Why so quiet?

[Myword]

Seems quieter than usual, mainly in the last 2 months. Lack of new posts. I searched for the fora in a search engine using different key words
like faculty forum, higher education, and nothing like this came up. So someone looking for a forum like this would not find it. TheFora name is so dull and generic, no wonder. Are users migrating to another site? I don't know any others.  Change the name to Forafaculty or something. To me, the research scholarship is most important and I have posted lots of times.
I have been in this at the start with the old CHE board when things were very different.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think the main issue is that internet fora are dying. It's not that people are moving to other fora, it's that everyone is using Reddit (shudder), FaceBook, and Twitter instead. The old forum got to capitalize on the forum's heyday; we moved over in the decline. It also had the advantage of being affiliated with (and this advertised on) the Chronicle's site.

But yes, it would be good to have an influx of new members to keep things going, and it's worth thinking about how we can do that.

[Wahoo Redux]

I remember a similar question in the old CHE forum after, I believe, 2008 when things turned sour for the first time.

At first, we (or at least I) felt part of a community and I was enthusiastic about academia.  The CHE fora was a good place to take part in the big conversations going on.  I liked getting in debates and pulling pranks (I was not the only CHE member to troll for fun occasionally) and I gravitated toward and learned a lot from the job boards.  It was also fun as a grad student and then young academic staff member to listen to the old war stories from the DSMs.  Even if the tribe could be pretty touchy sometimes, it was still worthwhile.

And now COVID and the demographic cliff a lot of the fun has gone out of academia.  It is kind of a depressing place to be.  Happy foras may be a thing of the past.

Reddit is not bad but it is so huge that one never learns the personalities and the discussions tend to meander + it is a much more difficult ap to read.

[Myword]

 I doubt The problem is  with the internet forums, Covid and Reddit, I am a member of three very active forums, and one is professional--not education. Hard to compare this forum with ones open to  the public at large.

The issue is apathy, but no one admits this. Lack of interest in others in Higher Ed. and low desire to disclose problems, setbacks, questions, ideas, feelings, etc.   I'm not criticizing. On the internet people are like quasi real characters or phantoms. We don't know where they live, identity, their subject expertise or anything else With some exceptions.  I am no different. Maybe academics are simply rather unsocial beings, private.

[Wahoo Redux]

The old CHE forum was hoppin' back in the day.

[AJ_Katz]

Not having Mamselle posting makes the fora look less active in the past two months.  It would be interesting to know the stats on how much she posted on here.  I post questions as frequently as possible here to try to keep it going. 

I just don't think the younger generation is aware or interested in message boards anymore.

Reddit threads that I've seen related to academia often have people giving horrible advice.  So it's a shame. 

[AJ_Katz]

I wonder...  could we get affiliation with the AAUP and be posted on their website as a resource?

[Parasaurolophus]

Not having Mamselle posting makes the fora look less active in the past two months.  It would be interesting to know the stats on how much she posted on here.  I post questions as frequently as possible here to try to keep it going. 

She averaged about 6.5 posts a day. She really commented on everything.

[downer]

It might be relevant to remember Eigen's post from last year:
http://thefora.org/index.php?topic=3191.msg116628#msg116628
He asked for someone to take over running the website at some point. Nobody with the relevant skills stepped up.

[AJ_Katz]

It might be relevant to remember Eigen's post from last year:
http://thefora.org/index.php?topic=3191.msg116628#msg116628
He asked for someone to take over running the website at some point. Nobody with the relevant skills stepped up.

Yes, I recall that conversation.  I'm not sure it was ever through to make an affiliation with another organization like AAUP. 

Having more people engaged here could also help to find someone both able to and willing to share the load.  Just a thought.

[lightning]

I remember a similar question in the old CHE forum after, I believe, 2008 when things turned sour for the first time.

At first, we (or at least I) felt part of a community and I was enthusiastic about academia.  The CHE fora was a good place to take part in the big conversations going on.  I liked getting in debates and pulling pranks (I was not the only CHE member to troll for fun occasionally) and I gravitated toward and learned a lot from the job boards.  It was also fun as a grad student and then young academic staff member to listen to the old war stories from the DSMs.  Even if the tribe could be pretty touchy sometimes, it was still worthwhile.

And now COVID and the demographic cliff a lot of the fun has gone out of academia.  It is kind of a depressing place to be.  Happy foras may be a thing of the past.

Reddit is not bad but it is so huge that one never learns the personalities and the discussions tend to meander + it is a much more difficult ap to read.

^
This.

The problem is not thefora, branding, non-affiliation, nor old-fashioned discussion platforms.

The profession has changed.

[Ruralguy]

Honestly, I feel that our younger faculty, although extremely talented, can take or leave the job, in the psychological sense at least, more readily than me and especially my senior colleagues who have been retiring over the last few years. They seem less agitated by real problems, but I think they are more trained to not let it get to them any more than any other job. Better therapy maybe.

[Myword]

Well, if each member could post a note on their department web page, or the old-fashioned paper bulletin board if you still have one. Or newsletter, that helps.  Just a brief mention of its existence and subforums.
Often,  those with the most experience, professionally, have less reason to seek or give advice, and the younger ones are uninformed or uninterested to contribute advice or information.

[Wahoo Redux]

Well, if each member could post a note on their department web page, or the old-fashioned paper bulletin board if you still have one. Or newsletter, that helps.  Just a brief mention of its existence and subforums.
Often,  those with the most experience, professionally, have less reason to seek or give advice, and the younger ones are uninformed or uninterested to contribute advice or information.

Hmmmm...I am relatively sure that none of my (former) colleagues come here.  And I'm okay with that, especially since I frequently post about my school(s).

[jerseyjay]

Honestly, I feel that our younger faculty, although extremely talented, can take or leave the job, in the psychological sense at least, more readily than me and especially my senior colleagues who have been retiring over the last few years. They seem less agitated by real problems, but I think they are more trained to not let it get to them any more than any other job. Better therapy maybe.

I am not sure if this is meant as a criticism or not, since it seems to be a much more healthy way of looking at things. I am also not entirely sure if it is true. That said, it would seem that in many fields at least, younger faculty have already had to make peace with the fact that they were very unlikely to have got a faculty job in the first place, and having got one, that it is not unlikely that they wouldn't end up working in academia their entire life.

In my personal case, after I graduated with a PhD in history, I spent more than a decade in precarious and casual jobs (adjunct, visiting professor, etc.) before I got a non-academic job and made my peace with the fact that I was never going to be an academic. Then through luck, I got hired on the tenure track. I managed to get tenure. Now my university is going through a major crisis, and tenured faculty have been made redundant, assistant professors have not been reappointed, and all searches have been called off. In conversations with my peers, there is a consensus that if we get laid off, there is very little chance of ever getting an equivalent position again and that we would probably find something outside of academia.

On top of it, in the past period my job has become less and less personally fulfilling as my teaching load has gone up (both in the number of courses and in the number of students), the amount of service has increased, and things that make the job either more enjoyable (money for travel) or bearable (secretarial assistance, postage, books in the library) have dried up.

I wouldn't say that we can take or leave the job, but rather that we have reconciled with the fact that it is very likely we will have to leave it, whatever our desires. Most of my friends who went to graduate school, whether or not they got the PhD, have found employment outside academia (or at least outside the tenure track). Again, this is not all by choice.