Are you on the tenure track?  Or, are you considered a "contingent faculty" member?  The statistics are scary: In 2005, 68% of the professoriate were NOT on the tenure track.  In today's podcast, Jason and I discuss an AAUO Online letter he received on October 22, 2007 from the American Association of University Professors in addition to a related article from the NY Times about the decline of the tenure track.

AAUP Online Snippet:
This message celebrates an anniversary: a year ago the AAUP adopted its most detailed and specific set of recommended institutional regulations governing part-time faculty positions. That action followed upon an extensive series of AAUP reports about the changing state of faculty appointments. The reports themselves, the first appearing in 1980, were written in response to thirty years of gradually increasing use of contingent faculty throughout American higher education.

In 1975, tenured and tenure-track faculty together constituted 57 percent of faculty nationwide. By 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, that combined group had been whittled down to merely 32 percent. Contingent faculty had meanwhile grown from 43 percent to 68 percent of the professoriate. You can help us raise awareness of these dramatic changes by printing out a bar graph recording them  and putting it on your office door. 

The term “contingent faculty� itself reflects our awareness that several groups of teachers—including part-timers, full-timers off the tenure-track, and graduate employees who teach well beyond the needs of their own training—endure overlapping forms of exploitation and present comparable risks to higher education. We have warned repeatedly that the excessive employment of faculty without job security would eventually undermine both academic freedom and shared governance. That time has arrived. When most faculty are at risk of summary dismissal, the freedom for faculty to speak forthrightly is diminished. And faculty control over the curriculum is also undercut.

AAUP Website: www.aaup.org

The New York Times article information:

Have you ever felt like an imposter?  Surprisingly, the majority of us have at one time or another in our professional career and is the primary theme of this episode.

Articles cited:

Your Not Fooling Anyone by John Gravois
The Faculty section, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 9, 2007 issue

A Class Traitor in Academe by Thomas H. Benton
An Academic in America column, Careers Section, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 9, 2007 issue

Should I Move On?
Ms. Mentor Column, Careers Section, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 9, 2007 issue

This week's Fight Song

Until next time, we'll see you around the academy!

In this week's podcast, Jason and I discuss how much is too much when being revealing (of information).
"Between You and Me," by David D. Perlmutter
Chronicle Careers, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2nd issue
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i10/10c00201.htm

I then get worked up about the Point of View article by Daniel Grant and Jason calms me down and helps me see other perspectives.  See if you can hear, midway through this conversation, when my agitation suddenly disappeared.
"How Educated Must an Artist Be?" by Daniel Grant
Point of View, The Chronicle Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2nd issue
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i10/10b02401.htm

This week's fight song is courtesy of
http://fightmusic.com/

 In Podcast #14, Jason and I discuss two items--

"How am I doing?" From the Faculty section of the October 26, 2007 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i09/09a01001.htm

Animal-Rights Militants Vandalize UCLA Researcher's House

Chronicle Article: http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/10/548n.htm

UCLA information on vandalism: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/targeted-ucla-scientist-speaks-40153.aspx

The Santa Ana winds (or Santana winds, depending upon your preference regarding the origination of the name) and the fires caused some excitement midway through this episode--I lost power for a few minutes.  But we regrouped and continued on with our discussion of Into the Unknown by Max Clio from the Careers section of The Chronicle's October 19th issue.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i08/08c00201.htm

For episode #12, Jason and I discuss the following articles:

From the New York Times:

"Student Editor Keeps His Job, But Is Warned About Ethics"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/business/media/08college.html?ref=education

"On Education: Exploring Ways to Shorten the Ascent to a Ph.D."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/education/03education.html?ex=1192593600&en=bc5e7f4acea94fcb&ei=5070


From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Chronicle Careers-First Person: Too Many Bad Apples
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i07/07c00101.htm

Chronicle Careers-Ms. Mentor: Don't Teach So Close to Me
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i07/07c00301.htm

And the fight song of the week is courtesy of fightmusic.com
http://fightmusic.com/mp3/mwc/Colorado_State__CSU_Fight_Song.mp3

In today's show, I introduce my podcast co-host Jason Curtis, Associate Professor of Biology at Purdue, North Central.

We talk about the following articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Our experiences and views of strategic planning as it relates to Vision for Excellence http://chronicle.com/subscribe/login?url=/weekly/v54/i06/06a02601.htm

and the related article Blue Sky
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i06/06a02701.htm

We also talk about the perception people outside of the academy have of professor's work habits and 5 Reasons Politicians Hate Us
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i06/06c00301.htm

And we talk a little bit about emergency notification in relation to After Virgina Tech, Campus Rush to Add Alert Systems
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i06/06a00103.htm

The fight song of the week was obtained at
http://www.purdue.edu/Bands/news/scrapbook/aamb/HailPurdue.mp3

As often happens in Los Angeles, the show is on a short hiatus for retooling.  When we come back, I should have a co-host.

Today's podcast features two articles. 

The first article, University Fences in a Berkeley Protest and a New One Arises is from the New York Times September 13th edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/education/13trees.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin

The second article is Second Thoughts About Second Life from the Careers  section of the September 14th edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/09/2007091401c/careers.html

The music played was The Big C and Hail to Cal Fan-Lights Out from the Berkeley Band website: http://www.calband.berkeley.edu/calband/media/calsongs/fight.html

and
Sons of Westwood (the UCLA version of The Big C) from College Fight Song Music: http://www.fightmusic.com/big10.html

And just for fun because I could hear the UCLA band practicing in the afternoons from my office:
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Today's Around The Academy Podcast focuses on the University of Southern California's Trojans Alert mass notification system.

Websites cited include:
Trojans Alert homepage: https://trojansalert.usc.edu

USC's Trojans Alert news release: http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/14138.html

Los Angeles Times article College checklist: laptop, backpack, security plan http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-secure4sep04,1,5720052.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

E2Campus homepage: http://www.e2campus.com/

In Podcast #8, I highlight information about faculty from the recently published Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac (including, of course, full-time faculty salaries!).

http://chronicle.com/free/almanac/2007/

This week's podcast focuses on two articles from the August 17th edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The first article is the Right to Romance
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i50/50a00801.htm

The second article is an essay by Fred L. Pincus entitled "On the Other Side of the Podium"
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i50/50b00701.htm

Today's podcast highlights three articles:

The first one is Ready for Our Close-Up by Jeffrey J. Williams from the July 27th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i47/47b00901.htm

The second and third articles are combined in one segment.  The second article is Why Millions Are Living Virtual Lives Online from Newsweek/MSNBC.com.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19876812/site/newsweek/

The third article is The Death of a Virtual Campus from the July 13th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i45/45a02202.htm

Today's podcast touches on two items. 

The first item is from the July 27th edition of The Chronicle.  It is a "Point of View" essay by Mark Rahdert entitled The Roberts Court and Academic Freedom.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i47/47b01601.htm

The second item is a Chronicle First Person essay, If Your Syllabus Could Talk, by Monica D'Antonio.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/07/2007071901c/careers.html

This episode focuses on only one item: Gary Olson's article in the Head's Up Column of the July 13th edition of The Chronicle entitled "Let's Just Do Our Jobs."

http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=q4ByJswnqKrxzzcrYyncFM5HZMyh9DVq

Please see the shownotes at http://www.newprofessormentor.com/aroundtheacademy

Episode #2

In this episode, I discuss the UC Riverside cancellation of the commencement exercises due to threats.

I then talk about Murray Sperber's First Person essay in The Chronicle.  http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i42/42c00101.htm

Credential Creep is next http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i42/42a01001.htm

and finally
How Much is the Doggie in the Classroom
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i39/39b00501.htm

Welcome to the first episode of Around the Academy! 

Today's episode features three topics:
Community Colleges
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20C16FE345B0C718EDDAD0894DF404482



How to Cut Cost of College Texts from the Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0604/p15s01-legn.html

and

You Will Be Tested on This from the Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i40/40a01401.htm