sciencewoman | June 16, 2009Retweeting Zuska:
Kim at All of My Faults Are Stress Related asks:
I've got a question for women readers, especially those in the geosciences, environmental sciences, or field sciences: what do you get out of reading blogs? And if you have a blog yourself, what do you get out of writing it?
I'm asking because there's a session at this year's Geological Society of America meeting on "Techniques and Tools for Effective Recruitment, Retention and Promotion of Women and Minorities in the Geosciences" (and that's in the applied geosciences as well as in academia), and I wondered whether blogs…
skookumchick | June 15, 2009At JAM last week, a really useful session was conducted by Nakeina Douglas, an assistant professor in the L Douglass Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth. She also is involved in the Grace E Harris Leadership Institute, and teaches public policy and research methods.
"What was so useful about her talk?" I hear you ask. Well. Let me tell you. She talked to us about how to write those darn annual reports for NSF. Let me share...
Shockingly, the two main objectives of reporting for NSF are accountability and decision usefulness. I know; who would have…
skookumchick | June 15, 2009Blog friend Pat Campbell and her colleagues Susan Metz, and Jennifer Weisman gave a great talk at JAM on getting your research message out to the press.
Key ideas, themselves tailored to this audience:
MEDIA SURPRISE: don't agree to an on the spot interview; research the journalist first. What part of the newspaper are they writing for? Who are they writing for? What is the angle? What is the deadline? Who else are they interviewing? Get background material on the journalist and have it written down.
HAVE A MESSAGE and tailor it to your audience. Your results are going to be…
sciencewoman | June 12, 2009The following email appeared in my inbox yesterday, and I thought some of you might have some more thoughts to share.
Dear ScienceWoman,
I recently discovered your blog, and have a question regarding academic publishing. I am just now entering a PhD. program, and plan to get married in about 2 years. Given the nature of my particular field, it is expected I will have at least co-authored one paper before the wedding. After marriage, I plan to take his name, for a number of reasons, including the commonality of my last name compared to his name. My question is this: should I start…
skookumchick | June 11, 2009Wow, I am terrible at liveblogging. I get too caught up in the conversation to be able to blog it properly. Also, in some rooms, the wireless was spotty. (Blaming my tools.)
I took copious notes during JAM and twittered key points, and will write them up over the next few days. But because of the shooting at the Holocaust Museum yesterday and the police were closing streets, we left the meeting early and abruptly (I didn't say goodbye to folks -- bye, folks!) and took the metro to the airport. Then we got stuck for a while because of weather, and I made it home to West Lafayette about 1…
sciencewoman | June 10, 2009BrianR at Clastic Detritus introduced me to the perfect meme to wrap a tedious summer afternoon of work...What books are on my summer reading list? First let me say that *love* summer and breaks because I've always associated those times with a chance to do some of the reading that I've never managed to keep up with during the semester. And I don't just mean the teetering pile of journal articles on my file cabinet, but also the teetering pile of books near my bed. I hate paying good money for a book and then letting it sit around for years unread. Plus, with my blogger schtick I feel like…
skookumchick | June 10, 2009
Do you know a woman in science or engineering who has taken a career break
from her academic position?
The NSF-ADVANCE program at George Washington University is doing a study of women in career breaks, whether voluntary or not, to understand the pipeline of women professors in science and engineering we are conducting a NSF-sponsored survey on women in career breaks. They are interested in women who have completed their PhD or DSc, have been employed in an academic setting and were, or have been, in a career break for less than five years. They are seeking to interview such women to help…
sciencewoman | June 9, 2009(to the tune of "Hush, little baby")
Speak little child, and make lots of sounds
And keep growing in leaps and bounds
We'll be busy as bumblebees
We'll catch the waves that crash on the seas
We'll go for strolls and walks in the park
We'll draw lots of sidewalk art
We'll run through sprinklers on days when it's hot
We'll sing songs and laugh a lot
We'll climb a mountain to touch the sky
We'll bake you a blueberry pie
I'd give you the stars above
For you are my one true love.
These days Minnow would rather have a story at bedtime than a lullaby, but this lullaby was sung multiple times daily…
skookumchick | June 9, 2009I'm liveblogging the Joint Annual Meeting of the HRD directorate programs, and although the internez is spotty, I will update as we can.
We began the morning with a keynote by Dr. Wanda Ward, Assistant Director for the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at NSF. The first half of her talk was largely about the different programs in HRD (Human Resources Division) and elsewhere that speak to (a new acronym to me:) BP, or "broadening participation." A few items of note:
[Follow along at the JAM twitterfeed here. So far it looks like I'm the only one twittering... can it be so?]
She…
skookumchick | June 8, 2009I'm sitting in a hotel room in D.C., at the first day of the 2009 Joint Annual Meeting, and I am hoping to liveblog tomorrow's sessions, depending on whether the wifi is any good downstairs.
In addition, I would like to note that I am a total hick, because I was just having some Thai food with some good colleagues, and Tim Geithner got out of an SUV and went to pick up some Chinese food and I became speechless with surprise. Organic Chinese food, as advertised by the sign. Not that I was so surprised at that. And then he go back in his SUV (driven by other people, note) and they drove off…
skookumchick | June 8, 2009My university has reported that we have just increased our math requirements for admissions into the university. I guess that Purdue's requirements had been to require students have taken 3 years of math to be admitted, and now it will be 4 years starting in Fall 2011. The argument is that "[t]he vast majority - 95.1 percent - of Indiana students attending Purdue already takes four years of college preparatory math, such as algebra, trigonometry, precalculus and calculus" (no word on out-of-state students) and that there is research that suggests requiring students to have taken 4 years of…
skookumchick | June 7, 2009
Was that the train? Was it? The Scientiae train? Oh damn, I was in the bathroom!
A couple of posts were left off the train completely inadvertently, so please accept the conductors' apologies, and enjoy a pretty open compartment on the bullet train to catch up to the main locomotive.
Photo from Frogandviking on Flickr
Penny Richards sent in a link that she thought was worth including in Scientiae -- the Australian War Memorial blog described the story of Valerie Briggs who worked at the CSIR Radiophysics Division. Briggs worked at the Center for Scientific and Industrial Research in…
skookumchick | June 7, 2009Purdue is now on summer time, which means it is a time for day-long retreats, meetings, and types of work. I've experienced two flavors of day-long meetings, and have one or two insights to share with you about each.
My first meeting was one scheduled months in advance, with various academic heads of state (ok, not really) and leaders from across campus. The day was organized to get some specific kinds of work done, and I had high hopes; however, as it turned out, half the attendees had not read their email, and therefore had only done half of the preparation for the first activity (a…
sciencewoman | June 5, 2009
All month the Scientiae train has been loading at platform 37.7*, and now we're pulling out of the station on a wonderful journey on the rails. I'm picturing a Harry Potter-esque train running through the Scottish countryside, complete with cozy compartments and carts full of goodies, comforting tea, and chocolate frogs.** But most importantly, this train is full of amazing people sharing confidences, celebrations, frustrations, and encouragement. Alice and ScienceWoman will be your conductors for this journey, and we're going to drop in on some of the conversations.
We'll start up near…
sciencewoman | June 5, 2009Sheril, Isis, Alice,Zuska and many others have introduced you to the Silence Is the Enemy project, aimed at condemning and reducing sexual violence in places like Liberia, Congo, Darfur and other conflict ridden places in the world. In Liberia, for example, as many as 3/4 of the women have been raped, often repeatedly. And 28% of new rape victims are under the age of 4. Those are girls the age of my daughter and the girls who play on the playground with her. Raped and left to suffer a lifetime of physical and psychological consequences. (At the bottom of this post, please watch an important…
skookumchick | June 3, 2009I'm heading to Washington DC on Monday for NSF's Joint Annual Meeting (JAM) with our team's poster on our ADVANCE project, and I know Pat of FairerScience will be there, doing her thing about "Why Don't They Listen?". Any other folks out there planning to be at JAM? Perhaps we could have a meet-up? :-) Let me know either by email (alicepawley with Google's mail service) or in the comments...
skookumchick | June 3, 2009A friend of my dad, Paul Robinson, who is also a professor here at Purdue, has just reported that he has successfully climbed Mt Everest to raise awareness and funds for a cheap, low-tech diagnostic test he is developing to diagnose HIV/AIDS. Read his blog here, and about his preparation here. Even better -- donate some money to his non-profit organization's cause.
skookumchick | June 2, 2009Cornelia Dean at the New York Times reports on a new report by National Research Council on the status of women faculty in STEM fields. I haven't read it yet (just ordered a copy), but Dean reports one particular item of note, "The panel said one factor outshined all others in encouraging women to apply for jobs: having women on the committees appointed to fill them."
Hark at this, faculty search committees. And please figure out ways to value women faculty members' time on search committees, because everyone will ask the few women there are to serve on all the search committees, which can…
skookumchick | June 1, 2009For the past few years, I have been horrified by Nicholas Kristof's posts about violence against children in various crisis zones around the globe - and I have been captivated by his stories of choosing to engage as a human being with such distress and pain rather than a so-called "impartial" or "objective" journalist. In particular, I think of his reporting in 2004 from Cambodia about children forced into sex slavery and his decision to try to buy two girls to free them from traffickers, and his decision with his family to open a school east of Phnom Penh to educate girls to help prevent…
sciencewoman | May 31, 2009
Dearest Blog-friends,
Have I ever mentioned how much I love all my readers and my Sciblings? This blogging community means so much to me, I just don't even know how to express it. The amount of support I get from y'all is amazing. As evidence, on Friday, my email box contained several nice emails (and offer to collaborate on some research!) and my snail-mail box was overflowing with goodies...
Wonderful, wonderful teas from my wonderful, wonderful co-blogger Alice. And a beautiful bracelet from Letmenatalya on Etsy (h/t Isis)
Thank you to all my friends for your thoughtful comments, kind…