That kind of limit is pretty normal for non-tenure track jobs (it serves to distinguish post-doc positions from adjunct positions), but does seem quite strange for tenure track jobs.
Is it? I never applied for post-docs.
I say "stomp," you say "strategic dynamism".
There's got to be a better way to state "job pays squat" in your job description, though.
Very ignorant question: is there a legal reason why they couldn't just say what the job will pay? It seems like I only ever saw that listed on ads for fellowships, never for postdocs or t-t jobs. In the t-t job, there's probably some flexibility about the number, but in the case of postdocs it was usually a predetermined amount which one didn't learn until getting the job offer.
We were talking about that last night. My first thought was that they'd decided that the glut of job-seekers was so dire that in order to have any legitimate chance of keeping the field a going concern they have to basically cut a generation of scholars loose and start anew with more recent graduates. Alternately, that they saw the humanities postdoc system for the inhumane sham that it is. But it turns out to be more venal than either of those.
Poking around the jobs posted this year, fewer postdocs say that explicitly than I remembered. But it's certainly there. For example, if you look at Davis's current postdoc listing it reads: "Applicants are required to have completed their Ph.D. by the time of their appointment, but no earlier than July 1, 2009." I recall MIT saying that the expectation is that it's for people who just graduated (though they could make exceptions), but they haven't posted yet this year so I can't check.
I think if they really wanted people who would take table scraps, they'd be looking for people who got 2008 or so Ph.Ds.
In other words, I think 5.1 is right.
Math postdoc job ads typically list a salary number. So there's no legal reason you can't. Though announcing a number may tie your hands in terms of negotiations if you end up wanting to match a better offer.
For example, if you look at Davis's current postdoc listing it reads: "Applicants are required to have completed their Ph.D. by the time of their appointment, but no earlier than July 1, 2009."
That actually strikes me as really weird, since second postdocs are quite common in my field and third postdocs are not unheard of. It's usually only the more prestigious fellowships like the Miller Fellows at Berkeley or analogous things elsewhere that are only for people who just got their PhD.
Here's another phrasing (for Texas A&M's postdoc) "[these positions] are intended for those who have recently received their Ph.D."
I remember the folks in the English dept. wouldn't file their dissertations until they had a job lined up, because they believed they became less desirable candidates the further out from their degree they were (without a tt job).
they believed they became less desirable candidates the further out from their degree they were (without a tt job)
I think that has been the conventional wisdom since forever. But then with there being no t-t jobs, departments had to start encouraging people to get out, and everyone insisted that noooo, of course it won't hurt you. You'll have so much more experience! You'll be MORE attractive when all the jobs come back!
11 was the belief in my grad program. Those who came up empty-handed were usually given funding for an extra year to help give them another strong showing in the job market.
In math the pre-recession expectation norm was around 2.5 years of postdoc, but now it's probably 3.5. So it used to be rare for people to do 2 postdocs. Doing two full postdocs is still not the norm, but it's increasingly common that people find a way to stretch out their postdoc to 4 years by adding a visiting year at an institute or something else.
And indeed, from what I've observed, lots of entry-level t-t jobs do go to people with more "experience," though that tends to mean that the person had a t-t job somewhere else, or a fancy postdoc or visiting position where they were able to bang out a few more articles and their first book. Not to people who've been strictly adjuncting, stringing together courses at one or more schools on a semester-to-semester basis.
15: Right. I see a lot of "uptrading" in tt jobs.
It's also confusing to talk about humanities postdocs and science postdocs in the same conversation. Other than the really prestigious ones (Society of Fellows type groups, and the Princeton and Chicago and Stanford humanities postdocs), it was my impression that humanities postdocs weren't a big thing until relatively recently -- the past ten years at most.
16: For example, getting the fuck out of Colorado State is probably the goal of a large percentage of the people with tt jobs at Colorado State.
I just skimmed the latest 20-odd listings on AJO in physics (mostly postdocs) and see only two that specify "a recent PhD", one of which is one of the fancy fellowships.
Maybe it's nice there. I think my cousin married one of the campus police officers.
17: Yeah, almost all the new hires I talked to at the orientation here were straight out of grad school, even, IIRC, in fields like economics and statistics. But there were also quite a few who were "College Fellows", which I think is some kind of teaching postdoc?
"College Fellows", which I think is some kind of teaching postdoc?
Yes, that's right. It's mostly people who got their PhDs there, although for legal reasons the positions have to be open for anyone to apply, and there have been a few picked-someone-outside-the-department upsets. They started the program a few years ago to try to provide an outlet for grad students who weren't getting jobs.
Why would excluding people who have been on the market a while filter out people who are unwilling to accept a low salary? If they are desperate, they will take less money.
5: ...in order to have any legitimate chance of keeping the field a going concern they have to basically cut a generation of scholars loose and start anew with more recent graduates.
This is sort of what is happening in fusion research. The budgets have been getting tighter and tighter and ITER has is consuming nearly all of the budget for the next ten years without making plasma. During those lean years fusion researchers are royally boned as far as actual experimentation goes. That means if you are a postdoc or TT you'll be publishing nothing (and not developing professionally). After the lean years there will be positions that produce papers, but in the mean time people who finished their PhDs in the range of about 2005-2020 will have left the field, as will nearly everyone from fusion's heyday in the 70s and 80s. There are a few experiments still running that will produce the postdocs for ITER once first plasma is achieved and the field will begin to expand a little. There's a major contraction happening, with a likely bounce sometime after 2020.
There's a major contraction happening, with a likely bounce sometime after 2020.
First, every academic field keeps saying that there will be a bounce in the number of jobs at about the distance into the future. Second, for all talk about a shortage, fusion will never be a cost effective way to get helium.
I'm funding research into smash/bang fusion.
15: Right. I see a lot of "uptrading" in tt jobs.
I see a lot of offers being made that would be more like lateral moves, and that are used as bargaining chips for the prospective hire to get something they want from their current institution and then stay there. It annoys me, because those jobs could be going to people who don't have faculty jobs yet. But several more senior people have told me this means I don't understand the system, and that it's just as important for the people who already have faculty jobs to have these opportunities to get what they want because it enriches the field as a whole. I'm skeptical.
It's also kind of misleading to act as if things like the Society of Fellows have ever been "big things" except in the sense that if you got them, that was a big thing for you. There still just aren't as many as there are in the sciences, even with the explosion of Mellons and proliferations of lesser societies of fellows.
Also, 7 gets it right; if you want someone you can pay peanuts, wouldn't you look to the most shat upon?
Why would excluding people who have been on the market a while filter out people who are unwilling to accept a low salary? If they are desperate, they will take less money.
Yep. 5.1 seems right to me, maybe with a small side order of not wanting to deal with people who are trying to do the bargaining chip maneuver described in 27.
15: Right. I see a lot of "uptrading" in tt jobs.
But that means that the next year, see, the schools where the traders originated will be hiring (assuming that they get the line back), so it all comes out in the wash! Sort of!
I don't blame the people with t-t jobs who apply for nicer t-t jobs too much, but I do wish curses to fall upon the heads of the hiring committees who interview them. It's bad for the discipline (whichever discipline it may be) as a whole!
The CSU person quoted by the IHE does give a "no lateral moves" justification. If they had just said "we will only consider people without tenure-track jobs" I would shower upon them kisses.
... So we need to filter the herd for the candidates willing to accept table scraps. ...
I expect the actual reasoning is more like not wanting to pick through the remainder table.
There should be more tenure track jobs.
… which is bullshit, James, considering the state of the market for the past, I don't know, decade.
I feel like "years of experience"/age is pretty much used as a filter in all kinds of jobs, and having been unemployed for a while completely screws you, even if you're both competent and willing to take a low salary. I don't really see why academia would be different; first year lawyer jobs go to recent grads, not people who were dicked by the job market and couldn't find work.
it enriches the field as a whole
Trickle down!
But several more senior people have told me this means I don't understand the system, and that it's just as important for the people who already have faculty jobs to have these opportunities to get what they want because it enriches the field as a whole.
I believe this is the standard rebuttal to the above.
28.1: Agreed. And until recently it wasn't even clear what the purpose of a humanities postdoc was, other than delaying things. Maybe that's changing now, with ever more t-t jobs going to people who already have at least a book contract.
But several more senior people have told me this means I don't understand the system, and that it's just as important for the people who already have faculty jobs to have these opportunities to get what they want because it enriches the field as a whole.
If you don't already have a t-t job, you aren't part of the field, see.
You know what's a really insanely hard job to get? Fireman. I had no idea -- people are on like 5 year waiting plans.
It's also confusing to talk about humanities postdocs and science postdocs in the same conversation. Other than the really prestigious ones (Society of Fellows type groups, and the Princeton and Chicago and Stanford humanities postdocs), it was my impression that humanities postdocs weren't a big thing until relatively recently -- the past ten years at most.
And even the postdocs that physics/math people seem to be talking about are quite different from what I'm familiar with. There's no way you could confuse a biomedical science postdoc job listing with a faculty job listing. If you're a postdoc, you're working for a faculty member, not as an autonomous member of a department.
It seems to be a pretty common human behavior to prefer options that have not been rejected by other people choosing before you, even when it's irrational to do so. So 32 is perfectly plausible as an explanation, while still being kinda bullshit.
42: leaving aside my impatience with your pop psychology invocation of human nature -- "On the veldt, hiring committees acted like this..." -- the people in that cohort haven't been rejected, in any reasonable sense of that word.
42: So what academia needs is a good dose of thrift store chic.
togolosh, are you still looking? How is your C++?
44: I heard you can get bedbugs if you pick up faculty that way.
41 tracks with how things work here (that is, in my department). Also a lot of (all?) huanities postdoc positions seem to involve required teaching, but in my department at least postdocs don't teach unless they particularly want to/need the money. And even then they aren't offering their own courses, just picking up sections.
The funding situation is different too, in that postdocs are expected to be looking for independent funding (although it's not always required).
40: they're well paid, usually have excellent benefits (though, in many places, that may not be true for much longer), perform an important public service, and apparently get laid whenever they want. I mean, it's a really good job, especially compared to others that are available to people without a ton of education.
48 -- oh, agreed. I just had no idea what a tough job it was to get. I was talking to someone this morning who's doing a national job search not unlike a humanities PhD (hey, Arkansas wouldn't be so bad I guess?)
49: my leave-the-academy fantasy used to involve becoming a firefighter. Then I got old.
my leave-the-academy fantasy
Your whaaaat? Shatter my illusions, why don't you! Based on representations you made to me at an unfogged meetup (sorry for the violation of SOOBC), I held you up as one of two examples of people I know who are totally at peace with their career choices (the other example being someone who has a sweeter and more prestigious tenured professorship, and who will probably be appointed as a federal appeals court judge one day).
51: it was entirely in the realm of fantasy, I (re)assure you. I mean, doesn't everyone have fantasies about blowing up their life and starting over as a firefighter in Squamish, BC? Surely the answer must be yes.
40/48: There are too many firefighters as well though, right? I feel like I read an article about this a while back. In my city, it looks like, 85% of the fire department's calls in 2009 were EMS response. Is it that politicians and voters are a lot happier to fund fire departments than ambulances?
45: Thanks for the concern, lw. I am still looking, in large part because my C++ (and related skills) is nonexistent. I have the Python chops to do fairly complicated data analysis, but have never had to do 'real' programming. My plan is to start learning C++ and/or Java over the next couple of months. There seem to be quite a few decent jobs for physicists with programming chops. Not so much instrument design/experiment design chops, though.
Is it that politicians and voters are a lot happier to fund fire departments than ambulances?
No, it's that fire departments tend to be well-situated throughout a city for quick response, while hospitals are not, and so it's a lot more effective to enlist fire-fighters to be first-responders to emergencies.
I think the ambulances are stationed at fire stations in some cities.
There's a marginally-conspiratorial claim in Suburban Nation that firefighters are connected to the excessive road size in many subdivisions - something about pressure from municipalities to reduce their workforce leading to firefighters defending their turf by getting very large trucks (with larger minimum crew sizes) rather than more smaller trucks, and then local road standards being set to "allow any two fire trucks to pass each other".
11, 12: yeah, my understanding has been that for some jobs, being ABD is a deal-breaker, and for other jobs having filed (without, say, a Society of Fellows postdoc) is a deal-breaker, and you won't know which jobs are which when you apply. But whatever course of action you take is likely to screw you over. Delaying the PhD appeals to many (most?) people's native sense of caution, though, since you can tell yourself that you're not screwed until you've actually left school and wandered out into the cold world without an institutional affiliation.
I may as well keep writing this dissertation, even though I know I'll be out of the game as early as March. This meager little, smoky-piney campfire of a fellowship is irresistably warm.
I am slowly becoming convinced that I should stop trying to get work in any kind of academic institution. But as long as nothing is working I need to keep all "options"* open.
*If I'm ever in a position to really choose a place, it doesn't look like it will be for this next job, whatever it is.
re: 11
That was my impression. I'm now around 3 years out from finishing mine, and it's been my impression that I've passed through the 'window'.* Most of my peers who finished around the same time as me or a bit earlier [I had to revise part of mine, so (re)submitted later] are still struggling to find anything that isn't a shitty adjunct/post-doc type position, and some of those people are fucking good, with excellent publication records.**
* if I still had the desire, which I don't, to try for an academic post.
** I think I am/was pretty good, but my CV doesn't demonstrate it, so I don't have any resentment that I didn't have much luck in the few applications I made.
Ugh. I know this kind of thing ought to be comforting to me, in a look-how-awful-it-is-in-there way, but for some reason it isn't, maybe because I still haven't successfully managed to take on any identity in my own mind except that of failed academic. I need to stop reading about this stuff, and block academics' FB updates. It's pretty clear that finishing the degree would be impossible at this point--not just because of the dissertation, which I never even pushed through to formally approved prospectus stage, but (probably more decisively, from an administrative point of view) because I had 4 incompletes, dating back from '04-'06--but it's still really hard to stop thinking about it, in a completely unproductive way.
And yes, I think 32/42 have it right; it's all about not wanting to pick perceived "losers." I suspect that the more winner-take-all a competition is, and hence the more applications flood in for one particular spot, the more psychologically reassuring it is for the criteria used to be ones that will reassure everyone involved that the best are really being chosen, even aside from the time-saving reasons to arbitrarily cut down the number of apps read.
Blarrrgh. Sorry for venting.
Firefighters make a lot more money than EMTs, which makes sense considering they have more rigorous entry standards and training, but not if they're mostly doing EMT work. It should be cost-effective to fill the fire stations with mostly ambulances and EMTs instead of engines and firefighters.
64: Not necessarily. If you need heavy geographical coverage of firefighters in order to insure acceptable response time to fires, but there aren't enough fires to keep them busy, you might both have the minimum workable firefighter staffing, and have firefighters standing mostly idle and available for EMS work. It's like why flight attendants serve drinks: the FAA says they have to be on the plane to save your ass in a crash, and they might as well be doing something in the 999/1000 flights that don't crash.
and they might as well be doing something in the 999/1000 flights that don't crash.
Not flying your airline.
But if you were, you'd be glad there were flight attendants.
||
Wow, nauseating story of factory fires in Pakistan. Close to 300 dead. http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/2012/09/12/deaths-factory-fires-pakistan-rises/YxGhMXmNmB4dtSEbAdzXNI/story.html
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63: That is part of what makes me mopey that I didn't talk about yesterday. Flaming out within the first month of my freshman year, even if understandable, did a number on me. I never even got to grad school and so I can't call myself a failed academic in any meaningful way, but somehow I internalize that as just a plain across-the-board failure as a person. Still learning not to wish I were a brain in a vat. I hear you. And Moby's probably right.
You guys, 65 could totally become a thing. For people who have escaped academia? Such a thing.
If you need heavy geographical coverage of firefighters in order to insure acceptable response time to fires, but there aren't enough fires to keep them busy
And it's not just fires. Fire crews are also trained in all kinds of hazmat and disaster stuff. Fire guys really have their shit together when it comes to running and coordinating large scenes and big responses.
Academia is so freaking weird. I'm doing basically the same things in the same place as I was last year, and people are being so much nicer and more respectful toward me. I'm trying to figure out how to tell people "cut it out! go talk to all the postdocs too! they do what I do!"
and people are being so much nicer and more respectful toward me.
Ironically-motivated politeness is back this year.
69: Man, it's the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. We should be donating to UNITE to send organizers.
We should be donating to UNITE to send organizers.
I don't know anything about Pakistan, but I really doubt the US has the world's best labor organizers these days.
I think that's probably why it's making me so ill to contemplate. One hundred years on; twice as many victims, including (as before) children.
it's all about not wanting to pick perceived "losers."
...who had been told, for the past seven years, that the state of the market wouldn't be personally held against us. As I noted in my follow up: "Colorado State thinks the fact that schools didn't have jobs to offer from 2005 to 2009 speaks poorly of applicants who failed to land non-existent jobs." I'm worried this is becoming a trend.
OK, I can see the need to scale fire-response capacity to emergency needs rather than routine needs. It still seems we overdo it if it's true what I read that FD staffing has gone up over the decades while fires have gone way down.
Fire crews are also trained in all kinds of hazmat and disaster stuff.
I agree it's good to have people for that. But those calls also make up a very small proportion of FD calls in my city.
"Colorado State thinks the fact that schools didn't have jobs to offer from 2005 to 2009 speaks poorly of applicants who failed to land non-existent jobs."
Well, presumably a few people got jobs in those years, right? So whoever's left just isn't the very best. (I am not saying this. I am thinking that some hypothetical person at Colorado State may have said this. Because I've observed that even schools surprisingly far down the totem pole seem to think should be able to get the very best. Never mind that it's usually not possible to imagine a linear ordering on the candidates.)
Well, presumably a few people got jobs in those years, right?
A very few ... and those are the only ones CSU is willing to consider amongst 2005-2009 graduates. It's really grotesque.
Around here a number of agencies have in house ambulances but Salt Lake does not. It apparently has nothing do to with efficiency or cost but is 100 percent crony capitalism with the ambulance company owner being politically connected. The actual fire guys I know would prefer to have in house ambulances with people who are EMT's but not full firemen much in the same way as our county jail staff being law enforcement but not full police.
I thought Colorado State was opposed to hiring all pre-2010 phds, whether or not they have academic jobs. I guess I could read the links again.
80: but the ones we have rate; I wasn't here for the Richmond mushroom cloud but it must have had teams from all over.
I hear about fires causing more damage, but that's because of the "urban-wildland interface", including the Oakland Hills, frex.
43
... the people in that cohort haven't been rejected, in any reasonable sense of that word.
Well except in the not getting jobs sense of the word.
79
...who had been told, for the past seven years, that the state of the market wouldn't be personally held against us.
Even if you were told this why on earth would you believe it?
48
... and apparently get laid whenever they want. ...
There is in fact a subgenre of romance novels starring firemen .
86-88 go together beautifully.
I thought Colorado State was opposed to hiring all pre-2010 phds, whether or not they have academic jobs.
That's the impression I got, too. The "up to three years of experience" would be the candidate they are imagining who got a 2010 PhD, started a t-t job in fall 2010, and then came to them in fall 2013.
30: You know what? I have no obligation to stay in a t-t job I dislike because someone else has a worse position. I don't see a good reason for a hiring committee to pass me over, either, because I'm in this job because of the economy.
CSU can go fuck themselves. I mean, points for putting in your ad what everyone is thinking (I was told I was stale at 14 months post-PhD, must make room for the shiny new promising boys after all, and I've since been told I don't count as a woman in philosophy, because my job isn't prestigious enough*), but their stated rationale is bullshit.
*it remains unclear, then what I am.
Everybody wants to hire the new monkey instead of the monkey from 2008.
Jimmy James: New Monkey Job Creator is the sequel to Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler and has useful advice for everyone in this economy.
84, 90: A CSU spokesperson says so in the CHE article that SEK is quoted in, that ther are discriminating against the adjuncty and the successfully TT equally. I'm guessing that there was a hiring committee meeting where someone important said, "We want someone fresh and eager!", and everyone nodded their heads, et viola.
I can't get the article to load on my phone but based on twitter apparently they found an actual new monkey species? Is that right?
I don't know for sure, but I think I might have been able to wrangle a t-t job offer when I was just out of grad school, due to very unusual circumstances which caused a lot of hiring in my area for a couple of years. But it wouldn't have worked out well, because I was pretty inexperienced. And I guess I was ambivalent about being a professor. Instead I did a postdoc, and learned a lot -- it was honestly one of the best experiences I've had, work-wise. And then I left academia, not unhappily. I'm not sure if this story shows that there can be good reasons for someone to do a postdoc, and it's not just because you couldn't get a faculty job, or if it shows that I was never the kind of person who could succeed in academia.
The job ad has apparently been changed.
Because that's almost as unlikely as a guy who leaves snarky comments on local political sites finding himself at a bar next to a recent local office candidate who in the midst of a conversation says, "You aren't MH?"
91, 93: Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!
Damn, that's a smart looking fellow.
102: We made middle aged white people conversation.
100 absolutely made my night. Moby's too, I hope!
He had one drink and I'm fairly certain I could drink him under the table.
100 seems to suggest that people can read what's written on this and similar sites in real life. Mind blowing, if true.
Not this site. I have a life outside of you.
ATM: So I wrote out a whole ATM about this student who's been being super-weird in one of my classes in a really obnoxious way, and also being super-weird to me outside class, coming to my office hour (with some little prepared lecture about how obsessed he gets with his teachers) so he can try to walk me to class (involving all kinds of awkwardness like him trying to get me to walk out of my office door first while he holds the door--um, it's my fucking office), interrupting my lecture to turn to the class and explain what he thinks I'm going to say next--very weird. But I deleted it and decided, whatever, I'll think about this tomorrow. So I go to get my book for that class from my bag, and it's not there. I didn't go anywhere between class and home.
It's pretty obviously my book--it has really obvious and numerous pink post-its sticking out of it. I don't see how anyone could accidentally take it. But he was sitting next to me around the table--too close for my comfort, so I stood most of the time. I think it's quite likely that he took it.
I've had a lot of weird students before, but this is kind of creeping me out. I sent an email to the whole class saying my book is missing and to please return it to my mailbox tomorrow if they find it in their bag. But it's going to creep me out even more if I end up having to buy a new copy. Just... it's weird.
I really really don't want to deal with this here.
He's not going to murder you. He may try to steal your socks. Sorry.
monkey species, known to locals as the 'lesula'
There are monkeys out there... that no one recognizes
he and a field team were shown a captive baby lesula, kept as a pet by the local school director's daughter
So they are known to the locals, have a name, and are even kept as pets, and yet "no one recognizes" them and the species is "new". That seems kind of presumptuous, doesn't it?
110: Why? It's very creepy, and other students notice. I think they hate him. He's not dorky or twitchy or anything--more like teeth-clenchingly intense about what should be a very casual conversation.
Fine. He's going to murder you but has no interest in your socks.
Have you met any of his other teachers?
Anyway, I may not be very sober but I'm not drunk enough to attempt to explain the more obsessive manifestations of male heterosexuality.
I did learn that I'm the only one to order a rusty nail at this bar.
I had a super-duper creepy student very much like that my first semester teaching (as a grad student, obviously; it was a Freshman Writing class). What I did was tell the (senior faculty) director of the writing program, and she sat down with the three of us, having advised me ahead of time to say very little, and performed a sublimely uncomfortable thing about how this behavior was unacceptable and he should reflect on whether anything strange was going on with his health or perhaps his sleep patterns, because lack of sleep can cause all kinds of behavior one would never engage in when well rested and she would be happy to give him whatever referrals to Student Health he needed if he was, in fact, having trouble sleeping. It was so very weird but MAGNIFICENTLY EFFECTIVE. I don't know how you might productively replicate this strategy in your case, but I offer it up for your consideration regardless.
117 sounds like magic. And 109 sounds hella creepy. And I'm not sure I've ever used the word "hella" before, so that's saying something.
114: No, and he's a first-year. Unlike at my previous college, I can't look up his schedule on our website.
I really want this not to be a thing.
I have a life outside of you.
Inside of me, it's too dark to have a life.
I have a life, asshole.
111:
Well, it's new to us. Also it has a new Latin name and a gene sequence, which it didn't have before. And look at how sagacious it appears!
117: It may come to that. He has talked at length about his obsessive insomnia, to which I responded that he needs to seek help in dealing with the insomnia if he expects to do well in the course. But a third party could be very helpful if it comes to that.
"Because boobs" explains just way more than you'd think.
No, it doesn't. I have boobs in public every day and it doesn't seem to result in any other heterosexual men being unspeakably creepy and hostile and stealing my shit.
He has talked at length about his obsessive insomnia
How unexpectedly salient! Yeah, I recommend third parties where available.
Sure but that guy is probably stealing stuff from lots of women.
128: Yes, you are very helpful. I usually have not had to deal with something in this degree before. The closest thing was the boy who wanted to come to my office and would immediately start describing a favorite scene from a movie, which always turned out to be a rape scene. But he was very obviously nuts.
109: The creepy student appears to have stolen a book out of your bag while visiting your office hours? The chronology is a little unclear (wouldn't you have noticed? or, is your office unlocked?).
But if there's no way it could have been anyone else, I'd report it.
The book is missing after class, when I know I had it. We sit around a table, and he was next to me.
...which means it's not 100% clear it was him, so I posted a message to the whole class. If someone else saw who took it, maybe they will come forward. If it was him, I expect he will brag about having it, as part of his creepiness is a weird fixation on trying to make the class think he and I have some bond--not showing off for me, but showing off to everyone else.
Then again, I have seen way too many episodes of Criminal Intent and that's what it would turn out to be if we were on that show.
Might be worth a report just to have a paper trail so they know whose basement to check when you go missing. Try to avoid helping him load a sofa in his van.
Oh, went missing in between the end of class and getting home. Yeah, I guess we can't really draw conclusions. The unsub could be someone else.
I'm having a visitor (a friend) observing my class soon; I'll ask him to come to that one and explain the situation. Maybe he'll have some good advice.
Also, this from 109: interrupting my lecture to turn to the class and explain what he thinks I'm going to say next
is just so freaking weird and obnoxious, I'd shut that shit down right away. Which I realize is difficult in the moment, but seriously?! I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Of course I respond by telling him he should raise his hand, etc. I think I said that to him five times, increasingly pointedly, just today.
109 Gak! I'd strongly second rfts' suggestion to talk to someone senior about this kid, assuming there's anyone you would feel comfortable turning to in this kind of situation. And yeah, keep a paper trail.
I don't lack in the extremely-authoritative-when-I-need-to-be department in class, I promise. The problem is that there is a type of person who thinks that is incitement.
I think I said that to him five times, increasingly pointedly, just today.
Not trying to tell you how to do your job or anything but there's a reason why we use a model of "ask, tell, make". If it were me he'd be told that strike three meant getting kicked out of class. If he can't restrain himself from disrupting class then security or cops or whatever you guys have working the campus can drag him out.
It's more subtle than that. I'm not weak or bad at my job.
Wtf is going on with the 'remember personal info'
How soon is soon for the visiting friend? If not the next class, I'd go with a visitor/friend to the next class, too.
Try to avoid helping him load a sofa in his van.
Try to avoid helping anybody move regardless.
How soon is soon for the visiting friend?
They pulled us into a different room in health class so I never found out.
146: The best bumper sticker to that effect I've seen was on a buddy's Ford Ranger: "Yes, this is my truck. No, I won't help you move."
I've not had an pickup since 1996 or so, but the only people I helped move I'm still in touch with and happy I helped. Except for half of them.
Isn't there someone in the department whose job it is to deal with undergraduate course schedules, plagiarism, neuroses and obsessions?
AWB, drop a line to the dean of students about this. You can phrase it lightly: you're concerned, creeped out, don't need action taken but wanted to keep the lines of communication open. Chances are good he's weird in other classes, and they may already have a file on him. Maybe he did this with another prof and was given another chance. Maybe he's a readmit off his meds. Either way, discreet note to dean.
One rarely mentioned benefit of being a 1/4th owner of the Band Trailer: you get to use the trailer to move.
Can you fit a horse in the trailer?
I'm not weak or bad at my job.
I'm not trying to say that. I'm not there and don't have the full knowledge of the situation. But generally speaking if you're a cop or a teacher or jefe or whoever's laying down the rules then five times is too many to be asking someone to comply.
There is always someone whose job it is to deal with this. May not be dean. But some title.
Try to avoid helping anybody move regardless.
At first I read this as "Try to avoid helping move a body regardless," which sounds like good advice to me.
We have a Flag system for dealing with disruptive or crash-burny students, which is genreally very effective. Is there someone in the Dean of Students Office that you could pull in to the situation? I mean, it may be that you being very direct about "The way you are behaving is inappropriate and making me and I believe your classmates uncomfortable" would wake him up/shut the behavior down, but, as rtfs says, he might be better able to hear that from an authority other than you.
I want a horse and a body and a Dean of Student Affairs.
Read the new comments when you preview, Pongo.
Can you fit a horse in the trailer?
A Falabella or two, easy. But it lacks proper ventilation. Also, we'd get poop on our gear.
I want a horse and a body and a Dean of Student Affairs.
You've come to the right blog.
I really feel bad that I'm not certain I could ride any but the most docile horse.
Also, we'd get poop on our gear.
Never bothered Rush.
I mean drums would just shed the poop by the end of the first song. I don't know about guitars, but I suspect that electric guitars don't have many places to hold shit and that acoustic guitars owned by people who are afraid of electricity.
164: I'm always very cautious. Horses are huge and can hurt you if they get confused or upset. Getting my toe stepped on by one who was confused about where to step was a good sign that I wasn't paying attention to that fact, and I don't want to repeat the experience.
I mean drums would just shed the poop by the end of the first song.
Spoken like a man who's never heard a drum solo towards the end of a drunken gig.
True, but my dad rode horses for basic transportation (to get around WWII tire rationing) and I feel I should be better at it.
Anyway, it's a bit strange to realize that when my dad got the pony ready for us kids to ride it was basically the same sort of ingrained, but outdated, skilled you'd see if I was asked to boot an Apple II for my kid.
You'll also need a trailer to keep it in.
And a trailer for the boat on which you keep the pony at other times. Also, a boat.
I should have a boat. My dad was also a Navy man.
The U.S. Navy, not on of those Kriegsmarine assholes.
The Dean will coordinate the scheduling of the horse's time between trailer and boat and keep track of its plagiarism, neuroses, and obsessions.
My cousin still keeps teams of giant-ass horses* that pull wagons. If you get married near him, he'll pull the wedding party from the church** to the reception.
* I forgot the name.
** He'd probably be game for a synagogue, but it hasn't come up.
That's okay, there probably isn't a synagogue within convenient horsing distance of him.
Also I'm not planning to get married any time soon.
Apparently not. Google says you need to go to Lincoln if you want to have a synagogue.
Now I want to buy a fucking pony.
I'm kind of jealous that my parents retired near my brother and thus he has free pony access for his kids. My parents made a ton of money selling their So Cal house and now have around 10 acres up near Lake Lanier with a barn and riding rink for my mom's ponies.
My parents have 80 acres but it doesn't have a barn or riding rink. It just make a whole bunch of money because corn.
Because $7.80 a bushel and you've got irrigated land.
Seconding the recommendation for AWB to contact some kind of sub-dean, and do it in writing. After the Colorado cinema massacre, college administrators are likely to be hypervigilant about "dude just isn't right" messages
Clearly what you need is an horse-drawn mobile synagogue. Moby's cousin can provide the horses. You can drive from town to town across the Great Plains solving people's Judaism-related problems.
"The Littlest Rabbi!"
I should have a boat. My dad was also a Navy man.
I'm ahead of you. My granny was at BP and I have a laptop.
Your granny worked at Grangemouth?
(That has a slightly playground-insult quality to it.)
189: Yay for ajay's gran! ("Computer" at BP is my alternate universe life.)
When I read "BP" I first think of oil spills, not code breaking.
re: 191
No, I did [work at BP Grangemouth]. I just read 'BP' and assumed there was some sort of convoluted connection between your Gran working at BP, and you having a laptop. I didn't decode BP as 'Bletcheley'.
And she wore rigger boots ...
You know what, I genuinely have no idea what my paternal gran did for a living, if anything. She died when I was 14, and had been retired for decades by then. I can't imagine she was just a Gorbals housewife, as that would seem a luxury they wouldn't have had. My maternal gran worked in a radio shop, which also sold 7" singles, which is where my first ever records [Pinky and Perky, what a hipster] came from.
