Opinion

The Boy turned 11 this weekend. I remember day one. He was born tall for his age; he was the biggest kid in the nursery. He’s still tall for his age, and well on his way to being tall for any age. (He’s five foot five, and growing pretty much every time I turn around. I shudder to think what the adolescent growth spurt will bring.)

I began playing capoiera a few months ago, and I am terrible at it. Which is pretty perfect. My foray into the Brazilian fight-dance began academically enough, but the process of practicing something that I am not -- and will perhaps never be -- good at has been a refreshing change of pace during a life point of increasing responsibility and supposed expertise development.

This year, I am giving a graduate I know the book, “I Moved Your Cheese: For those who refuse to live as mice in someone else’s maze,” by Deepak Malhotra at Harvard Business School. Published last year, it provides a Wall Street Journal best-selling answer to the question posed by the popular business book, “Who Moved My Cheese?”

Creating an electronic portfolio of your academic work for tenure or promotion may be the best approach -- but only if it feels authentic to you, write Paula Dagnon and Karen Hoelscher.

This year, I made a fortunately successful run on the academic job market, and I'm looking forward to beginning my tenure-track position in August. Until now, I’ve resisted posting on those experiences. I have, however, commented on the job search more broadly. For instance, I’ve discussed the need for doctoral students to simultaneously prepare for the academic- and non-academic job markets. It seems odd to me, then, that I haven’t offered some hacky, this-is-how-you-do-it tidbits for writing the academic cover letter, preparing a writing sample, practicing for interviews, and acing the campus visit.

Admittedly, it's been a few years since I last read 1984 by George Orwell. However, the themes of widespread surveillance and "thoughtcrimes" are generally applicable to all sorts of present day issues. One of the curiosities that has emerged in the area of social media communications is the monitoring of student athlete accounts.

Imagine for a moment that you are the Educator Queen (or King) of the World. You have the power to make a Royal Decree about the education app that will be created next. Everything you survey is yours, and your will we be done. What are your orders?