What's in our name?

Identifier, first impression, signage, brand, arbitrary label...just remember, not what they call you but what you answer to

via "From Human Factors to User Experience: What’s In A Name?" By Keith S. Karn, PhD. March 6, 2014

In case you haven't noticed the change of URL (and why should you, what with running silent for so long), an explanation might be in order. The name is the same, so is the basic url, but the domain name redirect url is gone. That url matched the blog name. I bought domain name to be diplomatic knowing a metaphoric kick in the shins is all it would get me. When time came to renew I didn't because money is too tight to spend on empty diplomacy.

What difference will it make? Depends. None, I hope. Any reader, whether angry, upset, confused or just curious, are welcome to come over here and comment or ask questions.

A user's tour of the #PFRNetwork's flagship

…blog—that would be right here & an exercise in the promised short post. I hope the tour will help you navigate this rather crowded, feature packed page

Next comes the guest post by MMStrikesBack on the recent Labor Notes Conference, an original meld of report and reflection. It's longer too but well worth the read...and now...

Welcome to the Tour

Monday morning

…musing or media musings…banal, too much alliteration…TW3 recap + notes toward a do list that probably won't get done is more like it. TW3 = TWTWTW or That Was The Week That Was. This round is mostly about social media media ventures but won't always be. So here's  more about how the New Faculty Majority spends its Web 20 electrons. More about that page and the NFM Foundation another time.

Facebook analytics are by day by day overlapping 7 day chunks. The New Faculty Majority Facebook page shows 2,869 "reached" between 11/18 and 11/24. Although comments and discussion threads are more active, many visitors still choose to remain anonymous. No one really needs an explanation for why, do they?

Ana M. Fores Tamayo of  better pay petition renown has joined NewFac page admin as a content editor. Having such an active contributor is a huge boost for the page and even more help to me. I'm sure it comes as a relief to board members tired of my nagging. Is Ana aware that FB is just the gateway: micro and other blogging sure to follow? In the meantime, we're making plans to coordinates posts and issues to address. Input and suggestions, please. We'd sure like to see your posts and shared links too and plan to highlight those more.

Change

~  is what we are working for. This time it refers to changes in the NFM social media network, that is. Changes include Already Done, More2Come and Works In Progress.

The main Already Done has to do with our twitter stream. Where once there was just one, now there are three.

When I was the lone NFM tweep, it made sense for my user name, NewFacMajority, to identify 100% with NFM. Now Prez Maria Maisto tweets under @MariaMaistoNFM. Other board members are giving it a try too.

So which/who was/is/will be the "the" voice of NFM?

The Reading Room: What are universities for?

From Polygraph, Nina Power on Jacques Ranciere and the politics of contemporary education; and a review of Marc Bousquet's How the University Works (and a roundtable). Why rank doctoral departments? The E-Book Sector: In for-profit higher education, traditional textbooks are disappearing. A review of Seeing the Light: Religious Colleges in Twenty-First-Century America by Samuel Schuman. More and more on Ben Wildavsky's The Great Brain Race. The World’s Honors College: NYU Abu Dhabi admits a standout first class, as unprecedented experiment in student and faculty mobility gets underway (and more). FromStandpoint, what are universities for? Humanities scholars should celebrate and preserve the lack of a clear hierarchy for journals in their disciplines. A look at the temporal rhythm of academic life in a globalizing era. A review of Campus Hate Speech on Trial by Timothy C. Shiell. We must stop the avalanche of low-quality research: A national effort is needed to eliminate the vast volume of worthless findings generated by academe. The rise of the global university: For the first time, a single world society is within reach — and higher education is a central driver. Revolutionary U: Edu-factory is a new group trying to revolutionize higher education. Curing Socratophobia: Thaddeus J. Kozinski on teaching the Great Books. FromThe Chronicle, Gary Y. Okihiro on the future of ethnic studies: The discipline is under assault from within as well as from without; and who gets to define ethnic studies? Here's one way to sober the debate: Ask if white studies violates Arizona's new law. What happened to studying? You won’t hear this from the admissions office, but college students are cracking the books less and less. Tenure, RIP: What the vanishing status means for the future of education.

"What are universities for?" is a collection of higher ed links from around the world collated/annotated by and reposted from Omnivore, the Book Forum blog, both glorious feasts for the reading and book addicted. 

Call for Adjunct Blogs

I'm collecting URLs for a new sidebar feature here: a blogroll of adjunct blogs. Quite a few new adjunct blogs have been cropping up lately. Some are primarily about adjunct issues. Others blog individual personal interests. Many mix personal; professional (discipline) and career (adjunct issues). Plus there are a number of new "state of the profession" academic blogs that cover adjunct issues ~ perhaps enough for a separate feature.

Do you have or know of an adjunct blog? Please share by posting annotated links in comments ~ and so I can add them to the blogroll.

Did you see or participate in "My blog fights climate change"? I did. The proliferation of adjunct blogs leads me think about a blog-based "My blog supports equity in academic employment" campaign based on the same concept. Who's up for designing a cool badge?

 

 Then there are Blog Carnivals.... you'll have to excuse me. I grew up in South Louisiana and have Mardi Gras on the mind this time of the year. Here it's networking, organizing, strength in numbers. Admittedly, who would object to a little Bakhtinian topsy-turvy ~ mocking institutions and upending authority?


Recently updated: 

• New Faculty Majority Coalition on Facebook
• @NewFacMajority, Twitter microblog