Penelope Trunk explains why grad degrees are a bad idea.

The scholarship of teaching isn’t being given a lot of credit, especially in promotion and tenure cases.

Post-docs are becoming more usual in the humanities.

Two career guides explain how to make [...]]]> Are new graduate programs a good idea? Lee Skallerup Bessette asks and answers.

Penelope Trunk explains why grad degrees are a bad idea.

The scholarship of teaching isn’t being given a lot of credit, especially in promotion and tenure cases.

Post-docs are becoming more usual in the humanities.

Two career guides explain how to make it through the first-round interview.

Leonard Cassuto demystifies the dissertation proposal.

The economy means that even established professors are stuck where they are.

The job market for geographers has taken a turn for the positive.

Should you use a dossier service in your job search? As in everything else in academia, it depends.

Do you know what a given interview question is trying to get at? You should.

After Academe talks about how to quit adjuncting.

Meanness is not the same as being critical.

Overseas opportunities exist for American academics, but there are some significant risks, including challenges for families.

Graduate enrollments are down for the first time in forever, but it’s unclear what that means.

The National Science Foundation responds to research that documents science culture’s hostility to family building (especially for women), with new policies designed to make it easier to do science and have a family.

Lennard J. Davis calls out academia for neither including disability within categories of diversity nor being able to talk about it.

Just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean you won’t get asked that question in an interview. Here’s how to handle the inappropriate query.

Struggling with academia? I offer one-on-one coaching by phone and by email to help people articulate and work through where they’re stuck.

Professors at Central Michigan University have called a strike.

Madeline Li continues the story of what happened after she was denied tenure.

The job market in Sociology is starting to recover.

ProfHacker has a great post about looking at how well your routines are serving you.

Another Academic [...]]]> Student loans have grown 511% since 1999.

Professors at Central Michigan University have called a strike.

Madeline Li continues the story of what happened after she was denied tenure.

The job market in Sociology is starting to recover.

ProfHacker has a great post about looking at how well your routines are serving you.

Another Academic Bites the Dust muses on the benefits of quitting.

If you’re doing the tenure-track, don’t put your dissertation up online.

There are lots of ways to get the next job.

Struggling with academia? I offer one-on-one coaching by phone and by email to help people articulate and work through where they’re stuck.

Speculative Diction continues the conversation about self-promotion. Conclusion? Do it!

In some ways, graduate school is actually an oasis, one you’ll be sad to leave. (In other ways, of course, you’ll be thrilled!) Best line: “Grad school is also your [...]]]> Academia teaches us to be critical. But that’s not the way to get a job.

Speculative Diction continues the conversation about self-promotion. Conclusion? Do it!

In some ways, graduate school is actually an oasis, one you’ll be sad to leave. (In other ways, of course, you’ll be thrilled!) Best line: “Grad school is also your last chance to be an eccentric nerd, hiding in your apartment, eschewing haircuts, writing in 20-hour binges.”

Build relationships with all kinds of people before you need them.

James D. Miller argues that tenure isn’t going to protect people from a wholesale collapse of higher ed.

Karen at The Professor Is In explains how to work a national conference.

Rachel Connolly, one half of the new book The Mommy Track, guest-posts on The Professor Is In about how to achieve work/life balance.

Lee Skallerup Bessette explains why she’s still in academia.

Here’s some good – and specific! – advice on writing the academic job letter.

Struggling with academia? I offer one-on-one coaching by phone and by email to help people articulate and work through where they’re stuck.

A new column at Inside Higher Ed interviews executive-level women in academia.

Even though the job market is terrible, a job that doesn’t fit you is not actually a good idea, even [...]]]> Cathy Davidson argues that education as a whole is deformed when it is only geared to “will it help you get into college.”

A new column at Inside Higher Ed interviews executive-level women in academia.

Even though the job market is terrible, a job that doesn’t fit you is not actually a good idea, even if the way this correspondent framed that point was, rightly, criticized for being elitist. Here’s another take on the same subject, with a little more humility and a little more self-knowledge.

Is academia a bad boyfriend?

Half of women in science wanted to have more children but didn’t because of their careers, and a quarter of men in science agree.

A long-time administrator reflects on the things he wishes he’d known from the beginning. Dean Dan responds from his own experience.

Can you avoid burnout?

Sabbaticals aren’t all cushy freedom – they often bring a temporary paycut. Here’s some advice on planning for it.

Karen at The Professor Is In has advice for your first year on the tenure track.

Lee Skallerup Bessette at Bad Female Academic talks about the need for shameless self-promotion.

Struggling with academia? I offer one-on-one coaching by phone and by email to help people articulate and work through where they’re stuck.

Bad Female Academic continues the discussion of the [...]]]> After Academe responds to William Pannapacker’s recent essay by suggesting that adjuncts, new PhDs who can’t find tenure-track work, and even graduate students should just walk away, because working for pennies makes us complicit in the problem. Karen of The Professor Is In weighs in as well.

Bad Female Academic continues the discussion of the ways class plays in to “fit” in academia, and Post/Academic discusses her own experience.

The conversation about class has been really wide-ranging; Lee Skallerup Bessette pulls it all together.

Melonie Fullick (aka Aesthetic Vigilante) does a rocking Month in Higher Ed.

Shame is normal as we struggle with writing in academia.

Karen at The Professor Is In describes how she built a CV.

Anastasia Salter recommends starting a tenure box to keep everything you might need to present.

Timothy Burke takes on the market, and then further considers his argument.

Struggling with academia? I offer one-on-one coaching by phone and by email to help people articulate and work through where they’re stuck.

You can deduct unreimbursed research expenses from your taxes – but only if you’re a professor.

Dr. Crazy describes an early part of her writing process, one that doesn’t look like writing [...]]]> Apparently, the AAUP’s guidelines on faculty with physical or mental disabilities hadn’t been updated since the late 1960s. They’re getting right on that.

You can deduct unreimbursed research expenses from your taxes – but only if you’re a professor.

Dr. Crazy describes an early part of her writing process, one that doesn’t look like writing but is integral to it.

Benefits like personal leave are only valuable if people actually believe they can use them when they really need them.

Graduate students are relying more and more on loans.

New book coming out: how to balance motherhood and academia.

Dr. Crazy talks about class in the academy and explicitly brings gender back into the conversation.

Tonight I’m holding a free teleclass on 3 barriers to overcome in the post-academic job search. Join us!

Damon Horowitz started as a technologist, then got his PhD in Philosophy, [...]]]> We have this idea that academia is a meritocracy, and that therefore good ideas and good work will be rewarded. But as Rachel Connelly and Kristen Ghodsee point out, a little self-promotion can go a long ways towards earning you that career promotion.

Damon Horowitz started as a technologist, then got his PhD in Philosophy, and is now the in-house philosopher at Google. That’s pretty cool.

If you’re feeling burnt out, a little faculty development can help.

Aesthetic.Vigelante thinks about how the value of professional activities intersects with class and opportunity for graduate students – and thus shapes careers.

How do you create a professional network? One person at a time.

Jason B. Jones gives us a roundup of recent articles that will help you understand faculty governance.

Interdisciplinary work, while valuable and wanted, often gets caught in institutional border disputes when it comes to tenure. USC has issued explicit tenure and promotion guidelines to avoid this.

Editor Kathryn Allan advises PhDs, especially in the humanities, to look beyond “research and writing” as important skills they bring to the table.

When did you start to notice the ways men and women in the academy are treated differently? Karen at TheProfessorIsIn talks about getting schooled on her own sexism.

Geekosystem gives us an infographic about some of the realities of graduate school. The most chilling for me was the number of PhDs granted vs. jobs created between 2004 and 2009.

Lesboprof muses on the need to maintain professional boundaries.

A scholar who was denied tenure five years ago looks back, and his wife shares her recollections as well.

Dual career couples bring up all kinds of anxieties and institutional quirks. Here’s an A to Z of dual careers.

Introducing Alt-Ac, a collection of essays on the alternative [...]]]> Excerpts from some interesting 2011 commencement speeches.

A scholar who was denied tenure five years ago looks back, and his wife shares her recollections as well.

Dual career couples bring up all kinds of anxieties and institutional quirks. Here’s an A to Z of dual careers.

Introducing Alt-Ac, a collection of essays on the alternative academic career.

Daniel J. Ennis predicts that, somewhere, a university has hired its last tenured professor.

Julia Mortyakova reflects on the transition between graduate student and the tenure track.

Dr. Crazy shares an experience that reconnected her with the passion and excitement of her work.

Notorious PhD talks about the experience of being scooped and how she’s responded each time.

A new study suggests that queer professors are more often hit with claims of bias than straight professors.

If you’ve gotten a new academic job, when do you move?

Sabbaticals are fabulous – but they don’t just happen. You have to apply, and Nels P. Highberg [...]]]> How do we measure faculty productivity? And should we?

A new study suggests that queer professors are more often hit with claims of bias than straight professors.

If you’ve gotten a new academic job, when do you move?

Sabbaticals are fabulous – but they don’t just happen. You have to apply, and Nels P. Highberg offers some advice.

To whom are we, as educators, accountable? Lee Skallerup Bessette looks at the situation in Texas to begin to answer.

Happy fourth of July to all my US readers! I hope you’re having a lovely, restorative day.