As I perused the stacks of books in the exhibition area of a recent conference, I started eavesdropping on a nearby conversation between two young men who were discussing their dissertations. I chuckled when I heard their exchange of dissertation-ese that was loaded with jargon and used overly complicated sentence structures.

Several past threads in the Chronicle forums have noted the importance of understanding that job candidates must learn to use care in discussing their dissertations in job interviews. The reality is that while their dissertations are the most important things in their lives at the moment, once defended, those dissertations will pass into a kind of academic purgatory. For most faculty members, especially those at teaching institutions, new projects will come along, new course preps, and...

• Virginia Commonwealth University expects to cut 91 jobs over the next two years, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. Meanwhile, the University of Nebraska system could slash hundreds of jobs if Gov. Dave Heineman's proposed budget cuts go through, the Omaha World-Herald reports.

• Colgate University has named Jeffrey Herbst, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Miami University of Ohio, as its next president. He'll replace Lyle Roelofs, who has been serving as interim president since Rebecca S. Chopp left earlier this...

The days of research sabbaticals and teaching-load reductions are taking, shall we say, their own sabbatical for a while. For those who are employed at teaching-intensive institutions and strive to maintain active scholarly agendas, this is a significant problem, especially if the cuts to such programs are timed with a book contract or significant grant opportunity.

There are other load tricks, however, that sometimes can help faculty members who are trying to sustain their scholarly production. I've seen teaching schedules consolidated to three or four days to allow for at least a bit of extended time to write. I've seen course assignments altered to reduce the number of preps in a given semester. I've seen enrollment caps in sections quietly reduced to cut down on grading loads. I've even seen courses shifted from fall or spring semesters to summer terms to free up a...

Dilbert once had a story arc about the horrible trinkets and tokens that corporate employers give out to recognize employee contributions. The most common ones are probably logo shirts that only come in XXS or XXXL or the infamous logo belt buckles that are designed to fit rodeo-clown belts. Higher education is not immune to such trinkets. When I was a student, I always thought that faculty members had first crack at all the really nice swag, things like sweatshirts and ball caps and the occasional coffee mug. Then I became a faculty member and started getting the ill-fitting T-shirts, belt buckles, and key fobs that fall apart after five minutes. On the other hand, I have landed some sweet logo pens over the years, along with one or two sweatshirts and some nice golf shirts.

Poor budget years, however, seem to do away with the good stuff and increase the junk. When...

My last entry on small private colleges' need to find faculty members who can cover a wide range of courses was inspired by comments I heard at various sessions of the Council of Independent Colleges' annual institute for chief academic officers. Another interesting, and somewhat related conversation occurred at the dinner meeting of the CAOs at Presbyterian colleges, which was sponsored by the Association of Presbyterian Colleges & Universities. The discussion, led by Robert Holyer, Provost at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC, concerned recruiting and socializing new faculty members to meet the mission of member colleges in APCU.

APCU institutions have a wide range of missions and characters. A couple of the CAOs participating in the...

Several articles in The Chronicle (including this piece in The Chronicle Review and my recent column) have discussed U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander's proposal in Newsweek that we increase opportunities for undergraduate degrees to be completed in three years. His proposal has been influential because of his past service as a former University of Tennessee president and as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. In administrative circles, this discussion is ramping up considerably. Federal and state governments have a sense that it will provide a means of relief for budgets, and families believe that it may save both tuition dollars and lost income...

I've spent the past several days at the Council of Independent Colleges' annual Institute for Chief Academic Officers. The CIC is an association of small and midsize private institutions that offers its members developmental conferences such as this one, a similar one for presidents, a series of workshops for chairs, and other programs and projects including a valuable tuition-exchange program for children of faculty and staff members.

While a number of the more elite private institutions are members, for the most part the academic officers attending this institute were from the less rarified strata of private higher education. As such, many of the discussions revolved around the issues that have been the subject of my entries here for some time: attracting and retaining a strong faculty out of the limelight of prestige and outside compelling locations; how graduate...

Hundreds of students at the University of Maryland at College Park marched on the administration building last Thursday to protest the dismissal of Cordell Black, a popular diversity officer who has occupied his post for 18 years, The Washington Post reports.

Mr. Black will be let go as associate provost for equity and diversity at the end of the year as part of a university effort to cut costs. The university plans to fill the position with a part-time administrator. However, Mr. Black, as a tenured professor, may remain on the faculty, the newspaper reports.

The Post described the demonstration as "one of the largest demonstrations at the College Park campus since the Vietnam War era." According to the newspaper ...

The mood during...

When I became an academic administrator, one of my mentors encouraged me to always try to remember what it feels like to be a faculty member who grades hundreds of freshman-composition papers in a semester or who needs summers "off" to do even a minimal amount of scholarship or who gnashes clenched teeth at ineffective committee meetings.

I was pondering that conversation the other day and spent a little time assessing what I have and haven't remembered, especially about being an entry-level faculty member. I hope I can keep this warning in mind throughout my career so that I can better encourage faculty members through my role as dean.

What do you wish administrators could continue to remember about being faculty members?

Over at Crooked Timber, Michael Bérubé describes how "extra extra dismal" this year's job market looks to be in modern languages. Why the extra "extra"? Well, because ...

the effects of the Great Collapse of 2008 are only hitting this part of the academic machinery now.  Colleges and universities have already taken—and administered—hits elsewhere, via salary cuts and/or freezes, furloughs, elimination of travel and research budgets, etc.  And I don’t know how many searches were cancelled last year after being advertised.  But I do know that in the modern languages, we might be looking at a 50 percent dropoff in jobs from last year, and there’s no federal stimulus coming to bail us out. ...

He goes on to explain that in recent years...