Much of today seems to be dealing with introductions. The pie conflagration diaspora is bringing a lot of new members, myself included, to an already established community. Part of the integration of new members involves learning about each other. I’ve seen some familiar “faces” on my first day poking around, and a lot of folks who are completely new to me. So, as part of my “feeling out” of the site, I’m gonna lose my Booman virginity on this diary: I wanna see who else works in the academy.
I’m (still) a graduate student at Boston College–doing my PhD in sociology. I teach at both Boston College and Tufts, and have taught at four other schools ranging from a small liberal arts colleges to mid-sized state universities. One thing I’ve learned through this is that the general level of ability may differ from school to school, but it’s always better to teach slightly above their heads than below.
My research focus tends to center on sexuality issues, and my teaching adds gender, race and other systems of domination to the mix. The “Academic Bill of Rights” movement scares me. It won’t stop me from teaching what and how I teach. Let ’em come after me.
So, that’s a bit about me. Folks who aren’t already familiar with me will learn more as time goes on, others will know this stuff already.
Any other academics out there? Where ya at? What issues y’all facing?
Yes, this academic is here. I’ll give you the low-down.
I’m also a graduate student at The Big State University on Lake Washington, alson known as the University of Washington, in fabulous Seattle, Washington. I’ve taught my own course here, and served as a teaching assistant in numerous other courses.
I’m doing my Ph.D. in history. My particular field is history of science. My dissertation work entails and examination of the practice of natural history and its relationship to imperialism in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada in the nineteenth century – basically, how did imperialism operate in that place and time and how did natural history fit into the imperialist project?
My current issue, besides finishing the disseration, is figuring out what to do with myself. One problem with graduate training, particularly in the humanities, is that it’s essentially geared to professors reproducing themselves. I’m seriously interested in non-academic employment, but there is an implicit notion that one cannot remain a serious scholar and not be an academic. I think that graduate students who aren’t exposed to the possibilities open to them are being seriously underserved.
with your dissertation project. I play around in the social studies of science field from time to time (have started to lay out a book for when the diss is done).
You’re right about grad students being poorly served. I know that I want to be an academic–I’m far happier teaching than doing research or writing–so the training has been fine for me. Other friends who want to pursue non-academic careers are left out in the cold a bit–unless they already have connections.
The project is still rather amorphous – which I need to change pretty quickly – but I’m glad to hear you find it interesting. Sometimes I don’t. 🙂
Several of my colleagues are very good teachers and want to continue the academic route. I think they should; goodness knows we need more of them. Me, I enjoy teaching from time to time, but I don’t think I could sustain the energy to do it all the time, especially when I would have to teach courses I didn’t like. I did teach a course on the history of nuclear weapons…gotta say that was very cool.
The academic life requires a kind of singular focus as well as the ability to structure one’s own time; well, a lot of jobs do, but in my experience, it’s especially true for academia. And I’m just not sure that that’s the best route for me to go. But nothing’s final, of course.
I’m looking at the narratives surrounding the plaintiff couples in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. I wanna interview the couples, queer legal activists, reporters and editors to look at the process of constructing the public narrative of these couples…strategic storytelling and the process by which those stories are constructed within media and law. I think it could be interesting, but part of me just wants to scream, “Give me the fucking degree so I can get a real teaching job!” I enjoy the knowledge production aspect of the academy, but teaching is where my passion lies.
I did my first master’s in history at the UW–with John Toews, Elisabeth Domansky (now elsewhere) and Mary O’Neil. Small world.
Really? Wow. Students still think the world of Toews.
I was one of his first CHID students–there were less than 10 of us in the program at the time. He won his Macarthur then. ‘Course, we all made fun of him.
Here’s a link to what I thought was an interesting (old) article on the problem of professors geared to training other professors.
It turns out that the age of geometric growth, which is what “every professor training X professors” does, ended in about 1970 (for physics).
I have a PhD in rocket science. I heard a recruiting commercial for the military the other day that ended with the tag line “Rocket science is a lot more fun when you have real rockets”… and said another thank you that I left the field long ago…
I am a colleague (and good friend) of Linnaeus in the History Department at That Big State University on Lake Washington. My research focuses on urban change and social unrest in San Francisco from 1950 to 1980.
My concern with academia isn’t so much the lack of focus on non-academic careers, but with academia’s unwillingness to engage the general public. I think that is a suicidal attitude.
the lack of connection, that is. I think part of it is built into the publish-or-perish culture. Along with that comes a specialization that may make one an effective knowledge producer but doesn’t say a lot for your ability to communicate the broader import of that singular phenomenon. Here’s something from an article I co-authored a couple years ago:
Pp 51-52 in Creed, Langstraat, and Scully. 2002. “A Picture of the Frame: Frame Analysis as Technique and as Politics.” Organizational Research Methods. 5(1): 34-55. Citations omitted.
Another part of it is that we utilize such specialized language. I find myself translating between languages half the time. One of the things I try to do, even with my blog posting, is to translate a sociological perspective into more everyday language. I find power in the perspective.
Ex-academic — or about to be. At last! =)
I trained as a medieval musicologist, but then made the mistake of reading George Bernard Shaw. Currently I work on gender segregation in the popular music sector. But I’m about to move to a new position working on community cohesion in a fairly interesting town that’s trying to put itself back together after a combination of deindustrialisation and race riots.
Re. non-academic jobs for academics, if you’re willing to emigrate, there is quite a lot of interesting stuff going on in the U.K. at the moment re equalities and diversities work, and there seem to be a fair number of sociology folks doing it.
But I wouldn’t want to leave teaching. I’m honestly at my happiest when I’m in the classroom (grading sucks though). Here are some thoughts I had at the end of the semester.
I enjoyed the post on teaching — I think I was mixing you up with Linnaeus when I posted before.
and loved your post. Echoes my own thoughts about teaching. I think you, too, would love community college teaching (see my intro below), but jobs are tight there too.
I hope you find a “real” (not adjunct) teaching job soon. I know how that goes – six years of adjunct dues-paying (while being a single mom) before I got the insurance, retirement, more money “real” one.
Sucks. But I’m glad I stuck it out. Not too many people in this world love what they get up every day and do to pay the bills as much as I do. I always think that if you can ask yourself, “If I won the lottery, would I get up the next morning and go to work?” and answer, “Yes,” then you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
I’d get up and go teach. [But I probably wouldn’t teach three lectures and three labs . . . 🙂 ]
There’s no question. I just can’t imagine life without going into the classroom.
Academic working on a Masters degree in Computer Science at Dalhousie University in Canada. As much as I like playing with math and theory, I really want to do research on better ways to actually integrate computers into peoples’ lives – mold the computer around them rather than vice-versa, as it were.
First, on topic, yes I am an academic. I just defended my Master’s thesis in Clinical Psychology in April and am working towards my Ph. D at Kent State University. My main areas of work involve women’s issues, trauma, and HIV prevention (which is loosely what my thesis was about).
I also wanted to comment on how happy I am to be here. I was a Kossack until yesterday when I read Kos’ response to the great “pie debate.” The bitter dissappointment I felt after reading his response brought tears to my eyes. I felt so let down that these ideas were help in what I believed to be such a progressive community. And then my husband directed me here and I realize I’m not the only one who felt strongly about this–and its a wonderful feeling to not be alone on this!
This is going to sound sick, but I enjoyed my Masters Defense….then again, it was held in a bar.
College of Education – UT-Austin…
this will be the end of my education in the formal arenas, but not in all others! 😉
Would love to write more about this, but cannot at the moment — boys home, tired beyond belief, and braindead!
I’m getting my Master’s in Theoretical Computer Science (technically Math, but TCS is my specialty), and I’m working towards my full-fledged certification in “pointy-headed academicology” 🙂
And a welcome to you, Jeff.. I always like your diaries at dKos, so it’s good to see you here!
As I said in a different thread, I never felt like a good “fit” at Kos. My interests, my ideas, etc. sometimes overlapped with the stuff there, but were often far afield…seeing some of my favorite posters, folks whose approaches seem more aligned with mine, from over there is comforting…
I’m at the University of Iceland (I’m Icelandic-born, American-raised… so I came here to try it out). My biggest issue so far is finding a good thesis topic to work on next year, although I’ve been able to latch onto a couple of cool ongoing resarch projects for the summer, which I can probably (hopefully) pull some sort of thesis-worthy research topic out of.
If I may: find a topic that ignites your interest, that you care about. Don’t set out trying to figure out a theoretical puzzle ahead of time…Your own interest will have to drive your work, so it makes sense to choose something you’re really interested in.
When I saw your name, I thought of Iceland.
My husband has a thing for Icelandic sagas. This will no doubt sound weird to some, but when we drive across county, he will often read one to me. Great ripping yarns! I still think of the elephant rocks in the Missouri Ozarks along with Strang Island and Grettir’s Lift. (OK, we are an odd couple, but at least that will explain my e-mail address)
I’m also nearly ABD on a PhD in computer science at UCLA. I was in the internet industry for six years during the boom (and bust)… and I kind of miss the teamwork and energy of industry. Not sure how best to go about writing this dissertation.
PHD Structural Geology and Tectonics.
Extensive research in both academic and industrial fields (yes, I was a cog in the big oil machine).
Now working for IODP. Google it if you are interested.
I did google it and sent the link to my daughter who is finishing up a degree in physical geography. She loves that stuff. (She would have majored in geology, but her school doesn’t have a geology major?!? She had to make do with taking all of the geology courses offered and making it her minor.)
I’m a lowly lawyer, not an academic, though I support hubby in his scholarship (he got his M.A. in teaching last summer, gets his Ed.M. on Thursday and starts his Ed.D. in the fall, and yes I’m kvelling with pride). I just wanted to say hi Jeff! I just joined today too and will look forward to your posts – I’m sure they’ll be every bit as wonderful in green as they were in orange.
And kudos to you for living with an academic. We’re an odd breed.
And thanks for the kind words. I look better in Orange (it’s the Dutch in me), but I think the words will look just fine in green.
PhD in mass comm (critical/cultural studies). For the diss, looked at the snapshots Vietnam vets took while serving in Vietnam and did a bunch of ethnographic-type research.
I’m about to take a break from the tenure-track for a year or two, though, to do the family thing. It’s scary as hell. I have to say that I am rather looking forward to it, though, because I am in a place where sexism runs rampant and no one seems to care – or those who do can’t do a damned thing about it.
It’s frustrating to work so hard for that degree, dissertation and tenure track job, all the while being told that it’s better in academe, people are enlightened, there’s no glass ceiling, only to get there and run right into all that crap.
I don’t know. In my experience, the field I am in (think old white guy journalist/social-scientific types), and the part of the country I live in, being a woman in academe right now is pretty frustrating.
we should be experiencing a rash of openings in the social sciences as the 60s generation starts to retire….still waiting. Even if they did all retire, the legislatures would cut funding and deans would cut positions. I love doing what I do, but it’s not an easy way to make a living. I just can’t wait until I don’t have to rely on adjunct positions any more…a job with health insurance…can’t wait.
I’m not sure if that makes me an “academic.” I even have trouble with the term “professor.” When I started teaching there, we were “instructors.” At some point our job title changed – I think the admin found giving us a more prestigious title was easier and cheaper than paying us more or actually listening to us, but that’s another story.
So “academic” and “professor” are terms that for me are associated with people who do research (and teach a little on the side) in tenure-track or tenured jobs at major university. I guess, because that was the world where I got my Ph.D. (UTexas, 1988).
PhD (Zoology-Developmental biology) – thesis on the development of the pronephric duct in chicken embryos. Specifically, how the cells that will form the duct move, how do they “know” where to go, how do they “know” when they’ve gotten there?
(Ummm, no. I still don’t know the answer. But I do know that the answer everyone thought it was is not the answer. I felt a little bad about the until I got a chance to ask the Grand Old Man of cell movement, JP Trinkaus, “How do cells move, anyway?” He was digging around in a tank of squid at Wood’s Hole – I can still see him – as he turned and said, “I have no idea.”)
Anyway, I was pretty good at research, but ultimately found it not as interesting as the classroom. I LOVE teaching. I love (most of) my students. I love the community college concept and that it’s the place where I get to meet and teach all kinds of students, not mainly the privileged.
Where do you teach?
Although I’m in a PhD program, I’m with you – I’ve always been more attracted to teaching than to research.
We have close to 30,000 students in college credit courses.
Getting a PhD from the University of Texas – Major. Research. University. – it was hard to even consider community college teaching. But a few years ago, all of my supervising professor’s grad students and post-docs got together for a weekend to celebrate his 70th birthday.
I was dazzled by all that the others had accomplished in research – and more sure than ever that I had done the right thing in taking another path. Research is wonderful, I’m so glad they do it. But living in the lab makes me claustrophobic and bored. I have to struggle to find enthusiasm for it.
With teaching, I just suck up energy from my students – and they suck it all right back out of me. Really, on my best days, I’m like an actor who’s “on.” More energy than I know what to do with – and totally exhausted when I get home.
In fact, I think teaching and acting are very similar, and probably the same kind of people (the ones who are really good at it) are drawn to both of those.
and hearing Molly Ivins in her native vernacular.
produced one of my favorite evaluation comments a student has ever given me:
Love it. At the other end of the spectrum, I once got a comment on an evaluation (when I was teaching as a lecturer at Big State U aka UT) that called me a “commie dyke bitch.”
I think this was in response to saying in class that AIDS couldn’t possibly be God’s opinion of sexual practices – unless God means that only lesbian sex is OK.
I carry that evaluation in my heart as a badge of honor.
never had one that bad. Another favorite, though, is “He’s more interested in showing off how much he knows then in teaching” (emphasis added).
Upon hearing this, one of my colleagues said, “You’re damned right I’m gonna show off how much I know. I didn’t spend all that time getting this PhD to not show off what I learned.”
It’s the best career in the world. My ideal would be a small liberal arts college where I could concentrate on teaching but still write the occassional book…and of course this would have to be located in a metropolitan area with at least a million people….<sigh>
to eugene, above. Although research is not required at my college, lots of my colleagues find ways to do it. In the hard sciences, that requires a lot of very expensive equipment and supplies, so they generally find a way to work in the lab of a UT prof.
In areas that don’t require a lab, you just do it. You need to be a bit of a workaholic to find time for it all, but it’s doable.
I noticed a few years ago that most of the textbooks I was reviewing were written by community college profs. One was even written by an adjunct at a community college. It’s excellent.
That’s the kind of school I went to first as an undergrad. And frankly, after 17 years at Enormous State Universities, I’m wishing that’s where I was, also. Certainly a better place to teach, and colleagues from a wider range of disciplines. Personally, I’d like a leafy small town less than an hour away from the big wicked city – sort of like Northfield, Minnesota.
I’d rather live in Minneapolis and commute to Northfield. Hell, I did it to St. Peter for a semester (teaching at GAC was a lot of fun).
I got my Ph. D. in chemistry about 8 years ago. Loved it, for the most part, right up till the dissertation. Then I had the Postdoc From Hell®, and decided I needed a prolonged break, at minimum.
I’m currently developing Web software applications for a business that specializes in telecommunication cost management and auditing. Bit of a strange turn there, I think, but the job is reasonably good, I get to telecommute, and I’m well appreciated by my employer and coworkers.
I did like the intellectual stimulation of the sciences a great deal (it’s what I miss most in my current job), so I can’t rule out going back to my old career in some form. However, I’m not going back into academia. Ever. It’s just not the same universe as it was 30 years ago (when my dad got his Ph. D. and then became a successful professor).
My wife recently finished a master’s degree in audiology, and has applied for the Ph. D. program at CU (Boulder). So before long we’ll have 2 “doctors” in the house, and we can write each other notes if we don’t feel like going to work in the morning.
Oh, yes.
My field is developmental psychopathology, got my doctorate in clinical and developmental psychology at UTexas. I love teaching (bred in the bone, 4th generation), love research, hate administrivia. It’s a kick teaching first generation college students. About the best damn job in the world.
I should be working on a manuscript right now instead of indulging in my now-conflicted addiction to DKos (among others). (Oh, give it up, RC, you’d be playing with the cats or singing or some other time-passer if you weren’t on-line right now).
is sitting at the foot of the bed giving herself a bath. I’m doing this rather than reading about narrative and the law….c’est la vie.
stop this and go write an exam for tomorrow. Five and a half week summer session course in anatomy and physiology. It’s intense. An exam and lab practical to make and grade almost every week. So far 20 students out of the 24 that started two weeks ago are still hanging in there . . . .
I’d rather have your summer than mine…doing the temp thing. Today I got to put little clasp thingies in file folders and attach the most recent application to the folder using those clasps….The. Whole. Day. I’d rather grade!!
I am a Professor of Political Science (who would have guessed?) at a small/medium liberal arts University–I love teaching, ask for way too much work–almost had a nervous breakdown getting 140 portfolios graded last week. Can’t imagine doing anything else–besides I am on sabbatical in the fall!
I am up front with my beliefs to my students–only have a handful here and there who have a problem with it–but I stress respect in my classes–they know I respect and love them, they respond in kind.
I just went back to hand out some 4’s – it’s a BooThing, giving lots of 4’s. It can mean “I read your reply to my comment,” “Welcome, newbie,” as well as the usual, “Well said!”
We almost never give anything other than 4’s.
But there was only one when I went back. Bunch of academics here. Hey, you think I give A’s, er 4’s, just because you showed up? You have to earn those 4’s, young wo/man!
Maybe we’re conditioned to resist grade inflation. Relax – this is BooTrib. 🙂
I earned my Ph.D. in social psychology from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2000, and am currently an associate professor at Oklahoma Panhandle State University. My main research interests revolve around human aggression and right-wing authoritarianism.
I like being at a small out-of-the-way 4-year university in large part because the pressure to “publish or perish” is largely absent here. That’s freed me up to focus on my areas of interest in a manner that I find more comfortable. Teaching load is heavy but manageable, and at this point I’m no longer having to do new course preps, which has allowed me to focus more on my research.
I decided not to go the academic route, or finish my degree, when I found I could get paid to do research and not have to stand in front of a classroom. I didn’t mind the actual teaching & I was pretty good at it but it took me away from what I really wanted to do. And I’m still doing it.
Plus I knew I would never, never, ever have to attend Yet Another, All University Multi-Disciplinary Open Invitational Inter-Mural Sneer Fest & Faction Fight.
I’m a Ph.D candidate in sociology at the University of Oregon. My dissertation examines the the intersections of gender, disability, and paid caring labor.
I’m also an instructor for the Women’s and Gender Studies program. Go figure.
The two biggest issues I see?
1. Two words: David Horowitz.
Seriously, that Academic Bill of Rights shit that he’s pushing is seriously cracked – and it’s a blatant assault on the professionalism of faculty. This not only helps assert ideological control over the academy, but it also chips away at the legitimacy of tenure and degrades the labor of faculty in general. This leads us to issue #
2. The Wal-Mart-ization of the academy. Funding for public education is in crisis. Public funding is cut; tuition and fees are raised; and personnel decisions are restructured. More and more faculty positions are filled by contingent part-time faculty with little pay and no benefits (my wife fits this mold, teaching composition at a rural community college in Oregon). Graduate labor becomes a cheap form of labor.
So yeah, these issues are pretty heavily colored by 4 years of graduate unionism.
Thanks for letting me get that off of my chest! And, to my colleagues, I look forward to our discussions.
Why I’m not an academic: I wanted to be a scientist from the time I was able to explore the forest and stream I grew up on, on my own. My first lesson in botany was identifying poison ivy! I read Darwin’s ‘Origin..’ by flashlight after bedtime. Because of my S.A.D. I dropped out of college in February, two years in a row.
In my mid-twenties, I tried again, starting at State U to work on my 4.0, before applying to Johns Hopkins. I was rejected. But soon got a letter inviting me to reapply, because the admissions guy who had interviewed me had been fired for sexism! This was two years after JHU first went coed. My experience at Hopkins was that academia is sexist and competitive rather than collaborative. Additionally, I knew by then that my S.A.D. was enough of a handicap that I could not thrive indoors.
I need a lot of light, so today I am an organic vegetable grower. My scientific curiosity is gratified, and my reasoning challenged every day by the multitude of factors that must be considered in order to maximize production, maintain soil fertility and outwit the pesky critters and extremes of weather.
Winter is my time to pursue whatever other interests I’ve accumulated through the years, and read. It’s a very rewarding life.
N.B. I’ve just arrived from Kos. I found myself lately not reading comments when the first thread gets adolescent. I missed most of the pie discussion because I’ve experienced so much sexism myself, including having been raped. My username here is unfortunate. I chose it as an anagram of ‘torture’ when I offered to read ACLU documents for Susan.
hello, I’m a linguist, working on the semantics side of generative linguistics (Chomsky & co). I’ve been an occasional commenter at dKos (with a diary or two in the spring, about an absolutely single issue, the case of the 2 detained NY schoolgirls). I’ve been lurking around the pond here.
All the best, Agnes
when your dog acts like a cat? My parents’ toy poodle was raised with three cats…she thinks she’s one of them. She bathes like a cat, she sleeps like a cat…she’s also smaller than three of the four cats.
I am such an irredeemable cataholic, I’d be tempted to say `good for the dog’ 😉 Do the cats accept her?
Other than that, what can I say? That it is like sex and gender? Do you think that hand-raised pets can believe they are humans, btw? Or ducklings that imprint upon humans, do they have identity issues too? (The snare being that imprinting is apparently genetically encoded.)
Maybe this is more to the point: when the dog raises her paw, is it in greeting, or as a threat? Does she wag her tail when she is happy or when she is nervous? (I read that these are the main sources of dog/cat misunderstanding: dog raises paw to greet cat, cat takes offense.)
Linguistically yours, Agnes
and she keeps them in line…no fighting alowed. Even if she’s asleep, if the cats start to get into it, she’s there breaking up the fight…strangest thing to watch.
dog claims success in herding cats!
This is most amazing! Do you have photos?
Does she do it aggressively, or does she win by cajoling and flattery? How does she learn that there’s a fight going on?
I heard of cats getting upset when their single human was crying, or when 2/more humans were arguing loudly. High-pitched, unusual sounds may have alerted them. Really, how does your parents’ dog learn about it, and what does she do?
Sorry to bombard you with these questions, I love this kind of semi-scientific let’s-call-it fieldwork with pets. The undue influence of Desmond Morris’s Catwatching and Konrad Lorenz (the delightful anecdotes from King Solomon’s Ring).
the growls and howls…she hears it, starts barking and runs to wherever it’s taking place to break it up.
This is the same one who’s been known to grab a cat by the nape of the neck and pull them off a lap she wants to sit on….she runs the house.
no pics 🙁