Blogs

This is the time when most of us with an active social and professional life are about to plan in detail the benchmarks of the next 12 months, and evaluate what has been working and what needs improvement. Some do this by themselves, and others use professional coaching experts and consultants that can help evaluate successes and failures.

Can I afford to say no in my position? Better question: Can I afford not to?

For years we have been print Newsweek subscribers. Now that Newsweek has abandoned print and gone to all digital I have abandoned Newsweek.

I remember the thrill of reading Robinson Crusoe for the first time. Later readings may have surfaced infamous bits of wordplay and troubling social/racial stereotyping, but when I was ten or eleven the image of a lone individual not just surviving but (to an extent) thriving in a wilderness was captivating. No need for a never-ending set of interlocking puzzles as per Lost, no man/beasts created by Dr. Moreau, not even an almost-magical black stallion -- the (by current Hollywood standards) embarrassingly simple story of adversity and unfamiliarity overcome grabbed my childhood imagination and held it for years.

Bowling Green announced it was letting go of 100 full-time faculty. Let's talk football.

Ellucian has announced a new initiative called the "Ellucian Inspire Awards." With the goal of recognizing their customers who have made "measurable improvements" at their institutions using Ellucian's solutions or services, the new award offers a $3,000 prize. The new awards program focuses on projects that "achieved measurable results during the past two years in any of three categories:"

Nate Kreuter’s latest is well worth checking out. It’s about the fear -- sometimes founded, sometimes not -- that people have when they look for other jobs that their current employer will hold it against them.

I've found that the end of 2012/beginning of 2013 has brought some changes to a number of services that I rely on for my Grad Student productivity/teaching/ writing/etc. Since it's always hard to keep up with tech changes (especially when the pace of change seems to be daily, even hourly), I thought I'd share a brief round-up of the news that has been of interest or of use recently.