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Another state legislature takes aim on tenure

State legislators in Kentucky are the latest lining up to attack higher education and gut the protections of tenure. A late addition to the Kentucky Senate’s budget legislation would allow public universities to dismiss tenured faculty due to program changes or elimination. Following other tenure attacks in Wisconsin and Tennessee, we see a clear assault on tenure. In today’s post, I want to address the problems with the Kentucky proposal and why we need tenure in higher education.

Another state legislature takes aim on tenure

University of Kentucky

Chris McDaniel, a Republican State Senator, claims that his proposal keeps academic freedom by only allowing tenure dismissals in the case of program changes.

McDaniel also claims that university presidents supported his proposal, yet he refused to name who he discussed it with and no one would publicly support the proposal.

Needless to say, I am dubious if McDaniel spoke to anyone other than the usual think tanks and ideologues who have been trying to gut tenure across the county.

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Lessons learned for institutions from the research on distance education

A variety of pressures push institutions toward pursuing distance education initiatives. Unfortunately, these initiatives often fail to learn from the experiences of other colleges and universities. Given the amount of time and resources increasingly dedicated to distance education, higher education must do a better job in avoiding the well known pitfalls of early adopters. In today’s post, I want to share some lessons learned for institutions from the research on distance education.

Photo credit: Clare Black https://thoroughlyreviewed.com
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How to create your first CV

Creating a curriculum vitae or CV is something every academic has to do sooner or later. In Latin, CV means “course of one’s life.” While there are no major right or wrong ways to construct a CV (disciplinary norms are most influential here), I want to provide some suggestions that may be helpful for knowing how to create your first CV.

How to create your first CV

Photo credit: David Clow

Before discussing the specifics of how to create your first CV, it can be helpful to consider the differences between a CV and a resume. A resume is a short summary of your experiences with the primary purpose of getting a job.

In contrast, a CV is much more detailed catalog of your academic work and experiences where length is not a concern. Some CV’s may stretch 20 or 30 or even more pages long.

A CV captures the full range of work and activities that you engage in as an academic rather than boiling down your experience to a page or two as you would with a resume.

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Academic writing tips from Stephen King

One of my favorite things to do to improve my writing is to read books on writing. I particularly try to read about writing when I’m struggling with it. Lately, I’ve been transitioning between two large writing projects and my writing has suffered as a result. To help get my writing chops back, I re-read Stephen King’s wonderful book “On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft.” In his unique style, King packs a tremendous amount of writing advice in a couple of hundred pages. For today’s post, I want to share academic writing tips from Stephen King that will help you get your writing going again too.

Photo credit: Stephanie Lawton
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Tips for novice qualitative researchers when using quotes

One of the biggest struggles that new qualitative researchers experience is how to make use of their data, specifically the use of quotes. The balance is a delicate one where you want to maintain fidelity to the voices of your participants and other data sources, yet you cannot simply dump pages and pages of transcriptions into the findings section. You have to identify the most central elements, pick out representative quotes, and at the most basic level tell a story about what you found. In this post, I want to provide tips for novice qualitative researchers when using quotes to help navigate this difficult balancing act.

Photo credit: ThoroughlyReviewed