My wife recently posted about an interesting exchange she had about her blog. Last Fall she applied to a number of PhD programs. At one of the places that turned her down, she heard through a pretty reliable source that not only did students and faculty read her weblog, but that if she wanted to have a better chance at being admitted to a PhD program she should shut down her blog altogether.
She links to a debate among others in academia about whether or not students and others should stick with anonymous blogs and web sites rather than risk harming their careers.
But there are two distinct issues. My wife mentions that there are people who are employed by the university we work at who engage in protests against the war in Iraq during their personal time, and of course I blog about those folks sometimes here on my own time. I think it would be absurd to sit around worrying that this is going to hurt careers either way. I wouldn’t want to work for someone who is going to let their personal feelings about my political views affect our personal relationship. I work everyday with people whose political/social views are 180 degrees opposite of mine, and never think twice about it because it is completely irrelevant to our professional relationship.
On the other hand, a lot of the academic bloggers who are anonymous spend a lot of time bitching about their colleagues and students. I don’t have a lot of sympathy or use for that form at all. If you have those sort of problems, be an adult about it already and talk privately with the people involved, friends/spouses you trust, or any number of outlets that are usually omnipresent at universities. Creating an anonymous blog so you can publicly complain about how horrible your co-workers are or how stupid you think some student is seem to me the least productive solution imaginable.
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