Recently, a supervisor remarked that I am “too Americanized” and lacking in good-old-fashioned sensitivity [pakiramdam] as Division chair. Clearly, my brand of managing has critics. But as I constantly remind myself and my superiors, I only get half semester load credit for my administrative job. To live the other half of my academic life teaching, doing research and publishing,  I have to  follow work practices that will get the admin job done in a University machine that is in “low” gear (read: slow decision-making).

In my world, fall means back-to-school. This fall, across the world, back-to-school means MOOCs. For somewhere close to a million people.