Academia
drorzel | July 27, 2006Inside Higher Ed had a piece yesterday about leaks in the science pipeline-- that is, reasons why so few students end up majoring in science, math, or engineering these days. The hook for the article is some Congressional hearings on the subject, but the author lists some possible explanations related to the structure of academia (bold headings are from the article, the summaries are mine):
Greener Grade Pastures: Students in science and engineering get lower grades than humanities students, and some students choose majors based on projected GPA.
Weeding Out: The culture of science presumes…
clock | July 27, 2006 This post I first wrote on February 28, 2005, then re-posted here on December 10, 2005. About conservative relativism and the assault on academia:
I have hinted several times (here, here, here and here) before that relativism (including moral relativism) is not consistent with the liberal core model (in Lakoffian sense). Instead, postmodernism is used these days as a tactic by conservatives to push their pre-modern views within a modern society. In other words, faced with the reality of a modern world, the only way conservatives can re-intorduce their medieval ideas is by invoking…
drorzel | July 27, 2006Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber is enthusiastic about something that appears to be that rarest of rarities, a new idea in the education funding debate: instead of giving the best students money to move to different schools, let schools bid for the best students.
Betts suggests this: first fund the schools equally on a per-student basis. Then distribute trade-able rights to admit highly advantaged students; and allow schools to auction those rights. Schools would then be forced to figure out how much they valued the money they were spending relative to the highly advantaged children they…
jstemwedel | July 26, 2006This morning, I finished making the slides for a talk I'm giving at the BCCE at Purdue next week. (Any of you chemists or chemical educators in the audience planning on being there?) I feel very proud of myself for having the slides written and ready to use days before I even board the plane. I'm even sufficiently enthusiastic that I may just start writing a paper-version of the content I'll be giving in my talk.
That brings me to my question for academics and others who work in the media of "paper" and "presentation":
Which do you typically write first?
Do you write a paper first and…
tsmith | July 26, 2006I've not commented on the whole stem cell controversy. Though I follow the literature (and the news), others are much better-versed in the science (and the politics) than I am, so I've left it to them to comment on both aspects of the unfolding story. However, I saw this comment over at Framing Science, and thought it was worthy of a post itself:
I'm one of the people who believes strongly in supporting science, ESCR [embryonic stem cell research] in particular, but is opposed to public funding for ESCR. Why? Because that's what's required to consistently hold to the traditional liberal…
jstemwedel | July 25, 2006In light of some of the comments on my ongoing series of posts on trying to combine a family and an academic career, I think a few clarifications may be in order:
1. Children and/or a partner are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having a life. As it happened, I wanted children and an academic career, but that's my path. Not everyone would want to be on that path, and I would never presume to tell anyone that he or she was "missing out" by not electing to raise children.
One of my reasons for blogging about my attempts to have both an academic career and a family is that I…
catdynamics | July 25, 2006deLong explains why academic blogging is good for the soul
I would not have dared to blog openly before tenure (and, no, I did not blog anonymously back then), basically it would not have been well received by most of the tenure committee, or the Dean.
Strangely, if I had been writing a regular short column for SEED magazine or equivalent it would probably have counted as a mild plus for most of the committee, but the web equivalent, not so much.
I started the blog as an experiment - the possibility had been tossed about as an outreach exercise for a particular project I was involved in, and…
jstemwedel | July 25, 2006A long time ago, on a flight to a conference, a friend and I discussed the psychology of search committee members. We noticed that even people who thought they were exceedingly fair and open-minded might unconsciously make decisions that don't seem fair, but do, from a certain point of view, seem rational. So, when faced with two equally talented and promising job candidates, the committee members might opt against the one with visible signs of "a life" (such as children, a partner, even a serious hobby) and for the one with no visible signs of a life. Why? Well, which candidate is more…
drorzel | July 25, 2006I'm beginning to put my tenure review materials together, which means lots of angst about academia generally. Happily, there's the Internet, which can always make matters worse by providing more links:
For example, a couple of my ScienceBlogs colleagues are blogging about family issues and academic careers: Janet Stemwedel has the first three posts (one two, three) of what promises to be an exhaustive look at the subject of family and career, and Tara Smith adds her own story. And lest you think this is just a concern for the womenfolk, I'll note that this has been the subject of many…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2006At the end of part 2, I had just dropped the baby-bomb on my unsuspecting advisor. Happily, he did not have a cow about it. Now, as we move into the stage of this story that is A.P. (after pregnancy), we lose the coherent narrative structure for awhile.
Given what the first several weeks with a newborn are like, that's entirely appropriate.
This, also, is the part of the story where particulars start making a huge difference. The decisions we made were contingent on the range of options that were open to us at any given moment; with different circumstances, we might have been on a…
catdynamics | July 24, 2006That reminds me...
The relationship between a thesis advisor and a PhD student is the best example of Lamarckian Evolution: Discuss
tsmith | July 24, 2006I see Janet has a post series going on family + academic career. (Part 1; Part 2). I've written a bit on my own experience at the old blog (and I do mean "a bit;" it's much more of a Cliff notes version of events than Janet's), so I'm re-posting it here for another view from the trenches, so to speak:
Six years ago today, I was suffering the worst pain I'd ever experienced. I arrived at the hospital a bit before 1AM, and spent the next four hours or so walking around in agony. By 5AM, I decided I was ready for some of the good drugs, but the nurse informed me it was too late--time for the…
clock | July 23, 2006Phil Plait has an excellent post: Wealth of Science:
Then the author said something that literally startled me:
"Scientists, till recently at least, effectively donated the wealth they created."
He's absolutely right. Again, wealth is not the same as money. Scientists take a relatively small amount of money (compared to, say, the cost of an attack helicopter or the building of a bridge) and turn it into wealth. Knowledge. Understanding. A brief moment of awe in the public when they grasp a little bit more of the Universe.
jstemwedel | July 22, 2006Where we left off in part 1: In my fifth (and last) year of funding in my philosophy Ph.D. program, staring down 30, trying to finish a dissertation, and bracing myself for the rigors of the academic job market, I said to myself, "How could having a baby make things noticably more difficult?"
Then I remembered: I'd have to tell my advisor.
I would characterize my relationship with my graduate advisor as a pretty good one. He always found time to meet with me, gave me good suggestions about what to read, made useful comments on my writing, and really pressed me to figure out what my view was…
evolgen | July 22, 2006I just realized that the (relatively) recent ScienceBlogs addition Dynamics of Cats is authored by a faculty member from my university. It only took me two months after he came on board to notice Steinn Sigurðsson's academic affiliation. The two of us, along with Monsieur Bérubé, are representing the school quite well. Additionally, my alma mater has a few bio-bloggers. Sadly, there is also a growing movement of anti-science on the hill.
How is the blogging scene at your University? If you aren't an academic, how's the blogging scene in your town or community?
jstemwedel | July 21, 2006I've decided to go ahead and say something about how I navigated (and am still navigating) the challenge of trying to have an academic career and a family as well. This is not a topic I can adequately address in a single post, so bear with me. And, since my main motivation for doing this is the hope that knowing about my experiences may be useful, somehow, to other people contemplating these waters, ask me if there's something I'm leaving out that you want me to talk about. (If it's too personal, I'll say so.)
I think Rob Knop's comment is dead-on. Many of us in academia have been trained…
drorzel | July 21, 2006I'm pretty sure the folks at Inside Higher Ed don't know that it's International Blog Against Racism Week, but they've provided some good material all the same. Today, Alan Contreras offers some provocative thoughts on diversity in academic hiring:
Anyone interested in actual improvement of the presence of good nonwhite faculty in our universities needs to take certain steps at their schools. Do not allow the hiring of more bureaucrats to gasp in predictable horror at the way things are. No more Assistant Vice-hand-holders in the bower of ethnic unhappiness. Forget all the false storefronts…
clock | July 20, 2006
I wrote this first in February 2005, then republished in December 2005. After War Churchill got fired last month, I think that this post is still relevant.
I was asked the other day what I thought about the Ward Churchill affair. Frankly, I had not followed it at all (but you can) . Apparently, Wingers want to kill him, or at least get him fired, while Progressives are divided: some distance themselves from "an obscure nobody that Right-wing pulled out to push their agenda", while others assert that he is telling the truths that are unpalatable to those whose emotional health depends on…
drorzel | July 20, 2006In the wake of academic scandals involving the Auburn football program, Inside Higher Ed reports on a study looking at the majors of athletes. The results will be shocking to, well basically no-one who has ever set foot on a college campus:
While accusations of widespread abuse like that alleged at Auburn are unusual, "clustering" of athletes -- in which large numbers of athletes at an institution major in a particular program or department, out of proportion to other students at the college -- is common. A 2002-3 analysis by USA Today found that a large percentage of football players at…
clock | July 20, 2006There is a new question in the Ask a ScienceBlogger series:
If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?...
Let me get the two runner-up answers out of the way first:
- the romantic time of mid-19th century England around the publication of the Origin of Species. This assumes I'd be an English landed gentleman and a buddy of Charles. This also assumes that I'd be aware of how great that period was for science.
- some time in the future, e.g., 2106, or 3006 AD. So much will be known then. But would I appreciate it? Will…