Tenure and the Culture of Failure in Academia

Why are career paths that aren't tenure track considered failures by so many of us? Why do we use expressions like 'abandon the academic job search' or 'plan b' even when we're trying to explain that non-academic jobs are good outcomes of graduate studies? The easy answer is to blame the conveyor belt model of academia, and the lack of non-academic perspective of most academics. The reality is probably more a case of individual priorities and goals.

Canadian Science and Technology Association Conference 2011

Yes, that's right. Two blogs in one day. It's also true that I went to two conferences in a row in Ottawa. One of my co-panellists attended both, and we're of the opinion that we deserve some sort of award for enduring 5 consecutive days of conferencing, including giving presentations.

Here's my thoughts about the 2011 Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association's meeting.

Class Size, Funding and Sessional Instructors: Universities in Transition

Today's Globe and Mail includes an article by Jeffrey Simpson about the problems with universities these days. Simpson rehashes three common complaints about the university experience and then uses selective quotations from Robert Campbell, the president of the well-known research-intensive Mt A, and Harvey Weingarten to claim that universities are finally admitting to the problem.

Teaching Tip #4: Maintaining Sanity While Grading

Given the slow news day on Friday, it might be time for a return of the Teaching Tip.

For those who missed it, a York University Teaching Assistant was caught making disparaging remarks about students on Facebook and then apologized. Various people were sought for comment, or perhaps merely invented, since there is the standard union line (TAs are overworked), the standard entitled undergraduate (I demand better customer service and an ego-stroke), the standard disgruntled graduate student (it's not just TAs, it's Professors and Deans too), the standard department line (we accept the TA's apology and have full faith in her abilities - meaning the TA is either getting a pedagogical and PR refresher or will be shifted to non-teaching duties in the future) and no comment from the TA in question.

Where there's smoke, there's fire

Every so often I meet with my supervisor to discuss my progress (or lack thereof) and then we brainstorm ways to get this dissertation done sooner than later. At the end of the summer we met. His suggestion was to take a week off to refresh the batteries and then get back at it. My desire was to rediscover my love of writing and continue working on the dissertation. The compromise was a temporary break from dissertating and a brief focus on tangential, but necessary academic activities like updating my CV and starting this blog. This was moderately successful; I don't blog as regularly as I might like and the dissertation meter doesn't always inch up in terms of raw and comprehensible page count, even while I'm plugging away every day.

Three Questions

Once people learn that I am a graduate student they usually follow up with three questions.

1. What do you study?
1. Which comes with a subliminal request, "please keep the answer short and comprehensible; if I'm actually interested and understand your short answer, then I will ask for more details."
2. When are you going to be done?
3. What do you think you'll do when you're done?