Blogs

Would you take a vacation if you could not access the Internet? What would you pay per minute to get online? Having just returned from a week of vacation I can answer both questions.

The one very minor positive for me in the current economic cliffhanger is that my vocabulary has expanded to include sequestration and I even find myself unfortunately using this word on a regular basis. In the next few weeks, I may even get to the point of asking friends and acquaintances how they are and how they will be after sequestration.

One element of musical improv that I (and many others) find challenging is rhyming. It is hard enough to express a strong emotion melodically, in regular rhythm, often switching off verses or even lines with a partner, without worrying about how to end the line with a rhyme that actually makes sense and is emotionally consonant with what has gone on before.

Oscar Wilde supposedly once claimed that he would have been a socialist, but he liked to keep his evenings free. All that civic participation would have crimped his style. I was reminded of that this week in discussion with some faculty who were balking at the time commitment involved in serving on search committees. They all believe in heavy faculty involvement in searches, but all that participation really adds up.

I’m finishing up a draft of a department self-study for an external review of our library. It’s the third time I’ve been involved in one of these, and the second time I’ve been primary author. It’s making me feel reflective about this enterprise we are part of, the nature of time, and questions of purpose and agency. Deep thoughts, in other words.

Anyone who had pursued a graduate level education knows that there is a great deal of work involved. At times, this workload can become overwhelming for any student once it follows you home and won’t leave. However, it is times like this that we have to think back to the iconic line from The Shining: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Imagine him locked in that hotel with a thesis document or comprehensive exam to finish and suddenly Jack sounds like a burnt-out grad student. Don’t let this happen to you!

A professor in a course in Labor Economics in graduate school once described the workings of the national conference where job searches were held, outlining behavior that might be seen as illegal in many other contexts. For example, it was not uncommon at the time for schools that were hiring to get together before any interviews began to discuss what salaries would be offered that year to those hired at different ranks. He asked us to try to explain how such behavior could not be seen as collusive price setting behavior, and we were all at a loss for words.

I like this story a lot, even though it’s a little pessimistic. Apparently, Klamath Community College, in Oregon, has decided to make a series of changes to improve student success rates. Some of the changes are relatively straightforward, such as requiring academic advising and new student orientation. But it has gone farther than that, and eliminated late registration.