Academia
jtoney | October 20, 2012This article was written with Corina Hernandez, a Public Administration major at Kean University. The "college student" is fictional.
On Election Day, New Jersey voters will be asked:
Do you approve the "Building Our Future Bond Act?" This bond act authorizes the state to issue bonds in the aggregate principal of $750 million to provide matching grants to New Jersey's colleges and universities. Money from the grants will be used to build, equip and expand higher education facilities for the purpose of increasing academic capacity.
Cranky taxpayer: Are you kidding me? New Jersey is already…
drorzel | October 18, 2012In which I get a little rant-y about yet another proud display of ignorance from the Washington Post's education blog.
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Some time back, I teed off on a school board member who couldn't pass a simple math test, who proudly told the world about his ignorance via a post at the Washington Post's education blog. Bragging about ignorance is apparently a Thing for that blog, which recently offered another fine example, with a parent complaining about his son being forced to take chemistry. The author, "nonprofit executive" David Bernstein, is a former philosophy major, who evidently didn…
jdupuis | October 18, 2012I'm at the Access Conference in Montreal this week starting today, so I'm a bit behind on the readings for the Current/Future State of Higher Education MOOC I'm participating in. I'm hoping a nice long relaxing train ride will give me the opportunity to catch up.
Anyways, Week 1 was a great introduction to the issues facing higher ed and here in Week 2
Week 2: Net Pedagogies: New models for teaching and learningReadings and Resources
Blended Learning Models
The Blended Learning Toolkit: Improving Student Performance and Retention, Educause Quarterly, Volume 34, Number 4, December 15, 2011. A…
catdynamics | October 11, 2012Or, how may hours should graduate students work?
Well, depends...
However Many You Like
As Many As They Can
As Many As Are Needed
All Of Them
The answer may sometimes lie in the above range, sometimes may be somewhat less, and occasionally even more.
We've all been there, and all suffer from survivor bias, confirmation bias and not a little survivor's guilt.
The occasion of course, is The Letter very helpfully sent to all the astronomy graduate students at a distinguished research university by a well intentioned distinguished faculty member.
It is causing quite the buzz in astro social…
esiegel | October 10, 2012"It's Dr. Evil, I didn't spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called "mister," thank you very much." -Dr. Evil, from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Graduate school is hard work, and Ph.D. programs in Physics and Astronomy are some of the most demanding and competitive ones out there. It's well-known that it's incredibly difficult to strike a good work/life balance while you're in graduate school, and that between classes, homework, reading, research, and any teaching or service duties you may have, you cannot expect to spend only 40 hours a week on all of your…
catdynamics | October 4, 2012
The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology program included 20 awards for 2 year research projects on Big Questions.
The winners are:
Big Question IWhat was the earliest state of the universe?
Detecting Cosmic Superstrings
David Chernoff, Cornell University
Co-Investigator: Henry Tye, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
CosmoArchaeology: Digging for the Initial State
Richard Holman, Carnegie Mellon University
Co-Investigators: Shirley Ho, Carnegie Mellon University; Sarah Shandera, The Pennsylvania State University; Nishant Agarwal, Carnegie Mellon University; Ross O’Connell,…
catdynamics | October 4, 2012The New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology program hasannounced its Award winners!
The $4+ million in awards went to 20 scientists studying Big Questions on fundamental issues and 21 high school and university student essay prize winners.
The awards will be presented at a conference at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia next week.
The program is funded by the Templeton Foundation as part of its celebration of the centennial of the birth of its founder, John Templeton.
The topics solicited for the Big Questions were very interesting:
What was the earliest state of the universe?
What are…
jdupuis | September 27, 2012Why do people go into science? Why do people go to work at scholarly societies? Why do people choose scholarly publishing as a career? Why do people choose a career at the intersection of those three vocations?
There are cynical answers to those questions, for sure, and even the non-cynical need to put food on the table. But I truly don't believe people start out their path in life based on cynicism. Rather I believe most people start their careers based on hope.
I can only hope that for a person to pursue a career in scholarly publishing at a scientific society, their goal in life is to try…
jdupuis | September 26, 2012Scholars who grew up with the internet are steadily replacing those that grew up without it. Scholars who expect to put everything they write online, who expect to find everything they need online, and who expect unlocked content that they may read, search, link, copy, cut/paste, crawl, print, and redistribute, are replacing those who never expected these boons and got used to them, if at all, looking over their shoulder for the copyright police. Scholars who expect to find the very best literature online, harmlessly cohabitating with crap are, inexorably replacing scholars who, despite…
drorzel | September 25, 2012There's been a lot of bloggage recently about a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicating bias toward male students on the part of faculty who thought they were evaluating an application for a laboratory manager. Half of the faculty in the study were given an application with "Jennifer" at the top, the other half one with "John" as the first name, and both male and female faculty rated the male student more highly, and would offer the male student a higher salary. Sean Carroll and Ilana Yurkiewicz talk about the study and the results in more detail.
So,…
catdynamics | September 14, 2012The OMB has reported on the effects of sequestration that will be triggered Jan 2013 unless Congress proactively changes the law before then.
Some time ago, Congress set itself a trap: in an attempt to look like they were dealing with government spending and the deficit, they passed a law that triggers automatic cuts to spending, unless Congress agrees and passes laws that make concomitant targeted cuts or revenue increases to decrease the deficit.
The nominal cuts are about $1.2 trillion, over a decade, cut from the projected budget in the out years, and are, by design flat across-the-board…
drorzel | September 13, 2012Last week, in the post about fermion conduction, I left a reference hanging:
There’s nothing physically blocking the atoms from flying right through the channel– in fact, an atom that enters the channel will always exit the other side without slowing down along the way. This is termed “ballistic,” a term that will always have a special place in my heart thanks to an incident at my Ph.D. defense.
Which was what? Let’s just leave that hanging to see if anybody actually reads this far. I can explain it in a comment if people want to know.
A couple of people asked for the explanation in comments…
jdupuis | September 13, 2012Jenica Rogers is Director of Libraries at the State University of New York at Potsdam. Like so many institutions SUNY Potsdam subscribes to the suite of journals published by the American Chemical Society. Now, that's always a challenge since the ACS prices their products very aggressively as well as pushing the envelope with annual price increases.
Well, push finally came to show and SUNY Potsdam is Walking away from the American Chemical Society.
The problem:
In May 2012, after much internal discussion and debate, three SUNY library directors from the comprehensive colleges (myself…
catdynamics | September 11, 2012a few years ago, during a particularly busy period, I found myself putting "take a shower" on my To Do Lists...
not so much because I needed the reminder, though people may differ on that point, but more for the temporary morale boost of being able to cross at least one point off the To Do List (since at that point I had found that "Update To Do List" was no longer a satisfactory checkpoint to make...)
I am intrigued to report that this is not, in fact, the low point, it is possible to be driven to having to formally set aside a slot for even more elementary processes, and, no, I don't mean "…
catdynamics | September 1, 2012Ah, semester has started, and with it comes the grind of studying for the big test, where callow highschoolers finally get to see if they can make it in the big leagues.
Here we see them in lecture:
One of the 30 or so in class lectures before the test
Yes, football players go to lectures.
About football, as well as whatever other subjects they are taking.
The coach gets up there, talks about football and shit, and they all listen, and nod, and maybe take some notes, and check their cool pics on facebook, and text their friends, and nap... afterwards they go their separate ways back to their…
catdynamics | August 29, 2012Meet Henri...
he is a cat.
Part deux is a masterpiece.
Silly, but excellent.
catdynamics | August 14, 2012 Choose what the VLT observes - public vote on a science target one night this autumn
Ralph Cicerone Public Lecture - Contemporary Climate Change as Seen through Data - video of Ralph Cicerone lecture on Climate Change at the Aspen Center for Physics this summer
Cliff at Asymptotia summarises the "Future of Physics" public symposium at the Aspen Center for Physics.
With bonus pics of physicists gone wild!
How did I miss this?! - the Definitive Dunkin' Donuts study on which professions need coffee the most...
"scientists/lab technicians are the professions that need coffee the most,…
jdupuis | August 10, 2012This is the third and hopefully final summary post on the controversy at the University of Virginia surrounding the forced resignation of President Teresa Sullivan. The previous two are here and here.
Trouble With Transparency
A Much Higher Education: UVA has its president back. But the fight to save our universities has only just begun.
Being the innovation shield
After Leadership Crisis Fueled by Distance-Ed Debate, UVa Will Put Free Classes Online
Going Public the UVa Way
U-Va. parent: Online learning is an oxymoron
University of Virginia’s peaceful revolution grew strength online
Most…
catdynamics | August 7, 2012
More random topics that crossed my path:
bureaucratic entropy: "...In 1987, except at private research universities, where administrators outnumbered tenure-track faculty, colleges had approximately as many tenure-track faculty as full-time administrators. By 2008 there were more than twice as many administrators as tenure-track faculty at all types of institutions."
Cuts loom for US science.
Wise and Shine - UC Berkeley startup providing machine learning and big data services.
Significant astro and time domain data analysis group.
High Speed Trading goes berserk - morbidly fascinating…
jdupuis | August 3, 2012This one is a little less on the strictly amusing side and a little more on the useful and thoughtful side for a Friday Fun post, but sometimes it's worth mixing things up a bit.
I've mostly not read these books myself but I am in the middle of the Christensen/Eyring book right now. And they all look very useful and interesting, if only as a springboard for disagreement and debate. A little bit of end-of-summer reading is always a good thing!
Without further ado, from OnlineUniversities.com, the 10 Best Books on the Future of Higher Ed.
Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money…