Jonathan Malesic is a writer and an adjunct instructor of first-year writing at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of The End of Burnout (University of California Press, 2022). Read his previous columns here. His website is Jonmalesic.com and his Substack is here
Stories by This Author
Advice
Five core principles to help you align the ideals of your vocation and the realities of your position.
Advice
When academic hiring committees take job candidates out to eat, cultural anxiety is often on the table, too.
The Conversation
Don’t ditch the evaluations, Jonathan Malesic argues. Transform them.
Commentary
Instead of following the hype, Roman Catholic colleges can treat education as a moral enterprise that develops human dignity and social justice.
News
Here’s how a heavy schedule affected one assistant professor’s desire to write Before I formally accepted the job offer at the liberal-arts college where I now work, I spoke with a top administrator about tenure expectations. He had said that in addition to good teaching and service, the college…
Advice
It happened more times last year than I can even recall, but I clearly remember the first time. I was grading a paper and came across a sentence that surprised me. It just didn’t fit in with what I had read up to that point. I was surprised partly because the sentence made proper use of the word…
Advice
The thought occurred to me when I got the key to my office. When I opened my first direct-deposit notice. When I entered my final grades. When I shook students’ hands at graduation. At those moments and at many others in my first year in a tenure-track job, I kept thinking, “This is nothing like…
Advice
Not long ago I was telling a music-savvy friend about a new CD I’d heard, the debut offering of a band I thought she’d like. She asked me to categorize the band. “Well, they’re kind of a distorted retro folk-punk rockabilly outfit with a bleak outlook. Oh, and Scottish. They’re good.” To the music…