easily distracted.

This is a shout-out to you, Williams College.

I’ve finally set up my travel blog. Please let me know what you think, if there’s anything I need to add to my about me pages, and if I sound like a douche. Also, let me know if you’re going abroad and keeping a travel blog (or just have a blog in general) so I can link to you! 

Perhaps all occupations should have sabbaticals. For professors, it mainly means being paid for not teaching. At Williams College, in a typical year, one-third of the faculty are away on leave. In Harvard’s history department, 20 of its 48 professors will be absent in the coming academic year. Students continue to pay the full rate, even when they are taught by visitors and courses they want are cancelled. [Emphasis added.]

This infuriates me. First of all, what is their source? In the age of the blog, I expect some links to primary sources (or at least second secondary sources…). Also, even if it is the case, so what? Maybe our professors are on sabbatical a) because they are required to in their fourth year of teaching before they can apply for tenure, or b) to do research so that they can focus on teaching when they are on campus (instead of passing lectures off to TAs and grad students). Third, I’ve really enjoyed the courses I’ve taken with visiting faculty. Why should they be seen as lesser in any way?