Visiting Assistant Professors

[Ted Cox]

This post is in further response to the post below regarding Matt Gaunt and visiting assistant professors. If you find yourself in a "visiting" appointment now or in the future, I would strongly encourage you to study your own faculty handbook regarding your appointment and what your rights truly are. The Supreme Court decision from June of 1972, Perry v. Sindermann changed how universities can terminate full time teachers after they have been employed for seven years. In addition, the American Association of University Professors also supports how full time teachers can be terminated after seven years of service, outlined in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. If you are not familiar with the AAUP and your own faculty handbook, it's worth spending time familiarizing yourself with both documents.

Whether or not you have "tenure" after 7 years doesn't really matter. What you are entitled to is due process, just cause and adequacy of notice, which for all purposes is tenure. Universities take advantage of so many good intentioned people, rarely telling them that after seven years of service, you are now entitled to these rights. You should find a time table in your faculty handbook outlining notification of non-reappointment. A fourth or subsequent year of service demands a one-year notification.
In addition, should you find yourself in a personal conflict with another faculty member and the matter can't be resolved between the parties involved, be sure to let the ombudsperson at the university handle the matter and not the department head. It's to your advantage to let a neutral third party handle whatever issues are before them.

[TubaRay]

Unfortunately personality and ego even dominate tubenet. I've observed that as often as not tuba isn't even discussed, this site seems to turn into a little piss party for a handful of egocentrics with attitudes. Not my kind of thing, maybe representative of what's going on in the world. There's quite a few of us who don't participate more in this site because of this.

Come on, Beergarten. You don't even have to read all of the topics, let alone post your own comments. Certainly there are those who contribute negatively. There are also some great people on here. I have known some of them for years, and have met others as a result of participating, here. I have learned MUCH!

Don't let the actions of a few spoil it all.

[windshieldbug]

Unfortunately personality and ego even dominate tubenet. I've observed that as often as not tuba isn't even discussed, this site seems to turn into a little piss party for a handful of egocentrics with attitudes. Not my kind of thing, maybe representative of what's going on in the world. There's quite a few of us who don't participate more in this site because of this.

Now, I realize I've lost quite a few brain cells, but what's the connection here? I see two people here offering very valuable advice that I see many of the professional people here needing (and the tuba teacher at a great many schools IS an adjuct position). Where is this coming from?

[Rick Denney]

Some of the most objectionable posters also have the highest number of
postings, high 4 figure amounts in some cases...sure it is easy to say to ignore the few bad apples, but some of these guys dominate every other thread in a pissing match frenzy to always have the last word. It is the volume of negativism that bothers some, not the small number of posters responsible for it.

There are only four or five people who have posted more than I have, so I think I know who you are talking about.

But how boring would a place like Tubenet be if everyone was just sweetness and light? The other tuba forum only shows signs of life when one of the resident curmudgeons posts something really provocative and gets people riled up. Positive provocation (whatever that is) usually has little effect. Negative provocation provides just enough irritation to make people articulate, and we all benefit.

Having a few posters who regularly laugh and point at the rest of us keeps the forum energetic and fresh. I've participated in Tubenet for seven years, and some have been here longer than me, including all of those (in addition to me) to whom you must be referring. Forums like this do not exist solely to provide information for newbies or the merely curious. It also has to feed the long-time members, and sometimes that means giving them space to be the eccentrics that they are.

You can always just skip past their messages, the way I skip past some of the columnists of the Washington Post's editorial page who I know will make me mad without providing me anything interesting in return. But if you find yourself compelled to read them, then I ask you to imagine where the forum would be after a little while of having no such provocation. Perpetual agreement and positivism can be pretty dull.

Rick "who thinks you sometimes have to be a little sharp to make a point" Denney

[iiipopes]

Unfortunately personality and ego even dominate tubenet. I've observed that as often as not tuba isn't even discussed, this site seems to turn into a little piss party for a handful of egocentrics with attitudes. Not my kind of thing, maybe representative of what's going on in the world. There's quite a few of us who don't participate more in this site because of this.

Sometime, all of us being human, have to run headlong into something to get any good out of it. I have learned a lot from this forum; I have been called to the carpet on occasion as necessary; I have been concurred with a time or two when a synapse actually fired properly; I have come to change my beliefs and attitudes about an issue here and there after reading another post set forth the issue in its proper context.

Yes, there will be disagreements, negative postings, and a lot of hash. Even St. Paul said sometimes that is the only way you will get through to the truth of it all. It's like the legislative process: if you like to eat sausage, you probably don't want to watch how it's made.

[Lew]

Unfortunately personality and ego even dominate tubenet. I've observed that as often as not tuba isn't even discussed, this site seems to turn into a little piss party for a handful of egocentrics with attitudes. Not my kind of thing, maybe representative of what's going on in the world. There's quite a few of us who don't participate more in this site because of this.

I think it's one of those internet things; if someone is in a group of mostly people they don't know and says some of these things....social intercourse rules would come into play.

The internet has no face-to-face checks and balances, and many people of all ages just let go with both barrels. Younger people, before they learn a little restraint, tend to do huge flames; older people tend to just let their opinions be known and don't worry too much about what people think because it's only an internet posting.

We all have to learn to skip over posts of people we find obnoxious, and read the ones we either want to respond to or think we can learn from. I agree that real discussion would at times be more engaging than a lot of what goes on, but basically I take what I can get, realizing that this is an open forum with a wide variety of personalities and opinions within it.

Ephram

Sounds like a good topic for a dissertation in sociology or psychology, (although it sounds a little like media richness theory, which has been discredited) if it hasn't been done already. (This thread still belongs "off topic")

[Rick Denney]

...nope, I wasn't referring to you, Mr Denney...I find your posts to be, collectively, the most helpful and informative on this forum, worthy of inclusion in a book...

I appreciate the compliment, but I also pose this question: If the entire forum was filled with people like me, how stultifying would that be? I would run away with all haste, assuming there was anything to run away from. It's the mix of styles and messages, especially including the irritating ones, that keeps things dynamic, don't you think?

Rick "who can offend with the best of them--just wait and see" Denney

[Rick Denney]

It seemed like you went through a phase in the last year or so when you curtailed your posts, and I dropped in far less often as a result.

I've done that several times. I have to back off when my boss catches me on Tubenet too often. And when I get busy with real work that prevents recreational Internet play.

Rick "'absence makes the heart grow fonder'" Denney