By Lucy Ferriss. My hunch is that the case of the missing comma began with email. In an earlier post, I talked about a friend’s dilemma over email salutations, wherein the preferred casual “Hi” at the beginning is followed by a person’s name and then a comma, rendering the grammatically standard vocative comma (“Hi, Jane,”) perhaps superfluous and at least funny-looking. More...
03 mai 2015
Apostrophe Where Is Thy Comma?
All But Hired: Changing Incentives for Graduate Time-to-Degree
By Travis W. Proctor. If that sounds like a confession you might hear at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, it might as well be. In academic circles, ABD refers to “All But Dissertation,” the stage at which the only thing standing between me and being referred to as “Doctor Proctor” is the daunting task of writing the equivalent of my first research monograph. More...
How to Get That Suitcase Unpacked
By Natalie Houston. One of the great productivity mysteries has to be why so many of us put off unpacking a suitcase after a trip. This is the stuff of sitcoms, of advice columns, and blog posts. And of real life: I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes leave my bag halfway unpacked for several days after a trip, even though it makes me feel somewhere between irritated and nauseous to see it sitting in the middle of the room. Read more...When Do You Start Deleting Older Items From Your Academic CV?
By Adeline Koh. How long do you keep the items on your academic CV? If it’s been a while since graduate school, do you take off your accomplishments from that time? How long ago would items have to have taken place for you to purge them? Do you maintain full and abbreviated CVs. Read more...Learn Another Language During Your Commute with Duolingo
By Ryan Cordell. I live in the Boston area, which means (as for many) I have a decent commute to work every day. I hate fighting traffic in the car, so I make this commute by train. I’ve written in the past about why I started carrying a Kindle rather than an iPad on this commute, so that I could read without being distracted by email, Facebook, and so forth. Read more...Tools for Transitions: Reflections on Year One
By Anastasia Salter. The first year is the hardest. This is a familiar warning, and one that I’ve personally found applies in many academic endeavors: college, graduate school, a new job, a new administrative role. This year was my first year at the University of Central Florida, a move that brought with it many transitions, including a new state, house, job, and program, not to mention new students and colleagues. Over the last year I’ve written about finding a home, preparing to move, leaving campus tech services, settling in, and restarting the tenure process. Looking back, here are a few of the things I found most useful for handling the first year. Read more...Teaching with Wikipedia: Free Webinar by WVU, April 30, 10.30am-12pm EST
By Adeline Koh. If you’ve been meaning to start exploring what it would take to integrate Wikipedia in your courses, the West Virginia University library is hosting a free webinar on teaching with Wikipedia on April 30, 10.30am-12pm EST. Topics that will be covered include the gender gap in Wikipedia content and editing, an introduction to editing Wikipedia, sample assignments, syllabi and instructor experiences with teaching with the online encyclopedia. Read more...Hiring Faculty Members in Groups Can Improve Diversity and Campus Climate
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “Faculty Cluster Hiring for Diversity and Institutional Climate”
Organization: Urban Universities for Health Equity Through Alignment, Leadership, and Transformation of the Health Workforce
Summary: Hiring faculty members in clusters into multiple departments or colleges was originally designed to expand interdisciplinary research. But faculty clusters also have the potential to help diversify a college’s faculty and improve institutional climate. According to the report, the University of Wisconsin at Madison pioneered the practice and has hired nearly 150 faculty members in 48 clusters since 1998. In more recent years, institutions such as North Carolina State University and the University of Illinois at Chicago have followed suit. More...
NSF Freezes Grants to UConn After Professors Bought Equipment From Their Own Company
By Andy Thomason. The National Science Foundation has frozen millions of dollars in grants to the University of Connecticut after auditors found that two professors there used grant money to buy equipment from their own company, The Hartford Courant reports. More...
Duke Student Apologizes for Hanging Noose and Will Be Allowed to Return
By Andy Thomason. A Duke University student has apologized for hanging a noose on the campus last month, and will be allowed to return to the college next semester, The News & Observer reports. The undergraduate, whose identity has not been revealed, wrote in a letter of apology that the noose stemmed from a “lack of cultural awareness and joking personality.” More...
