The Research Year

The semester has started, and everyone is running around like their tails are on fire.

I, in the meantime, am lying on the sofa in front of a fireplace, reading a book. And I’m planning to stay here until January of 2016. Please wake me up in a year.

It took some engineering, but I have managed to set things up so that I get a whole year to work on the book while massively strengthening my scholarly base. I have designed courses that I will teach to myself to fill in the lacunae in my knowledge.

This will be a research year and I know it will be fun.

Rate this:

22 responses to “The Research Year”

musteryou

January 14, 2015

LikeLike

Fie Upon This Quiet Life

January 14, 2015

Oh… I admit I’m a little jealous. But this is awesome for you! Enjoy!

LikeLike

January 14, 2015

Your timing is impeccable.

“Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner named former State Sen. James Meeks chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education, as the Republican’s new cabinet and staff began taking shape Saturday. Meeks, a Chicago Democrat, is pastor of Salem Baptist Church on the South Side, and his endorsement of Republican Rauner caused a stir.”

http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/7/71/281705/rauner-names-chief-staff-first-wave-appointments/

Reverend Meeks is a well known homophobe and supporter of school vouchers and charter schools. He is also a key member of the Gatekeepers Network, “an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state.” One of their presumptive goals is to replace the current Illinois’ godless secular Liberal educational agenda with a Bible based curriculum. Who needs a library when you can get everything you need to know out of the “Good Book.”

When you return to work, you can start offering such course offerings as “God’s Wrath: A history of the Spanish Inquisition.”

LikeLike

Clarissa

January 14, 2015

“When you return to work, you can start offering such course offerings as “God’s Wrath: A history of the Spanish Inquisition.””

🙂 🙂 Maybe I should start planning the course right now. 🙂

Or it could be something like: Protestantism (the Religion of Winners) versus Catholicism (the Religion of Losers.) The Reverend has got to enjoy this one.

LikeLike

Reply

matt

January 14, 2015

Ok, you know I love you clarissa right? (and your great blog, with 2.4 million hits). and I do enjoy this as a diversification of my reading interests (from tech, business politics etc.).

And I am happy for you that you get to spend a year working on your project and I 100% am sure you will use the time wisely and do something brilliant.

But, there are ZERO private sector jobs that I can think of which would give a year off from the primary revenue generating role (aka teaching in your case). Personally, it doesn’t bother me too much, but you and some of the other commenters here often at least appear to not be sure why there is such hostility to education / government workers, so if you are ever unsure I just wanted to use this as a pretty defined reason that many would be angry/jealous/self-righteous.

Hope you understand the spirit of my post (to make a larger point about the “state and education” etc.), and not to be mean, pedantic or critical of you

and

If your pay is different during this time then I certainly partially or wholly rescind my comment.

Nonetheless… enjoy the yaer and kick some butt!

LikeLike

Clarissa

January 14, 2015

I’m teaching three courses this semester with the total number of 78 students. So please unclench and let go of the jealousy.
Your “jealous people ” are brainless freaks who opine without even trying to understand what it is they are opining on.

Nobody gave me any “year off.” And I never “appeared unsure” about freakazoids who hate education. I am profoundly sure that they are idiots who judge things they are not even remotely equipped to judge.

Why is everybody conspiring to annoy me today?

LikeLike

Reply
1. musteryou
  
  January 14, 2015
  
  Here’s the real reason for the caustic notions about teachers. They are more needed than ever, but the populace wants to liberate itself from them so that it can enjoy becoming mad:
  
  http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/teach-children-this.html
  
  Anyway Congrats on the year to do research!
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Clarissa
    
    January 14, 2015
    
    Thank you!
    
    There is no other profession in the world where outsiders feel as entitled to offer oh-peeneeons as they do on my job.
    
    I agree with you, they hate us because we don’t let them slide into complete insanity.
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    
    Reply
Clarissa

January 14, 2015

I’m really disturbed by your bizarre need to inform me which part of my activities generates income, Matt. Please observe that I’m not venturing any such opinions about your job. You are not even remotely equipped to have an opinion about this. But the scary part is that you don’t seem aware of this. Tell me, do you also approach doctors and inform them how to treat patients? Interrupt fire fighters and lecture them on how to put out fires?

LikeLike

Reply
Evelina Anville

January 14, 2015

Matt,
You appear woefully uniformed about the relationship between publishing, teaching, and “keeping one’s job” in higher education. I will break it down for you:

1) Most schools absolutely require a significant research output before they will grant tenure or promotion (i.e. publishing a book, producing significant scientific research, producing something aesthetically significant etc. etc.)

2) Failure to produce significant research will result in the loss of one’s job or in refusal of promotion.

3) Producing significant research is a full time job.

4) Teaching is a full time job.

5) Since faculty members are human beings, teaching full time and conducting research full time are not always compatible.

6) If an institution is going to expect or encourage significant research (which augments a university’s reputation), then the university needs to give faculty an occasional break from teaching.

7) This break from teaching is called a sabbatical. Faculty work very hard during sabbaticals to produce significant research. This research augments the personal, intellectual, and professional growth of the faculty member– making them better scholar and better teachers. This research also augment’s the university’s reputation (see point 6.)

8) Faculty return from sabbatical to full-time teaching.

9) Most people in the “private sector” have no interest in the sort of work required to produce the sort of research that faculty engage in. If they were interested, they would have gone in to higher ed (and mess less money.)

10) No need for hostility.

Hope this helps!

LikeLike

Reply
1. Clarissa
  
  January 14, 2015
  
  Thank you, Evelina! People don’t have the slightest idea how much reading, thinking, analyzing, and rewriting goes into producing scholarly research. But they think they are entitled to judge.
  
  I have no idea what needs to happen for me to come to a forum of, say, bakers and start judging them.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Evelina Anville
    
    January 14, 2015
    
    “I have no idea what needs to happen for me to come to a forum of, say, bakers and start judging them.”
    
    Exactly! People seem to think that because they went to school, that they understand everything a teacher/professor does. Or because they wrote an essay once that they understand what it means to publish an article. I truly don’t know of any other profession where people feel so free to critique and opine as education. I don’t know why this is. And Matt’s comments were not enlightening here.
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
matt

January 15, 2015

A few things. First, it was not at all apparent to me that you were still teaching three classes (I took engineering a year to work on your research why everyone else scrambled to classes to imply that you were not teaching for a year.. that is my mistake in hindsight it appears). I re-read the post and still do not see that alluded to, but that definitely, 100% changes part of my comment since you are still doing what are revenue generating work (in my definition).

This is in reply to one of the comments down below. I certainly understand what it takes to be a teacher in the current system (at a high level at least). I understand how important research is, publishing etc in the current system. That is exactly my critique. not of Clarissa or other teachers, but rather of the system rewarding that. Totally fair for you to argue that that indeed SHOULD be part of your job, I disagree, and posit that a good majority of the public does disagree.

Thirdly, the reason I or anyone in general feels like we have the right to comment or get annoyed is that we pay your salaries pretty directly, or you can argue indirectly if you want (obviously I am in a different state, but pay for teachers in my state). In the private sector you either buy someone’s goods or their company goes out of business and people can boycott. When govt. has the power to tax they constituencies have the right to voice opinions.

Lastly, hope no ill will exists. I think I have expressed my views in a very polite, non-inflammatory way, but I do get that even bringing them up could be impolite.

LikeLike

Reply
1. Clarissa
  
  January 15, 2015
  “100% changes part of my comment since you are still doing what are revenue generating work (in my definition).”
  
  Bizarredom continues. Why should YOUR definition of “revenue-generating work” in my field be of any relevance to anybody? You obviously have zero knowledge about the profession, yet we are supposed to organize our lives around your strange definitions? How will you feel if I come to you with baseless – and completely erroneous – statements on what is “revenue-generating” in your job?
  
  “Thirdly, the reason I or anyone in general feels like we have the right to comment or get annoyed is that we pay your salaries pretty directly”
  
  Seriously? 🙂 🙂 Man, you just so lack all knowledge on the subject. You don’t pay my salary, so you can just relax on the subject.
  
  “When govt. has the power to tax they constituencies have the right to voice opinions.”
  
  You have the right to voice opinions to the government that taxes you. I’m not part of that government. The State of Illinois isn’t paying my university what it owes us. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the state is massively broke. My taxes and my work go to feed a bunch of already ultra-rich “businessmen” like Mr. Rauner.
  
  “That is exactly my critique. not of Clarissa or other teachers, but rather of the system rewarding that. Totally fair for you to argue that that indeed SHOULD be part of your job, I disagree, and posit that a good majority of the public does disagree.”
  
  First of all, I’m not a teacher. There is nothing wrong with being one but I’m simply not a teacher just like I’m not a police officer, a dentist, or a baker. I’m a research scholar. That’s all I ever wanted to be and that what I was hired to be. The “general public” has absolutely no say in the terms of my contract with my hiring institution.
  
  “In the private sector you either buy someone’s goods or their company goes out of business and people can boycott.”
  
  And on the Moon there are craters, so where are the craters on your lawn? If I wanted to work in the private sector and expose myself to the kind of idiocy you are manifesting here, I would have gone to work in the private sector.
  
  “I think I have expressed my views in a very polite, non-inflammatory way”
  
  You have insulted me in the grossest possible manner. I don’t remember being so degraded and offended in years. I’ve never done anything bad to you yet you think it’s OK to come here and insult me with your ridiculous speechifying. Have you considered the possibility that you simply don’t have the knowledge to opine on these matters?
  
  LikeLike
  Reply
  1. Clarissa
    
    January 15, 2015
    
    It’s horrifying how primitive people are. They come to a doctor and say, “I’m not paying you to wash your hands before approaching a patient, so stop washing your hands! Now! I’m a taxpayer, so I know how to practice medicine!” And then they wonder why normal human beings recoil from them in horror.
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
2. Evelina Anville
  
  January 15, 2015
  
  “I understand how important research is, publishing etc in the current system. That is exactly my critique. not of Clarissa or other teachers, but rather of the system rewarding that. Totally fair for you to argue that that indeed SHOULD be part of your job, I disagree, and posit that a good majority of the public does disagree.”
  
  Woah! Did you really say that research shouldn’t be part of a university professor’s job? Seriously? Do you know that the vast majority of medical, technological, and scientific advancements came out of the university? That the most significant and profound writing in the areas of philosophy and historical/literary analysis came out of the university? The world would be a far sadder, more backwards place if it wasn’t for the research conducted by scholars in a whole variety of fields.
  
  Also, if you are concerned about teaching, research and scholarship improves teaching. If I fall behind in my field, how can I teach undergraduates? Unlike Clarissa, I do consider myself a teacher as well as a scholar (and I actually think that all professors—with a very occasional exceptions—should teach as part of their jobs) but you can’t separate research/scholarship from the university.
  
  Research—just like education—is part of the fundamental function of the university and has been since the inception of the very concept of the university. Are you still in high school Matt? I don’t mean that unkindly but you seem to have no idea what a college or university is.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  1. Clarissa
    
    January 15, 2015
    
    “Woah! Did you really say that research shouldn’t be part of a university professor’s job? Seriously? Do you know that the vast majority of medical, technological, and scientific advancements came out of the university?”
    
    No, he doesn’t. It’s very sobering to see the amount of ignorance that surrounds us.
    
    ” If I fall behind in my field, how can I teach undergraduates?”
    
    I’m directing the total of 17 independent research projects this academic year. This means that, at the very least, I have to reread the 17 primary sources (novels, in my field) the students are working on. To an unenlightened fool it looks like, “Oooh, she’s reading by the fireplace! Stealing taxpayer money! Boo hoo! Total freak out!” But that’s what my job is like.
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
    1. Evelina Anville
      
      January 15, 2015
      
      “I have to reread the 17 primary sources (novels, in my field) the students are working on. To an unenlightened fool it looks like, “Oooh, she’s reading by the fireplace! Stealing taxpayer money! Boo hoo! Total freak out!” But that’s what my job is like.”
      
      I think there is a certain segment (in the US anyway) that defines work as necessarily painful. If somebody enjoys his/her work (and most academics despite their complaining DO enjoy their work), then, the “logic” goes, that person is not working but playing. Hard workers, virtuous workers, are unhappy and poorly rested. It’s a sad way to view work and careers but I think this mindset might be common.
      
      LikeLike
      
      Reply

leahladygrey

January 14, 2015

My two mentors are both on sabbatical as well, I hope all three of you have a wonderful relaxing and fruitful year of research.

LikeLike

Clarissa

January 14, 2015

Thank you! But I’m not on sabbatical yet. I’m just good at organizing research time outside of sabbaticals.

LikeLike

Reply

Evelina Anville

January 14, 2015

How are you teaching three courses and getting to relax by the fire? Online courses? Hybrid courses? I am curious! 🙂

LikeLike

Clarissa

January 14, 2015

One is a graduate course with 18 students that I teach on Thursday nights. One is an individual research course with 11 students. And one is a large hybrid course. But the trick is that I prepared everything in advance for these courses. It’s all done and now I can concentrate on my research.

It’s all about strategy. 🙂

LikeLike

Reply

Clarissa's Blog