Just wrote in an email that the worst part of academia is when my breaks from school don’t line up with my kid’s. I wrote it flippantly, but I don’t think I’m too far off.

Today’s the day tenure takes effect; time to change my business cards, email signature, and CV.

I don’t know if anything makes me angrier about my profession than when a student apologizes that there’s been a death in their family at a busy time of the semester. What have we as professors done to make students feel like they have to apologize for and justify their grief?

One of my academic pet peeves is when people use the word rigor as a validating synonym for something else, like “quantitative” or “giving out lots of Cs.” Rigor is important, but narrow definitions aren’t useful.

Dreamt this morning that I was applying for PhD programs. It wasn’t until dream-me began reviewing my research record that I remembered that I already have a PhD and am actually applying for tenure right now.