The Academic in the Coffee Shop

I wrote the majority of my dissertation while seated at a tiny table in the corner of dimly lit coffee shop. At the time, I didn’t have my own office, and working at home was anything but productive. My cat would sit on my keyboard, and I went stretches staring longingly out the window. So, I spent countless hours at my local coffee shop, churning out pages in that melange of extreme focus and nervous agitation that copious cups of caffeine can trigger. For the better part of a year, my clothes reeked of freshly ground coffee beans, and in this period, my own nerdy version of Cheers, all the baristas knew my name (and beverage of choice). It was a magical—and expensive—time in my life, but I wasn’t eager to repeat it.

When I started my faculty job, I was excited to finally have an office. In what has now become a tired cliché, office space was limited and competition for coveted offices in my department was (and remains) fierce. Office space was so scarce that, when I was hired, the dean couldn’t guarantee me an office in our building. In the end, I was issued a decent space near colleagues in our building—a little office with a window and collection of relatively new furniture.

Prior to the start of the semester, I tried to purchase a few decorations to liven up the space. I pictured an eclectic mix of artsy, globally inspired photographs and shelves lined with books. My degree, newly framed and prominently displayed. Evidently, I thought these things would make my office seem legitimate. As it turned out, my office never quite lived up to these expectations. Things got busy, and decorating took a back seat. Fortunately, having an unadorned office wasn’t a major issue.

Within a few weeks, I learned that my colleagues were only sporadically in their offices. In fact, the message I received was that faculty avoided being in their offices at all costs. Sure, they came in for meetings and office hours. Otherwise, however, they took advantage of the beautiful autonomy this profession grants by working elsewhere. (This, of course, is the great irony of faculty fighting over offices.)

Because our office hours only occasionally overlapped, I was surprised by how little I saw of my colleagues, even those whose offices were in close proximity. In order to get to know people in my department, I reached out to them and asked to meet one-on-one. Where did we usually meet? Coffee shops. Soon thereafter, I started meeting up with a colleague for structured writing time. Because I was joining his routine, I followed his lead. And so it was, after a brief respite, that I found myself once again spending large chunks of time in coffee shops.

This wasn’t a terrible turn of events. I was getting to know my colleagues, and I was writing, which I have gathered is important in this gig. Coffee shops are also a great way to learn about a new place and get the pulse of a community. In between sentences, I would often overhear conversations or observe random moments in people’s lives. Frequently, I would look up and see other faculty from around campus working through a stack of grading. It struck me that there are a variety of spaces in which academic work gets done. This is partly due to technology changes, which also means there may be generational differences that influence which spaces faculty prefer.

Thanks to the internet and widely available, free wifi, faculty are able to access a great deal of the materials they need to work from multiple places. For example, provided I have wifi, I can access through my library a range of e-books and virtually any journal article I need to aid my research. Since my courses are hybrid, I do a fair amount of student-interaction through a web-based video platform. I access student assignments and enter grades through a website. I expect that the same is true for many faculty members, suggesting that, for many of us, work is less of a location than a list of (probably overdue) tasks. If wifi is the key criterion for workspace, why not find a place that has, historically, fostered creativity?

The centrality of the coffee shop to academe makes sense in this regard. For centuries, coffee shops have been hubs of information exchange and knowledge production. I’ve seen and read a few historical papers about the role of coffee shops in spreading radical ideas, fomenting rebellion, and sparking literary innovations. Academics today are simply continuing this long tradition. 

Yet I was reminded recently that the nomadic academic wasn’t always the norm. One Friday afternoon, after most faculty had vacated the building, I chatted with the dean about how quiet it was. This comment seemed to induce nostalgia, as he shared that the profession was quite different when he started as an assistant professor. Back then, prior to the advent of the internet, it was much harder to work from home. You needed your physical books and files. It just wasn’t practical to lug everything home with you each night. As a result, he said, more faculty were in their offices, and there were more opportunities for informal interactions. Some of the older faculty in the building still preferred to come into the office everyday. He misses those moments of community.

As I listened to the dean, I reflected on my own return to the coffee shop. I didn’t go back for massive lattes or funky music—I went purely for the chance to connect with colleagues. In academe, the mixture of autonomy and the internet seems to mean, at least in my little world, that people simply aren’t around that much. As an assistant professor who is new to the campus, the result has been brief yet recurrent feelings of isolation.

Since I don’t foresee the internet disappearing anytime soon, this might mean that universities need to put more effort into building community among faculty members. It seems that at least a handful has a dedicated faculty club, which might provide one venue for faculty to get together. It could also be that there is no “fix,” in which case I’ll just suck it up and suck down a few more coffees.  

The Many Reasons Academics Work So Much

This week, Philip Guo, an assistant professor at the University of Rochester, wrote an article for Inside Higher Ed on why academics feel overworked. This is certainly not the only piece about how much academics work, or the only piece debating the appropriateness of professors feeling overwhelmed by the numerous demands on their time. The nature of work in faculty life is practically its own genre. Guo's contribution to the conversation is the argument that academics don't have a boss and their work comes from multiple, independent sources that have no knowledge of one another.

Reflecting on this argument, it strikes me as reasonable and probably part of the equation. Professorial work comes from many places, and we academics are largely responsible for filtering what we decide to do each day. As a freshly minted PhD in my first semester as an assistant professor, I've had a fair amount of time to think about (and complain about) my job. In so doing, I've identified a few other reasons why academics work so much. Although we often complain about external pressures to perform, most of these reasons are internally generated.

1. The lines between work and non-work are fuzzy.

Academic jobs require a high degree of passion. Many of us elected to go to graduate school and pursue intellectual work because we derive immense satisfaction from exploring questions, discussing issues, and sharing our expertise. Honestly, sometimes our work doesn't feel like work. I've been known to read a book about my research area in bed before calling it a night. For my wife, this is completely bizarre and further evidence that I'm the nerdiest person she knows. Those moments feel leisurely, but they are also scholarly. So, we sometimes work too much because we love what we do and don't always recognize it as work.

2. We are our own arbiters of "enough."

There are certain lower limits on academic work. We often have determined teaching loads. Tenure criteria sometimes spell out a minimum amount of research activity to achieve promotion. However, there are no upper limits: more of everything is always seen as better. As Guo pointed out, we don't have a "boss" and don't really have a great sense of our performance until periodic reviews roll around. Like most salaried jobs, professors must regularly have internal conversations about whether or not they have accomplished their goals or "done enough." Because there is no external or contractual yardstick of "enough," we decide for ourselves. And the result of this deliberation, I believe, is a perpetual sense that we haven't done enough, even when we recognize that we are working ourselves to exhaustion.

3. Academics are prone--really prone--to competitive comparison.

I have yet to meet a professor who isn't in some way motivated by prestige. We are swayed by a narrative that we work in meritocratic institutions in which the best and brightest are rewarded for their efforts. In order to establish we are among the best and brightest, we compete. Sure, there is a fair amount of collaboration and collegiality in academic work. But for anyone who thinks the life of a professor is that of an isolated, contemplative hermit, let me enlighten you: it can be cut-throat and brutal race with no clear end game. And the race is rigged in ways that benefit certain individuals over others. Moreover, we often judge our success through reference to successful peers. "If I want to be known," we say, "I need to do work like so-an-so (high profile academic) who publishes a book a year." Of course, there some folks who are less influenced by competitive comparison. They march to their own beat, and I commend them for that. However, they seem to be the exception to the rule.

A quick anecdote on competitive comparison before moving on with the list. I was recently at a workshop for new faculty in my field. Over dinner, conversation shifted and several people began discussing the ways in which they were positioning to move to a better institution. We've only been on the job for a few months! The pull of prestige can be remarkably strong.

4. We are increasingly subject to productivity management.

Yes, many of the things driving faculty to work so much are internally generated. However, there are a few that are not. Increasingly, the expectation is that faculty demonstrate, through measurable outcomes, their productivity. This means documenting virtually every detail of our jobs. I worked in university administration at a public research university for seven years. We are talking the height of bureaucracy here. Not once did I have to record my activities as I do as a faculty member. To some extent, the notion that faculty members enjoy extreme autonomy is a myth. Our time is becoming managed in order to satisfy the whims of administrators and legislators. The ability of faculty to challenge this process is compromised due to the steady erosion of shared governance.

5. There is a norm of overwork.

One result of so many articles being published about academics working so much is that it creates a norm. Faculty, in their day-to-day interactions, help to create and perpetuate this norm. Conversations about how much we work, how little we get paid, and how frustrated we are with the system are so ubiquitous it's jarring when we come across someone who seems to actually have balance in their life. As a new faculty member, when you enter a space where everyone talks about how behind they are in grading, how huge their inbox is, or how many meetings they have to attend, you start to wonder if your time should be similarly taxed. You start to question, "Have I really done enough today?" And so the cycle begins anew.

There are probably other reasons why academics work so much. Some people are workaholics and just happen to be professors. Some people use work to escape from or compensate for something entirely different. Some people are legit academic rockstars whose work does real good in the world. Some people just do a lot of work and are grateful to have the opportunity.

In my mind, I've stopped paying too much attention to questions of why I'm working so much. Rather, I've started to put real thought into whether I'm using my time in ways that allow me to flourish. Similarly, I've focused my attention on thinking through the question: what kind of academic do I want to be? It's not that thinking through reasons we are overworked is futile. I just don't have the time to over-analyze it because I have a stack of papers to grade.

The Institutional Man: In Defense of Service in Academe

When I started my faculty job, I received the some advice that I believe to be common in academe: "focus on your research and teaching. Those are the only things that truly matter."

In this context, "matter" equates to "counting in you tenure case." I appreciate this advice on some level because the underlying message, one that I have heard many times now, is that my colleagues want me to stick around for the long haul. They want me to be successful here. In their eyes, they are protecting me from onerous service and providing me space to establish my research program and become comfortable teaching. They have instructed me not to volunteer to serve on any committees for as long as I can. "Enjoy being new," they tell me.

What no one explained to me was how isolating and, at times, utterly devoid of meaning it can be to spend entire days researching and preparing classes with minimal engagement with the wider institution. Don't get me wrong. I feel enormously privileged that I can freely pursue research topics that interest me. No one seems to mind if I do that in my office or in a local cafe (where I am ridiculously more productive). I get a great deal of satisfaction out of interacting with my students in the classroom and during office hours. I'm not tucked away in a dark, damp, tiny office with no human contact. There has been a plethora of coffee and lunch meetings with colleagues. And, yet, I sorely miss being anchored--thoroughly connected--to the institution. It seems I am an institutional man (I recognize my language here is gender-exclusive. It's a play on Whyte's The Organization Man.)

By "institutional man," I mean that part of the reason why I love working in academe is contributing to the betterment of the institution. I don't think of a university as simply a platform to do my research. I like being involved in shaping the institution's present circumstances and future possibilities. I'm the person who in graduate school served on the university senate and eagerly read about task force deliberations. I studied my university's history, knew the location of every building on campus, and walked each day through the quad with a sense of my place in the networks that made the institution function. Work assumes new meaning when you feel weaved within the institutional fabric. Having only worked at my present university for about one semester, I recognize it will take time for this type of connection to develop. However, it seems much more difficult to accomplish this when the predominant narrative I hear is: "serve yourself and stick to your tribe."

Herein lies the problem for me with avoiding service. I know that research and teaching should be prioritized over service. However, I feel strongly that service and an affinity with the institution could enhance my research and teaching. In what may become a (dangerously) recurring trend, I have ignored common advice for junior faculty members. I started volunteering for committees. I reached out to others who, from my vantage point, are both successful scholars and people who serve the institution. Those people who lead workshops on applied learning, facilitate mentoring through the Center for Teaching Excellence, and serve on the faculty senate. Many of these people are not superstars with national reputations. They aren't "publicly engaged" scholars. They do their work and strive to make the institution better.

What I'm learning is that, as a junior faculty member, there isn't a set formula to follow. You make choices based upon your values and cobble together a trajectory. In so doing, you sometimes have to shrug off advice that doesn't work for you. For me, that advice was to shirk service at all costs. I'm consciously making space in my career for service because, despite what colleagues say, it matters--it matters to me. I'm willing to accept that it may consume time that I would otherwise spend doing my research or preparing for classes. Managing trade-offs seems to be half the battle in academic life. My hope in writing this is that other junior faculty members reflect on the aspects of the job that are most meaningful to them. Create space to emphasize those things, even if they are at odds with prevailing wisdom.

Blocking the Inner Voice in Faculty Life

I've been an assistant professor all of two months, and I love my job. I'll probably laugh at that sentence come spring semester, when I begin my 3-3 teaching load. But for now, I am happy with my courses, impressed by my students, and feel welcome within my department. In other words, I have good reason to be thankful.

This doesn't mean that there are no challenges. Each day, I learn something new, and I spend a good deal of energy simply trying to understand administrative processes and departmental history. There are other challenges as well. Psychological challenges. When I started this job, I promised not to let it rule my life. I decided that if I can't achieve some semblance of balance and be a professor, I'll find a new line of work. Achieving balance by itself requires a great deal of effort. It's not as simple as working less. And balance doesn't just mean exercising, which seems to be the "solution" proposed in many advice columns. I've been a runner for years, and hitting the pavement isn't a guaranteed ticket to emotional wellbeing.  No, achieving balance is a complicated struggle, usually waged in my mind.

I have to fight against an inner voice demanding that I give more of my time and energy to work. This inner voice, I think, is an amalgam of external messages that I internalize. Messages from my graduate school advisors about how they earned respect. Messages derived from comparing myself to colleagues. Messages about what it takes to win tenure. Messages about staying relevant and earning prestige in my discipline. The reason I fight against this inner voice is that I recognize it is at odds with my authentic self. Prior to entering academe, I cared more about differentiating myself from others than competing with them. Status was not a motivator for me, and I never would have imagined selling my soul for a lifetime job. So, I try my best to block this inner voice in order to give room for my authentic self to emerge. Here's a few illustrations of this process based upon recollections from the past two months on the job.

1. I went out of town a few weeks ago to visit my family. When I went back into the office, a colleague dropped by and asked me about my weekend. The inner voice suggested I respond as follows: "It was great, but I didn't get any work done. So, I'm stressed and will be grading all day today." I checked this impulse and instead replied: "It was great. I didn't get any work done, but it was worth it." The thing is, I would never tell a colleague to feel bad about prioritizing family over work. Why should I not apply that same value to my own life? When I block the inner voice, I make an effort to enjoy and own not working.

2. I met with my department chair recently to talk about my goals for the upcoming year. Typically, these meetings are designed to review faculty members' performance the previous year, in addition to goal-setting. Since I'm new, there was no performance to review. My chair explained that tenure criteria related to research had been changing over time. It was no longer the case that one peer-reviewed publication per year was sufficient. Her advice was to make sure I was using the time gained from my course release this semester to publish. After this meeting, the inner voice told me: "Cancel your plans to go to the wedding this month. You've got to get moving." I almost immediately went home and asked my wife if we could skip out on the wedding and visit our friends some time in the future. I pushed aside the inner voice and told myself: "You did not become a professor to live like a hermit. Structure your time in the coming weeks, meet your writing goals, and recognize that you are better at research when you feel fulfilled." I did my best to keep my writing projects moving forward, and I tried not to beat myself up when unexpected things came between me and research. As it turned out, the writing was good. Oh, and I went to that wedding. When I block the inner voice, I work at my own pace and at a higher standard.

3. Just the other day, I pulled into my driveway, turned off the car, and just sat for a minute. It wasn't a particularly taxing day. I didn't teach or attend a slew of meetings. But I was exhausted. I knew I had about 45 minutes before I needed to start dinner. I kicked off my shoes and headed toward the couch with every intention of taking a nap. As soon as I closed my eyes, the inner voice whispered: "You have 45 minutes before anyone else gets home. Look up those articles you didn't get to and start reading them." Sadly, I gave in to the inner voice in this instance. I got up, opened my laptop, and started typing the URL for the library homepage before my authentic self intervened: "You have already worked a full day, remember? You started at 8:00 this morning and worked strait through lunch. Why is this more important than giving yourself a rest?" I didn't get around to taking that nap, but I was annoyed enough with myself to learn a valuable lesson. When I block the inner voice, I recognize that I am already working hard enough.

These are just three illustrations among many. I don't always block the inner voice. Frequently, in fact, the inner voice is the only voice I hear. Nevertheless, I'm struggling--dare I say, working--to do faculty life my way. And I hope sincerely that other professors do the same. Don't talk about how busy you are. Don't complain about not working over the weekend. Don't suggest that a normal work week is insufficient.

I recognize there are factors at play here, factors seemingly beyond our control. Courses need to be taught. Committees need to be staffed. Emails need to be read. Families need to be fed. The work needs to get done. But I believe there are many moments in which we have an opportunity to make choices about the type of faculty life we want to make possible. And I think that life might be better for everyone in academe if we all block the inner voice.

There's So Much Awful Advice for New Faculty

It's the beginning of the semester at most colleges and universities nationwide, meaning it's also advice season for new faculty. This is the time of year when The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed publish a string of pieces from older, wiser faculty to help us novices survive tenure trackdom. I've decided to stop reading these pieces for several reasons I'll share here. And it's not because I know everything I'll need to thrive.

First, a chunk of the advice is completely common sense. It's not just common sense to me. It's quite literally common sense. Included in this category are the suggestions that we learn the culture of our departments and try to be nice to our colleagues. I'm not sure anyone, in any profession, would walk into a new job thinking: "I'm going to completely ignore what's going on around me and try to be a jerk." So, I'm not sure that this advice really needs to be verbalized. If there are people who approach a new faculty job this way, chances are they are too self-absorbed or socio-pathic to read advice pieces and take them seriously.

Second, a chunk of the advice is contingent upon the institution type. Writers of advice pieces will understandably draw upon their own experiences to spin humorous cautionary tales or chronicle how they saved a new faculty member from an embarrassing blunder. I understand this approach: you write what you know. But what you know doesn't necessarily speak to where I'm at. You may be talking about teaching generally, but your ideas are informed by lecturing to 300 undergraduate students, not developing online modules for working adults. Let's face it: there are few universal rules when it comes to being an academic. We work in a fabulously diverse occupation, rending most advice useless in practice.

Third, a chunk of the advice treats academe like a secret society or game demanding a particularly nuanced strategy. And, trust me, I get it. The stakes are high. There are unwritten codes. This is a unique profession in which your colleagues vote on our promotion. But at the end of the day this is a job. Every job that I've held was political and stressful. I trusted my instincts and stayed true to myself. If I can't do that as a faculty member, why would I want to work in this department, institution, or field? I recognize that "being myself" is a privilege, but it shouldn't be. It should be the only advice given and the only advice we, as new faculty, accept. In some ways, the narrative that treats academe like a game and new faculty as clueless rookies does more harm than good. If we all treated this as a job, even if (as many others have noted) it is a calling, it would be easier to walk away at the end of the day and draw clear boundaries. We would put up with a lot less foolishness.

Lastly, much of the advice leaves me feeling more panicked than prepared to succeed. I start worrying about things that, honestly, probably don't matter all that much. I think about whether I'm being nice enough or getting too friendly with my students. Before long, I give in to the perennial academic pastime of overthinking everything, which means I'm not thinking about the really important things, like editing that manuscript or developing that creative discussion idea. I swirl around in a tornado of self-doubt and tenure fear.

So, I stopped reading the advice pieces, electing to believe in my ability to learn and make incremental improvements. Truthfully, I wish that some older, wiser faculty would give up writing them. If you really want to write something for fellow faculty members, share pedagogies that you found effective. If you're feeling the itch to mentor a new faculty member, swing by their office or invite them to coffee. Find out about their life and aspirations, then give them personalized advice. If it's really about our success, and not somehow about you, then I would think this approach is more effective than writing an op-ed.

Higher Education Programs and Public Comprehensive Institutions

Prior to joining the faculty at UNC Wilmington, I worked on two papers that examine public comprehensive institutions. When I started these projects, public comprehensives were just part of a panel dataset. I had never attended one of these institutions as a student, and my professional career had been confined to a single public research university. Over the past few months, I have thought about public comprehensives frequently, and my study of them has intensified. A number of questions have surfaced as I experience first-hand the unique features and challenges of what have been called America's forgotten colleges and universities.

One such question is the nature of higher education programs at public comprehensives. Without looking at the data, my sense is that there are many graduate programs in higher education at public comprehensives, despite the attention the concentrates around the big-name programs. As is true of all public comprehensives, these programs may be the workhorses of higher education credentialing nationwide. And they may increasingly employ graduate students seeking faculty positions in higher education. I offer below a few tentative observations on what it means to work and study in a higher education program at an institution like UNCW. My hope is to investigate some of these observations systematically in the near future. In the meantime, perhaps they will spark thought and conversation.

1. Were are a small island in a teacher preparation sea. This strikes me as common to many higher education programs in schools and colleges of education. Higher education programs are usually one small slice of a pie that spans all levels of education, and teacher preparation absorbs much of the limelight for good reason. Nevertheless, there are two reasons why the higher education islands at public comprehensives might be especially small and isolated. First, many public comprehensives began as normal schools, meaning teacher preparation is not simply a course of study. It permeates the history, identity, and mission of the institution. Teacher preparation may be one of the primary ways the institution serves the region, and K-12 education majors may be numerous. Second, there is a good chance that higher education programs are small in size relative to other programs or departments. What this means is that, when you work and study in a higher education program at a public comprehensive, many of the speakers and similar opportunities are geared towards K-12 issues. Other faculty have little sense of the research that you do or what careers in higher education entail. And even the dean, who may heartily support the program, rarely showcases your program. None of this is a travesty, of course. There is value in existing off the radar sometimes. And, thankfully, we're talking about educators here, and even if they don't "get" your work, your colleagues tend to be inclusive and sociable. You simply become accustomed to blank stares when asked to discuss your research or courses.

2. We are the only show in town. This observation is contingent upon the geographical location of the public comprehensive. But let's assume that many public comprehensives are, as their name often indicates, regional in nature. There many not be a plethora of other institutions nearby. This means that higher education programs at public comprehensives may well be the only credentialing body for professionals in the field. This is not at all problem. In fact, it may justify the existence of the program in the first place. However, it is possible that these programs become the go-to professional development service for campus employees looking to advance their careers. Depending upon the tuition policies for staff, this may mean that programs with a large number of campus employees bring in less tuition money. It may also mean that curricula skew towards practice and away from policy. On the flip side, having large numbers of campus employees enables a great synergy between the institution and the program. At UNCW, we have been able to work with current and former students to develop practicum sites, internships, and applied learning opportunities. Another dimension of being the only show in town--one that I had never considered--is that higher education programs at public comprehensives may well educate large numbers of community college leaders. As is true at other colleges, a terminal degree is increasingly necessary to assume high-level positions at community colleges. For many community college professionals, even those coming from strikingly different disciplinary backgrounds, a doctorate in higher education opens doors. This is a fantastic way for higher education programs to be engaged in local communities, but also has ramifications for curricula and advising. It strikes me that the curricula of most higher education programs features theories and research based upon institutions other than community colleges. Courses in community college leadership may need to be offered. And faculty (like me) may not have as much experience with community college career options and, therefore, need to do some homework to offer advice.

3. In a field with strong national organizations, we are regionally-inclined. I was trained at a public research university where the norm was that graduate students attended national conferences like NASPA, ACPA, and ASHE. Not only did we attend, many of us, as graduate students, worked to present papers and become involved. Public comprehensives tend to be regionally-oriented, partly because of their missions and partly, I suspect, because their budgets can't support travel to national conferences. As an applied program in a professional school at a teaching institution, research expected of graduate students differs from programs at larger universities, making presenting at a national conference more difficult. This observation may be specific to UNCW, where our program has only existed for a few years and the reality is that students are not expected to attend national conferences, often because there is not readily available funding to help them cover the costs. Those that are employed while working towards a degree could pay out of pocket, as many graduate students often do, but salaries in a smaller city could make travel to a large city for 5 days feel like a luxurious vacation. With this in mind, it does appear to be the case that our program is tapped into regional professional conferences, which provide rich opportunities for networking and development. The pull of increasing the program's profile over time may shift the culture such that participation in national organizations becomes more popular among students.

These are but a few observations as I ponder the nature of higher education programs at public comprehensives. Over time, I'll continue to give thought to what it means to be a new faculty member in a new higher education program at a public comprehensive. I'll also flesh out some of distinctions of graduate preparation programs in higher education at public comprehensives. One day, I'll start to collect some data to evaluate whether these observations are relevant outside my bubble. I invite others to share their experiences as students or faculty at public comprehensives to better develop this account.

Faculty Norming at a Public Comprehensive University

I recently completed a rite of passage for new assistant professors: new faculty orientation. Although this is my first tenure-track gig, it is not my first new faculty orientation. I helped organize new faculty orientation at my previous institution, a research one university. As a result of this experience, and the three-day academic bootcamp at UNCW, I've come to understand new faculty orientation as a norm-setting process. Professors are taught what it means to excel in their new university and helped to adjust to a new culture. New faculty orientation, in other words, is a reflection of the norms by which professors are expected to abide. As such, the format and content of new faculty orientation reveals a great deal about campus environments. Spending several days learning about my public comprehensive university was a startling reminder that attending a research one university did not prepare me for faculty life at every type of school.

At my previous institution, new faculty orientation was not mandatory and lasted one day. Only about one-third of new faculty showed up. A few remarks were given over breakfast by an academic administrator (though it is worth noting that neither the president nor chief academic officer were present). The presentation that probably received the most attention focused upon the promotion and tenure process, encouraging new faculty to start on the right foot by establishing their individual research programs. There were then two breakout sessions: one dedicated to securing grants and another centering upon tips for effective teaching. After lunch, new faculty were split into groups by college for more intimate conversations with facilitators. The event ended with a resource fair, wrapping up in the early afternoon. The fact that new faculty orientation was not mandatory sent a message about the strength of the academic community and the institutional commitment to developing junior professors. Overall, the core message of the orientation was to concentrate one's energies on their individual research in order to get tenure. These are faculty norms at the university, and collectively they form part of the culture in which I was socialized as a doctoral student.

By contrast, UNCW offered a multi-day introduction to the campus, students, and city. On the first day, we met two-dozen administrators across the campus, including the chancellor and provost. We learned about the make-up of the student population and the values of the university. For the last half of the day, we split into groups to consider various aspects of liberal arts learning objectives. This was the first of several sessions dedicated to teaching. That evening, we were invited to the chancellor's house for a swanky reception. The second day consisted of campus tour, including a detailed history of higher education in the state. We visited several facilities to showcase the university's contributions to the region and faculty engagement with the public. On the final day of orientation, we took part in a teaching institute largely related to applied learning, which is a significant initiative at the university as a result of its recent accreditation. The tone of new faculty orientation was clearly different from what I experienced at the research one institution. We heard over and again that faculty at UNCW cared first and foremost about the quality of their teaching. They were involved in the region. And you know what stood out most to me? Research was hardly mentioned. Tenure never entered the conversation.

Despite ending completely exhausted, I was impressed with the scope of orientation at UNCW. I was inspired and intimidated by the talented senior faculty members I met over the course of the event. They were running clinics in the community, leading study abroad programs, addressing food desserts in nearby housing projects. And they were clearly passionate about teaching. It was apparent to me that the university's teaching-orientation was not just rhetoric. It was the substance of faculty life. And I wasn't at all prepared for it. Sure, I had known in taking the job that the university was teaching-oriented. But this was the first time that this concept really sunk in. I saw it firsthand. In order to be successful, I need to put serious thought into the design of my courses and my practices as an educator. I have no doubt that research is still important. Tenure may not have been a discussion topic during orientation, but it is still part of the deal. Overall, however, my exposure to norms at UNCW confirmed that my doctoral training at a research one university did not prepare me for the realities of a public comprehensive institution. I spent the majority of summer thinking about nothing except my research program and journal submissions. I felt early pressures to begin building my tenure case. I fiddled around with courses, but generally figured I would follow the familiar formula of courses I took in my graduate program. I'm beginning to think this was the wrong strategy, one too heavily influenced by research one norms.

To anyone looking to go on the job market this fall, I urge you to give thought to faculty norms and how you will fit in a campus culture that may differ significantly from where you trained. If you decide to take a job at a public comprehensive university, consider that teaching-orientation isn't just rhetoric. Don't give into the temptation of assuming that, regardless of the school, research is the crux of faculty life. In many ways, teaching is what makes public comprehensive universities vital to higher education. At a time when colleges and universities are subjected to constant critique and scrutiny, there are places whose culture places a premium on teaching and engagement. I'm thrilled to be at such an institution, even if its norms caught me off guard.

The Many Faces of Academic Work

The act of creating an essay, irrespective of its resemblance to "legitimate" scholarship, is for me the essence of academic work. Over the past three weeks, I have been settling into a new city and, therefore, writing very little. I've managed to put together a few posts, one of which, surprisingly,  received a wonderful amount of circulation. Aside from these posts, however, I've largely been preoccupied with other activities. And the lack of writing has on many occasions left me feeling slothful. Today, I decided to pick apart the notion that writing is the basis of academic work. In the end, I feel like I've been doing a great deal of work, much of it academic in nature. I want to bring these activities to light, as a reminder that we shouldn't trap academic work in rigid boxes. (A hat tip here to David Perry, who pointed out that academics often fail to see themselves as workers.)

One of these non-writing activities is making it possible to write in the first place. By this I mean that I've spent a large chunk of energy working to carve out time and space to be contemplative and calm. Having just moved, this activity in practice entails unpacking boxes, arranging furniture, installing requisite technology, and catching up on lost sleep. It means seeking out community by subscribing to the local paper, finding a gym, and testing out markets. It means having a space where it feels appropriate to write. Attempting to write before each of these steps were completed proved impossible for me. I would argue that they are building blocks of academic work. Even those who are not moving often (and many academics, it seems, are moving constantly) need time each year to re-establish a rhythm. It may be the case that some academics have mastered doing work anywhere and anytime. For the rest of us, the process of creating conditions conducive to creativity most definitely is academic work.

A second activity that has commanded my attention is planning courses and attending teaching-related professional development. Teaching is something that most academics do, yet a colleague remarked to me this past week that we spend remarkably little time talking about it. Designing a course takes time, especially if its goal is significant learning. I've been reading, taking notes, tweaking syllabi, and building online spaces for student to access materials and connect. In order to do this, I've had to severely compartmentalize my thinking. It hasn't been possible for me to design courses and write at the same time. This is certainly true on the days that I've attended an applied learning seminar at my new university, which is phenomenally helpful, but leaves little time to write. I imagine that I'll soon have to strike a balance. In the meantime, we should acknowledge that preparing to teach and working with others to improve teaching is academic work. And it is hard.

A final activity that has become my modus operandi is walking in a perpetual state of confusion and curiosity. I know very little about where I am or where to go for resources. I don't know people in my department, so I've tried to walk around and strike up conversations. To have some presence before things get too busy. Questions have filled virtually every available free space in my brain. For example, on my first day in my office, I put a few books on the book shelf, opened my laptop, looked around and mumbled: "What do I do now?" I spent two hours trying to figure out how to work the copier. Seeking answers to questions has either left me relatively immobilized or sapped me of energy. Being confused or looking for answers to questions may not go on my third year review, but it's work in which many of us engage.

I'm happy to be writing today, as it means I might be on the cusp of finding my groove. But I shouldn't beat myself up if this is just another random sprinkling of words into a sea of non-writing activities. Because many of those activities, despite their lack of prestige, are not simply necessary to do good work. They are work. I would venture to guess, in fact, that they constitute the bulk of academic work, no matter how much attention writing gets. So, having found a moment to reflect and write, now it's time to get back to it. Happy working, one and all.

Taking Action for Adjuncts

After being surrounded by a sea of boxes for the past few days, I have some time to step away from unpacking and relax. I'll have more on this process of moving for a new academic position and my efforts to integrate in the community soon. In the meantime, I'm responding to a provocative article in Chronicle's Vitae. In "Blaming the Victim: Ladder Faculty and the Lack of Adjunct Activism," Lori Harrison-Kahan highlights the silence of tenure-track faculty with respect to the inequities of adjunct/contingent/tenure-ineligible faculty. At the conclusion of the article, Harrison-Kahan writes:

Through the labor movement taking place in Boston and across the country, contingent professors are using their newfound voices to begin formulating answers. But it is also the responsibility of ladder faculty to take action, to openly acknowledge how exploitative labor and hiring practices have affected the lives and work of those unprotected by tenure. 

I quite agree. Yet I wondered aloud what, precisely, would taking action for adjuncts entail? Initially, I had difficulty coming up with ways that tenure-track faculty can address inequities adjuncts experience. Chalk this up to my naiveté or lack of experience. However, I realized that my previous employer, the Office of Faculty Affairs at the University of Maryland, provides a few examples. Here are the steps this forward-looking office initiated or implemented over the course of the past two years. These steps illuminate several courses of action for tenure-track faculty at other institutions to demonstrate activism for adjuncts.

1. Get a sense of numbers and issues - Many institutions do not meaningfully keep track of the number of adjuncts they employ. Although all of this information should be available through the human resources record system, it is often the case that no one is tasked with collecting it or presenting it to show trends. This was the case at the University of Maryland. When you don't know how many adjuncts are employed at the institution over time, it is difficult to realize how the academic labor force is changing. A task force was convened by the Senate to study adjuncts, and it became patently clear that, over the preceding decades, the university's reliance upon adjuncts had exploded. Tenure-track faculty numbers remained constant, while adjunct numbers ticked upwards. As a result, the university's academic labor force now includes more than 60% adjuncts. In addition to understanding the proportion of adjuncts employed at the university, the task force conducted a survey of adjunct working conditions. The findings were revealing: no recognition, exclusion from governance, lack of promotion, outright abuse, and so on. So, one early step that tenure-track faculty can take: request that a study of adjuncts be conducted and periodically updated. Encourage other tenure-track faculty to support the initiative and even participate in the committee or task force. When the report is finished, disseminate it widely in your department.

2. Create opportunities for more inclusive governance - Raising awareness is important, but it fails to change material conditions. One of the findings of the task force at the University of Maryland was that, despite the fact that adjunct numbers where steadily rising, the seats in the Senate allotted to adjuncts remained constant. Additionally, it was often the case that adjuncts had no voice in departmental decision-making. This means that adjuncts are becoming more and more vital to the operations of the university, yet excluded from the formal structures of enacting change within the institution. Such exclusion makes it possible for inequities to continue, as adjuncts have few opportunities to express their opinions or share their experiences. Tenure-track faculty can help to re-calibrate this power differential. A second step is to fight to have adjuncts included in departmental decision-making. Don't simply rely upon adjuncts to implement the curriculum you create--partner with them and draw upon their knowledge. Furthermore, propose that systems of institutional shared governance reflect the realities of the academic labor force and that the composition of seats are periodically reviewed. 

3. Include adjuncts in departmental and campus recognition opportunities - One of my responsibilities was to determine which departments across campus include adjuncts in their annual rewards. The answer: hardly any. All departments and colleges honored outstanding tenure-track faculty. And the institution had a number of prestigious awards for the very best faculty. However, only a few departments and colleges made adjuncts eligible for awards or created a separate award for adjuncts. Indeed, there were more awards for graduate students than adjuncts. A third, relatively straightforward step is to rewrite the eligibility rules for faculty awards to include adjuncts. It makes sense that adjuncts, by virtue of their specific responsibilities, may not be eligible for all awards. Nevertheless, it strikes me as unreasonable and cruel to have, for example, an outstanding teaching award that is not open to a long-term adjunct who teaches multiple sections of an important course with great student reviews. If departmental politics get in the way of including adjuncts, at least propose to create a separate award. The important thing is to start thinking about how adjuncts can and should be recognized for their good work. 

4. Ensure that professional development is open to all faculty - Hosting a conference on engaged scholarship? Invite adjuncts. Organizing an orientation for new faculty? Invite adjuncts. Creating a series of luncheons to promote cross-disciplinary research? Invite adjuncts. Step four basically means re-imagining the concept of faculty. Any opportunities for tenure-track faculty to do their work better should be made available to adjuncts. Because they are also faculty. Tenure-track faculty should ask when opportunities are announced, when they register, and/or when they arrive if adjuncts can also attend. 

5. Question contracts and ladders - A major finding of the task force at the University of Maryland was that contracts made a mockery of job security. Fear of losing their job was motivating adjuncts, not the possibility of promotion based on strong work. This creates two points of action for tenure-track faculty. For those in positions of power to hire adjuncts, work with human resources to figure out how to offer multi-term contracts for adjuncts that have strong performance records. Some adjuncts must live semester to semester, without knowing whether or not they will have a job from fall to spring. Such uncertainty is not only emotionally damaging, it disrupts the continuity that allows instructors to develop relationships, improve courses, and become stable enough to give back to the university in other ways. Another point of action for tenure-track faculty is to request that adjuncts have clear job descriptions and a ladder for promotion. Just as tenure-track faculty know what they must do to move from assistant to associate, adjuncts should know what to do to move from lecturer to senior lecturer. Each title should have clear guidelines and include an opportunity to renegotiate payment. 

In summary, tenure-track faculty should not be silent. They should acknowledge that they are complicit in the plight of adjuncts and realize that the destinies of all academics, regardless of rank, are intertwined in the neoliberal university. Tenure-track faculty should locate or create opportunities to get a sense of the numbers and issues, make governance more inclusive, include adjuncts in recognition processes, open professional development to all faculty, and question contract systems and ladders. 

I'm sure that I've only scratched the tip of the iceberg and, given that my time as a lecturer was short-lived, I can't speak on behalf of adjuncts. I can only work to follow these steps as an assistant professor at my new institution, if they haven't been initiated yet. I would love to hear from others with a stake in this conversation: in what ways can tenure-track faculty take action for adjuncts?

Guilt and Learning to Own My Academic Job

Eric Anthony Grollman wrote a poignant piece last year for the blog Conditionally Accepted on what he called "graduate school garbage." This garbage consists of complex feelings of anxiety, stress, trauma, and even depression that accompany graduate school, finishing a dissertation, and surviving the highly competitive academic job market. Like any garbage, Grollman argues, we should dispose of these feelings and counter the forces that produce them. I stumbled upon this piece for the first time yesterday, and I appreciate it because it helped me identify one of the feelings with which I have been struggling: guilt. I have come to realize that guilt informs the way I talk about my recent appointment in academe, and it is something on which I'm working to improve.

Grollman cites in his piece an article in The Chronicle that discusses "survivor's guilt" among those who navigated the academic job market and ultimately landed a position. While this article fueled my reflection, I cannot comfortably claim that I am survivor of an arduous process. In truth, as I entered what appeared to be my last year as a graduate student, I did not expect to enter academe as a faculty member. Over the course of five months, I applied for approximately 20 jobs. Only two of them were for assistant professor positions. I simply didn't think I would be competitive enough on the academic job market, and there are many jobs in my field outside of tenure-trackdom. When I received the phone call to schedule a phone interview for an assistant professor gig, I was astounded. I carried that sense of shock as I advanced through the interview stages, and I still feel it as I write this today. However, my experience was not like those who applied for dozens of tenure-track jobs, sometimes over several years. I recognize that I ran a 5k, while they ran a marathon, and we each got the same medal at the end.

That inequality has cooked up a potent stew of guilt, which works its way into my interactions with others. The best example of this is a conversation with a friend last week. We ran into each other for the first time since she returned from West Africa, where she had been collecting data for her dissertation thanks to a Fulbright grant. We talked about how her writing was progressing and when she hoped to finish. (Although we universally hate these questions, graduate students still ask them constantly.) As a political scientist married to a fellow PhD who was taking a post-doc, she was preparing for a difficult job search down the road. The conversation shifted to me, and I shared that I was soon beginning a tenure-track position. Rather than own this and celebrate my success, I elected to completely downplay the whole thing. I framed my job search as low-key and my appointment as mere luck, since I only applied to two academic jobs. As I left, we hugged and she said something that struck me immediately: "I hope you are grateful for all of this. It's really great news."

My mistake was thinking that downplaying my appointment would make my friend feel better. Assuming I had cheated the system, I did not feel like I deserved the job. I felt guilty for securing something that proved elusive for a multitude of very talented people. And so my cavalier attempt at humility backfired. It made me seem pompous--as if this was a fun game that I just happened to play well because of beginner's luck. This was not just insensitive, it was inaccurate. Despite my "graduate school garbage," I had worked tremendously hard to position myself for a good job at the finish line. I applied to a faculty job for which I was qualified in a program looking for someone with my expertise. I prepared like a madman for every interview and received great mentorship from top scholars in my field. My appointment was not just a product of good fortune, it was earned.

Disposing of my garbage, then, means realizing that downplaying this exciting new career phase does not help my friends who are looking for academic positions. They don't want to hear the guilt-inflected version of my job search. They know this system isn't all apple pie and butterflies. It is extremely hard, and everyone struggles to run their individual race. There is a way for me to own and share my appointment without rubbing it in their faces. If I want to help my friends, I should confidently work to correct all of the sources of fear and anxiety in graduate school and beyond that infect academe, from bigotry to mistreatment of academic labor (and, yes, labor is the right word for many reasons, including those David Perry eloquently expressed). I should use my position to rid the path of unwarranted pot holes for the others hot on my heels. As I strive to shed feelings of guilt, I should also work in my small way to chip away at the bigger issues in the academic profession.

The Humanities Filter Bubble?

Not long ago, I posted an innocent question to Twitter about "alternative academics."

Wondering if #altac is most relevant to humanities PhDs. In many other fields, these are simply jobs, not alternatives to something.
— Kevin R. McClure (@kevinrmcclure) May 30, 2014

I have continued to think about this question, particularly in the context of online writing on the academic job market and higher education journalism more generally.

There has been an efflorescence of online writing, it seems, about the academic job market, especially since The Chronicle of Higher Education launched their new jobs site, Vitae. The news and advice columns in Vitae represent but one part of a large body of journalistic work related to the state of higher education. Many journalists are tackling tuition increases that outpace inflation and skyrocketing student loan debt. They are taking on President Obama's proposed rating system and sexual assaults on campus. In general, all of this writing is a good thing. It demystifies, at least to some extent, the academic job market and highlights crucial issues that demand public attention and conversation.

Not all of these articles are written by "traditional" journalists. Many of them, in fact, are PhDs who have found a way to cobble together a paying gig out of their highly developed analysis skills and experiences in higher education. Based on a remarkably unscientific scan, many of these writers come from the humanities. There are several reasons this could be the case. First, the humanities prioritize the ability to craft strong narratives, meaning those trained as scholars in these fields are more than capable of churning out cohesive, well-articulated essays. Second, I have gathered that there are more humanities PhD graduates than available academic jobs, creating a pool of people seeking work outside of academe that recognizes their unique skills.

Many of these writers have strong opinions about academe. This is refreshing in most cases, as many people working in higher education need a wake up call. I love reading the pieces they produce because they often have a deep-rooted sense of social justice. However, their writing also raises questions about the existence of a humanities filter bubble, of sorts. (I qualify this because the original concept of a filter bubble was based upon a computer algorithm that cuts out of view disagreeable things. I recognize it's an imperfect concept for what I'm arguing here). A filter bubble in which the major issues of higher education are described and assessed through the lens of humanists. If a large amount of writing about finding a professorship comes from humanists who struggled on the job market, for example, is the picture unduly informed by their discipline-based experience? Are certain issues ignored and others given greater attention simply because they are most related to the humanities? Are we missing important voices and perspectives?

I don't have answers to these questions. Thus, this post is largely speculative. I may not be tapped into circles of writers coming from other disciplines. I'm not at all suggesting here that humanists stop writing about higher education issues. I hope they continue their good work. Rather, for the sake of balance, I would like to see more writing from people in other fields. More scientists, clinicians, educationists, engineers, and artists.

I would love to hear from writers about this idea. Is there a humanities filter bubble in online writing on the academic job market and higher education?

Round One with the Tenure Monkey

As a graduate student, publishing was a relatively painless process for me. I typically cleaned up a paper I wrote for a class and submitted it to a decent journal in my field or to an online publication. I avoided the top journals, recognizing that my papers were often glorified literature reviews. I didn’t get nervous about sending anything in because the stakes were low. I had no idea at the time that I was going to become an academic, so a rejection did not much matter to me. In fact, I expected rejection on some level. When it worked out, I was, naturally, thrilled. When it didn’t, I simply shrugged and kept moving.

A few months ago, I found myself finished with graduate work and restless. I felt the need to do something--to fill the void left by my finished dissertation. Although I had been advised to set my dissertation aside, I pulled out a chapter and started cutting and pasting pieces together. I rewrote a few sections to ensure it was cohesive, but this was, I admit, largely a recycle job. The result, I thought, was a decent paper. Certainly not groundbreaking work, but it was a newer topic in the field. Unlike my class papers, it actually featured data that I collected and analyzed. With this in mind, I sent it in to a top journal.

In some ways, my approach to publishing this paper was nothing new. It might be captured in the rhetorical question, “Why not?” However, part of what compelled me to even open my dissertation was the desire to begin a pipeline of publications as I entered my first year as an assistant professor. Assuming that I would have little time to write in the coming months, I figured I would have a few pieces under consideration before I even started. This was a strategic decision, but it was not particularly thoughtful. It was predicated on the idea that my dissertation work was ready for publication. In reality, it needs a great deal more refinement. I succumbed to the “publish or perish” mantra before even starting the job.

This week, I received word that my paper didn’t even make it beyond the editorial review. I was shocked. While I had certainly experienced rejection, I couldn’t believe that my paper was so bad that it wouldn’t be sent to external reviewers. The email from the editor was polite and encouraged me to consider other journals, but provided no other feedback. I immediately opened my paper and re-read what I submitted. Using 20-20 hindsight lenses, I noticed a few weaknesses, but was still somewhat perplexed. Was I aiming too high in submitting to a top journal? Is this topic now old news? Should I simply get over myself and realize that rejection is part of the game?

I thanked the editor and shared the news with a few friends and mentors. They told me that this happens to everyone. Some people don’t bat an eyelash, tweak a few minor things, and quickly submit their rejected paper to another journal. Some people ask colleagues to make suggestions, before trying again. My strategy is to take some time to think more carefully about how to best transform my dissertation from a 300-page graduation requirement into a true piece of scholarship. In the meantime, nevertheless, the experience has sparked a fair measure of reflection.

One of the ideas that I have repeatedly mulled over is that, as a graduate student, I wrote with a certain degree of bravado. I was not particularly worried about how the paper would be received by the sages of my discipline because it only had to be good enough to pass a course. As a result of this perhaps foolish air of invincibility, my writing was good. I went back and read a few old papers and was shocked by how well the narrative flowed and how convincingly I presented arguments that I wouldn’t dare vocalize today. There was an edge to my work--an edge that came with the liberty of writing without overthinking a topic or torturing each sentence. I came to realize how vital that edge can be.

Einstein ardently believed that individual liberty was the cornerstone of creativity. He constantly rebelled against convention and noted that God’s punishment was to make him an authority later in life. He was painfully aware of the fact that, as he became more rooted in the comforts of being a celebrity academic, he was less able to entertain new theories of physics. He lost some of his revolutionary spirit and he knew it.

Throughout the past week, I have not reached the conclusion that my creativity has run dry. I’m certainly not an authority on much of anything, nor do I regularly compare myself to Einstein. However, I have been reminded of how important it will be to protect that sense of edge and not let the tenure monkey steer my thinking and writing.  If I publish simply to publish, I may not perish on the tenure track, but I certainly won't have much fun.

Not A Journalist, Not An Academic, But A 'Journademic'

I shared an article on my Twitter feed today whose title alone seems to have struck a chord. Whereas most of the articles I retweet seemingly receive little attention, this one resulted in a string of new followers. It was called “Why Academics Need to Think Like Journalists.” It’s a simple piece that, upon further inspection, seems to be a sales pitch for a service to help academics reach “influential audiences.” The few tips it provides were not particularly helpful to me, but the article lingered in my mind all day.

It’s not that I disagree with the article’s basic premise. Pushing academics to write for real people and come up with sexy titles is great. Many of us are very much attempting to insert ourselves in the “social story.” We recognize that certain academic publications do more to pad our CVs and fill dusty bookcases than influence public opinion through compelling narratives. Perhaps it is true that not enough of us think this way, but the reward structure, as it currently stands, makes thinking like a journalist a luxury. Nevertheless, your call to action is right on target. But what if, wise journalists, the spotlight it similarly directed in your direction? 

   

Journalists, it seems to me, could learn a thing or two from academics. Unlike journalists, academics constantly ask: How do we know what we think we know? We are steadfast in our convictions yet work to ensure that our claims can be supported with rigorous research. Without belittling the power of individual experience, we question the application of a single observation to a larger population. When we as academics get something wrong, there can be significant consequences. I wish I kept a running count of how many online articles from journalists have completely misrepresented issues in higher education finance. But it doesn’t seem to matter: the article gets clicks, the comments section fills with heated debates, and the journalist moves on to the next story.

And let’s not forget a final but crucially important point missing in this conversation. Whether or not a piece of scholarship is read or immediately understood by the public is not, by itself, a metric of quality. When Einstein’s theory of general relativity was confirmed with experimental data, there was phenomenal press coverage. Very few people understood the theory, and many journalists blatantly mocked its abstruse language and equations. Einstein wrote a book that was designed to explain his work in more accessible language, but he struggled to respond to a litany of journalists begging him to sum up his theory in a sentence. While I agree that academics publishing work that never reaches the hands of those who most need it makes little sense, we must also admit that there is intrinsic value in producing knowledge, irrespective of the medium through which it is ultimately communicated.

What I would like to see even more than academics thinking like journalists and journalists thinking like academics is something closer to a true a hybrid. A journademic, if you will. This is not entirely invented out of thin air. I’m inspired by writers like Ida Tarbell, who wrote extensive, painstakingly researched pieces for McClure’s Magazine (no relation). Along with writers like Ray Stannard Baker and Lincoln Steffens, Tarbell helped invent investigative journalism and took on major issues of the day, including wealth inequality and corruption. I’ve been encouraged to see long form journalism become marginally popular again, after years of listicles and, ironically, blog posts. However, I would love to see a whole movement of hybrids arise, channeling the muckracker spirit.

The ingredients for this movement are already sprouting. There is a growing population of people who are trained as researchers yet find little enticing or attractive about traditional academe, with all its exclusivity, competition, and bickering. And there are those who have PhDs that, due to a range of structural problems and through no fault of their own, could not find steady employment as professors upon graduation. Although some people do not believe “alt-ac” (short for alternative academic) is a solution to these structural problems, there is reason to be optimistic about the potential of people who can write fantastically well, are sensitive to social justice concerns, and approach problems with the conceptual vocabulary and methodological maturity of an academic.

What we need now are courageous publications and organizations who are willing to fund journademics. If academe is too rooted in the status quo and journalism is beholden to clicks and thinly disguised product placements, how can we promote writing at the intersections? I’m short on answers, but hopeful that such platforms exist and will readily support any that emerge. 

Taking a Vacation from Higher Education

I love reading and writing about higher education. It is my job, and as someone trained in the subject, I take seriously the responsibility of engaging in public conversations about the past, present, and future of America's colleges and universities. Specifically, I advocate for a robust, well-funded, diversified public higher education sector, and I generally find privatization to be poor public policy.

Recently, it has been almost impossible for me to avoid any number of debates about college costs, spending, and governance. Most days I feel compelled to enter the fray, but for the better part of this week, I passed over the headlines. I disregarded the "humanities matter," "adjuncts are miserable," "students are entitled," "colleges are resorts," and "presidents are overpaid" tropes on my Facebook news feed. On Twitter, I skipped over the by now familiar cast of characters in the debates, including the data-heads, the disgruntled former academics, the over-confident and under-informed online journalists, and the edtech evangelists. I don't buy into the doomsday predictions for higher education, but I was certainly feeling burned out by the fire and brimstone rhetoric. As it turns out, the glory of the information age is also it's greatest weakness: we are able to follow the details of every incident in real-time, without the discerning perspective that comes with reasonable distance. It had me feeling exhausted. My social media dependence meant that I was fatigued by the array of issues and overwhelmed by the barrage of information, yet I continued to scroll and read.  

So, I shut down. For a brief period of time, I stopped caring about higher education. I decided that I was on a vacation, of sorts. A mental vacation. After writing my dissertation for the past year, I needed to recharge my batteries. I read about baseball statistics and perused urban development projects in my new city. I read a biography about Einstein and spent an hour following links from the "savant" Wikipedia page. Because why not? I didn't pick up my research on part-time faculty and instructional costs, and I didn't obsessively check the number of clicks on my blog posts. A type of serenity soon emerged as I realized that the higher education world kept turning without my complete immersion in its problems. Students still crammed for exams. Graduation ceremonies dragged on for too long. Administrators braced for a new round of budget uncertainties. Faculty slogged through mediocre exam essays. The media babble no doubt continued to stream on social media, yet the articles, thought pieces, and listicles suddenly seemed to me rather...fleeting and immaterial. 

In my moment of peace, I wondered if perhaps being an academic in certain disciplines is like working in a helping profession. Just as the ability of a counselor to help others requires that they periodically focus on their own mental well-being, the ability of an academic to launch headstrong into the issues that matter to them requires a mental vacation from time to time. It could even be that interdisciplinarity is not simply a research fad or hedge against unnecessary specialization. Rather, it could be a defense mechanism in the face of burn out. A search for new muses and a desire to see a topic through fresh eyes. We academics are a special lot in that we care a great deal about our work, sometimes serving as shepherd to pet projects that matter to only a select few. This is a wonderful thing and one reason why there is virtue in a life of the mind. However, it is possible that the mind can only take so much before constant engagement prevents our ability to effectively contribute. Could it be that caring too intensely without a break clouds our thinking?

I haven't fully returned from my vacation. Sure, I've clicked on a few stories, but I couldn't finish them. I know I will re-enter soon, and this post may re-ignite my passion. For the time being, I'm basking in the sunshine of being disconnected. There is freedom in knowing that I am just a tiny speck of grease in the machinations of the higher education universe. 

  

Exposure, Public Engagement, and Young Scholars

Last week, I was called into my supervisor's office for what I thought was a routine meeting. As it turned out, the purpose of the meeting was to inform me that I had made a serious mistake, one that put the office at risk. I work as a graduate assistant (for a few more months) in the office of the provost, and my supervisor is an associate provost. Consequently, I am privy to many conversations about university politics. These conversations colored my views on a piece of senate legislation that many central administrators opposed. During the senate meeting in which the legislation was considered, I stood up and fired off a less than thoughtful comment. Although I am an elected senator for my college and, therefore, had every right to speak, it was clear to many individuals present that I overstepped conventions of discretion and capitalized upon insider's knowledge.

I was horrified, to put it lightly. For one thing, I care deeply about my work as a higher education professional. More importantly, I am fiercely loyal to my office, which helped nurture me as a graduate student and, in many ways, facilitated data collection for my dissertation. To think that I had made their jobs more difficult because I couldn't keep my mouth shut was disturbing. My supervisor did not scold me. Rather, as a fellow academic, he warned me to tread lightly in my next role as assistant professor. In his words, my decision to stand and say something left me exposed, and exposure is not always a good thing as a young scholar. He would never advocate that I simply keep my head down and concentrate on my own work. His message centered upon being selective about the battles I fight moving forward and realizing the sheer political dimensions of the profession. I appreciated his developmental approach, but could not help but feel like I let one of my mentors down.

Over the next few days, this idea of exposure as a young scholar haunted me. Meeting with my supervisor coincided with another event about which I recently wrote, another event where keeping my mouth shut proved to be no small order. I wondered if newly minted PhDs starting faculty jobs should be wary of public engagement--of circulating their opinions too widely--for fear of the possible repercussions. Should I focus upon traditional metrics of success in academe, such publishing articles, teaching solid courses, and serving on a conference committee? Should I stick to less controversial topics when it comes to research? Should I give up on a blog for now, or keep my tweets rather vanilla? In other words, should public engagement for a young scholar be much more strategic, guarded, or even diluted? I sense that the answer to these questions are not easy and probably vary.

Some seasoned academics say that, as a young scholar, my job isn't to take part in any battles. I shouldn't devote much time to university politics, and fiery blog posts should not be a high priority. My job is to do what is necessary to get tenure, then I can do engagement and maybe ruffle a few feathers. Others might argue that I stay true to myself and not surrender my voice simply to avoid the risks of exposure. Far too few academics, they might say, are willing to put their neck on the line out of fear. And then there are those who say, by all means, be publicly engaged, but recognize that not all forms of engagement are valued and some forms might not help your career much.

I would love to hear from others who have navigated these waters. There is a recent emphasis, one with which I generally agree, on scholars having a public presence through social media and other platforms. Sometimes it feels like you can't be a legitimate scholar and not have a blog, Twitter handle, and personal website. Nevertheless, it isn't yet clear to me whether such a public presence is advisable for those of us just starting our careers. And I'm not convinced I've been adequately prepared for the gray areas that accompany exposure and public engagement. The game of being a young scholar seems much more difficult for my generation than it was for the people who trained us for this line of work.