Portrait of an institution

This is a response to Historiann's post calling for more detailed discussions of particular higher ed environments. Notorious, Ph.D. has already responded with a wonderful post on what the real problem with higher ed is, and Dr. Crazy has also responded with a great post on failure. Both of those posts are much better than this one, so I'd recommend you go read them.

I' m getting to this a little late, and so I'm trying to figure out what there is for me to say. And what I'd like to do here is talk about what things look like on the ground at my particular college. Institutions like mine don't often feature in the discussion of What's Wrong with Higher Education. The challenge, for me, is figuring out where to start, and how to be both detailed and succinct without giving too much away. (I realize my pseudonymity is pretty thin, but I'd like to hang onto it while I'm still untenured, thanks.)

Let's start with some basics.

I teach at a small private college in the Midwest. We draw our students primarily, but not exclusively, from the Midwest; we also get a certain number of students from all over the country, and a growing number of students from overseas. We have a compact, pretty campus, and a small, generally dedicated body of faculty, staff, and administrators.

Our biggest problem is money. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof.

Some private colleges have large endowments and lots of resources. We do not. Our endowment is small, and so most of our annual income comes from tuition. We also offer substantial amounts of financial aid to attract the students we want, and there is constant tension surrounding the issues of tuition increases and financial aid. Our limited financial resources affect the campus in all sorts of ways. Compensation and benefits, replacing departed employees, the ability of students to print and photocopy materials, books, lab equipement, building maintenance, and on and on. Most, if not all, of the fat has already been cut from the budget. Many staff members are doing what used to be the jobs of multiple people. Every request to replace a departing faculty member gets closely scrutinized; and in most cases, failing to replace a departing faculty member would mean a mortal wound to the corresponding department and its majors. We have dilapidated dorms, classrooms, and athletic facilities. We have nice, recently-built or renovated buildings as well, but the financial strain shows in the physical appearance of the campus.

More nebulous is the psychological weight. But the knowledge of our financial limitations has its own cost: in morale, in general anxiety, in distrust between faculty and administrators, in a certain cramping of ambitions that we know are not financially realistic.

But within our constraints, we try to give our students the intense, stimulating liberal arts experience that we think they came here for. They have small classes, a fairly traditional curriculum, individual attention from their professors, and opportunities to do advanced work, internships, and various special projects. If they choose to take advantage of them. We have some fabulous students, and many who are, perhaps, a little less fabulous, but who work hard and put in the time and find niches in which they shine.

There are also students, though, who don't take advantage of their opportunities. As part of my college service, I sit on the committee that applies sanctions to students who are struggling academically. And there the comments we get from instructors are remarkably consistent: students who miss class, who don't turn in papers, who don't respond to the professors' attempts to reach them. This is not a large university; these students are not getting lost in the crowd. They are, for some reason, not taking advantage of the attention and support they can get at this small institution. (Maybe they don't want that attention, who knows.)

And here's where things circle back around to money. A question facing my institution now is whether, and how, we can get out of our financial bind. Do we increase our endowment, find some wealthy philanthropists to cultivate? (We'd undoubtedly have to spend money on the effort.) Do we bring in more students, thus bringing in more tuition? (We'd have to spend money to do that, as we'd rapidly need more faculty, more dorms, and more classrooms.) Can we bring in more students without compromising our academic standards? Does it do anyone any good for us to admit students who might be able to pay, but who may not be able to meet their professors' expectations?

So, one view from the trenches. Our problems are not faculty who do research instead of teach, or graduate students that we exploit as teachers, or big time athletics that suck money and energy away from our academic mission. Our problems are lack of resources, dependence on tuition, and worries about how we handle our weaker students.

Medieval survey revamp, part 2

If I had a camera, I'd take a picture of my desk. It is covered in a pile of Penguin Classics, source collections, and other stuff. I pulled off the shelf just about every book that seemed possibly appropriate for a 100-level medieval history survey. Following the suggestion of Dr. Notorious, I made a list of themes, and jotted down both short and long sources that I'd like to teach related to those themes. One thing that became clear as I did this is how strongly this list deviates from what I've been teaching in this course. It is definitely time to freshen up the reading list (and probably the assignments). Of course, I've made a list of possible readings that is longer than I think the students can actually manage, so it'll need a bit of winnowing down.

Revamping the medieval survey

A couple of weeks into the new school year, I seem to have adjusted. For the first week or so, I felt keyed up all the time and wasn't sleeping that well. Now I seem to be back into the rhythm.

I have a class full of first-year students who are charmingly fresh and eager. I'm trying out some new assignments, although I'm already finding that some of them work better than others. The information literacy exercise I've asked them to do seems to work well, for example.

Because the bookstore is bugging me for book orders, I'm thinking again about my medieval survey course. I've now taught it three times here, and I've never been quite satisfied with it. I feel bored by the textbook and overly constrained by the reader. I find myself thinking about the equivalent course I took as an undergrad.

My undergrad medieval history professor (later my advisor) had a signature approach. He didn't use a regular textbook, per se, and didn't lecture. (Somehow I learned the dates of things anyway, but I don't quite remember when and how.) Our reading included some long primary sources, and packets of shorter sources put together by him. He organized the class around a series of polarizing questions, and forced us into arguing with each other. (His favorite rhetorical tactic in class was this: "So, John, [sums up what student just said], is that right? So you're saying that what Jane said earlier was wrong. Jane, do you have a response to that?") The essay prompts were, similarly, questions with yes-or-no answers that forced students to pick a side and state a thesis.

I've never quite been able to emulate his "pit them against each other" style of discussion leadership. But I do find myself seriously considering moving away from the books I've been using, ditching my usual reader, and trying to come up with a set of readings I (and, I hope, my students) will find more inspiring.

Time to face the music

Ugh. It's August, and what's more it's August 16, so I can't even pretend it's "the beginning of August" any more. It's time to prepare classes and get some things accomplished before class starts. I am clearly not the only one feeling this way.

I've gotten remarkably little done this summer. I've worked, desultorily, on a planned article, and it's being a pain to write. There needs to be a certain amount of narrative, as there is no reason whatsoever any potential reader should be familiar with these events... but working in analysis and actual arguments with the narrative is something of a problem.

I'm generating a bunch of ideas for classes and syllabi, and am slowly starting to pull them together into real, coherent class plans.

The rest of the summer to-do list has barely been touched.

So things are; I am trying to avoid the classic academic's spiral of guilt that I have not read enough-written enough-revised enough-anything enough and get on with the business of actually doing something.

Summer to-do list

I am at home and done with major travel for the summer, after taking some time for conference and social time. There are a couple more trips on the horizon, but only short ones. My cats should be grateful.

So the time has come to figure out what needs to be done this summer. Here's the list I've come up with, in no particular priority order:

Writing Stuff

• Look over book manuscript and helpful people's comments


• Figure out how to revise / whether to keep it as book or slice into articles


• Revise recent conference paper


• Work on article idea (pulled together from two different conference papers and recent research stuff)


• Correspond with various people regarding another project

Teaching Stuff

• Think about tweaking survey classes, especially assignments (fall one a priority)


• Think about tweaking upper-level course that's a repeat


• Make a plan for upper-level course that's new


• Order books for fall classes (should happen real soon now)

That's all leaving aside stuff to be done around the house and yard, of course, as well as anything else I do to stay sane this summer. It seems like more than enough to keep me off the streets and out of trouble.

Summer at last

Ahhhh... (that was a big sigh of relief)... I am finally done with this academic year. Commencement was last Saturday, and I only finished up with grading yesterday (due partially to IT problems that were not under my control--the less said about those, the better).

Now I need to figure out what to do with myself.

I feel as though I've been running at top speed since about mid-March, and certainly some of the things I need to do now are slow down, catch my breath, and catch up with all the various non-work-related things I have shoved to the side in the last two months.

In the short term, "what to do with myself" is pretty straightforward: I'll be leaving home toward the end of this week and go on a road trip. It is mostly vacation, but will also include a trip to the Berks conference, where I will give a paper that I'm trying to convince myself is not shoddy and slapdash.

After that, then what? There seem to be quite a few things I should be working on this summer, and I need to start just by sorting out what they are. I have thought about joining this writing group, but at the moment I feel very reluctant to commit to a particular one of the several things I could be / should be working on. Plus, I'll be out of town for the first couple weeks of this group. I'll see if I can sort something out in the next few days, I suppose.

More on adjuncting and "inside candidates"

Wow. It's been so long since I posted here that I'd almost forgotten I had a blog.

But a friend asked me for my opinions on this post, and when I sent an email response, encouraged me to post the response here.

I've already discussed my experience of adjunct teaching here (just about a year ago!). Short version: I spent six years in contingent faculty positions, exactly the same amount of time I spent in graduate school. I've now spent not quite two years on the tenure track.

So one thing I noticed about the responses to Tenured Radical's post was that a lot of people reacted very strongly to the advice about moving. She did say that you should move for a full-time position, and I'd tend to agree. I moved hundreds of miles for my first, one-year visiting appointment, and then hundreds of miles again when that job ended. And you know what? It wasn't that bad. Moving itself was a hassle, but I experienced a different part of the country, I made some new friends, and I got some valuable professional experience. For me, it was also very useful to get out of Grad School City, where I'd gotten fed up with the frustrations of grad school and had gotten into kind of a social rut. I kept in touch with friends through email and phone calls, as I do now.

However, I'd never advise anyone to uproot themselves for a part-time, poorly-paid, "teach one or two courses a semester" kind of job.

The part of the advice I really want to agree with is the part about not assuming that you will be ideally positioned when a tenure-track line opens up in that department. Indeed, don't put much faith in senior colleagues who tell you that, and try not to convince yourself of it, either. It's easy to do. When I got that first visiting job, I knew that they planned to make a t-t hire in my area the next year. I tried so hard to show that I fit in; I tried to act as if I were on a year-long interview process. I worked my tail off teaching my own classes for the first time, going to conferences, and meeting with students. And then they hired somebody else.

So I packed my bags and moved back across the country to the next job, and a few years later I was in the same position, having a temporary job at a department that was hiring in my area. I had good teaching evaluations; I wasn't a research star, but I had some publications; and once again they hired someone else.

I looked in on the job wiki a couple of times at the height of hiring season, and I still see job candidates convinced that the person on the one- or two-year hire has the inside track. In my experience, that's really, really not the case. Things have worked out okay for me in the end; I think the job I have is a better fit for me than either of the ones I didn't get, but it was really difficult for a while there.