Inspiration

In response to my Facebook post about my recent teaching evaluations, my dear friend James McKenna shared these thoughts:

"After many years of teaching, however frustrating, for some odd reason (maybe for our own good) it's not the students who love you that seem to matter, but rather its the one that doesn't, that seems to matter most. And while over time you gain some pitiful abstract, intellectual understanding ... suggesting that it may well be their, and not your problem..somehow, it STILL really hurts. But you know, it's just a wonderful reflection of how seriously we all take our privileged positions..to try however unlikely to be perfectly and equally relevant and 'on point' to meet the intellectual and psychological needs of every, single student we teach. A true sign of eventual maturity for which I continue to aspire in this domain comes when you can still feel very proud, indeed, more than satisfied if not joyous for the overwhelming number of your students you have touched and who have touched you, and when you realize just how much you actually did for them which, as it turns out, is what all of your most treasured and wonderful professors did for you. It proves to be a kind of realization that is life sustaining, and life fulfilling."

Jim McKenna: anthropologist, teacher, role model

Dear Professor, you suck.

I received my first student evaluations at my new job. Overall I'm pleased and relieved and will be completely comfortable having my department chair see them, but there was that ONE evaluation that really sticks in my craw. I'm sure you are familiar with the phenomenon: the outliers that can drown out all the rest. What is it about that ONE apple that spoils the batch of what are generally some pretty nice apples?

Again, I turn to a Chronicle of Higher Education forum to lighten the mood: Let's play "What's the Nastiest Evaluation Comment this Semester?" Will you be a contender?

Ain't we lucky we got 'em....Good times!

As I'm sure you do, I like to browse the greeting card section at Walgreens and select cards that would be perfect to send myself. Yesterday, I found one of those cards that breaks into song when you open it. It was a congratulations card and this was the song. What am I celebrating? The totally unexpected awesomeness of NIH deciding last Friday to fund a grant that was scored highly but missed the original payline. They changed the payline (the funding cutoff), and voila!, I now have money to go back to the Philippines and get some major science action. Whoo!

Good times, people!

Hold on to your hats: the economy is really bad

It's hard out there for a pimp, yes, but it's no picnic for a professor, given the dismal state of salary increases this past year, as reported in a recent AAUP faculty salary survey.

One fun excerpt from the Chronicle of Higher Ed article:
"In 2009-10, the average salary of a full-time faculty member rose only 1.2 percent. That's the lowest year-to-year increase recorded by the association in the 50-year history of its salary survey. To make matters worse, an inflation rate of 2.7 percent meant that many professors actually had less buying power than the year before. In fact, two-thirds of the 1,141 institutions surveyed over two years gave their faculty members either a pay cut, no raise, or an increase of less than 2 percent, on average."

Adjunct association organizing for unemployment benefits

Many of us are working as adjuncts, a position that can leave us open to a great deal of employment insecurity. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the New Faculty Majority, an adjunct faculty advocacy group that is encouraging "more out-of-work adjuncts to file for unemployment insurance between academic terms and during summer breaks. The organization's goal, ultimately, is to change a federal law that some colleges routinely invoke to keep adjuncts from receiving unemployment benefits during those interims."

Check out the comments to read (mostly) thought-provoking discussion on the current state of adjuncting.

BANDITs in American Anthropologist!

This month's issue of American Anthropologist features articles by two BANDIT members. Starting in 2008, American Anthropologist started to devote part of its June issue to the Year in Review in Anthropology, with essays representing five subdisciplines: biological, sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological, and public anthropology. This year, I wrote the annual review of biological anthropology. Many of you might remember my Facebook poll - thanks for your participation and check out my article for the results.

In the same issue, Robin Nelson, first-year assistant professor of anthropology at University of California Riverside, offers a review and critique of John Hawks' very popular anthropology blog.

Preparing for tenure reviews

With the school year wrapping up, folks on the tenure track are getting their reviews - 1st year, 2nd year, mid-tenure. I haven't been through it yet (it's set for June or July) but I have been keeping a "tenure journal" wherein I document everything I've done since I started at my school. Pubs, abstracts submitted for conferences, grants and $ amounts applied for (even if I don't get them it shows I tried and if I write down all the details now I won't have to scramble later), nice emails from students, etc. From that I've abstracted a year-in-review document that I can give my chair once he starts the process. It all helps me feel like I have a little bit of control over a process that is largely external.

Another thing that I've found to be helpful is to check the Chronicle of Higher Ed fora for firsthand experiences and advice:

Advice/reassurance needed for tt prof after second year review

Things not to do pre-tenure

Criticism of teaching in annual review

3rd yr review