Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Ideally, yes. Maybe not at BU, but yes, I do. (Family reasons largely preclude me from making major changes right now - 8 more years and my youngest should be done with higher ed. 5-6 more years of Batshit treatment, and I think I will be able start looking for something / somewhere different).
EC1, I know that batshit treatment is no fun, but, if I may shove my oar in here, it sounds as if you've had a stable position while your children are growing up, which is a blessing. We made four major moves (which included two foreign countries) between the time our older child was born and the time the second one started college. None of them were voluntary; all of them were about chasing the next academic job when the previous one ceased to exist. It has made all of us unhappy, in different ways. At this point, with both children long out of college and on their own, Mr. Penny and I would love nothing more than to return to the US, but unless you're a gigantic superstar you rarely get hired in academia if you're over 60. We're pretty much resigned to staying where we are until we can afford to retire (hah!).
If you do start searching, best of luck. May you find exactly what you need!
Thanks for the kind words, Penny. I am truly fortunate and aware of it. (And let me also confirm that I am in no way a gigantic superstar). I’ll be in my early 50s when the youngest is done with higher ed, so a move isn’t completely pie in the sky.
I think there is always a gap between what a department – or instructor – could achieve for the students, and what is actually achieved. What hurts me about BU is that its policies systemically make this gap into something like a chasm. In the early days of the program I am in, we were left alone (common practice at BU) and the students from those days excelled. Now the program is embedded it’s just meddle, meddle, meddle and it never helps the students in any way, and usually hinders them.
I’ll be fine, and my kids will, too, but I’m not big on “I'm alright, Jack” ways of thinking.
BU management are all somewhat from elite backgrounds, and struggle to imagine that the families of the students might not have the same level of privilege. It makes the gap between what we could and actually do achieve much worse, imo.
EC1, I hear you about the meddling. We've seen the exact same pattern in the university where Mr. Penny now teaches, which is not in the US but follows the American liberal-arts model. In his earlier years here, he had considerable leeway and was able to create two new degree programs within his department, starting from almost nothing. More recently he's been strangled by administrative creep, in terms of both procedures and budget. The current president is from a non-academic background (which is an outrage in itself), and doesn't always understand how things work. Everyone agrees that the students are getting the short end of the stick—often in ways that would be completely avoidable if the administrative strictures were just relaxed a bit.
Ideally, yes. Maybe not at BU, but yes, I do.
ReplyDelete(Family reasons largely preclude me from making major changes right now - 8 more years and my youngest should be done with higher ed. 5-6 more years of Batshit treatment, and I think I will be able start looking for something / somewhere different).
EC1, I know that batshit treatment is no fun, but, if I may shove my oar in here, it sounds as if you've had a stable position while your children are growing up, which is a blessing. We made four major moves (which included two foreign countries) between the time our older child was born and the time the second one started college. None of them were voluntary; all of them were about chasing the next academic job when the previous one ceased to exist. It has made all of us unhappy, in different ways. At this point, with both children long out of college and on their own, Mr. Penny and I would love nothing more than to return to the US, but unless you're a gigantic superstar you rarely get hired in academia if you're over 60. We're pretty much resigned to staying where we are until we can afford to retire (hah!).
ReplyDeleteIf you do start searching, best of luck. May you find exactly what you need!
Thanks for the kind words, Penny. I am truly fortunate and aware of it. (And let me also confirm that I am in no way a gigantic superstar). I’ll be in my early 50s when the youngest is done with higher ed, so a move isn’t completely pie in the sky.
ReplyDeleteI think there is always a gap between what a department – or instructor – could achieve for the students, and what is actually achieved. What hurts me about BU is that its policies systemically make this gap into something like a chasm. In the early days of the program I am in, we were left alone (common practice at BU) and the students from those days excelled. Now the program is embedded it’s just meddle, meddle, meddle and it never helps the students in any way, and usually hinders them.
I’ll be fine, and my kids will, too, but I’m not big on “I'm alright, Jack” ways of thinking.
BU management are all somewhat from elite backgrounds, and struggle to imagine that the families of the students might not have the same level of privilege. It makes the gap between what we could and actually do achieve much worse, imo.
EC1, I hear you about the meddling. We've seen the exact same pattern in the university where Mr. Penny now teaches, which is not in the US but follows the American liberal-arts model. In his earlier years here, he had considerable leeway and was able to create two new degree programs within his department, starting from almost nothing. More recently he's been strangled by administrative creep, in terms of both procedures and budget. The current president is from a non-academic background (which is an outrage in itself), and doesn't always understand how things work. Everyone agrees that the students are getting the short end of the stick—often in ways that would be completely avoidable if the administrative strictures were just relaxed a bit.
ReplyDelete