Category: Career

Career, Diversity, Education, Teaching

Shape Up – There’s an Ed-Talent Scout on Campus!

Chris Chang-Bacon

army

Well, it’s clear that someone at the New York Times read my last post on bringing more men to the teaching profession. While I focused on gender, the conclusion asked how we could make teaching more appealing across the board, and the Times kindly dedicated an entire “Room for Debate” segment to answering me.

So here you have it: Six educationists chimed to ask “What can be done to make a career in education more attractive to men and people of color?”

You may, of course, read the columns in their entirety, but here’s a quick tally of the most prominent suggestions:

Continue reading “Shape Up – There’s an Ed-Talent Scout on Campus!” →

Academic Advice, Career

The Ad(PhD)venture Begins…

Chris Chang-Bacon

phd_spelled_in_childrens_building_block_450The fall semester starts tomorrow and my “Ad(PhD)venture” officially begins. It took years of second (and third) guessing myself before signing onto the ultimate academic safari, and of course, the wisdom of that decision remains to be seen. Along the way, however, I collected a wide range of advice about starting a PhD program. It generally distilled down to:

A) Don’t do it

B) Your advisor will make or break your experience

C) Be prepared to spend the next few years weeping

D) Write, write, write

At this point, some of these nuggets are more helpful than others: I obviously ignored “A,” I’m ignorance-is-blissfully dubious of “C,” but the other two are at the forefront of my mind as I sharpen my pencils (no, really, I’m actually bringing pencils – who knows what to expect at this point?).

Any and all other advice is welcome!

And with that, as the ever-wise Billy Madison once said, “Back to school…”

~C.B.