dr. t

I agree, I think the department sent its list off to the central administration on Friday?

May be just a stray; they haven't sent out all their acceptances, yet.

Glad to see it's up and running again! More medieval is more better!

Toronto is now the latest they've ever been since they did away with snail mail.

I go there every May for a big medievalist conference, and I have to say I agree. Its only redeeming quality is that it's two hours from Chicago.

I have always found that the combination of an expensive, ultrabook-type laptop (OK performance, very long battery life, lightweight) and a powerful desktop provides the best of both worlds for a bit less than the cost of a heavy, powerful laptop. For example, my current set-up is a Lenovo X1 Ultrabook (~$1400) and a hand-built PC tower (~$600). My wife has a top-end laptop she uses for architectural renderings etc. which is roughly about as powerful as the desktop and cost her ~$2400. So, I would say the laptop will certainly work, and if you find it inadequate, get something that sits on a desk for heavy processing.

I would assume that most of the 1BRs close to campus would probably come on the market in May or June for September, FYI.

Kinda. "You may not express these opinions here, but you are free to discuss them with me in private" is a valid way of dealing with many issues in the classroom. I am not so sure I agree with this. A professor should be able to state that he or she is a professor in their public non-academic life without fear of censure. The example you give is not quite the same. A person who holds an administrative or representative post and signs with that post, as your university's rector did, is tacitly asserting that he or she is speaking ex cathedra and thus is liable for censure. I would offer the example of "Sarah Q. Academic, Professor of Mathematics, Bigname University" and contrast it with "Sarah Q. Academic, Chair, Department of Mathematics, Bigname University". The former is a simple statement of Dr. Academic's job, whereas the latter implies that she is speaking in her administrative role. In a more extreme example, contrast the difference between "Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, Professor of History, Harvard University" with "Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard University".

I would just caution that we need to make a subtle but important distinction between non-academic opinions and this case here. There are a lot of things that don't fall under the category "academic" that should be protected under "academic freedom". For example, if I mention to the dean at a cocktail soiree that I like merlot or that the Jews faked the Holocaust, that to me is (highly reprehensible) protected speech. Similarly, if a professor was to use non-university resources (e.g. a personal blog) to publicize these reprehensible opinions, that is still protected speech. It is when this speech is targeted at a specific person or persons that it loses its protection. If I were to tell the same dean that I will not let my colleague Fred get tenure because he's a Jew who hates merlot, that would be a valid grounds for termination of my tenure. McAdams' speech is of this latter sort, and thus his termination is justified.

It's the price we pay for our states generally not being on fire.

Out of the 7 times Harvard has ever closed for snow, 3 of them were this year.

It's been three weeks and one of my classes has only met once. That professor flies up from DC every Tuesday morning. Dunno how we're going to get back on track.

It's a fun experience - this will be my third time.

Tomorrow was a holiday already, although I'm not sure it will actually be a snow day - it's stopped snowing in the past hour.

Thanks for the tips. I'm a Boston native, so it will be a reduction in snow, if you can believe that!

Hah, maybe. I see all these Harvard undergraduates scurrying around, each with a Plan that they've had since they were 14 or something, so my perspective is biased!

Hey, this thread's pretty dusty. Can anyone freshen any of the information? I'm looking for a nicer place to live and I have a decent budget; the wife is gainfully employed. Also, has anyone tried living in Boston and commuting to Providence or vice versa? How'd it work out?

The results thread has revealed that there are several medievalists kicking around here. I thought we might have our own little exclusive thread for chat, language questions, and conferences. So, is anyone going to Kalamazoo or Leeds? I will be presenting at the former, and hopefully the latter (pending funding). (Yes, the title is deliberate)

It's interesting that so many of us on this board have taken non-standard routes to academia. As I've said elsewhere, I was thrown out of college (twice!) in my early twenties, and it took me 9 years to finish my BA. Being bad at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something!

I mean, it is hard to make a rule that draws a line between acceptable and not.

There's a lot of middle ground between knowing about liberation theology and being a "one trick pony". I think it is incredibly important to give yourself context in your work and to always be on the lookout for new ideas or approaches. I think many PhD students, particularly those in the ABD phase, forget about this. If you can quote extensively from scholarship on medieval law codes, but give a black stare when someone asks about art history from the same period, that's a problem. Some of this is expected - a diss is by its nature a deep exploration into a tiny topic - but it requires balance. I would also suggest that your professors seem more rounded because 1) they've had more time to round themselves and 2) those students who are curious enough and remember the importance of rounding tend to publish more interesting work and thus become professors.

Also, McAdams was the student's adviser, making the student's recording even more suspicious. McAdams was certainly expressing his opinions about the "liberal" trend in stifling academic discourse. He was also doing other things.

Uh, false.

Some further reading: http://dailynous.com/2014/11/18/philosophy-grad-student-target-of-political-smear-campaign/ https://ceabbate.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/gender-based-violence-responsibility-and-john-mcadams/ http://academeblog.org/2015/02/09/beware-of-the-pedagogy-police-cheryl-abbate-v-john-mcadams-at-marquette-graphic-e-mail-in-appendix/ http://academeblog.org/2015/02/07/marquette-to-fire-mcadams-for-dereliction-of-duty/