Ahh, negativity, or My Extremely Opportunistic, Half-Assed Freshman Year

In the spirit of full disclosure, I had to read this whole book last semester, and I have serious problems with it.
First off, I have no idea how this book ever got past NAU's IRB.
There was something about having to conceal the name of the university and the author (Rebekah Nathan). But the author was outed by The New York Sun, and that was picked up by USA Today before the book came out. The author's real name is Cathy Small (NAU Faculty page)
Nathan (before she was revealed as Small) said she would never be able to speak publicly in relation to the book, but according to her NAU faculty page "Dr. Small is spending this year speaking at more than 30 different universities and national conferences about how to apply the results of her ethnographic findings while she focuses on teaching her own students the connections between ethnography, policy, and public practice. "
Oh, and she's getting paid for it.
And she sells a boat load of copies to universities as required reading (as if students need someone to tell them what being a student is like).
She also sells tons of copies to professors and administrators hoping to gain some insight into the mysterious freshman animal.
You'd think they could, perhaps, talk to the freshmen?
There are a few interesting points brought up by Small, but nothing that the average observant person wouldn't gain from being on a college campus or communicating to students.
Her research is also inherently flawed and unethical. She failed to get releases from most of her subjects. She audited all of her classes the first semester and didn't even take classes the second semester. She lived in an upper class dorm, not a freshman dorm.
At one point she stalks a minority student in the cafeteria, following her around the room, and across campus to her dorm, then commenting on how the student didn't sit down in the cafeteria with others.
Perhaps because there was a strange old white woman following her taking notes.
I wonder if anyone reads Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture a similar project undertaken in the late 70s and early 80s at Rutgers by Michael Moffatt, an anthropology professor (Who used his real name at all times).
Probably not.
But, I guess this at least gets the "conversation" going and makes out-of-touch administrators and faculty, who, like Small, fail to recognize their own university's buildings if not entering from the parking lot side, think of students as...
Well, I don't know. I was going to say people rather than caricatures, but I'm not sure Small's book paints these students as people.