- Reflections on the difficult work of sustaining an emotionally, ethically, and spiritually healthy life in academia—no matter what happens.
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Author Archives: mlongfarfield
Niether For Nor Against: Notes on the Institution
Working as a department chair for seven out of the past ten years I have heard my share of faculty who appear to think that the administration is an “other” and that the only viable position to take as a … Continue reading
Posted in Basic Concepts, Citizen phase, Institution, Tool Box
Tagged administration, department chair, institutions
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It Gets Better—and Other Enabling Fictions
In the summer of 2001, I received word that I had been appointed to the Modern Language Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities (CAFPRR). Our work over my three-year term of service included establishing for the … Continue reading
Posted in Citizen phase, Non Tenure Track, Person, Post-Tenure, Pre-Tenure, Profession
Tagged adjunct faculty, enabling fictions, tenure
1 Comment
Contingency, Irony, Solidarity
Since I began pursing a PhD in 1990 there has been astonishing growth in the hiring of college and university faculty. According the Department of Education (DOE), between 1995 and 2009 the academic workforce has grown by fifty percent. However, … Continue reading
Posted in Citizen phase, Institution, Post-Tenure
Tagged adjunct faculty, department chair, shared governance
4 Comments
It Don’t Come Easy: Thoughts on the Citizen Phase of Academic Life
This past academic year we worked through the effects of state funding decisions, demographic changes and longer-term institutional decisions that have had a direct effect on faculty numbers and the positions of professional and operating staff at Keene State College. … Continue reading
Posted in Citizen phase, Institution, Post-Tenure
Tagged adjunct, budget issues, department chair, staffing
3 Comments
Tenure Talk: Thinking Again
“What are the implications of the decline of tenure?” A recent forum in the New York Times began with this question and generated an extended blog conversation. Responses ranged from defenses of tenure to reductive critiques of a so-called academic … Continue reading
Posted in Institution, Person, Post-Tenure, Pre-Tenure, Profession
Tagged reward system, Stages, tenure track
2 Comments
Counting What Counts
John and I welcome your thoughts on exploring the challenges of sustaining an emotionally, ethically, and spiritually healthy life in academia. We are grateful to our friend and colleague Michael P. Branch, professor of Literature and Environment at the University … Continue reading
A Sense of Where you Are
In a lunch conversation with a job candidate yesterday we found our way to the subject of student engagement. We were talking about developing what John McPhee memorably called in his book-length profile of Bill Bradley, a sense of where … Continue reading
Posted in Person, Post-Tenure, Profession
Tagged elder phase, identity, Person, Stages
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Rethinking (Academic) Success 3
The most obvious problem with success in the academy is that it moves in one way: success, in its conventional academic sense, leads one from lower- to upper-division courses, undergraduates to graduate students, general education to specialization, classroom work to … Continue reading
Posted in Beyond Tenure Track, Institution, Post-Tenure, Profession
Tagged success, undergradaute teaching
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