This year, I remembered my bloggiversary: Blogenspiel is NINE!

Yep, it's nine years old.

Ok, really it's a little less, since I didn't start blogging in earnest for a couple of months, but still, NINE!

A lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same. I have gone from being a married person who had stopped working in academia and trying to get back in to a divorced person with a fairly secure (I think) academic position on the other side of the country and a house of my own. I met someone and fell in love, and that didn't work out so well, and the breakup (even though it turns out neither of us have completely moved on, but there is no possible 'back together', either) just about broke me. Didn't blog much about that one, though. Went through another year I didn't blog much about, last year, because once I'd recovered from the personal crisis, I landed in a professional one that is still trying to break me. I am torn between 80% of being in a job in a place I love, where I want to be, and 20% of Giant Black Hole of Dread when I think about actually going in to work, because they don't give you a kevlar vest with quasi-tenure. This year's goal is to reduce the 20% and, more importantly, not to allow it to ruin the 80% or the steps forward I've been making in writing and teaching cool new stuff.

That, and I need to get in better shape and pay off some bills :-)

Other things that have changed:

I've kept a lot of my old blogfriends, and they have become RL friends as well. But some, like New Kid, have changed careers. I've made new friends through blogging, and those friends have been as instrumental as the old ones in helping me see myself as a competent person who actually has a place at the academic table. The only disadvantage is that, as I manage to be a better scholar, I seem to have less time to read blogs, and feel I've lost touch with some of you, and that makes me sad. With any luck, the getting in better shape will also mean more energy to arrange my days better and to faff a bit less. I know that I want to write more on the blog in the coming year, because it really does keep me in practice.

Things that have not changed:

I am still horrified by some of my colleagues and their attitudes towards academia, their inability to recognize their privilege, and sometimes their completely insane hate-mongering.

I am still horrified by the governments of the US and UK, and their attitudes towards higher ed, the thrall in which corporate interests hold them, and the new ways they find to sell us out every day.

I still detest everything Murdoch and, although I do not wish it, I would not weep if I heard that Palin, Bachman, Cantor, Beck, Limbaugh, Buchanan, and others of that ilk were killed by buses, polar bears, or (and this would be a sort of justice) a failure of the infrastructure they have worked so hard to destroy.

I also have no great love for the centrists of the supposed left, and in some ways think they are worse.

I will still be blogging about academic life things, even if talking about my own is too difficult at the moment -- and this is also because of a change that has occurred, i.e., I'm far more pseudonymous than anonymous these days, and I don't want people trying to figure out which RL people I may or may not be talking about.

So... in the next few days, I hope to be posting about strategies for keeping up with scholarly stuff while dealing with a heavy teaching and service load; William Pannapacker's latest iteration of what's wrong with higher ed; a long overdue review of a slightly erotic novella written by a colleague and other medievalist; faculty buy-in... and some stuff I can't remember because it's hot here in Dabbaville, and I can't sleep in the hot.

In the meantime, here is a picture from my summer:

Sometimes you just need a little music

Today, I find I need The Clash and Billy Bragg.

The end of the year already?

The end of the year already?

Wow, it was so easy to blog during November, and then I fell off the wagon again. Right now, I'm in a cafe, unable to settle on work, so am going to say some stuff. I would tell you about my year, but it sucked. Actually, many good things happened this year, but the bad things were the sort of things that were in ways devastating. Not as devastating as my last breakup (and that's a whole nother thing, as they say). No, these things were devastating because they hit me at the core of my professional identity and involved going through something we probably all go through once we settle into a place, or maybe when we get tenure and become senior faculty. All of a sudden, we see more of the politics, and are on different committees (actually, not true in my case, but I know it is for some), and when we have the freedom to follow our own agendas a bit more. Or maybe it's just that academic politics can be very much like the schoolyard all over again, with cliques and hurt feelings and all sorts of things that shouldn't actually happen between reasonable adults.

Hm. I am having trouble writing about these things, at least in a dispassionate way.

Let's just say that I kinda love my job. I like the students I teach, even though I wish they were more driven. I work for great people who I really believe would like to pay their faculty more and who have been very supportive of me and my work, and of my colleagues, too. They have foibles, but I wouldn't trade them. I generally like my colleagues, although I am truly disturbed by some of the things I see, particularly those that seem to be the result of giving junior faculty too much responsibility too soon, with too little mentoring and oversight. And frankly, those same things might also be a result of not having a good feel for institutional wisdom and its importance. I love the town I live in, and enjoy much about small-town life. I have a house, and cats, and good friends. I feel loved and appreciated.

And yet


It would be nice if this year hadn't seemed to be a mash-up of Mean Girls, Lear, Middlemarch, and Gaslight.


Hey, it's still the bleak midwinter where I am. Look for productive posts in the New Year.

NaBloPoMo 2010 -7

NaBloPoMo 2010 -7 -- where did my weekend go?

Well, I did do one thing I meant to do this weekend. Two things, really. I raked a lot of leaves. And that was just the front. Seriously, what possessed me to buy a house with so many maple trees around? And I proofread a chapter for a friend. That was fun -- it gave me an excuse to read history, for a change. Meanwhile, the evil little cat is trying to ruin my new sofa. AAARGH.

Also, I went for a nice long walk with a friend today, along with dogs. Dogs are fun, but I'm glad that I don't have one. Too much work. Somehow, the weekend got away from me and I got little done in the way of catching up.

Somehow, I think more happened, but I can't seem to remember. Still, words on blog is the point of all this. This week, maybe even words on paper!

NaNoBloMo 2010 -1

NaNoBloMo 2010 -1

So it's November, and I'm trying to get a bunch of things in order, so what better way to do it than to vow to blog daily for a month. Today's post will be somewhat random, and therefore bulleted...

• I'm planning to respond to a lot of interesting blog posts this month...
  
  
• Jason Isaacs is terribly attractive,even when playing the dreadfully unpleasant Lucius Malfoy. Gary Oldman is also strangely compelling. But did you ever think that just perhaps we might want to take Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix a little bit more in the way of an object lesson? Because really, every single death in the story is pretty much down to Harry and his amazing lack of self-reflection.
  
  
• Guy Halsall's blog is starting to annoy me, because he's writing really interesting stuff I don't have time to read
  
  
• You may also hear about my going to the gym. This is because I've been terrible about taking care of myself for the last year or so. And that is largely because there has been a lot of crap going on in my life, primarily professionally. That you won't be hearing about.
  
  
• Speaking of which, spinning classes are hard, but not as hard as yard work. I'd forgotten all about that aspect of home-owning
  
  
• again, or still, I'm amazed by how some faculty react when they hear the word "assessment" -- It's as if the word means, "we don't trust you to do your jobs and are going to scrutinize every little thing you do, and if it's not perfect, there will be Consequences!", when really, it mostly just means, "what is it that you want your students to learn, how can you tell if they are learning it, and what do you do if they aren't?" Instead of getting that it's perfectly ok to fail, and then fail better (as long as you document it), they instead talk about "gaming the system" -- even though the system is generally up to faculty to define. I mean really, it boggles the mind.
  
  
• Meanwhile, I'm going to be trying to post boring updates about my research projects, just to keep me honest.

and that is my first post of the month. Sorry it's a bit dull.

Accounting for Culture

Accounting for Culture

My academic year started on an interesting note. At our first faculty meeting, the SLAC president stood up and read some of the responses to the annual, 'what could we be doing better?' survey. A couple were pretty harsh. One pretty much said, "There are faculty who repeatedly not only don't pull their weight, but also who make life more difficult for those who do. Some of them even get ahead because they write while the rest of us do the service. When the hell are you going to address this?" There was a gentle susurration, a flow of murmurs, and then we moved on. Later that day, someone asked if it were my comment. Nope. I knew whose it was, though. Hell, I knew by the tone. Two other people have asked me if I wrote the complaint. They were glad someone had finally talked about the elephant. I'm not sure what it means that they thought it was me, although it probably surprises no one that I am often the person who misses the "don't talk about the elephant" signals. The thing is, I don't tend to talk about such things anonymously. That's a little weird, because -- believe it or not -- I hate confrontation. I hate being angry. I hate being on the spot. It makes me physically ill. Really. Even asking questions at conferences when I know those questions might be elephant questions makes me a little sweaty and queasy. But I feel this compulsion. If a question begs to be asked, I have to ask it. *


Still, that question of, "what are you going to do?" hangs in the air. What will we do? What can we do? We can, apparently, imitate ostriches or headless chickens pretty well. Pretend it goes away. Run around complaining. Fix things? It's amazing how powerless a SLAC full of advanced degrees can be when it comes to confrontation and job performance.

Job performance. Being a faculty member is a job. I have one. Lots of people don't. I've got quasi-tenure, and it would take at least a couple of years to get rid of me, unless I did something egregious, but honestly? I have a job, with a boss, and a set of external standards that may be less rigorous than my own, but are standards nonetheless. But so much of my performance as an employee depends on my own set of standards and ideas of professional ethics, and those things are not, apparently, universal. My own standards require that I put students first and actually fulfill my service obligations. Those are, fortunately, the standards espoused by Superdean and the Provost, as well as by many of my colleagues. Not all of them, though. And that seems to be the rub for a lot of the people I know who teach in SLACs. I think that this may be one of the issues more glaringly obvious at SLACs than at other places, if only because SLACs tend to be smaller, and are often private. These two factors, even more than a generational one that I think might also exist, are arguably the most influential in creating the sorts of tensions that the comments at the faculty meeting indicate.

The S in SLAC stands for 'small'. Small student bodies mean small faculties. Small faculties often mean small departments. In a department of 20, it's pretty easy for one or two people to fly under the radar when it comes to teaching and service. This is especially true where research is clearly an important, perhaps even the most important, part of the job. That also tends to be true in the larger departments, which are most often found in what used to be called R1s (or, in the UK, Russell Group unis). At research campuses, the greatest rewards tend to go to those who are the most productive. Because they offer postgraduate degrees, faculty often have marking help from TAs, students who don't necessarily think to go to academic advisors for hand-holding, and large lecture-style classes. Teaching and especially service are often seen as unfortunate responsibilities in such institutions. This isn't always true: I can think of a dear friend who is at an Ivy and tends to do a lot of service, and LDW is a senior faculty member at a research uni, has always carried a heavy teaching load, a heavy service load, and publishes voluminously in our field and in another -- and regularly marks 400-500 exam scripts each term. So I know that even in some Research unis, teaching and service can also be important, or at least take up substantial amounts of time. BUT -- there is still that ability for those who are successful scholars to fly under the radar in bigger departments.

At SLACs, that's less likely to be true. We know who is doing what. In the best situations, we know what our colleagues think about teaching, what they are researching (or would like to be, if they could find the time), what committees they are on, and what's happening on them... and that's seldom limited to our departments, because we are so small. People actually read newsletters to see what's going on with the colleagues they don't know so well (and, admittedly, to see who got funded for what so they can congratulate them or nurse grudges -- this is academia, after all!). In the worst situations, departments or programs can disintegrate under the stress caused by one or two people. Sometimes it's not all that visible: a new and interesting colleague comes into a department, and leaves in a year or two. And then the next does the same. And then a third. Other times, it might be a matter of someone behaving unprofessionally, but the people who notice have reputations for taking things personally, and their complaints are not clearly rooted in what is really the most important issue: person X is not doing hir job. And sometimes, it seems, everybody knows there's a problem. And it seems like nothing is being done. Morale suffers. A disgruntled person notices a colleague in another department seemingly getting away with murder, hears gossip, internalizes it, and thinks, "hell -- why should I be working this hard when so-and-so doesn't have to?" And so it goes. There is an impression that we are not really being held accountable.

The thing is, we are. We are accountable to ourselves. We are accountable to our colleagues, we are accountable to our students. But our culture is not one that is transparent about these things. Nor should it be. Job performance details are privileged information. Nowhere else would you have people essentially expecting to know if Henry's evaluations were ok, or if Sue had been placed on an action plan. But in the business world, Henry and Sue could be terminated quickly, or could be given an action plan that might be as long as 3 months to meet certain metrics. Academia works on another calendar.

You knew that, didn't you? We start our year in the Fall. We think in terms, plus Summer. We submit papers to journals and they might be published 18 months later. And our timeline for dealing with professional issues is necessarily different, too. Say a colleague appears to have disengaged from students, service, even showing up, except for classes (this is not normal at a SLAC, to the best of my knowledge). A few people notice, but someone says they heard the colleague was having personal issues -- death in the family, divorce, illness, feeling burnt-out, whatever. It's one semester, and everybody has a bad semester now and then. Hell, I've had semesters where I had a really hard time getting to classes on time. In my case, this was because I was commuting 45 miles each way, going through a divorce, and generally not sleeping. My body and brain were really not operating very well. And that can happen to anybody who is dealing with a lot of stress. Few people noticed, but I knew, and tried very hard to make sure it didn't happen again. Still, I was surprised my evals were almost as good as usual. Anyway, so one semester goes by. There's no complaint, no documentation, because the rumor-mill has provided an explanation.

And then it happens again. And mid-semester, someone says something to an administrator. The administrator might document it, but might not. Because we are all professional adults, and a friendly talk might be enough. But it's not. Meanwhile, the faculty member has received her annual contract (because even tenured people still have to agree to terms of employment in most places), and knows that she is safe for another year. So one year has gone by, and no documentation. The next year, the administrators are more wary, but there are no serious complaints. Grumbling, but the students seem happy enough, and the colleague shows up for the meetings for the single committee she's on. She's doing the bare minimum, but that's not enough to fire a person. It might be enough to deny a merit increase, but if a faculty member isn't worried, then that's not really a stick. And so it goes. It can take several years of assiduous documentation to get to a point to show cause for firing a faculty member, because in academia, annual review is often not based on meeting certain metrics or losing one's job. And there can be a difference between doing a good job in terms of one's students, colleagues, and institution, and doing a good job in one's own terms. Academics tend to measure worth in terms of scholarship. If a person wants to move up, it's not done through great teaching or exemplary service. It's done through publishing. It's a weirdly oppositional arrangement. The things that are most portable in terms of our CVs are also the things that are least community minded. They are the things that come out of the most solitary aspect of our jobs, and so we are in some ways rewarded for a sort of independence that really isn't - it relies on the goodwill of our colleagues and their willingness to pick up the slack. But in terms of how we function and how the research and writing is done, it is independent. And traditionally, we bring a sense of entitlement derived from our independent work into the classroom. And there, we really are becoming more and more accountable. Talk about a clash of cultures!



And I will, next time. In the meantime, I need to get the house ready for a party, mark 50 essays, prep classes, send in paperwork for a conference panel, send in an application for conference funding, set up a schedule for a program I'm running for our Provost, register for Berks (YAY! I am giving a paper there! and I might even be able to travel by train to get there!), and write a bunch of stuff.

Yeah -- it's a big list. I expect I'll be back well before then, because I need to write regularly and thoughtfully, so here I go.








*There's a lot more that could be said about my conference questions, but for now, I'm sticking to the others...

RBOC -- where have I been?

RBOC-- where the hell have I been? edition

• There should be a Carnivalesque coming up at A corner of Tenth Century Europe Real Soon Now next month -- please help with submissions!
  
  
• I have spent the last week at a Think Tank (TM)-run institute, aka Smart People's Citizenship Camp. It was a mixed bag. Some really cool people and great conversations, a beautiful location (marred by the ridonkulous heat wave, which meant that I could not actually enjoy the beautiful location), and some weirder-than-hell dynamics that left many of us feeling uncomfortable, but not ready to throw the baby out with the bath water.
  
  
• Supposedly, I close on my house tomorrow. This would be easier if they had told me the closing costs, but presumably I'll find out in time to run down to the bank and get a cashier's check before closing. Holy crap. I'm buying a house!
  
  
• The cats have not yet convinced themselves that I am not leaving them alone for a while.
  
  
• I have a LOT of admin work and teaching prep to do before I'm due back on campus (not counting today's lunch meeting), and did I mention I'm moving into a new house in a week or so? Depending on when I can get re-wiring done. And appliance, sofa, and curtain shopping. Which comes first?
  
  
• I will at some point possibly blog about Leeds, because it was awesome. I can honestly say that Kalamazoo is fun, but Leeds really regenerates me. I think part may be the timing, but also, there are people there who know my field and who make me feel both able and obliged to up my game, and I like that. Anyway, if you're lucky, I'll remember to tell you the story of how I didn't get mobbed by penguins.
  
  

back, kinda sorta

back, kinda sorta

So I've done my last deadlined report for work. I'm burnt out. So today is a me, me, me day! It says something about my life lately that this means I am doing one thing for my department, and otherwise cleaning, doing laundry, handling personal finance because it looks like I've bought a house, and getting ready to start a series of posts on my first year with tenure. And going to Target and buying shoes online.

see you soon!

Busman's Holiday

Busman's Holiday

So I'm several states away from home, visiting my Cranky academic sibling, and having a lovely time. And working, even though it's spring break at SLAC. Yeah, I know -- faculty don't get spring break!! Seriously, I don't know anyone who won't be doing some sort of work, even if it's just catching up. In my case, it's been connected to lots of fun, though. I got to stop to break a really long drive by having a late lunch with an esteemed senior medieval legal historian and his wife, which was really pleasant. And then spent a very pleasant evening decompressing with Cranky, who took me to a really good little restaurant where I pretty much spent my honorarium I earned today by guest teaching for him.

The next day, we went along on a field trip to the art museum at Cornell, where we saw lots of cool stuff, and had some pretty fantastic Japanese food for lunch. The trip was organized by Cranky's Asian art historian colleague, who totally rocks and put up with lots of questions from me. Then home and dinner and hanging out. And grading. Don't forget midterm grading.

Yesterday was more hanging out, more grading, a visit to a winery, and wings with a bit more local beer than was necessary. But all in all, mostly just fun -- have I mentioned that Cranky is a great host? He took me on a walking tour where I managed to not take any pictures, so will probaby do that tomorrow morning. But this is a fantastic town with all sorts of amazing houses and OMG a LAKE VIEW to die for!!

Today, I earned my keep, having met some other nice colleagues and enviously toured the building that houses Cranky's department. I think I sort of scared the students, who clearly were not prepared for the intense seminar exercise I'd sent ahead. But it was still enjoyable, and gave Cranky a break, so there you are. Back after class to grade some more, discover I'd totally b0rk3d my Blackboard grade books, so will likely get yelled at next week for submitting S/U grades for one class, and kind of pushed the limits of "on time." Never again will I try to teach four classes in the Spring. It's insane. I have never been so behind before. argh.

So what's up for the rest of my break? Well, there's the marking I haven't finished, for starters. Then proofing my department's pages for next year's catalogue -- as well as writing up some sample matrices of how majors should progress in their degree programs for my department. After that, another set of reports for a new SLAC initiative that I suspect will end up in my department being combined with another as a program. And I think I have a bunch of reading to do. Welcome to spring break!

On Jobs, and Tenure, and Other things

On Jobs, and Tenure, and Other Things

I haven't posted this before, because so much has been happening that I wanted to roll into it, including every new post on the job market and the Amy Bishop story and how people have decided to use the violent behaviour of a woman who clearly seems to have come unhinged to critique the tenure system. Honestly, though, every time I started to write, something new has happened. Plus, honestly, there has been a lot happening in my department and at SLAC that have been taking up a lot of time, not least the work that has to be done when you want to re-vamp a program, plus keeping up with the tracking of assessment figures, writing rubrics, cajoling colleagues into agreeing that, if they are teaching the same course, the course should be at least minimally consistent, checking to make sure that the information for the department in the university catalogue is correct. Oh, and now some other report that has to be done that I suspect will lead to my department being lumped into a larger program. In the meantime, I'm teaching 4 courses and am just a little busy. So please, bear in mind that I'm writing on a Friday night when my choice this or marking essays :-) Or, as a furry person on the arm of sofa would tell you, I could be playing with cats.


So I'm just going to post what I've got. I think I've mentioned it here before, but I'm in the post-tenure slump. So I have all sorts of mixed feelings when I read posts and comments castigating those of us who have jobs for not warning the people who don't about how they weren't properly warned about the job market, or how much they resent the years spent in grad school. So I will now say this one thing: I began graduate school over 20 years ago. I went thinking all sorts of things, and not knowing how lucky I was that I had four, probably five years of guaranteed funding. But then, no one in my family had ever gone to grad school; only two had had more than two years of college. I wouldn't have gone, had I not had funding. And even then, I was not ever told, either at Beachy U, where I saw friends who were grad students on the market, and or at Grad U, that we would all have jobs. It was, however, implied that if we were as good as we should be, we would have them. Still, it was never a guaranteed thing, and it was always clear that in order to have a proper chance at the brass ring, we needed to get through and finish and present and publish.

Flash forward 13 years -- or nine years ago, more or less. When I first started to participate in the online community of scholars, the conversations centered on the job market, more or less. And honestly, there was so very much information out there about and by people who were barely making it as adjuncts, worried and frustrated by how much of their lives had been given to grad school and living in a sort of semi-adult status, that one could easily have thought that there was not any good point in going to grad school at all. That was then, long enough ago that, if the people now complaining had looked, or known to look, if they had talked to other students in their programs, they should have had inklings of the risks of going to grad school and expecting a job.

So from where I sit, I do have a hard time with the "but nobody told me" argument. This is for two reasons: one is that, honestly, I cannot imagine anyone paying to go to grad school, except in countries where bursaries or fellowships are incredibly rare (and tuition relatively low in any case); the other is that, if you are a person who didn't pay, then you got the luxury of going to grad school. I mean, yes, it's in many ways packed with all sorts of hazing rituals of its own, but really -- the ability to go and study and research and get paid for it? And even ABD historians get some mad job skills out of it that they can apply to other fields. And that leads me to another thing that sort of stumps me: people lose their jobs and suffer unemployment all the time. I have been the casualty of corporate downsizing and the dotcom bust. X has been laid off, and retrained and learned new computer skills several times. My father suffered an on-the-job injury in his thirties that meant not doing what he loved, and having to re-train and find new kinds of work.

These things happen to people all the damned time. So tell me, my academic friends, why shouldn't it happen to you? Oh, because you are smart and privileged, and somehow that has given you a big ball of entitlement that has ended up dragging you down, rather than giving you strength. And that's a shame. It's always worth something. The sacrifice, and the experiences? They count.

It's not that I don't understand the hell that is the job search, by the way. I do. I went through four years of job applications and interviews that did get me adjunct and visiting positions, but not the T-T job. I was even offered a T-T job I'd applied for, but only after they had changed it to a visiting position so they could hire someone else in a different position. Um ... no. But it hasn't been all that long since I was applying for 20-35 positions a year. Oh -- and that's not a sign that the job market was better, by the way. I just applied for a lot of generalist Community College and SLAC positions as well as the very few in my specialty. And I could legitimately apply for them, because I somehow had the good sense to have made sure that my coursework was broad -- I had fields in Early Modern and Asian History, so I could apply to Ancient/Medieval and to Medieval/Early Modern, plus positions like the one I have now, where I am the only non-Americanist in my department. That sort job-market investment, on top of a 5-5 load and, the last year, a divorce, is damned hard. It's scary and bad and some search committees are hugely incompetent or insensitive. Even some of the ones who are trying to do their best are sometimes just awful. I once had a call at ten o'clock at night about a job, a week after my campus visit. When they told me they were calling to let me know that I didn't get it, I hung up the phone and cried. I mean really, who calls and gives you bad news like that? And yet it was in many ways far more considerate than the letters I've never got -- including the one I never got from a noted university this year, telling me I'd not made the cut, or that the job had been filled. It hurts. You feel horribly rejected, even though part of you knows it may not have been you. I know people who got jobs I applied for, and honestly, I know why they got them, but sometimes I think, "you know, I still think I was a better fit." But then so could others have been.

So why am I writing this now? Because I'm going to say something else that probably will annoy some of you, but that I think sometimes needs saying. This job is not a bed of roses. It is hard work. Read any academic life blog, and you will see evidence that many of us, especially the women, struggle to balance just our academic lives, and gods help us if we try to juggle home, family, and partner (and, as someone just reminded me, Cats!). Many of us, if not most of us, work 40-60 hours a week, just to keep up. Some people are definitely better at it than others. Some of us have heavy loads. Most of the people I know think it's worth the stress, the politics, the heavy service and teaching loads -- because in return we can do the things we love, at least some of the time. I honestly don't want to do anything else. But some of us do burn out, or decide that the costs are too high. And that's fine. They haven't wasted their lives. They've just moved on. We do.

When I was looking for a thesis topic, my Doktorvater told me to pick something I could love and live with for at least twenty years, because the average academic's relationship to her research lasted longer than the average US marriage. And that's true. And in that way, I also understand the grief that some people are feeling, and the resentment that they have expressed toward some of my colleagues. Going through grad school and not getting a job is in some ways like having to decide whether or not to end a relationship. You get to the point where you have to decide whether or not you can put in just one more year, that maybe you can salvage it. And the longer you stay in, the more you have invested, and the harder it is to break up. And when you do, even if it's a good decision, you grieve.

But it doesn't mean that those of us who have the stable (or stable-looking) relationship don't know we're fortunate. And it doesn't mean that it's easy. And some days, it really is so hard, physically and mentally, that it's difficult not to look at things with a somewhat jaded eye. And a little survivor guilt. As I said, I love what I do. I work for an institution I like, and I have a fantastic dean and provost, and some tremendous colleagues. I have some of the nicest students I've met, and working with many of them is incredibly rewarding. I get tons of support, and feel constantly worried that I won't live up to expectations. And I often think that there are any number of other people who could do my job. But you know? I'm not going to apologize for having it, just as, when I hear stories of other people's searches, I am not going to gloat. It is what it is.

Post Tenure Blues?

Post-Tenure Blues? Blahs?

One of the few work colleagues I trust with my super-sekrit identity pointed out the other night that I haven't been blogging much. The truth is, I've felt under the gun, even though in November, when I was blogging almost daily, I felt on top of things. There is a difference -- I'm teaching four classes this semester, and the one that was meant to be a doddle has turned out to be rather a lot of work. And so it goes.

There have been other things to keep me from blogging. Sometimes, when I need to blog the most, I really can't. Here's where the pseudonymity thing really helps: when very few people knew the medievalist under the mask, it was just easier to generalize my stories. Now, I worry that people will wonder if I'm talking about Colleague X, or if I'm on search committee Y. And a lot has been going on that I haven't been able to find the distance to write in the way I'd like to write: relatively objectively.

But I have been reading, and thinking, and have a plan. I want to write something on how my blog reading and writing habits have changed over time, especially as some of my blogfriends have become RL friends, and how moving some of the personal stuff to LiveJournal has also changed the way I interact with people via this blog. There may be Facebook commentary, too.

But for now, I want to write something that addresses several posts since last month. The first is the string of posts that began (for my purposes) with Tenured Radical and moved from there, in which there were recriminations, finger-pointing, attempts at sympathy, and some common sense and empathy. Then, most recently, is today's post at Historiann on Kerry Ann Rockquemore's column in IHE on the myth of balance while on the tenure-track. Notorious, PhD's comments on many of those posts have me thnking as well. So tomorrow, that's what I'm talking about.

In case you were wondering

In case you were wondering

This blog has been delayed by the impending Semester of Doom OMG a little busy. Ironically, I was more prepared and balanced when I was blogging every day. Argh.

Lemme finish the damned syllabi, and I'll get back to you. In the meantime, here is a picture of a cat:

What day is it?

What Day is it?

What I have done this week:

• taught 6 classes (including prep, obviously)
  
• had one chairs' meeting
  
• dealt with several end-of-semester student crises
  
• two phone interviews (on a search committee)
  
• Weighed in on College issues
  
• written up questions for a different part of the search
  
• written a review for survey classes
  
• lost a large chunk of my mind
  
• ranted about people who really got on my nerves
  
• paid bills
  
• had a really good meeting with a colleague on some of the things we're doing to revamp the program

What I would like to have done:

• slept more
  
• got to the gym
  
• kept the flat tidy
  
• read something for me
  
• reviewed to start writing again
  
• gone to the basketball game with friends
  
• did I mention sleep?

What I'm going to do with the rest of the week:

• sleep
  
• get to the gym
  
• have friends to dinner
  
• go out for a beer on Friday
  
• finish all my pre-exam grading
  
• write my final exams
  
• prep my last three days of classes
  
• teach 4 more classes this week
  
• finish reading Bone, from volume 5 on.
  
• Start my Christmas cards!!

If I do this, I can go for a hike next week, do some search committee work, and still get my grading done and in by next Sunday, and will have most of the break to write and prep for the newish course in my specialty area that I am teaching in the Spring. w00t!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 25)

I'm not all that fond of talking about how thankful I am for stuff, because so often it sounds like a bunch of mealy-mouthed platitudes. And yeah, I'm happy to have a job I love (IN THIS ECONOMY -- that's for New Kid), health, yada, yada, yada. But those are just sort of normal things, aren't they?

But here's a thing. I'm single and my family are all thousands of miles away. When LDW and I were together, he was a couple of thousand miles in the opposite direction. Holidays have always felt a bit iffy and worrisome. Not Christmas so much -- I'm actually a bit better at ignoring Christmas, which I really only like when there are kids and lots of family, and then I sort of hate the stress that can come about with lots of family :-)

No, really, I used to have to start my mornings with my best friend and her mom, with whom I lived for a time, then off to my grandparents for dad-family breakfast, then off to the maternal family (two at one point, as my grandparents were divorced), then to the dad house for dinner in the afternoon, then back to the friend house for dessert and carol-singing. That's a lot of running around. Christmas with my married family, or my mom and sisters, can also be a joy -- there is always a tantrum and always some sort of tension because someone will inevitably be late, or stressed at having to be the one who had to drive, or whatever.

So yeah, holidays alone are not the worst thing in the world.

One of the cool things about SLAC is that holidays alone don't necessarily exist. Part of it is that I do have family of sorts about three hours away. So I've had two Thanksgivings with them. And one in fabulous European Capital with LDW (I'm still sorry about that roast ...). And this year, I'm staying in town and eating with friends. Feeling a little guilty about not going to the family, especially because we need to see each other, but happy to hang out with some of my favorite colleagues. The best thing of all of this is that I don't feel like I'm included out of charity. That's a nice feeling.

This year, I can't get back to the left coast till New Year's. The fabulous European Capital option no longer exists. But I have bunches of friends who will be around for the holiday season, and I have tons of people to visit on all the days before and after Christmas itself. For the first time, I haven't had time to think about what to do during break besides working, because I know I have stuff to do. Same for Spring Break. I should stay home and work, but there may be a chance of a camping trip in an as-yet undecided locale.

Naturally, my life decides to have a social aspect exactly when I should be working harder and producing more. Life's funny that way. I expect there's an appropriate Terry Pratchett quote, but I can't be arsed to look it up. I've got baking, laundry, and marking to do tomorrow before I go and eat turkey.

A sad truth of academia?

A sad truth of academia? (NaNoBloPo/NaSchoWriMo 23)

I have finished my teaching obligations for the week. I have finished my service obligations for the week. And all I can think is that I have several days in which I can actually get some damned work done. I have a big pile of marking to do -- essays for all classes, and catching up on all the online marking. The plus is that I will only have one set of papers to read the weekend before finals, and then the finals.

I am so looking forward to break, when I can ... ok, take a little break. I'm going home to visit The Kid and X and friends for five days, and there are a couple of parties and maybe some hiking, too. But mostly I will be looking forward to re-reading LDW's latest book, which I'm using for class, and at least one of his other books, and working on my damned book project (about which Superdean is nagging me) and also perhaps on my article for TenthMedieval. And going to the gym.

Maybe I'm just like this because I'm hopeless about time and balance. Maybe other academics spend their holidays actually having holidays. But I have this weird feeling that I'm not the only one who sees non-teaching time as a way to catch up.

On the other hand, I expect that it's a good thing that I've got to the point where I see these breaks now as real breaks, mental breaks, opportunities to do things I want to do, rather than as something I resent because I won't have a break. Still, I think I'd like to get more writing done in term time, and actually have a holiday, too.

Dedication to substance

Dedication to substance (NaSchoWriMo/NaBloPoMo 12)

I haven't written anything in ages. I have been trapped, even though I'm only teaching three courses (and two preps), between teaching, advising, and administering. If nothing else, the past 12 days have reminded me that, when I want to, I can carve out time to write. If I can carve out time to blog, I should be able to carve out time to work on my research. Of course, it took actually sitting down and committing to blogging to remind myself of that. Ok, a couple of other things happened, too. I have to admit that blogging is not the same as research, even when it is thoughtful blogging. I don't worry about getting the facts straight, for example. But much of what I should be working on is also not the sort of thing where I have to carve out research time. Much of it could be done (after some revising) in smaller chunks, here and there.

Recently, Notorious, PhD posted about why we write (a couple of other people did, too, but at the moment, I can't brain. I used to write because it was a way to get and keep a job. Now that I have got to the point that I see research and writing as really important parts of my job, and things that I really like to do, I have a much harder time finding the time. Part of it is real. I teach in a demanding way. I should probably just write lectures, but you all know by now that I don't. I will also admit that I don't prep enough when my students aren't keeping up. But my time always seems to be eaten up with chairing, assessment work, advising (I've only got 25 advisees at the moment, which is not horrible compared to some of my College colleagues, but is about eight times more than any of my departmental colleagues), and committees. Only one search committee, but I've got to read some apps ...

And, as a friend pointed out the other day, I could actually do something useful in the morning rather than get on facebook and read blogs! The thing is, I *do* like to write. I like to read. But somehow, I get caught up in the semester and it always seems that I have no time free in substantial chunks. OH! It was Jonathan Jarrett who wrote about carving out time for writing. I need to go back and look at what he said, although I disagree with the tidying up. I do work better when I tidy up, perhaps because the action of tidying up means that I've moved away from the computer and the internet and am just focusing on what needs doing.

But mostly, I just need to do it. After all, I'm doing this, aren't I?

Blogging for Kids with Disabilities

Blogging for Kids With Disabilities

We talk a lot about children out here in the academic blogosphere. Much of the time, the conversation is about how kids and parenting affect us in the workplace, whether we *are* the parents or we feel that we are expected to pick up the slack for our colleagues so that they can be better parents. Most of those conversations touch on the issue of choice, whether it is our choice to remain child-free, or the choice of our colleagues to have children. I happen to be one of those people who tend towards seeing my colleagues' families as a lifestyle choice, and one that I should not be expected to subsidize through my efforts, even though I also am very happy to rearrange my time to accommodate their schedules whenever I can. I might feel differently if I didn't work in a place where my colleagues were also my friends, I suppose. As it is, the kids are people I know and like, and I enjoy spending time with them as well as their parents. Still, there are times, professionally and socially, when my colleagues' chosen lives have an impact on mine and, if it comes down to someone else's finding a sitter or me rescheduling a trip, they can find a sitter. It was their choice to have kids.

Sometimes, though, it's not always that simple. When we choose to have kids, most of us imagine that the kids will be healthy and relatively happy. Yes, we expect illness and tantrums, and that little kids will need more care than their older siblings, but that they'll eventually grow up and take care of themselves -- and maybe even us. Sometimes, what we ask for is not exactly what we get. The choice to have children ends up coming with obligations we never imagined. That's something we don't talk about in our conversations about academic parenting, either because we instinctively know that a child with disabilities creates a different situation, or because we are uncomfortable talking about it, or because we have mixed feelings about how to deal with our colleagues when the colleagues may themselves not be dealing well -- or when they seem to be dealing very well. Mostly, I think we just aren't sure of how to handle the whole subject.

The reason I bring this up is that it's Blogging for Kids With Disabilities day, or so I hear. I have several friends and family members whose children have disabilities, from genetic disorders to autism to milder learning- and speech impairments. The Kid, about whom I have not spoken for a while, has a congenital hearing problem, so that she is mostly deaf in one ear, and partially deaf in the other. Even something so relatively explicable can have unforeseen problems: when we lived abroad, and tried to explain to her teachers that she needed to sit near the front of the room to read lips and that her loud voice was partially due to not being able to hear how loud she was, or that the teacher might have to touch her or tap her desk to get her attention in a loud room, we were told that she might be better off in a 'special' school. WTF? Because she was embarrassed about it, we had to mention these things to other parents, so they wouldn't think she was ridiculously rude. It was difficult, and still can be, but it's hardly insurmountable.

Still dealing with the Kid, and with some behavioral issues that were in part the result of her being treated for years as a problem child who couldn't pay attention, ate into a good chunk of my dissertation time. This is something we don't talk about much, either, even when talking about childcare and the fact that women academics often still bear the brunt of housework and childcare, and how it affects their careers. If childcare and equity are feminist issues, then perhaps we should think a bit more about how having a child with disabilities might make things even tougher.


The reason I would like people to think is because, contrary to what you might be feeling right now, I don't see this as a problem to be dealt with. I see this as something we should think about, and if we do, we might be reminded of how amazing some of our friends, families, and colleagues are. Not because they have a problem, but because honestly, parenting is hard, and parenting a child with disabilities can be even harder. And yet, when I think of my colleagues who have children with disabilities, they are all scary overachievers. They are the people you most want to work with, and honestly, I don't know how some of them manage sometimes. Well, I do, a little. They make other choices, choices we don't see. They don't go for the jobs that will keep them away from home at all hours. They don't travel as much, sometimes, because it would be too hard on a partner or child if they took that fellowship. They might not eat out or go to movies much, whether because they are paying for extra tuition or maybe because they know their kid isn't quite ready for the sensory input of a crowd, or darkened cinema with loud noises and flickering lights. They may not come to parties because they are spending extra time helping their kids train for the Special Olympics ...

And they may not mind, or they may be resolved, or they may scream and cry in frustration to the world, and then show up to the office, looking a little drained, but still plowing through the backlog that we all have.


Maybe when we start talking about children being a choice, we might want to also think about the other choices people make, from changing one's research agenda and mobility to being a scary overachiever who not only has incurred the wrath of David Horowitz, but also spends a lot of time blogging about politics and disabilities, all the while shaming the rest of us mortals who never, ever threw a birthday party this cool, to handling so much of the behind-the-scenes work at the biggest conference most of my friends and colleagues attend, writing amazing fiction, and making pottery so lovely that I could easily go broke buying it -- all the while trying to balance the needs of both of her children. I'm just sayin'...

another stock-taking post

Another Stock-Taking Post

Well, it's the end of Fall Break, a weekend where I traditionally try to get caught up on everything, and usually fail. So instead I take stock and try to organize myself for the rest of the semester so that I can have a couple of days of rest at Thanksgiving and Christmas -- providing I remember to get online and see if I can redeem some miles to go back to the Left Coast and see X, the Kid, and friends. It was a good break -- not only did I manage to get all my marking up-to-date, but I managed to drive through three states yesterday to go and see my cousin and her kid. Sadly, they are moving back West. Happily, at least they are headed back to the same town my mom and sisters live in, so at least now most of my family is located on the same coast -- or in London.

I have to say, I love living east of the Mississippi. The drive to the cousin's was wonderful (except for the drivers on a long stretch of the road, where OMG they are frakkin' crazy). The weather was nice and dry, and the colors of the leaves were gorgeous. There are lots of miles of country highway on the route, and sadly, lots of roadkill. Raccoons seemed pretty big on this trip. One skunk. Countless furry-tailed tree-rats. Possibly a ground-hog. And something really, really big. Deer meets semi-truck is my guess. And it was mostly still in the road... just...open. Yuck. And yet, I couldn't help thinking about the Gary Larson cartoon with crows using spatulas. That and what a human body might look like after getting hit by a truck and a couple of cars. Ugh.

Oh -- and I managed to work on getting rid of most of a nasty cold -- yay me!

So, right -- stock-taking.

I need to do some revamping of my classes. Or maybe take some time out to talk about why I teach the way I do. I don't lecture. I stopped lecturing a while back, when I was teaching at Jesuit U, because my evaluations indicated that the students did not like it and expect more Active Learning. Since then, most of my classes are really discussion-based. This means that students really need to be prepared to discuss and they have to be able to put things together in different ways. Now, fortunately, my program's outcomes are also kind of geared towards my kind of teaching -- they focus mainly on teaching the skills of the historian. This is problematic in its own way, but that's another post.

When my students show up, they really don't know what to expect, and most are not prepared for this sort of class. But honestly, I don't think that they would be successful in the sort of class that I took as an undergraduate. I would sometimes like to craft nice lectures and expect the students to take them, the primary source readings, and the textbook readings, integrate them, and use that information to answer solid historical questions. But that isn't going to happen in the World History survey. My students have enough trouble keeping the information in the textbooks straight. So instead, I focus on using primary sources and discussion to highlight the most important issues. It has been pretty successful so far, but I'm finding I need to do a few new things as well.

My students are not particularly good at reading essay questions. This is true for multi-part questions that, when broken down, tell the students exactly how to structure the essay, as well as the more simple-looking questions that require students to consider the question and demonstrate that they understand all the issues at stake. Since they don't read -- or understand-- the questions (and really, these are the same questions we've all asked and answered: I've even poached questions from exams I took!), they don't answer them. I can't stop giving essay exams and papers, so I'm going to have to spend a bit more time early on explaining how to write essays. Where I'm going to find that time, I'm not sure. Possibly group work -- perhaps letting them use their computers in class to work on a wiki, and workshop the opening paragraph of an essay?

Beyond that, I probably need to add a bit more structure. Hmmm. And remind the upper-division students that they are responsible for information that I haven't talked about in class, if it's something that was in the reading. And I'm still behind on making the podcasts I wanted to make for this year, and on my reading. At least that last part I can do :-)

Apart from that, I'm feeling overwhelmed this semester, and shouldn't. Departmental administration is more difficult than I had expected. There's a lot that needs doing in terms of curriculum and program revision, and getting buy-in is ... interesting. Coming up with outcomes was pretty easy, but getting people to make the leap from outcomes to coming up with assessments that really do reflect the outcomes? Different animal. Plus there's a job application to write, a search committee to serve on (touch wood it's only one -- there are a bunch of searches this year).

And then there's the writing. I've got a book I've done bugger all on in months, and an article to write, whether or not it's going into a collection a colleague is proposing. I totally botched getting in a proposal for Leeds (but if anyone finds they need a chair at the last minute, do please let me know). I have to start thinking about a panel for Big Berks. And do some background work for the professional organization I'm a member of ... oh -- and maybe actually read some books and professional journals.

So, pretty normal for an Associate Professor of History, I think. Guess I'd better figure out how to get going on all of that. Reading for tomorrow first, I guess.

Should I or shouldn't I?

should I or shouldn't I?

So there is one reason at SLAC that I really do not love it. It's nothing I can do anything about, sadly. It will play itself out, one way or another.

Otherwise, I love my job, mostly. I love my colleagues, mostly, and I have made really good friends here. I am happy to work with them AND play with them. I love working for Superdean. He's a great boss in almost every way (nobody's perfect), and knows me well enough to nag me about my scholarship. Frankly, I could use a bit more nagging, but that's not really his job. I also just get along really well with him.

We have a cool new Provost and an energetic BoT, and I think that the direction SLAC is taking is one I like. In 5-10 years, I think we may have moved along to much closer to the kind of place where I want to end up. It's a neat idea to think of myself as someone who can help take it there.

Speaking of which, I really think that there's a chance of building a much stronger program, one known for producing good teachers, public historians, and grad students.

And I really like my students. Sometimes I wish they were more driven, but as human beings, they are some of the nicest I've taught.

So why am I thinking about applying for the really cool job? Especially when I really am not competitive compared to many of the candidates?

Well, besides working with an incredibly cool scholar I really admire, that is?

Because honestly, as much as I love SLAC, I sometimes feel that I work best when surrounded by people who function at the levels I aspire to. When I surround myself with people who are good teachers AND good scholars, I find myself more energized and more productive. It's not that SLAC doesn't do that, but ...

so, my loyal readers, should I or shouldn't I? Am I disloyal to SLAC if I do? Am I being selfish?

Or is it just smart to keep reaching higher?

Working harder, working smarter

working harder, working smarter

Disclaimer: I'm not talking about the whole 'working smarter' thing in this post, because at the moment, I need to be working a little harder in order to even contemplate working smarter. I'm behind on writing, but am incredibly happy that it looks like the K'zoo panel I'm chairing is going to rock in a serious way. Still haven't made the right contacts for Leeds, and don't have a topic for a paper. Anybody need a respondent or chair? Part of this is sort of deliberate -- Superdean wants me to focus on getting some of my stuff that I've already given into the publishing queue, rather than giving new papers I don't have time to turn into articles. And the book is way behind schedule. But I hope to go to Leeds either way.

Anyway ...

This semester, I am already suffering from serious student ass-kicking. That is, my students are kicking my ass. I'm starting to think there are two sorts of teaching-tired. There's the, "OMG, these people are not doing their work and I am just terribly drained from having to carry this class!" tired. And then there's the, "Oh Noes! The students are doing the work and liking it and making me think!" tired.

With the former, part of the exhaustion comes from the emotional drain of having to keep up energy levels, and having a bunch of people waiting to suck you dry. I had a couple of vampire classes like this last year. Exhausting. But mentally, not all that much work, because at some point, I found myself moving from my usual discussion/active learning classroom mode to content delivery. Content delivery takes so much less work. It takes less prep, especially when you know that the most students are going to ask for is a clarification of spelling. But honestly, I find it soul-destroying.

On the other hand, when classes are doing all the work, and asking good questions, I find myself scrambling, especially when it's after a bad semester. I find myself wanting to live up to the students' expectations, to be worthy of standing in front of them every day. I also feel like beating myself up if I'm not as prepped as I'd like, because dammit, they did the reading! They're participating! I need them to like my class and come back! I need them to become History majors and never stop taking my classes! Um ... I am sounding like a vampire myself, aren't I? Except that, when I have good classes, I feel rejuvenated, or at least tired in a good way, when I'm done. Speaking of which, I've got some marking to do.

Still, if I'm going to have students kicking my ass, I know which way I'd like it to happen.

In the meantime, is anybody else having hir ass kicked (yeah, I'm liking that phrase too much this evening) so far this semester?