Some professors have emerged from the ivory tower into the blogosphere, bringing their educated opinions online.

 

“Blogging is fun for me,” said Professor Elvin Lim, an Assistant Professor of Government.   “It’s something where I don’t feel I have to be overly precise and careful in backing up my claims.”

 

Lim has blogged about politics for a year on “Out on a Lim,” subtitled “A blog for a political scientist lacking time or conviction enough to demonstrate his hunches.”   A few other Wesleyan professors have also taken their academic ruminations online.  Many began blogging as a personal project, only to find their readership expand to students.

 

American Studies Professor Claire Potter blogs under the pseudonym “Tenured Radical,” which began as an anonymous blog, with veiled references to the University as “Zenith University.”  She writes about historical debates, advice for academics, and her take on current events.

 

“There was this time when the best historians wrote to a general public,” she said.  “Electronic publication opens up the possibility again for public intellectual writing.”

 

Associate Professor of Sociology Jonathan Cutler blogged from 2005 to 2007 about the Iraq war, and the Bush administration.  

 

These professors began blogging as a way to talk about current issues in a more informal and expedient mode than in scholarly articles.  Academic publishing is a tedious process, and ideas have to be peer-reviewed.  Blogs are a way for these professors to react to daily events, and receive feedback instantly.

 

“In academia, it takes so long to publish and get a response,” said Potter.  “Online, there are responses in one hour, and serious responses in a day.”  

 

Lim said that his blog is for untested ideas, but he does use it as a repository for ideas he might return to later.

 

Their blogs have allowed Wesleyan professors to reach a wider audience, and reach some unlikely readers.  Their blogs have introduced them to academics outside their concentration, and even strangers.  Potter is in personal communication with a conservative army wife who began reading her blog for reading recommendations.

 

Although they may address the same subjects on their blogs and in class, the professors make a distinction between their blogging and teaching thought processes.

 

“Blogs are a cathartic space,” said Lim.  “One is invoked to focus on current events.  But the obsession with the present can derail us from the larger tectonics of history…Teaching is with finished, completed, peer-reviewed theses.  They are very different bases for legitimacy.”

 

While Lim has not used blogging in his classes, Potter created a blog for outside classroom discussion, and Cutler acknowledges that blogging and teaching about the same subject provided some crossover.  All the professors said that blogging has helped them in different ways – with connecting to a burgeoning academic blogosphere, honing their writing skills and improving their computer skills. 

 

Blogging has opened up new professional opportunities for professors.  Potter’s blog has been linked to from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the National Review websites, and has received requests for her to write for scholarly publications.  She edited a section of the Journal of Women’s History, and said she was contacted through her blog. Last year Lim participated in a video interview for the New York Times’ “Bloggingheads” with Professor Daniel Drezner of Tufts about politicians’ who strive to have an anti-intellectual image, the subject of his book.

 

 

However, while blogs can make professors more visible, their blogs can also make them vulnerable to professional and personal criticism.  

 

“Sadly, I would not have blogged at all without tenure,” said Cutler.  “There are not formal mechanisms (yet) for recognizing blogging as a form of scholarly production.  This can be an issue for tenured faculty as well — insofar as effort tends to be channeled toward those activities rewarded in merit pay packages.”

 

Potter receives some negative comments on her blog, which she deletes.  

 

“Every once in a while a student goes on and gets abusive,” said Potter.  “I erase unpleasant comments.”

 

The “Tenured Radical” was anonymous for the first four to five months, and Potter did not realize that her blog was easily identified by students – especially after she reviewed a colleague’s book.  She mentioned a student (not by name) in what she thought was a harmless anecdote.  But when the student was offended, Potter revealed her identity, and does not discuss students or other professors.  

 

Professors’ blogging has mostly been a personal side project, and the medium is still a new one for academia. Blogs have not supplanted the traditional means of academic publishing, but being part of an academic blogosphere has offered greater access to professional opportunities that would not have been possible ten years ago.  However, the blogs each began as a personal project, to reflect on issues on their mind.  While student readership is not unwelcome, their blogs are for their own ruminations, not explicitly to reach out to students.

 

Although their blogs are easily Google-able – and linked through Wesleying and their professor pages – the professors still mostly see their blogs as a side project, they are still a little taken aback when students mention their blogs.

 

“I just think it’s a personal matter,” said Lim.  “I don’t feel it’s relevant to me when I put on my teaching hat.  I don’t endorse it, but I make no effort to hide it.”