Historical Archives
Yesterday, I sent a link to my faculty of the “Top 100 Liberal Arts Bloggers.” I recognized quite a few of the names and thought that it might make interesting summer reading. I, in fact, billed it as such–like beach reading. I got a response pretty quickly from someone saying that he/she was disappointed that…
I’m getting all my good ideas from Dean Dad lately. Yesterday he writes about golf serving as a generational boundary. The comments are especially good and I’d recommend reading this one from Eyebrows McGee. He gets at some of the complexities behind Dean Dad’s discomfort with “Of course, there’ll be golf.” It’s about jobs, economics,…
Dean Dad comments on the IHE article from yesterday about studies showing that academics have fewer kids than other professionals. Dean Dad asks specifically how we make this work. Honestly, it’s gotten easier as the kids have gotten older, but it’s still hard. I especially feel guilty that I can’t be here when my kids…
The whole concept of intellectual has been a mainstay of my life since at least my sophomore year in college. Before that, I didn’t really think about it much, caught as I was in the tug-of-war between being popular and being smart. In high school, I abandoned my studies to drink and date, but while…
I have some random thoughts I want to capture here that I’ve been thinking about over the last few days. I haven’t exactly figured out how this all ties together or exactly what I think, but I’m putting it out there anyway. I’ve written before about the ways in which administrative work is intellectual work…
I’ve had this post brewing for a while, but New Kid’s recent post where she contemplates leaving academe prompted me to actually write it. The dilemma faced by many faculty thinking of leaving is wondering whether work outside of academe will offer intellectual challenges and rewards or if it will turn them into mindless corporate…
An article in the Chronicle this morning is very apropos to something that I’ve been witnessing a lot of lately. This semester, my colleagues and I have been the recipients of very uncollegial communications. These have come from primarily faculty and students (at least what I’ve seen) and not staff. It’s difficult to respond to…
Dean Dad has written a couple of posts recently that take on the sacred cow of tenure. It’s a theme that comes up again and again in the academic blogosphere. I think Dean Dad, New Kid, Dr. Crazy, and others have done an excellent job of covering several different perspectives on the issue. I have…
Last night, I made my way through this article on the use of digital resources by humanities and social sciences faculty. There was a considerable amount of food for thought, some good, some not so good. I was reading it with an eye toward finding a clue as to how to improve our own services.…
Ugh, the bill with the horrid p2p provisions passed the house without a word about those provisions. For further reading: Kenneth Green on the bill I’m disgusted. Update: Didn’t pass the house–just the committee. But the vote was unanimous. Sigh. Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the…
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