A 30-second Introduction to ProfHacker, and Call for Guest Posts

The start of the fall academic calendar has meant an uptick in our readership here at the Chronicle and with it the need to revisit a couple of points. Also, keep reading to find out how you, too, can write for ProfHacker.

First, ProfHacker started life as an independent group blog a little more than a year ago, and moved to the Chronicle in late April 2010. We still retain editorial independence, and are not staffed by Chronicle writers or editors. ProfHacker is a community of academics, first and foremost, and, in conversation with that community, sets its own agenda for improving the lives of those working in academe.

Second, ProfHacker doesn’t want to tell you what to do. The ethos at ProfHacker isn’t, “we’re the experts, and you should be like us.” It’s “Here’s something I’ve tried—what works for you?” As George is often fond of saying, ProfHacker isn’t about us, it’s about the idea that we all share certain kinds of problems and opportunities, and can probably do a better job of solving those problems by pooling our knowledge.

Relatedly, the comments policy is different for ProfHacker posts than at the rest of the Chronicle’s site. The ProfHacker editors are quicker to delete off-topic, meanspirited, or troll-y comments, in order to make possible a genuine conversation about what works and what doesn’t.

Third, while ProfHacker is usually thought of—not without reason, not least as it is in the Technology section of the Chronicle!—as a tech blog, our remit includes pedagogy, productivity, wellness, research, service—all of the various aspects of an academic’s life.

Ok.

Having said all of that, we would also like to invite proposals for guest posts. Proposals work best when they’re about a specific problem/strategy/opportunity, and when they are experience based. While they can be discipline-specific, the posts also work best when they model strategies that might cross-pollinate other folks’ work.

Three stipulations:

• It is a historical accident that PH is English-heavy. We particularly welcome posts from the natural and mathematical sciences, the social sciences, the arts, and professional schools. (If you don’t think your discipline or job is in that list, and it’s not English—propose away. If it’s English and it’s awesome and is something we don’t talk about—propose away.) From these posts, we hope eventually to add more permanent writers.
• ProfHacker traditionally has featured graduate student writers. At present, all of our former graduate student writers are now gainfully employed Ph.D.s. (Huzzah!) So, we also would welcome proposals for topics from graduate students.
• Proposals should be about 3 or 4 sentences, and can be sent to George, Julie, and Jason at ProfHackerCHE@gmail.com.

Have a great fall term!

[Image by Flickr user davidsilver / Creative Commons licensed.]