Notes from the Ironbound

 I have a new piece at Tropics of Meta about John le Carre novels and how they are the true apex of "quit lit," that genre belove...

On academic Twitter today I've seen a lot of folks sharing charts showing the steep decline in the number of available jobs in the hu...

The seniors at my school are in the middle of the college application process, which means I am currently in the thick of letters of reco...

I'm getting through middle age by tapping into my inner Peter Falk Hitting 40 did not seem like much of a milestone, but age 43 ha...

I’ve been away from the blog for the longest time in years, maybe ever. (I haven’t checked.) First off, I spent my writing energy on a piece...

Graduation day is the day when "This Is Where I Belong" by the Kinks becomes my theme song Today was my high school's gra...

Surprised that the hipsters haven't tried to revive this bourbon label A former student of mine who is now working on her PhD poste...

I am coming up on a very important anniversary: attending my first American Historical Association annual conference in Philadelphia back in...

[Editor's Note: my "track of the week" series is continuing this week, but I'm no longer including the name of the ser...

Yesterday a friend from my crummy old "visiting professor" days posted a link to a new piece of academic quit lit on his Facebo...

Loyal readers of this blog may know that I once wrote quite a bit about academia and negotiating life after quitting academia.   If you ...

The last two days have been full of intense emotion, mostly because the graduating senior class at my school has very publicly, and multiple...

Three years ago this week I accepted my current high school teaching job, leaving behind my academic career.  It was a heady time, and as...

Three years ago this week I got offered my current job teaching at an independent high school in New York City.  From the moment I stepped ...

I have spent a lot of time on this blog talking about how I left academia and why I'm better off.  Of that there can be no doubt.  Howev...

I had off work today because of Passover, and my wife only had a half day at her school.  This meant that with the girls at day care, we wou...

It's been almost three years since I have left academia, and my happiness with my current life is so total that I rarely, if ever, feel ...

In case you guys don't know, I have a new piece up on the Professor Is In about my decision to leave academia for a teaching at a priva...

Being an educator, I have sat through my fair share of graduation speeches and presentations.  The phrase I have heard the most often in the...

The sport of baseball has provided many useful metaphors over the years. Some people have two strikes against them, some throw you a ...