Live From The Blogosphere!

In loco parentis
Dear Student: You're a freshman. And every new environment takes some getting used to. But really: exposed nipples have no place in the classroom. I don't care that you're male. And I don't care how badass slashing up your lacrosse ...

Under the influence
It's true what conservatives say: we college professors exert a dangerous influence over our students. Walking into class today, I was hailed by a student who had taken Shakespeare with me last semester, but whom I'd known only slightly ...

How The University Works
My review of Marc Bousquet's How the University Works is long overdue--I received a copy of the book in January and read it in June--but I've been thinking about it all summer and following Bousquet's related blog off and on for most of ...

For those keeping track:
Cost of academic regalia ÷ number of wearings thus far = $160.00 per use. As a return on value, that's not so bad--in just two or three more years the cost will be the same as if I'd shelled out for rentals each time. ...

The elite are different from you and me
I've read William Deresiewicz's latest essay in The American Scholar a few times now, trying to figure out why I'm reacting so negatively to it when I've made some of the same arguments myself about certain kinds of students and certain ...

Summer reading
As serene as I may be in the knowledge that four whole weeks of summer stretch out before me, my first day of classes nevertheless arrives on Tuesday. It would be hard for a summer to be worse than last summer, but even given its modest ...

Please don't make me hate you
I'm still here--in the City that Never Stops Taking Your Money--but my conference has finally careened to the end of its week-long run. It was, on balance, a very good conference. But before I get to the good stuff, some advice on how ...

Where's my syllabus?
I'm out west at the family homestead, seeing the relations, enjoying the weather, sleeping nine hours a night--and, oh yeah: slaving over my syllabi. Now, my syllabi aren't those eight-page jobbies bursting with university bylaws, ...

Flavian calendar reform
At about this time every year, I start operating according to my own Very Special Calendar. My summer begins around May 15 or May 20th, after I've submitted my grades and my annual faculty activity report, and it ends a week before ...

High anxiety
I awakened this morning from a succession of dreams that went something like this:. I was four months pregnant. This was not a planned or desired state of affairs, but apparently one I had accepted--until somehow, over the course of a ...

Go Home