Yes, you read that correctly. Over at the Beauty Brains, you can learn why gray hair is good. In a nutshell:
]]>Yes, you read that correctly. Over at the Beauty Brains, you can learn why gray hair is good. In a nutshell:
Hair color is produced by cells called melanocytes which are in part controlled by stem cells. When the number of stem cells in hair follicles goes down, hair turns gray. Now researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan have discovered that radiation and chemicals that damage DNA can cause stem cells to permanently transform into melanocytes. Without the stem cells to produce more melanocytes, hair turns grey (Cell, vol 137, p 1088). Another researcher, David Fisher at Harvard Medical School, suggests this processes may help protect us from cancer, by preventing damaged stem cells from passing on mutated DNA. “One likely beneficial effect is the removal of potentially dangerous cells that may contain pre-cancerous capabilities,” he says.
I'm lucky enough to still be able to count the gray hairs on my head (8?), and I've always been a fan of women who can pull off the silver, ponytailed Jane Goodall look--and now I have another good reason to try.
More aging news: Ruth Schaffer at The Biotech Weblog quotes from a study on biomarkers for aging in humans:
They found that expression of the biomarker was strongly correlated with the donor's chronological age and, in fact, increased exponentially with age. In addition, increased levels were independently associated with tobacco use and physical inactivity as well as with biomarkers of human frailty.
Sharpless said that the researchers were surprised by some of their findings, "We found a very weak correlation between the biomarker and obesity - as measured by body mass index (BMI) - despite other data suggesting that caloric restriction slows aging. The data suggest the possibility that reduced exercise
may actually be worse with regard to molecular age than a higher BMI."
Sandy Szwarc of Junkfood Science has a couple of interesting posts up about recent studies related to junkfood consumption and children's IQs and the contributions (if any) being overweight or obese make to mortality. Szwarc expresses her frustration over mainstream health science reporting:
Last week, more than 400 news stories in just two days reported that a study had found conclusive evidence that fast food makes children stupid and lowers their school tests scores. How many journalists do you think actually went to the original source and read the study?
None.
How can we be so sure?
Because there is no published study in a peer-reviewed journal. There was no ability for educational or health professionals, let alone a journalist, to examine the research and its methodology, data and interpretations.
Kate Porter of Galley Proofs reports on a study on motion and the human brain:
During each surgery, several different regions of the patient's brain were stimulated with a small electrical probe. The shocks varied in intensity and duration. The researchers repeated the stimulations up to four times for each location, to check for reproducibility.
What they found out strikes me as pretty interesting. It turns out that, for several of the patients, when parts of the inferior posterior parietal cortex were stimulated, the patients felt an urge to move one or more body parts (arm, lips, chest, etc). If the stimulation was repeated with a higher intensity, the patients thought that they had actually moved that body part, even though no movement actually occurred. (The researchers report that one patient even said "I moved my mouth, I talked, what did I say?", although no mouth movement or speech was observed.)
Additionally, when portions of the premotor cortex were stimulated, the patients did actually move some of their body parts. When the stimulation was increased, the movement became more pronounced. However, and this was the part that I thought was kind of neat, the patients were completely unaware that they had moved at all. In fact, when they were specifically asked, the patients denied that they had moved, even when the movement was quite significant (e.g., raising an arm, or making a fist).
That is awesome. I'm so grateful that patients signed on for these experiments; surgery is already stressful enough, and these patients should be recognized for their additional contributions to furthering scientists' understanding of the brain.
Turning back to kids: Janet Stemwedel of Adventures in Ethics and Science considers whether parents who don't vaccinate their kids are free-riders. She explains the danger:
So, let's say all the folks in my community are vaccinated against measles except me. Within this community (assuming I'm not wandering off to exotic and unvaccinated lands, and that people from exotic and unvaccinated lands don't come wandering through), my chances of getting measles are extremely low. Indeed, they are as low as they are because everyone else in the community has been vaccinated against measles -- none of my neighbors can serve as a host where the virus can hang out and then get transmitted to me.
I get a benefit (freedom from measles) that I didn't pay for. The other folks in my community who got the vaccine paid for it.
In fact, it usually doesn't require that everyone else in the community be vaccinated against measles for me to be reasonably safe from it. Owing to "herd immunity," measles is unlikely to run through the community if the people without immunity are relatively few and well interspersed with the vaccinated people. This is a good thing, since babies in the U.S. don't get their first vaccination against measles until 12 months, and some people are unable to get vaccinated even if they're willing to bear the cost (e.g., because they have compromised immune systems or are allergic to an ingredient of the vaccine). And, in other cases, people may get vaccinated but the vaccines might not be fully effective -- if exposed, they might still get the disease. Herd immunity tends to protect these folks from the disease -- at least as long as enough of the herd is vaccinated.
If too few members of the herd are vaccinated, even some of those who have born the costs of being vaccinated, or who would bear those costs were they able (owing to their age or health or access to medical care), may miss out on the benefit. Too many free-riders can spoil things even for those who are paying their fair share.
What are your thoughts? And what good science blogs have you been reading lately? I'm always on the lookout for more women science writers.
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>"Furloughs in which faculty aren't teaching, offices are closed, labs are closed down, the library doors are barred … I think the people of the state will understand better what's at stake with this chronic underfunding of the UC system," Watenpaugh said.
"If we're going to have a pay cut, there should be a commensurate cut in what we have to do in teaching. No one wants to shortchange the students, … but the pain, we're all feeling it and it needs to be shared."
Some students said they're already feeling the pain, thank you. They don't want to lose class time so professors can make a political point.
"We're already feeling the budget cuts as students – they're cutting our programs and raising our fees," said Justin Patrizio, 21, a political science major who is active in student government.
"To request that the furloughs negatively affect student life is a little bit inconsistent with the goal of the university."
Again and again when I speak with faculty, the first thing they talk about cutting is their teaching. When really, if their duties reflect the traditional breakdown of 1/3 teaching, 1/3 research, and 1/3 service to the university and community, then only one-third of the proposed cut to their time should come from their teaching--which means about 2.5% of their time each month, if UC Davis salaries are slashed by the promised 8 percent.
Yes, students should be made aware of the budget cuts, which means, as Watenpaugh also suggests in the article, that the library should be closed along with other amenities. But I'm tired of hearing how students need to bear the burden of the cuts, especially since students are now paying higher tuition and are finding it harder to secure financial aid.
On the one hand, faculty are talking about cutting classroom time because it's a good rhetorical strategy: these cuts will affect students, they're reminding the administration and the public. But as Squadratomagico comments on a post at Historiann, that strategy may backfire:
The suggestions about trying to bring home to students and the general public that less pay means less work is a reasonable one, and it was my own inclination when talks about pay cuts started on my campus. But, a colleague brought up what I thought was an interesting word of caution. She noted that the general public already looks at us as having three months off (or of glamorous travel) in the summer, long vacations during the year, and perhaps 20-25 hours in the classroom the rest of the year. They tend to discount class prep, grading, research and all the other multitude of things we do aside from the hours in the classroom. And this colleague suggested, quite correctly, I think, that reacting with too much indignation will only backfire, as most of the public already thinks that academics do far too little work. Such responses will be seen as borne of massive entitlement.
While I think it is important not to keep pay cuts and other hardships completely invisible to the public, I think the way this gets communicated is important. Outrage will only generate hostility, because everyone is hurting. I know about 4 people who have lost their jobs outright: if I were to complain of my losses to them, they would rightly feel impatient. Students themselves are only too well aware of the economy. Here at OPU, not only are we expecting significant pay cuts, but tuition is going up quite a bit for them as well. I suspect this is the case for many unis.
Definitely check out Historiann's post for an interesting discussion in the comments.
Additional engaging discussion of infuriating circumstances is taking place in the comments at Confessions of a Community College Dean and at The Adventures of Notorious Ph.D., Girl Scholar, who laments,
Well, it seems that Urban University may be headed towards furloughs for TT faculty. And they tell us it´s not a pay cut, but two unpaid days a month (where we´re not supposed to work -- yeah, right) comes out to 6% of our work days, which means that my tenure raise is effectively wiped out before I ever see it.
Roxie Smith saw this coming, and back in December asked why there was an auto industry bailout but not a similar plan for higher education. After all, the amount of money some research universities get from the state is a very small slice of their budgetary pie--these universities might as well be considered private nonprofit institutions instead of governmental ones.
In an important post written some months ago, Tenured Radical asks faculty to reflect on some of the assumptions underlying their belief that pay cuts are particularly unjust for the professoriate. Among the questions she asks and answers is this one:
Isn't letting the administration get away with a salary freeze just lying down and letting them walk all over us? No, keeping your trap shut, repressing your anger at how you are treated, not disagreeing with anyone who might ever vote on your promotion, and never saying or writing anything you believe until you have a tenure letter in your pocket is letting people walk all over you. Agreeing to a salary freeze, when it is explained as part of a well-reasoned plan is sticking out your hand and playing your role as a partner in the enterprise.
The strangest thing I have heard -- and I have heard it from more than one person -- is the narrative of sacrifice, in which a faculty member claims to have chosen university teaching when other, far more lucrative work was possible, but in an act of self-abnegation chose to teach the unwashed masses who seem to cluster regularly at private colleges and universities. Having made this sacrifice, the story goes, no others should be required: nay, this person should receive raises while others near and far, working class and middle class people working in soulless occupations, lose their jobs.
Amen, and thank you.
Of course, Dr. Crazy offers one of her typically well-reasoned rebuttals to my assertion that faculty should not immediately cut their teaching when they take pay cuts or furloughs:
When budgets are flush, it's possible to get release time from teaching in order to perform in other (required) areas of the job. With release time, an instructor can maintain the number and type of assignments as well as the level of rigor in all of his/her courses while also being a high performer in another part of the job (which, I'm going to note again, is REQUIRED - not a "pet project" or something like that, but REQUIRED). Now, even though things are comparatively good at my institution, release time has disappeared. And let's say that a faculty member has to teach four courses while also doing a REQUIRED part of her job that will be exceptionally time-intensive. What gives? I'll tell you what gives: stuff in the classroom. Because, realistically, I can control that part of my life more than I can control the required service thing. And so, what I will do is I will assign fewer papers (which means students will not get scaffolded writing assignments and their learning will be affected), I will stop doing quizzes in my lower level classes (which means many students will not be as inclined to keep up with the reading, which will mean that they learn less), and I will eliminate as much prep as possible across my classes, effectively finding time in my teaching to do another REQUIRED part of my job. While it is true that I could take time out of my non-work life instead, protecting students from the reality that my institution expects work from me that they don't support, I refuse to do that.
Honestly, I can see both sides of this issue, but in the end, I think faculty should preserve their classroom time to the fullest extent possible. Maybe faculty can get away with less prep for a while, but they should put in the face time with students and encourage their development as thoughtful citizens at a time when we dearly need them.
What are your thoughts?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>Many science bloggers reflect regularly on what it means to be a mother and a scientist. I wanted to share some of their posts here, as even those of us who are not scientists in any conventional sense can learn from their experiences.
drdrA writes about family-friendly labs--meaning labs that are supportive of men and women who are parents. drdrA believes her own lab is family friendly, but she wonders how that policy will affect her chances of gaining tenure:
I was having a conversation with some science friends recently- about this crossroads of 1. maternity ‘down time’ = lost productivity for 3 month stretches with 2. labs with reputations for family friendliness. See, those labs with reputations for family friendliness – end up having way way more downtime, than those labs that don’t,….. because the ‘family friendly’ labs end up having whole runs of employees on maternity leave. In three month blocks. Take my own lab for example- let’s just say I’ve had a lab for 5 years (now I’m just making shit up)- and I’ve had 4 employees out on maternity leave… for three months each-… that’s an entire productive person year gone… during the most critical (pre-tenure) time of my career.
And that’s just for the maternity leave itself. When my younger daughter was born- she was ill for about the first year of her life. I slept at my desk, took her to the doctor, and wandered through my project, as only a person enduring a solid year of complete sleeplessness could. Poorly. I use this to illustrate that when your lab members become parents and the maternity leave is over, it may be back to business as usual- but ‘business as usual’ after the baby may be dramatically different than ‘business as usual’ AFTER the baby…and changes in productivity can stretch on beyond maternity leave. These changes in productivity are compounded in ‘family friendly’ labs that carry the weight for the rest of academic science.
The Urban Scientist points us to an article in Scientific American that in turn points us to a study by the NSF that suggests some reasons why more women aren't tenured science professors. The study looks at tenure-eligible women scientists in six disciplines in major research universities. Oddly, the report does not address (and states as much) what may be some of the biggest challenges to women's success in the sciences, namely "the constraints of dual careers [and] access to quality child care[...] In particular, the report does not explore the impact of children and family obligations (including elder care) on women's willingness to pursue faculty positions in R1 institutions."
Dr. Isis writes a thoughtful response to a letter from a postdoc who wonders how many children she should have. Here's an excerpt from her response regarding scientists and babies:
Now, to address something that is unique to this question, do people with advanced degrees have the responsibility to have more babies to destupify the human race? I sincerely hope not. If that were the case, Isis the Scientist might not be here. Neither of my parents have a degree, let alone an advanced degree. I was raised, in part, during my teenage years by two wonderful non-English speaking family members who never went to college and worked as laborers. My uncles are still laborers. But, my brother and I went to college because my family told us that an education was important. Not because they already had advanced degrees. I'm not so sure brilliance always begets brilliance. Trust me. I've met some pretty stupid scientists.
I mean, can we all just agree on the complete wackaloonery of the idea that PhDs and MDs have a responsibility to spawn more? Do I need to adress it further? Frankly, mama's tired and I want to get to the important part of the question.
Nicky at Grad Ovaries also blogs regularly about pursuing science and motherhood simultaneously. From a recent post:
And you know, I get that the world doesn't revolve around me, and having a baby is a choice that I made and I can't expect everyone to make lots of allowances just for me. But at the same time, I also believe that having a baby is a normal part of life, that it's the price you pay for employing human beings. And I'm also angry, because in my particular field, students take leaves of absence ALL THE TIME for other personal purposes, like starting a company or working somewhere for a year or traveling the world, and nobody blinks when they interrupt things to leave for several months and then come back and spend two months talking about it, before finally getting back to work. My leaving to have a baby isn't all that different, except that yes, I continue to take care of the baby even after I returned to work. But AdvisorA never had children, and just kept making side remarks about women and choices and careers and being taken seriously. And it pisses me off.
Last but not least, Pat of Fairer Science points us to a column in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Family-Friendly Policies May Not Help as Much as They Should, Conference Speaker Says." The article cites Karen R. Stubaus, director of Rutgers Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, who suggests that family-friendly policies like being able to slow down the tenure clock after having a baby means women's careers proceed at a slower pace, which in turn delays salary increases and promotions. Comments Pat,
I would call this a dirty, little secret but while it's dirty, it's not little and neither is it a secret. The idea that in some institutions women are punished for choosing to follow institutionally approved policies stinks. Dr. Stubaus may be right that "the environment isn’t what it needs to be for female academics to seek the relief family-friendly policies offer;" but isn't that what Offices of Institutional Diversity and Equity are supposed to change? If rather than fixing the problems, we discourage women from taking advantage of family friendly polices, for their own good, then the environment will never be what it needs to be.
What are your thoughts? What are the challenges motherhood presents in your own field of work or study?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>According to recent court rulings, your speech and behavior in job-related duties as a public employee rather than a private citizen have no First Amendment protection. This means that disciplinary action may be taken against you (including dismissal) for statements you make in the course of your employment. Any activity performed on the job falls within this purview. [... W]e recommend that you expect that your speech and behavior outside of your field of scholarship is absolutely not protected by the First Amendment.
Further, university policies on academic freedom only protect speech and behavior in your area of demonstrated academic scholarship. Do not expect that university policies give you a right to speak and act freely in your job duties on campus outside of your scholarship. [...] Our employment culture at UC Davis has been supportive of transparency and freedom, but it may not be a right.
Full disclosure: I'm a (staff, not faculty) employee of UC Davis, but I would be writing about this issue even if I weren't. In addition, let me make clear to any UC or UC Davis administrators out there: I'm not writing this as part of my duties as an employee at UC Davis--an important caveat in the context of this article.
For fascinating background on the court cases that led to the UC Davis memo, definitely check out Michael Bérubé's post at Crooked Timber and UC Davis Professor Eric Rauchway's post at The Edge of the American West, as well as the large number of comments at each post. Both posts offer a legal history memo, tracing its contents back to two cases: Garcetti v. Ceballos and Hong v.Grant. You can read a quick round-up of the issues from Marc Bousquet, but I highly recommend the Bérubé and Rauchway posts. Really, they're required reading on the subject.
Here's my question as an occasional lecturer at UC Davis and an adjunct professor elsewhere: If faculty have neither First Amendment nor academic freedom protections outside their areas of "demonstrated academic scholarship," how do we draw the borders of that scholarship? For example, I consider myself a scholar within the very broad (inter)disciplines of American studies and museum studies. But my peer-reviewed publishing has been limited to the history of women in American institutions of natural history, as well as a couple of academic book reviews. If dissertating or publishing are to be used as demonstrations of scholarship--and those traditionally are the ways academia has defined someone's areas of research--then my teaching largely falls outside my areas of demonstrated scholarship. Which means I have neither First Amendment rights nor academic freedom in my classroom--even though American universities are supposed to be preserves of intellectual thought, and even though I live in one of the more left-leaning states in the country. How does one teach undergraduate and graduate students if expressing evenly mildly controversial opinions becomes a threat to employment?
As is too often the case, I found it difficult to locate women bloggers commenting on this issue of academic freedom in the university context, and particularly as it relates to Hong or Garcetti. That said, the women who are writing about it are saying really interesting and important things.
Helen Norton at First Amendment Law Prof Blog points us to an article (PDF) by Judith Areen on "the interests that justify constitutional protection for academic speech, addressing faculty speech on governance issues as well as speech related to research and teaching." Areen argues that the scope of academic freedom should extend beyond a faculty member's narrow band of scholarly production. Here's an excerpt from her article:
[C]ontrary to common understanding, academic
freedom is about much more than faculty speech—more than simply the university professor’s analog to the citizen’s right of free speech. Rather, academic freedom is central to the functioning and governance of colleges and universities. Louis Menand recognized this broader role when he called academic freedom a “key legitimating
concept” of academic life, one that explains a wide array of issues from why departments have the authority to hire and fire their own members to why the football coach is not allowed to influence the quarterback’s grade in a course. Academic freedom, properly understood, has what I will call a “governance dimension.” It is not only about faculty research and teaching; it is also about the freedom of faculties to govern their institutions in a way that accords with academic values whether they are approving the curriculum, hiring faculty, or establishing graduation requirements for students.
Katharine Mangan writes at The Chronicle of Higher Education about how one administrator losing her court case as a whistleblower "could have a chilling effect on free speech and make it harder for university lawyers and officials to do their jobs."
Back in 2006, LizardBreath of Unfogged provided a dissection of Garcetti. Looking at the Supreme Court decision, she concludes,
Souter contemplates that speech by government employees in the course of their duties should only be protected only insofar as it meets a high standard of responsibility and consists of "comment on official dishonesty, deliberately unconstitutional action, other serious wrongdoing, or threats to health and safety"; Breyer believes that even that standard would unworkably deprive state employers of control over their employees, and suggests that the First Amendment should protect such speech only where "professional and special constitutional obligations are both present". Either of those standards, still, either: (1) ends up protecting employees whose duties consist of speech from management action even where they are wrong or incompetent in what they have said, which seems absurd, or (2) ends up extending First Amendment protection to speech only when a court considers the speech correct or valuable, substituting the court's opinion on how to perform the employee's duties for the employer's, which seems, likewise, absurd.
I'd love to be talked out of this position -- I'm uncomfortable with the company I'm keeping.
Be sure to check out the comments on her post for some interesting opinions.
At Socialist Worker, Dana Cloud considers several cases of faculty whose academic freedom was challenged by conservative activists. She explains the activists' motivations:
From the 1964 free speech movement to today's anti-occupation organizations, campuses have always been places where struggles for justice break out. This potential might explain why, losing ground in politics and the economy, the right seeks to maintain its grip on outspoken faculty and students.
For breaking news on constraints placed on academic freedom, check out the blog of the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB. For a more in-depth examination of the issues, view the videos or listen to the audio from the In Defense of Academic Freedom conference held at the University of Chicago in 2007.
What are your thoughts?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>First up is Back to the Motherland: Summer in Rwanda, authored by Nadine N. Baranshamaje. Baranshamaje was born in Burundi, raised in Maryland, and will be a junior this fall at Grinnell College in Iowa, where she is a Posse Scholar and will likely double major in Spanish and Political Science. Definitely check out her story of how she came to be in Rwanda this summer as well as what she's packing and how she's reacquainting herself with Rwandan and Burundian culture.
Kelly Jo of Nomads and Housewives alerts us to an American University student, Liz Bayer, who is undertaking a service learning project at the Tulsi Chanrai Mission for Vision eye clinic in Nigeria. Bayer is keeping her own blog, Not All Who Wander Are Lost, about her experiences in Nigeria. Bayer recently expressed dismay that some of her fellow students haven't bothered to learn the local languages:
I've been very surprised by some of the [American University of Nigeria] students' complete lack of interest in learning any Hausa, which is the main language used in the area, and is spoken widely throughout Northern Nigeria and is a sort of lingua franca in Muslim West Africa. I've been told a number of times that my very limited Hausa (what's written above is the extent of it), is still more than many AUN students know. Which I just find strange, but, also, being a foreigner, I do not have any sort of stake in the ethnic, geographic, or religious cleavages that exist here. I just like learning more languages, and I like being able to (sort of) communicate with the patients and my co-workers in their own languages. I'll keep you posted on my Hausa progress, and I'll let you know if I learn any Fulani, which I probably will, as many of the Hospital's patients are Fulani.
Jordan of Mwili wa Kristu is participating in the International Summer Service Learning Program through the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame. Jordan is in Kitete, Tanzania, and writes of the summer's service plans:
The school is primarily a vocational school for students who could not pass the national tests to move on to secondary school. Boys learn carpentry and masonry skills. The girls are taught how to tailor, weave, and knit. Charlie and I were basically given the freedom to plan what will be taught from now until the students’ holiday at the end of June. We will be teaching English, computer skills, and mathematics. Starting on Monday morning at 8:00am, I will be teaching two classes totally 4.5 hours of instruction each day. I am basically entering these classes blind. We have been given little or no information about where the students are in each course. The struggle for the first week will be assessing what the students already know so that we can begin new material. Resources are few. I have been given a couple instruction manuals, a few short story books (there aren’t enough books for each student), one notebook, one pencil, two blue pens, and one red pen. The task ahead is daunting, but I have always wanted to play teacher.
Two more blogs to keep an eye on, both by students at IUPUI: Cris's blog about Kenya and Meghan's blog about Costa Rica. Both women will begin blogging their experiences in July.
Finally, there's one more blog I want to highlight, even though it's by an entering high school senior. Merry is blogging One Year Abroad in China. She wants to be a Chinese-language teacher, and she qualified for a merit scholarship for an academic year in a Mandarin Chinese program. Her blog is just starting up, but it's clear Merry is articulate and bright, so One Year Abroad in China may be one to add to your feed reader.
Did you study or do service abroad? What advice would you give to these young women as they embark on their adventures?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>These are some of the questions posed to participants at the Risk and Reality Helzel Symposium at John F. Kennedy University on Saturday. In the audience were people who have decades of expertise working for nonprofits or in education, as well as a large number of emerging museum professionals, many of them enrolled in JFKU's graduate program in museum studies (where I teach part-time).
The symposium featured Robert Garfinkle of the Science Museum of Minnesota and Jonathan Katz of Cinnabar, with moderation by museum guru Gail Anderson.
Katz outlined his "Seven Rules of Risk":
1. Pick your battles. Know your priorities.
2. Be prepared. Use scenario planning.
3. Get outside support.
4. Make decisions. Present the best option to decision-makers rather than three choices.
5. Defend your position and your people.
6. Get client buy-in. Make them think your ideas were actually their ideas.
7. It's not personal.
For Katz, managing risk means being informed and decisive.
Robert Garfinkle clearly thought differently about risk. Garfinkle headed the team that designed the provocative but very well-received exhibition Race: Are We So Different? Garfinkle, who is white, talked at great length about the institutional, and sometimes personal, risks he faced in collaborating on Race. Among these is the whiteness of the museum's staff, which may have led to the staff lacking credibility to talk about the social and cultural dimensions of race--as the staff would be speaking from a position of white privilege. For Garfinkle, then, managing risk means having conversations. In his case, it meant going to the communities being represented in the exhibition, listening to their concerns and ideas, and using those ideas responsibly without violating their trust.
Garfinkle said the museum knew it had succeeded if the exhibition was attacked from both sides of the political spectrum. If you take on big things, Garfinkle explained to the students present, you're going to get attacked. And that, he added, is how you know you're on the right track.
Near the end of the day, Anderson asked us to write down a personal definition of risk. Garfinkle's talk, along with my own experiences in the university classroom, led me to define risk as an opportunity to change minds. I think most of the people in the room left the symposium feeling more confident about taking risks and speaking truth to power in large and small ways.
We also penned long lists of tools to help us manage risk on a personal level, in our institutions, and in the museum field. Among my favorites were mentoring, social media networking, confidants in other fields, time and space to retreat and reflect (in solitude or with others), diversifying the field, transparency within an institution, and engaging in civic discourse.
For more, check out Kristen Olson's post and the comments it drew at the Western Museums Association blog.
Of course, we weren't the first ones to have considered risk in museums--far from it. A couple weeks ago, UNESCO offered a workshop for museum professionals working in the war zone that is Afghanistan, and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions recently published a report on library, archive, and museum collaborations (PDF) with a special section on risk management.
Sarah Rhodes reports that Shelley Bernstein, chief of technology at the Brooklyn Museum recently emphasized the importance of taking risks in digital media.
The American Association of Museums also has published a resource page on how museums can "find calm in a crisis." The page offers links to resources on job loss, downsizing, management in tough times, fundraising, and other relevant topics.
For an interesting perspective on the risks and rewards inherent in experimenting with museums, check out the writing of museum futurist Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums. Check out in particular her post Questioning Assumptions, which takes a look at some common beliefs about museums and the risks and rewards that might result from moving beyond them.
The AAM resource page and Merritt's post form an interesting dialogue, asking what assumptions and beliefs we need to reassess in the midst of an economic crisis. What are our core values, and how much can we risk in the name of survival?
Is the current economic climate providing you with opportunities--or challenges--to take risks that you wouldn't ordinarily take? How do you weigh personal risk against institutional risk?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>Helen San of Freedom 2 Question brings us up to speed on what exactly constitutes pseudoscience. Her post is interesting because it looks at the ways pseudoscience creeps into oft-cited medical research papers as well as, for example, paranormal research and and conspiracy theories.
There are plenty of bloggers out there who analyze bad medicine. One of my favorite debunkers of pseudoscience is epidemiologist Tara C. Smith of Aetiology; recently she has been providing a lot of great information about swine flu and pandemics. Another useful blog I just stumbled across is AIDSTruth, whose team of bloggers includes Jeanne Bergman and Bette Korber. The blog takes to task both AIDS denialists and bogus scientific controversies.
Volcanista takes on claims that products are "natural" or "chemical free":
Lately I have found myself feeling less and less tolerant of pseudoscientific talk on the subjects of chemistry and consumer materials. Now, I think I'm a pretty good little liberal, and I have great respect for the crunchiest of my liberal compatriots. I also work to respect other cultures and look for value in traditions and accumulated cultural knowledge from around the world. I'd be the first to tell you that there are many good reasons to prefer eating one kind of food over another, or to choose one soap over another, or even a soapless existence if that's what works for you or saves the puppies. But I'm not talking about making personal choices, or even about what may or may not be a beneficial choice from an ecological or broad social standpoint. I'm talking about the words themselves, about the pseudoscientific framing that informs discourse about how certain things are better or worse for you or society because they are more "natural," "real," or, my favorite, "chemical-free" (though I mean, who doesn't love a good vacuum). These words are used a lot these days, but I especially hear them from people who belong to a particular social class -- relatively affluent, generally white, often but not exclusively liberal. This talk sometimes goes hand-in-hand with similarly pseudoscientific advocacy for medicinal treatments that may accomplish something beneficial for a person, but that are not backed up by hard science: things like gall bladder detoxes, fruit juice purges, and yoga positions that heal your pancreas. Oh, and weight-loss talk.
For posts in a similar vein, check out Junkfood Science and The Beauty Brains. Two of my favorite recent posts, respectively, are about probiotics during pregnancy and natural cosmetics.
Skeptigirl tackles topics from the toxicity of baby carrots to sea monsters.
Where do you turn--besides the Snopes science page--to verify scientific claims you see as ambiguous or misleading?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>The ACLU suit points out that
Because of the patents, defendant Myriad has the right to prevent clinicians form independently looking at or interpreting a person's BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to determine if the person is at a higher risk of breast and/or ovarian cancer. Because of the patents and because Myriad chooses not to license the patents broadly, women who fear they may be at an increased risk of breast and/or ovarian cancer are barred from having anyone look at their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes or interpret them except for the patent holder. [...] Many women at risk cannot even be tested because they are uninsured and/or cannot afford the test offered by Myriad.
The suit gives several examples of ways that some of the plaintiffs have been put in jeopardy by the patent. Particularly upsetting to me was this anecdote:
Plaintiff Lisbeth Ceriani is a 43-year-old single mother who was diagnosed with cancer in both breasts in May 2008. Ms. Ceriani is insured through MassHealth, a Medicaid insurance program for low-income people. Her oncologist and genetic counselor recommended that she obtain BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic testing, because she may need to consider further surgery in order to reduce her risk of ovarian cancer. They submitted a blood sample to Myriad on her behalf. However, she was notified that Myriad would not process the sample. Even though her insurance has informed her that it would cover the BRCA genetic test, Myriad will not accept the MassHealth coverage. Ms. Ceriani is unable to pay the full cost out-of-pocket and, to date, has not been tested. Without the genetic test results, she cannot determine the best medical course for herself.
What the hey?
Women bloggers have latched onto the story like metastases to lymph nodes.
In her article "Enough with Patenting the Breast Cancer Gene," Rebecca Skloot (of the blog Culture Dish) writes of the literal cost of patenting to scientists and patients.
In a survey done a few years ago, 53 percent of laboratories had stopped offering or developing a genetic test because of patent enforcement, and 67 percent felt patents interfered with medical research. It costs $25,000 for an academic institution to license the gene for researching a common blood disorder, hereditary haemochromatosis, and up to $250,000 to license the same gene for commercial testing. At that rate, it would cost anywhere from $46.4 million (for academic institutions) to $464 million (for commercial labs) to test a person for all currently-known genetic diseases.
Click through to Skloot's article to learn more about the history of patenting genes--and why it's possible to patent genes at all in the first place.
Over at the Huffington Post, Joanna Rudnick, who has tested positive for the BRCA1 mutation, shares a video interview with Dr. Mark Skolnick, the founder and chief scientific officer of Myriad. Rudnick writes that "the lab was beautiful and state of the art, but Skolnick's answers surrounding the ethics and detrimental consequences of gene patenting were unsatisfying, leaving more questions than answers and leading to where we are now with the ACLU challenge."
Stephanie Anderson, writing on an intellectual property blog, explains the key issues in the case:
What seems to be the main issue is not that patents should be unavailable whenever genetic sequences are at issue, but that the USPTO’s policies and understanding of biotechnology and science has not kept up with the pace of the industry itself. I coincidentally worked in a genetics laboratory for several years some time after seeing the documentary about BRCA1 and 2. Like my initial very strong pro-patent beliefs when I was involved in research, part of the problem with many patents is their overly broad nature. As the root of more and more diseases is being attributed to mutations within our genetic code, gene patents run the risk of limiting research if a disease is known to be caused by a genetic mutation. If gene patents are defined too broadly, patent holders theoretically could prevent research on proteins produced in the body associated with a disease because the proteins were encoded by genes. As has been stated by bioethics experts, patents are a privilege, not a right. Unless the USPTO steps in and clearly identifies what exactly is being patented so to limit patent protection appropriately, research will undoubtedly be stifled to some extent.
Will the lawsuit succeed? Arthur Caplan, director of the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks Myriad will prevail. He explains why the law may in this case be on the side of the patent holder and not the patients--even though it doesn't necessarily make ethical sense:
The notion that patents interfere with free speech by restricting research communication presumes that the constitution recognizes research as a form of free speech and that Myriad has done anything to block researchers from speaking and those are pretty iffy presumptions.
Tossing out the Myriad patents would indeed imperil thousands of other patents, and courts tend not to want to cause that much turmoil.
That forecast offered, those bringing the lawsuit have an important point. Patent offices and courts in the U.S. and other countries have been granting patents on genes without thinking hard enough about the social and health implications of doing so. If companies sit on their patents and restrict licensing, gouge consumers, or fail to develop their patents by improving their tests or therapies then government should step in and yank the patent.
Patents are not given for any reason other than to encourage innovation which advances the public good. They are a privilege — not a right.
What are your thoughts?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>I came late to motherhood, so I had plenty of time to ponder friends’ mania for souped-up childhood learning. How was it that the same couples who piously proclaimed that 3½-year-old Junior was not “developmentally ready” to use the potty were drilling him on flashcards? What was the rush? Did that better prepare kids to learn? How did 5 become the new 7, anyway?
There’s no single reason. The No Child Left Behind Act, with its insistence that what cannot be quantified cannot be improved, plays a role. But so do parents who want to build a better child. There is also what marketers refer to as KGOY — Kids Getting Older Younger — their explanation for why 3-year-olds now play with toys that were initially intended for middle-schoolers.
Orenstein agrees with Daniel Pink that the viability of the U.S. lies in its playfulness, creativity, versatility, and vision. She suggests we need a "slow schools" movement modeled on the push for slow food.
Why aren't our states' content standards geared at developing these qualities in our youngest students? Why are we obsessed with "covering" material instead of letting children discover or uncover things? Even the standards that should be encouraging creative development are attuned to analytical and mathematical skills. The prekindergarten music standards in California, for example, calls for students to notate and analyze music, and the first-grade music standards start mentioning careers and career-related skills.
Among the facts conveyed in Orenstein's op-ed is this gem: "a flotilla of research shows homework confers no benefit — enhancing neither retention nor study habits — until middle school." If you're interested in this issue--including news of school districts abolishing homework for young students--definitely check out Sara Bennett's Stop Homework blog.
Commenting on a post about Orenstein's article at the Stop Homework blog, Kat writes,
Kindergarten has become such a source of stress for so many parents. There are so many parents I know that struggle with the whole idea of “kindergarten readiness”. My son had to go to a screening at the school to see if he was “ready”. The whole idea just flabbergasted me, I mean wasn’t kindergarten the place where we used to “get ready”? The only thing we used to have to do was learn to show up everyday and share and sit in our seats.
So true. I loved kindergarten, but I do remember taking standardized tests that required filling in little bubbles with a No. 2 pencil. At the same time, we did crafts every day and had plenty of time on the playground.
It's easy to be nostalgic about one's own kindergarten experience. It's absolutely harrowing to be the mother of a young child whose birthday falls in early September--meaning we need to choose whether he'll start kindergarten as a very young five year-old or a very young six year-old. I tear up at the thought of him having to do homework at age 5, 6, or 7 when he gets home from school, rather than running around the yard playing with the dog until it gets dark outside, or reading books together of our choosing, or doing an art project. Perhaps my reaction is too emotional. Or maybe it's that I was a high-achieving kid who was frustrated with too much homework and with a rigorous testing regimen.
Sara left a comment at Wheels on the Bus that indicates she might sympathize with my concerns about after-school play:
As a mom of TWO kindergartners, I support this no homework policy with all my being. HW in the early grades often seems about ‘parent work,’ not kid work. HW in kindergarten appears to attempt to send the message that this school, whatever it may be, is academically rigorous and serious about preparing kids for x and y and z schools in his/her future. I lament that many schools miss a HUGE piece while caught up in the academic rigor thing (and testing scores)– that kids need social and emotional growth as well, that they need help with life skills that go well beyond elementary school: how to be a member of a community, how to voice one’s opinion, how to deal with disappointment, how to name one’s feelings, how to disagree with others in a respectful way, etc. Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the importance of creative play. . .
I love that when I get home with my sons, we choose our schedule. One afternoon may be folding origami whales, another scootering outside, another investigating the mushrooms sprouting on the grass, another sacked out on the couch, etc. without the pressure and pull to get some school-assigned worksheets completed. . .
Amy Silverman of Girl in a Party Hat admits that she's not entirely sympathetic to Orenstein's concerns.
I think homework is a good thing. Granted, there’s a little too much math in second grade, and I know it’s because Annabelle’s being prepared for tests, which frustrates me. (And hey, someday can we please have an art program in school?!)
But as a busy working parent, I have come to really appreciate homework. If nothing else, it forces us all to sit at the kitchen table and focus on the same thing (I struggle with that second grade more than Annabelle does, I admit) and in kindergarten, at least, the homework is far from onerous. On the days Ms. X has reading groups, she sends home a very short book, which Sophie is to read to us. We all love it. It lets me know what both girls are working on and how they are doing.
Maybe Orenstein is referring to a far more strenuous regimen, because it’s hard to imagine her finding fault with the nightly book in kindergarten, and the accompanying sheet Ray or I must sign to acknowledge Sophie did her work. I know this will sound horribly judgemental, but since I started off by judging the parents who can’t get their kids to school on time, I’ll continue on with the parents who don’t know what their kids are up to at school and I’ll just say it: Homework in kindergarten is for the parent, not the kid. It creates a pattern, some learned behavior — responsibility.
Want to read more? Visit these blogs for more commentary on homework in kindergarten:
Kindergarten + Homework = Necessary? at Parenting by Trial and Error
Pretend time is over, honey; do your homework at Momformation
Kindergarten Homework at Petticoat Government
This is Kindergarten Homework? at I Miss My Sanity
The Movement to Slow Down Our Schools at Take Part Blog
Growing Up Too Fast? at Motherlode
What are your thoughts on homework for young students?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>Rachel Zurer provides us with an excellent definition of citizen science:
The idea behind citizen science is that ordinary folks, spread all across the country (or the world!), can collect valuable data on a breadth and scale that would be impossible for a single researcher to do on her own. It's particularly suited to projects that require lots of field observations but not a lot of special tools – things like counting creatures or measuring snow. And while the Internet has made the process of recruiting volunteers and reporting data easier than ever, for most projects, no technology is necessary.
At TreeHugger, George Grattan underscores the importance and accuracy of citizen science:
But the Citizen Science model doesn’t assume professional accuracy in each volunteer and doesn’t depend upon it to work. Rather, like the joke from an old SNL skit about how the “Bank of Change” makes money, it assumes its profits lie in volume. With so much work to be done—most people have no idea of the infinite amount of daily “grunt work” required by even the most basic field science projects—60% accuracy multiplied by hundreds or thousands of helping hands moves the scientific ball significantly down the field toward quality data, even factoring in the need for training, monitoring, and sorting out the inevitable errors.
Where Big Science works by putting a few very highly trained people with a lot of money at their disposal in charge of rare and expensive machines, Citizen Science works by sending nearly anyone you can grab into the field with a simple task, simple equipment to do it, and a willingness on the scientists’ part to sort through the results. It’s messy, at times, but it works.
(And Big Science has its messiness problems, too: the Large Hadron Collider broke within hours of first being switched on this September, proving that world ends not with the sucking bang of an artificially-created black whole, but with the sucky whimper of a badly soldered part. Whoops. If a volunteer mistakes the occasional beaver for an otter, it doesn’t add up to a million dollars of downtime a minute.)
Anthony Williams of Wikinomics shares Galaxy Zoo founder Kevin Schawinski's thoughts on the difference between citizen science and crowdsourcing. Galaxy Zoo uses citizen scientists to classify images captured by a robotic telescope.
Zurer points us to a number of citizen science projects, including Frogwatch USA, Project BudBurst, and the Bay Area Ants Survey.
If you're into animals, there are dozens of projects in which you can participate. Like bugs? DNLee of Urban Science Adventures! blogs about Firefly Watch. Prefer birds? Darlene Cavalier, AKA the Science Cheerleader, brings us news of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's NestCams and CamClickr, in which citizen scientists can play a part by classifying still and video images of birds. You can participate as little or as much as you like; Cavalier reports that CamClickr participant Claire K has classified 188,000 images. Are you a mammal person? Cavalier highlights Project Squirrel, which she describes as being not just about squirrels, but also about the efficacy of citizen science itself:
Project Squirrel is designed so that anyone of any age can participate, and could be incorporated into all of our daily routines without much disruption. Squirrels are very easy to see and identify without extensive effort for citizen scientists. More importantly, citizen scientists can gather data over a much broader region than what scientists alone could cover.
Also, Steve and his other scientists are not just studying squirrels - they will also be studying US. The scientists at Project Squirrel are also going to use this project to understand the effect that participation in citizen science has on participants (this will be tested through an upcoming portion of their web site that is not yet published). I have a feeling their conclusions are going to be very positive! And so, getting involved and documenting your experience will also help provide information that can be used to recruit other citizen scientists to action!
Worried about water? GIS and Science reports that Marylanders can help Patuxent Riverkeeper with projects on water quality and in mapping, surveying, and clearing water trails for paddlers.
Residents of Manchester, England can join in fun bubble-blowing experiments to map air flow and urban climate.
If you're into gaming (and microbiology), then definitely check out Cavalier's review of Foldit, where you can solve puzzles to help science. The folks behind Foldit are studying protein folding.
GrrlScientist hosts the second edition of Scientia Pro Publica, which rounds up posts about scientists writing for a public audience, scientists working in the public interest, and citizen science participation, including one community's participation in prepping and rearticulating the skeleton of a sperm whale.
You can learn about even more projects via New Hampshire Public Radio and Citizen Science Projects.
What are your thoughts on citizen science? And what's keeping you from participating in it?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>Graduate education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).
Taylor is a fan of interdisciplinarity. He calls for universities to
Abolish permanent departments, even for undergraduate education, and create problem-focused programs. These constantly evolving programs would have sunset clauses, and every seven years each one should be evaluated and either abolished, continued or significantly changed. It is possible to imagine a broad range of topics around which such zones of inquiry could be organized: Mind, Body, Law, Information, Networks, Language, Space, Time, Media, Money, Life and Water.
Among his other recommendations:
Click through to the article to read the reasons behind his recommendations, which attracted 437 comments before the editors closed the comment thread. Some comments were appreciative, while others--not so much. Quipped one reader, "Go abolish your own department."
A discussion broke out among readers as to the extent universities should be responsive to market forces, and particularly those of industries that want undergraduates prepared with the skills necessary to join their particular workforces. In my view, universities are where undergraduates develop their critical and creative thinking skills. Undergraduates may enter college thinking they're training for a particular industry, but universities must prepare them instead for work in any industry. Universities should be treating graduate students much the same way; all too often, graduate students, especially in the humanities and social sciences, are trained to be faculty. They hone their skills for a job market that is beyond competitive--it is brutal, with hundreds of applicants sometimes jockeying for the same position.
Bloggers of course have had plenty to say. (As do I, but I'm going to let a round-up stand in for my own still-garbled thinking on Taylor's suggestions.)
Marc Bousquet offers perhaps the most searing critique of the op-ed:
The piece is hilariously out of touch — noting the rise of adjunct labor, the Columbia philosopher of religion and author of 20 books wrings his hands that per-course pay is “as low as” $5,000 dollars a class.
BWAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Reality? Annual income for many adjuncts is about $5,000 dollars a year. On pay that can be lower than a grand per class.
They’re on food stamps.
But sure, you’re right. The problem is that we need to end tenure. When we end tenure, the market will insure that these folks are paid fairly, that persons with Ph.D.’s will be able to work for those wages.
Oh, crap, wait. As anyone actually paying attention has observed, we’ve ALREADY ended tenure. With the overwhelming majority of faculty off the tenure track, and most of teaching work being done by them, by students, and professional staff, tenured appointments are basically the privilege of a) a retiring generation b) grant-getters and c) the candidate pool for administration.
Dean Dad brings an administrator's perspective to the article:
Yes, the existing structures are clunky and overtaxed and frequently asinine. They survive because they address certain problems. The way around them is not to wish those problems away or to postulate a world in which every college is modeled on a graduate seminar at Columbia. It's to come up with alternatives that solve those problems better. Prof. Taylor's model could be a lot of fun on a very small scale, like a think tank. But as a blueprint for higher ed across America, it's a farce.
The reality of higher ed in America is mobility. People move from one institution to another all the time. We've developed an admittedly frustrating common language to make that kind of movement possible. Replacing that common language with a babel of tongues is not a serious answer, and replacing what little common knowledge that clusters of scholars share – canons or classics or traditions – with whatever seems convenient at the time would only make matters worse. Disciplines are arbitrary and flawed, but random fads are even worse. And incompatible random fads at different institutions would be disastrous.
Laura Blankenship (AKA Geeky Mom) of Emerging Technologies Consulting sees some possibility in Taylor's vision of interdisciplinary undergraduate collaborations:
I also see what a fabulous learning experience this was for students. I could envision parallel systems here, where students are required to take courses that are interdisciplinary, but still have majors. And these courses could be centered around a common theme, so that there’s a common language for the students, but it would be good to have the math majors talking to the English majors.
Cathy Davidson of he Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) sees Taylor's piece as short-sighted, but only in that he lacks a sense of recent history:
My one regret is that it is a bit Rip Van Winklish in not recognizing that HASTAC and many other organizations dedicated to changing institutions of learning have been working on this for decades. Change is happening everywhere around him--although, sadly, not so much in the elite humanities departments that he is familiar with.
Michael Campana points out other collaborations envisioned by Taylor that are already taking place within water resources programs at universities around the U.S.
Joseph Shahadi takes issue with Taylor's call to abolish tenure and impose mandatory retirement:
While impossible-to-fire tenured Professors are easy targets, the cost to students incurred by forcing their most experienced professors into retirement would be incalculable. Perhaps my judgment is colored by my arguably atypical experience, but rather than withdrawing into their academic dotage the tenured professors I studied with were dynamically involved with their students and passionate about teaching.
After reading the Taylor article and others of its ilk, Historiann wonders if members of any other industry as regularly ridicule their profession in the pages of the New York Times. She comments,
Taylor sure sounds like a department chair bucking for dean: most of his suggestions will cost universities almost nothing because they depend mostly on–wait for it!–volunteer faculty labor. Who else is going to “restructure the curriculum,” “increase collaboration among institutions,” “transform the traditional dissertation,” and “expand the range of professional options for graduate students?” Good luck getting faculty to do that after you abolish tenure–most of us are going to be sure to look out for Number One when that happens, so you can kiss all of our committee work good-bye! (Won’t you miss all of those senior faculty then? “Old farts” with tenure sure are useful for lots and lots of committee work.) But, whoever does the work, Taylor’s suggestions are just collections of fashionable buzzwords about “the intersection of multiple perspectives and approaches,” and preparing students “to adapt to a constantly changing world.”
I heart Historiann.
After reading her comments, I suspect Oona Eisenstadt will also become a new favorite of mine:
An enormously successful academic, aged 64, Taylor wants to abolish the academy at exactly the point where he’s got from it everything he can get. He is, like, sooo over the university; therefore the university is, like, sooo over. Ego anyone? But there’s more. Because in one instance only might Taylor not quite be finished with the academy, namely if it falls. If the called for apocalypse does take place, Taylor will be one of its high priests. He’s setting himself up for real power here. Already vastly famous within the power structure that exists, he can spring to further fame only on its ruins.
[...]
If Taylor had told the university to go to hell when he was a rising academic of 35, I might have given him some respect.
Bobba Lynx of Cranky in Academe takes issue with both Taylor and Erin O'Connor's praise of his article:
I give higher ed more credit: it is a smart animal and can transform itself without the pseudo-radical provocation from the likes of Prof. Taylor. It is here that institutions themselves must be more flexible, and open to the scholarship and kinds of classes they make possible; this may be generational, and seems to already be happening. Shi[f]t happens, and before Profs. O'Connor and Taylor and their ilk go scrambling in peri-apocalyptic survival mode, offering human sacrifices in hopes of appeasing forces over which they sense only minimal ---if any--- control, let's really get at that thought experiment: the larger questions that are diminished by the defensive mentality exhibited in Taylor's piece. The idea that only some radical reconfiguring will save us still has academia stranded on its on island, trying to build its own boat in order to land on the same shore. The larger and more compelling issues are the ones that become demonic forces in O&T species' mind (think of their initials as standing for "zero tenure"): in what kind of a society do we want to live ? If the academy becomes merely reactive instead of constructive, it will ---or has--- lost a great deal of its function in society.
Michael Bérubé uses the Taylor article as an excuse to write, very thoughtfully I think, about the difference between disciplines and departments:
[T]he next time someone complains about the constraints imposed by disciplines, ask yourself (or them!) whether they’re not really complaining about the constraints of departments. And the next time someone claims to be post-disciplinary or anti-disciplinary, ask yourself (but probably not them!) what it would sound like to be “post-intellectual traditions” or “anti-intellectual traditions.”
Natalia Cicere takes this critique a step further, saying bluntly that Taylor "confuses interdisciplinarity with adisciplinarity."
Your thoughts? Which of Taylor's suggestions, if any, speak to you? Which are the crackpot divagations of, to borrow Historiann's term, an old fart?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>Um, no.
]]>Um, no.
This week Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in which she details the decline of the academic job market and the quality of worklife of those who teach college and university students. An excerpt:
In an article called "Contingent Faculty and the New Academic Labor System" (2004), Gwen Bradley notes that an academic job shortage is rarely the result of some surprising lurch in supply-and-demand curves, since "the same institutions both manufacture and consume the Ph.D. product." In other words, universities know very well that they are producing far more Ph.D.s than they need. Compare this situation with the medical profession. Even if medical residents are made to work long hours under difficult conditions, the vast majority of them will get jobs as doctors. The vast majority of, say, Ph.D.s in English literature will not. Given that the typical doctoral degree takes six or seven years to complete (during prime job-training and family-forming years), there is a moral problem here. It is no great exaggeration to say, as Mr. Berkowitz does: "Many lives are ruined this way."
Those humanities Ph.D.s who fail to secure tenure-track jobs (the most-desired kind of job in academia, and the one that earns you the title "Professor") often feel they shouldn't waste their teaching skills and that they should keep themselves in the game in case a tenure-track teaching job opens up in their field. These Ph.D.s frequently pick up temporary work as adjunct instructors, and they teach a huge proportion of the university courses in the U.S. The American Association of University Professors reports
48 percent of all faculty serve in part-time appointments, and non-tenure-track positions of all types account for 68 percent of all faculty appointments in American higher education. Both part- and full-time non-tenure-track appointments are continuing to increase.
Worse, when tenured faculty do retire, their tenure-track positions are often replaced by adjunct positions. Gwen Bradley explains some of the effects of this system:
The use of contingent labor is an obvious product of the marketplace mentality: if part-time or non-tenure-track labor is cheaper, it must be better. An increasing acceptance of the idea that universities are essentially run by administrators for the convenience of consumer-students leads to the logic of mass production. Courses that are packaged once and delivered over and over by low-paid, part-time teachers are cheaper and more efficient to produce than courses designed individually by highly qualified, tenure-track professors.
The use of contingent labor also feeds the marketplace mentality's emphasis on managerial control in that the large cadres of contingent workers must be supervised by increasing numbers of managers. Tenure-track faculty, who have a stake in the institution and are able fully to participate in its decision making, are gradually replaced by temporarily employed faculty, who feel less connected to the institution and less empowered to voice their opinion about the way it is managed. Many institutions are experiencing serious budget problems these days. But the turn toward cheaper contingent labor extends further back and has been largely a matter of priorities, not of economic necessity. Many institutions invested heavily in facilities and technology over the past decade, for example, while cutting instructional budgets.
Because they tend to cobble together full-time work from teaching classes at two or more universities, it's not uncommon (in fact, it may even be the norm) for adjuncts not to qualify for insurance and other benefits from the university. In the past, I myself looked at part-time community college positions, but locally instructors are paid by the hour, and I suspect those are only in-class hours. That means that once you figure in prep time, office hours, and grading papers or exams, those instructors make far less than minimum wage. Meanwhile, they're likely trying to pay off student loan and consumer debt left over from their grad school years because hey, who can live on the take-home salary of $10,000 to $12,000 that a typical graduate student might earn over the year?
Meanwhile, during the recession, at larger universities adjunct jobs are often the first to be cut, and professors expected to teach more classes with fewer resources. (The latest example from my university? Faculty office phones are being disconnected.)
It's a ridiculous system, and adjuncts have for years been organizing to assert their rights as laborers. Marc Bousquet's How The University Works documents what graduate students, contingent faculty, and even undergraduate student workers have endured, and the AAUP has dedicated a section of its website to resources for contingent faculty.
Looking for blogs by faculty who are writing about labor issues at their institution? There are plenty, but I'd like to highlight three in particular.
Grumpy ABD Adjunct recently went through a prolonged labor dispute, including a strike. In January the Canadian blogger shared this story:
The government is now working on legislating us back to work, so basically they are taking away my rights and I will have to go back to work or risk a $2000 a day fine for myself and a $25,000 a day fine for my local. Yesterday we had a peaceful demonstration that turned violent because the cops decided they didn't like the way one of our people was trying to keep us safe (she dared to question whether letting big trucks whizz by in the next lane was safe); so I yelled at cops while 4 of my fellow teachers were beaten and arrested right in front of me. And no one really cares about any of this because the economy is bad and the federal budget came out yesterday.
So next week I will probably have to go back to work under duress, ordered by a special piece of legislation just for me, and teach ethics. How the hell can I teach ethics to people under circumstances in which the State has ORDERED me back to work, with grossly punitive economic measures if I refuse? I mean, really, I'm supposed to help people learn and understand ethics under these conditions?
The blog Professor Zero is also an excellent place to read about the intersection of social justice issues with academic life. Earlier this month, Profacero wrote about the abuses taking place at all ranks of faculty life:
Many people, including assistant professors, believe people of color and women other than themselves have been put in place for their abuse. It is amazing how audacious they can be in claiming their putative right to abuse. And if you write in to this blog to say it is our own fault for not “whistle blowing,” you merely demonstrate that you do not know that the system is itself complicit with this behavior.
In the same post, she also provides "a few simple rules for recognizing that an interaction is abusive." Definitely worth a visit and some reflection.
Finally, there's the prolific Dr. Crazy at Reassigned Time, who while not an adjunct makes transparent the foibles and perils and, yes, rewards of academic life. In a recent post, she writes about salaries and reflects on how and why she is better remunerated than some of her peers. She also writes about a supposedly recession-inspired change to the way full-time faculty are compensated for summer teaching.
So: Do you think faculty, but especially adjunct faculty, really have it that bad, relative to the rest of the workforce in North America? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>Which makes me wonder: What if Title IX, which was intended to cover all aspects of education--
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
--had been applied more rigorously to science education when we all were girls and young women? Might I have chosen the more lucrative Ph.D. in materials science over my unmarketable doctorate in cultural studies?
Last June, then-candidate Barack Obama noted,
Thirty-six years ago today, America took a bold step forward on the long march toward justice and equality when Congress enacted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, banning gender discrimination in all education programs that receive federal money. When Title IX was passed, many schools had formal or informal policies that suggested no young women need apply. High school girls were routinely barred from vocational education classes. Girls who wanted to play sports were told it was too dangerous, too unfeminine.
In an October 2008 response to questions posed by the Association of Women in Science, Obama wrote (PDF),
Women are significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce, and especially in the leadership positions in research and academia. We need women in leadership roles both for their contribution and for the message of encouragement and opportunity that their presence sends to our daughters. We support a range of proactive measures that will open opportunities in science to women, such as requiring minority and female representation on government panels developing innovation and competitiveness strategies, and establishing mentoring programs to support women and underrepresented groups in STEM education programs two measures that I helped pass as part of the America COMPETES Act. We also support improved educational opportunities for all students, increased responsibilities and accountability for those receiving federal research funding, equitable enforcement of existing laws such as Title IX, continuation and strengthening of programs aimed at broader engagement in the STEM disciplines, full funding for the America COMPETES Act, and increased funding for the National Institutes of Health.
Yesterday, ethicist, philosopher, and boys' rights activist Christina Hoff Sommers mocked Obama's stance when in a Washington Post op-ed she wrote, "What's good for women's basketball will be good for nuclear physics."
Hoff Sommers opines that feminists unfairly criticized then-Harvard president Larry Summers, who, in Hoff Sommers's telling, "drew a correlation between the number of women in the sciences and gender differences implied in math and science test data." In reality, Larry Summers's comments transcended such observation. In January 2005, Summers expressed the opinion that "on many different human attributes—height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability--there is relatively clear evidence that. . .there is a difference in the standard deviation and variability of a male and a female population." He argued that there are some traits, such as the desire to nurture, that are inherently female, and others that are inherently male, such as a talent for science. Summers said that "the differing variances," coupled with women’s failure to work the 80-hour weeks required to secure high-profile positions in American science, accounted for women’s equal lack of representation in the scientific workforce. Summers insinuated as well that not only are women with children not able to work such hours, but also that even the most intelligent women show a disinclination "to do high-powered intense work."
Summers later apologized for his comments, writing that "The many compelling e-mails and calls that I have received have made vivid the very real barriers faced by women in pursuing scientific and other academic careers. They have also powerfully underscored the imperative of providing strong and unequivocal encouragement to girls and young women interested in science."
Hoff Sommers closes her article with this warning and question:
Activist leaders of the Title IX campaign are untroubled by this question. Some seem to relish the idea of starkly disrupting what they regard as the excessively male and competitive culture of academic science. American scientific excellence, though, is an invaluable and irreplaceable resource. The fields that will be most affected -- math, engineering, physics and computer science -- are vital to the economy and national defense. Is it wise, to say nothing of urgent, for the president and Congress to impose an untested, undebated gender parity policy at this time?
(Want more? Hoff Sommers also wrote about this issue last fall.)
Here's my primary problem with Hoff Sommers's analysis: It assumes women's participation in science dilutes, rather than enriches and challenges (and thereby strengthens), scientific research and endeavor. Yet in those sciences where women have achieved parity, and even in pockets of male-dominated sciences where women have made inroads, women have pushed the fields forward. Jane Gooddall, Biruté Galdikas, and Dian Fossey changed the way primatologists studied their subject, pushing for long-term field studies over observation of primates in captivity. Alice Eastwood, Agnes Chase, and other women raised the profile of, and blazed new paths for, women in scientific botany and horticulture. Botany has never been the same (thank goodness). Margaret Morse Nice was the first to conceptualize territoriality in bird nesting, and according to Margaret Rossiter's book Women Scientists in America, Nice's own experiences with child-rearing strongly influenced her as she founded the field of animal behavior studies (vol. 1, p. 276). In design engineering, Joyce Fletcher has documented in her book Disappearing Acts that women scientists tend to be mutually empowering with both men and women workers--a sharp contrast to all the ethnographies, anecdotes, and popular depictions of science that emphasize its competitive nature and the individual heroism of its most famously successful (read: male) practitioners.
If you need more evidence, check out both volumes of Rossiter's fabulous study Women Scientists in America, which provides both quantitative and qualitative evidence of women's struggles in, and field-changing contributions to, science.
My own research has focused on women working in natural history museums between 1875 and 1950. Again and again, I have found evidence of women building networks--of men and women, but most noteworthy was the inclusion of women--to democratize access to, and the practice of, science. They brought more perspectives--more brains, if we must be crass--into science, and science and the American people have benefited tremendously from their efforts. I fail to see how making 21st-century science more accessible to women is a danger, as Hoff Sommers claims, to national defense or to the economy.
As is too frequently the case, when I searched the blogosphere for commentary on Hoff Sommers's editorial, most of those commenting on the story were male--and agreed with Hoff Sommers's conclusions. They deserve a closer look and a response.
Hans Bader worries "The result [of enforcing Title IX in the sciences] could be a substantial reduction in the number of scientists graduating from America’s colleges and universities."
What's with the wild conjecturing? While many universities have interpreted Title IX to mean they must enforce parity of funding in athletics and thus have cut funding to some men's teams, I have yet to see statistics that suggest that fewer men are pursuing athletics because of Title IX.
Richard Whitmire of Why Boys Fail writes,
I’m greatly in favor of boosting the number of women earning advanced degrees in the science — given the campus gender gaps, it should be considered a top economic priority — but I doubt sexism in college engineering departments is a major player. For a moment, just try to imagine the magnitude of the conspiracy that would entail. In my observation, young women superbly prepared in high school for careers in math and science are setting aside those majors soon after arriving on campus, long before crusty old male department heads appear on the scene.
Here's the problem: It's not just the crusty old male department heads who are off-putting. It's the middle school and high school teachers who fail to hold girls' interest in science and technology. It's parents who dissuade their daughters from entering fields where they would have to compete with men who have a social advantage and, in many cases, white privilege. It's also the young guys hanging out in computer science forums who insist that women's brains are wired differently than men's and that's why women don't want to enter science and engineering. (To which women in the forums inevitably reply: No, it's because of dolts like you that we don't go into engineering.) There isn't an organized conspiracy to keep women out of science--and I don't think anyone seriously believes there is--but there is plenty that engineering departments could do to make the classroom, lab, hallways, and departmental social occasions more welcoming to women.
One man, TheBell, unpacks Sommers's characterization of Title IX as the death knell of men's sports in high schools and colleges:
Sommers and others are correct about a detrimental tendency toward male athletics but this is neither across the board nor due to Title IX alone. Rather it is the devastation of a perfect storm created when the irresistible force of civil rights advocacy meets the immovable object of big money sports.
Unwilling to make even modest cuts in revenue-generating programs, such as football and basketball, many schools choose instead to make draconian cuts in less popular men’s sports, such as wrestling, track and field, swimming, and tennis, to pay for new women’s programs. As a result, the average number of available sports programs has increased for women but fallen for men since Title IX’s advent. This is a choice by school administrators and not necessarily one in the best interest of either male or female students.
Yet in the end TheBell agrees with Sommers:
Sommers is probably right and Obama probably wrong in disparaging Title IX as an ideal tool to help solve our nation’s current math/science gap. Forcing increased opportunities for female participation will do little when the current low participation seems as much a product of female preference as it does male sexism.
Female preference for what? I think the problem isn't that women prefer the subject matter of the humanities and social sciences. It's that they prefer an atmosphere that welcomes them--an environment built by people who believe that many women do genuinely enjoy the STEM disciplines.
Paul Mirengoff is worried about caps on male participation and a dilution of competition in science:
The comparison between female participation in college athletics and female participation in science and engineering programs is beyond specious. In college athletics there are two distinct sets of teams -- men's teams and the women's teams. Men's programs compete with women's programs for resources (a competition that Title IX seeks to control), but men and women do not compete for slots on the same teams.
In graduate engineering programs (for example), the tracks are the same for both genders. Thus, men and woman are in direct competition for the same slots. If the government wants to control that competition, it must override decisions as to who the best qualified competitors are. The analogy in a sports context would be requiring men's basketball teams to include a certain number of women.
The other key distinction between sports and science/engineering is that, in sports, participation is an important end in itself. This is inherent in the nature of sports, which have always been linked to recreation and fitness.
Is participation in science not also inherently beneficial in many ways, assuming the science is ethical?
I sense fear in Mirengoff's statement about "direct competition for the same slots." This is the same rhetoric used by those who currently dominate those "slots" anytime any proposal that smacks of affirmative action or remediation pops up. And yet, as a joint statement (PDF) from the Association of Women in Science and the Society of Women Engineers highlights, not one study has shown that women receive preferential treatment in competition for scientific positions in federal programs.
Title IX ensures that one gender is not unfairly discriminated against. It does not guarantee or mandate proportional representation by gender, even in athletics. Thus Dr. Hoff Sommers' concerns about "enforced parity" are unfounded. With at least nine Title IX complaince reviews already completed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy, not one single male student or faculty member has lost his slot to make way for a woman. Not a single review has raised the issue of gender parity. Rather, the reviews focus on policies, practices and procedures that might unnecessarily (and unfairly) exclude women from full participation in engineering and science programs at nuiversiies that receive significant taxpayer suport in the form of federal research grant funding. They are not "haphazard," as Dr. Hoff Sommers suggests. They are done with attention to the factors that we know hinder the full participation of women in academic science and engineering.
Dr. Hoff Sommers fears that these reviews will disrupt the culture of academic science and engineering and, by extension, destroy the American scientific excellence so vital to the economy and national defense. Yet, she and others who share her views have offered nothing other than conjecture as a basic for this irrational fear. On the other hand, study after study shows the value of diversity in the workplace, particularly with regard to bringing new ideas forward in creative and imaginative ways.
Worry not, fellow women--not all men are against us. Andrew Plemmons Pratt at Science Progress writes,
What [Hoff Sommers] fails to mention is that fact that at each rung of the academic ladder from undergrad to professorship, more women leave science and engineering fields, leading to a dearth of female representation in the upper echelons. According to a National Academies report, “at the top research institutions, only 15.4% of the full professors in the social and behavioral sciences and 14.8% in the life sciences are women.” These are the circles where gender parity is a significant question.
Sommers then touches on the merits of “sexist bias” or “considered preference” as explanations for the imbalances. But if we’re going to focus on the top of the scientific profession, where the representational differences are real, then consider the results of a survey from last year of tenured investigators at the National Institutes of Health: “only 29 percent of the tenure-track principal investigators (PI) and 19 percent of tenured PIs—the NIH equivalent of assistant and full professors, respectively—are women.”
Hannah at Women in Astronomy engages directly with Hoff Sommers's example of women's basketball to illustrate how, even with the gender parity of Title IX, men's interests are not being harmed:
[M]en's college basketball does not seem to have suffered at all from the rise of women's college basketball. College basketball was all over the news last month, at least the men's tournament. Maybe once in a while you'd hear about the women's tournament, but it wasn't the big story.
Hannah continues,
[W]e need to bring more people into STEM fields. If you limit those people to just the white males, you're not taking advantage of all your resources. This is not a zero-sum game. Believe it or not, women and minorities can make significant contributions to STEM, too. The white male culture of STEM does not necessarily produce the best science, and just because it's always been that way doesn't mean that it can't change.
Title IX is not just about sports: it's about ending sexual discrimination in universities as a whole. It just so happens that the only realm where this has been successful is sports. Title IX was passed 37 years ago: it's high time that it was applied more widely.
Amen. Let's provide more opportunities for the high-achieving Joans and Carols and Stacys to emerge within scientific fields as well as athletic ones.
What are your thoughts?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>I think it's unfair to ask someone right out of high school to pick a major, and many colleges fortunately don't ask students to "declare" a major until their second or third year. But in order to get a sense of how many students might end up enrolling in courses required for the major in each department, many colleges and universities do ask students to (often unofficially, thank goodness) declare a major on their application form.
I'm running with the assumption that a student is attending, or will be attending, a college that makes it not too difficult to change majors up through the second year of college. During those two years, students frequently are completing the general education requirements most colleges mandate as part of a breadth requirement for an undergraduate degree. That said, changing a major--and graduating in four years--can get complicated quickly if you're at a large research university that has different "schools" or "colleges" for undergraduate majors--in which case if you applied to the School of Engineering and you want to transfer over to the College of Liberal Arts, you may run into some trouble with not having completed the correct gen ed requirements for that college.
These "gen ed" courses are an excellent way to shop for a major if you're unsure what you want to study during your junior and senior years. You never know what new parts of your brain might be triggered when you take that computer science course they didn't offer at your high school, or that British literature course that requires you to read in Middle English. So explore! If you know deep in your heart, for example, that you're going to be an English major, and there's no way you're ever going to major in the sciences because you failed intermediate algebra the second time you took it in high school (waves hand)--and thus you suspect you'll never make it through the calculus required for certain majors--you should still explore your options widely in the humanities and social sciences. Take that American studies course, any of many ethnic studies (e.g. Chicano, Asian-American) courses, philosophy, economics, history. You never know what might scratch an intellectual itch you didn't know you had.
If after taking your gen ed courses, you're still having trouble figuring out what most interests you, read your college's catalog to get a sense of what's out there. The catalog will provide descriptions of the courses required for each major. Laurie at avocado8 offers some very concrete tips on using the college catalog to narrow down your choice of a major.
My horizon-broadening advice aside, there are several schools of thought on how to go about choosing a major. Hannah Waters explores four of these in her post 4 Ways to Choose Your College Major. She recommends looking beyond the income potential of career fields affiliated with the major, choosing a major that really interests you as a way to keep you motivated through the 4+ years of your undergraduate education, "shadowing" people whose careers interest you, and talking to your college's career center. Not sure what kind of professional to shadow? Check out the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics's Occupational Outlook Handbook, which offers a wealth of information about the training and education required for hundreds of different types of jobs, as well as income potential, working environment, and job prospects.
There's also a good deal of contention between people who believe students should choose a career-oriented major and those who advocate for a liberal arts degree. There are some fields, such as brewing science or landscape architecture, that provide you with the hands-on skills you'll (theoretically) need to get a job in your desired field. That said, not all professors and programs are in touch with the latest developments in their fields. For example, design departments, and particularly graphic design programs, have recently been criticized for emphasizing HTML coding and Adobe Photoshop over, say, designing user interfaces in a Web 2.0 world. And remember, even having a very specialized degree--say, in viticulture or oenology--does not guarantee you even an entry-level job in your field.
This is where the liberal arts degrees come into play. Rather than teaching industry-specific skills, degrees in the liberal arts tend to prepare students to think critically and creatively and to communicate well. That doesn't mean you won't learn really useful skills in your biology lab courses, for example, but the liberal arts programs frequently assume students should be prepared to be citizens rather than workers. Accordingly, if their college is a good one and they take their education seriously, liberal arts majors tend to emerge from college prepared for entry-level jobs in a number of fields, including teaching, social work, finance, and marketing.
For what it's worth, I loved my liberal arts education, but I know it's not for everyone, and I did feel a bit rudderless upon graduation, which drove me into a graduate degree (creative writing) that I didn't really need. If you major in the liberal arts, it's very important to pursue internships to explore different career possibilities before you graduate.
Melissa Mellott offers additional advice to those searching for a college major, including: don't be afraid to double major or to choose a minor, study abroad, get a part-time job in college, join clubs on campus, and talk with advisers at your college's various centers (e.g. women's center, multicultural center, career center).
As an interesting sidenote: the Economic Logic blog reports on a study that examines one reason why women tend to gravitate toward humanities and social science majors, while men frequently major in math, science, and technology fields. Go check it out and let me know what you think.
If you've been through college, what's your advice on choosing a major? What did you major in, and why?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
]]>These (mis)adventures, combined with teaching experiences at two big research universities and a large state university, give me a bit of an insider's perspective on classroom environments and college life. The deadline (in the U.S.) to let colleges know you'll be matriculating this fall is May 1. For parents and young people heading off to college for the first time, here are my top three tips on choosing a college. (Note: some of these will apply to older "nontraditional" students as well, but I'm gearing my advice toward typical incoming undergraduates.)
1. Visit the college. If you'll be attending a residential college--especially one far from your home--ask to stay overnight with a student in the dorms, eat the food in the dining halls, and meet the students. Attend a couple of classes, ideally an introductory course in your anticipated major and an upper-division seminar.
2. Consider size and purpose. Colleges come in several flavors, and the type of institution you choose will affect your learning and social life. At a large, research-focused university, it's not uncommon to take courses of 300-1,000 students. In these courses, typically a professor will stand at the front of the class and lecture for 1-2 hours using PowerPoint. You'll meet in discussion sections or labs of 25-50 students led by teaching assistants, graduate students who may be more or less enthusiastic about or skilled in teaching than the professor. Science classes are more prone to being huge, while your humanities classes, because they require more writing (and grading by professor and TAs) will tend to be smaller.
There may be a payoff, particularly for social science and science students, who can stand this factory farming of students. Undergraduate students who distinguish themselves may have opportunities to assist graduate students, postdocs, and professors with research in the lab and in the field. Before you sign on to a college in the hopes of doing this kind of research, be sure such research programs are available for undergraduates.
In the middle of the spectrum are state universities and colleges typically referred to as "four-year colleges," even though most of them also offer Master's degrees (but not Ph.D.s). Depending on your state, these universities may not be the most competitive, top-tier institutions in your area, but because faculty here usually are not asked to undertake as much research as those as research universities, they may be more focused on teaching undergraduates, which means a better learning experience for you. Many of these schools--even if you're paying out-of-state tuition--can be an excellent deal. For example, when I enrolled in Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington), it would have been less expensive for me to attend that college while paying out-of-state tuition for four years than it was for me to attend a University of California school as an in-state student for five years (which was the time I was told it would likely take me to graduate).
At the far end of the spectrum are small, liberal arts colleges. At the best of these, professors still undertake research to keep current in their field, and the more elite the institution, the lighter might be the professors' teaching loads--meaning they teach fewer classes per term than their counterparts at state schools. For example, in the best economic times, professors might only need to teach five courses per year, which means they can invest more time and energy into each class--and each student, because classes are typically much smaller at these schools than at the other institutions I've already discussed. Unlike big universities and state colleges, where you will find many subcultures but maybe less of an institution-wide culture beyond sports fanaticism, small colleges definitely have character. Some attract students who are politically conservative or adherents of particular fundamentalist religions. Others may be quirky, left-leaning, gay-friendly colleges. Some will be career-focused, but in my opinion the best of these colleges offer students four years to learn to really think critically and creatively about the world. The best colleges prepare students for a life of public service and instill in students the understanding that a relatively small portion of the population attends college, and in return for that privilege, they have a responsibility to give back to society in whatever way makes sense to them.
I've provided an overview of four-year institutions, but don't overlook your local community college. (See college costs, below.)
3. Find out the true cost of the college. College is expensive, period. You may be better off attending a community college for two years and then transferring into a different school for your junior and senior years. I particularly recommend this route to students who want to attend large public colleges or universities, as community colleges typically work hand-in-hand with these schools to be sure community college students are prepped for entrance to their region's universities. Community college fees may fluctuate with the economy, but you can find some terrific deals--and fabulous professors, be they full-time or adjunct--at these institutions. Community college faculty are not required to undertake research, so they're focused, in theory, 100% on teaching. Unfortunately, many adjunct (part-time or non-tenure-track) faculty work at multiple institutions to make ends meet, so even though your community college class is small, you may be one of several hundred students your professor is teaching in any given term. It's too bad that community colleges get a bad rap from high-achieving students, who may be embarrassed to attend a two-year school as their friends head off to big state universities or the Ivy League, because their local two-year college may actually be a real gem. For example, of the four professors I had during my semester of community college, two were truly outstanding.
I wouldn't recommend the community college route for those looking to attend small liberal arts colleges because many students at these colleges cement their friendships and social circles in the first two years. These friendships are often lifelong, and so it's good to get in on the ground floor as a first-year student.
Small, elite liberal arts colleges may look expensive, but many of them now have excellent financial aid packages. You'll have to compete with an awful lot of students to get the best packages at the top-ranked, best-known colleges, but if you look at some of the lesser-known, but still very good, colleges ranked "best value" in all those college rankings that magazines publish in the fall, you'll find some excellent deals. For example, at my alma mater, Grinnell College, the comprehensive fee (tuition + room and board + other fees) was nearly $44,000 for the 2008-2009 academic year. Yet Grinnell has a program that guarantees no one who demonstrates financial need (and who wouldn't, with those kinds of fees?) graduates with more than $8,000 in debt. Plus they throw in a first-rate education. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of colleges like Grinnell whose endowments are weathering the economic recession in a better condition than state university budgets, and it's worth seeking them out.
My next post will be on how to choose your major, since many colleges require that you declare a major at the time you matriculate (but later allow you to change it).
Meanwhile, as you consider which college to attend, here are some blogs and blog posts to check out:
College Hunter Blog offers lots of advice on picking a college, changing colleges, and matching your career goals with a college.
Elizabeth Kudner asks, Should study abroad affect your college choice?
Two years after graduating from college, Chelsea at Roots and Rings reflects on her own college-making decision process.
Joseph Yi at Brazen Careerist asks, College: name brand or generic?, and considers whether your college's brand matters once you're out interviewing for jobs.
Keath Low offers advice on choosing the right college when you have ADHD. If you have any kind of learning or physical disability, be sure your college is willing and able (read: can afford) to make the (legal! required!) accommodations you need to learn.
Kerrie Troseth offers a glimpse at the darker side of making the college decision, and one many parents will want to take seriously: understanding campus crime statistics and security protocols.
The title of this blog post by Pinyo at Moolanomy says it all: My Kid’s College Costs will be $467,000! Are You Kidding Me? She also offers a hindsight-is-20/20 post: 7 Mistakes I Made when I Went to College
Connie Veneracion considers whether to send her daughters to a residential or commuter school.
What are your tips for choosing a college?
Leslie Madsen-Brooks develops learning experiences for K-12, university, and museum clients. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toybox.
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