Interesting and good news

Interesting and Good News

So, the good news is I've been chosen to interview for a second position. This one a state U. I'm very excited about it. It is a teaching-heavy position, but one where I think there will be enough pressure to push myself to really excel. But now I feel constrained. So much for details. There would be more, but ...

Some of you may have noticed that I've installed sitemeter. On the one hand, it's really neat to see that I have visitors from all over the world. On the other, I'm not exactly thrilled that some of my newer visitors are coming via the Chronicle of Higher Education jobs website. Yep -- the CHE has a list of academic blogs. This is the same place that gave Ivan Tribble a whole lot of space to tell us how blogging was going to keep us from getting jobs. I don't think that's really irony, except in the Alannis way, but it's interesting in a right hand-left hand way. And now, I can also see that there are people who read my blog who log on from big universities and small. People whose identities I can guess because they are at little colleges with distinctive names I recognize from some of the same listservs that I subscribe to. I feel distinctly uncomfortable.



So if you think you know who I am, I'm going to ask you a favor. Just keep it to yourself, unless you are very positive that 'outing' me will help me to get a job. I'm happy to say I'm not embarrassed by anything I've written on my blog. I think I've written some good things that reflect my views on history and on teaching, and through my blog, I've made connections that have allowed me the chance to present, got me a position doing something that will count as service to the profession and name-recognition for wherever I'm employed, and generally kept my head in the game. I've gained colleagues in ways contingent faculty usually can't, and I'm very lucky. I hope the blog makes me look like someone you'd like as a colleague. But forgive me if I'm still a little scared.



Oh -- and if you are the person who got here by googling "Gandhi + contribution + world + history"? It sounds like you're a student. Try the library. Look up Gandhi in the catalog. Go to the bibliography in a book on Gandhi and see what other books you can find that address your question. For free, you might also search for Gandhi's impact, or civil diobedience or somesuch thing. But pretty much, you might want to start at the library and the databases there.