Day: March 25, 2019

Life as an associate professor with tenure can be even more isolating and overwhelming, she says, than being an assistant professor on the tenure track. The path to achieving what amounts to higher education’s golden ring is well marked and includes guidance from more-experienced peers. But once a professor earns tenure, that guidance disappears, the amount of committee work piles on, and associate professors are often left to figure out how to manage the varying demands of the job—and fit in time for their research—on their own.

Of course, by that time you are already in your forties or late thirties, so maybe it’s time to grow up and actually enjoy being an adult. And these are the people who can’t quit complaining about students’ immaturity.

“A lot of professors, when they get tenure, think they have arrived, but what they soon realize is that life is not that much better,” says Robert A. Rhoads, a professor and director of the Globalization and Higher Education Research Center, at the University of California at Los Angeles. “After tenure lots of faculty go through a crisis of meaning, where they think: ‘There has to be something more than writing research grants, publishing, and teaching.’ An associate professor starts to think: ‘Why am I doing what I’m doing?'”

I have no idea what these idiots are on about.

I really liked being on the TT, but after tenure it got even better. Even committees got more fun because I’m now chairing them. And research is so much better once you come into your own and fully inhabit your field. And by the way, with all I publish and all the service to the profession I do, the idea is working 80 hours a week that these losers keep harping on is ludicrous. If I worked 80 hours a week (which I’m not going to do because

Something is deeply wrong with people if they can’t even enjoy tenure. God, what a bunch of stupid whiners.

And the best quote of all:

“Everybody is asked to do a whole bunch of stuff we didn’t sign on for, like sitting on an admissions committee debating whether someone with a 15 ACT score should be admitted. It all feels so much more plebeian and mundane.”

Plebeian, eh? Her Royal Highness thinks she deserves something more elevated than talking about students. And she’s not ashamed to put her name to this.

On Monday, the Trump administration released several proposed changes to the Higher Education Act, which is in the early stages of reauthorization by Congress. The proposal recommends reducing the number of federal loan repayment options and capping the amount of student loans that parents and graduate students can take on.

This is great but why just graduate students?

Both the borrowing cap and the repayment consolidation are sorely needed. Now if Trump also proposes reducing support staff (diversity, assessment, inclusion, etc) at colleges by two thirds, I’ll even vote for him. But he’s not going to, so no need to worry.

A Women’s March leader blamed Jews for the Christchurch attack. And then blamed her small children for blaming the Jews for the attack. Of course, tons of people with small children somehow manage to avoid being rabid anti-Semites but whatever.

It’s funny how the same people who passionately (and correctly) insist that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic argue that any criticism of anybody who happens to be Muslim is not only Islamophobic but actually leads to murders of Muslims. By somebody else.

“Trump defeats ISIS and fights for Lordstown factory while Democrats want another investigation of who said what to which Russian two years ago.”

It’s not a headline that will ever appear because people writing headlines don’t give a crap about Lordstown or ISIS.

The union is completely mishandling the bargaining with the administration. They are now stuck on the utterly inane issue of the service requirement for summer teaching.

What the service requirement means in practice is that while you teach in summer, you might also advise a couple of students here and there who need to select courses for the next year. I do it all the time even though I don’t teach in summer and nobody makes me do it. We need more students in the program, so why not give some help.

Believe me, our service requirements are minimal at any time. There is nothing here to bargain over. At this pace, we’ll never get a contract.