[This past
weekend, we held the fifth annual New England American Studies
Association (NEASA) Colloquium.
So this week I’ll share some responses to each of the five colloquia to date,
leading up to a special weekend post on AmericanStudies in 2015!]
On a few key
pieces of advice for grad students, junior faculty, and other AmericanStudiers
given at this past weekend’s 2015 Colloquium:
1)
Consider different types of institutions: In my
own session at the Colloquium, on preparing CVs and other application
materials, I connected many of my thoughts to another group I’m part of: the Cross-Sector
Partnership, a Massachusetts initiative (started by Bridgewater State
University Dean Paula Krebs)
to help prepare grad students and others for “teaching at teaching-intensive
institutions.” That’s a great organization, and if you’re interested you should
check
out their blog and contact Paula for more info! But in any case the broader
point is one I would stress here: that different types of institutions have
very different models for teaching, research, service, and all other aspects of
our scholarly and educational lives and careers, and it’s vital for all of us to
consider and engage with those different models.
2)
Balance our goals: A Colloquium session on the
canon and students, which featured BU Professors Hunt
Howell and Ross Barrett
and Plymouth State Professor Diane
Hotten-Somers, included a great deal of relevant information for all of us who
teach and work in AmericanStudies and higher ed. But I found particularly
interesting a recurring thread that has a great deal to say to all AmericanStudiers,
both as teachers and in our scholarly work: the need to balance between more
specialized (or “boutique,” as we called it in this conversation) goals and
topics and more widespread and shared (or “canonical,” ditto) ones. Without
eliding all the issues with and around the canon, it’s worth noting that at least
partly that concept has to do with what we all (ideally) share—what authors and
books, what histories and themes, what conversations. And so it seems to me, as
it did in our conversation I believe, that an ideal goal for our teaching,
scholarship, and careers is to keep working for a balance of the specialized
and the shared, the boutique and the canon.
3)
Join NEASA!: Or organizations and efforts like
it, at least. Another main topic of my CV clinics is always the need to find
and build service, which really forms the third leg of academia (and tenure and
promotion) alongside teaching and research, but which is often far less emphasized
at any level of training or in our conversations about these questions. Service
can mean many different things, but certainly membership, leadership, and work
in organizations like NEASA (or the Cross-Sector Partnership) represents one
great way to build the service part of our CV and experiences—and to connect to
so many amazing colleagues, conferences and colloquiums, and conversations and
communities along the way. If you’re in the New England area and interested in
being part of NEASA, feel free to contact
me or our current President
Gretchen Sinnett. And wherever you are, join conversations and communities
like this if you get the chance!
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Advice you’d give to grad students or others on the market?
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