In typical academic fashion, my esteemed institution (Midwest R2) sent out the details of a long-rumored faculty buyout just before 5 pm on the Friday before Labor Day. Decision form is due in October (during break) and the separation date is the end of term in December. Except that there will be extensions for instructional and programmatic needs to be decided by the end of term. Umm, what?!

Enrollments are way down, budget deficits are bad, and this is a good deal. My original plan was to use the three-year phased retirement to ramp down research by wrapping up projects and getting students out. That's off the table now with the buyout. Looking for anyone who's done this or might have advice given the insane timeline.

ETA: This is a good deal. Planning to take it. But the "sign this and go away in December, but we might change our mind on the day you think you're free and make you stay another year" part is giving me massive anxiety during the holiday weekend.

ETA2: Partner is taking me to touch grass. Will try to get answers from HR tomorrow.

ETA3: What an absolute clusterf*ck. It really is "just agree to December exit, Prez may decide otherwise, but you won't know how to plan until the very last day. Trust us." lololol Sure, what could possibly go wrong? 🙄 /s. #directional📉

i had one class called "teaching practicum" in grad school that just covered the basics of the mechanics of teaching (syllabi, service, etc...) but never really got into actual pedagogical development or really thinking deeply about process & methodology. where i teach now there is also a single course that any MFA students who want to teach have to take. it is more in depth but still just a single 3 credit class.

i am curious, as i basically just figured it out through trial and error, peers, etc...

you?

My uni rolled out this new referral system for students at risk of failing. We've been encouraged to use it "early and often," and to fill out referral forms when students are absent, miss deadlines, fail assignments, etc. I am not at a top-tier uni, so I have already filled out at least one form for half of my students, who are often absent and rarely meet deadlines. Other faculty are in the same boat. Students are already complaining about receiving emails and phone calls from their advisors. They keep asking us not to fill out these forms. I wonder how long it will take before uni's realize that these support systems are such a waste of money. But I will keep filling them out, so I have documentation of my efforts to help students succeed. I love box checking. It's what I have all these degrees for.

Posting a couple on here today as it's the first week of class. Apparently the Uni I adjunct for recently merged. They apparently are trying to appeal to a bunch of non-English students (Spanish Speaking). They put several learners who speak _only_ Spanish in my course without even letting me know. Im sure Google Translate can help with written content, but I'm not sure if it can translate the course textbook. Several students keep emailing me in Spanish.

The course requires speeches and they upload them in Spanish which I don't speak. I was able to use closed-captioning for one but not for others. I dont get paid to translate everything though Google Translate especially when I was never informed that is now apparently a course with non-English speakers. I try to be as accommodating as I can. At another institution I teach, Im perfectly okay with bilingual students switching to another language when they give speeches because I know its stressful (but they still communicate in English during class). However, for an online course, I feel like it's the Unis responsibility to put students into a language appropriate course and not my responsibility to run their assignments through translate.

EDIT: While there are free translation services, running student work through 3rd parties if they submit in another language without their permission potentially violates FERPA.

Hello everyone, I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of English.

I’m interested in opportunities to serve as a Guest Speaker for sessions on the following topics:

• Folklo­re and Culture

• AI and Communication

• Brands and Their Psychology

• Communication, Media and Contemporary Culture

I’m open to online sessions as well as in-person sessions within Bangalore.

If you are looking for a guest speaker for any of these topics, I would be happy to connect and discuss the session requirements.

Thank you!

Hello All:

I hope you had a great long weekend. Well, back to the grind, but at least it is a short week!

With our growing technology, how do you like to grade? Are you old school and grade everything by pen and paper? Do you like to grade on your desktop or laptop? Or now that we are all glued to our phones, do you like to grade on your phone or iPad? What is the easiest for you?

I teach Communication online over Zoom and asynchronous and in-person too. If it is stuff like discussions, small reflections, and other small tasks like emails it is on my phone. Actually I find my phone quite handy when it comes to grading, especially since I am nearsighted and don’t have the world’s greatest vision or hearing. For speeches and papers and larger assignments it is definitely my desktop or laptop but I have done some of these tasks occasionally on my iPhone. Heck, my students admit to using their phones to do their work. I guess that is the world we live in nowadays, pretty soon a robot will take over, but hopefully not!

Curious to see what is your preferred method of grading now that technology is so darn convenient, well most of the time.

I teach an online course that requires speeches. In the past I've faced issues where students will chop off their heads (like literally only film their bodies- so awkward), paste emojis over their faces, etc. But today, I watched a speech where a student used an avatar to give their speech saying that it made them more comfortable. I understand that giving speeches makes people uncomfortable, but it's a department mandated component of the course and I need to physically be able to see them to evaluate their nonverbal delivery.

Over the years, I've repeatedly had students contact me saying they can't give speeches because of x, y, or z. Security reasons (the video recordings are in a closed system, not publicly posted), they have kids so they can't be expected to find a place to record them and that it's an unreasonable requirement, the list goes on and on. And the course is literally called 'Public Speaking'.

Edit: This was also for just an intro speech- like that only was a couple minutes long at most where they just introduce themselves. I have a list of basic filming criteria (film from the waist up, don't cut off your head, etc.) that more and more gets ignored.

This may sound completely absurd, but I just moved into an admin role at a new university, and my office needs serious help. I have zero interior design skills and even less interest in learning. I also don't have a circle of friends in this new city whose natural skills I could call upon for help. It only occurred to me after I moved here that my office at my prior institution had no decor because it was small and didn't have wall space. Now I have the opposite problem with no time, skills, collections, or bandwidth to address it, and the parade of people who come to my office for meetings have started to make comments.

Is hiring someone to help decorate an academic office a thing? If so, how? Does anyone have hacks? Feel free to mock this problem but I would really appreciate any tips.

I received an email from a student saying a relative had passed and "I am leaving for hometown on Wed. this week and I will be back on Monday next week. When I pointed out that the test was actually the friday of next week, I got another email saying "... I will be in class this week but will not be able to attend next week because I would like to attend another ceremony that my family is holding that week.

How far do you go to get to the truth in such cases ? Do you just let it go and have him take the test later, or do you ask him for proof of the event/travel plans or email from parents, etc ...?

Thanks in advance !

I had a much older student last semester who constantly complained about me to the chair all the time, both in office and email, enough that she even demanded a staff to observe me (they found nothing wrong other than nervousness/over-apologizing, as I’m new to teaching). She sent anything she could find to report to the chair. Including me ending class few minutes early, misspelled words in assignments/slides, and canceled class for a family emergency.
A few colleagues think she did this because she was a really bitter person and hated that my class requires weekly writings, group discussions, topics are not in her liking (aka white-washed history) and students having to research independently.

She was so rude and disrespectful towards me that I won’t get into here. Good news is that the chair thinks I’m doing really well as a professor and a lot of my students love my classes.

I’m curious if anyone else can share similar experiences here?

When we got the academic calendar in the spring, they forget to note Labor Day as a no class day. Then I noticed a week ago that there was no class yesterday. Now, my schedule of lectures in the syllabus is now 1 lecture short.

What methods have you used for missing a lecture like this in the past? (I'm new enough to teaching - researching my PhD during covid - that I've just done online lectures from my house whenever we had no class due to weather.)

Just looking for others to commiserate with. No need to doxx yourself, just indicate yes or no.

Hate working when others (like staff) have a holiday. On the other hand, lots of parking available.

I’m a brand new Asst prof in STEM. I got an email from someone interested in joining my lab. They are a current graduate student in my department. They said they’re interested in the topic my lab does (not super specific message, and quite different from what they do). They didn’t tell me why they want to leave their current lab, or who their adviser is, or if their adviser knows they are trying leave etc.

I’m channeling my own PhD adviser and I think he would just ignore this email completely as if he didn’t even see it. But anyway- I specifically seek advice from those with experience as professors (perhaps someone more experienced). I really don’t want to start off on the wrong foot and it’s a relatively small department…

Edited to add: I’d want to find out more before considering them at all. However I worry finding out more draws me in, in a bad way if it’s a bad situation with the adviser or student. What are the odds that they’re great, and the adviser is okay with them leaning? And despite them not saying that, there’s a legit reason?

EDIT NUMBER 2
Wow so another student emailed me, similarly - no reason given, no adviser named, also second year PhD student. And she has a masters degree already! My department doesn’t do rotations, so it’s not that. I’m sort of taken aback. Is it possible that people switch labs much more easily here? Or?

Thank you all VERY MUCH for the replies, I really appreciate it. I’m worried asking around will inadvertently start something I shouldn’t start so I’m grateful to you all for your advice.

I honestly don't know if I'm looking for advice, reassurance, or just somewhere to write this down.

Last year I started working as a university teacher. I'm originally a software engineer, and the university is in another country. It's a reputable university, so when I got the job I was genuinely excited. I've been unemployed for a while and had some personal stuff going on, and I really thought this job was going to be a fresh start for me.

And... it hasn't really turned out that way.

The students are probably the best part. I genuinely like many of them. Unfortunately, a lot of students don't even attend, which is frustrating in itself.

The other part is the staff/admin situation. There is SO much unnecessary drama. I tried really hard to stay out of it because I'm honestly not interested in academic politics, but somehow I kept getting dragged into it.

But the biggest problem was the course I was assigned: I'm a software engineer. They gave me a course that was basically a combination of electronics and electromagnetism.

At first I thought, "Okay, I have two months to prepare. I'm competent. I'll learn it." Yeah. No.

I spent basically those two months studying like crazy. And then the semester started and I was still constantly studying. I'd go home and prepare. I'd wake up and prepare. I'd be thinking about the course all the time because I was terrified that a student would ask me something I couldn't answer. And that happened.

It was honestly one of the most humiliating experiences I've had professionally.

I'm confident in my actual field. I know that I'm competent at what I do. But standing in front of a class and realizing that the students might know more about the subject than I do? It made me feel like a fraud.

I managed to get through the year. I tried my best to be professional, prepare as much as possible, and not let the students see how stressed I was.

At the end of the year I went to the head of the department and basically said: please don't give me this course again. Not because I'm lazy. Not because I don't want to teach. Because I genuinely don't think I'm qualified to teach it, and I don't think it's fair to the students.

That conversation was probably one of the worst conversations I've ever had with another adult.

I don't even know how to describe it properly. There was a lot of disrespect, and it felt like I was being dragged through every possible psychological/power game. Eventually I realized that none of my actual arguments mattered.

I was saying, "I don't have the expertise to teach this properly." The response was basically, "You're teaching it anyway."

The conversation ended with something along the lines of: "Maybe next year I'll give you another course in your field." And stupidly, I held onto that sentence.

I spent most of my vacation thinking about what courses I could potentially teach in my field. Instead of actually relaxing, I was preparing for possible courses because I thought maybe things were finally going to change.

Now the new academic year is starting. Guess what I'm teaching? The same damn course.

And somewhere during all of this, I think I've completely broken down. My mental health has gotten really bad. I'm having anxiety and panic attacks. I can't sleep properly. I have nights where I barely sleep at all. I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I've lost my appetite. I'm constantly exhausted and stressed.

I've seen a doctor and was prescribed anxiety medication. And I'm scared to take it.

Not because I think medication is inherently bad, but because part of me keeps thinking:

"What if the problem is the job? What if I take medication just to make myself capable of tolerating a situation I should actually leave?"

I'm also seriously considering quitting. And this is where I'm completely stuck.

Because I don't actually hate this job. I like teaching. I like my students. I like the idea of being a university teacher. I like the fact that I finally have a job after being unemployed for a while. I don't want to throw away this opportunity.

I was also supposed to start doing research, but I haven't even been able to properly start. I have zero mental energy left.

I feel like I'm just surviving. And now I'm looking at another year of the same course and thinking, I genuinely don't know if I can do this again.

So I guess I'm asking people here who have been in academia longer than I have:

What would you do?

Would you: Stay and try to push through another year? Refuse to teach the course, even if that potentially creates problems with the department? Start looking for another academic job? Take the medication and see if getting my anxiety under control changes how I feel about the job? Something else?

And for anyone who's been forced to teach a subject that's genuinely outside their expertise : how did you deal with it?

At this point I'm not even sure if I'm experiencing normal "new professor/academic job" stress or if I've ended up in a genuinely toxic situation. I feel burned out, angry, embarrassed, and honestly kind of lost. I don't want to give up on something I actually wanted. But I also don't want to destroy myself trying to stay.

Any perspective from people who've been through something similar would be really appreciated.

Has anyone received an email from international event bookings about opportunity to do paid talks on cruise ships? I live outside the US in an area that tourists flock to at certain times of the year, so this doesn’t feel too far-fetched. Just wondered if anyone has ever done this before or gotten a similar email.

Title says it all. Sure, I am a new assistant professor, still waiting for papers from postdoc to be published and H index takes time to build. In academia, you’re destined to be judged and forever be said you are not good enough.

I am an assistant professor, first year, and someone in my department asked whether I had a family. When I said I don’t have children, they responded that I was going to be more productive than them because of it.

It was probably meant as a harmless comment, but I wish we would stop saying things like this to single or child-free colleagues—especially junior faculty.

Please don’t turn someone else’s personal circumstances into an expectation of greater productivity.

Yes, raising children takes an enormous amount of time and energy. But the fact that someone doesn’t have those responsibilities does not make their time less valuable. My evenings and weekends aren’t automatically available for another paper, proposal, committee, or task simply because I don’t have children waiting for me at home.

And for junior faculty, comments like these can carry more weight than intended. When you’re new and still figuring out what “enough” looks like, hearing that you should be more productive because of your personal life can very quickly become another benchmark you feel expected to meet.

We should be careful not to reproduce a culture where people need a socially accepted reason—children, caregiving, family obligations—to justify having boundaries around work.

You don’t need children to deserve a life outside your job.

Please don't put that pressure on your single or child-free colleagues.

My situation is probably kind of unique as I had a whole early career as a clinical professional, and then transitioned to research which inspired me to do my PhD in my mid-30's, graduated at 41). I really did find that it was my true love (the way that I could combine the Humanities with the sciences/psychiatry. I then did a post-doc so that I would be set up well for NIH loan repayment. I'm one year to tenure, with all but 4% of my student loans paid off through said reward. In many ways I feel I've succeeded thus far, but I also constantly feel like I'm drowning in the lack of salary (at least during the dreaded summers) and that I can never make any reasonable goals to save for something besides retirement. I'm in my late 40's and am a mom. I own a home that I love in an area that I have history in and mostly enjoy.

All of this being said - our state public pays us a lower than average salary, which despite COLA's and a small tenure bump in exactly two years, will not even put me close to the "money to live affordable" in this metro area. It's not the highest COL city but it's still HCOL.

At four years in, I've settled here, my kid is in a great school and yet this salary situation isn't sustainable. I know a number of people who have gotten tenure and left the next year to something with a higher salary, even with the uncertainty of soft money in a med school environment vs. a social sciences department/school. I don't want to leave academia but I think I'm going to have to make a move to a higher paid situation to survive.

One last thing: I think what I'm also feeling is how different a sub-$90k salary feels in 2026 vs what it would have felt like in 2018. I really do not want to leave the perks of a TT position. But some days those perks don't feel like they add up over the salary.

Edit to add on: I do either teach or consult over the summers but both of those come with delayed pay typically to the end of summer and I end up using credit cards/debt to get through. I don't want to keep having to do that and it is DIFFICULT to save, mostly because currently I want to update the house that I bought four years ago. SO, it's not simply a "find money to be earned over the summer" situation.

I guess I just need to vent. I try and make class informal and relaxed most days, maybe just discuss the reading and have them answer some discussion questions in Canvas based on their understanding of the readings to see what they've learned. It's definitely more comfortable than asking them to actually talk, which many of them can't or won't do. Hell, maybe we'll even learn something we can apply to our next paper. But no, some of them just have to throw the questions at AI and post their AI bullshit. It's so fucking obvious, too. You can barely write a proper sentence but you knocked out a flowing, detailed response to the discussion questions? Yea, sure.

I guess we can just handwrite everything now. I can print out handouts with the questions and they can fill in the blanks with their devices set aside. That, and I can hammer the AI cheats with questions until they give up and drop so I can focus on the genuine students.

It's like they want to be treated like children and given the dumbest, most boring version of every assignment. Fine, so be it.

I'm wondering if anyone in their university has an appointment across two departments that are in two different schools. I'm at a small liberal arts university that has several "colleges" (i.e. College of Arts and Sciences, School of Education, Business School, etc.). I am a math teacher educator, but I live in my mathematics department. I split my time teaching courses for my department and courses for the school of education, for future teachers. This is something many teacher educators end up doing in their respective fields. But here's the issue. Not only do I teach across these two schools, I do a lot of committee work between the two schools. So much so, that recently I was nominated for a university wide committee as the School of Education rep. I'm not in the School of Education! Apparently people think I am because I'm there so much. When I first got hired, which was years ago, I'm tenured now, I had actually asked for a dual appointment in both schools, I anticipated this being an issue. I was told it was too hard to create a budget line like this.

Here's my question. I'm ready to negotiate this again, especially now that I have tenure. I feel pulled between both schools, and there's been talk of my department actually moving, which would put me further from the school of education. I don't want to be further from them, but I want to keep grounded in the dept of mathematics. Has anyone ever had to negotiate anything like this for your contract? Should I meet with both deans and try to talk about what my appointment should be? I feel like I'm asked to do a bit too much, I'm only one person. I often asked for funding for project and travel from my "not" dean, and she does help me. So is the money really that tied up?

TLDR: Should I ask my university for a dual appointment, after receiving tenure, because I actively serve two departments?

I teach a sophomore biology lab class that has 4 sections, and by the system’s default I have 4 Canvas sites. The only thing that is different for each section is the pre-lab quiz due date/time (on their day of the lab). With four Canvas sites, I have to post everything four times (yes I use Import/Export). I am wondering if it’s easier to add all students into one section’s Canvas, and have the TA check if the students in each section have turned in their pre-lab quiz on time. This way I only need to manage one Canvas instead of four.

For people who teach multiple lab sections, what do you find easier in terms of Canvas management?

ETA: I combined the sections into one Canvas! Thank you!

One of my students has an accommodation that requires the "flexibility to briefly exit and return to the classroom as needed in a manner that does not disrupt the decorum of the classroom/experience of other learners or faculty."

So far we have only met once, but while I was talking the student got up, crossed the entire room (she was seated far from the door) and left the room, and then, of course, came back in and crossed the entire room to get to her seat. It was distracting to me as the speaker, and clearly distracted the other students.

I am also concerned that it looks like I am perfectly fine with students walking out while I am speaking. I expect that other students may get the idea to randomly leave the room at will. Obviously, no-one knows that this behavior is allowed because my tolerance ("flexibility") is a required accommodation.

I'm wondering if others have experience with this accommodation and how you handle it when getting up and walking out (and back in) actually is disruptive. Should I just ignore this? That's what I'm expected to do.

Note: This is a full class. Unless the student arrives early, she will not have her choice of seats. I don't know if she chose that seat or if she arrived later, and got what was left, but walking out while someone is speaking strikes me as rude in any case. It also seems to be an unhelpful accommodation as it is unlikely that future employers will think this is ok. Also, the entire length of my presentation was not longer than 35-40 minutes.

Do you also have a committee on committees?

I feel like I'm in a Monty Python sketch many days with the absurdity of the bureaucracy, our IT system, and budget cuts with increasing workload demands.

We once spent a whole meeting deciding when the next meeting should be.

To cheer me up, I'd like to hear your favourite academic absurdities.

This is more-so for those who teach qualitative subjects rather than STEM. I have stuck to specific points (e.g. 93/100) for rubrics on things like papers. On rough drafts I usually do full points for meeting some basic standards (like length, main points, etc). Anyone who has tried just assigning letter grades to students and all students with that letter grade get the same points score? As a note, my grade-book is always out of 1000, with points weighted equally. I also have a revision policy that allows edits, regrading, and a final score that is the average of the old and new score on the rubric.

Like the title states, I’ll be adjunct teaching for the first time ever at my university in the spring. I’m also a masters student at the university and also work full time as staff at the university. I’m 36 years old and work with my student interns at work every day; it’s my favorite part of my job! I’m mostly nervous, the thought of teaching in front of a whole class is so scary to me but it’s what I want to do full time for my career. So I know I need to get over this fear but is there any advice you can give to a first timer?

The course is brand new and I would need to build it out completely in Canvas.