Category Archives: Scholarship

2020 in review

At Whitman, like at many other institutions of higher education, faculty submit an annual activity report. Why? As with annual reviews in any profession, it’s a prod to reflection and self-evaluation. We don’t work closely with our nominal boss, the Dean of the College, so it serves to inform her of our workload and accomplishments. She uses this information to determine raises for the following academic year. (Not that I expect there will be raises this year—except, I hope, promotion raises for those who are so entitled.)

I’ve never been moved to blog about my annual activity report before. It’s a routine chore. But this activity report, post-sabbatical and mid-pandemic, left me thinking, “Wow, I got a lot done last year!” That’s despite spending 2 1/2 months at home with my toddler, and despite spending much of the fall semester feeling completely feckless. I think my 2020 activity report tells a story about the nature of faculty work and the mood of 2020. Continue reading

Five years of research in 33 minutes

At Whitman, faculty are required to give a public talk after each sabbatical. Most faculty fulfill this obligation through a talk in the Faculty Forum series – as did I, this past Wednesday.

This talk summarizes five years of research on four projects:
0. Survey of technology to influence language use
1. Media analysis of Just Not Sorry
2. Value sensitive design of Degender the Web
3. Development of Reading for Gender Bias

It was surprisingly fun. Please watch below:

Checking out Emberfuel Coworking

This week I decided to visit Emberfuel Coworking in downtown Walla Walla for their monthly first-Friday open house. My faculty office opens onto the CS Commons, which I’m sure will fill up with students again once classes resume. So, I’m looking for other places to work during my sabbatical.

I’ve been curious about Emberfuel for a while. I learned about the open house from Meetup.com, which a LACS colleague persuaded me to join at our annual meeting about a month ago. Here are my first impressions. Continue reading

Sabbatical habits, part 1

For me, June marked the beginning of a year-long sabbatical. This meant an abrupt return to the research I almost entirely neglected during my first year back to teaching and administration after the birth of my child. All I had done was write two proposals – one for summer research, and one for the sabbatical itself.

This won’t be a post about the content of my research: that’s a topic for later in the year. Rather, this post discusses the habits I’ve retained from the academic year, new habits I am forming now, and habits I am considering for later in my sabbatical. Continue reading