A new faculty member faces his demons
Category Archives: life around campus
We Have to Keep the Program Going, Right?
When I was in graduate school, we talked about professional ethics a lot. Would it be acceptable to take a job with a company that developed chemical warfare, that polluted, that destroyed the natural environment, that trashed communities? We veered … Continue reading
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My Wish was Granted
Remember my kvetching that we needed to hear something about the adjunctivization crisis from those conveniently silent PhD supervisors? Well, here’s one speaking up. I thought Michael Johnson Jr. had just written another of those pieces on how we all-powerful … Continue reading
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Nobody’s Ally
I’m nobody’s ally. Colleagues have stickers on their doors proclaiming that they are allies of this and that, but all I post is a sign-up calendar and (in winter) a notice proclaiming it to be the coldest office on campus. It’s … Continue reading
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Complicity and Naming Buildings
When I joined my current school, we only had one building named after a person. It was named after St. Clare of Assisi, who I knew only as the patron saint of television. In recent years, the school has gone … Continue reading
When do we get to talk in private?
So apparently this week’s news is that administrators at the University of Illinois used personal email accounts to discuss the Salaita case. I have to say, I don’t blame them one bit. They had a situation in which whatever they … Continue reading
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Mutiny on campus
This weekend my socks are steamed by a bit of gossip I heard at work. It goes like this: There’s one job where I work that most of us hate doing, but that needs to be done. The folks in … Continue reading
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#diediploidscum
Somebody came up to me and said “I hear you used to attend the Ginormous Convention of Eukaryotic Organisms, do you think that would be a good event to take students to?” Now, I flatter myself that I know our … Continue reading
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Do Accreditors give a darn about adjunctification? Let’s find out!
I use this blog mostly for stuff related to my writing and the occasional knitting pattern, but you can’t be in academia these days without noticing that it’s turning into a sweatshop, where PhDs are lucky if they make a … Continue reading
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The Mini-career roars along
I’ve posted before about my mini-scale writing career, and how it’s providing everything an author could want — only in smaller doses, without paparazzi. So I’ve received two fan emails, met two fans at conferences for lunch, posted one piece … Continue reading
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Kicking and Screaming
Here’s what I want: I want a dollar for every hour I’ve spent changing my life to cope with unnecessary upgrades. Why am I ranting? Right now, it’s because of Windows 7. Our school implemented Windows 7 over the summer, … Continue reading
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