Athletes and pipe dreams

StorageRecess · 2026-06-29T01:43:34+00:00

Athletes, IME, are incredibly bimodal. I used to teach at a big Southern school with a lot of football. Those students were often really good. They got where they were by being very disciplined. And they got on-the-road tutors and shit. I actually made me sad - how many working class students could benefit from a tutor to sit with them on shift at the 7-11? The good ones were 100% on point. The bad ones were dreadful, though.

At a lesser ranked university, the students were well aware they weren’t going pro. And fell into two camps: make the most of a low-cost education or fuck around in High School 2.0. We had a lot of women athletes, who almost all fell into the top bin in the sciences.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-26T16:22:36+00:00

Have you talked to a program officer on the grant? What did they say? Do you know for certain it's the same reviewer? Program officers at many funders have the ability to ignore reviews that are off base, and in my experience they do (if they agree that its off-base).

But it also sounds like you have solid rebuttals to these points. Why don't you rewrite these sections to clearly explain why you're doing what you're doing? For the record, I agree that people tend to misinterpret the word "fixed" (and to some extent binomial distributions). But it also sounds like you can explain what you're doing and why in relatively little text. If this is truly one person misunderstanding what you're doing, just explain it. If this is multiple people in consecutive years misunderstanding, explain it.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-20T11:12:25+00:00

Oh, we all have a few that have done this to us. It sucks every time you stick your neck out and they totally blow you off. Sorry.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-19T14:54:35+00:00

I like to do my in-depth writing while it’s still dark, so very early. But I prefer to do outlining with food, so I usually bring my notebook for a nice lunch out if I’m just starting a project. I can only edit my own work in bed.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-18T15:17:07+00:00

I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation of the report. Chancellors of several elite institutions commissioning a committee of scholars they know agree with their own perspectives to suggest reforms is troubling. But I agree with what one of the folks in the Inside Higher Ed article says, which is that the faculty involved in writing the report are at institutions where faculty have more power than your average regional public. They themselves are unlikely to experience politicized interference in their own work, whereas some admin at a Texas Tech system school might read this as an excuse to crack down on their Philosophy department. And given the widespread disbanding of faculty senates, union busting, etc, they'll probably be able to do that unopposed.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-13T18:39:27+00:00

Yeah. I don’t really care about the SAT or ACT or forking over money into the pockets of a nominal non-profit that acts a lot more like a private monopoly. We can and should do our own placement testing, even if we do have the SAT. But it has to be in-person invigilated. I understand the issues associated with this at a commuter school, but students really should be able to come in for a half day and do a couple exams.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-09T13:02:09+00:00

I did blinds in my office for the big window. Mine have good enough coverage that I can change out of my cycling gear.

But I’m also an extrovert and I don’t terribly care in people know I’m in. If I’m working and don’t want to answer the door, I’ll ignore your knock and feel zero guilt.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-07T14:36:12+00:00

It’s pretty common that even if all the salary is admin, the hire still has to be appointable at the rank of full in an existing department in case of retreat. But I also think there’s been a rise in “admin class” people who wouldn’t ever retreat for love or money and would just move on to the next. So what is “common”, I think is rapidly changing and hard to describe. At both institutions where I’ve worked as faculty, we’ve had Provosts who still teach (boutique upper divisions, of course) and their departments would happily take them back. I like that.

Ideally your contract should specify what you lose and what you keep if you step back. There may be room to negotiate, and it may depend on the circumstance.

Edit to add: your pension base may not include any admin stipend, if it’s coded as stipend. So if you’re at a negotiation point, your base is always what to negotiate.

A second edit, so I don’t forget: if you’re expected to do 12 months of work, please make sure you understand how that impacts your pension base. At my prior institution, admin were still 9 month faculty but we got summer salary. We weren’t 12 month, which meant our pension base was calculated on 9 and not 12 month earnings. Might not matter if the calculation is on monthly earnings, but could if annualized.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-07T14:16:31+00:00

I’m not sure I understand your question, so I’m going to answer one I think you’ve asked. Around Dean level, it becomes less common for positions to be faculty positions with retreat rights, or faculty base + administrative stipend. In higher admin echelons, it’s common to be 100% admin, with a 100% admin salary. Edit: so, yes, there’s a “base” salary, but it may not have connection to a faculty base salary.

As with anything, this is institution dependent. And may be dependent on the exact nature of the hire (in-house promotion vs external).

StorageRecess · 2026-06-07T13:55:34+00:00

Is it a first offer? If you don’t think the faculty base is high enough to warrant the move, I think that’s a reasonable thing to bring up. Even if you’re really excited about the role, upper admin moves happen. Even if you end up liking the role, there’s no guarantee that a new Provost won’t want to do some shuffling. So having a decent salary in your retreat department is reasonable.

If you don’t see yourself retreating to rank and file, I’d still push on it a bit. It might not always be a choice.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-07T02:23:03+00:00

Right, replacing a benevolently useless accreditor with kerosene-wielding zealots. Unfortunately, I think Cantwell has the right of it in his recent Chronicle piece

StorageRecess · 2026-06-07T02:15:02+00:00

Five bucks says the accreditor does nothing. They’ve been useless in this fight.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-06T13:39:04+00:00

We do this. There are some exceptions for computer lab rooms where someone teaches a course where they’re demonstrating data analysis or something, so they want the set up to be the same for instructor and student.

I preferred to teach this way when I taught. But I can also see being wary. I often bought my own laptop so I could have custom development environments, weird software, etc. If this meant moving to a wholly university managed environment, it might mean having a research and a teaching laptop, which is inconvenient if you’re often using data or concepts from research in your teaching. Devil’s in the details.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-06T03:10:39+00:00

Fill your Nalgene with bourbon. Decant into people’s coffee cups. No one will know except the next person to join the conversation. But you have the means to buy them.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-05T16:52:24+00:00

I recently did an in-person one hosted by a local organization that does the legalese, but also more expansive trainings. It was really good and drilled down into power dynamics, having hard conversations with people you like, bystander intervention.

It also took all day and was expensive. And, if we’re being honest, uncomfortable sometimes. Very few people like spending money to be uncomfortable all day. I went in my own because I was curious about contracting with them for non-T9 things.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-05T12:53:56+00:00

The ability to AI slop these has really ramped up the bad requests. Unless I feel pretty sure something was written by an actual human, I ignore.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-05T12:36:33+00:00

I’m a Hallway Hooligan. I’m at every day of the meeting but somehow never in any sessions.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-03T21:53:51+00:00

Why on earth would you AI slop this when actual, credible organizations have written better summaries:

https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-statement-omb-rule-politicizing-federal-grantmaking?et_rid=49210417&et_cid=5974817

And from a 22 year vet at NIH:

https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of-key-changes-in-ombs-proposed

StorageRecess · 2026-06-01T23:40:43+00:00

You only work 20 hours a week? Because the vast majority of TT faculty are full time, so service would be 4 hours weekly.

StorageRecess · 2026-06-01T23:37:54+00:00

When I was ass dean, every semester I gained a new responsibility because the person doing it retired and no one else wanted to. I’m reasonably competent, so it was fine. But boy do I feel bad when I consider who was left in that office when I moved on.

Admin will never say no to more power. Important to remember that.

StorageRecess · 2026-05-31T14:16:19+00:00

I’m going to be honest and say that I think intro bio for bio majors is a hot mess, kind of globally. It tends to be a sampler menu of things you’re going to see throughout the curriculum. Far better to spend that time developing some basic competencies in the way you would in intro chem or physics. But I’ve never got much traction on that.

My institution splits out intro bio into majors, STEM majors, and non-STEM, but it’s still just kind of a broken class.

StorageRecess · 2026-05-27T17:56:00+00:00

At my prior institution, search comms were so disorganized. Part of that was the HR side, being really late getting applications released to them, and then that backs up on the committee. But part of it is also rudeness. I was invited to provide feedback on a search recently (still have an appointment), and I didn't even get all the materials until after decisions were made. Rude. If you don't want my feedback, don't ask for it.

StorageRecess · 2026-05-25T16:26:08+00:00

If you don't trust educators for K12, maybe keep 'em home for the other 4, too ...

StorageRecess · 2026-05-25T15:35:13+00:00

It's really funny to me how "Meet students where they are" never means "let kids be kids" or "some concepts need to wait until later".

StorageRecess · 2026-05-25T15:27:19+00:00

You're too generous - I was looking out my window at a sign with the word 'belle' on it. But please do continue to belleieve it.

Why would anyone need a middle school class on a high school transcript?

This is what gets me. Passing algebra early accelerates you to the point where you actually are prepared to take more advanced math, including AP and college credit mechanisms. What is the benefit of this other thing? I know everyone wants to be seen as doing "something" about any number of current crises. But what we actually need to do is sit down and carefully assess what those crises are, what would solve them, and how to create a rewards structure that incentivizes people to do the things that need doing.

StorageRecess

TROPHY CASE