Unfortunately!
Just got a contact from someone denied around the new year. In my case it was right around Christmas (and also my wedding anniversary). So I know how it feels.
I'm back, in touch again, and still trying to keep an eye on this blog. Send me something or write a comment.
People are still viewing, even though there are no new posts. At least that is what Google's statistics are telling me. Very low numbers of course, but each year going up a bit more.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Hello, world
Once again, wondering if anyone is around. I am amazed that I was able to even re-connect with this thing. Suprisingly, when I looked at page views, from beginning of time till now, even though of course the numbers are very low, they clearly trend up. So I will keep it around for a while.
If you are going through a tenure denial, email me (not that I can do anything!). I promise total discretion, though you can also guarantee that by contacting through a burner email account
If you are going through a tenure denial, email me (not that I can do anything!). I promise total discretion, though you can also guarantee that by contacting through a burner email account
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Anybody around?
I said I would monitor the email for this blog but I have to admit I have neglected it. However, statistics show there are still a non-trivial amount of pageviews happening. Or maybe not, I don't know.
At any rate, I would love to hear from anyone, you can send email if you don't want to comment on the blog, dead_professor@hotmail.com.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Congressman's shooting and relationship (if any) to current political situation
It has been a while. I didn't know if I would ever come back to this blog. I have not received any emails or contacts so I assume no one has been reading. I made an effort to reach out to other people who have been denied tenure and while I am grateful for the few replies and comments I did receive, it appears that this it just not the platform for doing this.
But, I have a blog set up. And it is pseudo-anonymized. I'm sure that anyone who really wanted to find out my identity could but really, is it that important? Perhaps a more real issue is how I personally feel about anonymous content on the web. In general I'm against it. But I felt that in this case there was value to be gained, because tenure denial is such an enormous stigma, people who've been through it often never speak of it again.
Again, I have this blog set up. So I might post occasionally if things cross my mind that I find myself wanting to write about. Since the tenure-denial thing seems to be pretty much dead material now, I might post on other topics too.
Which brings me to the shootings this weekend, of whom the primary target apparently was Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, but there were many other victims as well. This event, and the political discussion around it, reminds me of the Amy Bishop story. Again, the same issues are being laboriously batted back and forth, in this case in the setting the current left-right political wars. And it surprises me how dense people are sometimes. Especially, right now, those on the left for, first, jumping too fast to try to make political gain out of this, and second, not being careful enough in their attacks.
We've been over this again and again. No reasonable person would EVER seriously think that something like Sarah Palin's crosshairs led directly to this shooting. Of COURSE NOT! (Yes, I'm yelling). Those of you on the right with your aggrieved victim poses I can see you all now. Or hear you, in advance, because I have listened to thousands of hours of right wing political talk radio.
BUT, to completely deny that the underlying rightwing political attacks had NO bearing, that is insane. What the left needs to attack, at a time like this, is not the event itself (the killings) but the things that the right is still now currently saying. They do say that we (the left) are borderline traitors, that we hate America, that our main aim is for bad things to happen to this country. They do say that we are implicitly murderers for supporting abortion. They do say that we are Godless and work to destroy Christianity. You need only turn on the radio to hear these things.
Those are the things that should be attacked at a time like this.
In fact, the best option, in terms or political warfare, at a time like this, is to publicly very scrupulously absolve the right from any direct, immediate blame. That kind of position, in the long run, gains you traction, especially since they would never do the same thing on their side. But, I still have a hard time convincing my liberal friends of this.
But, I have a blog set up. And it is pseudo-anonymized. I'm sure that anyone who really wanted to find out my identity could but really, is it that important? Perhaps a more real issue is how I personally feel about anonymous content on the web. In general I'm against it. But I felt that in this case there was value to be gained, because tenure denial is such an enormous stigma, people who've been through it often never speak of it again.
Again, I have this blog set up. So I might post occasionally if things cross my mind that I find myself wanting to write about. Since the tenure-denial thing seems to be pretty much dead material now, I might post on other topics too.
Which brings me to the shootings this weekend, of whom the primary target apparently was Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, but there were many other victims as well. This event, and the political discussion around it, reminds me of the Amy Bishop story. Again, the same issues are being laboriously batted back and forth, in this case in the setting the current left-right political wars. And it surprises me how dense people are sometimes. Especially, right now, those on the left for, first, jumping too fast to try to make political gain out of this, and second, not being careful enough in their attacks.
We've been over this again and again. No reasonable person would EVER seriously think that something like Sarah Palin's crosshairs led directly to this shooting. Of COURSE NOT! (Yes, I'm yelling). Those of you on the right with your aggrieved victim poses I can see you all now. Or hear you, in advance, because I have listened to thousands of hours of right wing political talk radio.
BUT, to completely deny that the underlying rightwing political attacks had NO bearing, that is insane. What the left needs to attack, at a time like this, is not the event itself (the killings) but the things that the right is still now currently saying. They do say that we (the left) are borderline traitors, that we hate America, that our main aim is for bad things to happen to this country. They do say that we are implicitly murderers for supporting abortion. They do say that we are Godless and work to destroy Christianity. You need only turn on the radio to hear these things.
Those are the things that should be attacked at a time like this.
In fact, the best option, in terms or political warfare, at a time like this, is to publicly very scrupulously absolve the right from any direct, immediate blame. That kind of position, in the long run, gains you traction, especially since they would never do the same thing on their side. But, I still have a hard time convincing my liberal friends of this.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Why do college tenure committees always attract such assholes?
It's been a while. Nice to hear from several of you. The whole Amy Bishop tenure-denial/shooting thing continues to burn, but now is simmering down. It's funny to read story after story about how oh no tenure had nothing to do with it, tenure needs to be abolished (the right-wing types there mainly), her research wasn't good enough anyhow, it all happened last year, etc. etc. She was a homicidal nut yes we all concede that. Not your normal kind of person. People everyday deal with far worse than tenure denial and never go off on shooting sprees. Of course, conceded, yes, I agree. But to pretend the denial was not a factor, I just don't get that. Everyone, even in the educational community (e.g. the blogs on Insidehighered, the Chronicle, etc.) seems to want to go to extremes to minimize the tenure-denial (possible) contribution. I keep adding links to my delicous tag related to this story--well up in the high 30s in links now--and most of those entries have a similar theme.
But let's move on for the time being at least. Blogger user mmusgrove writes in a comment on this blog:
Another corollary of this is that when you look at smaller colleges, then the department often does not have ANY official role, other than to help the candidate prepare the documents and write supporting letters. That was my situation. There was no actual vote in my department, it was not an actual official part of the process. As such, the college level committee came to have much more importance.
The thing is I can remember having this sense going way back, before I was even in a tenure-track position. You'd meet faculty members and the nice ones, the reasonable ones, you'd find out they were always on the library committee or the athletics committee, or something like that. The raging assholes always somehow find a home on the tenure committee.
This is part of a more general phenomenon, IMO. I've always said (humorously--mainly!) that you have to watch professors always when you deal with them. They can seem nice on the outside, but inside most professors is a hidden wellspring of bitterness and retribution that can come out at unexpected times. I don't know if I was that way when I was a professor. I hope not. But then again the system selected me out.
But let's move on for the time being at least. Blogger user mmusgrove writes in a comment on this blog:
I got through the process successfully at the new job, but I still can't look closely at the process. I can't read anyone else's dossier, for example.This is a statement I can very much agree with. Even though I did not make it through my second tenure application, I could see that if I had made it, it would have been very difficult to serve on a P&T committee. I imagine I'd be overly generous by way of compensation, knowing the living hell that awaits those flushed out of the system. But--therein lies the problem. There is a self-selection effect for college tenure committees. Those people who have actual human emotions and sympathy tend to select themselves out of the process. Or they are selected out by their peers. This then leads to a preponderance of assholes on the college committee. I don't think it happens as much at the department level. At that level there is a enough forced sharing around of responsibilities that there is at least a chance that you might get someone with actual humanity involved occasionally. At the college level, it is usually an elected position. Someone has to say to themselves "Ya, I WANT to do that."
Another corollary of this is that when you look at smaller colleges, then the department often does not have ANY official role, other than to help the candidate prepare the documents and write supporting letters. That was my situation. There was no actual vote in my department, it was not an actual official part of the process. As such, the college level committee came to have much more importance.
The thing is I can remember having this sense going way back, before I was even in a tenure-track position. You'd meet faculty members and the nice ones, the reasonable ones, you'd find out they were always on the library committee or the athletics committee, or something like that. The raging assholes always somehow find a home on the tenure committee.
This is part of a more general phenomenon, IMO. I've always said (humorously--mainly!) that you have to watch professors always when you deal with them. They can seem nice on the outside, but inside most professors is a hidden wellspring of bitterness and retribution that can come out at unexpected times. I don't know if I was that way when I was a professor. I hope not. But then again the system selected me out.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
A positive suggestion about tenure denial--not much, but better than nothing
Sorry, I had forgotten to post this. It came up in an email exchange....
There is not much that can be done to help the tenure system; it is what it is, but from my point of view, I would have appreciated some access to confidential, free, *independent* counseling. I have toyed with sending something to my most recent school's HR officer and suggesting that. The key is that it has to be set up so as to be clearly completely independent from the institution, free, and (very important) untraceable, so the candidates family etc. do not have to find out. It's pretty hard to arrange such a service--I know of no institution which does--but it might have helped me if I had that opportunity to at least unload my troubles with a neutral observer.
The biggest problem about it (being denied) ultimately, and this is why I started the blog, is that if you plan to get on with your life you learn that you have to stop talking about it, you have to do all you can to hide the whole event, or at least obscure it to the casual outside observer. It could have helped me (a little) if I had had access to clearly independent counseling. It's not much, I know, but better than nothing.
There is not much that can be done to help the tenure system; it is what it is, but from my point of view, I would have appreciated some access to confidential, free, *independent* counseling. I have toyed with sending something to my most recent school's HR officer and suggesting that. The key is that it has to be set up so as to be clearly completely independent from the institution, free, and (very important) untraceable, so the candidates family etc. do not have to find out. It's pretty hard to arrange such a service--I know of no institution which does--but it might have helped me if I had that opportunity to at least unload my troubles with a neutral observer.
The biggest problem about it (being denied) ultimately, and this is why I started the blog, is that if you plan to get on with your life you learn that you have to stop talking about it, you have to do all you can to hide the whole event, or at least obscure it to the casual outside observer. It could have helped me (a little) if I had had access to clearly independent counseling. It's not much, I know, but better than nothing.
Again: the voices of tenure denial
Thanks for the input in the last few days. I appreciate the comments and emails.
I am indebted to Glen McGhee for pointing out the 1952 essay by Erving Goffman, "On Cooling the Mark Out." I intend to post more in depth about this essay (and the many related essays it spawned) at a later date
I don't intend to just be a firebrand or encourage people to storm the barricades. I created this blog because I wanted a place for people to be able to TALK about tenure denial, theirs and others. I found it was very hard to find any avenue in my life to do this. But I'm way past fighting the battle over again at this point.
It is the nature of the Internet that people vie for exposure in a developing story. I certainly have seen this in the last few days with the UAH shooting story. Without (I hope) being gratuitous about it I'll admit that I was moved to post my comments, and right away, because I hoped that this blog might get picked up in the overall noise surrounding that story. That has to some extent happened, which is good as now I know that at least a few people have read some of the posts!
But I repeat my invitation---share your stories. I want to hear them. I will gladly post them here. I'm all about keeping anonymity (to the extent that that is possible nowadays on the Web). Send me more, either by email or comments. I'd like to see some multiple perspectives.
I am indebted to Glen McGhee for pointing out the 1952 essay by Erving Goffman, "On Cooling the Mark Out." I intend to post more in depth about this essay (and the many related essays it spawned) at a later date
I don't intend to just be a firebrand or encourage people to storm the barricades. I created this blog because I wanted a place for people to be able to TALK about tenure denial, theirs and others. I found it was very hard to find any avenue in my life to do this. But I'm way past fighting the battle over again at this point.
It is the nature of the Internet that people vie for exposure in a developing story. I certainly have seen this in the last few days with the UAH shooting story. Without (I hope) being gratuitous about it I'll admit that I was moved to post my comments, and right away, because I hoped that this blog might get picked up in the overall noise surrounding that story. That has to some extent happened, which is good as now I know that at least a few people have read some of the posts!
But I repeat my invitation---share your stories. I want to hear them. I will gladly post them here. I'm all about keeping anonymity (to the extent that that is possible nowadays on the Web). Send me more, either by email or comments. I'd like to see some multiple perspectives.
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