All the noise, noise, noise, noise

I haven't written in a while, and I'm not sure why. Back in September I read a great blog post by Lee Skallerup on why she hasn't been blogging at the same rate as before. I agree with many of her points: I'm still learning a new position, I'm not as angry or frustrated any more, and I'm generally content with my new job.

I still have a lot of thoughts about higher ed, and I think there are some great things out there in the higher ed and student affairs world. I'm just tired of the noise of the mainstream higher ed world. I haven't visited Inside Higher Ed in weeks (with the exception of finding Lee's post). I haven't been to the Chronicle longer than that. One of the reasons is that I'm bored. I'm bored with the focus on professors. Of them being "over worked" and "under worked" and the "horrors" of the tenure track and the public beatings of adjuncts. I'm tired of the bickering, of research vs teaching. I'm tired of work-life balance arguments and the ignorance of staff on a campus. It's all noise.

I'm even tired of the Student Affairs community. The #sachat hashtag is full of noise. I remember it being a place for discussion and links to articles and blogs. It was a place for collaboration. I don't remember the last time I clicked a link that was in #sachat and not in my personal feed. Maybe I'm remembering it with some sort of nostalgia. I used to think the community was clique-y, and it probably was, but the conversations were more interesting, more educational, more well-rounded.

Even the Student Affairs Collective (I still type in sabloggers) feels noisy to me. I occasionally go there when I think an article can teach me something new or is from a perspective I haven't seen before. This one, where a man is working at a women's college caught my attention. The month-long series, themes, etc, just seems like SO MUCH. I can't keep up. I don't want to keep up.

I'm sad to see the end of the Student Affairs Feature. Although I didn't check it regularly, I enjoyed the in-depth content. I loved learning about people's interests, research, and projects.

Want to know what is amazing in higher ed? Check out Amanda Bower, Lee, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Clare Cady, Matt Reed, Brian Bourke, Matt Bloomingdale, Chris Stone-Sewalish, Dr. Susan Gardener, and so many others. They make me think. They make me question my role not only as a Student Affairs professional, but as a person on campus and in the SA community. Our profession might not exist in 5, 10, or 15 years, but these people (among others) will survive and thrive during the transition to something else.

Are there new centralized places to find links and news for student affairs or higher ed? How do you find new people to follow if you don't keep up with #sachat? What hashtags do you follow? Maybe I just need to stalk you all on Facebook.

PS - This was going to be about 2 topics, but my rant about noise didn't end as quickly as possible.

Comments

  1. Eric StollerDecember 2, 2014 at 7:20 AM

    For me, it's always been about constantly curating the list of folks and orgs that I follow. It's an ever-evolving process. I agree with you that some of the more familiar hashtags have lost some of their luster. This might be more of an issue with how Twitter scales and not about the quality of what is being posted...too much quantity can be overwhelming. Anyways, thanks for reading, sharing, and engaging. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eric StollerDecember 2, 2014 at 7:26 AM

    PS: This is from 4 years ago –> https://twitter.com/ericstoller/status/11127909006

    ReplyDelete

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