So this is Finals Week
And what have you done? Another year older…a new one’s just begun. etc. etc. Finals week is usually a big relief–the semester’s nearly over, after all. But I also associate it with one of the worst...
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In which I stop being polite.
I was a teenager in the ’80s, so I kind of grew up watching MTV’s The Real World. Today I feel ready to embrace that show’s famous and pioneering (if also ridiculous) tag line. I’m going to stop being...
View ArticleMLA ’07 and the Eternal Springing of Hope
Since I was informed in December 2010 that it was unlikely I’d be tenured in a decision rendered in August 2012, you’d think I’d have been prepared for the denial letters I received. In truth, I was...
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More Fun with Numbers
At the beginning of the week, I was fretting about drafting a new assignment for my Shakespeare class because I am scheduled to teach two sections this semester in addition to a third class, a brand...
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Silver Linings Playbook, TenureFail Version
I haven’t seen that movie, but I will say that there’s no Bradley Cooper in the #Tenurefail version I’m about to note. This is a brief addition to what I wrote the other day about the budget reduction...
View ArticleReappointment, Tenure and Promotion Minority Reports
Yesterday I read with interest this post by Sean Takats on his tenure review. The letter going forward to the next step from the faculty committee reported a 10-2 vote in favor of tenure but also noted...
View ArticleWhat ish my career?
Last week I got a comment on a post about doing service (or not) under the relatively new conditions of my employment from the inestimable Doctor Cleveland, whose contributions to Dagblog are some the...
View ArticleMark Bauerlein IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET.
Is addressing somebody directly with an angry tone an ad hominem attack? Or does one need to, you know, call a person names? I guess I hardly care right now. I do not like to be impolite, but man, Mark...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Travelers
I was reading my Provost’s blog the other day (you know, as one does), and I saw that he was in China. He notes: ”This is my first visit back to China in 20 years. The last visit was a vacation with...
View Article24 Hour Tenure Cycle
I spent some of my time on fellowship in California writing a post on my relationship to the field of book history, and thinking a lot about things like access to rare book libraries and how it shapes...
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How do other universities talk about enrollments?
So…i’ve been writing for a while now–almost a year I guess?–about the experiences I’ve had since December 2010, when I was told by my Dean it was unlikely I’d be tenured because of declining...
View ArticleOne more thing about English Enrollments
This is a follow up post to my previous one (below). One of the things we found out when we looked into our enrollment declines was that courses that entailed coming in on Fridays were comparatively...
View ArticleScare Quotes
Because I have a 24 hour tenure-cycle, any day is a day in which I might receive “news” about my “situation,” or, in normal people terms, my job. I put “news” in scare quotes because what I tend to get...
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Honey, Have you seen Junior? He’s not in his room…
A couple weeks ago, I was thinking about myself as the middle child of academia, looking at various people in the family of academic roles and wishing there weren’t so many squabbles amongst parties...
View ArticleThat was a good negosh
Like many people, I was shocked to hear about the job candidate, “W,” whose job offer was rescinded after she sent an email with an itemized list of conditions that would help her make a decision to...
View ArticleIn which I prepare for another meeting
I just finished up a giant conference on Renaissance Literature/Art/Music/History and probably some other things–it was indeed so large that the program looked like a phone book. I was on two panels...
View ArticleScare Quotes
Because I have a 24 hour tenure-cycle, any day is a day in which I might receive “news” about my “situation,” or, in normal people terms, my job. I put “news” in scare quotes because what I tend to get...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Honey, Have you seen Junior? He’s not in his room…
A couple weeks ago, I was thinking about myself as the middle child of academia, looking at various people in the family of academic roles and wishing there weren’t so many squabbles amongst parties...
View ArticleThat was a good negosh
Like many people, I was shocked to hear about the job candidate, “W,” whose job offer was rescinded after she sent an email with an itemized list of conditions that would help her make a decision to...
View ArticleIn which I prepare for another meeting
I just finished up a giant conference on Renaissance Literature/Art/Music/History and probably some other things–it was indeed so large that the program looked like a phone book. I was on two panels...
View Article
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