Special Presentation, Conferences, and Mentoring

I recently got to hear Martha Nussbaum speak. She is mentioned in the textbook for one of my classes, although she really didn't talk about that subject. Instead, she gave a "defense of liberal education." She argued that human development is giving way to get-rich-fields of applied science, technology, and engineering. She lamented the demise of humanities and the arts. It was pretty inspiring to hear her talk about the need for critical thinking and dissent as well as her description of the failures of democracy in countries where educational systems neglect the disciplines that can best teach critical thinking skills. She was sometimes hard to follow because she spoke in much the same style that she writes in--great for books, but sometimes to dense to follow easily. However, I am anything but sorry that I went. It was a very inspiring speech. There are times when I need that kind of recharge. I go to conferences and get fired up about teaching and research, but NCA and ICA are 6 months apart, so it's nice to have something in between.

Speaking of NCA, things are still going well although I'm starting to feel a little bit of the push. I'm proposing a panel, and I've got everyone on board. If I can get abstracts next week from people (including myself), that will be going very smoothly. As for the two papers I'm submitting, today is key. I need to get the analysis done for one of the papers, and I'm having trouble with some of the data. The reliabilities are not working out. I'm getting numbers that are not even mathmatically possible. Not sure what's going on, but that's a big deal today. I also need to work on adding quotes to the qualitative paper I'm submitting. The analysis is done, and I wrote a skeleton of the results section, but I need to have it mostly filled in with data today. If I can get those things done today, I'll be in pretty good shape with week and a half to go.

I had a paper rejected from ICA. Pretty disappointing. Now I will say that the paper is better now that it was in November when I submitted it. Still, I can count on one hand the number of papers that have been rejected by conferences, so it stings a little. I'm hoping to submit it to a journal in the not too distant future, so I'll be interested in seeing the reviews from ICA before I send it off.

Last semester, I feel like I did a pretty good job meeting with the new faculty member I'm mentoring, but my schedule has changed this semester. We were in the habit of getting together for lunch, but I teach during that time now. I've need to find a time that works for him. I really don't want to screw this up. When I moved here, that first year was tough, and I want to help him as much as I can.

Grading Rubrics

I went to a faculty breakfast this morning at which we discussed grading rubrics in our classes. I use grading rubrics, primarily because my department expects them, and my students demand them. I don't like them. They have lowered my grades (someone else said the same thing this morning), which is probably a good thing. But the thing I don't like is that they make me nit-picky. I can tell the difference between an A- and a B+ paper. But I can't tell the difference between a 91 and a 92. With a rubric, you may lose points for every little thing and get "dinged" down to a 91, when it was really an A- paper, and I normally would have given you a 92. It would take me less time to give an A- and write some comments as to why. Ok, maybe it just feels like it would take less time.

Despite my complaints, it's probably the way of the future, so I should probably just live with it.

Big Week Ahead

So this week, I'm hoping to finish up a draft of the first NCA paper, finish up the methods and analyses of the second NCA paper, and finalize the participants for the panel that I'm proposing. If I can get those things done, I feel like I'll be far ahead of where I've been in previous years. The paper that I'm still working on the analysis for involves moderator variables and interaction effects. I tried to write a similar paper with slightly different data a couple of years ago, but I couldn't get the analysis right. This time, I think I've got it. I'll know for sure in a few days.

I'm also looking for some places to submit parts of my grant proposal to. The grants person at my university says (rightly so) that I should spend that much work on one proposal. She is encouraging me to spin off parts of it to smaller opportunities. We'll see how that goes.

Slightly ahead...

This is something I remember feeling but haven't for a while. I'm actually ahead in terms of some of the things that I need to get done in the near future. There are several deadlines that are looming (NCA foremost), but I feel pretty good right now in terms of my progress toward that deadline. It's kind of nice to not be behind the 8 ball.

That's not to say that I'm not busy. I'm trying to get three things submitted to NCA, so I've got a lot going on. But nothing is really out of control yet. Nice feeling.

I'm having trouble working on my other blog using Internet Explorer. I know the whole world seems to think Mozilla is better, but I still like IE. Disappointing that it's not working right.

Holidays and More Grants

The holiday Monday was great. It's strange teaching a Monday class. My university started the semester on a Wednesday, which meant we didn't have class on that first Monday. Then, we got MLK day off, another Monday off. It's tempting to get used to long weekends. (How many weeks till Spring Break?)

The person at my university that is in charge of grants is pushing me to use the work that I just did on that grant that I turned in last week to write additional, but smaller grants. There is one that she thinks has a Feb. 1 deadline (though it's not listed on their website) that she is pushing me to submit. The problems--first I'm about to get overwhelmed with the NCA push. I'm starting to look at my dayplanner and see the time to get those papers finished dwindling away, particularly since the NCA deadline is Feb. 11, which seems really early. The second problem is that this organization is really picky with what they fund--long lists with lots of warnings if you try to submit the wrong things--and one thing they won't fund is a grad student, which is a big priority for me. Obviously, I want the grant to fund research, but I'd also like it to help my department, and one key way it could do that is through funding a grad student. Not to mention how helpful it would be for conducting the research. I'm hoping to find an alternative agency with a nearby deadline for the topic (a popular one) so we'll see.

We have a department meeting later today to discuss the financial situation. Apparently, our interim chair has gotten more information to share with us.

Thoughts on a new blog

I'm thinking about a new blog. I giving advice to a student about workplace communication, and I realized that there are some pieces of advice I can give regardless of value commitments, but there are other times when values play an important role in giving advice. Let me explain that. There are sometimes when we face a choice in the workplace (also happens in other contexts as well). We can stand for our values or we can be ambitious and advance our careers. We try to do both and most of the time that works well. But my student was at the point where he had to choose. I started telling him how he could "play the Game," a practice I condemn in my ethics class, and I was planning to post such advice on my organizational communication blog. Then I realized how at odds my advice was with my values and faith-beliefs. I don't want my other blog to have any appearance of pushing my faith on anyone else, but it got me thinking about how faith and work interrelate. So I'm thinking of starting a blog to explore those ideas. I doubt it will be something I post to as regularly as the two that I have going now, but it'll be a great place to keep those ideas together.

Busy Week

I skipped Wednesday's post. The grant that I've been describing was due Thursday (which was after the grants person at my university let me have an extra day), and it was a little overwhelming. Officially, the grant isn't due until Sunday, but people at the university have to sign off on it, and they need several work days to get that done. So I finished everything yesterday and ran it all over campus getting the signature I needed and getting to the grants office who would get the rest of the signatures. It's a pretty big grant, so it got a lot of good attention. I was held up by a number of details, including getting a letter of support from the organization that I'm working with. Lots of bureaucracy and sending stuff to the wrong email address. But they came through in the end!



I've got a few things to do in the coming weeks, but the next big push will be for the NCA submission deadline in Februrary. However, I'm trying to work on those things now so that I don't get snowed under at the last minute. My university always has internal grant applications due at or about the same time as the NCA deadline, so it's always a hectic time. I would say the first couple of weeks of February are the most predictably heavy times of the year for me, probably even more so that the end of semesters. So anyway, I'm trying to get ahead.



I'm also needing to spend some time this weekend catching up on blogs. I have several blogs that I try to follow, but I haven't checked my reader in more than a month. I shudder to think how many posts behind I am.

The first real week

So last week, with school starting on Wednesday, kind of felt like a warm-up. Like today is the first "real" day of school.

It's started off kind of busy. I feel like I'm coming down with something, and I'm hoping that it holds off for a while. 2 months would be nice.

I've got to finish off the details of that grant that I'm working on. Everything's supposed to be done by Wednesday or Thursday.

Off to a running start.

Met my students yesterday

I'm working from home today, and my internet keeps turning off. Grrrr!

I met my classes yesterday, and call me optimistic, but I'm excited about this semester. First, because of a short-lived change to a 3-2 teaching load (succumbed to the economic downturn--back to 3-3 next year), I'm only teaching 2 classes this semester. I can already feel the relief. But more than that, I really like my classes. Despite teaching mostly last semester seniors, I think that they are excited to be there and maybe even a little inspired by my first day talk about how much they need this class (I know, I'm probably delusional). I think it's going to go really well.

I also finished my pre-tenure portfolio yesterday. Yay!!

And I cleaned my office. Badly needed. Could still use a little bit of work, but it'll do.

Starting Fresh

I started classes today with an 8:15 meeting, the perfect way to start a semester. The host at that meeting said something that I had thought of before, but it never hurts to be reminded. She said that we as professors are really blessed to be able to end one semester and start fresh with a new one. No matter how badly one semester went, we get to start with a blank slate. No matter how well a semester goes, we cannot rest on previous success. It's nice to have the ability to start fresh.

Today, I nearly finished my pre-tenure portfolio. It has taken much more time than I expected. I thought it would just be a matter of printing stuff out and shoving it in a notebook, but it's been a lot of work. I've got a couple of things still to add, but they are some things that I've got to finish this week anyway. It's nice to know that it'll be done this by the end of the week.

I've got a week to go on the grant that I've been working on for more than six months. It needs to be finished off by Thursday so that I can get the right signatures. I've got a little more to do on it, but it should be done on time. After a frustratingly busy end of last semester, it's great to have a fresh start!