Confessions of a Community College Dean

In which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990s moves into academic administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two. Foucault, plus lawn care.

June 15, 2007 - 6:45am
A new correspondent writes:-----
June 14, 2007 - 6:34am
According to a piece in IHE, Democrats in Congress are considering establishing penalties for colleges that increase tuition by too high a percentage over any three-year period.To illustrate why this is a painfully stupid idea, I'll trot out some math. Assume 3 percent annual inflation, which is probably in the ballpark. The cap is twice the inflation rate, or 6 percent per year.
June 13, 2007 - 6:20am
A longtime reader writes:------
June 12, 2007 - 6:39am
A while back I posted a question from someone going for a department chair position.Check out the message she posted yesterday:
June 12, 2007 - 6:37am
There's a thought-provoking post over at Lesboprof's about career goals, timing, and the importance (and shock!) of counting backwards. It's about the shock of recognition when you say “I want to be in place x by year y. To do that, I'd have to get to x-1 by year y-5, which means...” and suddenly realizing that the seemingly endless expanse of time before you is, in fact, quite brief.
June 11, 2007 - 6:39am
Weirdly for this time of year, I've been getting a lot of questions about job interview etiquette. Excerpts from two of the better ones:
June 8, 2007 - 6:11am
A longtime reader writes:
June 7, 2007 - 6:28am
A new correspondent writes:
June 6, 2007 - 6:19am
If I knew the literature well enough, I'd start developing a theory of academic gossip. As it is, I'm stuck at the level of observations.Over the past few months, some really provocative pieces of gossip have been flying around campus. (Happily, I haven't been the star of any of them.) I've heard the same (or closely related) rumors from multiple sources, each from a different angle. As a piece of anthropological fieldwork, it's kind of fun.
June 5, 2007 - 1:00pm
According to this article in the Boston Globe, Gov. Patrick is considering a plan to make community colleges in Massachusetts tuition-free by 2015. As appealing as the idea is at first glance, I have to recommend against it.

Pages

Back to Top