Day Off

No blog today. Eating leftover turkey and watching football. I'll be back on Monday.

Thankfulness

Too often, we let cynicism get the best of us. I was at a panel at NCA where someone suggested that healthy cynicism (aka realism) is not necessarily a bad thing. Nevertheless, I think it's also good to stop and think about how fortunate we are. Even if it is cliche this time of year...

Despite my occasional complaints about students, administrators, reviewers, and various other people I encounter in my job, I am INCREDIBLY thankful for my job and what I do. I love what I do, and sometimes, it's all too easy to dwell on the little things that I would change and not see the bigger picture. I get paid to do what I love, and I'm giving thanks this weekend for that.

Also, in all of the economic turmoil in the developed world and with an awareness that there are many people not affected by that turmoil because they are so poor, I am very grateful for what I have. I do not have to worry about my next meal. I have a great place to live. I have a car to get me from point A to point B anytime I want to. I am truly blessed through what I have.

Finally, I have family and friends that are wonderful. I know this time of year is a lonely time for some as the holidays emphasize the importance of family. I am grateful for all of the people around me that care about me.

Conferencing

I didn't get a chance to post anything after Monday of last week. I spent the latter half of the week at NCA. As conferences go, I have to say that this has been one of my favorite. I feel like there were more panels that related to what I wanted to study than most conferences. I met some very interesting people and got to catch up with some great friends. I am leaving very intellectually stimulated and excited about new ideas. And despite the controversy, San Diego was probably one of the nicer sites and most certainly one of the least expensive. I'm exhausted because I stay up late most nights visiting with people and got up early for 8:00 panels, but I had a great conference.

No, I'm not cracking under the pressure

Lots to do this week. With NCA just a few days away, and Thanksgiving shortly after that, the next couple of days are critical. I need to finish a draft of that grant proposal and send it to a few people to look at. I need to decide today on which textbook(s) to use in my new prep next year. I need to make substantial progress in my pre-tenure portfolio. There was a workshop last week where assistant professors who had just gone through pretenure gave information and members of the rank, tenure, and promotion committee responded to that information and to questions. I don't know that I got that much new information, but it definitely served to emphasize that my pretenure portfolio is not just a collection of stuff, but a rhetorical presentation of myself. They encouraged proactive framing with short descriptions of each class that I teach and introductions for each section.

My university also pays a small stipend to faculty who volunteer to grade writing portfolios that students submit during their junior year, and I need to get started on that. It's part of my university's efforts to make sure graduates can put sentences together coherently. And a few odds and ends before I leave town. Lots to do.

This week, I graded a paper in my communication ethics class I noticed 2 things.

First, more than any other ethics class that I've taught, this class has their head firmly wrapped around situational ethics, and they refuse to see any other possibilities. Situational ethics has always appealed to a lot of students, but never to an entire class. And make no mistake, the situation as many of them see it is "how can this situation benefit me." Part of what I like about the class is challenging them to think about what they will do when faced with ethical dilemmas where what's right conflicts with what seems self-serving. This class seems to have no trouble with that dilemma and is very honest and vocal about pursuing self-interests over what's "right" in any kind of objective sense. I will have a chance to look at each student's perspective individually at the end of the semester, and it may be that it's just the vocal few that feel this way. I'm hoping.

Second, I've noticed a trend where students have trouble reading something and picking out the main argument. Part of this could certainly be that the pace of their lives has quickened, and they are not taking the time to read at any depth. This is certainly not a very scientifically founded assertion, but I am wondering if it is possible that teachers' use of PowerPoint could be robbing students of the ability to pick out main points themselves. Why would you learn to do that when someone gives you a bulleted list? I suffered from PowerPoint abuse from a teacher that made too much use of bullet points, so I tend to not use PowerPoint when I don't really need it. I've had several students in the last couple of years complain because they didn't know what to take notes on. I'm not sure how one would study this, but I would like to see some data.

Budget Cuts

This morning, my university (like many universities, I'm sure) announced a series a dramatic budget cuts. Of course, things like this start at the top. Our (university) president sent an email outlining an optimistic vision of the long-term future coupled with a cautious vision of the short-term and a recognition that no one knows when the short-term will fade and we will be in the long-term. The president's message certainly had ominous tones to it, but that email was followed by an equally ominous but more specific response from my chair (the lame duck chair, not the interim who takes over in January). Up to the point, travel to conferences was funded to some degree, whether or not you were presenting a paper. Now, if you aren't presenting a paper, travel will not be funded. They are "suggesting" that people who were traveling to NCA but not presenting forego their trip. They are also cutting back on food at departmental get-togethers (eliminating NCA party, potlucks for department holiday party, no bagels at faculty meetings, etc.). Perhaps most disturbing in the announcements was that hires are being frozen, although there was no indication of what that means for the current ongoing searches. Our chair thinks that searches underway will probably continue, but that any vacancies by departures (including our chair who "officially" departs at the end of the 08-09 school year) will go unfilled.

This is probably the first time that I have personally felt any of the economic recession. And don't get me wrong, even with these changes, I count myself very blessed. I'm still not sure how much I'll feel these changes, particularly this year. They are cutting back on office supplies, so I should probably start hoarding like I anticipate other will. (It's interesting to think about bartering notepads for pens and paper clips for candy from the vending machine.) I wonder what this will do to internal grants. You have to think that they will be reduced. Funding faculty research has always been a top priority, and there are those who know how important it is to not lose how far we've come. I may email the dean in charge of research for his thoughts. I also wonder about external grants, and how much more competitive they'll be. I'm working on an NSF proposal right now, and I'm anticipating sending another proposal out in the Spring. Things may get a lot tougher, and I may not realize how easy I had it.

A Little Overwhelmed

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like you have everything under control until the day starts and so many other things pop up that you have to do?

So I've got a paper to finish by Wednesday to send to an NCA respondent, and I need to get pretty close to finishing an external grant application so that I can get feedback on it before it's due. I've got grading to finish by Thursday, and I'm about 25% of the way done after piddling around on it over the weekend. But with all of that, I felt ok about things.

When I get to my office, I see a stack of complementary review copies of books--I need to select a book(s) for a class next semester that I'm teaching for the first time. (So excited about a new prep!) It's tough to do that because I haven't really thought about the syllabus yet. More support for Weick's ready-fire-aim approach to decision-making--seems to guide my course planning decisions. I also have an email from a student that needs advising (registration is this week) and from a student who is my advisee who needs my permission for two substitutions on her degree program because of schedule conflicts between classes. I have already been working with this student, but when I look at the schedule myself, I see that she only needs one substitution but will have to take an evening class. And one of the organizations that has been helping me with data collection is asking about results--I've written up the academic results but haven't put it together in a format that's ready to be sent out yet.

Very frustrating to have your day planned and have that disrupted. And it's just Monday. I hope that the week improves.

Success

I got an email yesterday that the 11-month-review article was accepted! Success! It's a great feeling.

If only that submission with the 3 revise and resubmits would get accepted.

I'm working on too many things with too little time. The nice thing is that one of the papers I'm working on right now ties in to two things that I want to submit for publication before the end of the year, so at least it's killing three birds with one stone.

PreTenure Portfolio

I'm starting to put together my pretenure portfolio today. Yes, I've kind of kept things together as I've gone, and the self-evaluation part of my yearly evaluations have made me keep my faculty data form (the coverpage of the pretenure portfolio at my university) current. So it's really a matter of printing everything (which is slightly problematic because my department is paper-stingy) and putting it in notebooks with dividers. It's really interesting that they want so much printed out. I kind of want to include a very brief portfolio with a flashdrive full of documents, but I don't want to hack anyone off. And my peer reviewers (people at my institution) will be viewing my portfolio and making their recommendations in a conference room where they may not have a laptop. Still, it's not very green.

Submission and Relief

Everything is submitted to ICA. I still have stacks of stuff to get done in the next few weeks, but it's such a relief to get that done. I also sent in an application for an internal grant for next summer. Nice.

Next on the list...writing a paper for an NCA panel, finishing the grant application I've been working on since June, and submitting some stuff to journals. My goal was to submit three new things to journals this year. I've got one written, but I'm trying to get a revise and resubmit accepted before I send it off. I'd like to send off the two conferences submissions that I just finished. Plenty of rewriting and polishing still to do, but should be doable.

Started grading papers in one of my classes today. I've been procrastinating these, and I really need to get them done by Wednesday. The first one was terrible, so I'm pretty unmotivated to do any more.