Blogs

The fine blog Not of General Interest asks the right questions about UD's MOOC-mucking, so let's do Part Three of my series on my experience as a lecturer in Udemy's Faculty Project (I've now recorded two talks for Poetry) as a kind of interview.

An occasional correspondent writes: "I'm the most junior tenured member of my department, in which some of the more senior tenured faculty are not on speaking terms with each other. For complicated reasons, I'm also going to be the chair of this department next year. Any tips on how to handle this situation?"

The value of extra-curricular artivities, or, why I blog.

This weekend I plunked down my $3.99 to watch the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Four bucks buys you access to every game. Watch on the web, or download the Android or iOS app for your iPad or iPhone (or mix and match). All 67 games on every screen, for less than the cost of a Starbucks venti caramel macchiato.

One sees signs across many campuses encouraging people to “say something” if they “see something,” but what does that mean for graduate students? Many graduate students experience some form of abuse, but we often feel helpless to do anything about it. We sense that something is wrong with us rather than the institutionalized patterns of derision, infantilization, neglect, and exploitation. To make matters worse, a blanket of silence shrouds this abuse. Those who are brave enough to address the issue are often suppressed or dismissed. Until we can bring about structural change as the next generation of scholars, we need to focus on supporting each other, finding individual solutions, and pushing our universities to provide greater protection.

According to a survey of university faculty at Russian universities, conducted by National Research University - Higher School of Economics in November 2011, a substantial proportion of them pay for their texts (research papers and conference proceedings) to be published. In particular, about 40% of 2800 respondents reported that they made payments in a range of USD 30-800 related to the publication process within last year, and about a third among those who pay, spent more than USD 150. One might say that these numbers are not big. However, compared to low faculty salaries these expenditures are not that small.

I was deeply disturbed by Jonathan Zimmerman's recent Christian Science Monitor article on the reaction of Columbia students to President Obama's decision to deliver the commencement address at Barnard:

We have a very active and respected Center for Civic Engagement on our campus. The Center has undertaken many worthwhile initiatives including the development of “a brief workshop for students who will be working with off campus communities.” This workshop, which is slightly over an hour in length, examines how students feel about working with off-campus communities and how these communities feel about working with students.