Blogs

A new correspondent writes: "I work at a comprehensive community college. The president has announced his retirement and a search committee is being formed. Several of the faculty and staff have mentioned nominating a candidate who might be a great fit for the position, but he has no graduate degree and limited direct experience in higher education."

It's time for a collective counter-narrative to how we are typically portrayed in the media to the general public.

I am writing this blog piece on March 8th, Women’s Day. I started the day by a very meaningful message which was sent by the President of my University. In her message, Prof. Dr. Elif Çepni of Doğuş University stated how proud she was to be at a University where the majority of high administrative positions were held by women: The President of the University is a woman, there are 5 faculties and 4 of them are led by Deans that are women. There are also 4 women Vice Deans in the University, since in 4 of the 5 Faculties, one of the 2 Vice Deans is also a woman. Moreover, the Dean of Students is also a woman. The head of the Foreign Languages School, the Secretary General, the Director of Student Affairs, the Director of the IT department and the Director of Purchasing department are also all women. There is a considerable number of Department Chairs or Academic Unit Heads who are female as well. In my faculty, which is the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 62% of all faculty members are women.

I predict that within one year that Blackboard will not be called Blackboard any longer. My money on this re-branding will be something that invokes another company that made the transition from products to services, IBM. Maybe something like EAS (Educational Academic Services), or BES (Blackboard Educational Services) - something like that.

When a friend and colleague creates something that benefits the higher education community, I generally try to get the word out about it in as many places as possible. That was the case last year when Mike Petroff debuted EDUtweetups -- "the home of higher ed hashtags." The site was a terrific resource for anyone who wanted to keep track of the many higher education related hashtags and events.

As a grad student, I’ve successfully proposed courses as part of applying for teaching opportunities within my home institution. I proposed and taught a thematic, first-year composition class for my home department three times. I proposed and taught an introductory medical humanities course for the Collins Living-Learning Center at my home institution. I won a teaching assistantship in the department where I earned my PhD minor, and proposing a summer course was a part of the application process. My success partly stems from being an instructor of record for seven years. I’ve also been on the other side of the process: as a member of my department’s Composition Committee, I helped faculty to evaluate course proposals submitted by graduate students (but not in the same years mine were under consideration!).

If the intention of Mr. Obiang and his million-dollar facelift advisers is to remake his image without changing the circumstances that tainted it, the controversy has already compromised that intention.

This is the time of year when the blahs set in. Winter is technically over, but teaser spring days followed by dreary rain, rain, then more rain make it hard for me to find my get-up-and-go. I shouldn’t be surprised because it seems to happen every year about this time. Somehow this year is a little tougher than usual, though; 2012 has been a long year already, and it’s only just begun.