August 29, 2011, 10:07 AM ET
Three years ago, at the start of my first fall here, we planted
five or six apple trees along the back line of our acreage. In the
intervening time, one has died and been replaced, we’ve added
another couple, and the others are growing at a mysterious rate
determined by weather, soil quality, and sunshine. Right now, one
of these trees has one little apple on its branches, the first
we’ve had on any of our fruit trees. Recently the metaphor of
growing fruit trees has begun to take over my thinking about how
institutions change, not only relative to faculty hiring but also
in terms of the various projects we undertake each year, the
reforms we try to implement, the planning we do, and the processes
we follow. The applicability of the fruit-tree metaphor to hiring
faculty should be clear. You recruit new faculty to the university,
plant them there, tend them according to your...
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August 25, 2011, 03:37 PM ET
In
my last post, I described my annoyance at being asked to
provide career advice to a person who had never been particularly
nice to me. In fact, this guy had, for years, been dismissive and
sarcastic during most of our encounters. I found his
out-of-the-blue request that we "do lunch as soon as possible so I
can pick your brain" call and series of pushy, "urgent" e-mail
messages asking for job leads, reference letters, and CV guidance
to be galling given his very bad past behavior. As I noted in last
week's post, I wanted to respond to his e-mails in capital letters
with: "YOU HAVE BEEN CRANKY AND MEAN TO ME FOR YEARS, WHAT MAKES
YOU THINK I AM GOING TO COME TO YOUR RESCUE NOW?" Most of those who
commented on my post fell into two camps. One group supported my
interest in creating protective boundaries and suggested that I
provide only enough support so as not to appear rude. The...
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August 24, 2011, 01:00 PM ET
I have daddy
issues. I was 10 the last time I saw my father. I spoke to him once
later on the phone, but I never saw him again. He died in 2008. I
attended the funeral and went through emotions that I can't really
describe. I have written about my father, mostly to deal with these
emotions. In the composition classroom, I want my students to feel
comfortable enough to share their deepest emotions -- in discussion
maybe, but at least (and especially) in writing. Because of this, I
often bring my personal life into the classroom. I share with them
my daddy issues. I even let them read an unpublished narrative I
wrote called "Daddy Die Hard" about my father, my own fatherhood,
and the profound effect John McClane has had on my life. Usually,
their first response is "Who's John McClane?" If you're reading
this and you don't know, Google him. After I share some of my
personal life with...
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August 24, 2011, 12:59 PM ET
I am fascinated with the advent of “swag,” tokens of appreciation
for folks who attend something. Academe is not immune to this sort
of activity, as new faculty and staff find themselves on the
receiving end of all kinds of ‘welcome to campus’ gifts. I think
that at a minimum all new employees should receive a new t-shirt or
sweatshirt, a coffee mug, and perhaps something identified with the
region like a specialty food or beverage. The worst things I’ve
heard about were campus logo/mascot belt buckles (I have no idea
how many academics wear belts with interchangeable buckles at this
point in history), undersized (and therefore useless) polo shirts
with no-longer-used campus logos (obviously clearing out the
closets in advancement), and pens that only last for 20 minutes
worth of writing. What are the best ‘welcome to campus’ gifts
you’ve ever heard of? What are the...
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August 22, 2011, 02:25 PM ET
Perhaps, as
critics and even some supporters claim, the tenure system as we
know it is on its way out. But that doesn't mean the rest of us
have to sit idly by and watch it go without a fight. Indeed, now is
when we should be speaking up to defend tenure in whatever forums
are available to us--especially those that include nonacademics. We
need to be writing letters to our state and national
representatives, penning op-ed pieces for our local newspapers,
explaining the importance of tenure to our friends and neighbors.
If tenure is going to survive as a system, then we have to do
something to change the national attitude toward it, because right
now that attitude is pretty hostile. It's not enough to argue that
tenure is a good thing because we say so, and as academics we know
more about it than everybody else. That will merely solidify the
impression some people have of us as arrogant...
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August 18, 2011, 12:51 PM ET
Every one of us who's advised undergraduates has faced a student
new to campus who is utterly certain of her major, his eventual
career, her study-abroad plans, or other future plans. If one hangs
around long enough, one sees that these students' aspirations are
very rarely fulfilled, though more often than not they find even
more satisfying and suitable outcomes than they had originally
planned. My colleagues and I generally have been skeptical of such
students' initial certainty about their futures. Faculty members
know that students are often full of big plans, and, more
importantly, have made those plans based on limited or erroneous
information. New, traditional-aged undergraduate students rarely
have the experience or savvy to make wise decisions about their
futures, and as they discover more about their talents and
interests, it's not surprising for their plans to change. I...
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August 17, 2011, 12:30 PM ET
I got an interesting call this week. A person who has never been a
friend or even a particularly nice colleague contacted me to
schedule a lunch date. Why? It turns out he needs a job. One word,
or rather one sound: Grrrr ... Needing a job can be a scary, scary
situation, and I feel for this guy, but when I got his call and a
couple of pushy follow-up e-mails regarding when I would be
available to provide career advice and a list of leads, I wanted to
respond in capital letters, "YOU HAVE BEEN CRANKY AND MEAN TO ME
FOR YEARS, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I AM GOING TO COME TO YOUR RESCUE
NOW?" I probably sound harsh, but I am stunned that a person could
assume it is appropriate to expect special consideration when he
has never ever offered even the slightest bit of kindness during
the many years we have known each other. Will I do my best to send
opportunities his way? Of course. Will I knock...
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August 16, 2011, 11:04 AM ET
Now that a
landmark study conducted by the Community College Research Center
at Columbia University has confirmed that students at two-year
campuses perform worse in online courses than in the face-to-face
version, perhaps we can move on the important question: What can we
do about that? Many of the suggestions I've read -- from those not
still in denial -- have to do with improving the quality of online
teaching, offering institutional support for online students, and
so forth. I'm not sure that's the right approach, because my
impression is that most institutions are already doing those
things. A decade ago, when we first began noticing lower success
rates in online sections, our initial response was to work at
improving the courses and the way we offer them. By and large, we
succeeded. As a result, today's online campus is a far cry from the
early days of distance education, when ...
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August 15, 2011, 01:30 PM ET
For those of you pondering a move into an administrative position,
from department chair up or in any kind of staff position with
supervisory functions, it's important to scout the institutions
where you are applying before going too far in the process. I have
recommended in the past an extensive Web search of things like the
IRS Form 990 for private institutions (financial snapshots),
in-depth analysis of rankings such as those by the
U.S. News
& World Report, and even Google searches (especially in
the "news" mode). I have not, however, mentioned another document
that is exceptionally helpful: the institution's strategic plan.
The higher level the position, the more important it is to access
this information. Many institutions now post electronic copies of
strategic plans; if you are able to access more than one plan for
the university, it's easy to see the arc of the institution's...
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August 11, 2011, 04:26 PM ET
The other day, our director of admissions handed me a copy of Jean
M. Twenge's
Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are More
Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable than Ever
Before (Free Press, 2006). She suggested I read it to help
understand the challenges of marketing to, and recruiting,
potential undergraduate students who in her experience have a very
particular way of looking at themselves and their aspirations. On
that same day, coincidentally, I read for the first time Jill
Silos-Rooney's now highly controversial First Person essay in
The Chronicle,
"When It'll Never be a Good Fit." While I am wary of leaning
too hard on pop social science like Twenge's book, I found the
connections between it and Silos-Rooney's column to be instructive
and helpful as I think about recruiting faculty. I am not
interested in piling on Ms. Silos-Rooney, who is having a bad
time...
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On Hiring is The Chronicle's blog about the ins and outs of college hiring, with articles and advice from around the Web.