Hey A_A,

I'm nearing the end of my dissertation journey! I'm in the editing phase and set to hand it out by the end of May. Unfortunately, I've hit a snag. I have no idea what to write in my acknowledgements. Not to be cliche, but I see this piece of my dissertation as the only place I can really be creative, so I was hoping you all would tell me about some fun acknowledgments you've seen to give me a brain blast. I apologize if this is off-topic, but I figure since it's the end of the semester, we can all use a little fun right now. Thanks!

In partial reference to the previous post: How do you tell a student that you can't write them a good recommendation?

I will be applying to grad schools this upcoming fall for 2015 (taking a year off) and am wondering, if I do not meet the criteria to make the cut what can I do to tip the balance back in my favor?
I stand at a 3.4 cumulative, just under 4.0 for classes in my field of study.
My senior research project is a meta-analysis that has the potential to go to conference.
I have found a voluntary assistant research position to stick on the resume.
Know the GRE scores will be vital so am prepping.
Anything else I can or should do?
Any damage control strategies if it’s not enough?

Pie in the Sky Potential Field: Masters in Social Work then on to PhD

Is there a reason why anyone would get into a doctoral program and then pay someone else to write their PhD thesis? I'm dealing with that right now and I just find it really strange.

I can see why undergraduate students would hire people to write their papers for them. I can even conceive of Masters students getting too burnt out to finish their Masters theses. Hell, I can even conceive of someone hiring a professional writer to clean up his doctorate before he turns it in (or after his adviser told him to rewrite it).

But I always thought that the academic system would weed out the cheaters by the doctorate. Granted, the person I am thinking about is trying to get his doctorate from an online college, but it still perplexes me.

Does he think he's going to get hired as a professor and then hire people to write the papers that he's submitting to peer review journals? Does he think that he's going to be able to teach a subject that he's been NOT learning for 6-7 years?

OK, folks, here's one I haven't seen addressed. I'd welcome input from the hive mind.

I proposed, for my sabbatical project (in the US, and in the Humanities, if that makes a difference), to form focus groups of students who are at various stages of their progress through my university's new general education curriculum, specifically to track their progress through a specific set of courses. I wanted to get the student viewpoint so that I could add to or make improvements or tweaks to our pedagogy and our curriculum where appropriate. The sabbatical project proposal was accepted, and I'm working on it now. Except it came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago, when I got a less than 1% response to my invitations to students to tell me what they think. I've rethought and tailored my approach to these students, changed the venues and the group types, offered different and better incentives for participation (NOTE including a meal), and so forth--no change in the disappointing response rate. So I'm now looking at a real problem: not being able to do the core element of my research project. CRAP.

I did promise as part of this project a review of the scholarship/research to accompany my collection of first-hand data, and I'm obviously going to proceed with that part of the plans. If nothing else, I'll come out of this with a literature review, which is perhaps publishable. Maybe. But without that actual student input, in sufficient volume to represent some sort of valid sample size, I feel like my semester of sabbatical work is going to be completely a waste of time. That makes me feel like I'm not doing what I said I was going to do, and even though it's not really my fault--an excuse I loathe using--I'm at a loss about what to do now. I don't know what if anything I can do to substitute for the missing first hand data, and I don't know how to explain to the Dean that I wasn't able to do this work, and I'm not sure what the implications are going to be for my ongoing research project, for which this was a vital and early step. I had no reason to think that students on this really active campus would not respond to inquiries--one of our pet things here is undergraduate research!--and I had expected to be able to write something that would, with any luck, help get me one step closer to promotion to full professor. So now I feel as if I'm failing, even though I know that that is truly not the case. But there's a lot riding on my project, both for me and for the university, and I'm at a loss.

I'm not sure how to handle this or what questions to ask myself to get back on track. In similar situations, what have y'all done?

ETA: I should have made clearer that one of the changes I made in my pitch for student participation was the creation of an online survey. I'm getting perhaps 10% response rather than 1%, which is certainly better, but not nearly enough.

I know there will be a lot of IANAL thrown in here, but i figured i might ask some folks who have been there for advice.

i am finally... FINALLY... nearing completion of my Master's thesis. It has been a very long haul. As i await my final committee member sign-offs, i am working on the last of my thesis packet in prep for submission. One of the things i am required to submit are permission letters for any graphics i have used in my document.

My thesis is on LiveJournal, believe it or not. My graphic use is pretty small, a few userpics, some image macros, and some V-gifts.

For anyone who had similar graphics in their documents, how did you handle permissions? Did you blanket it under Academic Fair Use? Did you play it safe and get releases from everybody?

For what it's worth, all userpics are credited by username of the person who made them. Image macros are trickier, since a lot of them came from other places, so tracking down their exact creator is hard, so they are listed as "creator unknown." Vgifts are listed as created by LiveJournal.

The image macros are tricky as well, since some of them are Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. that are copyrighted franchises, but their use here is most likely covered under fair use/satire.

Just when i thought the hard part was over...

Edited to add: The final destination for my thesis is ProQuest, which is who my university uses to publish theses. However, i will be publishing mine under Open Access, so no selling of it will be allowed. (my understanding, at any rate)

Hello a_a,

I hope everyone's semester is going well. I came back from a campus interview recently and have a very good feeling about it (i.e. I was told in fairly certain terms that I will be offered the position). I am thrilled about the (99% sure) position, but have no idea how to negotiate a startup package. I know this is field- and place-dependent, so some information.

I'm in science education, so I don't need a large amount of funds for equipment. The position is at an R1 with a fairly respectable education department. I know some of the things I want to ask for, like moving costs, technology (maybe a tablet and a desktop?), and GA support, hopefully in the realm of 20 hours/week for the first year. I was a teacher before starting my PhD, so I have exactly zero experience negotiating for salary and startup funds. Any suggestions you all can provide about specifics and what I should ask for would be great. How much should the startup package be worth? I know that if they give you everything you asked for, you probably didn't ask for enough. They also said that in order to get supplies for teaching I will need an itemized list. I can't seem to find an example of this anywhere for education specifically, and I'm not sure how I would know what I'll need for teaching over the next 2-3 years right now. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

ETA: This is an assistant professor position. I'm graduating this August.

If a colleague asks you to do a guest lecture, do you have to do it? I can't say no without seeming like a jerk, right?

How do you respond to unwanted guest lecture requests?

Hi. Apologies if this has been addressed here before. I had a look through previous posts and didn't come across anything quite similar.

A former student of mine has asked me, their former TA, to write a letter of reference. I've done this before and had no problem, but this student doesn't really stand out in my memory that much. The only thing I remember about them is that I had worked with them over email one night to help them get a paper done that they had forgotten about (my worst nightmare. Seriously, I still have dreams about this happening to me). Although I suspect that the student had been going through some tough times at the time (they broke down crying in class a couple of times), I don't see how I could write something very helpful for them. I also went back and looked over their grades and they didn't pass the class, so I couldn't even rely on that.

I would like to help this student, but I'm afraid that if I write an honest letter, it won't look good for them. I'm sure they have it in them to be good and, as I said, the fact that they had broken down into tears in the classroom makes me think that they were going through some tough times. However, I wouldn't want to write something like that in a letter. If I'm in a situation where I can't see myself writing a good letter without either lying or leaving a lot out, would it just be best for me to tell the student to ask someone else?

thanks.

I'm about to begin another semester of teaching, and this time I'm planning to require an approximate word count for papers instead of number of pages. That's primarily because of many students who persist in composing multiple paragraphs that are rather short and end up having lots of white space at the end of a paragraph's last line, because of those occasional students who just can't seem to get the hang of not hitting return twice between paragraphs, because of a few who indent paragraphs ten spaces rather than five, and because of those who put far too much space at the tops of pages.

What about you? Do you specify a word count or a number of pages?

Hi All,

I need some advice on asking for letters of recs.

Is it best to ask in person, or would it be alright to ask via email?

Hello everyone,

I've looked through older entries and didn't see this mentioned. I read an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that featured academics (mostly from the Humanities) on food stamps.

I'm not an American, so I would like to know how accurate this article is in portraying the situation for academics in America. Has the economic recession badly affected the academic job industry? Is the article just playing up the issue of academics on welfare?

I'm applying to jobs and got an e-mail for a phone interview. Do I respond to the e-mail and address it to Dr. So-and-So or use her first name?

I just got an unsolicited email from an allegedly new 'academic' journal, History Research (published by the prestigious "David Publishing Company" which claims to be based in California but I think is really based in China), offering to publish a paper I recently gave at a conference. They clearly just grabbed my name and the paper title from the conference program online. This has 'scam' written all over it - or at best, perhaps a vanity (pay to publish) journal or something (I noticed "If the paper is accepted by our journal, the author should finance some of the publishing costs" in the fine print at the bottom). Before I delete the email, I thought I'd ask whether it might be worth sending them a paper for publication that I wasn't planning on using otherwise - or does it look bad to have a publication from some weird, fly-by-night journal on my CV? I'm a grad student (and have not finished my PhD, despite them addressing me as "Dr.") and right now the only publication I have is a book review.

( Full text of the email for your considerationCollapse )

Personally I would never expect anyone to be familiar with my work, but I feel that some profs do expect this of others, and I am looking for your advice and experiences navigating this in casual conversation or an informal 1-on-1 meeting.
---
Perhaps I am over-thinking this, but it seems like a minefield. I had one experience of chatting with a very famous person who I asked, "what are you working on now" and they told me I should just read their work. That question also backfires on people who are no longer research-active.

If I ask, '"what do you work on" then that implies that I don't know who you are and haven't read all your very important articles, and of course some people take offense to that. This is easier if they are in a different area, but if their work is at all related to my area, they might be offended that I haven't heard of them.

So usually, I don't ask at all, but as a result I often end up in very one-sided conversations where they ask me what I (the lowly non-famous postdoc) do and I am too traumatized from past experience to ask them anything about their work.

If I have advance notice I'll be meeting someone, I will usually check out their website so I can come up with something vague like, "I am really interested in your work on X" or "can you tell me more about what you do with Y." But even then, some people have responded a bit defensively like, "Well, as I said in my Z article, ...." And of course there are many times you meet people without the chance to google them first.

[edited for the benefit of the "tl;dr" crowd]

I graduated in 2010 with a bachelors degree in liberal arts, mostly for lack of direction. I didn't know what else to choose and I had planned to go to grad school for library science anyway, didn't think it mattered. Now getting an MLIS is a pretty bad idea, so I'm investigating other options.

Here is my question-

Would it be more worth my time/money to
a)get an MBA?

b)transfer my credits from my first degree and get a second bachelors in business admin?

c) just do some computer/business associates certificates?


Thanks!

This may be an odd question that belongs elsewhere, but I'm not coming up with anything in my research, so I thought I'd come here and ask all of you.

I'm a history grad student working as a research assistant to my department's Director of Undergraduate Studies. Our state recently changed the way it parcels out money to departments; it's now based on student retention rather than strictly on enrollment numbers. I've been tasked to research what other schools in general and other history departments in particular are doing about undergraduate retention. In my search through the numbers, I discovered that our entire university's retention rates are way down, and the only area showing any kind of growth is the College of Basic and Applied Sciences. (I'm guessing this is not a surprise to anyone.)

My question, then, is this: Is this a conversation that is going on at your university and in your department? If so, what kinds of ideas are you all looking at in order to improve retention? Have you implemented any new policies, procedures, programs, etc.? If so, can you tell yet whether or not they are working?

One of the things I've noticed is that some schools are starting to offer "accelerated BA/MA" programs in which students can complete a bachelor's and a master's in five years of study by double-dipping in their senior year. Does your school have one of these programs? How is it working?

If anyone has any suggestions for me as to where I can find people talking about these kinds of things, I'd welcome any information you have. I've checked places like the Journal of Higher Education, the American Historical Association, and various other areas, and I'm just really not finding anyone talking about this. I'm kind of at my wits' end. So, thank you all in advance.

Greatings a_a,

I am a PhD student in science education at an R1 university. Recent developments have forced me to change my dissertation topic and graduate a year earlier than I was planning. Although I am excited at the chance to finally stop being a student, I am also nervous, as my CV is not as full as I had planned on it being had I been able to stay the extra year. Thus, I pose a question. Several friends in my department have told me that, once you gain employment, you can only move laterally or down, but not up. This worries me, as I feel that my experience and qualifications are not as numerous as they could be. I have posted on this discussion board before, and was told that I would be lucky to get a job, let alone one that was top tier. Yet, I pose this question to you despite the sarcastic responses I know this will ultimately get me because I will be the sole breadwinner for my household and we have a new baby to support. My options are as follows:

1. Don't worry about this, stop being a brat, and apply to any position you can. Good things come to those that suffer. You can always try for another position later.
2. You will not be able to apply to any position higher than the one you initially get. Cross your fingers and toes, pray to whatever spaghetti monster you believe in, and find a job.
3. Delay my graduation another year at great personal cost (I don't want to go into this right now, but the tl;dr version is, my wife is miserable and needs to leave her job, which requires me having one.
4. Other. Please leave suggestions in the comments below.

So, disinguished academics and colleagues, what should I do?

NLRB asks for briefs in Point Park University's long dispute with teachers in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is worth a read for everyone interested in getting faculty organized at colleges and universities across the U.S. It's a tough battle, to say the least.

Dear all,

Just a quick advice question from a long-time lurker, new academic. I'm a first-year doctoral student at a UK university in a humanities field. During the viva voce examination for my earlier master's this summer at that same university, the external examiner (an academic I particularly admire and respect) was quite kind about two shorter pieces of coursework I'd done and suggested that they might be a good fit for a particular specialized journal in my field.

As I edit the first one, I'm wondering two things
-The cover letter - should I mention that I was encouraged to submit to X journal by Y professor, or would this be seen as obnoxious and name-droppy?

-Translation issues. My (literary/theological) article deals with two texts, one in the original French, one in the translated English (from Russian). I was advised by my supervisor to deal with them both in translation (the journal I'm submitting to is neither a French- or Russian-specific journal); I've thus used a published translation for the French novel I'm working on, noting the original French or supplying my own translation (noted) when the English translation proved insufficient, as well as for the Russian. Am I doing the right thing here, or should I be providing both Russian and French in the original?

Sometime in the past thirty years, I've read a short story by an American writer that's about a male college instructor teaching a night class at a big-city college, technical school, or university. It might have been by Bernard Malamud, might have been by Stanley Elkin, or perhaps by another author of the 1940s-1960s. It did not paint a cheerful portrait, but offered at least a bit of ironic humor. I'm pretty certain it played some role in causing me to avoid teaching for several years. Any ideas about the title and author?

I am not going to hang out here for too long because I am studying for my final. I have a question about my final and if people are lying to me about it. The TA for the class told me and my lab partner "watch out for professor --'s final" I said "Are the questions taken from the earlier exams?" TA said "no". I asked the professor and the professor said "the final will include questions that are similar or the same to the exams". Is he trying to fucking trick me? What should I do? 

Question for those of you who have published books with academic publishers - what was the extent of permission(s) required by your publisher, and how much did they run on average?  A friend is submitting her first book soon, and she's getting permission from every source cited in the text (in the field of English, for what it's worth, concerning 20th century lit from a variety of mainstream fiction and academic texts, mostly all still in copyright).  She has 70 sources: so far, the two who've gotten back to her have wanted $30 a pop.

Even my English-major math skills indicate a rough cost of 2K, if this is average.  So ... do all authors pay 2K out of pocket?  Do most publishers reimburse?  Am I missing something? 

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to announce the formation of Summer Academic Working Groups for the 2012 season. Summer Academic Working Groups (SAWG) are clusters of academics working in related fields or on related topics who agree to exchange work in progress and feedback on a regular basis during the unstructured summer months. Participants often find that the deadlines provided by such a group are at least as valuable to their summer productivity as the feedback itself.

Participation is open to academics of all levels and disciplines, and there is no charge to participate. More information and the registration form are available at http://lpowner.jayandleanne.com/sawg.

Please feel free to circulate this announcement widely.

After submitting a paper to a journal, when should you expect to hear back?  Is there a generally accepted timeframe for (humanities) journals?

I know - this is a real newbie question, but I checked the "journals" tag and didn't see anything relevant - I hope that one of you will take pity on me.  I'm a MA student so I'm new to all this.  

Background: I submitted recently, but I'm just wondering what to expect.  It is a film-related journal in the Humanities field, and no, their website doesn't give any clue as to timeframe, nor does googling their name + relevant keywords yield anything.

Hi all.

I find myself nearing my comprehensive exams, assembling pieces of my dissertation and working on a half-dozen articles and reviews. As such, I need to find a better method for backing up my work, notes and chapters. I'm using an older external hard drive but am running out of space. Now that they are more affordable I'd like to get something better. Any suggestions on brands/models? I'd like to keep it under $100 and aim for 1 terabyte if possible.

Similarly, I'm trying to develop a better method for backing my work up at regular intervals. I don't want to over-write materials, but continue to compile them bi-weekly. Having a larger external hard drive will be helpful, but how does one go about such a thing? A full backup? Backing up only the documents you are trying to keep? Re-naming folders and dating them painstakingly? Any recommendations/experiences would be great!

Thanks in advance.

thought y'all might enjoy what one of our colleagues out there is up to :)

Hi Folks,

It has been a few years since I posted here last. Some old timers might remember my original posts which related a tale about student A, student B, and a problematic professor. And pants. Or, more to the point, no pants.

Short story: I recently won my lawsuit. It was a horrible ordeal. But I won because, not only did I tell the truth, but in the discovery process it came out that the professor had done the same - and in some cases worse - at *at least* three previous schools. My school simply didn't call his references. One institution told my lawyer that they wished my school had called them, because they had quite a lot to say about the professor/perpetrator.

I did want to say thanks very much to the A_A community for providing helpful advice and support when I was just beginning the process of making my formal complaint against the professor.

But what I'm really here for is to ask for your collective point of view regarding laws and policies when it comes to HR, claims and investigations of sexual harassment, and what can and should be changed, and how. Yes, I know that's kind of broad....

This is not an idle request. I have a conference with the District Attorney soon. This was part of the settlement agreement. I have some suggestions for the state which should help them avoid loosing another lawsuit like mine. I will share with the DA a few thoughts on policy, ethics, and what can and should be changed on campuses across the state. So I am coming to you folks now because I want to hear your thoughts also.

My hope is to begin to change law, policy, and attitudes at the institutional level. I know that's a difficult and maybe even too idealistic goal. But it has to start somewhere.

Hi guys, I am an undergrad. In my physics midterm I scored 66% on my exam  and the grade turned out to be 83. Is that a really good/bad curve? Please explain this to me. I feel like the teacher gives us extra points cause he wants to be popular. 

Hey A_A,

I'll be applying for jobs next year in education/humanities departments at R1 universities. I've also got some R2As and R2Bs on my list, since there are some good schools in this category. My question to you all is, how likely is it that I could get a job at an R2, then eventually move to an R1? Do I need to get an R1 job right out of the degree to work at an R1 in my life, or is an R2 university a legitimate stepping stone? Any advice you all can give me would be greatly appreciated :)

P.S. I know that the whole R1, R2A, R2B thing is outdated, but the Chronicle uses this rating system and so does everyone in my department.