In honor of the snow day my campus is enjoying, I thought I would offer a light-hearted post to celebrate the change of pace.

One of my favorite scenes in that old series Ally McBeal was one where she selected a "theme song" for her life, a song that played in her head while she was walking around town. It was a fairly brilliant insight into our culture, seeing how we no longer seem to be able to spend a single moment in silence.

I am wondering, though, what might be a good theme song for our various disciplines or for higher education in general these days. I suppose that Linkin Park's "One Step Closer to the Edge (I’m about to Break)" might be one. Or "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (particularly the Bing Crosby version).  For those on the job market, perhaps it could be R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (I Feel Fine)."

What suggestions might you offer to stand as...

I recently ran across a great quotation from the late Bill Lane, who was a longtime professor at Western Kentucky University: "Never despise your own gift and never covet another." This caused me to ponder something I see repeatedly: discipline envy.

A sense of envy that can so easily turn into rank jealousy finds fertile ground in the "perks" of other academic disciplines, whether they occur in the form of greater institutional support, higher pay, lower teaching loads, elevated prestige, public approbation, or any other boon. As one humanities professor told me, "Every time I hear about the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] initiatives from our governor or our institution's president, I just want to scream. It's a slap in the face to the rest of us."

Likewise, it's easy to envy our nonacademic counterparts in professions like law, medicine, business, and...

Many institutions are starting to offer contracts to their new faculty members. It's an exciting time all around. For the hiring departments, it's fun to think about the energy and talents the new colleagues will bring. For the incoming faculty members, it's joyous to celebrate leaving the job market behind successfully.

For the new hires, there is often a shock, though, that comes in August: either no paycheck or a reduced paycheck. At many institutions, new faculty members report in mid-August, but the paychecks don't fully kick in until the September pay date, often as much as six weeks after that report date. Recent Ph.D. graduates, used to being poor, often find this to be aggravating, but for those who are more seasoned and who are changing institutions, this can be particularly problematic. I have known of many faculty members who changed institutions and found that their last...

As a department chair opened an envelope with a faculty application inside, she was surprised to see several sticks of cinnamon chewing gum drop onto her desk. The application letter had a hand-written note at the bottom that said, "Please let the search committee have this gum as they review my application; I hope they will find it refreshing."

The chair assumed that the applicant thought that the committee would view him as the "refreshing candidate." She chuckled to herself and thought, "Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to have included a packet of nuts."

From unsolicited phone calls to pop-in visits to emails from VIP's in support of candidates, anyone who has served in the search process has experienced the "full court press," where the applicant tries to find every conceivable angle to stand out from the other applicants. Recently I heard of an applicant who sent an e-mail...

Speaking before a group of new faculty members at a large state university, a dean reviewed the basics of higher-education terminology: "academic freedom," "tenure," and the various academic ranks. As he broke down the general expectations for each rank, one observation about associate professor stood out: "Associate professor is the normal terminal rank for most tenured faculty members. Full professor is generally reserved for only a few persons who serve or publish with particular distinction."

One of the attendees asked, "So most of us can only achieve one promotion for the entirety of our careers? I just assumed that everyone would achieve full professor at some point."

The dean said, "I'm sure that most faculty members view full professor as something of an entitlement, with associate professor marking the passage to tenure and full professor being sort of the finish line: After...

Sarah, whose doctoral defense was already on the calendar, had landed three on-campus interviews, which shocked her greatly given the realities of the academic market. The first interview was at a small teaching institution with only a fair reputation. The other two interviews were at institutions that better matched her professional goals.

Two weeks before the first interview, she decided to withdraw from that search, since she had doubts that she would be happy at the institution. Among her thoughts was that it wasn't really ethical for her to go through the motions of interviewing when she already had determined that she would be unlikely to take the position if it were offered.

She mentioned this to her dissertation adviser, who told her that she should go through with the interview "for the experience." The first interview would be a dry run for her other two interviews. Still, Sarah ...

A search-committee chair handed her dean the list of finalists for a national search. The dean asked, "Did Dr. Matters not make the list?"

The chair said, "No. He met the minimum requirements but compared with the others, he was clearly in the second tier."

The dean looked down and then said, "I need to let you know at this point that Dr. Matters is well-connected with several influential board members, including at least one substantial donor to your home department."

"Does this mean that we have to interview him?"

"Well, he's local and it wouldn't cost anything, so I would encourage you to invite him to a courtesy interview. You won't have to offer him the job, but it would score points with some VIP's if we could at least say, 'He was one of our finalists.'"

This scenario repeats itself all over the country at this time of year. Sometimes it's a well-connected applicant....

At the beginning of her career, a freshly minted Ph.D. began receiving invitations to join various Who's Who lists. She was tickled to have been nominated by those mysterious persons who had submitted her name, and she dutifully sent in her information and added the bullet points to her CV.

One of these invitations turned into aggravation, though. Salespersons began to call her office trying to sell plaques, coffee mugs, and other logo material, as well as the printed registry of other honorees (at almost $400). She asked them not to contact her anymore and did a little research on the company. It turned out, of course, that the particular "honor" she'd received was probably the result of her name's being on a mailing list, rather than of any actual accomplishments.

In fact, an Internet search of the phrase "Who's Who scam" had some interesting results. Of a particularly grievous sort ...

I suppose I really am a dean at heart because after I saw Avatar in 3-D, I started thinking about how the technology of the film would impact higher education. I've taught online before, as well as distance courses through compressed video. I despised the sterile nature of the experiences, as it was impossible to read the nuances of voices and body language in the ways that I enjoy. Further, the distance created a barrier to mentorship that was troublesome.
 
I wonder, though, if those barriers will change when/if distance learning ever advances to the point at which professors and students have the ultra-high-end avatars of the sort in the movie that seem so completely life-like (in the film it is nearly impossible to know what's real and what's computer generated). I rather like the idea of moving to Aruba and teaching my classes from there, with my avatar teaching on a virtual Oxford...

I mentioned a faculty opening at another institution to a freshly minted Ph.D. (a former student of mine). "Nah," he said, after I suggested he apply, "I saw the ad and looked up the department's faculty roster. Everyone is at full professor and none are near retirement. As much as I need a job, I'm not going to go fight that kind of battle." I pulled up the roster myself, and he was right: With the exception of a couple of visiting faculty members, the entire department was at full-professor rank and none had served the institution for more than 20 years. That fact was a significant canary in the proverbial coal mine for my former student: The choking gas of inertia was likely to be present at a level that would snuff out a promising career.

I've often heard that there is much fun to be had in a department filled with junior faculty members. A wave of program growth combined with a few...