Category — academic life

Imagine you have 100 hands for holding publications and 50 heads to read and process all that information. You would be able to recall quite some bit. Unfortunately, one does not have so many heads..

[From Aigaion - A web-based bibliography system]

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another interesting bibliography management system

Carmun – Social Networking for Writing School Papers:
The cheeky YouTube video that explains Carmun describes the service as “Wikipedia meets Facebook”. But essentially its a social network for people who have to write term papers. There’s lots of tools for asking peers questions, managing bibliographies, and some del.icio.us-esque tools for saving online sources.

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Looks like a tool that composition classes might be interested in developing.

Wiki becomes textbook in Boston College classroom:
Wiki becomes textbook in Boston College classroom
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This is a great idea, I know that when i’ve had my students contribute to wikipedia they’ve learned a fair amount about wikipedia, usually after their additions were deleted, or changed.

Too many students attend college:
Too many students attend college
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I actually agree to some extent with this idea, but not the evidence presented here. I think people need time to explore and find something they are passionate about before they engage in college. Too many students enter college, I think, with an unpurposefulness, which while fine in a general sense, is not conducive to learning. This combined with the problem of credentialism that students are taught by their high school and parents (cause i don’t teach that), causes dynamics in the classroom where students want you to tell them ‘what will be on the test?’ amongst other things. In other words, they don’t seem to want to learn as much as they want to pass the test. Those are not the same thing.

so, if you’ve not heard yet… Barring incident, I’m leaving NYC in late July and moving to Chicago to work in the Department of Communications at UIC. I am really excited about the opportunity, it should be great fun. I cannot say that I’m looking forward to the move, as I’m not a big on moving, but.. I’m lovin the possibilities of the new job:) SLCC and NCA are in chicago this year and I will be at Internet Research 8.0 too:)

Ask Alex: Getting a Communication Ph.D.:
Should I go for a Ph.D.?

Well, first of all, that’s probably the wrong question. The right question is: “Should I pursue a Ph.D.?” and the answer I will always give is “no.”

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Alex speaks the truth. 99% of the time the answer is no. I tell my students that there is only one ‘yes’ and that is this: “You cannot imagine being who you are without a ph.d.” that is… if there is something about your life’s work, whatever that may be, that will necessitate you to identify yourself as a ph.d. then, you should get one. If there are research questions or topics that you must work on… for instance, you might need to pursue a ph.d. …. but perhaps you don’t.

Creative Business Card Designs.:

Creativebits blog has a collection of some really creative business card designs (many from the businesscards pool on Flickr): Link – Thanks Tara!
and
Neatorama

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I have like 500 business cards from pratt….. but i’ve been using streetcards by hugh,

Quasi-academic life coaching:
I wonder whether what we need is less advice that normalises unrealistic expectations that will only ever apply to an overcommitted few, and instead begin to expand (or rather, demand) the range of examples and meaningful outcomes that a graduate education in humanities in Australia can lead to. I know a bunch of you who read this blog are engaged in just this kind of crucial, community-based activity, and yet why is it that getting published in journals (that no one has time to read) and books (that no one can afford to buy) is seen as a rational expenditure of time? Particularly when universities and governments, under the sway of Big Science’s Big Bucks, don’t even want to acknowledge what’s regarded as a valuable contribution to humanities knowledge (including that most traditional of outcomes, publishing a book that is highly esteemed amongst your colleagues, as the RQF planning discussions seem to be suggesting).
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Mel hits the nail on the head. There are things we do for the job…. publish, etc. then there are things we are and things we must be… social, political, hopefully ethical, and well-rounded human beings. Academia is progressing away from this. I support a model of the academic that is more rounded, that has friends, that has causes, that has fun outside of work that lets them have fun inside of work. People ask me where i have fun and I say that I like to do things on the internet, i like to play games, chat, learn, etc. those are fun things for me.

I was talking with a graduate student at UToronto who said… Oh they expect me to have 6 publications before I graduate. I’m like ‘woaaa, dude’ some of the people that I read and cite didn’t have a single publication until they were 40 or more. You can’t just hire brilliant people anymore apparently… you have to hire published people? this is a problem and it is gettign worse. Some places that i know of require 2 books for tenure? two manuscripts. That is setting the bar at ‘no other life’ and is, I think, depriving our students of well rounded professors and leading to significant other cultural issues in the academy. We need people who are in free to be creative, not free to be productive. if the creativity leads to productivity, great, if it leads to changes in our world that makes it a better place… even better!

Ten lessons:
Ten Lessons I wish I Had Been Taught

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some good thoughts here.