Friday, October 14, 2005

Professors who blog

There is a story in the Chicago Tribune about a professor with a popular political blog who was recently denied tenure - the article looks at if it was his blog that doomed him - "Did blogging doom prof's shot at tenure?" You can read the prof's post of his "pretty bad day" here along with all the comments from his readers.

1 comment:

Grant said...

FWIW (For What It's Worth): Read the prof's lamentations and the considerable body of blogger reaction thereto. My gut instinct tells me that the poor fellow probably WAS victim of snobbery ("one shouldn't bother oneself with the medium of the masses"--akin to the English professorial types and blue bloods who for years denied even knowing who Benny Hill was, but constituted his biggest TV audience) extant on the part of a clique within the Tenure Committee--but predictably contradicted by the Chi.U rep. In partial defense of the Committee, however, it'd be natural to wonder just how much time the tenure-seeking prof was devoting to his university in the classroom, mentoring, and/or to his "publish or perish" obligations--given the high quality of his blog and the time it surely required to attain it. Regards, Grant