I recently saw a psychologist to help with time management, stress management and to get better at ‘saying no’ (ie: how to do it). When I told her that I was a PhD student the psychologist actually laughed and said, “There’s no getting around it, these will be the most stressful years of your life”. […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Loving the PhD life
Debunking the ‘value for money’ myth in higher education
Does the university system in England provide good value for money? It’s a question that select committee inquiries, the National Audit Office, and assorted thinktanks have failed to answer satisfactorily. Now, the whole issue is going to be picked over yet again by the review of post-18 education and funding. The problem is that all […] … learn more→
How globalization is upsetting the university
Higher education has always had an international dimension. However, a new step seems to have been taken in the late 1990s. In addition to the increase in student mobility, a global map of the university is emerging, with new actors, public and private, while national systems are undergoing processes. polarization and prioritization. In France, this […] … learn more→
Illinois University: Cut faculty pay to zero
It’s so hard to keep up with the collapse of higher education. One of the big problems is administration; our universities are so overloaded with overpaid admin that they no longer can afford to have full time faculty. So far, they’ve addressed this issue with providing minimal pay and harsh working conditions to “adjunct” faculty, […] … learn more→
What’s wrong with secret donor agreements like the ones George Mason University inked with the Kochs
George Mason University President Ángel Cabrera acknowledged this month that his school gave the Charles Koch Foundation “some influence” over hiring and evaluating faculty as it accepted millions of dollars for its free-market research center, the Mercatus Center. This news rankled the academic world, but it perhaps didn’t come as a surprise. Many scholars saw this as just the […] … learn more→
College students slutting it up
A century ago, our culture respected “college boys,” kids who not only graduated high school, but managed to get accepted into college. Yes, “college boys” tended to be wealthy, so there was certainly some elitism here, but the fact remained that going to college was considered an honorable, respectable, achievement, and a sign of future […] … learn more→
Debate: Should we close the management schools?
For more than a century, critics have been blowing on business schools. Whenever a crisis takes its toll, censors make a sentence of pillory schools accused of all the ills: the bankruptcy of such an enterprise, the oppression of women, the increase in global inequalities through the global ecological devastation. Why, on the contrary, should […] … learn more→
Choosing the unicorns – An ECR’s perspective on grant reviews
The other day, I read the guest blog on Research Whisperer by Adam Micolich about capturing unicorns, a.k.a landing your first successful grant application. I found it really helpful for early career researchers such as myself, and wanted to offer another perspective on the funding process: that of a grants reviewer. I recently had the pleasure […] … learn more→
The ghost of the ideal scholar
Are we seeing a new moral panic brew around reading? When I was growing up, in the 70s and 80s, TV had been around for more than a generation, but the early 80s saw the glorious invention of the videotape machine. No longer at the mercy of the TV Networks and their schedules, my generation […] … learn more→
Publishing from the phd – make a publication plan
There are two ways to approach publishing from your PhD. One is to write the first thing that interests you. Or the recent thing that you presented at a conference. Or write the thing that someone very important has invited you to put in an expensive edited collection. All of that is fine of course. […] … learn more→
