There are so many things that make me angry about these articles. I’m tired of being told that I should just suck it up and accept being “just” a teacher. First off, I’m not satisfied because I am referred to and thought of as “just” a teacher to begin with. I’m not satisfied with second-class citizenship and I’m not satisfied with a system that essentially has a small ruling class who can rule for life. I read somewhere that the future of higher education is an even smaller handful tenured professors whose sole role is research with another handful of administrators whose purpose is to supervise the instructors, dictate curriculum, etc. If we move towards a teaching-only stream, this is what higher education will look like. We need to restore funding, revive the tenure-track, and start placing the value on both teaching and research again (instead of any of the other things we spend chunks of money on).
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/college-ready-writing/teaching-track-really#ixzz2ABPBsiyQ
Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed: The "Be Yourself" Myth
Today’s myth is: “When interviewing for a tenure-track academic position, it’s best to just be yourself.”
A number of months ago, I was working with a client whom I’ll call Margaret, a full professor and department head in the social sciences in an East Coast R1, who had contacted me for assistance in refining the letters of recommendation she was writing for the increasingly desperate job-seeking Ph.D.s and adjuncts under her care. I was impressed with this client. She was sincere, earnest, and generous of spirit. She was committed to the welfare of these candidates, some her own Ph.D. students and some the adjuncts who had been contributing their labor to her department for years. She had no idea how unusual she is.
Toward the end of our work together, in a Skype conversation, she asked if I had any final thoughts on how to advise people to prepare for interviews and campus visits. She said, “Of course I always tell them to just be themselves. I mean, that’s always the best advice, isn’t it?”
“Oh good god, Margaret!” I burst out. “Are you kidding me? THAT’S what you tell them?”Because no matter where you are in your career, but most especially if you are just starting out, or (god forbid) a grad student, you are, as an academic, insecure, verbose, defensive, paranoid, beset by feelings of inadequacy, pretentious, self-involved, communicatively challenged, and fixated on minutiae.
Consequently, here’s how you act in interviews: rambling, obscure, petrified, subservient, cringing, disorganized, braggy, tedious, emotionally over-amped, off-point, self-absorbed, defensive, and fixated on minutiae.By Karen Kelsky
Education Should Prepare Students For Work, Life
Yes!! Especially Graduate Education!
Transforming Education.: The Innovative University: Clay Christensen's Reasoned Approach
Often the rhetoric concerning higher education reform is so heated that it becomes unhealthy. After all, there’s a lot of money riding on the outcome.
But for those who want a thoughtful, reasoned—even gentle—approach to the extraordinary opportunities (and massive problems) facing higher…
Well now
Just set this up. Let us test what it can do.
