Archive for the ‘ Tenure ’ Category

Dating a Colleague When Tenure Is Hanging In the Balance

Humans are animals, and will do anything to survive and continue the species: food, sex (love), and survival, that’s all we need and are instinctively hell-bent of the pursuit of those goals. As far as I’ve seen, only tenure can veer an otherwise intelligent human animal away from food, sex and survival[ READ MORE ]

Michelle Obama Supports Girls in STEM Majors and Careers

The unfortunate phenomenon of elementary-aged girls becoming interested in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) subjects, going off to college intending to major in and then pursue a career in one of those fields, and ultimately veering off somewhat sharply into less science-and-math rich majors and careers is common. [ READ MORE ]

Faculty Productivity

Ever wonder what those professors with their cush teaching posts do with their well-paid time? Educate young minds or lie about, smoking pipes and wearing tweed and discussing any topic in the most pedantic way possible? Perhaps. Or maybe they’re working their asses off trying to keep the jobs they nearly killed themselves to get. [ READ MORE ]

Math Is Hard!

Not really. I adore math and all its perfect logic. I’ve ranted before about math and smart girls and the general idea that being capable of doing something well has nothing to do with gender, race, sex, or your ass’ ability to sprout wings[ READ MORE ]

Wikipedia Wants Your Learned Grey Matter

Whether it’s a site-able source (it’s absolutely not, according to many professorial types) or not, everyone uses Wikipedia as a quick way to satisfy some burning question or as a starting point on some quest for reams of information on almost any subject one can think of. It’s like a Twinkie or Oscar Meyer baloney: I don’t trust it, I would never serve it at a dinner party, but I’m still gonna eat it. [ READ MORE ]

For-Profit Success vs. Not-For-Profit Failure

I don’t want to agree with Michael Platt that for-profit schools succeed and not-for-profit schools are seemingly always in financial straits, but he makes a certain amount of sense[ READ MORE ]

Academic Freedom (Re-Post)

Author’s Note: I’ve re-posted this article for your reading pleasure while I’m on vacation. The notion most of us have when thinking about the University (read that with a deep and important voice, please) is of a well-architectured limbo-land full of higher thought, in-depth learning, and forward motion steeped nicely in tradition. The University isn’t [ READ MORE ]

Life After Grad School: Getting From A to B

Graduate school, should it have escaped everyone’s notice, prepares no one for reality. One learns insanely vast oceans of information, but this just means that the M-Something or the PhD in question just knows a lot of stuff[ READ MORE ]

Rejection In Both Directions

Take my advice: Don’t screw over anyone who has ever been kind to you. [ READ MORE ]

Academic Freedom

These days, when you really stop to ponder the reality of the University bubble, that place of higher thinking seems a lot more watered down in its autonomy. [ READ MORE ]