I’m in my 21st year as a professor at a research-intensive public university in the U.S. Despite the fact that I have decades of experience inside academia, knowledge about “how things work” did not come easy. …

In the U.S. higher education arena, we have now reached a point where over half of faculty appointments are part-time, and 70% are contingent (i.e., on a non-tenure track), compared to under 50% four decades ago. This is alarming. This is unacceptable. …

In January 2000, I taught my first course as a university faculty member. This was a milestone for me, and I spent weeks crafting my syllabus, reviewing the literature to create my course reader, and designing class exercises that would, I hoped, engender critical thinking and authentic student learning. …

“WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” he yelled at me over the phone. I was standing in an airport with a luggage bag weighing down my shoulder, as indecipherable loudspeaker announcements repeatedly jostled with the drone of bustling travelers swarming through the terminal. The man on the other…

I remember the first time I submitted a research paper to a peer-reviewed journal. It was in 1998, at the tail end of my doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. I had worked over the past four years to conduct and analyze a survey of parents (primarily women) who…

Academia is in the middle of a quantification revolution. If you are a professor, academic researcher, or doctoral student, you have, by now, undoubtedly encountered any number of web platforms that offer scores or stats or metrics to inform you of your worth. For instance, on one research platform, I…