Faculty // Browsing posts in Faculty
When It’s Time to Leave Academic Administration
What follows involves a delicate topic, probably insufficiently discussed because of its delicacy. But this issue deserves airing, and ultimately some wider discussion toward informal guidelines. I’ve had occasion, as a dean and now provost, at two different institutions, to watch the complex dance of administrator departure. The phenomenon is complicated enough to warrant some ...
Teaching Oversight
A talented colleague has raised an interesting issue, and since he did it publicly I don’t think it’s inappropriate to comment. Mills Kelly, in our History Department, has twice offered a course that involves students preparing a plausible public hoax and disseminating it (Wikipedia, etc.) for 10 days, after which it is explicitly disavowed. The ...
Multiplicity University
One of the odd aspects of many current discussions of American university futures involves a certain all-or-nothing quality—either everything is going to change, as the existing model is fully outmoded—or nothing much should. What’s often missing, though there are exceptions, is an understanding that our most likely near future, and possibly even long-term future, will ...
Global Information: A New Mason Register
One of the perennial challenges in trying to build a global university involves developing and sharing appropriate levels of information about what’s already happening. We had the experience a few years ago of rounding up about 35 faculty interested in Africa, from various disciplinary standpoints. Not only had many of them not met before, as ...
Promotion and Tenure
At the Provost’s level, this is promotion and tenure decision season at George Mason, and given how large P and T looms for all participants some comments seem inescapable. Obviously, I have no particular cases, past or present, in mind in these comments, but some general remarks could be useful. This is also, not coincidentally, ...
Law Schools in Crisis
It’s probably fairly widely known, and not just in law schools, that most law schools have been facing, now for several years, a serious decline in applications. The result is particularly important for the schools themselves, but the results impinge on the wider academic enterprise as well. Again, the crisis is widespread, and I’m not ...
Different Flavors of Faculty
For some time, as most of my readers know, many universities have maintained several types of fulltime faculty. The clear installation of predominantly teaching faculty was much discussed when I was at Carnegie Mellon, but we had the example already of places like Stanford (which had teaching, research and tenure track/tenure), and we had clear ...
Caring for Students
The topic seems apt as we launch a new semester… I was intrigued by a report a few weeks back on what college students value most in their teachers. This was not just a Mason survey, but I certainly assume it applies to us too. The winner by a considerable margin: teachers who care about ...
Explaining Research
As pressure for change in higher education mounts, with increasing probing comments from observers—like trustees—who are not part of the academy, explaining faculty research and the resources allotted to it takes on new importance. I think it’s desirable for faculty to participate in the discussion and not simply react to yet another set of claims ...
Mason Students
Writing the first blog of the new year is a bit of a challenge. Obviously one wants to make it interesting. On the other hand, we emerge from a week where — professionally — not a lot has been happening (for which we are profoundly grateful). So let me talk a bit about aspects of ...
Recent Posts
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Changing the World
This is an adaptation of some brief graduation remarks I recently offered,...
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Good Things
Ends of semester are always a bit tense, particularly in the spring....
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When It's Time to Leave Academic Administration
What follows involves a delicate topic, probably insufficiently discussed because of its...
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