Blogs

This past August, I sat my doctoral comprehensive exams. It was a grueling, exhausting process, and the months leading up to the exams were some of the most stressful of my life. I don’t think that I have ever cried so much in my life; from exhaustion, stress, fear, and from the worst bout of impostor syndrome I had felt since beginning grad school. Comprehensive exams are a massive, daunting undertaking, one that marks the transition from coursework and being a student to dissertating and being a candidate.

Some random observations on the economics of digital information

Should every idea come with a funding source? Every new project with new dollars? An accounting of the opportunity costs for doing this project and not that? A list of what we will not do if we do something else?

So, last night was the first Twitter chat of #femlead, which is a new project of the University of Venus. You can read more about the logic behind it through the link, but the main goal is to provide a space “for those who lead, those with vision, those who seek to support one another in the challenges and opportunities facing us in all areas of academic life”. I’d count myself in the second and third categories, and I’d like to be in the first category one day, so I thought this was a good thing to take part in – particularly given the lack of women in leadership roles in higher ed. My immediate concerns going into the chat were centred around what opportunities there are to develop leadership in the world of the short term contract, and what I could do to develop my skills and my career path.

I have to admit enjoying Senator Santorum’s assertion that Satan controls higher education in America. To be fair, there is some evidence for his claim. If you’ve ever tried finding a student parking space around noon on a Tuesday in September at a major public university, you know that Satan has major influence in the world of parking deck architecture.

It's different. It's shiny. It's the fairly new hotness. Yes, it's time for me to ponder Pinterest. Like almost every other social media service that came before it, Pinterest is riding a massive wave of adoption and excitement. Student Affairs, which has gotten on the social media train, is experimenting with Pinterest from several different angles.

I'm not a PhD student anymore, but I'm not full faculty, either.

As I rolled into work on Monday, I was greeted by a friend from the Chemistry department rushing out of the building. She frantically told me that there had been a shooting at her daughter’s school. She said that five students had been shot, that she was off to see if her daughter was ok, and to please pass the word on to her department chair. She was off before I could give her a hug, but the scene haunted me all day as more bits of information became available and the story grew more horrible.