The publishing world lost two pillars of academic support this week, as Stanford University shuttered a publishing program and a Columbia University professor has postponed his book review seminar.

According to a Publishers Marketplace (subscription only) report, the Stanford Publishing Course for Professionals has ended after more than 30 years of teaching publishing. Here's more form the gloomy article: "Longtime director Holly Brady is leaving Stanford--saying she 'expects to continue the conversation from another vantage point here in Silicon Valley'--and her staff has been dismissed."

On the other side of the country, Columbia English professor James Shapiro has put his book reviewing seminar for undergraduates on "infinite hiatus." Blaming the rapidly-eroding pay scale for book reviewers in the age of blogs, Shapiro explained in a NY Observer article: "[W]hat's no longer there is the possibility of training a generation of book reviewers since, as you know, newspapers around the country are shedding their book reviews, or shrinking these sections."