text:
BEST WESTERN Hibiscus Motel
No availability found through our partners. Please contact the business directly or check some of our recommended alternatives.
- Continental Breakfast
- Swimming pool
- Free High-Speed Internet
- Wheelchair accessibility
- Free parking
Photos of BEST WESTERN Hibiscus Motel
Travelers also recommend:
Historical Traveler Reviews BEST WESTERN Hibiscus Motel Key West
Very enjoyable spot
We stayed here in May 2003, using a good old AAA directory as referral.
A AAA referral for a place in Key Largo didn't fare so well, so we weren't really sure how the Hibiscus would turn out. We're happy to say, the Hibiscus was a wonderful place to stay: clean and bright and the free parking was a real plus. The location was terrific too, just a quick walk to Duval and access to everything. The staff are really nice and make you feel welcome. We definitely would go back here. Just a real nice place to call home while you're enjoying all the fun city sites. No complaints at all.
Nice and clean, good and affordable choice for Key West
Nice hotel, rooms clean, trays were provided for breakfast so you could eat at the pool or in your room. Good location, only 1 block from Duval Street. Parking also no problem which is definitely a plus in Key West.
Would recommend it.
Good place to stay
This is an older Best Western but the rooms have been somewhat renovated. The bathroom had older fixtures but was clean. We received a very friendly reception when checking in and the lady was very helpful to suggest restaurants to try. It s a fantastic location in Key West being just a block over from Duval and only 12 blocks from Mallory Square. Hotel has a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi if you are interested.
Clean, convenient, affordable
November 2003 Friendly staff. Recommended several places to eat and gave us coupons. Food was good and free wine. Someone was cleaning or painting all the time outside. Property is older but well maintained. 1 block from Trolley stop, can buy tickets at hotel. Interesting small shops like Kindred Spirit just down the block.Would diffently stay there again. Price reasaonable for $80.00 per night. Quiet safe neighborhood. Free parking
Good Place! Great Location!!
First place we stayed at in KW and it was worth every penny. We stayed for three days, room was nice (for a hotel), service was great, price for room was not outrageous. Staff went out of their way to be helpful.
Continental breakfast was standard, but there's a wonderful old drugstore across the street that has great breakfasts!! Location is great. When you arrive at Best Western Hibiscus, you don't need a car until you check out. Scooter service, bike service, any service is available. Will be back again and will recommend highly!!
Good room for the price
My wife and I stayed there on 10/15/03, checked in fast, all paperwork was in order, the room/shower was clean and well equiped. Its on the far end of Duval St away from most of the bars and nightlife its a nice 15-20 minute walk down to Mallory Square. We will go back next year and will probably stay here again, everyone treated us like they wanted our bussines and was real friendly.
Surprised at this Best Western
Went to the Keys July 4th weekend 2002. For the price this place was great. The location and cleanliness was good. Small fridges in room which are handy. The pool area was pretty,clean and quiet. They have a nice deli across the street. We walked every night down to the end of town. The morning continetal breakfast was better then anywere else I have been. Fruit, milk, cereal, donuts, juice. Not bad considering the price of the rooms! Staff was very friendly. Public transportation however, in KeyWest itself stinks. They have many sightseeing buses, which fill quickly, but no good sound public transportation. I'd go back and stay here, but its nice to have a car.
Great Location
I get down to KW about 2-3 times a year and have stayed at the Hibiscus ever sine finding it abour 5 years ago.
While the rooms are typical motel, they are clean and large with free 'fridges'.
The ppol is quite nice; large clean and rarely crowded. There is also an attached spa.
The great thing is the location. Far enough away from the crowds of Duval to be nice and quiet, yet close enough to walk anywhere in Old Town.
One minus... they recently (last year) changed to be completely non-smoking. No choice. You can always step out of the room, and smoking is allowed around the pool. But choice is always nice.
Nice motel. Good location
The pool and spa were under renovation when we were there. We were not notified of this before we checked in. They did have a pool available across the street. The room was typical Best Western, clean and with just enough room to feel comfortable. They had a very nice free continental breakfast. The location is good, near the eastern end of Simonton Street. It was easy to drive to where the action was. The closer you can get to Mallory Square the better but the price goes up the closer you get. When visiting Key West it is much preferable to get a motel like this in Old Town then stay at the places at the entrance to Key West if you can afford it.
Loved it!!
Go almost every October. Love it in Key West. The Hibiscus is an excellent place to stay. The rooms are very nice and clean. They have a nice big pool, with a spa connected to it. Also, it is the best location. Out of all the noice of Duval Street, but close enough you never have to use your car. You can walk anywhere. I recommend this place to stay if you visit Key West....from Bill....
TripAdvisor Reviews BEST WESTERN Hibiscus Motel Key West
Travel Blogs from Key West
Back to Reality
... when it was obvious tables for four were more readily available than tables for two, we worked with the folks standing behind us to sit together for a bite to eat. They were from Albany, NY (and I thought we were heading back to snow country!) and had been on a cruise. They still had a couple hours before their flight. Ours was an hour and a half.
Flight back was a breeze. Non-stop to Midway. And by 5:00 pm we ...
Our US Holiday - Hemmingway and Lighthouses
... the night before, but we thought we might rise early and head into town one last time. In any case, getting the bikes out and the bags to reception, meant that I was already a lather of sweat. We taxied to Hemmingway's house and spent a good hour there. This was really interesting. I didn't realize how prolific a writer he was. Most of his books were written while he lived in Key West. There were heaps of old photos and letters. Apparently, he was a cat nut. There were cats ...
The Conch Republic
... if your drink cup requires wheels, shouldn't you be thinking about downsizing?).
Getting off the main drag was definitely the right answer- we started off in an area with it's own jostling but this time it seemed to be over the title of 'Southernmost'. Hotels, restaurants, and stores all want to be at the southernmost point in the U.S.- there's even a marker that claims to be the most southern point in ...
A day in Key West
... area, a great location. Back for a nice relaxing lay on the beach under the shade of the trees. We did a little shopping and picked up some lunch. Stayed inside during the hottest part of the day and watched a movie. Time for a swim so off to the pool, which is now in complete shade, just fantastic. Back to our room ( it must be wine o'clock) Huge downpour tonight glad we are ...
Day 8
Today we went down to Key West to do some sightseeing. The drive down there took about an hour and was a very pretty drive. Wow Key West is so much busier than the slow paced, relaxed environment of Big Pine Key! We found a place to park and walked down Duval street. There were a ton of shops, restaurants, and some very good people watching. We ate at Sloppy Joe's, which was really good. Bryce was running a fever, but once we got him feeling a little better we all had a great time on Key ...


text:
27 Russian Dating Site Members You Don't Want to Mail Order
Look at Me Now: Celebrity Relatives
These 16 Historical Photos Will Totally Change How You See the Past
25 Things You Probably Google When You're All Alone
20 Unforgettable Vintage Photos of Real Circus Freaks & Sideshow Acts
How to Feed Your Appetite for Cool Cosmetics
15 Idiotic Laws That Only Exist in America
Woman Gets Ultimate Revenge On Childhood Bully
These Terrifying, Oversized Animals Will Haunt Your Dreams Forever
Are You Keeping Your Dog Hydrated?
30 Really Good Examples of Why Japan is So Weird
10 Mysterious Photos That Cannot Be Explained
5 Fastest Animals in the World
Make Your Own Dominator
Is Justin Bieber The Next Rob Lowe?
No One Believes These Teen Girls Are Twins
Sleeping Soldier Pranks Show Why You Can't Ever Take a Nap in the Military
45 Idiots Who Picked Fights with the Wrong Guy
Brutal Female Bodyguards Training in China
Entire Restaurant Staff Quits on the Same Day
What This Blind Autistic Boy Did On Stage, Left Everyone Numb!
16 People Fortunately Saved from Their Horrible Tattoos
Get To Know The Shocking Truth Behind America's Past
10 Of The Most Fascinating Snake Facts
The 10 Creepiest Things Ever Unearthed During Archaeological Digs
How to Increase Your Laptop Battery Power While Traveling
Hilarious Tattoo Fails You Have To Check Out
The Hairiest Girl in the World
The Rolls-Royce Even Millionaires Can't Touch

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Leading eBooks Store Online
for Kindle Fire, Apple, Android, Nook, Kobo, PC, Mac, BlackBerry...
New to eBooks.com?Learn more
- Bestsellers - This Week
- Foreign Language Study
- Pets
- Bestsellers - Last 6 months
- Games
- Philosophy
- Archaeology
- Gardening
- Photography
- Architecture
- Graphic Books
- Poetry
- Art
- Health & Fitness
- Political Science
- Biography & Autobiography
- History
- Psychology & Psychiatry
- Body Mind & Spirit
- House & Home
- Reference
- Business & Economics
- Humor
- Religion
- Children's & Young Adult Fiction
- Juvenile Nonfiction
- Romance
- Computers
- Language Arts & Disciplines
- Science
- Crafts & Hobbies
- Law
- Science Fiction
- Current Events
- Literary Collections
- Self-Help
- Drama
- Literary Criticism
- Sex
- Education
- Literary Fiction
- Social Science
- The Environment
- Mathematics
- Sports & Recreation
- Family & Relationships
- Media
- Study Aids
- Fantasy
- Medical
- Technology
- Fiction
- Music
- Transportation
- Folklore & Mythology
- Nature
- Travel
- Food and Wine
- Performing Arts
- True Crime
- Foreign Language Books
Cheap on CrimeUniversity of California Press 2015; US$ 29.95
After forty years of increasing prison construction and incarceration rates, winds of change are blowing through the American correctional system. The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated the unsustainability of the incarceration project, thereby empowering policy makers to reform punishment through fiscal prudence and austerity. In Cheap on Crime,... more...
Origins Of The GulagThe University Press of Kentucky 2015; US$ 35.00
A vast network of prison camps was an essential part of the Stalinist system. Conditions in the camps were brutal, life expectancy short. At their peak, they housed millions, and hardly an individual in the Soviet Union remained untouched by their tentacles. Michael Jakobson's is the first study to examine the most crucial period in the history of... more...
Prison Management, Prison Workers, and Prison TheoryLexington Books 2014; US$ 79.99
Stephen C. McGuinn develops a conception of prison infrastructure and policy to explore how workers and administrators are essential in the development of prison culture. This study provides insight for those interested in criminology, criminal justice, prison theory and reform, policy studies, and labor studies. more...
Locked Down, Locked OutBerrett-Koehler Publishers 2014; US$ 18.95
Through the stories of prisoners and their families, including her own family?s experiences, Maya Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans and decimates poor communities of color is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety. As she vividly depicts here, incarceration takes away the very... more...
A World of GivingPublicAffairs 2014; US$ 60.00
The age of international philanthropy is upon us. Today, many of America?s most prominent foundations support institutions or programs abroad, but few have been active on the global stage for as long as Carnegie Corporation of New York. A World of Giving provides a thorough, objective examination of the international activities of Carnegie Corporation,... more...
Banged Up!Black & White Publishing 2014; US$ 5.82
Britain?s prisons have dealt with a vast range of inmates over the years � from infamous criminals to celebrities to the wrongfully convicted. Banged Up now tells the story of six of Britain?s most notorious jails � Durham, Wandsworth, Pentonville, Wormwood Scrubs, Dartmoor and Holloway � and of the men and women who entered their gates, sometimes... more...
The ReappearedRutgers University Press 2014; US$ 29.95
Between 1976 and 1983, during a period of brutal military dictatorship, armed forces in Argentina abducted 30,000 citizens. These victims were tortured and killed, never to be seen again. Although the history of los desaparecidos , ?the disappeared,? has become widely known, the stories of the Argentines who miraculously survived their imprisonment... more...
Encyclopedia of Human Services and DiversitySAGE Publications 2014; US$ 495.00
Encyclopedia of Human Services and Diversity is the first encyclopedia to reflect the changes in the mission of human services professionals as they face today?s increasingly diverse service population. Diversity encompasses a broad range of human differences, including differences in ability and disability, age, education level, ethnicity, gender,... more...
Mean Lives, Mean LawsRutgers University Press 2014; US$ 25.95
�Oklahoma has long held the dubious honor of having the highest female incarceration rate in the country, nearly twice the national average. In this compelling new book, sociologist Susan Sharp sets out to discover just what has gone so wrong in the state of Oklahoma?and what that might tell us about trends in female incarceration nationwide. The... more...
Die Strategie als gemeinsame Logik des HandelnsSpringer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2014; US$ 6.99
Der Erfolg eines Unternehmens wird, au�er von der Strategie, von einer exzellenten F�hrung, den richtigen Mitarbeitern, taktischen Ma�nahmen sowie vom Gl�ck bestimmt. Hinterhuber & Partners haben die Praxis des strategischen Denkens und Handeln in mehr als 230 Strategischen Gesch�ftseinheiten von 50 Unternehmen untersucht. In Gespr�chen mit Mitgliedern... more...


text:
BRP US ReviewsBRP US 18
2 people found this helpful
"BRP is a great company that manufactures high end consumer products "
- Comp & Benefits
- Work/Life Balance
- Senior Management
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
I worked at BRP US full-time (more than 5 years)Pros
The products are unbelievable and brand is very strong among enthusiasts.Cons
Aggressive targets and bonus compensation becomes very difficult to achieve.
Too many product lines makes it difficult to focus on growing all of them simultaneously.Advice to ManagementAdvice
Expand product line for entry level consumer and allow compensation for salespeople to grow at the same pace of the company. I had a situation for several years that sales were going up but since targets were not achieved fully, my overall compensation was suffering.RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
BRP US Interviews
Interview Experience
Interview Experience
Getting an Interview
Getting an Interview
Interview Difficulty
- Application Details
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 3+ months – interviewed at BRP US in February 2012.Interview Details
The interview process takes long time to the first interview to the last one could take 3 months. I was applying twice for the same position, the first time I got 3 interviews in a period of time of 2 months. The second one was one year before and it took 3 months, in this time it was 4 interview and the last interview is done with the Company president, HR manager and department manager as well.Interview Questions
Accepted OfferPositive ExperienceAverage Interview
- The most difficult is to pass the second interview, not all the people did it and once you pass it there are more possibilities to be hired. The most difficult was the practical case to test you how will you react in possible situation of trouble in your position. Answer Question
BRP US Awards & Accolades
Let us know if we're missing any workplace or industry recognition – Add an award


text:
In Stock
Break out of the rut you're in with the Rossignol Slat Skis for men! The freshly falling powder is calling and you need to get in on the action, but the window of opportunity is closing and you don't have a ski setup that will help you excel in the current conditions. The 2014 Slat model skis from Rossignol are just for you, with their auto turn rocker for quick maneuvering and a fiberglass laminate construction that reduces the weight without limiting power transfer. These skis are also built with a full length wood core that enhances pop and snap for high performance in the park to help set you apart from the competition.


text:
8642 193rd Street West
Farmington, Minnesota, 55024
Commute to Downtown Lakeville
Almost all errands require a car.
Score Details
8642 193rd Street West has a Walk Score of 12 out of 100. This location is a Car-Dependent neighborhood so almost all errands require a car.
This location is in Farmington.
Nearby schools include All Saints Catholic School, Lake Marion Elementary School and Century Middle School.
Nearby restaurants include SUBWAY® Restaurants, Teresa's Mexican Restaurant and McDonald's.
Explore how far you can travel by car, bus, bike and foot from 8642 193rd Street West.
View all Farmington apartments on a map.
Popular apartment searches include single family, hardwood floor and fireplace. View all Farmington apartments and rentals.
This location is in the city of Farmington, MN. Farmington has an average Walk Score of 22 and has 21,086 residents.Learn More About Farmington


text:
When's the last time an ice deliveryman visited your home? Have you ever talked to a telephone switchboard operator? Thanks to new technologies, these once-common occupations passed into history many years ago now. Bank tellers and travel agents are not completely obsolete, but substantially fewer people are employed in these lines of work than in the past for similar reasons.
Will new developments in Internet-based communications technology do similar things to college professors? Perhaps people like me will face the same trouble finding employment that newspaper reporters or piano tuners face nowadays. Or perhaps MOOCs will eliminate the need for professors almost entirely, allowing students to flock to courses offered by a smattering of "super-professors" while computers, graduate students and adjuncts do all the grading that once occupied so much of an analog instructor's time.
I don't know whether the Internet will make college professors obsolete, but then again nobody else does, either. Yet this fact has not prevented the rise of a cottage industry of pundits who gleefully suggest that faculty in every department of the modern university are somehow headed for the scrap heap. Some of these pundits seem to welcome that possibility because they expect that the cost of a college education will decrease with fewer professors collecting what they perceive to be hefty salaries, and they think that's good for society. Some of these people seem to welcome this possibility because they just hate college professors. We are perceived as elitists, and everybody likes to watch elitists get their comeuppance, except the elitists themselves.
While countless people try to predict the future of higher education based on the technologies of the present, less interest exists about the effect of all these predictions on higher education today. While reading the online educational technology press for the sake of my blog, I sometimes feel like that old man in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" who has to tell the guy clearing out the bodies of plague victims that he's not dead yet.
To my mind, this feeling is no accident. As the saga surrounding Teresa Sullivan's presidency at the University of Virginia has clearly demonstrated, faculty are capable of mounting fierce resistance to unwanted technological changes under the right circumstances. The e-mails leading up to Sullivan's initial firing demonstrate that U.Va.'s Board of Visitors was steeped in press clippings that treated the transition to online education as an inevitability. That attitude goes a long way toward explaining the board's now legendary heavy-handedness. They wanted to ride the crest of a wave that supposedly well-informed people were all telling them is already coming.
For technology companies that stand to profit by disrupting higher education, treating the transition to an online future as a fait accompli serves as a very effective business strategy. By continually reinforcing the idea that traditional higher education is way behind the times, they gather public support for costly online initiatives that might not otherwise go forward. Equally importantly, this kind of rhetoric infects faculty with a sense of learned helplessness. Why try to fight the inevitable when we have so much else to worry about in our busy lives already?
Personally, I go back and forth between optimism and despair about the future of my profession. Sometimes I think that enough support exists on enough campuses that the kind of teaching I do now will persist well past my retirement because students will still value the personal touch that proximity makes possible. Sometimes I feel like I'm living inside of Frank Donoghue's higher education classic, The Last Professors. Donoghue's primary concern in that book was the corporate culture of the modern university. The jargon employed by U.Va. board members suggests how well the maturation of online education complements the destruction of traditions caused by that ideology in other aspects of campus life.
Perhaps my somewhat schizophrenic attitude toward the possibility of my own obsolescence comes from the fact that whether the Internet makes college professors a thing of the past doesn't depend upon the professoriate. It depends upon students, and to an equal extent it depends upon society at large.
Nobody can dispute that online education has advanced far enough that it is now possible to learn a wide range of subjects at home in your pajamas through your computer. The question is whether this kind of learning will be acceptable to most students in the future, and perhaps more importantly whether it will be acceptable to the people who'll employ them. I used to think that someone on the other end of a computer screen could never teach history as well as I can in person. I still think that's true, but as Clayton Christensen has argued, an online education doesn't have to be superior to the status quo in order to make my current job obsolete. The bad can drive out the good under certain circumstances, such as when the price of the higher-quality product is too expensive for most consumers to afford it.
Whether you're an enthusiastic booster of online education or an informed skeptic like me, there is no question that faculty need to understand developments in the educational technology industry, if for no other reason than for their own self-preservation. If transformational change is indeed inevitable, faculty should assert their prerogative as teachers in order to make sure that the quality of higher education is not seriously degraded by this metamorphosis. By doing so, maybe they can carve out a place for themselves in a more efficient future. If transformational change is not inevitable, then for heaven's sake don't let the vultures who want to profit from picking at the corpse that was once your career destroy it without a fight.
I can tell you from personal experience that following developments in educational technology can be thoroughly exhausting. I'm sure plenty of you who've tried it yourselves would prefer to never encounter the word MOOC again in your entire lives. However, living in ignorance is probably the worst thing you could do. No matter how the Internet impacts higher education, we faculty need to play a role in the debate over its strengths and weaknesses for the sake of our students. If we happen to save our own jobs in the process of doing so, then that's all for the better.
Jonathan Rees is professor of history at Colorado State University at Pueblo. He blogs about educational technology, labor issues and American history at More or Less Bunk. His book, Industrialization and the Transformation of American Life: A Brief Introduction will be released in September by M.E. Sharpe.
Writing a column on faculty fashion is no small task. Indeed, the first thought that comes to mind is, "Faculty fashion? Isn't that an oxymoron?"
It's no secret that faculty members are famous for dressing poorly, outlandishly or, even at their best, in styles that lost popularity a decade or two or even more ago (the length of that time lag is dependent primarily on the year the professor in question entered graduate school). What is it about academia that seemingly produces an inability to pay attention to dress and hair styles — styles that are a ubiquitous presence in the media and our daily encounters with normal people? Does graduate school somehow produce the superpower of resisting the conformity pressures of society? Or, as we like to say in the social sciences, perhaps this really is the result of a selection effect: academia doesn't produce the fashion faux pas tendency; rather, people with a stunted sense of style are somehow inordinately drawn to the profession of teaching and research.
My favorite explanation: Perhaps we just aren't paying these people enough and so they have to continue wearing the subsistence sweatshirts from their grad school days.
Really, I don't think it's any of these — and particularly not because they can't afford a trip to Hermès, Gucci or at least T.J. Maxx or the outlet mall. These people, contrary to what a casual observer might infer, are making conscious choices about what they wear, and those choices are intended to convey something. Now they might be mistaken about what message the viewer of their outfits receives, but we are all, professors included, constantly and purposely sending messages to others through the way we present ourselves.
What message might academics be trying to send when they flout the dictates of fashion and good taste, and ignore the color-clash pain they inflict on others? Well, it flows from the same reason we drive beat-up cars (rust-buckets that are still only automobiles in the academic sense) and refuse to edge our lawns. These choices are rarely driven by financial necessity, but rather because we take some kind of perverse pleasure in conspicuously displaying our disinterest in the material world. We wish to demonstrate that we just don't care about these kinds of mundane trappings because we are so engrossed in the ethereal, all-consuming life of the mind.
Ah, it's a lovely image, isn't it? So taken with our own deep thoughts, we don't even notice that our pants haven't fit for 10 years, our belts don't match our shoes, our collars aren't buttoned down and maybe even that our shirts are inside-out. As long as we don't get arrested for indecent exposure, well, then, that's just good enough. The slobs, in fact, sometimes look down their noses at those who do dress more fashionably, as if to say that anyone who actually coordinates their shirt, pants and socks couldn't possibly be very serious about their scholarly work.
Now that I'm spending more time doing administrative activities, I've encountered a different set of messages sent by clothing choices: Efficiency and formality conveyed by the suit — an industrious and hardworking demeanor reinforced when we take off the blazer and roll up our shirt sleeves, and, my favorite, the loosened-tie look that seems to say, "I had to dress up for something important today, but it wasn't you!"
The question, though, is whether the messages sent are in fact the ones received. I'm afraid in the case of university faculty (who, it has been proven, can be pretty clueless about social interaction and norms) this often is not the case. It won't surprise anyone to hear that students are considerably more fashion-conscious than their teachers. And believe me, they notice what you are wearing. I've heard many a snarky observation by students traipsing out of other people's classes and have even had comments written on my teaching evaluations about how that student's other professors dress! (Really, the half-page tirade I once received about some misguided soul who wore the same outfit — a red sweater and black slacks — to class every day was something to behold.)
Their reaction, by and large, is not, "Professor Doffsweater must be brilliant!" More likely it's, "What a schmo" or "Wow, is she out-of-touch." Or more pointed and problematic, "He doesn't even care about himself — he clearly can't give a second thought to me." One thing is certain: While they are labeling the prof as a dweeb in their heads, they aren't likely to also be thinking, "This person is just like me; I want to be just like her when I grow up!"
And let's not leave us administrators out. When we refuse to stoop to even business casual, the message to our colleagues can often be something different than efficiency and industriousness. More likely, distance and inappropriate status display are inferred, neither of which is likely to help produce a genuine or productive interaction.
What to do to correct all of this? We've got a long way to go, judging from the sartorial sensibilities displayed at the most recent faculty gathering I attended. But before we call in Joan Rivers to critique what happened last week, ask Professor Blackwell to create a worst- and best-dressed list at the annual President's Dinner, or create a hot-or-not voting website to accompany course instructor feedback evaluations, we could just start small. Spend a few moments thinking about what kind of reactions might result from the following small set of faculty fashion flops. Then go, and sin no more:
Twenty popular faculty styles **
1. I'm not an Oxford professor, but I play one at Notre Dame.
2. This outfit worked at IBM in 1957, so why not wear it every day?
3. Why tuck in my shirt? I'll just have to do it again tomorrow.
4. Bow ties say "intellectual," are not the slightest bit nerdy and, as a bonus, they emphasize my growing midsection.
5. Versace Monday, Armani Wednesday: I'm sure to get a red hot pepper on ratemyprofessors.com.
6. I don't have time to iron. I was up all night changing how we understand the fundamental building blocks of the entire universe.
7. That hole burned by 18 molar hydrochloric acid isn't that bad. Why waste a perfectly functional pair of pants?
8. If you can get it at Sears, it's still in style.
9. Suspenders and a belt. I teach security studies after all.
10. No one will notice I'm wearing black tennis shoes with this suit.
11. I need those elbow patches. Reading is hard work!
12. Polyester is the new black.
13. My gigantic glasses from 1987 are still in perfectly good shape. I think I'll just replace the lenses.
14. Peace and love. It's still the '60s, isn't it?
15.This leather jacket will let them know that I'm cool, man... I mean, dude.
16. I'm a low-level administrator, but I really, really, really want to be a high-level administrator.
17. I wanna wear jeans! But I'd better make it formal by adding a blazer.
18. It's not that dirty. It was on the top of the laundry hamper.
19. My black pants aren't too short. How else am I going to show off my new white socks?
20.To tweed or not to tweed? That is the question. And the answer is: To tweed!!
**Fictional composites of well-known stereotypes — any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. However, if you resemble one (or more) of these descriptions, you might want to reconsider your fashion choices.
Daniel J. Myers is vice president and associate provost for faculty affairs and a professor of sociology at Notre Dame. This piece appeared first in Notre Dame Magazine.
The life of the mind requires a healthy body, writes Nate Kreuter, and there are ways even for frugal graduate students to get medical care.
I attended a group dinner this May to say goodbye to five faculty members who are leaving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Four of them are among my closest friends, people with whom my partner and I have maintained professional relationships and socialized with regularly for years.
Of course faculty members lose friends to outside offers, retirement departures, or negative tenure decisions all the time. Sometimes we are able to sustain those relationships at a distance. Inevitably, students we care about leave town every year. And friends die or grow apart. We may not like it when some of these things happen, but, like others throughout academe, we attend these farewell dinners and adjust.
This dinner was different. Our friends this time were leaving under duress. Two took very early retirement. Two took outside offers. They all cited the same reason. They could no longer tolerate working under irrational and malicious administrators. After years of faculty protests being ignored, they were seeking the only relief available to them: getting out of town by any means possible.
For most faculty members, the impossible administrator is usually a department head. I always advise colleagues confronted with an incompetent or destructive head to bide their time. Do not protest too early. Let frustration build to mass discontent. It usually takes three years. Once a dean is confronted by a faculty rebellion against a chair, he or she will feel sufficient political cover to act. Even a dean cannot hold the ground against a campus tsunami.
This time, however, it was not a department head who was the problem. The head in question feels equally beleaguered. The sources of frustration were administrators further up the ladder. One was irrationally and incompetently destructive. One was consistently dishonest. And two were using their administrative positions to carry out personal vendettas. Complaints had been made, and ignored. There was no recourse, no mechanism through which to seek justice. The collective response to their departure interviews: "You're leaving. You'd say anything." One of these friends who is known to be extremely judicious said this at the dinner about the administrators in question: "They're rotten to the core."
That is not what he would say about every failed administrator. The University of Illinois just lost a president to a forced resignation. He foolishly squandered his good will and pretty thoroughly alienated the faculty in the system and finally even the Board of Trustees who hired him, but I certainly never considered him a monster. But universities do have monsters in high places. At a local American Association of University Professors chapter meeting this month it was acknowledged that our failed president was hardly the most wantonly destructive administrator. Yet the faculty members who gave formal presentations
pronounced shared governance alive and well on campus, and advocated greater collegiality — rather than structural change -- as the way to strengthen and maintain cooperative bonds among faculty, administrators, and the board. How many careers have to be damaged or ended by rogue administrators before faculty members will admit broader reforms are needed?
Toward the administrators who were an invisible presence at our dinner, faculty discontent has a long history. But nothing comes of it. The university administration's daily functioning is grounded in both line authority and line loyalty along the administrative chain of command. Administrators will not challenge that protocol unless they feel they have no choice. With administrators who hand out rewards to select faculty, universal rebellion rarely coalesces, though in some of the examples I am referencing it has come pretty close.
Can anything be done? Under collective bargaining faculty usually have stronger grievance procedures and thus access to procedures not in the hands of senior administrators complicit in misdeeds throughout the chain of command. But nothing would prevent a campus like my own from instituting good grievance procedures even without collective bargaining, nothing, that is, except those faculty members and administrators who benefit from and prefer the status quo. Which means it will not happen without collective bargaining and unless faculty members take a cold collective look at conditions campuswide.
Meanwhile, my friends are leaving. There was no component of sweetness for most of us at the dinner. Sorrow dominated. Along with the sense that those of us remaining on campus are serving on poisoned ground. Unchecked administrative abuses undercut morale decisively and convince faculty members it is a mistake to think of themselves as members of a community.
Cary Nelson is national president of the American Association of University Professors.
Around this time last year, I noted with interest -- via that late-night bastion of (t)reason, "The Colbert Report" -- that the color-coded terror index, which has been an ongoing but perhaps absurd part of our recent lives, was being retired.
That index, which charts the level of terror threat, painted a fairly redundant rainbow of fear from green (mild -- having a cup of tea with radical groups who have given up all thoughts of violent protest) to red (extreme -- hunkered down hoping to be somewhere just outside the blast radius, gripping a bootleg Kalashnikov in case Al Qaeda knocks on the door).
The index had a largely hostile audience among many commentators and the American public, because it seemed to do little other than engender, if I might borrow some words from WB Yeats, a "terrified, vague" panic. It wasn't particularly informative or functional. To select Green would have been an act of folly, a kind of professional or political hubris no career could possible survive if anything went wrong. Red, on the other hand, was little more than an admission of blind, hand-wringing panic. That left an elevated, cautious alert, the familiar yellows and oranges of our recent years, as the wise and inevitable response to a pervasive and undisclosed terror threat. And who needs a color chart to encourage that?
I grew up in Britain during the Irish Republican Army terror campaigns of the '70s and '80s, and I was only really made aware of my innate wariness when I moved to the United States in the '90s, and discovered a society largely unaware of the implications of terror in the domestic space.
But that has now largely changed by virtue of experience. The American public is largely schooled now in the anxieties of terror, by spectacular instances of it, whether home-grown in Oklahoma City, or international in New York or via the ever hungry cable news cycle.
And, unfortunately, because of those experiences, it has been forced into becoming an old hand at watchfulness. So, the terror alert, practically redundant, seemed largely an object lesson in the mass-marketing of anxiety: ultimately inducing elevated panic, some have posited, as a form of control.
Stephen Colbert's thought-provoking suggestion noting the paralyzing effect of fear-mongering was that the retiring color code be updated and changed simply to "Quiet," or "Too Quiet."
But while those terror charts are now a thing of the past, a relic of older ways of thinking, destined to gather dust covertly in some office space, now otherwise empty because of austerity measures, or perhaps to swim peacefully in the quiet back waters of a frustrated think tank, I think there is a way for us to recycle, reuse and restore them — in higher education, and particularly in the liberal arts.
I think there is a place for them in the halls of academe, where we can mount the charts prominently close to office and teaching spaces. Of course, they should be edited for context. While academe has often played out as a context for personal or political terror, it seems more appropriate if the new fear index should be financial (and, paradoxically, thereby intellectual).
Green could read "low or no risk of financial exigency," though of course those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. I read about them, as a doctoral student in England, in David Lodge novels about the academic Promised Land in America, as one might read of the unicorn. Blue, a relaxed but guarded watchfulness, would mean that the conference expenses are still covered, but we might, collegially, forego dessert on the expense report. Elevated yellow tells us that it's time for faculty to tighten their belts, and forget about cost-of-living raises, or bold capital investment. Orange, that dreaded state of high financial exigency, might indicate furloughs, lost tenure lines, or even disappearing programs. Of course anything is possible, plausible or permissible when it hits "severe" red.
I can imagine that there are institutions and administrations all over which would gladly jump at the opportunity to place these prominently on display because of the chilling effect of fear, and the "terrified, vague" paralysis in which it often results. It would be a strong, visceral reminder that faculty should be quiet and grateful that we have our jobs. It would keep us meek while critical inroads are being made into faculty governance, academic standards, tenure, and full-time instruction.
It would stymie protest while traditional and essential parts of the academy like philosophy, history, literature and languages revert to a service function for a notional "liberal arts" core while students otherwise pursue their vocational certification in nursing, or air conditioning repair, or increasingly popular faddish pseudo-subjects like leadership.
As an industry we would put up with the growth of adjunct instruction, the increase in class sizes, the loss of civility in discourse, even the loss of discourse itself, along, of course, with the loss of instruction and instructors, to inanities like third-party computer software — as though something that belongs in the university were little more than checking off the boxes in a defensive driving class. Why, with one of those charts on the wall, we could replace entire language departments with Rosetta Stone, and entire English departments with carefully selected PBS programming. Why, even biology departments could be lost to interactive screenings of "Shark Week," and no one would be willing to say a word. Such is the effect of terror.
I don't mean to downplay the realities of the need for austerity as a response to real financial urgency. Just like the terrorist threat, it's out there, but it's often not everywhere it seems to be. No doubt all of it would be easier to bear, however, if we had those advisory charts on our walls — even the steady gains of both administrative salaries, and administrative support staff, even in the midst of a profound state of financial exigency. After all, we want the very best to lead us out of this kind of financial crisis. And we all know, except in cases of faculty, of instruction, of academics, and, of course, of education in general, if you want the very best then it's going to cost you.
David Mulry is chair of English and foreign languages at Schreiner University.
Thomas Hobbes said that if he had read as much as others he would be as ignorant as they. Today most university faculty lack Hobbes's aplomb, and everyone complains that there's simply too much to read. The flood of books, articles, and blog posts never stops. (And here's one more!) Academic norms require that scholars "engage the literature," but the potentially relevant literature is enormous, especially for those who aspire to some kind of interdisciplinary approach. And at many universities, declining budgets and increasing administrative duties threaten the little time left for reading.
To make matters worse, academic culture seems carefully designed to maximize worries that one hasn't read enough. The convention of obsequious citation ensures that everyone thinks others have read more than they have. And now some journals are trying to raise their impact factor by pressuring authors to pad their articles with superfluous references — pressure experienced by one in five academics, according to a recent study.
How many times have you heard someone publicly admit to not having read a key book in their field? Never. Perhaps you know the game "humiliation" from the David Lodge novel? If not, just nod and smile in feigned recognition, then secretly go look it up. Of course, those with more cultural and professional power may be able to afford admitting they haven't read something — "You know, believe it not, I've actually never read Hamlet" — but by breaking the norm, they reinforce both their status and the norm itself.
There are no simple fixes, but here are two basic approaches to managing the overload of "must read" publications: demarcate and associate.
The first approach separates necessary from unnecessary reading, good from bad. Some handy demarcation criteria appear in the philosopher Harry Frankfurt's charming book On Bullshit. (It was all the rage during the Bush administration, but it's still worth reading, especially since it's extremely short.) Frankfurt says that bullshit is not the same as lying. Bullshit is speech or action that reveals an utter lack of concern with truth (presumably in areas where some kind of truth matters and can be discerned through established criteria, which is more problematic than Frankfurt admits). Frankfurt thinks that mass democracies are especially prone to bullshit, because they encourage every citizen to say something about every subject. Another source of bullshit is our confessional culture of personal authenticity and sincerity, based on the mistaken assumption that it's easier to understand yourself than the world. And although Frankfurt doesn't discuss it, one of the most fecund sources of bullshit is the doctrine of publish-or-perish, which fosters concern with professional status rather than saying something true and important. Other things being equal, cutting the bullshit from your reading list probably entails avoiding publications that are so obsessed with their own narrow disciplinary concerns (we've all been there) that they never get around to addressing other people or things.
You might object that you need to read at least some of a book to know that you don't need to read more, which leads to the second approach: association. Rather than focus on separating good from bad, try to see how good, bad, and everything between fits together. Learn how in Pierre Bayard's How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read. The title sounds like a guide for bullshitters, but Bayard challenges common assumptions about what it means to read a book in the first place. He notes that everyone interprets books differently, and the moment you finish reading a book you start forgetting it. What's most important about a book is not the details of its content, but its place in a cultural discourse. So a person who's recently heard about a book, maybe read a review and skimmed a few pages, could have more to say about it than a person who read it cover-to-cover a few years ago. Bayard uses a refreshingly humble citation system: UB: unknown book; SB: skimmed book; HB: heard about book; FB: forgotten book. And yes, to repeat every reviewer's joke: I actually read Bayard's book, whatever that means.
Maybe I could have skipped to the last chapter, where Bayard argues that, for the critic, books should fulfill the same function as nature for the writer or painter: "not to serve as the object of his work, but to stimulate him to write." He says that "what is essential is to speak about ourselves and not about books, or to speak about ourselves by way of books." Maybe so, in part. But then Bayard writes, "In the end, we need not fear lying about the text, but only lying about ourselves." Even for a literary critic, that sounds like the sort of narcissism that would drive Frankfurt nuts.
So, no surprises here: the answer must lie in both identifying what's worth reading and learning how it fits together with everything else. That may help one find an appropriate balance between reading and writing, between understanding the world and expressing oneself.
Enough said. Now I have some reading to do.
Mark B. Brown is associate professor of government at California State University at Sacramento.
A viral video of a student losing it while an instructor tried to lecture raises the question of how professors should deal with disruptions.
Spring is an unusual time of year in academic careers, writes Nate Kreuter. While nature is blooming, projects and degrees are being wrapped up.
Terri E. Givens considers some of the frustrations of faculty life.
Afshan Jafar considers the similarities between starting a family and an academic career.
Inside Higher Ed
1015 18th Street NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20036
Ph: 1-202-659-9208
Fax: 1-202-659-9381
1015 18th Street NW, Suite 1100 | PH: 1-202-659-9208
Copyright © 2015


text:
Mira Nair Offered Potter 5 Director's Job
MONSOON WEDDING and VANITY FAIR director Mira Nair has offered the chance to direct, HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, reports THE TIMES OF INDIA.
"I'm getting offers to direct HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. I read it over the weekend. I'm still deciding," she said. "I'm not letting all this go to my head. I'm grounded. I practice detachment, it helps me keep my balance. I'm a Dilliwalli, only an asana gets me on my head! My son Zoharan's excited. I've seen all the HARRY POTTER movies with him."