Everybody in academia has a story about the worst teaching evaluations they’ve ever received. None of them will ever be able to top James Marchbanks of UC Davis, though: Two documents obtained by The Bee on Wednesday illustrate vastly different interpretations of what happened in a UC Davis acting class last week that led campus… Continue reading Worst. Course Evaluations. EVER.
Category: Academia
Poll: Cat Vacuuming
A purely hypothetical situation for today’s poll. Purely. You have agreed to read and review six grant proposals by Sunday. Today is Thursday, and you have not read them yet. What do you do?(poll) If anybody needs me, I’ll be in an undisclosed location not responding to email.
DonorsChoose Payoff: Why AMO Physics?
Months ago, during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I offered to answer questions from people who donated to the Challenge. I then promptly forgot to respond to the questions sent in. Mea maxima culpa. Here’s a way-too-late response to a good question from “tcmJOE”: I’ve spent the past few years trying to explore physics and figure out… Continue reading DonorsChoose Payoff: Why AMO Physics?
Even in Education, The House Always Wins
Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber has a very good post about schools that appear to “beat the odds”, getting good results with populations that don’t typically do well in school. It does an excellent job of laying out the problems with the vast majority of attempts to determine which schools are “beating the odds,” let… Continue reading Even in Education, The House Always Wins
On Market Rates
There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in the SF blogosphere about what writers should be paid for short fiction, which has led to a lot of people posting lists of their short fiction and what they were paid for it (Scalzi has links to most of them). This naturally leads me to wonder what… Continue reading On Market Rates
Since the Last Progress Report, I Have Worked on This Progress Report
It’s that time of year again when I have to fill out my annual Faculty Activities Sheet, reporting on everything I did last academic year. Technically, I should’ve done this a while back, but it always slips into the December break. This always takes much longer than it ought to, in large part because it’s… Continue reading Since the Last Progress Report, I Have Worked on This Progress Report
Correlation, Causation, and Reputation
I spent an inordinate amount of time yesterday reading an economics paper, specifically the one about academic salaries and reputations mentioned on the Freakonomics blog. There’s a pdf available from that post, if you’d like to read it for yourself. The basic idea is that they looked at the publication records of several hundred full… Continue reading Correlation, Causation, and Reputation
Science: Notable at Last
The New York Times list of “Notable Books for 2009” has been released, which means it’s time for my annual rant about how they’ve slighted science books. So, how did they do this year? Here are the science books on this year’s list: The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn By LOUISA GILDER… Continue reading Science: Notable at Last
Tenure: Threat, Menace, or Market Failure?
I’ve been a little too busy to participate, but His Holiness and Eric Weinstein on Twitter have gotten into an interesting exchange about the structure of academia, and the appropriate number of Ph.D.’s in science. As usual, I suspect I’m not fully understanding the majesty of whatever Eric is arguing in favor of, but it’s… Continue reading Tenure: Threat, Menace, or Market Failure?
Creepiness Is Contagious
It’s always kind of distressing to find something you agree with being said by people who also espouse views you find nutty, repulsive, or reprehensible. It doesn’t make them any less right, but it makes it a little more difficult to be associated with those views. So, for instance, there’s this broadside against ineffective math… Continue reading Creepiness Is Contagious