This may seem like a simple thing, but I get requests for a considerable number of letters of recommendation every year. I suspect you do, too. I almost always say yes–partly out of being somewhat flattered, I’ll admit, but also because the majority of students (and faculty) who ask me for these letters are perceptive enough to recognize ahead of time that I have a fairly high opinion of them. And I must just be very friendly.

Just for fun, I kept a count one year. I wrote 45 separate letters for 23 different individuals. And yes, that means I wrote 23 new letters starting with blank pages. Most of the others required modest modifications of text that I already felt described this individual well. But in any case, anyone who has plopped themselves down in front of a blank, white form replete with blinky cursor knows that this isn’t a small amount of time…or effort.

But truly, I usually don’t much mind. But in the middle of a difficult letter, in the midst of a mild bout with writer’s block, I started wondering if our increasing mutual scrutiny has resulted in ‘regard inflation’ in the same way we’re experiencing ‘grade inflation’. Of course, there’s no way to know. But, the scientist in me just itches to find a way to find out.

I’ve seen a few examples (possibly apocryphal) of letters with double entendre that appeared at first read to be supportive of a candidate’s application, but…. I’m wondering if any of my readers have any examples (either of their own creation, or anecdotal) they would be willing to share here. Any great bon mots out there???

And how has your own experience been with letters? If you have a request from a student for whom you know you won’t write a glowing report, how do you decline? And do each of you get hit with 45 letters in a year, or does it just feel that way???

Please let me know. If you don’t wish to comment here, write me at acutler@uindy.edu. 

I think administrators are evil. Or maybe it’s more accurate (but much less inflammatory) to state that they’re dangerously misinformed. One of the reasons I feel this way is because of the teaching load (and therefore value) ascribed to laboratory teaching.

At my school, those of us in the sciences are given credit for half of the time we spend in lab with our students as a part of class. In other words, for every two-hour session I get credit for one hour of teaching. I’ve talked with other instructors at other schools, and my general impression is that this is about low average. In other words, most of us are being told that our time in the lab is worth about half the time we spend in ‘lecture’. That’s the value the students get out of it, and that’s about the amount of time we need to spend thinking about it.

The rational extrapolation of this is that our research as scientists is also worth about half. It must be because it also takes place in a laboratory and (if we’re doing our jobs right), looks much like our lab assignments for our students.

Gee! Talk about needing more hours in a day? If I’m researching or teaching in a lab setting, I need 48 just to come up even with instructors across campus who do not teach with a laboratory or practicum experience. No wonder it seems I get nothing done!

So I’m truly puzzled when my days of lab leave me far more exhausted than my days of lecture sessions. How come I’m so tired if I’m only working half as hard?

And what about moving toward active learning in my classroom? Well, for reasons of both practicality and safety, any chemistry student should be in the lab if they’re doing active learning, so…oh no!!! My administrators can’t tell the difference!! Wait!! There ISN’T a difference!! A good lab IS active learning already.

The only rational conclusion is that I’m working like crazy, and so are my students, but somehow the value is only half that of those same students sitting quietly (probably texting one another) in a history lecture in another building not a tenth of a mile away. Wow. How humbling!

On my worst days, I think it might be better for my students if I just pack it up and go back to industry where—for some unknown reason—they paid me for a full day’s work.

In the lab.

Most of the time, the inside of my head feels twenty five years old. In the same way that human height seems to reach an apex at about that time, I believe our minds develop a sort of default value for our imagined age. From behind my eyes, I don’t imagine myself as much different from twenty-five. Unless, that is, I’m faced with clear evidence to the contrary.

Today is one of those days. Today I start a blog. I recently heard that the English language now has about five times the number of words it did in Shakespeare’s time, and ‘blog’ is one of them. I’m not nearly as old as Shakespeare, but ‘blog’ wasn’t around when I was growing up, either. Blog sounds to me like some dangerously dank geographical hurdle or the sound made by accidentally stepping on a bagpipe. But in either case, here I am, blogging.

So why am I blogging? Partly out of frustration. Frustration, I’ve found, is one of the major ways in which my mind is presented with clear evidence that I’m not twenty-five. But in this case, my frustration stems from trying to find a way to start a real conversation among JCST’s readers about our students, our jobs, and our lives. I know that there is much we share as college-level science instructors, and I know in my marrow that we can benefit from the experiences and the wisdom of one another. I also know that what we are doing now to make those connections isn’t working.

So here I am, blogging my heart out, still not entirely sure of what blogging should be.  Hoping that one of you—or many of you? Please? Will fill me in on where I’m going wrong (and where I’m going right) in the process. I can’t seem to find a handy rubric anywhere. I know that I’m supposed to pontificate about a topic, and that you’re supposed to reply. Unless you do your part, though, we will miss all the benefits of inquiry-based blogging. Not good.

I’ll post again soon. Like most traditionally-trained professors, the opportunity to pontificate is too great a lure. Please don’t let me do it alone.