Blogs

As an undergrad I didn’t get involved in extracurricular student societies for two reasons. The first was that I felt like I didn’t have any free time to spare (a thought shared by many students, I’m sure). The second was that the idea flat out terrified me! I felt like my introverted nature would prevent me from making a difference and my ideas would never be heard. Jump to my doctoral degree and I was applying for a scholarship that required a one-page description of my leadership roles. For me, this page was virtually blank. I panicked. I realized that people would notice this obvious gap on my CV and it would affect me negatively in the future. Here is what I learned.

I have been following with morbid fascination the recent online controversy surrounding Hugo Schwyzer, who teaches history and gender studies at Pasadena City College.

Last year at this time, as a result of a snow storm, my family and I spent over two days at Newark Airport and ultimately returned home without ever getting on an airplane to take a scheduled vacation in Hawaii. Newark is a nice airport but it can’t compare to spending time in paradise. This year, we decided to stay local and all in all it was a very low key relaxing week with lots of much appreciated family time. Also lots of time for movies and shows.

Established indexed journals have been inundated by submissions and many journals accept as few as 10%. Universities increasingly demand more publications as conditions for promotion, salary increases, or even job security. As a result, the large majority of submissions must seek alternative publication outlets. After all, being published somewhere is better than not be published at all.

Reflecting on how my short time as a mother has influenced my teaching.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. I was supposed to breeze through graduate school without any changes: start in my hometown, comp in my hometown, defend in my hometown, and finish in my hometown. After that, I could move away, find the right girl, get married, get a job, and so forth. Here's what wasn't supposed to happen: I wasn't supposed to start grad school, find the right girl, comp, move to another state, get married, and then defend and finish somewhere else. I certainly wasn't supposed to have one committee member move to Texas. I definitely wasn't anticipating another one getting a research fellowship in England. I understood that my dissertation was going to be a solitary struggle in some ways, but not like this. Not me, in Virginia, with the closest committee member being my advisor, in Michigan. But, life, both mine and those of the people I'm working with, "gets in the way": our circumstances change, and we have to figure out how to adjust.

The blogosphere has been atwitter (can I say that?) about the latest study showing the economic damage to students of leaving underperforming teachers in place.

Last week, two things were peppering my Twitter stream – posts about digital humanities from scholars attending the Modern Language Association and American Historical Association annual conferences mingled with expressions of concern and outrage over the introduction of the Research Works Act, a bill supported by the publishing association to which both associations belong. It just dawned on me (duh) that these two issues are a perfect demonstration of the collision course we’re on.