For whatever reason, I’ve always tended to hang with the boys. Even in elementary school, my mother comments that I always gravitated toward a boy as my “new friend” each year. Mr. Me was my pickup in 7th grade — we didn’t start dating until after high school but we had heaps of fun as juvenile delinquents together [...]
Archive for February, 2008
Women and the Academy
Posted in gender, on the tenure track, the academy on February 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Please, give a second born a break!
Posted in adventures with child, research, work/family on February 27, 2008 | 1 Comment »
To all of you doing birth order research, could you please stop? Just kidding, but could you refrain from talking to reporters about it? It’s always funny when my older brother sends me newspaper articles about the IQ point advantage first-borns have relative to second-borns (it propelled me to a PhD, but then the stinker [...]
Teaching Tools: Contexts Magazine
Posted in teaching on February 26, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I get a fair amount of email (at newsocprof@gmail.com) from new teachers* like myself, who may not have taught a lot in grad school and are now teaching 2-3 new courses as first year assistant professors. For me, teaching is going okay, pretty well actually. I get stuck some days though — it’s a radically [...]
Week 8 Product Report
Posted in on the tenure track, research, writing on February 25, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Nada. I did nothing remotely resembling writing last week. I lived in the land of STATA, worked on my teaching, took a few nights off and watched reruns of a highly embarrassing show that I won’t name here (high school drama, currently in syndication, enough said)…
I’m still struggling with what I am supposed to be tracking [...]
Academic freedom and a research institute as a “celebration” of the Bush presidency
Posted in politics, the academy on February 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. Apologies to the folks at SMU who, like many of us silly out-of-touch academics, think things like peer review, evidence, and some semblance of objectivity are good things in organizations designed to promote scholarship. This bothers me on a number of levels (and would for any [...]
Advice from the resident sociological sage…
Posted in on the tenure track on February 24, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Wicked Anomie and I have decided to refer to “olderwoman” on scatterplot as “wisewoman.” We encourage others to do so as well…
OW/WW has offered some advice to first year assistant professors – worth a read for those of you starting out or close to the market.
SIDEBAR/UPDATE: A comment on this post raised something I wanted [...]
I Have Been Tagged with the Latest Sociological Meme
Posted in blogging on February 23, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I was tagged (for the first time!) by Soc Prof at global sociology. I don’t mind being tagged but don’t want to bug others — so, for those I tag, consider participation to be optional!
The game: open the nearest book to page 123 and reproduce the 6-8 sentence. I tried Bruce Western’s Punishment and Inequality [...]
The View 6 Months In… Happy?
Posted in on the tenure track on February 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Some friends came to visit a few weeks ago and one mentioned that I seem a lot “mellower” and more confident than I did last year and the year before. Another friend describes me as the least bitter assistant professor he’s ever known (give me time!). I may be the only person who is mellower [...]
In defense of undergrads…
Posted in mentors, research on February 21, 2008 | 5 Comments »
I’ve been thinking a lot (and commenting on scatterplot) about mentoring graduate students, how to be a good advisor, pondering my own experiences in graduate school, etc, etc… That said, it all adds up to much thought and no action. I’m not advising anyone — I have a plan with a grad student for the [...]
Week 7 Product Report
Posted in work/family, writing on February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Product report is late this week not because I didn’t write but because newsocprof was off to Vegas for the weekend (sans newsocprof junior!*). Last week, I wrote for 4 out 5 days. I think I may decide that 4 days out of 5 is a reasonable goal after tracking this for 7 weeks. Is [...]
