spent four years as Director of Academic Computing at MIT, where I was responsible for general oversight and coordination of Athena and other central academic computing. At MIT I taught a freshman seminar called The Murder Mystery: Science and Art. Before coming to MIT I spent about fifteen years as a member of the Stanford and Harvard faculties. My teaching comprised statistics and other quantitative social-science research methods, higher-education policy, and institutional management; my pedagogy included seminars, case-study discussions, simulation exercises, and lectures. My research back then focused on how financial aid influences college choice and on organizational cultures and university decision making. My undergraduate degree is from MIT, and my doctorate is from Harvard.

I've been active in numerous information-technology efforts nationally, including the Seminars on Academic Computing, EDUCAUSE, the Common Solutions Group, the CIO groups from Ivy+ and CIC institutions, Internet2, National LambdaRail, and numerous corporate advisory bodies. I serve on the Advisory Committee for Business and Operations at the National Science Foundation. I helped found the Research University CIO Conclave (RUCC), the principal organization of research-university chief information officers. As a result of these and my past and current jobs, I've always traveled too much, but only rarely to interesting places.

Outside work, I collect 1888s and college and university coffee cups. Not just because Ronald Knox was born in 1888, I read lots of mysteries (Knox, an eminent British theologian, and a Roman Catholic chaplain at Oxford, famously codified the "Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction"). Because I never learned to take notes very well, I take lots of pictures, some favorites of which serve as the images on my computers. More important, whether eating in or out I mostly drink mostly red wine (especially old-vine Zinfandels from Amador County or from the Chiles Valley, Howell Mountain, Dry Creek's Rockpile, or a few other places that balance structure and fruit). That red wine goes with everything is one of many principles I find useful, both directly and metaphorically, in organizational life.

I occasionally write about information technology, food, ethical quandaries, and other issues in a blog (http://ruminations.gjackson.us). Also, I share pretty much all my travel and other photos, under a Creative Commons license, on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/gjackson).

"Hello, Jeffrey, are you there?... Now don't SHOUT at me! I'm in JAIL, and I want you to get me out!... I'm in the Susquehanna Street jail... Susquehanna!... SusqueHANNA!! ... Susque- Q! Q!! Q!!! You know, the thing you play billiards with!... Billiards!... Billiards!!... B... I... L.. . - no, L! L! L!! ... L, for Larynx... L...A... R... Y... N... No, not M! N!!!... N as in Neighbor... Neighbor... N...E...I...G...H...B... No, B!!... B!!!... Bzzz, Bzzz!... You know, the stingy insect!... INSECT!!!... I...N...S... S as in symbol... Symbol... S...Y... Y!!... Y!!!...Y!!!!... Look, Jeffrey, I'm in jail... The Susquehanna Street Jail... Listen closely... Do you know where the Oak Street Jail is?... You do?... Fine... I'll have them transfer me there in the morning."

-from Shall We Dance (1937)

Well, let's see, we have on the bags, Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third...

-Abbott & Costello, various performances. The origins of the "Who's on First?" routine are obscure and somewhat controversial. According to Lou Costello's daughter, the routine resulted from collaboration among Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, and John Grant, who later wrote most of the Abbott & Costello movies (Chris Costello and Raymond Strait, Lou's on First [New York: Cooper Square Press, 1981]). On the other hand, according to other sources and the obituary of Irving Gordon (better known for writing Nat King Cole's hit "Unforgettable"), Gordon wrote the routine while working as a composer of parody numbers in the Catskills during the 1930s (Myrna Oliver, "Irving Gordon, Composer of `Unforgettable'," Los Angeles Times, home edition, December 3, 1996, 26). Adding complication, unprocessed manuscript documents in the Samuel L. Goldman Papers at the University of Chicago Library include a pencil-on-foolscap version of the routine apparently dated before 1928. Peter B. Howard, a Berkeley bookseller, takes this version as evidence that Goldman, a vaudevillian and author of comedy bits in the 1920s and 1930s, wrote the routine or a precursor to it, since Abbott and Costello apparently did not work together until around 1937 (administrative files for the Samuel L. Goldman Papers, Department of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library). Then again, Goldman may simply have heard the routine on stage and transcribed it, reinforcing arguments by others that the Abbott & Costello routine was simply a compilation and synthesis from routines widely used by many performers in vaudeville during the 1930s. The routine was first performed by Abbott and Costello on radio in 1938, although they had apparently performed it on stage for some years before that.

Hawkins: I've got it! I've got it! The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! Right?

Griselda: Right. But there's been a change: they broke the chalice from the palace!

Hawkins: They broke the chalice from the palace?

Griselda: And replaced it with a flagon.

Hawkins: A flagon...?

Griselda: With the figure of a dragon.

Hawkins: Flagon with a dragon.

Griselda: Right.

Hawkins: But did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?

Griselda: No! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

Hawkins: The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.

Griselda: Just remember that.

-from The Court Jester (1956)

Bobby: I'll have an omelet, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, and a cup of coffee.

Waitress: No substitutions.

Bobby: You don't have any tomatoes?

Waitress: Only what's on the menu. A Number Two: Plain omelet. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.

Bobby: I know what it comes with, but that's not what I want.

Waitress: I'll come back when you've made up your mind.

Bobby: Wait, I have made up my mind. I want a plain omelet, no potatoes on the plate, and give me a side of wheat toast and a cup of coffee.

Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have side orders of toast. I can give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.

Bobby: What do you mean, you don't have side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?

Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?

Bobby: You have bread, don't you, and a toaster of some kind?

Waitress: I don't make the rules.

Bobby: Okay, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. Give me an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast -- no butter, no mayonnaise, no lettuce -- and a cup of coffee.

Waitress: One Number Two, and a chicken sal san -- hold the butter, the mayo, the lettuce -- and a cup of coffee. Anything else?

Bobby: Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, charge me for the sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken.

Bobby: Yeah. I want you to hold it between your knees.

-from Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Not long after, they tooke me to one of their great Counsells, where many of the generalitie were gathered in greater number than ever I had seen before. And they being assembled about a great field of open grasse, a score of their greatest men ran out upon the field, adorned each in brightly hued jackets and breeches, with letters cunnmgly woven upon their Chestes, and wearinge hats uppon their heads, of a sort I know not what. One of their chiefs stood in the midst and would at his pleasure hurl a white ball at another chief, whose attire was of a different colour, and whether by chance or artyfice I know not the ball flew exceeding close to the man yet never injured him, but sometimes he would strike att it with a wooden club, and so giveing it a hard blow would throw down his club and run away. Such actions proceeded in like manner at length too tedious to mention, but the generalitie waxed wroth, with greate groaning and shoutinge, and seemed withall much pleased.

-how an ethnographer of John Smith's era (that's Jamestown, etc.) might have described his or her first encounter with baseball, from James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (New York: Knopf, 1982)

Announcer: He walks in! He's ready for mystery...he's ready for excitement! He's ready for anything...he's (phone rings)
Nick: Nick Danger, Third Eye!
George: (on phone): Uh-I wanna order a pizza to go, and no anchovies.
Nick: No anchovies? You've got the wrong man. I spell my name...Danger! (hangs up)
George: What?

-from Firesign Theater, Cut 'Em Off at the Past (1969)

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Renault: I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Renault: Oh. Thank you very much.

-from Casablanca (1942)

Bluto: Looks like l missed something.

Boon: You did. War's over. Wormer dropped the big one.

Bluto: What? "Over"? Did you say "over"? Nothing's over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!

Boon: Germans?

Otter: Forget it, he's rolling.

Bluto: … And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the going gets tough... the tough get going! Who's with me? Let's go! Come on!

Boon: Bluto's right. Psychotic... but absolutely right.

-from Animal House, 1978

"You see, my dear Watson, it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent on its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect."

-Sherlock Holmes, in Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Dancing Men, 1903

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

-Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, 1830

The Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction:

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.

4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.

5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.

6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.

8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.

9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

-Roland Knox, Essays in Satire, 1929

"You know how I deal with problems: first I identify them, then I study them, then I analyze them, and then I make them bigger"

-Michael J. Fox to Tracy Pollard, in Family Ties, ca 1985

"Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King."

-what "reading the riot act" actually means. The Riot Act of 1714 required the King's magistrates to read this proclamation aloud an hour before beginning arrests if a group of more than twelve persons refused to disperse. The Act was not repealed until 1973.

The Stranger: How things been goin'?

Dude: Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.

The Stranger: Sure, I gotcha.

Dude: ...Take care, man, I gotta get back.

The Stranger: Sure. Take it easy, Dude--I know that you will.

Dude: Yeah man. Well, you know, the Dude abides.

The Stranger: The Dude abides.

-from The Big Lebowski (1998)

George: Oh, what beautiful flowers!

Gracie: Aren't they lovely? And if it weren't for you I wouldn't have them.

George: Me? What did I have to do with it?

Gracie: Well, it was your idea. You said that when I went to visit Cara Bagley to take her flowers, so when she wasn't looking I did. Isn't it good that they're carnations, dear? I'll put them in the refrigerator and we'll milk them later.

-from The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (various dates on radio 1933-50 and TV 1950-58)

President: Do you agree with Ben, Mr. Gardiner? Are we finished? Or do you think we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?

Chance: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well in the garden.

President: In the garden?

Chance: That is correct. In a garden, growth has its season. There is spring and summer, but there is also fall and winter. And then spring and summer again.

President: Spring and summer Yes, I see. Fall and winter. Yes, indeed. Could you go through that one more time, please, Mr. Gardiner?

Rand: I think what my most insightful friend is saying, Mr. President, is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, yet we are upset by the seasons of our economy.

Chance: Yes. That is correct.

President: Well, Mr. Gardiner, I must admit, that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.

-from Being There (1979)

For the record, the proper way to make a lobster roll, as any New Englander will tell you, is with a split-top hot dog bun. Except, it should be an eggier bun, like a challah or brioche. Except when a decent Portuguese English muffin would work best of all. That said, a hamburger bun works even better. Except no one but a few weirdos in Maine do it that way. Also, the bread should be toasted on the outside, except when it should be toasted inside, except when toasting is a waste of time and, really, you need to griddle the bun so char marks appear. Inside. No, outside. Also, don't forget to butter whatever side you do toast or griddle -- no one will argue with that. But the meat should be cool, except when it should be warm -- they like it warm in Connecticut. It should also be chunky, a mix of claw and tail, except tail chunks work best. Got it? Good, because all of that is completely stupid: To make a lobster roll, you need to mince the meat, except the real deal is a mountainous mix of chunks of fresh lobster mixed with a dab of mayonnaise and celery. Except that's a mortal sin in swatches of New England where no mayo at all is the only way to do it. Except, any patriarchal New Englander will tell you, a true lobster roll needs only a sheen of mayo and drizzle of butter, to serve as a binder if nothing else. Except that's wrong, because the finest binder in the world is a cardboard boat, which squeezes the sides of the bread and pushes the lobster meat upward. Except that's dumb, because it's disingenuous -- the last thing a roll needs is the appearance of being generous.

-Christopher Borelli, "Lobster rolls in Chicago: A search for a taste of New England", Chicago Tribune (3 Sep 2009) page 5:1

Last revised 25 Feb 2012
If the wrong answer is "The Beach Boys", what's the question?