Department of interference

I think many academics just don't understand what a blog is.

Since academics are trained to learn and to think, and what a blog is isn't that difficult to absorb, those who don't understand aren't making much of an effort. It was said by a social sciences academic who has had this experience:

[S]he had been blogging in her own name to a wide audience when she received word that her department did not believe her blog was appropriate.

"The take was that it was not academic, that it was quite populist and that was a problem... that if I had time to do extra work then I should be writing grant applications," she explains.

As a result she agreed to remove any mention of her university affiliation from the blog, and she now keeps quiet about her secret hobby.

Unless something's missing from the story, her department was out of order, I'd say. There are certain requirements which, as an academic, she may properly be expected to fulfil. She may be assessed on how adequately she does that. But her department has no business telling her that she may not blog in her own time, provided she is meeting her professional obligations. It's from a piece about academics and blogging.