links for 2009-03-21

"Unless youâre a botanist or geologist thereâs no pedagogical reason to teach outside. The first gorgeous day of spring semester will bring a clamor to meet underneath the spreading maple students spy from the window. Donât do it! That hour will pass with female students tugging at short skirts to maintain modesty, men in khakis seeking not to get grass stains on their trousers, fidgeting when everyone realizes the ground isnât as comfy as it looks, attention lapses every time someone walks by, the cupping of ears to hear comments carried off by the breeze, and untold amounts of day dreaming. Youâd be better off declaring a learning moratorium than trying to teach outside."

"All the special programs and support and mentoring in the world cannot change the fact that a graduate student of any color or gender is spending his/her 20âs forgoing significant income relative to peers, developing very specialized skills that may not translate easily to a career outside of academia, and is preparing to enter a job market where every open positions gets 100 applications. "

"There are times when it's hard to believe that this is how my country acts now. That somewhere in government, some young bureaucrat had the idea that the President should publicly honor the Iranian New Year, and that bureaucrat felt that her superiors would also think this a good idea, and, indeed, the thought went all the way to the President, who agreed that a display of engagement and goodwill was consonant with our national values and foreign policy goals."