A Useful Idea: Pay Teachers

I saw this today online at The New York Times, and you know, it needs to be said loudly and often: part of any stimulus to the economy has to target education. And it seems to me that it wouldn't be a bad idea to give anyone teaching a break. At the end of the day, teaching at any level is a less and less desirable occupation. If the idea is to get the best and brightest to want to help shape the next best and brightest, finding ways to help make teaching desirable rather than simply profitable seems in order.

There's a lesson in this, incidentally: what's cheapest and most convenient (what a market view pushes) is not always the best in the long run. This is certainly the case in education.

And let me make the point, briefly, that innovation isn't just due to math and science. If the recent problems in banking tell us anything, it's that there's a substantial need for some of those fluffy liberal arts ideas out there: things like ethics and history and economics seem like they'd go a long way to helping shape the future.

Job Tracking - Week 17

We had a couple of weeks off, and as expected, there hasn't been much job movement since the big push just prior to Christmas (way back in Week 16). The only major shift since then has been one more rejection.

We're in the midst of the start of the term here, and I'm trying to put together my research for the on-campus interviews at the same time that I'm trying to redesign a syllabus and get prior-to-the-term meetings dealt with. One of the tricky moments for me is always how to handle talking with my current department about the fact that I'm on the market. My chair has been reasonable, but that was when I was just looking. Now that I'm being interviewed, I worry that's going to change. And no one else in my department knows (to my knowledge). I'm never quite sure what to do about that.

I think it is made trickier this time because one of the positions is someplace everyone in the department would know I'm interested in simply because it's near my family (of course, if they knew me better and/or were reading the blog, they'd know that being near the family is definitely a double-edged sword for me). Friends have been surprised that I've not told my family about the possibility, but I think it makes a lot of sense - particularly in a market as shaky as this one - to not let anyone count unhatched chickens.

Anyway, there isn't much to report. Here's the new numbers.

Total # of academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified: 23/25
Total # of non-academic jobs applied for/# of jobs identified 0/0
COST OF THE SEARCH
Total spent in U.S. dollars on applications: $192.90
Average cost in U.S. dollars per applications: $14.95
Total spent in U.S. dollars on travel, etc: $150.99
Total amount in U.S. dollars reimbursed: $0
WHERE THE CALL CAME FROM:
The Chronicle of Higher Ed: 9
HigherEdJobs.com: 0
Other online service (listserv, etc): 14
Friend/Colleague: 2
Personal Research: 1
THE JOB IS IN THE DETAILS
Total number of paper submissions: 19
Total number of e-submissions: 4
Total weight in pounds of application packets: 22.13
Total number of recommendation letters requested: 48
Total number of requests for references: 5
Total number of "proof of teaching excellence" packs : 9
Total number of requests for Teaching Philosophy :11
Total number of research packs: 13
Total number of transcripts requested: 3
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
Total number of acknowledgments of receipt: 20
Total number of confirmed reference contacts: 0
Total number of phone interviews: 2
Total number of conference interviews: 0
Total number of on-campus interviews: 2
Total number of offers: 0
Total number of rejection letters: 7
Total number of canceled or unhired positions: 1

And with that, I'm back to syllabi. More soon!

RBOC: Term Preparations and General Lamentations

Lo, the gods smite me again. Trapped in these four walls. Syllabi gnashing at my heels like angry beasts. Hammers, the quietest sound of infernal constructions, ringing through the air ducts.

Attend, thou readers, my many lamentations and awkward pop-cultural references:

• the grand design for my dream course that came to me while driving my crazy uncle around has vanished. The grand unifying idea, the perfect assignments, all of it: vanished. There should be a CSI type show based around lost academic ideas.
  
• I know this will date me terribly and probably throw into question my otherwise impeccable musical taste, but I think we should create a new rule: Van Halen's "Eruption" should never be played with any song but "You Really Got Me" following it. Honestly.
  
• what obscene zeitgeist makes people try to schedule every meeting at the same time? If I ever wanted to offer evidence of some sort of collective thought process shared by a group of individuals, I'd use three University groups all separately trying to schedule meetings at the same time. Nine times out of ten, they'll choose nearly the exact same time on the exact same day.
• Yes, do require more things on my syllabus. My response is as you predicted: I must keep the page limit a constant. And so I can - I must - shrink the font further and further. There can be only one outcome, and this must be your fiendish plan. Eventually, it will be an inky black hole, so dense and laden with useless information not even an education can escape. Others call you mad, diabolical, unnatural. But I see. I see!

Okay, I must work. Seriously.

Brave Year Meme

There's still a little time left before classes start for me; things still feel ever so slightly like winter break here, and so I don't feel quite so bad about taking a moment to reflect on the previous year. And since much of the break thus far has been spent dealing with family and the contradictory strings they pull with me, taking some time to just think about the last year I think is a pretty good idea.

As I mentioned previously, Bittersweet Girl launched her own meme thinking about the bravest things she'd done in the previous year. I wanted to try it because it seems much more useful to me than the typical New Year's Resolution. I like it because it recognizes that change can happen every day - any day, really. And it often happens in really simple ways, without a lot of fanfare.

So here are the bravest things I can think of that I did in the previous year:

1. Took a Stand: One of the toughest things about the past year for me was watching the student response here to the election. I think I mentioned someplace that I was to speak at one of the events following that. With a number of other faculty, I helped draft a letter to the University (rather than just to the students who it was assumed were the sole perpetrators). The letter spawned a lot of reaction - not enough, I think, but some - from a variety of places on campus. And it became apparent that to do so while untenured was seen as a pretty outrageous, even as part of a group.
   
   
2. Let the Personal inform the Public: One of the moments that came from that letter was a series of dialogues between students and other parts of the university. I was asked to speak at one about why I felt the letter was important. One of the things that I've struggled with during this process was the desire to highlight the personal consequences of unthinking speech (however free we want it to be).
   
   I didn't know what to say at the even though. Why did I want the letter written? Because something needed to be said. Great - seven minutes, fifty-eight seconds left to fill. What I wound up talking about was a personal moment from my past where I felt put on the outside of things. In spite of having a blog where I spew gripes on a regular basis, I'm a fairly private person. There are things I'll talk about, and a whole host of things that I never mention. I'm good about doing the dance - I can stand in front of a room or a group of people and talk as long as I need and not feel much of the crowd. I can talk around things with the best of 'em. I lived in the South, after all. So to stand in front of a group of unknown students mixed with colleagues and to tell a truly personal story about one of those Never Talked About Subjects was a little terrifying.
   
   
3. Re-learned "No": Really, I don't have a problem with this in a lot of circumstances. But I maybe I'm more driven than I think I am, because in the realm of work, I struggle with it. Maybe it's the control-freak nature I've got, maybe not. In any case, where work comes into it, I have a tendency to take a lot on. That pressure for tenure certainly doesn't help. And that's completely illogical, because I can't imagine a situation at this school where I wouldn't be given tenure. But I still tend to take a lot on. The last term, I spent a lot more time trying to be realistic about what I could and what I couldn't. In part, it was necessity because I was on an overload. And it didn't always leave me happy: I had to refuse some opportunities to try and mentor (both students and, in a couple of cases, younger colleagues). But it was a good lesson.

Those are the big three, really. It was still a year largely focused on work rather than anything personal, but it did feel like a start.

I like this meme, and so even though I won't tag anyone with it, I think it's a worth doing, even just for yourself. Props to Bittersweet Girl. And Happy (Brave) New Year to you all.

Take Your Pride Where You Can

Feeling unappreciated? Here's some bit of a compliment for all of us academics. Of course, we're tenth on the list behind mail carriers and IT people, so keep it in perspective.

Leaving Home Thoughts

Culled from entries while home.

---

Every day, a relative says something appalling:

"We shouldn't have even bothered to fight that battle. There are more of them here than us now anyway."

"Those people sure are good at making ribs."

"Those faggots make me sick."

I try to take some comfort in the fact that none of them are my immediate family, that my parents and brother are trying to perfect the same blank stare. And I worry because we are all trying it, rather than simply speaking. Silence is what constitutes best behavior.

---

Sitting a traffic light, watching teenage street vendors work up between lanes. No idea what they're selling, but the farther north, the less this happens. They're weaving between cars, coming up to windows. Even without a sale, they seem to get some conversation.

There's an opposite effect as you move north: the less eye contact and chance of conversation in moments like this. There's a tendency to look away - no, more correctly, straight ahead as though there simply isn't someone approaching you - that seems to come with following the roads further north.

They're selling apples for a school band. I am home, and from here even if most days I don't feel it. I buy one and ask them where the best tacos are. No one like police and teenagers to point you to the best hole-in-the-walls for food.

---

I'd almost made it through the trip without incident.

But on the last night, at almost the last hour of the day, it happened. A blow up at one of the family. I wonder now why we try to avoid it. I'd spent the entire trip trying to give extra benefit of the doubt, and at the end, after all the quiet deep breaths when appalling things were said, there was simply too little reserve left.

Home makes me feel like I'm coiled up rope. Knotted. Ropes of obligation and good behavior, twisting in on itself. Pulling against itself. Straining. I wonder what the rest of them feel like in these moments.

---

I spend a Saturday teaching my friend's daughter to throw invisible balls. She's got a good arm and hefts one 90 miles to the south, to her grandfather's back yard. She's got a good eye. She catches it when he tosses it back. At the end of the afternoon, before the belly kisses and flying lessons begin, I warn her to be careful: an arm like that and she might throw one and knock the moon down.

Solemnly, she nods. She'll be careful.

---

My oldest friend says he doesn't want to get married. That he's not ready for kids. His brother is giving him the third degree. Isn't it time? Doesn't he feel the pull?

Married with kids, he's still somehow lonely. His life has contracted, 90 miles from an old life with friends and the rest of his family, surrounded by the pleasures of children's cartoons and a garden designed to draw butterflies and birds. Is this it?

They're brothers to me. Most days, more so than the actual one I've got. I wish I had something to tell them, some perspective to give. I wish I were here more.

---

The best moments are the quiet ones. My father and I laughing about some off-hand comment. My mother and I talking about a recipe. Or my best friend and I making up super heroes like we're 8 years old again as we drive home, halfway between where we were and some undefined where we're going.

Save us, Graffiti-on-the-wall-just-add-some-basil-to-make-it-sing-recapturing-childhood Man. Save us.

Happy New Year!

Around this time a year or so ago, I did a meme about looking forward to the next year. And since I'm home visiting family, and New Year's was last night, I thought I might revisit it. I'm going to tweak it a little, as a lot of these questions feel like they're targeted at my students instead of me, so where I'm able there will be a new question.

Incidentally, I saw Bittersweet Girl's Brave Year Meme, and I'm thinking long and hard about it, so it'll probably be up soon. But if you haven't seen it, check it out. It's a nice way of thinking about the year behind you.

1. Will you be looking for a new job?

I am. I've got a ton of applicaitons still out and two scheduled interviews. But I'm not putting all my faith in that, as I think that's how many interviews I had last year (I could look back, but I'm too lazy for that at the moment). S0 I'm starting to try to work on a resume for positions outside of academia. If anyone's got advice or good resources to point to for making that transition, I'd love to see 'em.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?

Last year's answer was cynical, wasn't it? But then, so is this question. Or at least it's short sighted. I know that it is trying to imply a dating relationship (for which the answer is no), but to relationships in general - friends, colleagues, collaborators - hell, yes.

3. New house?

Interestingly, I didn't move this last year, a first in about 12 years. But if I get a new job, yes.

4. What will you do different in 09?

It still sounds like a resolution question (again, see the next question). But generally, I'm going to try to manage my work habits a bit better. And I'm going to keep on working towards paying down debt.

5. New Years resolution?

Quoted from last year's answer: "I don't really do resolutions since it seems to me that if you want to do something, there's no need to tie it to the change of the year. Seems like making an event out of them - putting them up for display - just adds pressure to them."

6. What will you not be doing in 09?

Taking on an overload schedule unless the pay's substantially better, for one thing.

7. Any trips planned?

A conference in February, two campus interviews, and I've got a travel voucher that has to be used. And I'm hoping to hit a conference in Mexico this summer.

8. Wedding plans?

Maybe my answer last year about planning to object if I was invited to a wedding resulted in no invitations (really it's that almost everyone I know is now married). But no, no plans, though I still sometimes fantasize about a quicky wedding in Vegas where I'm dressed as Elvis. It'd be fun for a weekend.

9. Major thing on your calendar?

The next part of the book, and hopefully it's summer publication. The publication of my book chapter that was submitted. I wish I had some major event planned that wasn't about work.

10. What can’t you wait for?

Quoted from last year: "Summertime. Also the return of 'Battlestar Galactica'."

11. What would you like to see happen differently?

At least from last year, politics in this country seems to be changing. Maybe this year will bring the other things.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?

I've got a sliver more of a life than last year, so I'm going to work to see more of that happening. I'm also hoping to get back to the gym regularly.

13. What happened in 08 that you didn’t think would ever happen?

Continuing to live with a roomate to pay the bills.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about? What a bogus question. Who is going to say no to it? So, new question: What can you do to be nicer to those around you?

Try to listen a bit longer before launching into the Grand Solution I've Envisioned 20 Seconds In.
15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07? I've given up trying to jump cliques. So, new question: What did you do well in '08?

I did a good job trying to get things published. And I've learned to say no a bit more to projects at work.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?

I probably should have thrown this question out, too, but whatever. I don't drink much, and I don't plan on changing.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?

Quoted from last year: "I will if they will."

18. Will you do charity work?

I hate this question, too, since the tendency is to want to say "Yes" no matter what. I did a little last year, and I'll probably do a little this year. I'm trying to bring some of it in to one of my classes. We'll see how it goes.

19. Will you go to bars? What, am I 22? New question: Where would you like to go this year that isn't related to work?

London. Or Italy. Or a beach somewhere (maybe Thailand?)

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know? Again, who is going to say no to this? I did vote against wars, and we won! But new question: What's something new you'd like to try this year?

I'd like to try to write a novel. Or skydive, finally

21. Do you expect 09 to be a good year for you?

I do indeed.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now?

Much closer to having a lot of stupid bills paid off. I've learned to limit some of what I do for the job. Other than that, I'm probably largely the same.

23. Do you plan on having a child?

Nope.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?

Quoted from last year: "I'd like to keep the old ones and add some new ones, please."

25. Major lifestyle changes?

None that I can think of. More lifestyle, I suppose.

26. Will you be moving?

Quoted from last year: "Oh, I do so hope to move!"

27. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 09 that happened in 08?

I still don't have quite that much control over the universe.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?

After the fact, I spent New Year's Eve with my family, and talking to a few friends.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?

I didn't.

30. One wish for 09?

A good year for all my friends and family, many of whom have had a rougher 08 than I would have liked.