Category: Academia
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Still Plan B
Anthony T. Grafton and Jim Grossman published No More Plan B which ostensibly called upon historians to open their perspectives about graduate education in October 2011. In July 2013, the AHA Council approved a statement discouraging participation in Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). I’ve cherry picked some quotes and mashed them up in…
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HIMYM: A sitcom for historians
Nobody takes an intro class to get on any other path but the path to not being hungover anymore -Marshall Eriksen While How I Met Your Mother‘s stance on 100-level classes might not please academics, it is the ultimate sitcom for historians. The entire show is an oral history of a father’s life up until…
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Finding Contentment
I was recently thinking about the rhetoric of love within academia that William Pannapacker describes while I was reading Leo Babauta’s The Little Book of Contentment (it’s free online). It’s a nice easy read and some of its main points are particularly useful for academics to keep in mind: The key problems associated with discontent:…
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Steve Nash’s MOOC
I’m a mediocre pick up basketball player that is in below average to poor shape. I’m not the first pick in the draft or even the first pick on the playground. Steve Nash is a two time MVP of the NBA. Steve Nash can teach you basketball better than I can……all things being equal. But…
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UNL Job Data
Ask and ye shall receive Dr. Pannapacker: Okay, it might not be exactly what he asked for, but I took the titles on the history department’s placement data provided for 2003-2004 through 2011-2012 graduation classes and the Proquest database of dissertations (for the listed advisor) to examine the placement of UNL’s recent PhD graduates (You…
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Value of the Humanities
I’m glad to see the AHA has taken to rounding up links to articles that defend the humanities. As budgets get crunched, humanists must assert their position and reaffirm their importance in modern society. It’s a work in progress, so I hope this blog post looks laughably outdated in a short amount of time. But…
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The Art and Craft of History
A while back, probably months at this point, I tore a bit of an article out about the artist Ken Price. What struck me was his quote, “A craftsman knows what he’s going to make, and an artist doesn’t know what he’s going to make.” The craftsman part of the quote stuck with me because…
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Saying Goodbye to Facebook
About a month ago I shut down my Facebook account after over six years of use. Before doing so, I downloaded all my posts and had to smile when I read my first post on Facebook, given I had just shut the account down. happy fuckers? i’ve conformed to a necessary evil. (Apologies for the…
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New Academic Year’s Resolution
Much like my New Year’s resolutions, I don’t achieve most of my New Academic Year resolutions. The hope is that something good comes out of having goals even if the goals are not achieved. Well many of last year‘s goals were not achieved, but I did have a productive year in terms of presenting at…
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The Stupid Student Problem Part I
Undergraduates taking survey courses are stupid. Well, when compared to their instructors (professors, grad students, people who already have BAs, Mas, and PhDs). As teachers, we devote our professional lives to our subject area, but this one class students take freshman or sophomore year might be the only exposure they get to it. We know…
Brian Sarnacki 