Monday, August 24, 2009
How to be happy in academe
This article bears repeating given today's real circumstances at most colleges and universities across the country. We're lucky that our upper administration successfully planned ahead and we haven't had to deal with furloughs or non-renewals. So far, we're just not filling all the spaces people leave behind. And while we will do our best to meet students needs, they will have to deal with more financial realities - not taking classes they don't need and following advisement to take required classes when available instead of putting them off until it's too late.
Luckily, we have an upbeat mood on campus and that's always a good way to start the semester.
Luckily, we have an upbeat mood on campus and that's always a good way to start the semester.
Labels: Chronicle, finances, professors, reality, students
Monday, February 02, 2009
How not to lose face on Facebook - from CHE
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
I arrived on Facebook courtesy of recent graduates who needed to keep in touch regarding teaching jobs and, quite possibly, because I was in their address book and they sent out "friend" invitations to everyone there, including old professors like me.
I've also experienced a student using the notes in Facebook as a "rate my professor" venting exercise even though he wasn't even my student but was just passing on what he had "heard". Another student brought it to my attention which meant action had to be taken - esp. when the student pointed out that this was embarrassing to everyone at the university, not just this student.
Most people of "my generation" are on Facebook to keep an eye on their teenage children and others become quite addicted when they find everyone they went to high school with. I found out the hard way that I don't want to know where everyone (all 232 of them) I went to high school with ended up. For me, it's been a less formal version of LinkedIn.
I actually prefer LinkedIn but no one seems to use it nearly as much as they do Facebook.
But I like the sharing features on other sites such as the New York Times that more commonly link to Facebook than to LinkedIn.
The primary rule that the author of this article didn't point out is that it's best to let your student friend you and not inappropriately friend them. And, even with graduate students I would advise caution given that that particular relationship can change in character over time - especially if the grad student gets distracted by their real life or doesn't pursue a research topic in the same way the professor would like them to do.
All in all, it pays to be cautious.
Venting to her friends on Facebook one night, a religion professor at Dartmouth College updated her profile to say that she had just consulted an online encyclopedia entry on "modernity" to prepare for her class the next day.
"I feel like such a fraud," she wrote on her profile. "Do you think dartmouth parents would be upset about paying $40,000 a year for their children to go here if they knew that certain professors were looking up stuff on Wikipedia and asking for advice from their Facebook friends on the night before the lecture?"
Her profile featured other comments as well, including a dig at her colleagues: "Some day, when i am chair, we're all going to JOG IN PLACE throughout the meeting. this should knock out at least half of the faculty within 10 minutes (especially the blowhards) & then the meeting can be ended in a timely manner."
Ouch.
I arrived on Facebook courtesy of recent graduates who needed to keep in touch regarding teaching jobs and, quite possibly, because I was in their address book and they sent out "friend" invitations to everyone there, including old professors like me.
I've also experienced a student using the notes in Facebook as a "rate my professor" venting exercise even though he wasn't even my student but was just passing on what he had "heard". Another student brought it to my attention which meant action had to be taken - esp. when the student pointed out that this was embarrassing to everyone at the university, not just this student.
Most people of "my generation" are on Facebook to keep an eye on their teenage children and others become quite addicted when they find everyone they went to high school with. I found out the hard way that I don't want to know where everyone (all 232 of them) I went to high school with ended up. For me, it's been a less formal version of LinkedIn.
I actually prefer LinkedIn but no one seems to use it nearly as much as they do Facebook.
But I like the sharing features on other sites such as the New York Times that more commonly link to Facebook than to LinkedIn.
The primary rule that the author of this article didn't point out is that it's best to let your student friend you and not inappropriately friend them. And, even with graduate students I would advise caution given that that particular relationship can change in character over time - especially if the grad student gets distracted by their real life or doesn't pursue a research topic in the same way the professor would like them to do.
All in all, it pays to be cautious.
Labels: CHE, Facebook, Linked In, online networking, professors, students, Web 2.0
Monday, June 30, 2008
Playing Welll With Others
This Chronicle article points to a not often recognized yet readily acknowledged fact of academic life - the fact that a significant number of academics do not play well with others and, more importantly, don't necessarily want to do so. This one took me a long time to figure out. Here's the essay author's take:
The Function of Dysfunction
An associate professor ponders the cause and effect of academic infighting
By NATHAN REESON [a pseudonym]
"I know something about academic infighting. After all, I was at Duke University when the English department famously imploded in the 1990s. The collapse was headline news in The New York Times. According to The Times, the department's decline was seen, in part, as the inevitable result of its attempt to buy its way to the top. You just can't shark up academic celebrities, the article observed, and expect them to get along. With so many international egos in one place, a blowup is bound to happen.
Since leaving Duke, I've discovered that you don't need world-class critics to have first-rate fireworks. Nobody in my current department would qualify as an academic superstar, but it's not unheard of for meetings to end with somebody stomping out and slamming a door. Even when everybody sticks around, things aren't always civil: Some faculty members silently pout. Others snort derisively and roll their eyes. And still others hurl insults and curses."
He goes on to offer the excuse that maybe academics fight because they like intellectual exchange. I would argue that those outside the ivory tower also like intellectual exchange but don't have to slam doors or roll their eyes (at least not in front of everyone) to make their point at a meeting.
It has more to do with having to earn the "first spot" in the seminar class in graduate school in which you have the "best right" answer. The problem is that, in real life, there is rarely one best answer and one needs to move forward. But, when academics go at it from another angle, there is often too much emphasis on process - my guess is to make sure that we've thought absolutely everything through. We do not, however, acknowledge that even if we think of every possible contingency, we can control the outcome. Some of us even try to control our research by determining the outcome of our scholarship and only looking at sources that confirm that outcome. (Someone forgot to tell me that one, too, early on. I thought I was supposed to look at all the sources.)
You can read the rest of the article here: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/06/2008063001c.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
(The line of formatting options is absent for some reason this morning.)
The glass half version of this story is that many of us do seek out those that play well with others, or at least those that play well with us . . .
The Function of Dysfunction
An associate professor ponders the cause and effect of academic infighting
By NATHAN REESON [a pseudonym]
"I know something about academic infighting. After all, I was at Duke University when the English department famously imploded in the 1990s. The collapse was headline news in The New York Times. According to The Times, the department's decline was seen, in part, as the inevitable result of its attempt to buy its way to the top. You just can't shark up academic celebrities, the article observed, and expect them to get along. With so many international egos in one place, a blowup is bound to happen.
Since leaving Duke, I've discovered that you don't need world-class critics to have first-rate fireworks. Nobody in my current department would qualify as an academic superstar, but it's not unheard of for meetings to end with somebody stomping out and slamming a door. Even when everybody sticks around, things aren't always civil: Some faculty members silently pout. Others snort derisively and roll their eyes. And still others hurl insults and curses."
He goes on to offer the excuse that maybe academics fight because they like intellectual exchange. I would argue that those outside the ivory tower also like intellectual exchange but don't have to slam doors or roll their eyes (at least not in front of everyone) to make their point at a meeting.
It has more to do with having to earn the "first spot" in the seminar class in graduate school in which you have the "best right" answer. The problem is that, in real life, there is rarely one best answer and one needs to move forward. But, when academics go at it from another angle, there is often too much emphasis on process - my guess is to make sure that we've thought absolutely everything through. We do not, however, acknowledge that even if we think of every possible contingency, we can control the outcome. Some of us even try to control our research by determining the outcome of our scholarship and only looking at sources that confirm that outcome. (Someone forgot to tell me that one, too, early on. I thought I was supposed to look at all the sources.)
You can read the rest of the article here: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/06/2008063001c.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
(The line of formatting options is absent for some reason this morning.)
The glass half version of this story is that many of us do seek out those that play well with others, or at least those that play well with us . . .
Labels: academics, Chroncile, colleagues, ivory tower, professors
Monday, October 29, 2007
Fit
From Inside Higher Ed, more food for thought . . . (or, are students customers)
o I thought I would try to fit in better. I compared my reading load and teaching style with that of Professor Queenbee, whose pedagogy I respected, who was popular, but who also had a reputation for being rigorous. The page count was the same. I couldn’t understand what the problem could be, so I resorted to asking a student why her peers objected to my reading assignments. “You expect us to answer questions about them!” she said in their defense. “Professor Queenbee just tells us what they say.” I guess I just don’t like my students enough to do that for them.
Labels: collegiality, customers, professors, students, teaching
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Students and Professors
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