That is one of the pieces of advice which it is only safe to take at an R1 and which I wish R1 faculty would stop dispensing at people who will lose their jobs for taking it. Real advice: Learn never to say no. You were once an adult, you were once allowed to say … More Bad advice #1: “Learn to say no.”
I keep thinking: if I just do this, if I just do that, if I just mollify them in this way or stand up to them in that way, if I just improve myself in this direction or that, and so on, they will stop obstructing me and mine and stop making it so hard … More One way you can tell I have an abusive work situation
Evidently I am still considering this question. Tonight at the football game, which was hard fought, I was noticing how much it resembled work at the university. You struggle and struggle to open a space for yourself in which to work. You are paid to get your ball across that line but they have people … More More on renunciation
Well, at my R1s we had those things and in my experience it was freeing, not limiting: you knew exactly what the program was, and then you got to decide what you wanted to do to meet the goals. When I worked at my SLAC, we had vague program goals and courses were more free … More “If we have common syllabi, policies, exam formats and so on, we will have uniformity and will all just be teaching to the tests.”
As we know, I am in a writing group and committed to do research and ideally, writing daily. I always have a few minutes for this, no matter what, but I want to spend more time than that. I need to, if I am to get anything truly significant accomplished. I also deserve to because … More Public Opinion Poll
We have established that many put teaching far ahead of research and/or life far ahead of work, but others want to be virtuosos and put that first, naturally. I am in this group and I thought ours was the standard attitude. But it is not necessarily. Locally, we struggle for tenure or promotion while others … More Now I understand everything.
Here is the shoe I recommend for this fall. Here is a .pdf of the piece of paper I received almost by chance, and here is the website I found years later. I associate academic advice and verbal abuse. While we are having foreign language wars in Maringouin, some of the sentences I hear in … More Off topic
I got e-mail from blog readers asking whether I were all right, and yes. I had a PTSD episode, which I disliked. I have been researching flashbacks today and realized something fundamental, but not at all new; I had merely forgotten it. Back when I was seriously going to quit academia, a series of events … More Everyone is fine
I am not interested in this, but I need to be. I would be more interested if we did not have a cumbersome textbook and website package to navigate, and if we had a/v that really worked. I am getting more interested because I am getting a part-time TA to whom I need to be … More How can I become more interested than I am in teaching basic Spanish courses, to the language requirement?
I am recovering from a fit of depressive pique I had over a question of academic identity, really. I see this now having pondered that post by Squadromatico, which is not only about what parts of life one gave up, or what parts of one’s ambitions remain unrealized, but more profoundly about what parts of … More On identity, and on a battle line
coldhearted scientist وداد 