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An unlucky cohort of undergraduates has been plagued by Covid restrictions, education strikes and finally a marking boycott
Emily Smith, a final-year geography student at Durham University, never imagined her already heavily disrupted university experience could end like this. She won’t be graduating this summer because half her work remains unmarked owing to a national marking boycott by lecturers.
She refuses to attend the “completion ceremony” Durham has offered her instead. Without an actual degree classification it seems like a “farce”. Like so many in this deeply unlucky cohort of students, she feels this is the last straw.
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Your department or college may be able to pay for your participation in ANY Professor Is In work, including our formal programs, as well as editing of your professionalization/job search/tenure documents. What follows is context and scripts for asking your department to fund your participation in Unstuck: The Art of Productivity and The Art of the Academic Article, and/or The Professor Is In Pre-Tenure Coaching Group, but you can use it to ask for any kind of professional development or program improvement support. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected] for more help!
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Your department might pay for your enrollment in this course, and the only you will find out is to ask. Don’t be afraid. Department heads get requests for funding all of the time. There is nothing shameful about it. In fact, learning how to ask is great practice for the rest of your career.
The best way to loosen the departmental purse strings is to show the money is going to solve a problem the department head considers worth solving.
So what problem does the course solve?
You also have to show the stakes of not solving the problem.
Stating the problem and stakes is not enough. You also have to show why this particular thing you are asking to be funded will solve the problem.
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Here is an example email that you can use to approach your dean, department head or PI to make the request that the course be funded. NOTE: IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DO NOT USE THESE EXAMPLES VERBATIM, AS WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF READERS AND CLIENTS, MANY IN THE SAME DEPARTMENTS. WE SUGGEST YOU SLIGHTLY REPHRASE THE MODELS BELOW IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
>Dear <administrator>
I have an opportunity to enroll in a coaching program designed for academics to
//produce a full draft of journal article in 10 weeks
//support my success on the tenure track
//help me complete my research and writing for tenure
>and I am requesting departmental support to cover the costs. The course is being offered by The Professor is In, a career services organizations with well-documented and unparalleled success since 2011 in assisting academics in all phases of their careers.
>The benefit of
// The Art of the Academic Article, over other programs, is not only the extensive experience of the two coaches offering guidance but also the ongoing access to the online material. I will be able to use the course material for not just this article, but all future ones as well.
//The Professor Is In Pre-Tenure Coaching Group is that it provides individualized, confidential small group coaching as I confront the challenges of mapping out a publication trajectory, establishing an effective writing schedule, managing a sustainable balance of research, teaching, and service, managing the demands of conferencing and networking, and grasping the elements of a successful tenure case (including the role of external reviewers) to support my success in that arduous process.
>As we have discussed,
//I have XX articles in progress that are necessary/would improve my third year review/tenure review/post doc production/chances of success on the job market. This course would assure that I produce xx articles in the next year. It also increases my chances of publication in the mostly highly ranked journals because it includes instruction on positioning both in terms of discipline and journal rank.
//I have an active research program underway, while also being dedicated to effective teaching and productive service to the department. This coaching program will give me the support of Dr. Karen Kelsky- who has not only been a dedicated academic development coach since 2011, but is also a former R1 department head who in that role mentored 5 junior faculty to tenure – and a small group of peers who can together serve as a sounding board for decisions I need to make about publishing strategies, writing timelines, teaching dilemmas, and work-life balance – to name just a few topics the group covers. The program will assure that I avoid common pitfalls and focus my time and effort most effectively toward eventual tenure success in a way that is *individualized* for our specific field, department and campus expectations.
>The next session of the course starts on XXXX. Please let me know if you are willing to support this effort and I will purchase and submit the receipt for reimbursement/contact accounting to arrange payment.
OR [another style of approach- adapt as you see fit!]
As we have discussed, one of the critical components of raising the profile of our department is to increase faculty publications and the quality of those publications. This course would assure that I produce xx articles in the next year. It also increases my chances of publication in the mostly highly ranked journals because it includes instruction on positioning both in terms of discipline and journal rank.
It is no secret that balancing research, service and teaching is a challenge for all junior faculty here at xx. With this course, I will have the resources to achieve the balance required for success. With your support, I will be able to avoid common problems like false starts, writer’s block, and perfectionism, while assuring I choose the best journals to target, and submit a draft to a strong journal in an efficient time frame.
The next session of the course starts on XXXX. Please let me know if you are willing to support this effort and I will purchase and submit the receipt for reimbursement/contact accounting to complete the registration/ xxx
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Students walking between classes at the University of Idaho. The state will ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification, one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters this year.
Naomi Peralta, at left, prepares for a practice run at Highland High School in Albuquerque, N.M., in February.
Marisa Shuman challenged her students at the Young Women’s Leadership School of the Bronx to examine the work created by a chatbot.
Readers respond to Daniel Dylan Wray’s article about escaping the shadow of his abusive father
I was moved by Daniel Dylan Wray’s account of lone parenthood, domestic abuse and seeing his father for the first time across a courtroom (A moment that changed me, 1 February). I have a not dissimilar story, although I lived with my father, but I remember periods of parental separation as a welcome relief. In a similar Damascene moment, I went from angry teen to university, and, as a professor, I’m still there.
University was a door into another world. I fear that similar young people will not have a chance to experience those moments of relief, and support from public services, that I, and presumably Wray, enjoyed. The relentless attacks on financial and other support to lone parents, and the ensuing stigma, will make life almost impossible for families in similar situations today, as I outlined in the Guardian last year (Tories have shamed single parents and heaped financial pressure on them, 5 July 2022).
Prof Morag Treanor
Edinburgh
Elementary school students returning to in-person learning in a school in California in 2021. Education deficits were equivalent to about 35 percent of a school year and remained steady, according to a new study.
The Supreme Court could consider schools’ policies on transgender students and bathrooms after an appeals court decision last month.
FreshRSS