Posted in Gender, Social Economics, tagged Cisgender, Elf on the Shelf, Memoirs of a SLACer, Preferred Pronouns on November 29, 2015| 3 Comments »
While doing my capitalist duty this weekend, I noticed that there actually is a benefit to those annoying Elf on the Shelf dolls (aside, of course, from social control):
They can be used to introduce your children to the idea of preferred pronouns (note the upper right corner of the box) and the fact that not everybody is cisgender! Not a bad “new family tradition” to adopt!
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Posted in SLAC, The Ivory Tower, Tracking the Transition, tagged Department Meetings, Faculty Meetings, Memoirs of a SLACer, New Faculty on November 22, 2015|
When faculty members arrive on a new campus, they are often told to keep their heads down and listen more than they speak. In most cases (i.e., when the place you find yourself in is not blatantly offensive), I think that this is good advice, since it makes sense to become familiar with the campus and departmental cultures before saying or doing things that might deviate from the norms of those cultures. Although I may never feel comfortable speaking at a faculty meeting (for those of you at large institutions, this is the monthly meeting of all faculty, along with various administrators, on campus), since I never did at my previous institution, I have found this semester that I am saying more at department meetings and feeling less apprehensive when I do. I don’t think I noticed that I had felt less comfortable last year until I started feeling more comfortable this year.
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Posted in SLAC, The Ivory Tower, tagged Annette Lareau, Campus Committees, First-Year Students, Memoirs of a SLACer, Privilege on Campus, Unequal Childhoods, White Americans on November 19, 2015| 1 Comment »
Earlier this semester I attended a panel in which three first year students were asked questions about their impressions of the first year reading and speaker series on campus for an audience of faculty and staff, many of whom had planned the series and will be involved in planning next year’s series. The panelists included a white American, a white Western-European, and an Asian. All three students handled themselves well but, in comparison to the American student, the two international students spoke less, and less readily. For example, it was common for the international students to speak only when asked a direct question, while the American often interjected after one of the international students had spoken. I got the sense that this student was raised with the middle/upper-middle class “concerted cultivation” style that Annette Lareau discusses in Unequal Childhoods, leading to comfort in interacting with the adults in the room.
After the panel, a staff member approached the staff member I was seated next to and, noting that a committee they were on needed a new student representative, commented on how well the American student would do in this role. I have no idea whether this student was offered the position, but it struck me that the doors of opportunity were already opening for this brash, white American mere weeks after arriving on campus. It also struck me that if student representatives on various campus committees are chosen for their cultural capital, the voices of first-generation and working-class students are likely not being heard in these spaces. If it had been up to me to choose a student committee member, I would have chosen one of the quieter students whose voices need to be amplified on campus. The voices of privileged white Americans are already heard loud and clear.
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Posted in The Ivory Tower, The Publication Gauntlet, The State of Sociology, tagged Memoirs of a SLACer, Peer Review, Philip Cohen, Publish or Perish, Scatterplot, The Publication Gauntlet on November 17, 2015|
A while back, Philip Cohen posted on some of the problems with the peer review system in sociology, sharing the story of a paper that underwent 13 peer reviews over several years in the publication gauntlet. Although the paper’s findings were essentially unchanged by this process, each reviewer apparently thought that the paper could be framed in a different, and better, way. As Cohen says:
Most (or all) of the reviewers were sociologists, and most of what they suggested, complained about, or objected was about the way the paper was “framed,” that is, how we establish the importance of the question and interpret the results. Of course framing is important – it’s why you’re asking your question, and why readers should care (see Mark Granovetter’s note on the rejected version of “the Strength of Weak Ties”). But it takes on elevated importance when we’re scrapping over limited slots in academic journals, so that to get published you have to successfully “frame” your paper as more important than some other poor slob’s.
Cohen also cites problems with the journal system and its speed and arbitrary nature, but I think that the issue of framing is particularly important because journal editors appear to be letting reviewers asking a version of the “why didn’t you write the paper I would have written?” conference question arbitrarily prevent the publication of otherwise-worthy papers. This is particularly problematic for graduate students and those of us who work at teaching-oriented institutions and don’t typically have numerous papers under review at once.
Cohen proposes an alternate peer review system, but barring major changes in the system, I think that editors can take immediate steps to address this issue. When somebody asks the “why didn’t you write the paper I would have written?” question at a conference, everybody else in the audience rolls their eyes and recognizes the problem. Journal editors need to be more forceful about recognizing these problems themselves, providing clearer review guidelines and ensuring that framing is not the single most important factor in their decisions.
Via: Scatterplot
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Posted in Procrastination, The Electronic Age, The Publication Gauntlet, Tracking the Transition, tagged LeechBlock, Major Procrastination Disorder, Memoirs of a SLACer, Procrastination, Publication, Publish or Perish, Tenure, Time Machine, Time Management on November 15, 2015| 2 Comments »
When students ask what they can do to improve their grades at the end of the semester, I often think, “Invent a time machine, go back to the beginning of the semester, and start [coming to class, proofreading your work, studying for exams, etc.].” Now, in my second year of a new job, a year away from pre-tenure review, it feels like this is the semester that I would choose to return to if things do not go the way I want in the tenure process. With a paper under review, several papers I need to lightly revise and send out, and new projects in the early stages, this is a pivotal moment for my success in the coming years, even as the semester quickly melts away and, as usual, I haven’t completed nearly as much on these endeavors as I had hoped.
I have, however, made one change that I hope will pay off in the future. I installed LeechBlock on my web browser to ward off my Major Procrastination Disorder and keep time from getting away from me. In a few years, I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Memoirs of a SLACer 