As those of us in North American academe stare down the final weeks of the term, it can be hard to sustain focus. Heck, whatever your job may be, there is much to distract you – in your environment, in your life, in your own head. So, here are some playlists to help you attend to
I wrote this for Kansas State University’s Department of English blog – we were asked to write about what we did over the summer. But I wrote a little more than the blog needs. So, we’re running an excerpt on the English blog, and I’m printing the full version here. “Being a professor means you
Following a December blog-conversation about Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (occasioned in part by her own chemo), my friend Alison Piepmeier asked me to send her a contribution to her blog, Every Little Thing. It appeared there on Monday. I’m reposting it here now. In case you’re wondering, I got permission from the close relative (named below)
Attention, graduate students, adjuncts with tenure-track aspirations, and recent tenure-track hires*! Always be publishing Believe in and doubt merit Do not define success according to academe’s terms … and 9 other pieces of advice in “Advice for Aspiring Academics,” published in today’s Inside Higher Ed. Regular readers of this blog may notice that this is
Why do successes sometimes feel like failures? As philosopher Kieran Setiya points out in a wise new essay, “Our achievements, whatever they are worth, are always numbered” (10). Each time we accomplish something, it’s done, finished, and we must move on to the next thing: “the completion of your project may constitute something of value,
I have long been wanting to write a general “advice” essay for aspiring academics – recent PhDs, graduate students, anyone pursuing (or considering pursuing) a career in academia. The problem is that my desire to mentor and to encourage always collides with my equally strong desire not to mislead people about how challenging (even bleak)
With thanks to all who have read and shared my “In Search of Lost Time” (an essay on why academics work so much, published in Inside Higher Ed today), here are a few links for further reading. Most of these were embedded in the original piece, but didn’t make the transition to the Inside Higher Ed website.
As you likely already know, Margaret Mary Vojtko – an adjunct professor of French for 25 years – was found dead on her front lawn on September 1st. Facing mounting medical bills and lacking money to maintain or even heat her house, she died of a heart attack earlier that day. As Daniel Kovalik writes, “Even
As American fast food workers strike for a living wage, it’s worth remembering that this struggle has a long history. It’s also worth teaching some of this history to children, so that they can learn about collective action, and fighting back against the powerful. Â Julia Mickenberg and I collect some of these stories in the
Being a college professor would be a great job! You do a little teaching, and get the summers off! –Â frequently expressed misunderstanding To be clear: being a professor is a great job. Since I elect not to teach during the summer, I can devote more –Â though not all –Â of my time to research and writing.
