Academics
pharyngula | November 11, 2010I remember my physical education class in high school — the instructor (I will not dignify him with the title "teacher") was a psychopath, as far as I was concerned. He ran the class like a petty tyrant; members of the football team were treated royally and given exemptions and privileges, while the rest of us were subject to his whims and rather vicious rules. We had jock strap inspections every day, and if we were unequipped, we'd be punished; we had to, for instance, run a certain number of laps around the track, and the students who came in last would be punished. And punishment was…
pharyngula | November 2, 2010We have a bit more than a week to go on our fund raising drive for DonorsChoose, which puts money directly into the hands of teachers who need it, and the pace of donations is slowing way down. Are you tapped out? Do I need to go all NPR and beg for money in every other post? I've been so restrained and only putting out these reminders once a week.
Look! Sandra Porter has joined the Scienceblogs team! Maybe I should be nagging the other bloggers here to get it together and join in.
pharyngula | November 1, 2010You all know them: those awful loud little men who travel from campus to campus to preach apocalyptic hateful nonsense on the sidewalks, who rant and howl and condemn everyone who passes by as a sinner, damned to hell, and reserving a special hatred for women and gays. One of the virtues of being on a small campus in a remote rural part of my state is that we don't get many of those jerkwads here, but they infest the main campus and any other college that is more conveniently located.
What do we do about them? Tarring and feathering is illegal, and you can't just silence them because you don'…
pharyngula | October 28, 2010Brain melting. Remember that call for applicants for a tenure track job? We're screening all those applicants now, and meeting tomorrow to consider who to invite to the first round of preliminary phone interviews. If you haven't got your application in, you're late! You're going to hope everyone else sucks badly if you're still trying to get something filed here.
All it means to me right now though is more squinty staring at lots and lots of essays and CVs and recommendations. I may be entering a data coma soon.
pharyngula | October 27, 2010This is a very poor quality recording of a group of fraternity pledges marching about the Yale campus chanting. You should be able to make out what they're chanting, though: "No means yes, yes means anal."
These privileged man-children made it a point to march past various sororities letting the women know exactly what to expect from the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity; the president of the frat has since apologized, calling it a "lapse in judgment".
I don't think so. I think it goes deeper than that: this was a lifelong failure, the result of a poor upbringing that generates bully-boys who…
pharyngula | October 25, 2010We're still trying to raise money for science education — donate if you can. We've teamed up with Uncertain Principles and The Thoughtful Animal to raise cash for teachers, and together we've almost brought in $10,000 so far. My personal goal was $20,000, though, so we need more.
I'm hoping some billionaire will tire of throwing his money away on ID conferences and will instead invest where it can make a difference. But even a dollar or two helps.
pharyngula | October 20, 2010Especially if you've got adblock in place, because the big banner on the left asking you to donate will disappear…but yes, we are still trying to raise money for science education, and if you've got a few dollars to spare, go to my challenge page and pick a project you like and help them out. One of the nice things about the way DonorsChoose is that you actually put your money in the hands of teachers who are doing work that you like.
Now I know, we're all evil atheists here, and we'd never do something just because it was good and nice. If cutthroat competition is a better motivator to your…
pharyngula | October 20, 2010But then, so have we all. I hit my developmental biology students with the first evil exam of the term last week (I give them a couple of broad questions where we don't have all the answers, and send them off to write a longish essay on their own time. It's definitely the kind of test where regurgitation doesn't work at all). Then also the last few days have been our Fall Break, a short interval with no classes which were added to allow the faculty a chance to catch up on their work and sleep, but which I squandered by gallivanting off to London where I got almost no sleep.
But they've got…
pharyngula | October 12, 2010I teach at a small public liberal arts college in Minnesota. We've got a lot of similar liberal arts institutions around the state, including Gustavus Adolphus, a private college with a Lutheran affiliation. We're secular (we don't sponsor church services) and public (much lower tuition, also much smaller endowment), which we consider our advantages, but the Illinois Family Institute is trying to undermine that. They are outraged at the licentiousness at Gustavus.
The climate at Gustavus was predominantly secular in the classroom, in dorm life, and on sports teams with only the empty…
pharyngula | October 6, 2010Once again, my developmental biology students generate some science content for the web.
Hannah's blog discovers that stem cells can repair damaged hearts.
Lisa's Ledger covers a story I criticized about a genetic link to ADHD.
We've been talking about induction and pattern formation this week, so Development from a naiad talks about his favorite signaling center.
Kele's Science Blog talks about a tricky subject: gene conversion in the Y chromosome.
Rev. Frost continues his neurological series with sexual dimorphism in fly brains.
Anthony's Weekly Developmental Biology Blog is all…
pharyngula | October 5, 2010This is the same ad I posted for a position in our biology department the other day, with one very significant difference — I had used the copy we'd put together before we got absolute final approval to fill the position, and once it was locked down, we changed the date.
Notice: We start screening applications on 22 October. If you're interested, send in that application soon, soon, soon!
Assistant Professor of (Cell) Biology
University of Minnesota, Morris
The University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education to fill a tenure-track…
pharyngula | September 30, 2010The Coalition on the Academic Workforce is running a survey to gather data on the working conditions of what they're calling contingent faculty: people who teach at the college level but aren't tenured or tenure track. If you're one of those unfortunate slaves of the system, help them out and take the survey.
pharyngula | September 30, 2010As I've mentioned, I have my upper division classes write openly on the web about the subject of the course. It's good practice for being comfortable with discussing the world of ideas outside this little sheltered realm of academia, but I've always had one reservation: the internet is a cruel place, and I feel a bit protective of my students, so I send them off with lots of warnings and reassurances that I will defend their open expression of ideas and they don't have to worry about differences of opinion affecting their grades. I've had students with whom I greatly disagree get online and…
pharyngula | September 29, 2010The UMM biology program is looking to replace a recent retiree, and we need someone who is an excellent teacher, competent to teach cell biology and a basic genetics course, and with some interesting expertise that can be used for upper level electives in your specialty and can provide undergraduate research opportunities. We will need this wonderful person by Fall of 2011, so if you think you fit the bill and want to be involved in an excellent undergraduate teaching program, send an application in soon! The committee here is champing at the bit to find out who our future tenure track…
pharyngula | September 28, 2010I told you I've got my development class blogging, and here's the update for this week.
Hannah's blog discusses recent observations in blind cavefish.
Lisa's Ledger is about a new Alzheimer-associated gene.
Development from a naiad is on a brief break while the author does some extracurricular traveling.
Kele's Science Blog goes above and beyond the call of duty to describe a classic paper on digit reduction in amphibian evo-devo.
Rev. Frost goes all neuro and describes experiments exploring cerebral palsy.
Weekly Developmental Biology Updates needs updating.
Developmental…
pharyngula | September 24, 2010SciAm has a nice report on a survey of people's trust of authority figures. On a scale of one to five, with five being the most trustworthy, they were asked who would provide accurate information on a range of scientific issues. Look at these results: scientists are highly regarded, while religious authorities are deeply distrusted.
Before you get too happy about this, though, check out the source of the survey: this was taken of readers of Nature and Scientific American. Can you say sampling bias, boys and girls? That's disappointing; I'd rather see how the general public views these…
pharyngula | September 24, 2010Those must have been some interesting meetings: the University of Minnesota administration was trying to suppress an environmentalist documentary about abuses of the Mississippi river, but every faculty member I've heard from on this issue was a bit outraged by the censorship…and now, the university has backed off, and the movie will be screened on 3 October at the Bell Museum. If you're in the area, stop by and watch it!
pharyngula | September 21, 2010I'm back to teaching developmental biology this term, and one of the things I do in my upper level classes is have students write blog entries on the themes of the course. In the past, I've given them space right here to do that, which I've found to be a parlous course of action — the commentariat here is savage and brutal, and infested with trollish nitwits who can derail threads spectacularly, so I'm doing it a little differently this time around. I've had them create their very own blogs on their own spaces, which has the additional benefit that maybe they can keep them going after they…
pharyngula | September 13, 2010I will have you know that I never experienced the red pattern in the diagram.
It does remind me that I need to get a haircut this week, though.