Over the last few weeks there’s been a lot of press in the higher education world on a story out of the University of Alberta. Fed up with soaring administration costs, a group of four faculty applied to share the chancellor position (with a salary of $400,000 Canadian, they’re happy to just split it). Then…
Last September, as I wrote about here, a man with mental illness ran into traffic away from police. Police said officers saw a man on foot weaving erratically through traffic and sometimes blocking vehicles. After approaching him, police said, the man reached into his pocket as if grabbing a weapon, and two officers fired a…
It was a very good writing week for me. I pitched four columns, landed three, one of which came out immediately. I also wrote a first-draft treatment of a book (more on this later once it’s ready). Most fun, I did an interview and part of a call-in show with an Australian radio program! You…
On this lucky Friday, the discourse of dads as incompetent in the home looms large (h/t to Soraya Chemaly for the link): There’s a good chance if you receive — or give — a Father’s Day card this weekend, Dad will be portrayed as a farting, beer-obsessed, tool-challenged buffoon who would rather hog the TV…
I actually really like Pink! These are proto-thoughts, very rough. What do you think? When I talk about raising girls and avoiding gender stereotyping, I often get the pushback – what if she really honestly just likes pink (or barbies, bratz, princesses, or whatever)? It’s a fair question. My answer, again still in progress, is…
Lately I’ve been having lots of conversations about norms, code-switching, professionalization, and what our job is as teachers to model and suggest. I’ve written on the blog about code-switching as a skill that my students generally lack and that I think is useful for them. Others have countered, though, saying we should focus on changing…
At New Criticals, Alison Kinney has written a powerful piece comparing police violence against suffragists to the police violence against Occupy activist Cecily McMillan. She starts with this story: “Constables and plain-clothes men who were in the crowd passed their arms round me from the back and clutched hold of my breasts in as public…
I am writing a piece about tenure/promotion criteria and public engagement. My hunch as I went in was that most universities do not count public engagement. To my surprise, as I do this work, I find that I’m wrong. So here are my questions/requests: 1. If you have the time, could you look at your…
I took a semi-writing break this week, playing with my kids and re-charging energies, as well as experimenting with homemade soba noodles (good flavor, texture not quite right yet, in case you were wondering) and finger limes (delicious!). Mostly, this week I provided links rather than my own writing, with the one exception here – Handwriting…
Here is a collection of resources for my latest piece. People who are arguing to move to dissertation away from the monograph model. The recent MLA report is the catalyst. It reads: Reimagine the dissertation. An extended research project should remain the defining feature of doctoral education. Departments should expand the spectrum of forms the…