vlog 4.0 [a blog about vogs]

I Got A Promotion

This year there has been a promotion round at RMIT. I applied. Required a 5 page teaching portfolio, 5 page research portfolio, and 5 page leadership portfolio. CV, and two other pages, one summarising the application and the other contextualising it on the Boyer scholarship model. Just got the news, have made the step up from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer. So in about another 7 years, in theory, I should be in the running for Associate Professor.

It is surprising how warm and fuzzy the feeling of being recognised and rewarded feels. Gold stars all over again – well there is cash attached to this one.

The Hallowed (Poorly Paid) Halls

Academic Careers dot com. Glad to see someone has worked out a possible income stream from us all.

The Anxiety of the Publisher

This is the guts of the author contract I’m expected to sign for my small contribution in an academic anthology:

By entering into this agreement, the author warrants that the entry(ies) will in no way infringe upon any copyright or proprietary rights of others and that it will not contain anything unlawful, libelous, or be a violation of any right of privacy. The author also agrees to hold the publisher harmless from any and all liability, expenses or damages arising out of the contents of this (these) entry(ies), or the publication of any unlawful matter, excepting, however, any matter added upon the request of the publisher.

In full and final compensation for your contribution and your services as a contributor, the publisher will send you one (1) free copy of the book, when it is published, for your own use and not for resale, regardless of the number of contributions you make for use in the book.

Your execution of this agreement will constitute an exclusive grant to the publisher of a complete release of all publishing and proprietary rights in and to your contribution in book and in nonbook format and in all languages throughout the world, and of the original and all subsequent editions and printings of the book.

So, the publisher is in this to make money. Those who contribute the entirety of the labour (the editors are academics, the contributors are academics) are largely unpaid (well, paid for by their institutions). For this they get all rights, forever and ever, to the work. In any media. At any time. No matter how often.

I signed, because I’m tired of arguing with academic publishers (I refused to sign the last one that came my way until it was amended). I figure if they’re that scared right now then in ten years time it really isn’t going to matter, their models of production and consumption will be irrelevant and be apparent to all and sundry as the quaint anachronisms that they are.

The Long Walk

This Sunday the kids, Anna and I, and some friends, are meeting for breakfast then participating on the long walk (which is actually a short walk). Well, except it is based on Michael Long’s walk last year when he decided to walk to Canberra to talk to John Howard about indigenous affairs. He is a retired Aboriginal footballer, a champion who was proud to be Aboriginal and who was instrumental in getting our local football code to adopt an anti-vilification policy. (This was after one of the great moments in Australian football when Nicky Winmar was abused for being black by opposition supporters. He stopped, lifted his jumper and pointed to his blackness with pride. Was a fucking moment.) Well, Michael Long stepped up and has helped make the AFL progressive in relation to indigenous support.

Email

I have been keeping all my email the last few months, including what I have deleted. Turns out there’s a 32,000 mailbox limit in Eudora, which my ‘trash’ just reached. Options: delete a pile of trivia in there. Problem: how long does it take to separate trivia from deleted email. Or grab it all from and to a date, move to a new mailbox, compress it outside of Eudora?

And for those wondering why it’s kept. Legally they count as documents so technically need to be archived for as long as any other business document. Bugger that. It is just that every few months someone will want or need something, and I’ll find it in the rubbish. What I lose in disk space (trivial) I get back in spades in time.