At the end of March this year, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Purdue University and talk about alternate careers for people pursuing the PhD. Throughout the day I enjoyed a number of interesting discussions with graduate students and faculty. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in the last 5 or 6 … Continue reading Keep Calm and Carry On: Finding and Building PhD Career Paths
Earlier this year, I sent Rosemary Feal, the Executive Director of the MLA, a direct message via Twitter. In the last couple of years I've had the chance to get to know her as we've spoken together on panels and as I've served on the MLA's Committee on Information Technology (CIT). In this DM, I suggested that … Continue reading Two Job Markets in Every Pot: My Platform for the MLA Executive Council
I listen to NPR most days as I commute, and I found yesterday's story about the difficult job prospects and debt facing culinary school graduates very familiar. The similarity between the circumstances of those training to be chefs and those training to be faculty members was so striking that I couldn't resist writing NPR and … Continue reading Culinary School vs. Graduate School
Last year I gained some attention for not attending the Modern Language Association's annual convention. The notice that was paid to my situation and to the paper that was read on my behalf took me completely by surprise. That feeling of surprise persisted throughout 2010 as people occasionally sent emails or told me at events … Continue reading (Omni?)Present at the MLA
One of the Big Issue books to hit academia this year is Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas. The book got some notice at the close of 2009 when an excerpt--"The Ph.D. Problem"--was published in Harvard Magazine. In this article, Menand argues that the production of people holding the doctorate is broken due to the … Continue reading Adjuncts –> The Glenn Beck-ification of Cultural Commentary