The poet Robert Dana died this month, at the age of 80. For 40 of those years, he was on the faculty at Cornell College, in Mount Vernon, Iowa. In his work there, he taught thousands of students, worked on countless committees, served his department and his school, and saw new colleagues come and go.
   
He also published 10 full-length books of poetry, two books of prose, and a variety of other works. Two of his books are forthcoming posthumously. After his retirement from Cornell, he continued to write, give readings, travel, and meet with his former students and colleagues all over the country and around the world. In 2004-6 he was Iowa's honorary poet laureate.
   
Robert Dana was the kind of small-college professor the academy is losing quickly, much to our hurt. An extraordinarily accomplished writer, he chose to remain at Cornell, to work with its students and enjoy the life it...

In a recent post, Historiann laments the departure of three associate-professor colleagues and wonders whether associate professors in history are more mobile today than they were, say, a couple of decades ago. She writes:

I've noticed a lot more movement at the Associate level in history hires in the past five or ten years than I was led to believe existed 15 or 20 years ago. I've been invited to apply for some jobs at the Associate level, too. When I was in graduate school and making my first forays onto the job market, the conventional wisdom was that all of the movement was at the Assistant Professor level, and that if you were tenured somewhere you were pretty much stuck there unless and until you turned into a "star" who was recruited somewhere else at the full Professor rank. Are any of you seeing the same thing?

An interesting discussion ensues. One respondent, Perpetua,...

In a recent post, Female Science Professor considers the "not-uncommon" gripe voiced by many an anxious professor who is going up for tenure — that those "deciding their Fate" had it easier in their day and would probably not win tenure under today's tougher standards — and wonders, by extension, whether the tenure process is a just one:

"How can the process be fair if people unqualified for tenure today participate in decisions about the tenure of others?," she asks.

But hold on a minute. Few would dispute that tenure bar keeps being raised, but how can we know "whether someone who had too-low-for-tenure-today productivity way back when would rise to the challenge of today's standards or not"?, she asks. Sure, she's met the odd deadbeat senior professor here and there who seems to have succeeded because ... well, who knows why? FSP admits: "These particular senior professors have...

One of the more "minor" lines in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 was the requirement that institutions collect textbook information earlier and post it publicly, including ISBN's. The American Council on Education published a guide to help institutions adjust to the new mandate. For good or for ill, the former monopoly that had been held by college bookstores has been substantially reduced by this act.

We have now had a full year of seeing how the guidelines have affected book orders on a widespread basis, and some faculty members complain the deadlines are simply too early. New books will be released in the next few months, new editions will be released, and other logistical issues can complicate meeting the deadlines. Moreover, some fall semester courses will not be added to the schedule until after the first published deadlines. On the other hand, department chairs report ...

• Brandeis University, a nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored research institution, may wind up axing its undergraduate major in Hebrew language and literature, as well as its undergraduate minor in Yiddish and East European Jewish culture, in an effort to slash its long-term budget, The Ticker reports. The theater department's graduate design program, among other programs, could also be on the chopping block if a faculty panel's proposals are adopted by the university's board in March. 

• Joseph R. Urgo, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Hamilton College, in N.Y., will become the next president of St. Mary's College of Maryland on July 1, The Washington Post reports. He'll succeed Larry Vote, who has been serving as interim president of the college since Margaret O'Brien retired last summer. See a St. Mary's College press release for details.

• Gary W. Streit, president...

Perhaps you have heard the apocryphal story about the aged professor who accidently drops his well-yellowed lecture notes and watches them disintegrate into dust. In the version I heard as a graduate student, he slumped to the floor and wept like Alexander the Great over his final conquest, finally being led from the room and into retirement.

When I heard that tale, I thought about one of my own history professors, "Dr. Charming," who used the same lecture notes for our class that he had used for students of my father's generation. After class one afternoon, I stopped to ask a question and saw that the pages of the loose-leaf notebook he used were yellowed, crinkled and spotted with age and coffee stains. Since the course was on ancient history and he was fairly curmudgeonly, I'm sure that he would joke that not much had happened to update the subject lately. As a point of fact, though,...

One of the faculty duties I found perplexing when I started my career was that of student advising. My personal experience as an undergraduate student was less than pleasant, so I wanted to do a good job, but I wasn’t sure where to turn. My department provided me with some general forms to help guide me, and I reviewed the catalog fairly closely, but figuring out things like course rotations in other departments made me paranoid that I would fail to provide accurate advice.

I think that most students seem to want advisers who will merely "punch" their registration cards, providing them with the necessary passwords or whatever might be required for self-registration. A few seek advisers who will double as mentors, but most students seem to want the path of least resistance (and accountability). I have to say, though, that in my role as dean this creates one of the most significant...

Like probably every other academic in the United States, and especially like every administrator with authority over hiring, tenure, and promotion, I have been reflecting over the past few days on the tragedy at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I feel the shock and sorrow of the university, and mourn for all the victims, including the family of Amy Bishop. I have been reading commentary and news stories, and have been closely following several threads on the Chronicle Forums, particularly an extensive discussion of the role of university personnel policies in possibly fostering workplace violence.

I've also discussed the issue with several colleagues, including staff members at The Chronicle, and am trying to figure out how to find areas where understanding of events such as the Huntsville shootings might be possible. In my role as an administrator, I am also intensely...

One of the tasks administrators, including department chairs, often undertake is donor relations. I don't mean donors who bring checks but rather donors who bring "things." I have heard story after story about the strange and diverse things that had come into departmental offices: collections of National Geographic, blurry snapshots of grandma's vacation in England's Lake District, Uncle Jack's butterfly collection, Aunt Junie's hand-painted china, or even a group of random books purchased online.

A few donations are helpful or even valuable; when such lightning strikes, it is exciting and noteworthy. Most, however, are just really not that useful. Online archives have replaced many of the magazine and photo needs, most amateur specimen collections are of limited pedagogical use, and other donations are sort of a different form of the Christmas fruitcake swap. In the worst-case scenario...

I've mentioned before and am happy to mention again that one of my favorite commentators on higher-education issues is Claire Potter of Wesleyan University, who blogs as Tenured Radical. One of her recent posts advocating a return to smaller class sizes caught my eye both because I agree with what she says and because I know how difficult it would be to get it done.

At the moment, I'm the chair of a working group at my institution that's looking at issues of faculty teaching load in hopes of redistributing some of that load to other activities that demonstrably have positive effects on student learning and success after graduation. One of our guiding documents is George Kuh's booklet, High Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter, published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 2008.

Tenured Radical makes some...