Poor Mojo's Newswire

"Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures ... one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day." And thus began our ten-week course.

This was an insidiously brilliant technique to focus our attention - by offering an open invitation for students to challenge his statements, he transmitted lessons that lasted far beyond the immediate subject matter and taught us to constantly checksum new statements and claims with what we already accept as fact. Early in the quarter, the Lie of the Day was usually obvious - immediately triggering a forest of raised hands to challenge the falsehood. Dr. K would smile, draw a line through that section of the board, and utter his trademark phrase "Very good! In fact, the opposite is true. Moving on ... "

As the quarter progressed, the Lie of the Day became more subtle, and many ended up slipping past a majority of the students unnoticed until a particularly alert person stopped the lecture to flag the disinformation. Every once in a while, a lecture would end with nobody catching the lie which created its own unique classroom experience - in any other college lecture, end of the class hour prompts a swift rush of feet and zipping up of bookbags as students make a beeline for the door; on the days when nobody caught the lie, we all sat in silence, looking at each other as Dr. K, looking quite pleased with himself, said with a sly grin: "Ah ha! Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. Discuss amongst yourselves what it might be, and I will tell you next Monday. That is all." Those lectures forced us to puzzle things out, work out various angles in study groups so we could approach him with our theories the following week.

The suggestion seems to be that reading is a chore, something to be planned for rather than enjoyed in a free moment. But surely the day is full of potential moments to open a book: waiting for a bus, over lunch, in bed... and now, in the workplace. Dailylit.com puts paid to the excuse about not finding time for good books; now the books come to you, as daily morsels in your inbox. Over 800 books have been divided into bite-size pieces to be emailed to you every day. The books are complete editions and each instalment takes just a few minutes to read - as much time as it takes to update your Facebook profile.

The American site evolved out of the founders' realisation that they were spending hours each day on the internet but struggled to find time to read. Further inspiration came when the New York Times serialised classic novels and they found they enjoyed incorporating reading into their daily routine.

In addition, the university will waive room and board fees for students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.

University President John Hennessy will make the announcement today on campus, university Provost John Etchemendy confirmed late Tuesday.

The university is making the change in the wake of published reports last month that its endowment had grown almost 22 percent last year, to $17.1 billion. That sum had begun to attract attention from lawmakers who want wealthy institutions to do more to reduce tuition costs.