The most frequently asked question is now about the above picture. It has even surpassed variations on, “Well, what did you say that was so bad?” (By the way, all posts mentioning DeVry are quite public–see for yourself whether I “disparaged” them or the students.)

The picture is part of the template. When Drunken Webmaster moved my blog, she picked it out, knowing we would both really like it. As some of you know, I have business cards that say, “Meg Spohn / Mechanic / Air-cooled Volkswagen, Bicycle, Quantum.” I know my way around a Type I engine, and I’ve even seen one or two catch on fire. Not quite this badly–more like a cigar-lighting or marshmallow-roasting flame–but in any case, it makes me smile every time I look at it. I think it was a delightful selection. Presumably c3ro.com owns the rights to it.

Since so many of us are curious about the story behind it, and I don’t have one, I suggest we come up with our own. Let’s see, how about…

My impure thoughts simply ignite nearby vehicles. Now seems like the right time to come clean, and admit my complicity in the problems with the 1978 Chevy pickups. I know the problem was supposed to have been that the gas tanks were outside the frame rails, but it was just that I stood near an awful lot of them.

Six words: “Hold my beer and watch this!”

When it stopped running forever, we had intended to float the sacred microbus, burning and spitting, on a raft, like a Viking funeral. Unfortunately, the match was dropped early, and we were instead faced with pushing the flaming heap of memories of my early adult life into the lake.

Let’s just say that we might need a more flame retardant vehicle the next time we attempt time travel.

Water is borne by the sky and the waves; fire arrives in a kombi.

One valet could be overheard saying, “I hope Mr. Heatmiser is a good tipper.”

What else?

Today, I’ve become aware that a lot of other academics are discussing my story. Excellent! Nice to meet you all. These are the ones I know about, and feel free to send me others that I may be missing.

Professor Namewithheld Gets in Trouble “The university is not really just a place where people get together to complain about parking. The university is a place for a free exchange of ideas, right? Somebody forgot to tell DeVry University…”

This blog, by the way, is terrific. Professor Namewithheld is clever, witty and cool. Great reading!

Borderland “The next thing that happened was fateful. I noticed that Graham Wegner and Leigh Blackall both posted links about a teacher who lost her job for blogging. I was captivated by this story. Most briefly, Meg Spohn was abruptly dismissed from her university teaching position in Colorado because she is a blogger and she wrote about her work. She gives a good account of what happened. All I can say is that it strikes me as an outrageous tactic to silence and intimidate educators who wish to speak publicly. Because of this - I’ve been online now for a couple of hours working through this - I went back to EFF and made my donation.”

I love this guy’s spirit–and his tagline: “My name is Doug. I’m from the government. I teach your kids.”

Leigh Blackall received some comments wondering about the school’s side of the story in all this. I would comment there, but I can’t get the form to work, so I’ll take a whack at it here: I wish I knew the school’s side of the story–maybe I could have worked with that. They didn’t tell me what post prompted my dismissal, they never gave me any details nor anything in writing, and as far as I knew, everyone was pleased with my performance. My student evaluations were typically between 3.85 and 3.98 out of a possible 4, my performance evaluations from my immediate supervisor were similarly quite strong, I am a hard worker, and the closest thing to criticism I received during my first weeks on the job as a department chair was gentle teasing from my nearby co-workers who exhorted me to come out of my office to socialize a bit. The week before I was discharged, I worked about 60 hours (out of an expected 40) in large part because my immediate boss was on vacation and I was covering some of his important obligations at his (ostensibly trusting) request. I was taking my position seriously, had just chaired two productive and fun faculty meetings (oh yes, it is possible!), solved some immediate challenges with which I had been presented, made game plans for others, and had even started trying to put together a foreign language program–all of which was outlined in a report I submitted to my immediate supervisor during the third week of my new position. It’s possible there was some sort of personal beef to which I was totally oblivious, and this was the best they could do, but I was–and am–a terrific teacher, a strong and exuberant leader, and an organized and hardworking employee. I assure Leigh’s more suspicious readers that my firing was, to me at least, a bolt out of the blue. If there were any problems, nobody bothered to share them with me.

Anyway, here, also is the aforementioned Graham Wegner’s contribution. He notes a good way to share public information that begins, “Now, after reading Leigh’s latest post about an educator who was fired for her blog, I’m feeling cautious and will offer these meek observations.”

Kudos to Graham for turning a scary experience (to some extent, scary for us all) into a positive resource.

Academic Coach adds, “In mid-December, DeVry University fired instructor Meg Spohn for what she calls ‘water-cooler kvetching’ on her blog. Although Meg is still A.B.D. at the University of Denver, she had a full-time job teaching and serving as department chair of communications and composition at the Westminster campus until mid-December.”

The academic coach (a fine service, by the way: advice for dissertators and tenure-track faculty) suggests that one should probably not blog under his or her own name until tenured. A good tip! However, one must first be aware that one’s thoughts are offensive. I might add: oh, just assume they are. You pervert! (Not you, Mary.)