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Past practice and other arcane collective-bargaining matters

Now that the spring semester is over, it’s time for me to catch up on a bunch of reading. In the current-higher-ed-commentary genre, I just finished Matt Reed’s Confessions of a Community College Administrator, and am looking forward to Jeff Selingo’s College (Un)bound, which came out this week. I thoroughly enjoyed Reed’s book, though I […]

Semester debriefing

We’re at the end of the semester here at USF, and this is a short debriefing of the semester. My particular form of craziness this semester was teaching three courses while serving as department chair. Technically, I was teaching four sections of our undergraduate Schools and Society course, but two of them met in the […]

The quadruple face-palm and academic freedom

Sports Reporter #1: Here comes Florida Atlantic associate professor Jim Tracy, just off his triple face-palm asserting a conspiracy over the Sandy Hook shootings. Sports Reporter #2: Let’s see what he does here. Tracy is relatively new to high visibility academic nuttery, at least at this level of competition. #1: Tracy looks at the timekeeper, […]

Paper deadlines and grace periods

For some years now, I have been giving undergraduate students a 24-hour “grace period” after the formal deadline for papers. If a student is trying to upload a paper five minutes before a deadline and the student loses her internet connection, I don’t need the hassle of making a decision on where to give extensions, […]

Transitions: new job

The email I just sent to my colleagues at the University of South Florida: Dear colleagues, I wish to take the opportunity this afternoon to thank all of you for your collegiality and friendship over the years, which means a great deal as I transition to my new role at the Cushing College of Wilhuff […]