Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

Plan for today:

8:15, last mentor breakfast. I'm not sure how good of a mentor I've been, but hopefully he'll do OK.
11:00, grad committee meeting
12:15, assessment meeting
2:00, summer research meeting
2:05, faint because of too many meetings.

Progress on Papers

I met with a coauthor over the weekend and made great progress on a paper, one that's been holding over for quite a while. I'm hoping to crank out a little more on it this week and have it submitted late this week or early next. I've got another paper that I want to read through once more, ask a colleague for some feedback, and then hopefully submit late next week. I have a third paper that I made substantial progress on last week as well. I'm going to tweak it some this week and then send it to several people for feedback. I'm submitting it to a major journal and really want it to go well, so I'm trying to solicit a lot of feedback. It's a very productive time right now.

Article Published!

I got an email yesterday that an article I had under review has been accepted. This is cool for a number of reasons. First, it's always cool to have something accepted. Second, this is the first article that I've had as first/solo author that has been accepted at the first place I submitted it. I almost always get rejected and then submit to another journal before something hits, but this was accepted at the first journal. It's happened one other time, but I was a third author, so I'm not sure that counts. The third reason this acceptance is cool is because I have defined myself by a mainline of research and two sidelines of related research. This article gets one of the sidelines rolling. It also doesn't hurt that it was coauthored by a student, kind of a gold star next to my name.

On a sad note, one of the blogs that I follow semi-regularly has been removed from the web. It wasn't a top-notch blog, but it had good ideas from time to time, and I occasionally linked to it from my other blog (www.myofficebuzz.com). The blog typically consisted of a variety of posts from a number of different authors, and I can't help but wonder if the blogger was plagiarizing and was removed. The bummer is that several links from my blog don't work now.

videoconferencing and honor society

Monday, I had a guest speaker by videoconference. She said exactly what I was hoping she would say and it was a great experience. I think the students were really impressed with it, and I think it was probably great for them to get a feel for the technology. Very cool.

Today, I am in charge of the induction of people into my department's honor society. Being the sponsor is not a task that I particularly enjoy, but it takes little time because my department has low expectations and the students tend to want little more than a resume stamp. It'll be fun to see the students and their families get excited, but I'll be happy when it's over.

Busy Week--Why?

As I was looking at my day planner this week, it looks like a very busy week. But I'm not sure why. This should be an easy week. No pressing deadlines, very little grading. And yet, the list of things to do grows longer.

Chair Update, Students for Research, Great Week of Teaching

The chair "interviews" went well Wednesday. It was really cool to see the three candidates describe their vision for our department. I'm convinced that we are in good shape no matter who gets the job, and I'm grateful to not have to make that decision.

So for the summer grant that I have, I have to recruit an undergraduate student. I've spoken to a research methods class and have one student already interested. I just spoke to an organizational communication class. I'd rather have an org. comm. major, but it's probably better to just go with the best student.

This has been a great week of teaching. Sometimes I focus a lot of my evaluation of a particular week on the research that I get done (or don't get done), but I've done well in terms of teaching this week. On my way to work Monday, I had Steve Martin's SNL "Not Gonna Phone it in Tonight" in my head, and I think that kind of pushed me through the week. I redid my class notes for the week and really did well.

Interviewing Potential Chairs

So today our department is interviewing candidates (all internal) to be the next department head. One seems to be maybe a little bit of a front runner, but all are well-qualified. It will be interesting. I hope it's not awkward afterward. I have opinions about who would be best, but I am planning on thinking with an open mind.

I'm reviewing a submission to a journal. The submission needs a little work, but it's easy to recommend an R & R. Not exactly in my area of expertise, but the argument is good, and it seems like a well-done study.

I found out last week that my summer project was approved and funded with an internal grant. I'm working with 2 other professors and 3 students. The three of us (professors) are working on logistics of data collection that really need to be nailed down this week or next. We're also working on recruiting students, which also really needs to be done this week or early next. This project will likely keep me pretty busy from now through September, but I think it's going to be an awesome project, and we're planning three papers to come from it (and spreading out authorship order).