academics_anon, posts by tag: us/uk divide - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

| Hello all,I have a couple of questions re. conference funds. First off, myself and a few other grad students at a University in the UK were accepted into an international conference of very high standing, for our group project. We all need to be at the conference but the costs is keeping a few of us from being able to afford it.Our department claims to have no funds for this endeavor, and the deadline for receiving University conference support has passed, a month ago (way before we found out about getting into the conference).Anyway, my question is, how does one go about finding funds? Should I email the conference and ask them if they have any funds we could use? What are good external funders?The conference is end of May to early June (3 days in total).Thanks.Tags:conferences, us/uk divide I did my PhD in Australia, and have been in the US for a year after landing a postdoc in the humanities the first time I applied for one. I'm about to begin my first big US job search this fall, for tenure-track positions and other postdocs. My question is about recommendation letters: should I ask my Australian-based advisers, or mentors and colleagues here in the US? My advisers can speak to my PhD research, but not to the work I've been doing since. Given that they're overseas, they're difficult to get in touch with. (From reading Chronicle advice columns, it seems that referees should expect phone calls about candidates. Well, duh.) My advisers will also be less familiar to US search committees. I've been working with a mentor on the postdoc and have worked with colleagues at this and other institutions -- all of these could write me decent rec. letters. However, I worry about taxing the energies of mentors and colleagues here in the US, who haven't been advisers and thus don't necessarily have an investment in my future success like advisers would. Hence, the question: is it better to a) offer rec. letters from people who are in the US and whose names might be more familiar to search committees, with whom one has worked? b) rec. letters from just my PhD advisers? c) cover both bases?I'd also welcome any tips from people who have been on the US job market after moving from overseas -- especially on how you learnt about institutional job search processes without having advisers who could tell you what was what. For instance, everyone keeps talking about the importance of the "job talk" -- yet I can't locate a simple explanation of what a job talk should include, how long it should go for etc. If it helps, I'm interdisciplinary, and will be applying for Gender/Women's/Sexuality Studies, Ethnic Studies and probably American Studies (but could apply in Anthropology or English if it was an "interdisciplinary" position.) Thanks!Tags:cv-questions, interviews-and-job-market, job applications, job market, us/uk divide If a British student quotes an American-spelled paper, is the protocol to use the American spelling, surreptitiously correct the spelling, use the American spelling followed by a [_sic_], or correct the spelling and indicate the correction somehow?What's the protocol in cases of typos and non-typographical errors that slightly obscure the meaning of the sentence, or that are incorrect in a way that doesn't obscure the sentence's meaning?Tags:citation, us/uk divide Context - I am a PhD student in a humanities discipline, and, like everyone else in this age of publish or perish, I am looking to my scholarly laurels. In thinking about ways to do this, I've come across what seems to be a bit of a US/UK cultural difference, and so I wanted to seek the general a_a opinion. I'm at a US university, and all my US contacts have spoken against trying to prepare a chapter of my thesis as an article, saying that it will detract from the interest of publishers in the eventual book (please do not crush my optimism that there will be an eventual book). However, as a UK ex-pat, I'm also talking to my UK colleagues, all of whom shrug their shoulders and say that publishing a thesis chapter isn't going to hurt interest in a book manuscript, and might even increase it.So, a_a - to publish a thesis chapter or not to publish a thesis chapter? What would a_a do, besides pour a stiff G&T? Is it a cultural difference, or have I just been speaking to people whose opinions happen to match up to their continents?Tags:dissertations-and-theses, publishing, us/uk divideMood:tired Let us say that a job application asks for, among the usual materials, "a short summary of suitability for pastoral duties (not longer than one page)".If you were a candidate, what would you write?If you were on the search committee, what would you look for?(There is a particular job in mind, but I'm more interested in the general implications of the question than in asking a_a to write my job application.)Edit: to clarify - the kind of thing meant by pastoral includes creating a link between undergraduates and faculty through organising social things; being the first port of call for undergrads panicking about work or their personal lives; and handing out appropriate support services information where necessary. Although feel free to keep making the sheep jokes.Tags:job applications, us/uk divideMood:working Hi folks,I'm in the midst of a job application for a sessional post. I've had a browse through the tags and turned up some really helpful advice, thank you. I'm still stumped about a couple of things that you might be able to help me with:1. References: I need to supply three references. I have three good people in my current department who have worked with me in a number of ways (PhD supervisor, Head of Department/Advisor, and Lead Lecturer on a course I taught on this year). I'm currently in my first post, so don't have any previous employers to call on. There is one person in another department, who gave me a reference for the current post, but we haven't been in touch in months and months. Would it be bad to have all my references come from the same department?2. The job application says to include outlines for courses I'd be willing to teach. I'm guess that these are outlines for courses they don't already offer, but which would fit under one of the general headings like: Anth 300: Special Topics. Does this make sense?EDITED: I deleted the part about not matching the job description, because it turns out there was a second posting that I do match, it was just hidden. So, that's no longer a problem. Instead, I've inserted a different question 2, because I'm coming at the North American job market from a UK perspective, and as you know, things are different.Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.Tags:job applications, us/uk divide Hello,I recall a number of discussions here, where concerns were raised about socializing with students.Here is something that caught my attention in this context:"It was wonderful being taught by Miles [Burkitt]. We used to bicycle every Monday afternoon to his very elegant house in Grantchester to be welcomed by Peggy Burkitt with the most sumptuous tea. Then Miles would lead us into his study.He was an enthusiast and helped to enthuse the rest of us. He never used any notes and always spoke out of his head. His attitude was that past history was there in the ground, you had only to dig and find it" - from an interview with Prof. Thurstan Shaw. This is hanging in the Archeology and Anthropology museum in Cambridge. Apparently there was no problem with teaching his students in his house over tea and cookies (it might be he is talking about grad students though). For all those worried about students visiting/staying at your house - I think our modern Western culture has got progressively screwed up over time. We are assumed to have only devious, selfish intentions, and no matter what we do, the proverbial majority will interpret our actions in the negative way. Might as well do what we consider correct.Added: The comments proved an interesting reading! Thanks. :)Tags:us/uk divideMood:tired How many words is 15-25 pages? About 5000-9000 words or so?I have asked Google, but Google is wildly contradictory on the subject. Everything I've written since I was sixteen has been measured in word counts, but page counts seem to be standard in North America, and they baffle me, so I just wanted to check. Thanks!Tags:us/uk divide I have just been offered (and accepted) a post in an HE institution. It's not an academic post, but I will be working directly with academic staff and students, and running some training sessions. My PhD is going to be conferred in about six weeks' time, and theoretically I'm not supposed to use my Dr. title until after my graduation. What I haven't yet decided is whether or not I'm going to. I changed from Miss to Ms when I was nineteen, so Ms has always been my "grown-up and independent" title, and I'm pretty attached to it. If I were continuing as an academic I would definitely use Dr as it's so obviously expected, but as I'm not, I'm playing around with the idea of staying as Ms. Anyway, I'm not really looking for advice, but I would be interested in hearing how other people feel about changing their titles after completing their doctorate. Do you / will you use it? How do you feel about colleagues and friends who do/don't use theirs? I've heard that usage differs between Europe and North America - have you come across this? Does it depend on whether you work in academia or not? General comments welcome!Tags:etiquette-and-ethics, us/uk divide Hi folks,I've had a wander through the tags in an effort to see if this has been discussed before. No luck, so either it hasn't been brought up, or it wasn't tagged in a way I recognised. The post has gotten a bit long, so I'll put part of it behind a cut.I'm a final year PhD student at a UK university. I'm Canadian and will be going back to Canada following the completion of my degree. I would like to do a post-doc, but I'm a bit stumped. And while I'd like to just get on with my thesis and deal with this later, I can't really do so because SSHRC (the major Canadian funding body that covers my field) wants application in the autumn.Firstly, and this may sound ignorant, but I can't seem to get a consistent answer: what is a post-doc? Is it different between North America and the UK? Is it different between Canada and the US?Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.Tags:ask the a_a reference desk, us/uk divideMood:perplexed As some of you know from a recent post, I am a doctoral candidate in the humanities. I am an American citizen who obtained my BA (double in Religion and Literature) in the States and have subsequently received an MA and am working towards a doctoral degree from a university in the UK. In a recent conversation with a colleague (I adjunct here in America while I finish up my thesis), she expressed her interest in doing doctoral work in the UK, but said she had heard some disparaging things about the reputation of masters and doctoral work in the UK.I can't do much about it since I am so close to completion, but I was wondering if any of you out there had any insight about the reputation of UK degrees in general and in the US academic job market (such as it is ;-)). Of course, I understand that university reputations vary, but I was just wondering from a more general perspective . . .I have found my doctoral work to be rigorous and challenging, but I suppose I have little to compare it to. Perhaps its a case of "academic nationalism?"Thanks everyone . . . Cheers/Goodbye . . .Tags:us/uk divide A number of times I have seen people - mainly US based - talk about their "committees", in relation to theses and dissertations.Having only done my BA in the US (a L O N G time ago), this intrigues me. Perhaps an explanation of why...For my second degree, I had a supervisor, and three censors who attended the lectio... but they weren't a committee and those three had nothing to do with the dissertation and didn't enter the picture until the day of that lecture.For my doctorate - I had a supervisor. Then there was an internal reader, who made suggestions but had no power, as it were. Then there was an internal examiner and an external examiner, neither of whom had any prior contact with my research before submission. (Well, ok, so I had lunch with the internal examiner on a fairly regular basis and sometimes talke about it but it was hardly formal). I don't think they ever met the internal reader as a group. So - no committee.I'm assuming a different set up in the US?Tags:us/uk divide Top of Page | | | 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