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May 25, 2012, 03:12 PM ET

So You Want to Be a Chair?

Recently I spent a couple of days at one of the Council of Independent Colleges' Department and Division Chair Workshops in Indianapolis. The CIC hosts these professional-development workshops for (mostly new) department, program, and division chairs to help them network, be more effective and, frankly, to give them evidence that they are not alone in their professional challenges. These workshops consist of a variety of sessions of interest to chairs, including developing and supporting adjunct faculty, working with institutional budgets, managing hiring and evaluation processes to maximize outcomes and minimize legal risk, and dealing with difficult colleagues. Each session is facilitated by an experienced senior administrator (that was why I was there) or an appropriately qualified attorney or other professional. One of the things that the chairs in attendance noted was that few of ... Read More
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May 24, 2012, 02:04 PM ET

Buzzwords That Belittle

As my colleagues and I gathered recently to hear our new interim president address the college, we knew the news would not be good. And it wasn't. For the upcoming academic year, at least, we're probably looking at larger classes, increased teaching loads, furlough days, a virtual moratorium on travel, and perhaps even layoffs. And yet, as we filed out of the auditorium afterwards, the prevailing mood seemed to be one of optimism. That's partly, I think, because we have confidence in our new "pilot" to pull the plane out of its nosedive. But it was also due, in no small part, to the fact that we had just been addressed as if we were intelligent adults. Missing completely from the interim president's remarks were meaningless platitudes, patronizing buzzwords, and blatant aggrandizement. In their place were difficult truths, stated plainly and succinctly, with little in the way of... Read More

May 23, 2012, 02:29 PM ET

A Weekend Without E-mail

Last weekend none of us had access to our e-mail. Our university was migrating its e-mail program, so we were given several weeks' notice that we would be cut off from the world from 5 p.m. on Friday to some time on Monday. The response to this pending communication vacuum prompted reactions ranging from panic to euphoria. After an initial bout of anxiety, I moved to a Zen-like state of acceptance as I pondered what it might be like to have a whole weekend without interruptions. My time spent not reading e-mail was put to very good use: a long hike, dinner with friends, cleaning out my garage and, importantly, thinking about why I hate e-mail. After a couple of days of reflection, it occurred to me I don't really hate e-mail, I just hate the way certain people use it. After careful consideration, I narrowed down my top five e-mail pet peeves: 1) Writing too much. I recently heard a... Read More

May 22, 2012, 09:07 AM ET

On Not Squandering the Summer

When I began attending the department’s monthly professional-development seminars at the outset of my doctoral program, the job search seemed a long way off. To be honest, it still seemed distant this time last year when all my attention was focused on exams and my dissertation. I knew I would be on the market in the fall, but, until the MLA released the Job Information List (JIL) in mid-September, I figured I could put off the labor of preparing my application materials. After all, I kept my CV up-to-date and I had drafted a statement of teaching philosophy as part of that professional-development series. I couldn't have been more wrong. When the list appeared I found that several of the jobs I was interested in wanted their applications completed by the second week in October. Predictably, the teaching statement I wrote two years before no longer fit me, and then there were requests... Read More

May 21, 2012, 08:52 AM ET

Reputation Building Through Aca-letics

Buzz Bissinger’s recent Wall Street Journal column advocated for the elimination of college football, striking many a nerve in academe. His argument included his belief that athletics ends up undermining quality academics on many campuses. As I pondered the institutions named in the column, I remembered something a mentor told me when I was on the job market. He indicated that you could move into faculty positions south and west of your doctoral alma mater, but rarely north and east, but he further indicated that football-conference affiliations dominated hiring patterns. Southeastern Conference institutions, for example, will hire graduates of other major bowl conferences (PAC 10, Big 12, etc.) but rarely will hire the "lesser" championship conference institutions. His advice was anecdotal, of course, but in the context of Bissinger’s essay, there is some substance to the concept.... Read More

May 17, 2012, 01:42 PM ET

Right Idea (with Some Wrong Information)

I received a strange e-mail a few weeks ago. It was a Change.org petition, made by a group of students, to allow one of our adjuncts to teach English 102, "Introduction to Literary Genres." The e-mailed petition was sent to all of the college's students, faculty members, and staffers, and reads: "Give [Name Removed] the opportunity to teach English 102." "We, the students of Richard Bland College, respectfully request that [Name Removed] be allowed to teach English 102 (Intro to literary genres) during the upcoming semester. Every signature on this list is either from a student who has taken [the faculty member's] class and feels that his encouragement of expression and opinion speaks to us as students, or from a faculty member who can validate the aforementioned claims. [Name Removed] is a gifted teacher and it is widely known that he has wanted to teach English 102 for some time.... Read More

May 16, 2012, 01:41 PM ET

Curious Works Better Than Furious

During a recent dinner party, several of us engaged in a spirited conversation about end of the semester grade appeals. Because I teach only in the fall, my May is gloriously free of e-mails, calls, and visits from students bent on educating me on the grades they truly deserve, but most of my party colleagues were bracing themselves for the usual onslaught of complaints. I was particularly happy to be in a non-grading mode because I am still suffering from PTGD (Post Traumatic Grading Disorder). I do not have a history of PTGD, so its sudden onset last December took me by surprise. The first signs of the condition emerged toward the latter part of a five-hour layover at Chicago's O'Hare Airport when I was finally able to click the "submit grades" button a full hour before it was time to move to the gate area. The semester was finally over. I was done. I was relieved. That sense of... Read More

May 15, 2012, 11:55 AM ET

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Teachers

A couple of years ago, I went back to high school. No, my life is not like a bad movie on the Disney Channel. I actually found myself, after nearly 30 years, back on a couple of high-school campuses. I was at one school to teach dual-enrollment college classes and at another (my son's school) to help out as a volunteer coach. What I discovered is that I'm glad I don't have to spend all of my time at high schools. My decision to become a college professor instead of a school teacher was, in retrospect, the right one. In fact, I'll go a step further and say that I hope none of my kids becomes a high-school or grade-school teacher, even though I know at least one of them is thinking about it. I'd much rather they chose a career where the working conditions are slightly less stressful and stifling, such as TSA agent or pro-western journalist in Iran. Don't get me wrong: Teaching at any... Read More

May 14, 2012, 11:46 AM ET

A Learning Environment for All

Do you ever have students who don't fit in? My community-college classes are both more homogenous and more diverse than I experienced in my undergraduate career; a slim majority of students are Spanish speakers and about two-thirds are Hispanic. But unlike my university life where we were almost all the same age, I teach classes with students from 16 to 60. That's not even mentioning the vast disparity in terms of socioeconomic status. Older students sometimes have a hard time blending. They may be shy in a classroom after many years away; they may take things more seriously than kids just out of high school; maybe they are uncomfortable with technological demands. I'm sure there are other reasons as well. Whatever the case, helping these older students work well in groups is a challenge I face each semester. The other group of students who seem to need special care in the social... Read More

May 11, 2012, 01:43 PM ET

Formerly of the University of the Titanic

So, let's say you are a tenured faculty member at a troubled institution. It may be a crisis of leadership, a cliff's edge of a budget from the state, or even the kind of torpor that sometimes overtakes a place. Or, let's say you are three or four years into the tenure track but it has become clear that the department/university is not going in the direction you had hoped and you now must commence a search in order to maintain your sanity and preserve your career long term. Your résumé is spotless, your reputation is equally as unsullied, but you are now fielding phone interviews and one question keeps coming up: "Why are you on the market?" Other than saying that you feel like you are serving at the University of the Titanic, you are at a loss for what to say to explain your reasons for looking elsewhere. If you speak ill of your current employers, however, you risk sounding like one... Read More