Author: Steve Krause

I came across this article/call for diarists at the CHE. Basically, they’re looking for folks who have stories to tell about going on the job market in the coming year. To quote:

“If you have a flair for writing, here’s an opportunity to use it and get paid. We select about 10 diarists a year; each writes three to four columns over the course of the year about his or her job search. Besides doctoral students and Ph.D.’s who are looking for their first tenure-track job, we welcome submissions from other academics who plan to spend this year hunting for a new position, including adjunct faculty members, professors already tenured or on the tenure track, and administrators. If you are part of a dual-career academic couple, you are welcome to write a diary together.”

I dunno, maybe I should apply. I’m going to be on the job market in the coming year– NOT because I’m unhappy at EMU (though, as I’ve said to any number of people, EMU isn’t as good of a place to work as it was when I got here, largely because of folks like Kirkpatrick and the current Board of Regents) and NOT because I’m unhappy with the department I work. Sure, there are some problems, but by and large, I’m happy here, I would be more than willing to spend the rest of my academic career here, and I know PLENTY of people who are working in worst situations. And, last but far from least, I very much like living in the Ann Arbor area.

However:

* I’m one half of an academic couple (my wife is Annette Wannamaker) who is severely under-employed at EMU UPDATE: Annette is now an assistant professor, no longer under-employed, and we’re both darn happy about it. See her web site, http://people.emich.edu/awannamak ;

* Michigan has some major economic problems that are likely to impact places like EMU;

* While the Ann Arbor area is very cool, it is also extremely expensive; and

* I’m really interested in exploring the possibilities for associate positions at some schools (places that might mean a lateral move) and assistant positions at others (places that might mean a move up the “academic food chain”).

For lack of a better way of putting it: I’m happy now, but I’m interested in finding out if I could be happier.

Anyway, it sounds to me like I might be the “type” that CHE would be interested in. Plus, I like to think I have a “flair for writing.”

The down-side of doing something like this is additional work and putting myself “out there,” though in the tradition of CHE, I’d probably be anonymous. The up-side is I’ll bet CHE pays pretty well for these little diarist stories– or at least better than this blog pays…

It’s been about a week or so since I’ve made the shift to blogger, and I must say I’m beginning to have some regrets. There have been some minor things that were missing from blogger, things like categories, that I was willing to live with. But now blogger has done something weird with their software– or something.

I’m posting this message now from my Mac iBook G4, which is my “main computer” that I use for just about everything, including this blog stuff. But I’m using the awful Internet Exploder browser because it’s the only one that will work from my Mac, basically as of about last night. I tried to post to my unofficial blog with Safari, my browser of choice and the browser I had used previously to do my blogger stuff, and while it would post the title of my entry, it wouldn’t post anything in the body of my post.

This morning, I tried to do it in several other browsers– Netscape, Camino, Mozzilla, Firefox– and none of them worked. I did get a “javascript” error with the Camino browser though, which makes me think that blogger has done something that essentially screws over Mac users like me and/or people who would prefer to not use Internet Explorer.

Anyway, IE works for now, perhaps it is an issue with my computer I need to address, and/or if it really is a “system-wide” problem at blogger, I’m going to have to assume that this is something that will be fixed. But the situation does make me have my regrets about the migration.

A slight update:

It appears that my problems are the result of some “improvements” blogger is making. Oy Vey. Here’s a link to some info about it all on the blogger site, and here’s a link to the blog of the blogger engineer who is working on these “improvements.

Now, I have to say that while it pisses me off that blogger has pushed out a software “improvement” that flat-out doesn’t work on the mac (yet), I am impressed that the blogger/google folk seem willing to at least tell folks what’s going on (sort of), and they appear to be working to solve this problem. In other words, I have to say they seem to actually want to work with their customers (who aren’t really “customers” at all since no one pays for blogger, right?) in a way I didn’t see happening with Movable Type. If you didn’t pay for MT, you got zippo in terms of support.

Of course, all your settings didn’t change automatically either…

See datejesus.com. Be sure to check out the “bathe with Jesus” link. I found this from the Graham Norton Effect show on Comedy Central. Twisted ‘n funny.

This tidbit from The Onion was forwarded to me from a non-academic friend of mine:

“University Implicated in Checks-for-Degrees Scheme.” To quote the lead:

“The University of Michigan has become the 17th institution of higher learning to be implicated in the checks-for-degrees scandal rocking American campuses, representatives from the Department of Justice reported Tuesday.

“‘We have strong evidence that the University of Michigan granted academic degrees to students in exchange for hefty payments, often totaling tens of thousands of dollars,’ Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey said. “‘In the process, thousands of graduates have emerged with degrees, but few or no skills applicable to everyday life. And many are as unprepared to enter the job market as they were when they first enrolled.'”

And a bit later on in the article:

“‘A course in Chaucer can be a fascinating examination of medieval mores and the evolution of the English language,’ Comey said. ‘Such knowledge, however, has little application in larger society. Students can graduate with majors in creative writing, Latin, women’s studies, and history, yet still not know how to fix a sink, sew on a button, or even properly feed themselves.Virtually the only opportunity graduates have to apply their arcane knowledge takes place during discussions over coffee with their peers, or attempts to impress members of the opposite sex at parties.'”

See this article in the Ann Arbor News,“EMU not likely to be punished.” It’s a sort of “good news/bad news” piece, in my opinion. The good news is it is unlikely that the students, faculty, staff, and other folks at EMU who were victimized by this stupid house project will suffer punishment from the state in terms of funding cuts and the like. According to the article, “auditing officials said it is a difficult statute to enforce because universities receive state appropriations in a lump sum and control how they are distributed.

“‘It is a violation of the statute, but pragmatically, it’s difficult to track because appropriation funds may not be distinguished from any other revenue source once in the university’s hands,’ said Michael Becker, an administrator with the Auditor General’s Office.”

That’s good because the fear was that the state would use this as an excuse to slash our budget. Now it looks like they’ll need a different excuse (like the fact that Michigan is running a billion dollar deficit that has to be closed by October or something like that).

The bad news is that, apparently, the house debacle was no one’s fault. In a press conference on Tuesday, hillip Incarnati, chairman of the EMU Board of Regents basically said that no wrong-doing happened, he wishes the board had been better informed, but they weren’t and that’s that. And Incarnati also insists that Kirkpatrick’s resignation had nothing to do with the house:

“Asked if Kirkpatrick should have been fired due to the findings in the audit, Incarnati said he didn’t think that was appropriate. ‘What would you discharge someone for?’ Incarnati asked. ‘There was no violation of policy, and there was no usurping of authority.

“‘One might argue that from a board standpoint we would have liked to have known those alternative funds. Does that give rise to a termination?

“‘My opinion is that it does not, particularly when you look at all the other good that the university (experienced) during Dr. Kirkpatrick’s four years as university president.'”

Oh, another little tidbit from the article that I think is nice. The EMU administrative-types have been saying categorically since Tuesday that no student funds were used to pay for the house project. And yet as the newspaper article put it, “the audit states unequivocally: ‘The University House project did require the use of operating revenues, which are derived from student tuition and fees and state appropriations.’ About $3.7 million of the $5.3 million came from student tuition, fees and the state, according to the audit.”

So, just in case you’re keeping score with this, let me sum up:

* Kirkpatrick blows into town four years ago, and while everyone says he had nothing to do with the decision, suddenly the most important building project on EMU’s campus (and seemingly in the history of the institution) becomes this stupid house.

* This house cost WAY more money than the institution could afford even in the best of times, plus it is stupid-looking, grandiose and gaudy and bloated, a classless boob of a building behind a Walgreens off of the main drag through the county.

* It appears that it just sorta “happened.” It isn’t Kirkpatrick’s fault because the board of regents initiated the project, but it isn’t the board of regents fault because they were simply not informed of the cost over-runs.

Obviously, that’s a crock, and I think the fact that Incarnati is unwilling to take responsibility or even assign responsibility says a lot about him.

My only hope is that this passage from the article is also true:

“The audit will prompt a renewed push for a resolution calling on the eight EMU regents to resign, said Rep. Paul Gieleghem, D-Clinton Township, who introduced it last spring. The resolution was referred to the House Committee on Higher Education, and Tuesday Gieleghem submitted a written request to the chairman to take up the issue, he said.

“Gieleghem said he was against any effort to withhold state money from EMU. ‘It would be more of a penalty to students rather than resting it on the shoulders of the management team who should take responsibility for their bad judgment. That’s the regents.'”

Long-time friend and current house guest (just for tonight) Mary T. pointed out the web presence of a guy I knew back in grad school, Jeff Schwartz. Interesting character. And hey! he’s got a LiveJournal blog, too!

Hope all is well in Southern Cal, Jeff…

Frequently, I wonder about the value of blogging. I vacillate between feeling that keeping a blog is a good “pre-writing” and thinking activity and feeling that keeping a blog is an elaborate procrastination exercise. I suppose it is a bit of both.

This morning and this afternoon, I started thinking/remembering that I need to plan for a grad class I’m teaching in the fall called “Computers and Writing, Theory and Practice.” It’s a course I’ve taught several times before, but I haven’t taught it in over a year and it is a course that I knew I needed to update. So, as part of being productive and procrastinating simultaneously, I looked through about a year’s worth of blog entries, trying to remember what it was I came across that I thought might be useful for that class. I found it a really helpful exercise. I realized that in the course of a year or so of “surfing around” and occasionally jotting down some comments on different sites that I have put together a big chunk of potential readings for the class. And I also realized, as I was looking through this stuff again, that I had kind of forgotten about some things that I ought to include in the revised version of the class.

I’ll still have to pick out some books to use for the class (I think I’ve just about done that), there will still be a course packet, and I still have to work out all of the assignments. But a lot of that goofing off with the blog looks like it might tangibly pay off this fall.

Okay, no more entry here– back to grading.

From http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/saishin2e.html, which I found via danah “apophenia” boyd’s site.

-13.5 pounds

With the new blog space, I decided to make some changes from the way I used to keep track of my diet on my unofficial blog. First, I decided to stop keeping track of the “day” number I’ve been on the diet. Too complicated. The simplest way to put it is I started the South Beach Diet in earnest March 28, 2004, I took a break from the diet when I went with my family to Hawaii (the break lasted a bit longer than the trip, from June 6 to June 23), and then I got back on the dieting wagon about three weeks ago.

Second, I decided to just go back to counting my total weight lost. Originally, I was going to start counting my weight loss starting with my return from Hawaii. But that proved too complicated; one of my loyal readers told me they were kind of confused about how much weight I had lost all together. So I’m back to that figure. What that means is since I started this thing, I have (as of this morning) lost 13.5 pounds. I had gotten down to -15 pounds, I gained about 3 pounds in Hawaii, and I’ve lost about 1.5 pounds since we’ve been back.

So it turns out the last loss I reported was indeed a bit of a fluke.

I think I might have to accept the .5 to 1 pound a week weight loss until fall term starts because I’ve found it too hard to stick religiously to the “phase 1” part of the South Beach plan with all of the various things going on this summer. Besides various holiday events, festivals, and parties, we are making a road-trip to Iowa to see my parents and my side of the family at the end of the July and Annette’s parents coming for a visit the first week in August.

The school year gives my life a bit more discipline, especially in terms of a “regular schedule,” so my hope is I can stick on the more lenient “phase 2” plan yet this summer and then more easily move back to the more disciplined “phase 1” plan at the beginning of September. I’d like to lose more than a pound a week yet this summer, but I guess I’ll have to take what I can get.

One of my favorite local blogs, “Ann Arbor is Overrated,” has been just obsessed for the last month with the talk in Ann Arbor of banning couches from outside of houses. Here’s a link from yesterday’s entry on the topic, but they go back to June and they show no sign of ending.

I’m not sure what is more amusing: the obsession with the couch ban discussion or the fact that the couch ban is a point of some discussion in U of M student circles in the first place. But I will make two observations. First, it seems clear to me that we can narrow down the writer(s) of this anonymous blog down to someone who has a couch on their porch.

Second, a lot of this seems to me to boil down to the different perspective of “renters” (and most students are of course in this category) and “owners.” When you rent your home, you don’t really care a whole lot about things like couches in the front yard, your yard or anyone else’s yard. But when you own your home, you care a great deal about things because a big tattered couch on the front porch of the house next door effects the dollar value of your home. Of course, living next to student housing doesn’t help your property values a lot in the first place…

Anyway, my take on this is pretty simple: I’m a home owner, and for the time-being at least, I live in Ypsi.