This is a post I know the Paper Chaser will appreciate. Job candidates, wear your jackets, and ties if applicable, no matter what anyone says! Last year one of ours did not and it was because the instructors and graduate students had told him at the arrival from airport party that it was not necessary. They said … More Why Job Candidates Should Wear Jackets
Given that this is the situation, should I our should I not bother to put more time into AAUP and, or and/or, committee work for Academic Senate? AAUP is in my opinion permanently valuable, but for various reasons the charge the Academic Senate would like to give me is more attractive to me personally. Yet … More May Day
I am revising my paper on “procrastination” which has been accepted by a non-refereed journal after being rejected by one competitive refereed one and one non-competitive refereed one. I think it is a good paper but apparently it is hard to understand and not obedient enough. The non-refereed journal thought the same thing but I … More Al grano (On my article which says actual “procrastination” may be far less prevalent than it is rumored to be)
My complaint about being tenured is that it puts one in a position to be so exploited by the university. The new people, the instructors and the adjuncts must be protected, mentored, developed and maintained; the full professors and administrators have rights; the plain old tenured faculty has to serve them all. I think part … More Still More Tenure
Here we can read FDR’s first inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1933, and hear him take the oath of office. All current candidates, and especially the Democratic ones, ought to study this text very closely. Richard Parker’s piece on FDR is very much worth reading at the present juncture in our national history. I would … More Franklin Delano Roosevelt
After returning from a well heeled conference at a well heeled university attended by mostly well heeled professors I returned home refreshed, without a care in the world but the knowledge that I had spent $70 in restaurants that I do not have room for in my budget this month or next, and that this … More Aesthetics of Hunger
Referring ironically to the Romantic tradition that “nature teaches” César Vallejo called a linden tree murmuring in the wind a “professor of sobbing” and a “technician of shouts.” He ends this poem suggesting the tree is actually no such thing. I, however, really am now an engineer of poetry. My introduction to literature is intended … More Poetic Engineering
I Now I have had a fascinating telephone conversation with a friend from college with whom I had lost touch. He is in a different field, so I had not run across him in the “Profession,” but he is also a professor. He has always been very intelligent. What he says about his school: “I … More On Intellect and Arrogance
To all male faculty: I used to feel sorry for you because of your boorish behavior. Poor guy, ugly and unpopular in school, father just like him, mother didn’t teach him manners, had to become a professor because he wasn’t personable enough for any other kind of job, I would think. I would try to … More Memorandum 7
To all faculty and administrators: We now have carefully written tenure guidelines and procedures, which we present as intended to inform and support the candidate. Of course we know very well that these guidelines and procedures are also in place to protect us against complaints. What I find so disturbing about the postmodern “academy,” as … More Memorandum 6
