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[anthroid]

The diminutive is "petzele."  (Schmekele.)

This is important knowledge, kids.

Save it so you can use it on your dean someday.

The Fiona

For some deans (like, say, me), it would be irrelevant rather than insulting. 

But wouldn't it make you larf, and wouldn't that be good? Many people have never seen a dean larf.

Others harbor the belief that once you are a dean, you grow whatever you need. Deans have superpowers.

The Fiona

Actually, no, it wouldn't make me laugh. 

[oldfullprof]

I don't know how we're going to replace Mr. Joyboy.

[southerntransplant]

I don't know how we're going to replace Mr. Joyboy.

I'm sure you'll manage.

[spork]

I noted this on the actual comments section to the story: I wonder what her reaction would have been had she dug her colleagues but not the town? Sadly, she failed to separate the two and it ended up how it ended up. I don't really care about elitism here, but I do care about intellectual honesty, and I'm not sure the article exhibits this.

<sits and hopes that's new enough>

Nah, it's not enough. What do you mean by "intellectual honesty"? That's a good phrase we often use, but like "viable" and "effective," it doesn't have a clear meaning.

The Fiona, grumpy or perhaps pointedly intellectual

Shouldn't this be "pointedly-headed intellectual"?

- spork, hurler of sexist insults

[aprilmay]

The writer performed a public service by presenting a What Not to Do. I don't think she intended to be a public victim of a great variety of unwarranted and often sexist insults, but the people who've posted such things have revealed themselves to be people I would never hire. (Good thing for them that they use pseudonyms.)

Will she make herself unemployable? Not at all. The only bad publicity is no publicity.

The Fiona

our view is in the minority as most people reacted very negatively to her article. The likelihood that the entire SC will be in this minority is small. The majority of people found the piece to reflect very poorly on the author.
This article will overall hurt her employment prospects. It will be easily found by any SC that bothers to look. There are issues of how she thinks about others, how she perceives herself, and how she views "culture", especially for someone in her field. There may be a SC out there where not a single person would have a problem with the article, but in most cases someone will.

[/b][/i]

These are two arguments that have no weight with me, on any issue. "The majority of people think . . ." means the majority of posters, most of whom never have the right to vote or make a choice anyway. The majority of people have thought many things in the past, many (maybe the majority?) of them wrong. That's not a valid argument for anything.

The second argument I never buy is "Someone may be offended." Someone is always offended. If no one's offended, the writer is too bland to be worth reading. That's, in fact, why we have freedom of speech as part of the Bill of Rights: to protect obnoxious speech. Nice speech, or writing, doesn't need protection.

And while I'm soapboxing: the info about Sonic doesn't interest me, but at least it's new info. The beating-up-on the-original-writer got boring and repetitive a few days ago. If you can't say something new, don't say nothing at all.

The Fiona

You do love that soapbox. What post said that she does not have the right to write obnoxiously? Or was that a preemptive soapbox?

It is not a stretch at all to say that the majority of likely SC members will respond negatively to her article. I and many other posters are routinely on SCs. It does not matter if this argument has no weight with you, it is still true. However, we are likely discussing a moot point as she may not apply for such positions anymore.

[marlborough]

As a veteran of search committees at several less than R1 institutions (and an R1 in the boonies), I am continually mystified by this behavior--the oversight that you are insulting the professors who DO somehow manage to live there (or politely contain the desire to chew off a leg and escape at the first opportunity), and that these are people from whom you presumably want something would seem to lead to an effort to be nice for a short period of time, just on a self-aggrandizing level, but it never does. 

I've seen people exactly like this too many times to think that the piece is satire, including the candidate who asked if she could schedule things to fly back to NYC 4 days out of every week from Alabama because she just didn't think she could live "authentically" any other way. 

[oldfullprof]

 My favorites were the "radicals" when I was grad student at Santa Cruz.  They HAD to live in Berkeley (Why?  It's a pit.)  So they rode the library shuttle up there each weekend.

[fiona]

The writer performed a public service by presenting a What Not to Do. I don't think she intended to be a public victim of a great variety of unwarranted and often sexist insults, but the people who've posted such things have revealed themselves to be people I would never hire. (Good thing for them that they use pseudonyms.)

Will she make herself unemployable? Not at all. The only bad publicity is no publicity.

The Fiona

our view is in the minority as most people reacted very negatively to her article. The likelihood that the entire SC will be in this minority is small. The majority of people found the piece to reflect very poorly on the author.
This article will overall hurt her employment prospects. It will be easily found by any SC that bothers to look. There are issues of how she thinks about others, how she perceives herself, and how she views "culture", especially for someone in her field. There may be a SC out there where not a single person would have a problem with the article, but in most cases someone will.

[/b][/i]

These are two arguments that have no weight with me, on any issue. "The majority of people think . . ." means the majority of posters, most of whom never have the right to vote or make a choice anyway. The majority of people have thought many things in the past, many (maybe the majority?) of them wrong. That's not a valid argument for anything.

The second argument I never buy is "Someone may be offended." Someone is always offended. If no one's offended, the writer is too bland to be worth reading. That's, in fact, why we have freedom of speech as part of the Bill of Rights: to protect obnoxious speech. Nice speech, or writing, doesn't need protection.

And while I'm soapboxing: the info about Sonic doesn't interest me, but at least it's new info. The beating-up-on the-original-writer got boring and repetitive a few days ago. If you can't say something new, don't say nothing at all.

The Fiona

You do love that soapbox. What post said that she does not have the right to write obnoxiously? Or was that a preemptive soapbox?

It is not a stretch at all to say that the majority of likely SC members will respond negatively to her article. I and many other posters are routinely on SCs. It does not matter if this argument has no weight with you, it is still true. However, we are likely discussing a moot point as she may not apply for such positions anymore.

Oh, I wouldn't hire someone who expressed the ideas in the original piece. I'm just asking for some originality among the people who post here, instead of the same pounding-pounding-pounding. I doubt if the author wants to apply for academic jobs, but I also know (and yes, I've been on lots of search committees) that notoriety, however it came about, often helps a candidate.

I am just hoping, again, that people who post on this thread will have something new to say. I've never been to Macomb, Illinois, but I think I would prefer it to the repetition on this thread.

The Fiona

[questor1]

Loved the Alabama story. Like Marl, I've heard candidates and new hires insult the taste/sanity of the faculty who would actually live and raise families in a location. Been told straight to my face "Why would I ever want to live here?" One who took the job and lasted a year, spent her whole time going back to where she was from and finally went back. The frustrating part is that she got first year benefits, meaning reduced teaching load and start up research money, her contribution was nil.

[oldfullprof]

I do admit I'd do anything not to move back to Brenham, TX, though:

1.  Faculty mandatorily required to work sports events on Friday nights.
2.  Administration calling faculty "animals" and the faculty senate the "zoo."
3.  Mandatory 37.5 hours on campus each week.
4.  Fall semester starts about three weeks before classes.
5.  Periodic purges of troublesome faculty.
6.  Chances for a good fistfight with business, agronomy, or phys ed faculty.
7. ...

[fiona]

I do admit I'd do anything not to move back to Brenham, TX, though:

1.  Faculty mandatorily required to work sports events on Friday nights.
2.  Administration calling faculty "animals" and the faculty senate the "zoo."
3.  Mandatory 37.5 hours on campus each week.
4.  Fall semester starts about three weeks before classes.
5.  Periodic purges of troublesome faculty.
6.  Chances for a good fistfight with business, agronomy, or phys ed faculty.
7. ...

You do have the greatest material for an academic novel, though. Got that in mind?

The Fiona