home cooked theory

Smart choices

Thanks so much to New Matilda for publishing this piece just before the conference. I tried to crystallize some of the things mentioned here in recent days and months.
See you on Thursday, I hope!

Related reading #SOI09

With thanks to Tammi and Jen…
The RED Report: The contribution of sessional teachers to higher education, Australian Learning and Teaching Council, 2008
From the introduction, by Professor Rob Castle, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic and International), University of Wollongong:
To maintain for permanent staff the ideal of being teaching and research academics, we have had to rely on [...]

10 things graduate students want

Over the past few months panelists for the SOI conference have been meeting and sharing plans for what they will present in their allotted time at the beginning of each session. The conference format is not the traditional paper-giving mode, but rather an open discussion with the audience following a series of provocations from invited [...]

Final stretch

It’s getting close… here is the official poster for next month’s State of the Industry conference (also available as a .pdf here). Thanks go to Clif for the design and imagery. We loved the idea of the fading glamour of the fun park and also the rollercoaster symbolising the highs and lows of the academic [...]

In unity

**We urgently need billets for the State of the Industry conference. There has been an amazing response from young interstate scholars wanting to come, and we’ve funded airfares for everyone we could, but some people won’t attend if they can’t get accommodation. Please let me know if you can offer a bed or a couch.**
Taking [...]

Active campuses

It’s great to see two big campaigns hitting campuses at the moment. Today’s rally for international students is a great initiative that deserves serious attention. We hear a lot about the value of the international student market to the national economy, which is why Julia Gillard is overseas right now at her most eloquent. But [...]

Overload

Think your job is bad? Read this. Overload reports on “the role of work-volume escalation and micro-management of academic work patterns in loss of morale and collegiality at UWS.”
Apart from highlighting the inadequacies of workload formulae across every level of academic life, it’s also one of the best reports I’ve read showing the [...]

Professional precarity, 1

This is a note to self, and to anyone who didn’t catch Mark Bousquet’s recent post on professionalism and academia. It really highlights how the sacrificial labour of academics helped to make voluntary labour commonplace beyond the campus, in turn contributing to a broader deterioration of professional status that can no longer be rewarded financially [...]

Published!

The opinion piece referred to previously is in the Higher Ed section of The Australian today. The print version has a very cute cartoon alongside with a sandstone tower and a book as the draw bridge. The young girl struggling to cross the moat bears an uncanny resemblance to my grad school self. I’m [...]

Design help

The State of the Industry conference needs a poster to advertise itself. We can guarantee exposure!
If you or anyone you know might be willing to offer an idea, please get in touch. So far the organising committee has been thinking a hallway image would be good. I think this could help symbolise how the themes [...]

keep looking »