let's talk about solutions
skookumchick | June 3, 2008ScienceWoman mused about the completion of her first year here, and I had hoped I would develop similar observations and reflections while on Isle Royale. Truth be told, rather than taking the hiking time to think, uninterrupted, about the last year, I did anything but. Think, that is. Instead, I turned the intellectual brain off, and instead looked for orchids and wolf tracks and birds, and engaged in random brain static conversation with my husband about our house and his developing job. It was like a brain vacation.
However, on the 600 mile drive back, I did have chance to think a bit…
skookumchick | April 5, 2008I'm sitting in panels and sessions at this great conference on Engineering, Social Justice and Peace which is the 7th annual conference of this kind. Here are only some of the snippets of what I've been seeing and hearing:
I heard yesterday of exciting and courageous curricular attempts to integrate social justice into engineering education. I heard of a course called "Engineering and Social Justice" offered through engineering and sociology at Queen's University, a first-year course where projects were focused on social justice, year-long experiences for students in Engineers Without…
skookumchick | February 28, 2008Trying to recruit grad students into a PhD program where the PhD is BRAND NEW can be tough. In fact, I need the Internets's help.
So here I am, a new faculty member in a new department (sorry, sorry, SCHOOL), eager to do cool research and with startup money to burn.
Okay then. Where are the graduate students? Lemme get my hands on some graduate students. I just was a grad student, you can bet that means I'll treat them nicely.
Oh shoot. There aren't any who want to work with me.
The first challenge has been that I started my job after all the graduate students who were starting in the…
skookumchick | February 27, 2008The Scientiae theme for the anniversary edition is "renewal." I've been in a crabby mood for a couple of days, and haven't wanted to write anything about it because it would be crabby. But as the clock has ticked down, I realized that renewal is perhaps what I need to write about to help pull me out of my crabbiness.
The crabbiness arrived from a frustrating morning yesterday of wasting time trying to convince various folks that it was worth bothering to figure out who is on what listserv (our postdocs are regularly left out of the loop because they're not on any listserv, and our grad…
skookumchick | February 20, 2008Okay, so I've been coblogging with ScienceWoman for a little over a week so far. Which means I've been blogging as me, with no pseudonym to hide behind for the same time. What do I think about it so far?
It's terrifying. I haven't told many colleagues about this blog yet, and haven't had the nerve to add it to my email signature and such yet.
Before I decided to blog as me, I went and talked to my department head to see what he thought. He was supportive of me blogging as an outreach activity, but recommended I talk with the communication/news service people to see if they had any…
skookumchick | February 16, 2008Some of the comments to this post brought up the topic of implicit gender bias, and I thought the time might be ripe for a couple of pointers on the subject. Although I'm changing the context a little (from ethics training to search committees), the comments on reducing bias remain the same.
The first is that, in general, but with considerable caveats,* BOTH women and men are biased against women's applications, papers and such. The issue of gender bias is NOT just a problem of men being biased against women.
In fact, let's be clear - in all of these stories about gender, there are some…
skookumchick | February 9, 2008I had been agonizing over what would be my first "substantive" post for this new venue. My husband (who will be properly introduced in another post) suggested I make a list of a bunch I'd like to write so I have fodder for the fire when I feel otherwise tapped out.
Ah, me of little faith. I made such a list, verily I did. But instead of drawing from the well of better-intentioned ideas, I will blog about what I'd like to see in conference papers while I'm still all hot under the reviewing collar.
One of my professional societies is ASEE - the American Society of Engineering Education. It…