Thanks to our terrific contributors and a lot of readers, ProfPost (University of Cincinnati’s ground-breaking, written-by-professors-for-professors blog) has had over 12,000 hits since its January 2009 launch. We think we’re really on to something here, and we’re starting to take some risks to make things lively.

That’s why we’re looking for a few professors with fresh takes on teaching and learning—and we’re running a couple of competitions to shake those professors from the bunch.

“Points of View” Columns (Deadline: August 15, 2009):
We’ll choose two professors to write at least three posts each over three quarters, and we pay $250 per quarter in faculty-development funds for doing it! The focus of these submissions is completely up to each writer but should relate broadly to teaching and learning in higher education. We believe the best rule of thumb is to write about whatever is lately on your mind…if it’s nagging at you, it will probably interest other professors, too.

“Points of View” submissions should be posts of 500-1000 words and should be emailed to liz.tilton@uc.edu by August 15, 2009.

“Raised Hand” Column (Deadline: August 15, 2009):
This column is sort of the hip professor’s “Dear Abby.” If you’ve got a quirky way of seeing the classroom, college students, or your fellow professors, this competition may have your name (written in chalk dust) all over it. We’d like someone to field some tough/funny/insightful questions having to do with 21^st Century teaching—if you can do it with a twist, we want you. And, to sweeten the deal, we pay $250 per quarter in professional-development funds for each of the three quarters you write a column or more for us.

We tried to formulate a catchy question to which you could showcase your wonderful responses, but we couldn’t come up with a question we all agreed was a good one. So, we’ve decided to let you pose your own question and then answer it yourself. Don’t think we can’t roll with the punches.

Please write a 500–1000-word response to your question, and then email both the question and your answer to it to liz.tilton@uc.edu by August 15, 2009.

Notes regarding both “Points of View” and the “Raised Hand” competitions:

—Submissions should be approximately 500 to 1000 words.

—Our panel of judges will determine winning submissions by August 30, 2009.

—Winners earn the right to publish their columns anonymously.

—There’s a good chance that submissions not winning the competitions will eventually be published in ProfPost

Now, pick up your pen and write something for us.