Category Archives: higher education

Should MLA members be experts in electronic environments?

Posted on February 15, 2009 by jbj

Alex Reid has a typically thoughtful post this morning on the MLA’s recent white paper on the undergraduate major in language and literature.  There is something a bit embarrassing about the MLA’s assertion that competencies in reading and writing translate … Continue reading →

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The true meaning of a Ph.D.

Posted on February 14, 2009 by jbj

In the Feb. 16 issue of The Sporting News, Shaquille O’Neal explains what a getting a doctorate means to him: SN: I understand we’ll soon have to call you Dr. Shaq. O’Neal: That’s right. SN: When will that be? O’Neal: … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, silliness | 2 Comments

One sign you’re becoming yet another absent-minded professor

Posted on August 13, 2007 by jbj

When you spend three minutes staring out of your office window wondering how to figure out whether it’s stopped raining, the better to return books to the library . . . you may be an absent-minded prof. Not good. (One … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, silliness | 1 Comment

Penn CFP list

Posted on August 6, 2007 by jbj

I don’t think this information has been disseminated very widely, so: According to the list’s main page at the UPenn website, the list is (at least temporarily) dead: Due to technical and administrative difficulties, we can no longer offer mass … Continue reading →

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For future students: How to ask to be let into a course

Posted on July 30, 2007 by jbj

One of my best things is not taking things personally. Almost nothing has anything to do with me. –Robert Lopez, A Part of the World   Unlike Robert Lopez’s narrator,  “not taking things personally” is one of my worst things.  … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, teaching | 3 Comments

A summertime Friday query on faculty governance

Posted on July 27, 2007 by jbj

If the student center changes their fries (to “steak-cut”), shouldn’t they have to run that by the faculty senate? Steak-cut’s gross. (It may well be, of course, that they’re just out of regular fries.  But isn’t it convenient that they’d … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, silliness | 1 Comment

Things that probably make conservatives go “huh.”

Posted on July 13, 2007 by jbj

Thursday’s e-mail brought the AAUP‘s monthly e-newsletter promoting the contents of Academe.  Here’s a screen shot of one of the news items: I don’t want to defend either ACTA or Anne Neal, but I do think it’s weird to conflate … Continue reading →

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Collex

Posted on July 10, 2007 by jbj

At the Academic Commons today, I have a post introducing Collex, a search- and tagging- tool that allows researchers to move seamlessly among most of the major 19th-century digital collections.  Collex is one of the coolest early fruits of Jerome … Continue reading →

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Summer’s finally here

Posted on June 28, 2007 by jbj

My two summer classes end today!  July and August will be the first two months I’ve gone without teaching since 2003.  I scarcely know what to do . . . (Well, Alton Locke is due to Broadview in August, and … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, teaching | 2 Comments

What’s an assignment for?

Posted on June 25, 2007 by jbj

This year I’ve been experimenting with a variety of digital replacements for my conventional “3 explication papers + one short paper + one medium-length paper” assignment set; for the purposes of this experiment, I’m not requiring formal papers at all.  … Continue reading →

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