Here is Laurier’s Career Opportunities page for communication studies courses for the fall and winter semesters. The pay seems to be comparable to the per-course rate for senior CUPE at Ryerson. The deadline for the postings is June 17, so you’ll need to hurry.
Ger Zielinski drew my attention to this Chronicle story which describes a poignant reality of virtual courses. What happens when a student and instructor discover that the professor who created the course has died? The article raises some interesting questions about the nature of mentorship and the need for transparency about a lead professor’s role.
McGill University’s Writing Centre is seeking applicants for a two-year “faculty lecturer” position. The deadline for receiving applications is quite soon: February 24.
York’s Department of Communication Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, is requesting applications from highly qualified candidates for a tenure-track appointment in Critical and Social Justice Approaches to Social Media and/or Public Relations at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. The deadline is March 8, 2021.
A full-time lecturer position at McGill University’s Writing Centre has been advertised. The deadline for applications is February 24. It appears there is an opportunity for renewal.
Petar Jandric, a professor teaching at the University of Zagreb, in Croatia, decided to document how this strange interlude has had an impact on our lives as university teachers. In early March, he sent out a call to academics for testimonials. The resulting compilation was published in June in an issue of Post Digital Science and Education, as “Teaching in the Age of COVID.” These brief first-person accounts are both familiar and unfamiliar–the writers are working in different institutions in different cities and different disciplines, but the worries about standards, student engagement and anxiety and the true nature of institutions of higher learning are ones we already know intimately.
Needless to say, a common theme was adapting to change. For academics this has meant adjusting delivery modes to optimize learning and fulfillment. However, it wasn’t long after universities shut down that wholesale reimagining of course delivery and curricula emerged inside and outside the academy. As early as June 1 of this year, a report by RBC entitled The Future of Post-Secondary Education: On Campus, Online and On-Demand, ponders the opportunities for replacing the traditional classroom. Faculty and student responses to such visions of expanding virtualization were predictably negative, but it’s unlikely the drive for transformation will wane when the dust has finally settled. Grand schemes will always be on the horizon.
Still, it’s possible the Guardian’s Steven Jones’s early prediction of a more modest transformation of universities will become our new normal. He points out how the pandemic has helped the university community appreciate our mutually supportive roles, and he raises the possibility that we might do away with unnecessary practices, now that we’ve managed quite well without them.
Some of this futurism will look quaint no doubt, once we’ve laboured through to the other side.
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, a research scientist at MIT describes a way to encourage class discussion in a Zoom class. The approach, derived from tech industry practice, is to post a shared document during class and then to lead a discussion of various parts of the document in a shared folder.
He felt that the usual awkward, fragmented “discussion” that can occur in a typical Zoom class is replaced by a dynamic exchange of insights. I think the text-based work we do would lend itself well to this strategy.
York is offering a limited-term assistant professor position for the 2021-2022 academic term. The deadline for applying is January 15, 2021.
Yes, the Modern Language Association has a blog, “Behind the Style,” devoted to both well-known and obscure grammar and style practices. You may find material that you can use in a course you’re teaching or to answer questions in an office hour. The level is quite basic and would be suitable for first-year students.
Is the title of the blog a bemused acknowledgement that worrying about “the rules” is unfashionable? Perhaps another page explaining why grammar is relevant to today’s writing, “Helping Students Use Grammar to Support Their Writing Goals,” is an answer.
