Jeremy Freese, who received tenure in sociology this year at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that he worried that his blog might hurt his chances, but that he doesn’t think it had an impact.A good rule. I note the word "really" in the phrase "really regret." A little regret is worth it, apparently. If you spend your whole life being careful, you'll never have any fun, and bad things will still happen.
“If any senior faculty had ever expressed disapproval about my blog, I would have stopped blogging immediately, as wimpy as that might sound. I’m not addicted to my blog and the benefits I get from it are not as unique as the benefits of a wonderful job, which is what I have,” he said.
But Freese isn’t at all certain that senior faculty members even know about his blog. “I attended at least two dinner parties with senior colleagues in which the topic of blogs was raised and it was clear nobody else in attendance read blogs, and I certainly didn’t volunteer that I had one,” he said.
He said that his worry, pre-tenure, was that his department might think he was spending too much time on his blog, a concern he said would have been unfair. Freese noted that he doesn’t have children or a television and he’s sure he spends less time blogging than the average sociologist spends with children or watching TV. As for the content of what he writes, Freese said that he censored himself on some things before getting tenure and continues to do so now.
“It’s just the same kind of prudence that guides other kinds of interactions that could have professional consequences,” he said. “My rule is that I won’t say anything on my blog if there is anyone in the world that I would really regret if they saw it. But that hasn’t really been specifically motivated by tenure and hasn’t stopped with getting tenure."
I wonder which academic departments are most aware of blogging. I sounds as though the folks in Sociology just don't notice this ... social phenomenon.
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I'm biased as a former English major, but I assume that there are more English/Critical Theory professors aware of and teaching about these phenomena than in other disciplines.
In courses I've taken there have been discussions about applying critical theory to video games, slash fiction, ethnic representations in gay pornography, representation of gender through IMing, EMail and discussion boards, and many other topics that were far more current than any courses I had in sociology, philosophy or economics (but I took far fewer upper division courses outside of English so my viewpoint is skewed).
English departments have a great deal of flexibility in modern academia and have become catch-alls for just about any area of interest given that all ideas are represented through language (I know, I know, some argue that there are thoughts that aren't expressable through language, but how do you discuss them?) and the various flavors of language/textual theory (and everything is considered text now, from visual arts to music to poetry and all inbetween) fall under the English department umbrella.
My perception of sociologist is that they like to view themselves as more hard science types so they tend to wait till they can manufacture some sort of data to justify their assumptions before voicing those assumptions whereas English professors are given freer rein to wax poetically on any subject as part of their area of interest since their isn't any expectation of concrete numbers or trends.
If I were up for Tenure, there is no way I would have a blog - even a blog that said all the "right things." Academia is just to nasty to trust.
Some conservative academics noted early in their blogs that they feared some repercussions over their posting hence did not use their names.
I think, in a minor defense of academic departments who seem way behind on this blogging thing, that many of these professors are still adjusting to the computer- and Internet-dominated academic landscape. But more important than that it was in my personal experience that college kids don't really get blogs, either. Facebook, MySpace and posting drunken pictures on Webshots are time-consuming enough for college kids.
And if college kids aren't bringing up blogs regularly, then it's tough to expect a lot of their professors (or chairs or admins) to be really in tune.
Boy, living and working in academia sounds a little like living in a much less brutal but equally omnipresent Stalinist state.
Do you all study pictures or maps of office locations to determine who is here in the group hierarchy?
Do you worry about whether your colleagues might be informers?
Freese said: “My rule is that I won’t say anything on my blog if there is anyone in the world that I would really regret if they saw it."
This is why I post (and keep a dormant blog) under my own name. I believe (perhaps incorrectly) that anonymous bloggers and posters are at risk to be exposed. Should that happen, they may find their words used against them in something like a child custody hearing.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices, make instruments to plague us. King Lear
Ann, John Hawks at your own university has a blog (http://johnhawks.net/weblog/) and posted on this very subject some months ago. I did a quick search but couldn't find it, but he could probably point you to it himself and/or give you some info on what it's like in the anthro department there.
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