The academic life

I look for new colleagues who will keep the job

This entry is a bit slice-of-academic-life and a bit perspective for doctoral students who want to be faculty at research universities. As a division director (and department chair at my last university), I have never directly hired tenure-track faculty but have always had significant advice for the deans I’ve reported to, and my experience leads […]

An immodest proposal for conference organizing

Yesterday, my 15,000 closest colleagues and I received an email from the meeting staff of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), telling us that the schedule for the April meeting would be set six weeks before the meeting itself. The meeting is five days long, and attendees with presentations currently have no idea when they’ll be obligated to be in Toronto. Meanwhile, could we please register and set up hotel reservations?

Some curriculum vitae matters

Fall is a perfect time for grad students to brush up a vitae. This entry began as a (very long) Twitter thread in summer, but after Phoenix temperatures declined from 115 F. to 102 F., it’s time for hot cider and editing. Terminology

A note on the old archive

After more than 8 years, I have deleted the old MovableType archive. You can still find them at https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.shermandorn.com/mt

Image from the old Comedy Central The Colbert Report, "The Word" segment, with "Children" as the title.

Dorn vs. Oliver

In May 2015, more than three years ago, the major segment of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight focused on standardized testing. Eighteen minutes is a lifetime on television, and in his segment Oliver argued that testing was not worth the pain or money. Critics in education policy world responded with serious quibbles, because I guess then we […]