Recently, I attended and presented research at a fairly big national conference. As a graduate student, one already feels somewhat like an outside at a conference attended mainly by faculty. But at this conference, I felt even more like an outsider as a classical liberal because anti-market and even anti-liberal (small “l”) positions were very frequently voiced both in presentations [...]

If you are currently on the job market in academia this article contains a good illustration of precisely what you should strive to avoid. The pseudonymous author literally seems offended that he/she has not been offered a tenure track position yet despite multiple attempts on the job market, including multiple interviews and site visits. Touting his/her own credentials, the author [...]

You can use your travels to increase the quality of your work, the number of your opportunities, your contribution to the Great Conversation. In his set of essays offering “Cheap Advice” for academics, David Levine suggests that when you travel you should contact a nearby college or university and offer to give a seminar. If you’re traveling while school is [...]

Creating a Google website is free, relatively easy….and actually kind of fun (for those with creative-tech inclinations among us). Google sites can be used for a number of uses such as course websites for instructors, project websites for research collaborators, and academic eportfolios. In this post, I want to show you the basics of creating a Google website and, while [...]

Here are a few pieces of advice for meetings based on mistakes I’ve made and things I’ve observed: 1. Be There You’re meeting someone whose time isn’t free. They could be doing other things. Respect that by keeping your appointment or by making sure you let the person you’re supposed to meet know if you aren’t going to make it. [...]

A lot of people have the same name as you and chances have it they have access to the internet. The one common thread throughout all of our online presence for academics series is the value of being associated with your name in a web search and having control over what appears first in those searches. Here’s the bottom line: [...]

In Two Things to Consider When Developing an E-Portfolio, Kevin Currie-Knight talked about the two advantages of having a website as an academic: signalling and the unique presentation of materials. First, having any online presence is becoming increasingly important for signalling, otherwise we would not have this entire series of posts. More specifically than Facebook, LinkedIn, a blog, or even [...]

The biggest things folks need to ask themselves before (or when) setting up digital academic portfolios (e-portfolio) is this: what am I expecting my e-portfolio to do that a traditional paper-based dossier can’t. After all, most academic jobs will expect you to send in such things as syllabi you’ve created, samples of papers you’ve written, and a CV.  Ask yourself: [...]

“So, what do you work on?” “Tell me about your research.” “What do you study?” If you’re interested in the life of the mind, you’re going to hear these. A lot. It’s essential to make sure you have a quick answer, preferably one that invites your interlocutor to inquire further about what you’re doing. Your answer can range from the [...]

For our first guide/tutorial, we’re going to focus on WordPress since it has the richest feature set and flexibility for a free website and/or blog. As far as setting up your free WordPress site is concerned, they have a wonderful and straightforward guide that covers everything you need to know to get registered with a site. WordPress Getting Started Guide [...]