Academia
Category archives for Academia
“Fool Me Twice” by Shawn Lawrence Otto
Posted by Tara C. Smith on August 2, 2012 Science denial, I fear, is here to stay. Almost half of Americans believe in creationism. Anti-vaccination sentiment is going strong, despite record pertussis outbreaks. Academics are even leaving their jobs, in part, because of the terrible anti-intellectual attitude in this country. It’s depressing and demoralizing–so what does one do about it? Shawn Lawrence Otto’s “Fool Me…
ASM 2012!
Posted by Tara C. Smith on June 8, 2012 ASM 2012 is almost upon us! Who’s going? Who’s presenting? Who wants to meet up and what are good days for it? Leave suggestions and pimp your own presentations below in the comments. I will be convening a session on Sunday, June 17th on science communication, “Sound Bites to Superbugs”. Sound Bites to Superbugs: How…
Tenured and promoted!
Posted by Tara C. Smith on May 17, 2012 Received the official letter from the Provost–the Board of Regents approved my application for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. The process here started last summer. My dossier (with my course syllabi, statements on teaching/research/service, student and peer evaluations of my teaching, copies of academic papers and funded grant applications, my CV, and a few…
Another advantage of blogging
Posted by Tara C. Smith on November 8, 2011 As you may have noticed from the extended radio silence, it’s been a busy few months between classes (both taking them and giving them), tenure packaging, and research. To add another responsibility to the mix, I gave a talk a few weeks back at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture’s annual symposium. This year, the…
In the lab–the year in review
Posted by Tara C. Smith on June 13, 2011 Ah, classes are finally over. The last two summers I’ve taught a short, intense course in Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology, condensing a semester’s worth of work into a week. It’s a fun course to teach, but exhausting–after teaching, I head back home or to the office to finish last-minute preparation for the next day’s talks…
Women and Veterinary Medicine
Posted by Tara C. Smith on September 30, 2010 The Dog Zombie has an interesting post discussing women in vet med–and why there are so many. She notes that her school is only 12% male, versus more of an even distribution in med schools, and the recent discussion of gender imbalance in science blogging. This is interesting to me, as my personal vet is…
Moving science communication into the public sphere–how?
Posted by Tara C. Smith on September 27, 2010 Mike and David Dobbs both have great posts up discussing “whither rewards for scientists who communicate to the public?” This ended up being one of the themes of my recent SciencePub talk in Columbus–what are the incentives–and disincentives–to scientists for bringing their work to the public at large, rather than simply publishing in journals?
Additional thoughts on Bible-flu and the retraction
Posted by Tara C. Smith on August 13, 2010 PZ has some additional thoughts on the Bibleflugate retraction up at Pharyngula. Choice quote: This is a serious concern, to my mind. Scientists are expected to be open and communicative about their work, explaining all the details about how we achieve our results. Yet then we hand that work over to a publisher (usually a…
The science boys’ club strikes again
Posted by Tara C. Smith on December 6, 2009 Recently, a bit of a kerfuffle has sprung up around the choice of entries included in The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, edited by Richard Dawkins. The book contains 83 examples of the “finest writing by scientists.” However, DrHGG noted: Of 83 texts Professor D has selected 3 written by women. That’s about 3.6%.…
Iowa “academic freedom” bill dies with a whimper
Posted by Tara C. Smith on March 13, 2009 For those of you following our “academic freedom” bill saga here in Iowa, you’ll be pleased to know that today was the last day for the bill to make it out of subcommittee, which it appears it hasn’t. Hector Avalos has an overview of the history of the bill, our response, and the results at…