You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Thanks everyone for adding your blog to the list. At last count, we were still just under 200 blogs, so please (especially if you were having trouble with the embedded form in Tuesdays post) add your blog to the list.
The great thing about this resource is that it is searchable (just hit ctrl/command+F). Eventually, we want to try and make the resource even more user-friendly, but the first step was compiling the data.
You might also be interested in this resource list on Academic Blogging I compiled. I have academic bloggers offering advice on academic blogging, as well as pieces on academic blogging and tenure and a bit of history on academic blogging. If you see something missing from the list that you think I should add, please let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
----
I want to thank Dean Dad (it’s still strange to call him by his real name) for addressing the issue of adjuncts and leadership positions yesterday. I’d also like to thank the people who commented for being supportive and constructive. I’ve written many times before (particularly back on the old blog) about the real disservice excluding adjuncts and other non-tenure-track faculty from ever ascending into leadership positions does to the entire institution.
I’m fairly fortunate that a) I’m full-time (although non-tenure-track) and b) my university in a lot of ways treats all full-time faculty the same (except of course when it comes to things like salary). What I’m trying to say is that instructors (and staff member at any level) are eligible to participate in the President’s Leadership Academy. So I applied and got into next year’s class.
It’s basically exactly what Matt called for: a way to see how the sausage is being made, so to speak, within the university. For the first half of the year, we look at issues facing the university, and then during the second half of the year, we “intern” or shadow an administrator in an area that interests us, or concerns an issue we are interested in addressing.
We don’t get any extra pay for this, but it does open the doors to possible upward mobility, so to speak, within the university. It is also a way for the university to identify “talent” internally, in places they might have looked otherwise. I’m really looking forward to it, despite the extra work it will mean. I’m the first instructor to ever participate in the program; I don’t know if it’s because I was the first instructor ever selected or the only instructor who has ever been crazy enough to apply.
This doesn’t solve the problem of the lack of tenure-track positions, nor does it address the proportion of administrators to tenure/tenure-track faculty. But it does represent one way that our university is trying to be inclusive in its structure. We have very few adjuncts at our institution, but quite a number of instructors, and it’s nice that the university doesn’t automatically exclude us from these opportunities.
---
How’s your summer been so far? My kids are really learning how to swim. My daughter is doing ballet camp and can now reasonably breathe on her side when she swim front crawl. Her backstroke is also, if I may say so, pretty impressive. My son is busy collecting every bug he can find as “pets” in a giant bug box/terrarium. They’re both enjoying their time spent together over the summer, and I often find myself pinching myself at how lucky I am that I have two wonderful kids who genuinely love each other and get along with each other.
That is the thing I don’t think I’ll forget (or regret) about this summer: taking the time to really watch my kids grow and interact.
