Classes start this week for many universities and colleges across the country. We are materially ready: we have written syllabi and assignments, created lesson plans, written lectures or podcasts, and psyched ourselves up (or out) to start teaching again. We are ready for any potential student-produced shenanigans: we have read all the ProfHacker posts on the "disruptive student" (all six of them are available). And we have readied our technology for the term: Doodle or Tungle, iPad, or Blog as CMS. We are ready to start the academic year.

Or are we? Have we tweaked and modified our own professorial professionalism? Do we know which behaviors we exhibit that confound and anger students? Do we know how to avoid being "Professor Jerk" in the classroom?

What constitutes professional behavior in a university or college classroom is, of course, dependent upon context:...

Last week, I wrote about Bento Boxes—those sturdy and perfectly-sized containers for lunch foods. The notion of the "bento" comes from Japan, where single-portion or home-made meals that fit within a small box is very common. Japanese bentos are fairly particular in their contents: rice, vegetables, pickles (not your grandmother's dill), and perhaps some fish or chicken. We have much more flexibility about what we include in bento lunches in this country.

Depending upon the type of Bento box you have, you can also include soups and salads (see last week's post on Mr./Ms. Bento). The content of an American bento box is almost limitless. Given the limitlessness of our choices, we tend to chose the same things over and over (or maybe that's just me): salad, sandwich, leftovers.

A way to think about dietary balance, variety, and interest is to think like the Japanese...not in...

Most faculty members at universities and colleges in the United States are evaluated on three areas of work: teaching, research, and service. We come into the job knowing how to be successful (more or less) in these areas of work. If you are like most, though, you don't know as much in these areas as you would wish. This is where a faculty development office on your campus can be beneficial.

Historically, faculty development has been a catch-all term that included sabbaticals, grants, and external funding for conference travel, but over the past many years, the definition has expanded to support faculty member as a teacher, as a scholar, and as a community member. The role of many faculty development offices is to enhance teaching and learning on a university campus.

Faculty Development and Teaching
Need help engaging with students? Need some help with your presentation...

What do these five cases have in common?

- Anita Hill/Justice Clarence Thomas
- Paula Jones/Bill Clinton
- The Tailhook Convention
- Mitsubishi Motors Manufacturing
- University of Colorado Football Program

If you said sexual harassment, you would be correct. However, do you remember the specifics of these cases? If you remembered two of the four, you have a good memory. Unfortunately, we don't often remember these case details, as they become part of the media noise that surrounds us. They become sensationalized. They are on tabloid TV. We stop listening.

Every month or so, we at ProfHacker issue a challenge to our readers about disruptive student behavior, in a post that elicits your opinion. As faculty in higher education, we have seen our share of disruptive students. In these posts, we set up a scenario, and then ask you, "how would you handle this?"

We are doing ...

When we first starting writing the "What's for Lunch?" series here at ProfHacker, we were striving to find ways to make lunch an enjoyable and healthy event, not salads, sandwiches, pasta dishes, soups, and leftover dinners).

Having really great food for lunch is fine, though, but what we haven't spent too much time on is how to carry that food around with you. Of course, there's always a paper bag (remember third grade?), and that'd be great for a PB&J sandwich and a bag of chips, but if you want a different type of lunch, maybe a lunch with greater options, a paper bag just might not do.

There are, luckily, alternatives to the paper bag. Mr. Bento and Ms. Bento are wonderful carriers for a healthy lunch, and they are stylish and functional. These stainless steel lunch jars have removable microwaveable inner bowls that have excellent heating / cooling retention. In fact, Mr./Ms. Bento...

As someone who has been teaching writing at the university level for 12 years, I have had my fair share of grade complaints at the end of a term. "Why didn't I get the 'A'? I worked 'really hard' all semester." "Why do you count a 'B' as an 85? My other professor counts it as an '86' and if you did that, I could get the 'A'." "How many points is a tardy worth?" "Yea, I missed our conference and I was absent three weeks, but I did all the work. Why is my grade not an 'A'?" Of course answers to those never-ending questions are often in the syllabus, but the questions come anyway. Maybe these questions come because I teach writing and writing, unlike many other disciplines, is so "subjective." [Note that none of the above questions concerned writing, the focus of the course.]

Over the past few years, colleagues have begun to use "grading contracts" in their classes. Part of...

[Each week at ProfHacker, Billie Hara (and friends) offer "What's For Lunch?"—health-conscious recipe suggestions and a discussion space for readers to pick up some tips and share their own. At ProfHacker, we recognize that sometimes lunch is a lifehack.—Ed.]

One of the benefits of online conversations&mdashconvos here at ProfHacker, for example, those in forums, on blogs and on Twitter&mdashis that we get to know the folks we "friend." Our "friends," then, become more than just names on a screen. They can become a part of our personal and professional lives. We share information. We collaborate. Today's recipe stems from one of those conversations.

Fish in foil packets has been a summer-time staple in my home for years. It's fast, easy, and very very good. It's versatile enough that you can use various types of fish and whatever type of vegetables you might have one...

There is no question that writing can be difficult, but for a doctoral student—for one who has never written a dissertation—writing can suddenly be completely overwhelming. It can remain overwhelming. The process can be so daunting, in fact, that some students never make it out of the candidacy stage. They get stuck at the dissertation because they do not know how to write one.

The very best graduate student—the best writer—may write well, but may not know how to structure a dissertation, how to get started, how to stop writing, or what to do if s/he gets stuck in the process. The very best advisers can offer sound advice about content, but most do not have the time (or the inclination) to offer advice about writing.

The dissertation writer has to be the one to get the work done, and this is where the dissertation writing group can be the most beneficial to the...

If you have been teaching very long, you have met the Thwarters (Tammy and Tony). You know the ones: the Thwarters have the unique ability to issue a declarative statement that sucks all possibility out of a room. (Maybe you know a faculty member like this?) The Thwarters are dualistic thinkers, and while this can be a fine attribute to have, the Thwarters' beliefs leave no space for interpretation, for difference, for learning, for hope.

Today's ProfHacker post will provide three scenarios about how the "Thwarters" can stop a classroom discussion cold. We will then ask you to provide your solution to the problem in comments. If you are unfamiliar with this ProfHacker series, you might take a look at these previous posts:

1. Meet Chatty Cathy and her BFF Conversational Carl
2. What's that Smell?
3. The Case of Know-it-All Nancy
4. Too Much Skin Edition
5. T-shirt slogan...

Maybe you've had this experience: On a whim, you visit a bookstore (local, chain, obscure, used, whatever), and you peruse their offerings. You enter the store with a vague sense that you need some specific texts, but you left that list is at home. But it's a bookstore, and you purchase several books. You get home, and you realize that the books you bought were not the ones you needed but were, instead, duplicates of books you already owned. In fact, you already have multiple copies of some of those books (some are in your office, some are under the couch, others who have lent to friends or students).

Or maybe that's just me, but I do purchase the wrong books all the time.

Mark Sample's recent guest posts about hacking your library (part I and part II) have given me a lot of highly useful information about how to manage the books I've borrowed from the university library, how I...