Facebook for Centenarians: Senior Citizens Learn Social Media - The Atlantic

A great article on some of my NIA funded work. There are a few errors which they will correct but a great article overall!

Facebook for Centenarians: Senior Citizens Learn Social Media - The Atlantic

The Hits Keep On Coming

Last week the bad news keep coming and coming.

It started when I heard that my sister-in-law was very sick. She has been diagnosed with advanced cancer, that has spread to various parts of her body. She has always been such a strong person. I hope that her strength will guide her as she faces this latest challenge. We will be making a trip to visit her very soon.

On the same day I heard about my sister-in-law's health status, I received a call from one of my graduate students. She told me that she was taking a full-time job. She had just defended her thesis proposal a few weeks ago and I was hoping she would defend her thesis later this semester. While I know that taking a full-time job was not her first choice, unfortunately the graduate student health insurance is not great at UAB. She felt she had to have good health insurance given health issues she has. I couldn't tell her not to do this when I know finances have been a major source of stress for her. Not having a strong financial safety net can be very stressful, as I know from my own life. And, she'll make more in this job than she would starting with a PhD as an Assistant Professor. Even though I know she needs to do this, it is still sad. She works as an RA on one of my projects and the team is very close. We will all miss her working on the project and seeing her around the office. I am hopeful that she will finish her MA and also her PhD. She only has a few more classes for her PhD and then her dissertation. Her thesis is pretty far along, so I think she'll finish this pretty easily.

I told one of my grad students that I wondered what was going to be the 3rd piece of bad news, since they typically come in 3s. Well, a couple of days later, I heard that one of my cousins is in the hospital with a large brain tumor (the size of a baseball). The good news is that it doesn't appear to have spread and they hope they can remove it.

In addition to these things, some of you may have heard of Hurricane Irene which pounded the east coast of the US over the past few days. It came ashore near Cape Lookout, which is close to Atlantic Beach, NC. We're still waiting to hear about damage in Atlantic Beach (where we have a condo). Power was restored Sunday night and they began to let people back onto the beach. We hope that the damage was not severe to the community and to our condo. We feel for all the people up and down the east coast who have experienced the impacts of Irene!

I am hopeful that this week will not bring more 'hits' but rather some good news of some sort. As we look around us, we feel very lucky to have our health and our family.

UAB is hiring 3 new sociology faculty

We’ve had several retirements in the past couple of years, plus one of our colleagues passed away from cancer last fall. We’re hiring!


Please pass along this info to others who may be interested: - 1 Junior Position, 1 Open Rank Position, and 1 Teaching Assistant Professor. See descriptions below. We’re interviewing at ASA.

I’d love to have applications from people that do health and technology research (just my own opinion of course)!

1. University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a tenure-track/tenured position to begin August 1, 2012 for an Assistant Professor. Teaching and research should fit with the Department’s emphasis on medical sociology. Courses taught may include gender, statistics and medical sociology, with preference given to candidates with research interests in one or more of the following areas: genetics, obesity, nutrition, outcomes research, technology or health disparities. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Sociology at the time of appointment and have a record that demonstrates a strong independent research agenda. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The Department has established research links with faculty in UAB’s Medical School, which is ranked in the top 25 in the U.S., and to various clinical programs and research centers on campus. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities. Applicants should send current curriculum vitae, a list of at least three references, and a cover letter summarizing interests and experiences to: Dr. William Cockerham, Chair, HHB 460, 1401 University Blvd., University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152. The deadline for applications is October 1 or until the position is filled. We welcome applications from under-represented minorities and women. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

2. University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a tenure-track/tenured position to begin August 1, 2011. Rank is open, with preference given to candidates with a strong history of external funding and publication. Teaching and research should fit with the Department’s emphasis on medical sociology. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Sociology at the time of appointment. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The Department has research links to faculty in the School of Medicine, which is ranked in the top 25 in the U.S. and to several clinical programs and research centers on campus. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities. Applicants should send current curriculum vitae, a list of at least three references, and a cover letter summarizing interests and experiences to: Dr. William Cockerham, Chair, HHB 460, 1401 University Blvd., University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152. The deadline for applications is October 1 or until the position is filled. We welcome applications from under-represented minorities and women. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

3. University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a non-tenure track position to begin January 1, 2012 or later for a Teaching Assistant Professor. Courses taught may include Intro, Social Problems, and Social Change. Other courses should fit with the Department’s emphasis on medical sociology. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Sociology at the time of appointment. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The Department of Sociology and houses the Center for Social Medicine and is affiliated with the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, the Center for Aging, and others. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities. Applicants should send current curriculum vitae, a list of at least three references, and a cover letter summarizing interests and experiences to: Dr. William Cockerham, Chair, HHB 460, 1401 University Blvd., University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152. The deadline for applications is October 15 or until the position is filled. We welcome applications from under-represented minorities and women. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

Shelia

Self-Promotion: Shameless and Otherwise

There have been some interesting articles and blog posts recently about how academics, and others, promote their work, themselves, etc. Here is another worthy read in this area. I hope that women, in particular, will read this and think about the impacts of how we promote (or don't promote more often than not) ourselves and our work.

http://speculative-diction.blogspot.com/2011/08/shameful-self-promotion-vs-meritocracy.html

Thoughts on this topic?

1st Day of Kindergarten!

Today was Callen's first day of kindergarten. We had to wake her up much earlier than she normally gets up as her school starts at 7:45 (ouch!). She woke up in a great mood, which is amazing given she isn't a morning child. She got ready in her new school outfit and shoes, brushed her hair, ate a little breakfast, and even brushed her teeth. We were in the car by 7:15.

On the way to school she said: "I'm so excited!" I'm so happy for her. I hope she continues to love school as I did when I was growing up.

Here are a couple of first day kindergarten pix taken before we left home.

Preschool Graduation Day

Callen was excited but a little apprehensive about leaving her friends behind at her preschool. However, the graduation was a lot of fun. And, the teachers gave each child a wonderful scrapbook with pictures of them from throughout the school year. A very nice surprise for all of us! Below are a few pix from graduation day.

Callen with Ms. Tammy, the lead teacher in her class.

Callen with one of her best buddies, Brandt. Unfortunately her other best friend was at the beach during graduation, so no picture of Callen and Brooke.

Callen's other teacher, Ms. LaKisha, and one of Callen's friends.

They gave them all blue t-shirts and caps to wear on graduation.

Meet the Teacher Day

A few pictures from our meet the teacher day yesterday for Callen's kindergarten. She was excited and last night said that she loved her new school!

Her teacher, Ms. Morgan.

Today's Activities

As I've noted in other blog posts, I usually feel way behind and like I'm constantly juggling way too many things. I had my annual gyn appointment recently and mentioned it to my doctor. She noted, 'well, you can control that can't you?' Well, yes and no...Several projects are ongoing and funded externally so it would be hard to just stop work on them. Some, sure I could control. Learning to say 'no' better would help some certainly.

I was telling my postdoc that today seemed rather frenetic as I had been jumping back and forth between a slew of different activities today. Yesterday, a friend told me that my Facebook updates made him tired just seeing mine. I laughed but realized he has a point. I've been feeling rather burned out this summer, as this summer has been very busy (like most summers are for me it seems).

We had a faculty meeting yesterday and our chair at the end of it told us to all go home and not come back till Monday. I looked at him like he was losing his mind. Obviously he doesn't realize that my syllabus still isn't finished for my class that starts Tuesday AM, I haven't even started creating my Blackboard Learn site (which is new this semester since they change BB about every year it seems and everyone is complaining about how bad the change is this time), my desk is so messy I can't even see the top of it, I need to get quotes and order incentives for 1400 kids and teachers, I need to hire a new person for a project, I won't even mention the papers that I'm behind on (sorry colleagues!) or the new grant proposal I'm supposed to be writing now either.

Even with constantly feeling behind and overwhelmed, I feel very lucky to have a job that I love and to work with such great students, postdoc, and colleagues. We're now in week 8 of Bo's being laid off. This adds to the stress of everything for sure! We're hopeful that something will come along soon. He's working every network he has right now to try to find something. If anyone has any contacts in the planning/zoning or wireless industries or knows of any related job openings, please let me know.

To cap off this long blog post, here are just a FEW of the disparate things I've done already today:

• bought donuts for RAs on one project who are in an all day training
• got gas in my car
• got to the office before 8 AM
• responded to 50+ or so emails today
• met with a potential employee about joining one of my projects
• reviewed draft of a survey
• worked on my syllabus on and off all day
• reviewed some info on the new BB Learn site
• emailed 2 companies for quotes on flashdrives, talked to one on the phone, exchanged other emails back and forth with them
• ate lunch
• talked to an RA about project updates
• emailed another RA about a chapter I wanted her to get for me
• skimmed the texts for my class
• reviewed a ppt file for a student who is defending her thesis proposal in the AM
• emailed staff about materials that were supposed to have been moved
• returned phone calls to several people
• reviewed another ppt for ASA presentation next week
• and numerous other things that I can't recall right now...

Hopefully tomorrow will be less frenetic, though I have 2 students defending their thesis proposals in the AM and then Callen's meet the teacher in the afternoon. Should be a good day!