Adventures in Naysaying

What do you do when a student asks if you would grade their homework even though a) they are not enrolled in your class and b) there is no way they can attend your class meetings because they are taking another, famously demanding and time-consuming class? If you are me, you obsess about it for days, then say no, then feel super guilty about your decision so you ask the facebook hive mind, then feel conflicted, then use your inner turmoil to inspire your next blog post. So here it goes.

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Posted in grading, teaching | 6 Comments

The final lap

The final projects from one of my classes were not very portable. Pictured here is a Menger sponge made out of sugar cubes, and several large posters.

The final projects for one of my classes were not very portable. Pictured here are a Menger sponge made out of sugar cubes, and several large posters.

Winter semester just ended here at Bates, and it has been a crazy couple of weeks (as perhaps evidenced by my absence from the blogosphere). Since there has been little else on my mind recently, I will just share some thoughts and lessons from this latest end-of-semester crunch, in no particular order.

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Posted in end of semester, giving talks, grading, teaching | 1 Comment

Family business

In general, when I see blog posts or articles talking about work-life balance, the main theme is how to balance work and babies. I am not dismissing this as a real and important issue, but for childless workaholics like myself, it’s not always the advice that we need. It was very refreshing then when last week I came across this post from Tenure, She Wrote, entitled “Family is about more than babies“. The post is about how the writer had to go home and help her aging parent recover from a nasty injury, and about how things like that are a big part of  what we mean by “family obligations”. I was especially struck by her concluding paragraph:

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Posted in work-life balance | 2 Comments