In this “Whiskey Optional” episode, PTJ facilitates a conversation among four colleagues from dif…
Episode 23: Being Academic and Pandemic Time
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Academia
What matters most for teaching in the age of coronavirus?
This is a guest post from Dr. Rebecca Glazier, who is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She has over 10 years of experience...
Thinking about Corona and Academia
The Duck has been covering Corona in a variety of ways over the past several weeks with posts including Josh's coverage of the early outbreak, the early international dynamics, past and present...
Practicing Academic Kindness in the Classroom
This is a guest post by Philipp Schulz, who is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) at the University of Bremen. Philipp’s research focuses...
More Academia Posts
ISA Non-Panels: Fun and Games In IR
The annual meeting of the International Studies Association kicks off on Tuesday and runs through Saturday, Feb 17th-21st. The program is chock full of all kinds of IR. Of course, there is much to do and see during and after Mardi Gras in New Orleans beyond the panels. Using my power here as Duck-ster, let me point out a few ones that you might want to consider attending/joining: The Duckies! We hand out the IR Blogging Awards at 7:30pm on Thursday, February 19th at the Hilton. Go from the Duckies to the annual ISA Caberet, Thursday, February 19 at 8:00pm, Grand Salon 3 at the Riverside...
Working in 25 Minute Stretches
Greetings, Ducks! Thanks to Josh for such a wonderful facelift of the Duck website! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in New Orleans next week. This is been a very service-intensive year for me – first year post tenure – and I’m still trying to figure out how to manage my time. Unlike common "wisdom," my colleagues and I in academia work an incredible amount of hours. And, yet, we never actually feel caught up. In an effort to work smarter, I’ve been looking into different time management techniques and tips. Most of the tips you can find in the literature or from self-help gurus...
Welcome to the New Duck
In advance of this year's ISA convention and the OAIS awards, we're happy to launch a new and improved Duck of Minerva with a revamped look and feel. You will notice automatically a direct link to duckofminerva.com which should make access more straightforward. The new site is also responsive so will resize automatically on your phone or tablet. We've also added a new set of topics to classify posts by subject so you can find them easily. The Twitter feed and blogroll have been updated. We wanted to thank permanent contributors Robert Kelly and Vikash Yadav who have decided to step down. In...
Rule Number One For Graduate School Applicants
Spring (where it exists) is the time of year when applicants to PhD programs find out the outcome and decide where, if any place, to go. While there are many factors that one must take into account, including what might happen if your preferred adviser leaves (Will Moore's take and mine), there is something far more fundamental: are you going to get funding?* If the answer is no, then the decision is painful but easy: don't go. * This post is inspired by a question asked at Political Science Job Rumors. Even if the poster was really trolling, it is an important...
Applying for a PhD in Political Science
I get a lot of emails asking for advice about putting together their graduate-school applications. I also get a lot of emails asking how to "improve" an application to make it "more competitive." I suspect that these emails come to me because I am Director of Admissions in the Government Department, and people assume that part of my job description is "helping them get into graduate school." Nonetheless, because I like to think of myself as a "nice person," I try to answer these queries with the sage advice that comes from many years on admissions committees. But it grows tiring to...