Erin Weinberg

I'm prepping a lesson on the dangers of misspelling by teaching my students about COVFEFE - can you believe that was nine years ago? Dayenu. It should have been enough.

Some days, I'm so grateful that my generalist job lets me pursue my academic sidequests. Today, I look at my schedule and see a couple of weeks of just Shakespeare ahead. I'm feeling so deeply thankful to be living the dream I worked so freaking hard for.

What if the metric, for us English profs, was how many of our students then went on to read for pleasure?

Some days, I'm so grateful that my generalist job lets me pursue my academic sidequests. Today, I look at my schedule and see a couple of weeks of just Shakespeare ahead. I'm feeling so deeply thankful to be living the dream I worked so freaking hard for.

What if the metric wasn't the volume of materials you had to create when you were barely being paid, but the volume of materials you shared with graduate students and precariously-employed colleagues when you had job security, so that they didn't have to start from scratch?

Some days, I'm so grateful that my generalist job lets me pursue my academic sidequests. Today, I look at my schedule and see a couple of weeks of just Shakespeare ahead. I'm feeling so deeply thankful to be living the dream I worked so freaking hard for.

What if the metric was how many students kept in touch with each other after a course, because they finally found a group of people on the same wavelength, or because they wanted to keep that conversation going?

Some days, I'm so grateful that my generalist job lets me pursue my academic sidequests. Today, I look at my schedule and see a couple of weeks of just Shakespeare ahead. I'm feeling so deeply thankful to be living the dream I worked so freaking hard for.

What if the new metric is what you are doing to maintain the existence and integrity of your job, your program, your faculty? What if it's how much you stand up for the precariously-employed? What if it's how much award money you put in the way of students who didn't know it was available?

Some days, I'm so grateful that my generalist job lets me pursue my academic sidequests. Today, I look at my schedule and see a couple of weeks of just Shakespeare ahead. I'm feeling so deeply thankful to be living the dream I worked so freaking hard for.

In this deeply fascist hellscape, we can't rely on the title of "permanent" to mean anything but "until the people behind the money say stop." That said, I'm going to hold on to this job and our purpose for dear life.

Good morning, comrades! Let's start the week with some thoughts on institutional and student emailing.

I am a prof all the time, but I am THEIR prof only some of the time. They pay for my classes as part of their tuition, but that's not the ONLY thing that their tuition is paying for, so it would be a mistake to treat it as such.

Good morning, comrades! Let's start the week with some thoughts on institutional and student emailing.

If my students don't feel comfortable coming to class early, asking questions in front of the class, or visiting my office hours, that's really not on me. Their tuition pays for a range of supports. My support is available during class and office hours.

Good morning, comrades! Let's start the week with some thoughts on institutional and student emailing.

So, with that in mind, I'm no longer doing the "drop me an email" thing. Sure, it was best practices to be able to give infinite feedback to my entire classlist before they submitted their assignments, but that was going way above and beyond the necessity.

Good morning, comrades! Let's start the week with some thoughts on institutional and student emailing.

Six years in, I still feel anxious about students feeling like they're not getting value from me for their tuition.

Good morning, comrades! Let's start the week with some thoughts on institutional and student emailing.

Emails. Student emails. There was a time when email didn't exist: it wasn't part of the job description. Remember that.

Good morning, comrades! Let's start the week with some thoughts on institutional and student emailing.