This is my final post on the Emerging Scholars Blog. Well, my final planned post, anyway. Tom insisted that I leave the door open for guest posts in the future, but I won’t be writing here every Tuesday as I haveRead more…
Is a Tenure-Track Job a Futile Dream?
Probably. Last week, I addressed the question of whether graduate school was a path to certain doom. In the comments of that post, John questioned my use of statistics to show that people with Ph.D.s had relatively good job prospectsRead more…
Is Graduate School a Path to Certain Doom?
Every few years, another publication discovers that becoming a tenured professor at a research university is hard work. Most recently, it was Slate, which ran an essay by Rebecca Shuman which, fittingly for an essay about literary study, had twoRead more…
What I Wish I’d Known about Faculty Life: Any Regrets?
This is the final post in Kevin Birth’s series, What I Wish I’d Known about Faculty Life. Previously: Departmental Politics, Teaching the Curriculum, The Tenure Track. It was one of those gloomy days when even a cup of coffee hadRead more…
What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life: The Tenure Track, Etc.
Ah springtime—the time of annual reviews of junior faculty. That time when tenured faculty give reassurance that somebody is well on their way to getting tenure. Or, more rarely, that time when the powers-that-be must be brutally honest with an untenured professor.Read more…
What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life: Departmental Politics, Etc.
Our recent series What I Wish I’d Known About Graduate School has been one of our most popular series to date, and it almost immediately inspired this follow-up series, What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life. I am pleasedRead more…
Week in Review BONUS Edition: Starting Off Right
Happy Labor Day! The beginning of the academic year has generated a plethora of “starting off right” articles, for everyone from new undergraduates to new professors. (Count ESN as part of the trend, too, with our Best Advice for UndergradsRead more…
Week in Review: Future of Evangelicals Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for theRead more…
Week in Review: Inter-Varsity Records Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for theRead more…
Week in Review: Why Can’t We Be Friends? Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for theRead more…
Trusting in the Lord in a Secular Workplace or Job Security in Academia
On the road to listen to* Faculty & Student/Post-Doc’s at a major research university discuss Trusting in the Lord in a Secular Workplace or Job Security in Academia over lunch, description below. If you were present for the conversation, whatRead more…
Week in Review: Christo et Ecclesiae Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for theRead more…
Review: Life on the Tenure Track
I have a terrible confession to make: I’ve been giving away copies of a book that I had never read. For the past two summers, we’ve surveyed ESN members about their past year, and members who had made a recentRead more…
The Future of Faculty Driven by Technology & Organizational Efficiency?
Some final thoughts on The Faculty of the Future: Leaner, Meaner, More Innovative, Less Secure (Forum, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/10/2009) from a friend who offers his gifts to Christ by serving as a business professor. Do any readers haveRead more…
Week in Review: Science, Religion, and Waffles Edition
Welcome to this week’s Week in Review! If you have your own link or suggestion, please add it to the comments, or email it to Tom or Mike. From Tom I received a forward of the First Things online surveyRead more…
Future faculty must “Show me the money”?
In the last Week in Review, I highlighted The Faculty of the Future: Leaner, Meaner, More Innovative, Less Secure (Forum, Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/10/2009). You may remember, I’ve asked a business professor to comment on the piece. The facultyRead more…
Week in Review – Recession, Tenure, N. T. Wright, and More
In this week’s Week in Review, new graduates dealing with the recession, some notable reviews of N.T. Wright’s new book, Justification, a new website for Christian lawyers, some additional coverage of A. N. Wilson’s conversion, and more! If you’d likeRead more…
Week in Review
From Tom ‘Angels & Demons’ May Help Physicists Explain What Matters. Question: Do you agree with Mr. Izen? “Life presents just a couple of these opportunities when the public is paying attention, really paying attention to science, and in thisRead more…
Week in Review (Updated)
[Editor’s note: This is a new weekly feature from your blog contributors. Each week, we’ll be posting articles, books, news, etc., that Tom, Mike, and the ESN community have been pondering. If you have a book or article you’d likeRead more…
Where the tenure track jobs are. …
Some news related to Mike’s earlier post Hard Times, Come Again No More. … According to the Chronicle of Higher Education article For Some, Hard Times Make Hiring Easier: some institutions are going against the grain of the poor economyRead more…
Hard Times, Come Again No More
Last week, the NY Times published a depressing story about the state of tenure-track jobs. This gives you feel for the article: Fulltime faculty jobs have not been easy to come by in recent decades, but this year the newRead more…
Tenure: Doomed?
My home state of Kentucky is considering ending tenure for its entire community college system. This news prompted Mark Bauerlein (professor of English at Emory and regular blogger at the Chronicle of Higher Education) to ask “Is Tenure Doomed?” atRead more…