clcaterine

Reflections from the other side

It’s been over six months since my last blog post, and nearly the same since I started working at Deloitte. I didn’t exactly want to fall silent during that time, but it happened for two reasons that are hopefully understandable. First, and most plainly, I was no longer having the types of experiences that sustainedContinue reading “Reflections from the other side”

Good Things Can Eventually Happen

I know I’ve gone quiet for the last two months, but there have been exciting things in the works that pulled my attention away from writing. Okay, that and a lack of material from not working on a college campus every day–but that’s a topic for another post. I can hardly believe it, but inContinue reading “Good Things Can Eventually Happen”

The Urgency in My Leisure

Since grading my last final exams about a month ago, I’ve found myself in a peculiar situation: I’m still employed (and getting paid!) until the end of this month, but I don’t have any work to do for Tulane and haven’t yet lined up my next opportunity. This has left me with an awkward schedule. Continue reading “The Urgency in My Leisure”

Okay, I’ll make my own megaphone!

A while back I wrote about the difficulty I’d had finding a group to represent Contingent Faculty. Although there are a few entities serving this purpose–the New Faculty Majority and the American Association of University Professors among them–I’d never seen much action from either group in all the time I’ve been working on this issue. Continue reading “Okay, I’ll make my own megaphone!”

Eating My History: Shellfish and Shabbas in New Orleans

Over the last week I’ve been thinking about how New Orleans culture is like a cauldron of gumbo: a crazy hodge-podge of ingredients that don’t seem like they can possibly go together but somehow manage to produce something delicious. This isn’t an original observation, of course, but I recently experienced a few things that reallyContinue reading “Eating My History: Shellfish and Shabbas in New Orleans”

Retrospective

With the exception of one semester in 2013, I’ve taught every academic term since the fall of 2008. Taken together that’s nine years in the classroom. So the ebb and flow of the semester has now defined my working life for the better part of a decade, and I’ve grown accustomed to how the excitementContinue reading “Retrospective”

Rewarding Excellence: An Unexpected Dilemma for Contingent Faculty

As I was chairing the first official meeting of the Society for Classical Studies’ Committee on Contingent Faculty last January, somebody posed a simple question: “Do you think we should try to make some kind of award for people in non-tenure-track positions?” Our group was brainstorming ways to bring greater attention–and recognition–to people in theContinue reading “Rewarding Excellence: An Unexpected Dilemma for Contingent Faculty”

So you want to get a doctorate…

Over the last three years a number of our MA students have come to me to talk about their plans for what to do after Tulane, and in particular about what career prospects look like in Classics. For all that I’ve been flattered they would want my advice, my own decision to leave the fieldContinue reading “So you want to get a doctorate…”

Breathing Room

I felt a little bit like I was breaking a promise. I’d been hustling to make new contacts, sending out my resume in the hope of getting interviewed, and had said–quite expressly–that I would be writing on here once a week. It never seemed that I had quite enough time to get it all done,Continue reading “Breathing Room”

Conflicts of Interest

It may come as a surprise to learn that the duties and responsibilities of college faculty are only loosely defined. My contract with Tulane, for example, is less than two pages long. And while it does set out the courses I was slated to teach when it was issued, my salary, and the benefits I’mContinue reading “Conflicts of Interest”