In this seventh post about how I became an academic I’ll describe how the pre-tenure experience was for me and how I had an unusual time as a young professor, co-founding a brand new program in communication studies. It was quite a ride for young professor in his late twenties and early thirties! The tenure …
Category Archives: My Life
How I became an academic: my first day of teaching & September 11, 2001
In the last six posts, I have described, in a somewhat impressionistic fashion my journey from elementary school through to getting hired as an assistant professor at McMaster University. In today’s post I describe my first teaching experiences and how September 11 marked them. The story starts on September 11, 2001, really, but first a …
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How I became an academic: Getting hired into the tenure-track at McMaster
In the last five blog posts, I described to you my journey from elementary school to the end of my postdoctoral fellowship among the Mìgmaq and how it all led to me becoming an academic. In this blog post, I will describe how I was hired at McMaster. I got a phone call from my …
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How I became an academic: My brief postdoc with the Mìgmaq and Danielle Cyr
In the last four blog posts, I described how my experiences in elementary school all the way to my PhD thesis defense influenced how I became an academic. In this post, I will describe my brief post-doctoral fellowship under the supervision of Danielle Cyr, during her time as interim Vice-Rector of the Université du Québec …
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How I became an academic: thesis writing and defense
In the last three blog posts, I have recounted how my elementary, high school, undergrad, early grad and year in France led me to become an academic. In this blog post, I take the story to the end of graduate school, and the introspective journey that was my PhD thesis writing and defense. I returned …
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How I became an academic: my year in Paris at the ENS
As I mentioned in my last blog post,the last thing I did in the second year of my PhD was to apply to spend a year as a guest of the French state. I applied to become a pensionnaire étranger at the École Normale Supérieure on the rue d’Ulm in Paris. I wasn’t sure why …
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How I became an academic: My undergrad years
In my last blog post, I talked about how my elementary and high school years influenced me to become an academic. In this post I will talk about university. For a synopsis of my undergrad experience, you can read the first part of this post on why I am a university professor. I had an …
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How I became an academic: Part 1: My Elementary and High School Years.
Sometimes committing to something years in advance is a tricky thing. Your life can change significantly in the intervening time and you can find yourself feeling a little anachronistic when the moment of fulfilling your commitment arrives. That’s what it felt like for me to organise and host the LACUS linguistics conference a week ago. …
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A beautiful conversation followed by terribly sad news
Today started off with a funny feeling. I felt off. When I went to do my morning push-ups regimen, I was weaker than normal. Something wasn’t right. I got into Mac very well dressed with a neatly pressed polo and fine woolen black slacks, ready for an important meeting. However, when I checked my messages, …
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An odd day – I think the single life has its drawbacks.
I had quite the unusual day today. It made me think a lot about what it like being me right now. Here are a couple of thoughts… Yesterday, I was recovering from food poisoning, so I thought I would spend today at home. I was Acting Chair of the Department of Communication Studies & Multimedia, …
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