In recent conversations with more than 36 faculty members, representing a three-fold increase over the number of respondents to The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, the project run by Harvard's Graduate School of Education based on interviews with 12 professors, it was determined that all academics born between 1919 and 1964 also believe they should not have to work more than 60 hours a week to be successful.

To be more precise, most believed that four hours a week was "really quite enough, when it comes right down to it" and several suggested that "there should also be free donuts."

"Hell," said Dr. G, a professor of history born in 1943, "Based on this newly released study of out Harvard, I could well have stopped doing a damned thing in 1977. I'd put in enough hours by then to have just skidded along these last 23 years. Wish I'd known as much before writing...

A reader asked me to describe my office.

I don't think she expected to hear what I'm going to say, but who knows?

Here goes: My office looks like the inside of a piñata, complete with candy. It's located in the basement of a 1960s building, standard-issue red brick and flat roofed, with lots of perpetually grimy plate glass windows wrapped around its four floors. My office is pretty big, and sits right next to the vending machines. It's pretty close to the ladies' room. (Karen says "It's situated like the worst table in a restaurant.") 

There are three desks, with three working computers (or four if you count Karen's laptop). There's an old Mac on the floor; I'm afraid to give it or throw it away because I wrote three books on it and I...

Can we get something straight here? "10 Items or Fewer" -- NOT "10 Items or Less" -- is what is should say on the signs for express lines at supermarkets. 

Whew. I feel better already.

Wanna know the difference? "Fewer" is used when you're talking about items that can be counted and "less" is used when talking about general amounts. "I love you less" is different from "I love fewer of you." Just imagine how that phrase could confuse someone in an intimate relationship if used incorrectly.

(And while we're talking about stuff that can drive a person crazy, I want to say three things: "utilize," "proactive," and "lifestyle." Never, EVER use these words. They're not incorrect. They're just horrible.)

Everybody has a gripe when it comes to how certain words or phrases are used, especially those of us in the teaching/writing biz. But, believe me, there are also rules we ourselves ignore. ...

A Guest Post by Norman D. Stevens

One of Gina's blogs, The Pleasures of a Disorganized Library, evoked memories of my first days working in libraries some 60 years ago. At that time, the conventional wisdom was that small libraries were vastly superior to large libraries. While some iconoclasts, like my mentor Ralph Shaw, were fond of pointing out, for example, that in a small library a catalog was not essential as a good librarian would have memorized her -- there were few male librarians in small libraries -- collection.

But small libraries could not begin to meet all of the needs of their patrons and offered inadequate salaries and working conditions. As a result, capable and ambitious librarians were forced to work in larger libraries. But secretly many of us dreamt of working in a small library. In my case it was the Harrisville (N.H.) Public Library that is located in a small...

According to a recent report from the AP, Amy Bishop's students allegedly complained about her to the administration. The administration, according to these reports, did not seem to take the complaints of the students seriously.

As we know, lots of students complain about lots of teachers. This part doesn't surprise me.

I believe (along with my students, who outraged CHE readers right before the holidays by writing about the things professors don't know) that anyone who spends most of his or her time reading from a textbook and not making eye contact should not be considered an outstanding presence in the classroom. (Translation: If you can't deal with people, don't enter a profession where it is mandatory that you deal with people.) He or she should probably not be awarded tenure. And administrators on campus -- from department chairs, through deans, and up to provosts and presidents ...

"There is no need to hide one's inner life in an academic institution. Murderers, great criminals, should ideally be dons," writes Anita Brookner in her novel The Debut. "Plenty of time to plan the coup and no curious questions or inquisitive glances once it is done."

But Amy Bishop is not one of those great criminals.

But a criminal she may be. Not only did she allegedly murder her colleagues with a 9 mm; more than 20 years ago, Amy Bishop reportedly shot and killed her brother. This is a woman who should not have had a gun. This is a woman who should have had more help. This is a woman about whom people will say, "How come nobody who worked with her day in and day out knew?" and "Are there more like her?"

 "Amy Bishop" has now become one of those names.  Anybody else with the name Amy Bishop is trying to find an alias or a nickname, and fast.

Everything about the story changed for ...

The days when getting a university degree meant long hours of sitting at a desk and reading pages of those antiquated and tedious "bound" books made from actual "paper" or listening to lectures by actual "professors" who have spent long years acquiring and developing "knowledge" are gone.

That's because today's students are so busy trying to earn a living, meet the needs of demanding families, and figure out what's happening in Lost by carefully watching the "enhanced" episodes, they don't have time to spend "learning."

After all, a lot of today's busy people don't even have time to chew their food. That's why you'll see otherwise nonmedicated adults taking their nourishment orally by way of ingesting so-called "smoothies," which are concoctions made by placing entire three-course meals in a...

I have three undergraduates and one former grad student sitting in my office on this sunny Thursday morning. The undergrads have all just come from my class on "The Femme Fatale in Literature" and they're exhausted after having read up to chapter 58 in Vanity Fair.

Curly-haired Stella, who's graduating this year, is muttering that English majors "get no respect" as she heats instant mac-and-cheese in my office microwave. Tim sits in the Dangerous Chair, a rickety wooden one I've dragged around since my days as a grad student at Queens College; it takes a daring soul to put him or herself in that seat. He is brave enough to nod in agreement, which puts him an even more precarious position. Julie sits at one computer, poised to complete whatever task I assign (she's a junior and working for me this...

(Guest blogger Karen Renner recently defended her dissertation at UConn and was an eyewitness at this year's MLA. If you missed it, be sure to read "MLA of the Dead, Part 1.")

The postage-paid cards fluttered down, and they went for them, whipping out ball-point pens and checking off ethnic identities and veteran and disability statuses. But what we didn't count on was how quickly they'd go looking for a mailbox to put them in. And that's when they saw us. There must have been something in our demeanor that made them think we were search-committee members. It was like they could smell our refusal to adjunct for $2,000 a semester without benefits, and they must have assumed that we had some hiring power. They descended upon us.

The first on...

(Guest post by Karen Renner)

There were signs as far back as 2008. Every now and then, you'd find mysterious fragments of letters in the recycling bin. Position cancelled due to budgetary issues. But things didn't get ugly until Philly.

I had one interview on the 28th. The search committee thought my work on 19th-century board games like The Mansion of Happiness and The Checkered Game of Life would have wonderful applications in the classroom, but 45 minutes later, the only thing that had changed in my life was that I was $250 poorer and packing a perfectly useless syllabus.

I knew I should stick around, introduce myself to senior scholars in my field, schmooze an acquisitions editor or two, cruise an open cash-bar of some...