April 20, 2012
In 2009, the Irish Federation of University Teachers published a report by such name. Most of the issues they enumerate also apply to universities in the US. I do love the writing style –no formal document penned here in the States would ever be written this harshly. Abrasive, almost.
Being in my current situation, it’s obvious that my favorite paragraph is this one.
“The evidence that the teaching role of academics has been undermined is incontrovertible. Academics are increasingly diverted away from the teaching of undergraduates towards the pursuit of research grants and the knowledge economy. There is no doubt that academic teaching benefits from research and we are not arguing for teaching-only academics. However, it is easy to demonstrate how the universities discourage engagement with teaching. This can be seen in the patterns of appointments, the terms of promotion schemes, the rewards and recognition systems. It is made abundantly clear to young staff that teaching is a necessary but somewhat irrelevant activity: not worthy of investment. Older staff, with a commitment to teaching, find themselves increasingly harassed for a failure to join the new world of high level research. Naturally, this view will never appear in an official document from any university. However, we work in the universities and we know.”
But look around you. It is abundantly clear. Being a “paper jockey,” as my dissertation adviser once called it. One esteemed researcher (and tenured full professor) I know once expressed a love for research, desire to do nothing else, and that all the service and teaching responsibilities were “in the noise” to her. I don’t believe I could ever look at a student of mine and say that their success or failure is noise.
April 18, 2012
Three names this afternoon:
1. Dick Clark, a consummate professional, passed away today at 82. An amazing career, and certainly one that brought much joy and laughter to me and to my family over the years. We lost a good soul today.
Because many of my memories of him came from the Pyramid series, I’m having fond thoughts of so many other celebrities who came through the show — Nipsey Russell, Jo Anne Worley, Markie Post, Jamie Farr, Barry Jenner, Shelly Smith — and on and on. Makes me smile.
2. Pat Summitt is stepping down. Her contributions to women’s athletics verge on the incredible. Coaching for 38 years, and being so successful and influencing so many young people in such a positive way, will do that. A true Coach and an ambassador for not just the ladies, but for all of sport.
3. Sheryl Sandberg. She’s the COO of Facebook. And goes home at 5:30 p.m. every day. Unfathomable, isn’t it? Not when you (a) believe in a work-life balance; and (b) know how to actually be productive when you’re at your desk.
This isn’t just a working mom argument, either…even though it’s often portrayed that way. I don’t need to work 16 hours a day to feel accomplished, and I don’t want a career where I have to work 16 hours a day to be successful. I’d much rather be a little more peaceful and a little more connected to my family. Live your life, don’t work it.
April 15, 2012
About the only part of the political process I enjoy these days is the voting. It’s becoming the only opportunity for honest people to do what their heart tells them.
A U.S. Representative from Florida says that the House has over six dozen members who are Communist. This isn’t just McCarthyism, as Avlon writes. It’s outright buffoonery. I really wonder if some of these lunatics believe what they are saying. They probably do.
In the courts, I would prefer my jurists to be incisive yet witty, not sanctimonious. The latest episode from Texas, the so-called homework assignment, is an example at the district level that disrespects the entire court system. (Reminds me of how an old, tired history teacher I had in high school always behaved. Anyway.) I share a completely different ideology to Chief Justice Roberts, but I admire and respect how he presents himself on the bench and how he writes.
People like Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, and Bill O’Reilly don’t help matters either. At all. Ever. Why? Because people believe the shit that comes out of their mouths. If you know my political leanings, you would expect me to be a fan of Olbermann (or Lou Dobbs, before CNN axed him), but I’m not. Haven’t been since he and Dan Patrick were on SC.
When I took PSC 101 back at Alabama, it was a time when the political discourse was strong and divided, but respectful. I wonder how Dr. Swain would teach the class now, given how pathetic our system has become.
April 15, 2012
Things I like about severe weather days.
1. These are the days we learn the most about the world we live in. There’s no substitute for hour-by-hour nowcasting on the day of an event, and minute-by-minute “stormcasting” once it unfolds, looking at storm morphology and evolution, etc. Our world is truly a masterpiece.
2. People who are realistic. Tornadoes are deadly. They destroy and maim and kill. But these storms are just like emotional and mental storms — they are a part of life and we must deal with them. There’s no reason to get panicked, or bent out of shape or whatever. Be aware of the risks, take action when needed, and call upon those around you to take action. Do what’s needed to protect yourself, when that’s needed.
3. Communities come together. I’m talking about before storms, even — not the cleanup which is an even stronger community experience. On the “big” days, everybody knows it’s coming, everybody is more aware, everybody talks. One big day at a time, we will reach out to more and more people.
Things I do not like about severe weather days.
1. Death and destruction. Of course. Nobody should have to die, yet despite our best efforts people do and this will continue.
2. Reckless storm chasing. Double yellow lines, speed limits, and the safety of other people have no meaning to some folks. If you’re in it for the money, or the thrill, odds are I’m not a fan.
3. Taking photos or video of yourself in front of a tornado. It’s just so juvenile. How about following up with video of yourself reporting that tornado to NWS, or of helping first responders?
The bottom line
Maybe I’m too cold and heartless for this profession. :)
March 23, 2012
Kindergarten. Grade school. Middle school. High school. Bachelor’s. Master’s. Doctor of Philosophy. Postdoctoral fellowship. Tenure-track.
If you proceed through these steps, as many faculty do, and never deviate, never consider other paths (or have them offered to you), and always continue up this academic ladder, do you become institutionalized? Said another way, do you know how to act like anything other than a career academic??
I think about what some of us on this side of the desk say about “career students.” Still taking classes, refusing to grow up and show maturity, still partying on Thursday (and Fri. and Sat.), still hanging out at the frat house, and so on. We look down on them with disdain. But maybe they don’t know any other life yet. You do something for long enough, and it’s all you know how to do.
The same thing applies on the other side of the desk. If you attend the elite secondary school and then never set foot outside of an R-1 institution for the next 15 years, what has that made you? A career academic! You’ve been exposed to only a single slice of the world — maybe even just a single slice of your own academic world. And so all the characteristic behaviors and personality traits from that slice become your own. If you’re a career academic in a place that resembles a third grade sandbox, with gossip and grudges and poor grades on a certain part of your report card, you’ll keep doing that. Once that perspective is lost, it’s tough as hell to get it back, and some never do.
March 22, 2012
I found this breathtaking quote while trolling message boards over at Comedy Central. I’ve long had this same sentiment about “praying for” people, but could never put it so eloquently. Attribution is to Dave Weiner, whom I’ve never met but based on just this one quote is a pretty awesome guy.
“To say, ‘I am praying for you’ is cheap. It’s cheap and lazy. It covers oneself in a thin film of righteousness and self-congratulation without requiring any real moral heavy lifting. Unless one first has love or compassion or some deep and true human sympathetic emotion, the expression of prayerfulness is reflexive at best and passively aggressive at worst. It has all the moral force of a bumper sticker.“
(Emphasis added is mine.)
March 21, 2012
So we had the annual tornado drill at my place of employment this morning. Usual stuff — weather radio, siren, text message, email, go to the basement, etc.
Here’s what a “drill” means to me.
Caveats: I’m a meteorologist. One who’s somewhat knowledgeable about severe weather, including tornadoes. That makes my thought process quite different from Joe Schmo, I guess.
For me, a drill is not just a test to see how fast I can run down the stairs to the marked safe zone:
- Did my weather radio function properly? Was the warning received there, as it is supposed to be?
- I’m signed up for both a text message and email alert system. Have those messages come in yet?
- In a real situation: what does the warning say exactly? Am I in danger? What kind of danger?
- Our building has a public address system. Did I hear it? What was I told? What was I to do?
- If I need to find a safe zone, how long do I have to get there? Ten minutes? One minute? Ten seconds?
- Scientist or not, almost everyone seeks out additional sources of information before acting. How long did it take me to receive “enough” information?
So no, I don’t respond like one of Pavlov’s dogs when I hear sirens or fire alarms or whatever. You shouldn’t either. This is an opportunity to test your warning response strategy — in its entirety — from receiving, to understanding, to acting. Whenever you had your tornado drill, I hope you did just that.
March 1, 2012
The other morning on the bus to work, I saw a young lady (probably a graduate student) board with:
- her iNovelty and headphones;
- her water bottle;
- her lunch bag;
- her backpack;
- an extra book that would obviously not fit in her backpack;
- her purse; and
- an umbrella.
I thought, my GOD why do we carry around so much STUFF!!?!?!?!?!??
Is this what the world has come to? Do we really need portable apartments in order to get through our day? I took to my one shoulder bag–if it doesn’t fit in there, it doesn’t go–and tossed out as much extra stuff as possible. Extra notebook? Gone. Why are these colored pencils still in here? These papers should be filed, not carried around. And so on.
This is the basic admonition of Rick Steves–”pack light”–applied to daily life. We don’t have to be on world travel to understand this concept.
And if I see you clunking around with this much crap, I’m probably less likely to hold the door for you. ;-)
February 15, 2012
In one of my undergraduate non-majors classes (enrollment 25), we have an exam tomorrow. So last night, I held a “review session” — more like a question and answer session — and got about 40% turnout.
I suppose that’s good. Other things I tried:
- Lecture notes and “slides” for every class meeting were posted on the web
- A trimmed down summary of all the notes was posted on the web as a “study guide”
- I provided about 20 sample questions. (None of these questions actually appear on the exam.)
- I wrote down the general topic of every exam question on the board on Tuesday. The students acted as if they’d died and gone to heaven!–although I don’t find it particularly useful.
Let’s see if any of this was helpful…..
February 12, 2012
I’m learning that in my line of work, finding fast computers is not the issue when you move from one place to the next. It’s almost trivial these days to find a speedy processor with multiple cores, or better yet, a cluster of speedy ones for even more number crunching power. Darn near trivial.
The problem isn’t operating systems, compilers, or visualization, either. Scripts need to be tweaked from system to system, sure, but I’ve never found this to be a huge stumbling block.
No, the problem is backing up, transporting, and then restoring your data at your new location.
By far the greatest challenge I’ve had is finding a new home for my old data. I’ve got a lot of it. Nearly 1 TB of simulations that served as the foundation for my dissertation (and that I still work with). About 500 MB in reanalysis data for a current project. Another 500 MB of archived data that’s needed from time to time (this semester, I’ve used it in my classes a lot). A need for probably 500 MB to 1 TB of space for the next project, which spins up soon.
Yeah, I’m a hard drive hog. I know this.
Finding a home for that data has been difficult, especially when coupled with its processing need — to be housed on a Linux-based machine. My new employer is almost entirely, completely, excessively a Windows supporter. When trying to get some ideas about my data and processing needs, the answer was basically “You should really just buy your own Linux machine and administer it yourself.” A frustrating response, but at least now I know the path forward.
Back to the drawing board…
Filed under: General by traveler
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