University of Venus
GenX Women in Higher Ed, Writing from Across the Globe
December 5, 2010 - 6:45pm
For several years during my early 20’s, I kept a journal that I called the “Read Me Journal.” There are three volumes, all written in floral hardbound notebooks, with the words “Read Me” scrawled across the front in black nail polish. They are all fat and include various newspaper and magazine clippings, drawings and a few dashes of perfume to supplement the handwritten account of my life. Each has a detailed table of contents, written in A.A. Milne style, beginning with the words “In which…” They also include handwritten comments from my friends on whatever I had written.
December 2, 2010 - 9:31pm
The benighted “MRS” degree bore a particular meaning for my mother’s generation. Young women went off to college with minimal interest in their major and maximum interest in securing a mate. Their graduation took a distant second to their wedding as evidence that they had successfully concluded their college experience. Think of Elizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride.
November 30, 2010 - 10:30pm
How much time per day do I spend on social media? And how does it compare with, for example, the time I spend writing an academic article or reading a scientific book or preparing a research project? It is worthy to dedicate so much time networking on Twitter, Facebook or other social networks, exchanging e-mails or making comments instead of silently worshiping the silence of the libraries and the quiet lonely meditation about the last book I’ve read followed by a sophisticated writing account?
November 28, 2010 - 8:15pm
“You’ve inspired me to want to become a professor.”
November 23, 2010 - 7:31pm
Are classes the same thing as courses and sections?Simple questions about student data can quickly disintegrate into details too nuanced for most faculty to stomach. I restrain myself from asking too many questions in response: should data be categorized by term, or by year? Should non-degree students and auditors be included? Universities are swimming in data, even if they are siloed in ways that seem to make little sense.
November 21, 2010 - 9:00pm
Where does professors’ authority in the classroom come from?
November 18, 2010 - 9:45pm
When I was in college in North Carolina, no one really thought much about "abroad" experiences. If you did go abroad, you went to Europe to study French or, as in my case, to learn Spanish in Madrid. The norm was to think of your career aspirations as a domestic endeavor. At the time, the Peace Corps seemed only to want engineering and nursing students, so it wasn't a viable option for an arts-n-science student.
November 16, 2010 - 10:30pm
On November 3, British universities minister David Willetts announced
November 14, 2010 - 9:45pm
I bookmarked dictionary.com before noon my first day of work at the University. This wasn’t merely because of the impressive language being thrown at me by the staff and faculty, I understand English pretty well and all – and if that were the only issue, I wouldn’t have been nearly as concerned. However one of my first tasks was to go through the files of Graduate Studies Officers past and I found myself under attack by Latin. Latin. A so-called “dead” language that seemed determined to haunt me: ex officio, ipso facto, mea culpa.
November 11, 2010 - 9:30pm
I like conferences, I confess. There are so many types of conferences these days that it is hard to choose one’s favorites: there are “regular” conferences, a slowly vanishing category. Then we have virtual conferences, which may be poised to become the new regular kind, with many billions in value.