FSP asks a hypothetical, but possibly soon-to-be real ethical question, that can be summarized as follows:
during financial crisis, who are we most responsible to - our employers - postdocs and students, or funding agency rules and regulations. For me the answer is quite simple, people come first. If university tells me to cut postdoc salary by 10%, but I can find a way to raise it back to the original levels, I will do it. Especially if the paycut did not make much sense to begin with.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
What recession? (Private Idaho edition)
Question: Suppose you don't follow the news or talk to people and live in your own personal bubble, would you even know the country is in a recession? In other words, how does financial/economic crisis personally affect your life?
I realize the future doesn't look so great and I am really quite worried about what will happen in the next 5 years or so (I think it will take at least 5 years to unravel the mess created over the past few decades). But I also must say that the gedanken "bubble" experiment shows not much in terms of negative effects. Sure, there are talks about budget cuts on campus and reducing number of TAs and freezing faculty searches, but this is all in the FUTURE. Looking back at the last year, Mrs. Ponderer and I came out unscathed by recession. Again, I feel callous saying this at the time while others are losing their jobs and houses, but this is the idea behind this "living in the bubble" egocentric question.
Our salaries have not been reduced, and we even got a cost of living raises over the past year. I have been getting more funding, thanks in part to stimulus. My group is growing, and I am getting some really good students and postdocs. Mrs. Ponderer, supported through NIH, expects her big grant to get renewed too.
On the other hand, housing prices have come down quite substantially over the past 2-3 years or so - after renting for a decade, we finally feel we can afford to buy a house not very far from campus (for the first time ever).
High costs of gas does not affect us since we live close to work - I commute by bike most days. But congestion on the highways is alleviated lately, and air travel is a bit easier and more reliable too.
Again, I expect things to become much worse, but so far the recession has not really affected our lives in a negative way, and there are some really positive outcomes (we are about to buy a house which we could not afford just a few years ago). Of course this is very short-term, short-sighted view - your mileage may vary.
I realize the future doesn't look so great and I am really quite worried about what will happen in the next 5 years or so (I think it will take at least 5 years to unravel the mess created over the past few decades). But I also must say that the gedanken "bubble" experiment shows not much in terms of negative effects. Sure, there are talks about budget cuts on campus and reducing number of TAs and freezing faculty searches, but this is all in the FUTURE. Looking back at the last year, Mrs. Ponderer and I came out unscathed by recession. Again, I feel callous saying this at the time while others are losing their jobs and houses, but this is the idea behind this "living in the bubble" egocentric question.
Our salaries have not been reduced, and we even got a cost of living raises over the past year. I have been getting more funding, thanks in part to stimulus. My group is growing, and I am getting some really good students and postdocs. Mrs. Ponderer, supported through NIH, expects her big grant to get renewed too.
On the other hand, housing prices have come down quite substantially over the past 2-3 years or so - after renting for a decade, we finally feel we can afford to buy a house not very far from campus (for the first time ever).
High costs of gas does not affect us since we live close to work - I commute by bike most days. But congestion on the highways is alleviated lately, and air travel is a bit easier and more reliable too.
Again, I expect things to become much worse, but so far the recession has not really affected our lives in a negative way, and there are some really positive outcomes (we are about to buy a house which we could not afford just a few years ago). Of course this is very short-term, short-sighted view - your mileage may vary.
Invent, Invent
Tom Friedman has been writing some really good columns lately, and I really liked his latest, Invent, Invent, Invent.
It will not be lawyers, doctors, MBAs or Wall Street finance wizards who will get us of the current crisis. In face one could argue that each of these groups has to some extent contributed to the current state of the affairs.
No, it will be scientists, engineers and educators that will be crucial to solving many of the problems facing the US and the world. The stimulus is a short-term effort to stabilize crashing economy. But policy makers have also ability to create environment in which long-term recovery is possible, through innovation and discovery. I still believe that despite all the talk to the contrary, US is well ahead of other countries in these areas. But the conditions should be just right and public at large must be educated about these issues too.
It will not be lawyers, doctors, MBAs or Wall Street finance wizards who will get us of the current crisis. In face one could argue that each of these groups has to some extent contributed to the current state of the affairs.
No, it will be scientists, engineers and educators that will be crucial to solving many of the problems facing the US and the world. The stimulus is a short-term effort to stabilize crashing economy. But policy makers have also ability to create environment in which long-term recovery is possible, through innovation and discovery. I still believe that despite all the talk to the contrary, US is well ahead of other countries in these areas. But the conditions should be just right and public at large must be educated about these issues too.
Monday, June 22, 2009
anti-socialism
No, not in the political system sense of the word.
I have currently more pending "friend" requests on facebook than actual "friend" connections. I will not accept those requests, but I don't want to deny them either, in fear of offending people issuing the requests. I also have a factor of 3-5 more linkedin friends than facebook friends.
This anti-social behavior on my part is not the way I behave in real life - in fact I think despite spending a lot of time on internet, including on facebook, I am still somewhat suspicious of the "social network" concept. I have real-life friends who are not among my facebook friends, even though they do have facebook account - just not very active. They never asked me and I never asked them, and if we did connect, I am not sure it would benefit our relationship much, since so much of our exchanges would still be via face-to-face conversations, phone, text messages and email.
In fact I think our real-life friendship audience is many times that of facebook. For some people it's reverse. My brother in law, who is 25, has 467 friends. I am fairly confident he doesn't really *know* all of them all that well. But for some reason I am still a little jealous of his popularity - should I be?
Then there are many people who keep asking to be my friends, but I must reject (or rather ignore) their invitations. These are most often my students (I think there is something wrong with broadcasting your life to your students), but also include some people I am not that close with - friends of a friend, people I met like 3 times, old friends etc. Then there's another category - like my mom. Ironically, both my mom and Mrs. Ponderer's mom contacted us via facebook around the same time. Once that happened, we decided that facebook is doomed. Mrs. Ponderer and I are probably too old for facebook, but they most definitely are.
Either way, professional or personal benefits to social networking so far are rather limited, for my taste. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin have not changed my life the way gmail, google search and wikipedia have.
I have currently more pending "friend" requests on facebook than actual "friend" connections. I will not accept those requests, but I don't want to deny them either, in fear of offending people issuing the requests. I also have a factor of 3-5 more linkedin friends than facebook friends.
This anti-social behavior on my part is not the way I behave in real life - in fact I think despite spending a lot of time on internet, including on facebook, I am still somewhat suspicious of the "social network" concept. I have real-life friends who are not among my facebook friends, even though they do have facebook account - just not very active. They never asked me and I never asked them, and if we did connect, I am not sure it would benefit our relationship much, since so much of our exchanges would still be via face-to-face conversations, phone, text messages and email.
In fact I think our real-life friendship audience is many times that of facebook. For some people it's reverse. My brother in law, who is 25, has 467 friends. I am fairly confident he doesn't really *know* all of them all that well. But for some reason I am still a little jealous of his popularity - should I be?
Then there are many people who keep asking to be my friends, but I must reject (or rather ignore) their invitations. These are most often my students (I think there is something wrong with broadcasting your life to your students), but also include some people I am not that close with - friends of a friend, people I met like 3 times, old friends etc. Then there's another category - like my mom. Ironically, both my mom and Mrs. Ponderer's mom contacted us via facebook around the same time. Once that happened, we decided that facebook is doomed. Mrs. Ponderer and I are probably too old for facebook, but they most definitely are.
Either way, professional or personal benefits to social networking so far are rather limited, for my taste. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin have not changed my life the way gmail, google search and wikipedia have.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
NYT: What colleges can cut?
NYTimes has "What colleges can cut?" discussion. The first author, Jane Wellman, is right on the money: squeeze out excesses, starting with administrative costs that are out of control.
Friday, June 12, 2009
money-cutting solutions
Steinn offers a serious proposal for cost-cutting measures on campuses facing budget crisis: institute furlough across the board, recoverable through the grants.
I generally like the idea.
Let's say a campus needs to cut spending by 20%. My first vote would be to eliminate some administrative/bureaucratic positions. Those jobs have expanded substantially over the years, with no real benefit to faculty or students, from what I hear. But it takes time, and will not be easy.
Any paycut for soft money people (postdocs, graduate students) does not make any sense - it doesn't save money, it LOSES money university gets through overhead. So soft money people are safe. Some hard money positions may need to be eliminated altogether, but the furlough is not a bad choice either. If faculty are allowed to supplement the furloughed time with research funding, most people will support it.
There are a few caveats though. Arguments will be made that soft money positions and hard money positions should be treated equally, and you can't furlough hard positions, but not soft. This is nonsense, of course. For decades soft money positions would simply disappear when funding runs out. So now it will work the other way - your salary is safe if you are on soft money, but you get 20% cut if you work on hard money. Welcome to the world of irony.
Some people may think this is like taking unpaid vacation, or an extra weekend day a week, but it's not. People managing accounting, computer support groups, machine and electronics shops, etc. will deal with similar amount of work/requests that needs to be done, they will just have less time to do it. With email and blackberries they will be required to do the same amount of work, whether compensated for it or not.
So this may seem unfair to some. But technically they will get a day off every week or every other week.
Humanities and people without funding will protest. But what other options are there? Raise tuition by 20%? Eliminate departments?
Some funding agencies may not like it, but I suspect most probably won't care. Once again, it's not like the faculty will do more research. Teaching load will be the same (otherwise there is no savings), and there is only so many hours in the day.
Some graduate students will not get hired as Research Assistant as a result of some of the funding used for supplemental salaries, and the same goes for postdocs. But it protects exitsing RA and postdocs. Some may argue that those markets are overflooded with cheap work force, so maybe reducing grad student enrollment is not such a bad thing. TA allocations will be cut too.
Faculty who have no funding can make up their salary by picking up extra teaching load.
One potential problem with this approach is that things tend to stick even as financial crisis passes. Federal grants will be charged more, and university can do the same amount of teaching for less cost. This may be ok if universities were highly efficient, but as we all know they are not. Passing the buck to the federal funding will only increase inefficiencies in the long, without addressing the root of the problem.
I generally like the idea.
Let's say a campus needs to cut spending by 20%. My first vote would be to eliminate some administrative/bureaucratic positions. Those jobs have expanded substantially over the years, with no real benefit to faculty or students, from what I hear. But it takes time, and will not be easy.
Any paycut for soft money people (postdocs, graduate students) does not make any sense - it doesn't save money, it LOSES money university gets through overhead. So soft money people are safe. Some hard money positions may need to be eliminated altogether, but the furlough is not a bad choice either. If faculty are allowed to supplement the furloughed time with research funding, most people will support it.
There are a few caveats though. Arguments will be made that soft money positions and hard money positions should be treated equally, and you can't furlough hard positions, but not soft. This is nonsense, of course. For decades soft money positions would simply disappear when funding runs out. So now it will work the other way - your salary is safe if you are on soft money, but you get 20% cut if you work on hard money. Welcome to the world of irony.
Some people may think this is like taking unpaid vacation, or an extra weekend day a week, but it's not. People managing accounting, computer support groups, machine and electronics shops, etc. will deal with similar amount of work/requests that needs to be done, they will just have less time to do it. With email and blackberries they will be required to do the same amount of work, whether compensated for it or not.
So this may seem unfair to some. But technically they will get a day off every week or every other week.
Humanities and people without funding will protest. But what other options are there? Raise tuition by 20%? Eliminate departments?
Some funding agencies may not like it, but I suspect most probably won't care. Once again, it's not like the faculty will do more research. Teaching load will be the same (otherwise there is no savings), and there is only so many hours in the day.
Some graduate students will not get hired as Research Assistant as a result of some of the funding used for supplemental salaries, and the same goes for postdocs. But it protects exitsing RA and postdocs. Some may argue that those markets are overflooded with cheap work force, so maybe reducing grad student enrollment is not such a bad thing. TA allocations will be cut too.
Faculty who have no funding can make up their salary by picking up extra teaching load.
One potential problem with this approach is that things tend to stick even as financial crisis passes. Federal grants will be charged more, and university can do the same amount of teaching for less cost. This may be ok if universities were highly efficient, but as we all know they are not. Passing the buck to the federal funding will only increase inefficiencies in the long, without addressing the root of the problem.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
College Bubble?
Freakonomics follows up on "College education is a bubble" article from Higher Ed.
Certainly if you approach the issue from economic standpoint: whenever the costs of ANYTHING are by far outpacing inflation, perhaps you could call it a bubble. Most definitely this is not sustainable.
But unlike with speculative stock market bubbles (internet company stocks), or energy price "bubbles", real estate and health care bubbles, I understand the basic underlying causes for the bubbles quite well. Even in the case of healthcare, where things are getting quite complicated.
However, I still fail to comprehend fully why the tuition costs have been going up so rapidly, and yet most universities are now in a budget crisis mode - both public and private. It must be simple enough budget math of where the "extra" dollars from raised tuition costs go, relative to previous years. Take the budget of university in 1990 as the baseline, and subtract from the budget of university in 2005, treating it as the "background". Figure out where the largest differences are.
I should note that even older professors have no idea what the makeup of the university budget is. What is even scarier is that some of them actually sit on campus-wide university budget and planning committee!
Certainly if you approach the issue from economic standpoint: whenever the costs of ANYTHING are by far outpacing inflation, perhaps you could call it a bubble. Most definitely this is not sustainable.
But unlike with speculative stock market bubbles (internet company stocks), or energy price "bubbles", real estate and health care bubbles, I understand the basic underlying causes for the bubbles quite well. Even in the case of healthcare, where things are getting quite complicated.
However, I still fail to comprehend fully why the tuition costs have been going up so rapidly, and yet most universities are now in a budget crisis mode - both public and private. It must be simple enough budget math of where the "extra" dollars from raised tuition costs go, relative to previous years. Take the budget of university in 1990 as the baseline, and subtract from the budget of university in 2005, treating it as the "background". Figure out where the largest differences are.
I should note that even older professors have no idea what the makeup of the university budget is. What is even scarier is that some of them actually sit on campus-wide university budget and planning committee!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
$125K/year school teachers
NYTimes has an interesting article on a NYC school that plans to attract best teachers with $125K/year salaries. This is more than twice of what an average teacher makes.
But the economics of high salaries is a funny business. In most areas, substantial increase in salary - e.g. double of average salary - is surely going to attract top talent. If you take a banker, a real-estate agent, a construction worker, a doctor, a lawyer - and tell them you will double their salary - it is very difficult to see why they wouldn't jump at this opportunity.
Maybe I am wrong, but in science things are not quite simple - salaries are an important criteria, but one of many. For example, Los Alamos routinely pays their postdocs around $80K a year, which is roughly double of what top universities pay their postdocs. And if you take into account cost of living index in Los Alamos and compare it to San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, DC or many other metro areas, the salary buys you a LOT more bang for the buck.
So one would naturally expect that top postdocs would end up going to Los Alamos, as opposed to Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Stanford or other expensive metro areas. But it's not the case - I would argue that the quality of postdocs going to Los Alamos is not necessarily much better than those at universities.
Part of it may be the calculation of long-term career benefits vs. short-term salary increase over postdoc stay. But a lot of it, I believe, has to do with the fact that scientists are not as money-oriented, and other criteria - like ability to do interesting, exciting research in a stimulating environment matters quite a bit. Not that Los Alamos or other labs do not provide that - they surely do, but it depends on the field of study - and the bottom line that salary "bump" does not count for as much as it would in other fields.
Perhaps I am being too cynical towards other fields - for example in medicine surgeons (especially the heart/brain kind) make a lot more money than general practitioners - but a lot of very smart students decide not to chase the money train. There are many examples of people giving up lucrative business careers for public service or teaching, but there are orders of magnitude more examples of the opposite - public service (politicians) who can't wait to go back to lobbying or making millions in industry.
But the economics of high salaries is a funny business. In most areas, substantial increase in salary - e.g. double of average salary - is surely going to attract top talent. If you take a banker, a real-estate agent, a construction worker, a doctor, a lawyer - and tell them you will double their salary - it is very difficult to see why they wouldn't jump at this opportunity.
Maybe I am wrong, but in science things are not quite simple - salaries are an important criteria, but one of many. For example, Los Alamos routinely pays their postdocs around $80K a year, which is roughly double of what top universities pay their postdocs. And if you take into account cost of living index in Los Alamos and compare it to San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, DC or many other metro areas, the salary buys you a LOT more bang for the buck.
So one would naturally expect that top postdocs would end up going to Los Alamos, as opposed to Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Stanford or other expensive metro areas. But it's not the case - I would argue that the quality of postdocs going to Los Alamos is not necessarily much better than those at universities.
Part of it may be the calculation of long-term career benefits vs. short-term salary increase over postdoc stay. But a lot of it, I believe, has to do with the fact that scientists are not as money-oriented, and other criteria - like ability to do interesting, exciting research in a stimulating environment matters quite a bit. Not that Los Alamos or other labs do not provide that - they surely do, but it depends on the field of study - and the bottom line that salary "bump" does not count for as much as it would in other fields.
Perhaps I am being too cynical towards other fields - for example in medicine surgeons (especially the heart/brain kind) make a lot more money than general practitioners - but a lot of very smart students decide not to chase the money train. There are many examples of people giving up lucrative business careers for public service or teaching, but there are orders of magnitude more examples of the opposite - public service (politicians) who can't wait to go back to lobbying or making millions in industry.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
job market watch
I can't claim to have much more insight on the job market than anyone else checking CM-AMO rumor mill, but someone asked me a while ago someone asked me in comments if I thought my predictions of more "efficient" settling of the market, due to tanking economy.
I think that that effect is there. In the past, a small fraction of top candidates would accumulate a disproportionate number of interviews and eventually offers, and the entire market would essentially "freeze" for quite some time, waiting for the top guys to make their decisions, so that the remaining game of musical chairs can unfold.
As a result of the long freeze, some searches would go unfilled until very late, or not at all. This wasn't a big problem because most searches are postponed till the following year - and in equilibrium state the market may be tighter than it seems due to searches that are unsuccessful, but each year the applicants benefit from last year's failed searches, so it all evens out.
My theory (supported by some empirical evidence) is that equilibrium state is distorted by fear of cancellation (or actual cancellation) of all unsuccessful searches, as universities take back the funding in financially tough times.
As a result, search committees become more proactive at anticipating and avoiding "freezing" of the market, and will make offer that is more likely to get accepted.
I think this year (2008-2009) we already seen far less of the "market freeze" that was obvious in previous years, including 2007-2008, when many top universities were holding out for top candidate(s) even in early June, and many other departments waiting for those decisions to unfold. This time around there were not as many multiple offers made and declined, and the whole process unfolded much faster.
But this "unfreezing" effect is also to some degree facilitated by CM-AMO rumor mill itself. Comments to rumor mill are mostly negative and bitter, and there are people who believe that the "snowball" effect that follows some top candidates (interviews attract more interviews, and offers result in more offers, often leveraged against each other) cost many people their jobs. I strongly disagree with these sentiments: the basic arithmetic (similar to arguments above) shows that jobs don't disappear into thin air, definitely not due to rumor mill. And I don't even think that rumor mills distort the true, "unbiased" market, if there was such a thing, by amplifying random fluctuations of a single candidate being invited for an interview. In my limited experience, committees are quite independent and even if some faculty look at rumor mill occasionally - this is just one of many other parameters they consider, and definitely not the main one. But even in absence of rumor mills, search committees at different department would have other "inside" channels, and even in absence of those, some top candidates who are clearly more distinguished relative to the rest of the field will get many multiple interviews and offers.
However, having more information about what other departments are doing, who they are interviewing, who gets offers, only helps in creating more efficient, faster settling of the job markets.
Bottom line - I believe more information is always better (as long as it's correct) - for both the committees AND the candidates. Complaining about CM-AMO and other rumor mills is sort of like complaining about zillow or various car blue book value sites (edmunds etc.) for ruining your chances to make a profit on selling or buying a house or a car.
I think that that effect is there. In the past, a small fraction of top candidates would accumulate a disproportionate number of interviews and eventually offers, and the entire market would essentially "freeze" for quite some time, waiting for the top guys to make their decisions, so that the remaining game of musical chairs can unfold.
As a result of the long freeze, some searches would go unfilled until very late, or not at all. This wasn't a big problem because most searches are postponed till the following year - and in equilibrium state the market may be tighter than it seems due to searches that are unsuccessful, but each year the applicants benefit from last year's failed searches, so it all evens out.
My theory (supported by some empirical evidence) is that equilibrium state is distorted by fear of cancellation (or actual cancellation) of all unsuccessful searches, as universities take back the funding in financially tough times.
As a result, search committees become more proactive at anticipating and avoiding "freezing" of the market, and will make offer that is more likely to get accepted.
I think this year (2008-2009) we already seen far less of the "market freeze" that was obvious in previous years, including 2007-2008, when many top universities were holding out for top candidate(s) even in early June, and many other departments waiting for those decisions to unfold. This time around there were not as many multiple offers made and declined, and the whole process unfolded much faster.
But this "unfreezing" effect is also to some degree facilitated by CM-AMO rumor mill itself. Comments to rumor mill are mostly negative and bitter, and there are people who believe that the "snowball" effect that follows some top candidates (interviews attract more interviews, and offers result in more offers, often leveraged against each other) cost many people their jobs. I strongly disagree with these sentiments: the basic arithmetic (similar to arguments above) shows that jobs don't disappear into thin air, definitely not due to rumor mill. And I don't even think that rumor mills distort the true, "unbiased" market, if there was such a thing, by amplifying random fluctuations of a single candidate being invited for an interview. In my limited experience, committees are quite independent and even if some faculty look at rumor mill occasionally - this is just one of many other parameters they consider, and definitely not the main one. But even in absence of rumor mills, search committees at different department would have other "inside" channels, and even in absence of those, some top candidates who are clearly more distinguished relative to the rest of the field will get many multiple interviews and offers.
However, having more information about what other departments are doing, who they are interviewing, who gets offers, only helps in creating more efficient, faster settling of the job markets.
Bottom line - I believe more information is always better (as long as it's correct) - for both the committees AND the candidates. Complaining about CM-AMO and other rumor mills is sort of like complaining about zillow or various car blue book value sites (edmunds etc.) for ruining your chances to make a profit on selling or buying a house or a car.
Friday, June 05, 2009
random observations
A senior colleagues who is an outstanding speaker and gives absolutely fascinating, well-structured, funny talks that capture the audience, admitted to me recently that he gets "stage-fright", the performance anxiety before every talk. This makes me feel very good about my own nervous moments before giving a talk, or a lecture. In fact, perhaps one requires some degree of nervousness as a pre-requisite of a good talk - people who are not nervous may be the ones who deliver boring, monotonous talks. The colleague also admitted that he spends many hours tweaking his slides, even for talks he gave many times before.
Informal dinner with other scientists carries a lot of weight. For whatever reason, it is very difficult to have negative feelings towards people you broke bread with. I had dinner/lunch with several people that I had previously had mild dislikes for. Something about their overhyped talks, or their attitude or questions during conferences rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe I was jealous of their success, or maybe they snubbed me in the lobby and didn't say hello - whatever the reasons were, they disappeared once we had dinner together, along with several common friends. Now I have nothing but great things to say/think about them.
This may be the strategy behind Obama inviting various republicans, media reporters etc. for dinners at white house early in his administration. Maybe this is a solution to diffuse some long-existing grudges that some people have against each other in many scientific communities, which often stand in a way of reasonable refereeing process, proposal reviews, tenure cases etc.
Informal dinner with other scientists carries a lot of weight. For whatever reason, it is very difficult to have negative feelings towards people you broke bread with. I had dinner/lunch with several people that I had previously had mild dislikes for. Something about their overhyped talks, or their attitude or questions during conferences rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe I was jealous of their success, or maybe they snubbed me in the lobby and didn't say hello - whatever the reasons were, they disappeared once we had dinner together, along with several common friends. Now I have nothing but great things to say/think about them.
This may be the strategy behind Obama inviting various republicans, media reporters etc. for dinners at white house early in his administration. Maybe this is a solution to diffuse some long-existing grudges that some people have against each other in many scientific communities, which often stand in a way of reasonable refereeing process, proposal reviews, tenure cases etc.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Safety at academic labs
I keep forgetting to say something meaningful about this Slate article on dangers of working in academic lab. Maybe more on this later. True, the lab safety is not taken seriously in many labs. But part of the problem is that labs are quite autonomous, and also tend to employ a lot of relatively untrained personnel, often working irregular hours - as opposed to industry or national labs. But just because national labs create layers and layers of paperwork doesn't mean they are necessarily safer, either.
I think one way to solve this problem is to provide PIs more hours of supervising or actually working in the lab. As someone who spent the last two weeks or so filling out all kinds of paperwork, making up and grading exams, coordinating and committeeing, I am guilty of not spending as much time in the lab as I probably should.
I don't think it is fair to argue that PIs in academic labs are careless, callous people who don't care about safety and well-being of their employees. I am quite paranoid about one of my students injuring themselves while working in the lab - and many PIs do not want to work with undergrads for that very reason (or the fact that they may break something). But the reasons many PIs spend so much time outside of the lab is because they need to guarantee that the research keeps going, helium bills and salaries are paid etc.
Ironically, bringing more long-term financial security to funding situation, reducing paperwork in proposals/reporting requirements may be the best way to address safety in the lab.
I think one way to solve this problem is to provide PIs more hours of supervising or actually working in the lab. As someone who spent the last two weeks or so filling out all kinds of paperwork, making up and grading exams, coordinating and committeeing, I am guilty of not spending as much time in the lab as I probably should.
I don't think it is fair to argue that PIs in academic labs are careless, callous people who don't care about safety and well-being of their employees. I am quite paranoid about one of my students injuring themselves while working in the lab - and many PIs do not want to work with undergrads for that very reason (or the fact that they may break something). But the reasons many PIs spend so much time outside of the lab is because they need to guarantee that the research keeps going, helium bills and salaries are paid etc.
Ironically, bringing more long-term financial security to funding situation, reducing paperwork in proposals/reporting requirements may be the best way to address safety in the lab.
business cards, I got 'em
Based on recommendations from commenters, I gave up my anti-business-card stance and ordered my very first ever batch of business cards. I ordered them from Moo.com - both regular-sized business cards and mini-cards. I really like the mini cards idea. Now I can give them out to random people in airports and conferences and such. Last week randomly shared a cab ride with a quite famous person, both of us leaving a conference - could have used a mini card (the famous person claimed to know who I was, but I strongly suspect he was lying). Maybe they are useful after all, we shall see.
Also: google offers free "business cards" by creating public google.com/profile. The image on the card is the google search bar with your name typed into it. Along with a link to your profile. Not a bad idea, and they are free.
P.S: Check out cards of change, collection of business cards for people who have lost their jobs and looking for a new job or doing something entirely different.
Also: google offers free "business cards" by creating public google.com/profile. The image on the card is the google search bar with your name typed into it. Along with a link to your profile. Not a bad idea, and they are free.
P.S: Check out cards of change, collection of business cards for people who have lost their jobs and looking for a new job or doing something entirely different.
Monday, June 01, 2009
another grant
I am on a roll, got off the phone with funding agency today - apparently I am going to get another major grant - makes it three grants total in the past month. So writing a lot of grants and then having patience to wait (and wait and wait) pays off sometimes.
The interesting thing is that I may actually end up getting more money than I asked for - one of the referees commented on how my budget may not be sufficient for outlined project. This is strange. I am not sure if it's related to stimulus injection, but I rarely hear stories like that.
The interesting thing is that I may actually end up getting more money than I asked for - one of the referees commented on how my budget may not be sufficient for outlined project. This is strange. I am not sure if it's related to stimulus injection, but I rarely hear stories like that.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
business cards and the interwebs of tubes
do people still use business cards? I ordered a batch, but I never had used them - ever. Not as grad student, obviously, not as postdoc. But people at conferences keep asking me for a card. I think they are useless and so 1980ies. You can google anyone. Especially people with decent webpage presence. Most research groups have webpages. Web is the new business card.
Speaking of web, students nowadays are not so much into having their own webpages (which are part of research page), now that there's facebook and myspace and twitter and photo sharing sites. Maybe we should just link their facebook. But facebook is so unprofessional. And linkedin is kinda useless. So if you want the world to know what you are doing, research-wise, group webpage is best place to start.
And speaking of group webpages, there are a lot of pages that are abandoned. They should be sold as foreclosed or something. I have an old friend, whenever I try to find him by googling his name (unique name too), the first link is his webpage from way back when he was a grad student, back in 1999 or so. Not updated with his current status (he has since moved multiple times), his contact info not updated. Just a look into the past. A lot of pages are like that. I wish there was a way to put an expiration date on web content, like carton of milk - a year since last update and it's disabled until further notice.
Speaking of web, students nowadays are not so much into having their own webpages (which are part of research page), now that there's facebook and myspace and twitter and photo sharing sites. Maybe we should just link their facebook. But facebook is so unprofessional. And linkedin is kinda useless. So if you want the world to know what you are doing, research-wise, group webpage is best place to start.
And speaking of group webpages, there are a lot of pages that are abandoned. They should be sold as foreclosed or something. I have an old friend, whenever I try to find him by googling his name (unique name too), the first link is his webpage from way back when he was a grad student, back in 1999 or so. Not updated with his current status (he has since moved multiple times), his contact info not updated. Just a look into the past. A lot of pages are like that. I wish there was a way to put an expiration date on web content, like carton of milk - a year since last update and it's disabled until further notice.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Never enough time...
I am thinking about lack of time in my life lately.
My time is divided into various buckets - actual research, writing grants/paper/reports, dealing with administrative issues/paperwork, teaching, communicating with colleagues and collaborators, committees, meetings and travel, and finally whatever scarce time remaining for family time/hobbies/social life.
Whenever I think about freeing up some time for high-priority items (doing something better requires spending more time on it), I inevitably realize that the upshot of changing an already incredibly busy schedule will be at the cost of doing *something* badly.
I do work on the weekends and nights - I was up at 5:30AM today (not unusual for me) working on my lecture, and I stay until 10 or 11PM working quite often as well (last night went to bed ~ 11:30PM). I have very few hobbies. I try to find some time to exercise, here and there. I do watch some limited amount of TV, but usually doing something else at the same time, some menial task that doesn't suffer from split attention span. Our netflix queue has been stagnant for weeks. I do not read any fiction novels or other non-science related books, despite attempts by Mrs. Ponderer.
So I can't increase time at the expense of whatever small amounts of leisure time I have - I need that for my sanity. There's not much time to get there anyways. Blogging doesn't take much time either. This post will take ~15 min to type up (I type fast and don't proofread it - which is why it read so sloppily).
If anything, Mrs. Ponderer and I will need more personal/together/family time in the future. Call it leisure time if you want - we are the types that don't take vacations, and definitely have workaholic gene, so time spent together is not terribly exciting or exotic for us.
Ok, so where does the extra time come from? I am pretty efficient at lifehacking - emailing, being organized with software, documents and other time-saving solutions. Not much time to be gained from increased overall efficiency.
I hate to say it, but I could teach a lot worse. Getting 97-100% approval ratings means I could get a lot more sloppy with teaching, and maybe watch those numbers drop to 70ies or 80ies - that's still considered pretty good. But this also means the agony of trying to "wing" a lecture unprepared, or talking out of my ass while discussing something students find interesting. Or not showing up to my own office hours. Or being rude and tell students to go away and stop bothering me. Which sound like terrible, horrible way to save time, especially since one of the key missions of university is supposed to be teaching (I know, I am naive).
I could write less grants. My hope is that I will be able to afford to write less new grants anyways, as I get some reasonable amount of funding. But writing new grants will be replaced with reporting and administration responsibilities. On the other hand, new grants will take less time as I get better and more experienced at it. (I already have half-baked pre-written pieces of text that can be reorganized in random fashion to concoct something resembling a grant proposal).
I could refuse to serve on PhD committees or do any other committee work. But I don't do all that much now anyways, so it won't save much time.
I could expect that grad students will become more independent and require less babysitting. But as my group grows, there will always be new students coming and going. Perhaps adopting "sink or swim" approach or relying on postdocs to teach the new skills is the way to save time, but it sounds too managerial, the approach I really hate. I don't want to become "that PI-manager", at least not yet.
I could socialize with my colleagues less. Instead of going out for lunch, I could eat it in my office and ignore requests to go out for a cup of coffee. I could refuse to meet with colloquium or seminar speakers, or going out for dinners with visitors. This won't save much time either and may result in missing out on some great opportunities, or lessons.
I could travel less. But I am already trying this strategy - travel only when *absolutely* necessary. I didn't go to a single conference last summer - was just working/writing. Need more time still.
I already live close to my office, so commute is not a large part of my temporal budget. I don't have many (any?) household chores (no garden or major home makeover projects or anything like that). Taking out garbage and buying groceries is about it.
So bottom line - I am not sure how to reorganize my time or my life to free up some really major chunk of time. It appears I am more or less stuck in the current "time budget crisis". Even though I am getting some teaching credits/relief next academic year, so maybe that should make things easier.
Any suggestions?
My time is divided into various buckets - actual research, writing grants/paper/reports, dealing with administrative issues/paperwork, teaching, communicating with colleagues and collaborators, committees, meetings and travel, and finally whatever scarce time remaining for family time/hobbies/social life.
Whenever I think about freeing up some time for high-priority items (doing something better requires spending more time on it), I inevitably realize that the upshot of changing an already incredibly busy schedule will be at the cost of doing *something* badly.
I do work on the weekends and nights - I was up at 5:30AM today (not unusual for me) working on my lecture, and I stay until 10 or 11PM working quite often as well (last night went to bed ~ 11:30PM). I have very few hobbies. I try to find some time to exercise, here and there. I do watch some limited amount of TV, but usually doing something else at the same time, some menial task that doesn't suffer from split attention span. Our netflix queue has been stagnant for weeks. I do not read any fiction novels or other non-science related books, despite attempts by Mrs. Ponderer.
So I can't increase time at the expense of whatever small amounts of leisure time I have - I need that for my sanity. There's not much time to get there anyways. Blogging doesn't take much time either. This post will take ~15 min to type up (I type fast and don't proofread it - which is why it read so sloppily).
If anything, Mrs. Ponderer and I will need more personal/together/family time in the future. Call it leisure time if you want - we are the types that don't take vacations, and definitely have workaholic gene, so time spent together is not terribly exciting or exotic for us.
Ok, so where does the extra time come from? I am pretty efficient at lifehacking - emailing, being organized with software, documents and other time-saving solutions. Not much time to be gained from increased overall efficiency.
I hate to say it, but I could teach a lot worse. Getting 97-100% approval ratings means I could get a lot more sloppy with teaching, and maybe watch those numbers drop to 70ies or 80ies - that's still considered pretty good. But this also means the agony of trying to "wing" a lecture unprepared, or talking out of my ass while discussing something students find interesting. Or not showing up to my own office hours. Or being rude and tell students to go away and stop bothering me. Which sound like terrible, horrible way to save time, especially since one of the key missions of university is supposed to be teaching (I know, I am naive).
I could write less grants. My hope is that I will be able to afford to write less new grants anyways, as I get some reasonable amount of funding. But writing new grants will be replaced with reporting and administration responsibilities. On the other hand, new grants will take less time as I get better and more experienced at it. (I already have half-baked pre-written pieces of text that can be reorganized in random fashion to concoct something resembling a grant proposal).
I could refuse to serve on PhD committees or do any other committee work. But I don't do all that much now anyways, so it won't save much time.
I could expect that grad students will become more independent and require less babysitting. But as my group grows, there will always be new students coming and going. Perhaps adopting "sink or swim" approach or relying on postdocs to teach the new skills is the way to save time, but it sounds too managerial, the approach I really hate. I don't want to become "that PI-manager", at least not yet.
I could socialize with my colleagues less. Instead of going out for lunch, I could eat it in my office and ignore requests to go out for a cup of coffee. I could refuse to meet with colloquium or seminar speakers, or going out for dinners with visitors. This won't save much time either and may result in missing out on some great opportunities, or lessons.
I could travel less. But I am already trying this strategy - travel only when *absolutely* necessary. I didn't go to a single conference last summer - was just working/writing. Need more time still.
I already live close to my office, so commute is not a large part of my temporal budget. I don't have many (any?) household chores (no garden or major home makeover projects or anything like that). Taking out garbage and buying groceries is about it.
So bottom line - I am not sure how to reorganize my time or my life to free up some really major chunk of time. It appears I am more or less stuck in the current "time budget crisis". Even though I am getting some teaching credits/relief next academic year, so maybe that should make things easier.
Any suggestions?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
pretty good week
I had a pretty good week - two of my grants got funded, one medium-sized, one major.
Here's my classification of grants:
minor grants (a few $K here and there, up to $10-20K or so) - enough to count for something - a few $K here and a few $K there, and soon enough it's real money - but not enough to even pay a grad student for a year. I got a few small grants this year (primarily from campus, but some from agencies), mostly for travel and other similar expenses. Sometimes they are only barely worth the trouble, considering the paperwork that comes with it.
medium grants - enough to pay a single student for maybe a year or so, but not much more - say $30-40K. These are much nicer than "minor" grants, but only provide some breathing room or time to write more grants, as they are usually very short term.
finally, major grants - these typically provide multi-year (3 or more) support for at least a student, but usually a student+ - meaning a postdoc, or two students, or a student and a postdoc, or a student and equipment/travel/summer salary etc. Usually ~ $100K+ a year for 3+ years.
These are obviously crucial, especially for an experimentalist.
Here's my classification of grants:
minor grants (a few $K here and there, up to $10-20K or so) - enough to count for something - a few $K here and a few $K there, and soon enough it's real money - but not enough to even pay a grad student for a year. I got a few small grants this year (primarily from campus, but some from agencies), mostly for travel and other similar expenses. Sometimes they are only barely worth the trouble, considering the paperwork that comes with it.
medium grants - enough to pay a single student for maybe a year or so, but not much more - say $30-40K. These are much nicer than "minor" grants, but only provide some breathing room or time to write more grants, as they are usually very short term.
finally, major grants - these typically provide multi-year (3 or more) support for at least a student, but usually a student+ - meaning a postdoc, or two students, or a student and a postdoc, or a student and equipment/travel/summer salary etc. Usually ~ $100K+ a year for 3+ years.
These are obviously crucial, especially for an experimentalist.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
how to weed out "dead wood"
calls to abolish tenure and enforce mandatory retirement appear to aim at fixing dead wood problem - faculty who are not active in research but use up valuable resources - such as salary, office space etc. First of all, the problem is way overblown. I have been graduate student, postdoc and now faculty at top 20 or so physics departments, and have good knowledgee of faculty at several other departments. I don't think dead wood is a serious problem. Maybe 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 really qualifies as dead wood. And even if you were to get rid of this person, it wouldn't suddenly solve the persistent problem of PhD oversupply or shortage of job market. At best it will provide temporary, short-leaved relief, and then we are back to the same situation. Anyone who thinks getting rid of deadwood will solve the job market problem is delusional.
But there are better ways to deal with "dead wood" problem than abolishing tenure or laying off people past certain arbitrary age, even if they are still producing amazing science.
Rule #1: In addition to "base salary", additional bonus salary is tied in as a percentage of research funding PI brings in. This is already in place for most campuses where faculty are paid 9 month salary and asked to raise summer salary from research grants. But there is no incentive once those 2.5 months or so are covered. And there are all these reviews that aim to raise salary - but nobody lowers faculty salaries as they become less active. Tying sizeable fraction of salary to research funding will encourage tenured faculty to remain active in research and reduce costs of inactive faculty to the department.
Rule #2: If a faculty becomes less active in research (by some objective metrics), their teaching and/or service load is increased accordingly. This also exists at some departments - where research-advising specific number of graduate students counts as teaching credit - with the slack to be picked up by faculty which have fewer or no students and/or funding. It's only fair, since advising students - and postdocs - DOES take a lot of time and effort - and it IS a form of teaching.
Once these two simple rules are implemented, the deadwood problem goes away - people who aren't active in research will face reduced salaries and increased service/teaching loads. As a result, they won't be a dead weight, drawing from the department resources, and it may provide incentives for staying active, or else retiring.
But forced retirement is age-ist, discriminatory and unfair. I care a lot less about tenure, but abolishing it won't help much, but will induce a new layer of bureaucracy (more heavy-stakes reviews), in-fighting within and between departments (can be used as an ultimate tool for settling scores by getting your colleague fired). And besides, didn't we all have enough years living on short-term, near-sighted projects from paycheck to paycheck, trying to jump every "hype" train and jumping through hoops?
I have my own standards for what constitute quality research, and those standards are likely to be higher than tenure committee's at my department. So I am not obsessing about the whole tenure thing too much. Mandatory retirement is a whole different story - even though it's still so far away.
But there are better ways to deal with "dead wood" problem than abolishing tenure or laying off people past certain arbitrary age, even if they are still producing amazing science.
Rule #1: In addition to "base salary", additional bonus salary is tied in as a percentage of research funding PI brings in. This is already in place for most campuses where faculty are paid 9 month salary and asked to raise summer salary from research grants. But there is no incentive once those 2.5 months or so are covered. And there are all these reviews that aim to raise salary - but nobody lowers faculty salaries as they become less active. Tying sizeable fraction of salary to research funding will encourage tenured faculty to remain active in research and reduce costs of inactive faculty to the department.
Rule #2: If a faculty becomes less active in research (by some objective metrics), their teaching and/or service load is increased accordingly. This also exists at some departments - where research-advising specific number of graduate students counts as teaching credit - with the slack to be picked up by faculty which have fewer or no students and/or funding. It's only fair, since advising students - and postdocs - DOES take a lot of time and effort - and it IS a form of teaching.
Once these two simple rules are implemented, the deadwood problem goes away - people who aren't active in research will face reduced salaries and increased service/teaching loads. As a result, they won't be a dead weight, drawing from the department resources, and it may provide incentives for staying active, or else retiring.
But forced retirement is age-ist, discriminatory and unfair. I care a lot less about tenure, but abolishing it won't help much, but will induce a new layer of bureaucracy (more heavy-stakes reviews), in-fighting within and between departments (can be used as an ultimate tool for settling scores by getting your colleague fired). And besides, didn't we all have enough years living on short-term, near-sighted projects from paycheck to paycheck, trying to jump every "hype" train and jumping through hoops?
I have my own standards for what constitute quality research, and those standards are likely to be higher than tenure committee's at my department. So I am not obsessing about the whole tenure thing too much. Mandatory retirement is a whole different story - even though it's still so far away.
Genius is overrated
David Brooks' Op-Ed in NYT on Genius, or lack thereof, is right on. It mentions two books: The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin.
I am not sure which one of those two books makes the 10,000 hrs point, but basic idea is that to become a true expert on any activity one needs to put in ~ 10,000 hours.
For theorists this may be different, but in experimental sciences, almost any graduate student with some basic qualifications that get one into grad school in the first place, will have success rate highly correlated with the ability to rigorously spend on the order of 10,000 hours or more "practicing their craft".
I am not sure which one of those two books makes the 10,000 hrs point, but basic idea is that to become a true expert on any activity one needs to put in ~ 10,000 hours.
For theorists this may be different, but in experimental sciences, almost any graduate student with some basic qualifications that get one into grad school in the first place, will have success rate highly correlated with the ability to rigorously spend on the order of 10,000 hours or more "practicing their craft".
Friday, May 01, 2009
time spent on grant-related activities
FSP is dismayed that some PI spend as much as 50% (or more) on writing grants.
A few months ago, pre-stimulus, I actually asked this very question to some of my colleagues, how much time they spent on grant-related activities - writing of grants (including literature research, preliminary data collection, editing, emailing etc.), reporting, managing - and the responses were about 50% on average. Those with large ambitious programs and many students obviously spend more than professors with one or two grad students on a single grant.
In experimental condensed matter physics, someone with a reasonably-sized (not too large, not too small) group of, say, 6-8 people, would require at least 3-5 separate funding sources. At an average 10% funding rate, just getting 4 grants requires writing 40 grants. Writing a high-quality, well-argued and thought-out, well-cited and up-to-date proposal document takes a lot of hours. I wouldn't be able to put one together in less than a month even at a 50% full-time effort. So writing 40 of those grants would take me 40 months, or more than 3 years.
Of course there are several caveats that make the numbers not as depressing. I am not writing 40 separate proposals on 40 different topics. Many of them are rehashed versions of previously submitted and rejected proposals. Sometimes it could take less than month for someone with more experience than someone like me - senior guys can whip up a good quality proposal in a week or two.
But overall the proposal system is still quite depressing - I am confident that most of my ideas WILL eventually get funded - and in fact most proposal ideas have been denied a few times before getting funded. So when my proposal is declined, I merely re-package it, instead of giving up on the idea altogether. I am not sure how this re-packaging makes me a better scientist, or improves the quality of my research.
Unfortunately, I do not see an easy way out of this. If there is only enough funding to fund 10% of proposals, the whole thing quickly becomes a lottery of sorts - even though some people have considerably higher than 10% return, I am sure most junior investigators like myself are not among those people.
Any alternatives to the current funding system favor specific group and therefore may not be as democratic as "free for all" approach. Until then, the unfortunate byproduct of the funding system is the need for writing of a huge number of proposals, and if some of them get funded, extra managing/reporting paperwork that comes along with it. And if the university gets audited, good luck dealing with that.
It's a highly inefficient use of our best skills (many of us do not really enjoy writing grant proposals all that much), and it encourages two extreme forms of behavior: dead-wood-like passive behavior where the PI stops applying for new grants altogether, instead defending one or two grant that they do have, until due to some random fluctuations in funding or some other reason that last grant gets taken away.
Or, diarrhea-like writing of too many crappy proposals in hopes of getting a random hit out of it, at the expense of doing research, dealing with group members, interacting with colleagues or anything else.
The amount spent writing is by far the number one component of my job that I truly hate. I am sure once I get sufficient funding to establish some form of steady state, I can afford to write less (or maybe not).
A few months ago, pre-stimulus, I actually asked this very question to some of my colleagues, how much time they spent on grant-related activities - writing of grants (including literature research, preliminary data collection, editing, emailing etc.), reporting, managing - and the responses were about 50% on average. Those with large ambitious programs and many students obviously spend more than professors with one or two grad students on a single grant.
In experimental condensed matter physics, someone with a reasonably-sized (not too large, not too small) group of, say, 6-8 people, would require at least 3-5 separate funding sources. At an average 10% funding rate, just getting 4 grants requires writing 40 grants. Writing a high-quality, well-argued and thought-out, well-cited and up-to-date proposal document takes a lot of hours. I wouldn't be able to put one together in less than a month even at a 50% full-time effort. So writing 40 of those grants would take me 40 months, or more than 3 years.
Of course there are several caveats that make the numbers not as depressing. I am not writing 40 separate proposals on 40 different topics. Many of them are rehashed versions of previously submitted and rejected proposals. Sometimes it could take less than month for someone with more experience than someone like me - senior guys can whip up a good quality proposal in a week or two.
But overall the proposal system is still quite depressing - I am confident that most of my ideas WILL eventually get funded - and in fact most proposal ideas have been denied a few times before getting funded. So when my proposal is declined, I merely re-package it, instead of giving up on the idea altogether. I am not sure how this re-packaging makes me a better scientist, or improves the quality of my research.
Unfortunately, I do not see an easy way out of this. If there is only enough funding to fund 10% of proposals, the whole thing quickly becomes a lottery of sorts - even though some people have considerably higher than 10% return, I am sure most junior investigators like myself are not among those people.
Any alternatives to the current funding system favor specific group and therefore may not be as democratic as "free for all" approach. Until then, the unfortunate byproduct of the funding system is the need for writing of a huge number of proposals, and if some of them get funded, extra managing/reporting paperwork that comes along with it. And if the university gets audited, good luck dealing with that.
It's a highly inefficient use of our best skills (many of us do not really enjoy writing grant proposals all that much), and it encourages two extreme forms of behavior: dead-wood-like passive behavior where the PI stops applying for new grants altogether, instead defending one or two grant that they do have, until due to some random fluctuations in funding or some other reason that last grant gets taken away.
Or, diarrhea-like writing of too many crappy proposals in hopes of getting a random hit out of it, at the expense of doing research, dealing with group members, interacting with colleagues or anything else.
The amount spent writing is by far the number one component of my job that I truly hate. I am sure once I get sufficient funding to establish some form of steady state, I can afford to write less (or maybe not).
Monday, April 27, 2009
End University as we know it?
NYT had an OpEd "End University as we know it?".
I like to complain about university system, but I think article author is wrong on many points - university system needs to be changed, but in a more gentle way than author suggests. A few mixed thoughts:
1. Restructure the curriculum. Author has a lot of buzz-words that set off my BS detector ("complex adaptive network curriculum" anyone?)
I don't think college curriculum is a problem. At least from physics/math point of view. If anything, it should be more advanced/rigorous, but the problem is that high school curriculum quality has deteriorated (or so I hear) over the past 20-30 years, and we can't raise the bar too far from where high schools leave students.
2. Abolish permanent departments.
Ridiculous idea. Department of Water? Seriously? Most campuses are all about integrative centers, programs, etc. As condensed matter physicist I may be working with chemists and engineers, but probably not so well with historians or artists. Even if I study properties of water and they write poems about water. Sorry, I call BS on this one too.
3. Increase collaboration among institutions.
There is already plenty of collaboration, research-wise at least. We also have specialized classes - for example in high energy taught over teleconferences. But physical presence of a teacher should not be underestimated. I am a big fan of Skype and google talk, but there is something about physical presence that is irreplaceable.
4. Transform the traditional dissertation.
Sounds great, until you realize that the author's brilliant "transformation" plan is to provide "alternative" format for theses - such as hypertext. My thesis is available in PDF (is hyperlinked PDF the same as hypertext?) and HTML format, it's very easy to do with TeX, by the way. In any case, this very, very minor technical point that is far from grand "transformation" I had in mind.
5. Expand the range of professional options for graduate students.
This is the only point I agree on. I am not sure how to implement it though. If a grad student specializing in, say, low temperature physics, is likely to end up working as software designer at Microsoft, or quant on Wall Street, after graduating does it mean their advisor needs to make sure they spend a year or two hacking code in C++ and read up on derivatives? And who exactly will be paying grad student during this time? Will funding agencies be happy to know there was no science done during this time, because I am preparing grad student for real life?
6. Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure.
I disagree. Problems with universities are NOT caused by tenure or lack of forced retirement. The "dead wood" problem is minimal to the point of non-existent in my department, and many other research departments. Most of "old" guys in my department are still very active - still doing cutting edge science - and I don't necessarily think we young folks could do much a better job than many of them. Sure we have more energy, but they have more experience.
But I don't think I would want to be forced-retired at 62 like in Japan. If I was a banker or insurance salesman, in it only for the money, that would be one thing. But scientists are deeply committed to their work, to the point of obsession (ask our spouses!), and thus force-retirement is counter-productive and unfair. It's like forcing Picaso to NOT paint past age 65.
Tenure has its advantages too. For example, if every time there is a budget problem university could just lay off all of their faculty, and then hire new ones once economy improves, there is no way I would be doing academic research. The set of skills I have is a bit too narrow to find really applied job. Maybe the really obvious "dead wood" violates should be fired more easily, but the protection of tenure is one of the major attraction of this job. If I have to worry about an ax coming down any moment, I might as well work for a national lab or industrial lab and not deal with headaches of dealing with students, fighting for funding, etc.
I like to complain about university system, but I think article author is wrong on many points - university system needs to be changed, but in a more gentle way than author suggests. A few mixed thoughts:
1. Restructure the curriculum. Author has a lot of buzz-words that set off my BS detector ("complex adaptive network curriculum" anyone?)
I don't think college curriculum is a problem. At least from physics/math point of view. If anything, it should be more advanced/rigorous, but the problem is that high school curriculum quality has deteriorated (or so I hear) over the past 20-30 years, and we can't raise the bar too far from where high schools leave students.
2. Abolish permanent departments.
Ridiculous idea. Department of Water? Seriously? Most campuses are all about integrative centers, programs, etc. As condensed matter physicist I may be working with chemists and engineers, but probably not so well with historians or artists. Even if I study properties of water and they write poems about water. Sorry, I call BS on this one too.
3. Increase collaboration among institutions.
There is already plenty of collaboration, research-wise at least. We also have specialized classes - for example in high energy taught over teleconferences. But physical presence of a teacher should not be underestimated. I am a big fan of Skype and google talk, but there is something about physical presence that is irreplaceable.
4. Transform the traditional dissertation.
Sounds great, until you realize that the author's brilliant "transformation" plan is to provide "alternative" format for theses - such as hypertext. My thesis is available in PDF (is hyperlinked PDF the same as hypertext?) and HTML format, it's very easy to do with TeX, by the way. In any case, this very, very minor technical point that is far from grand "transformation" I had in mind.
5. Expand the range of professional options for graduate students.
This is the only point I agree on. I am not sure how to implement it though. If a grad student specializing in, say, low temperature physics, is likely to end up working as software designer at Microsoft, or quant on Wall Street, after graduating does it mean their advisor needs to make sure they spend a year or two hacking code in C++ and read up on derivatives? And who exactly will be paying grad student during this time? Will funding agencies be happy to know there was no science done during this time, because I am preparing grad student for real life?
6. Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure.
I disagree. Problems with universities are NOT caused by tenure or lack of forced retirement. The "dead wood" problem is minimal to the point of non-existent in my department, and many other research departments. Most of "old" guys in my department are still very active - still doing cutting edge science - and I don't necessarily think we young folks could do much a better job than many of them. Sure we have more energy, but they have more experience.
But I don't think I would want to be forced-retired at 62 like in Japan. If I was a banker or insurance salesman, in it only for the money, that would be one thing. But scientists are deeply committed to their work, to the point of obsession (ask our spouses!), and thus force-retirement is counter-productive and unfair. It's like forcing Picaso to NOT paint past age 65.
Tenure has its advantages too. For example, if every time there is a budget problem university could just lay off all of their faculty, and then hire new ones once economy improves, there is no way I would be doing academic research. The set of skills I have is a bit too narrow to find really applied job. Maybe the really obvious "dead wood" violates should be fired more easily, but the protection of tenure is one of the major attraction of this job. If I have to worry about an ax coming down any moment, I might as well work for a national lab or industrial lab and not deal with headaches of dealing with students, fighting for funding, etc.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
wikipedia vs. facebook and web 2.0
I must say, for all the attention that web 2.0 gets in the media - myspace, facebook, and now twitter - the most useful example of collaborative/networking forces on the web is still easily wikipedia. And yet it doesn't get as much attention as it should.
I still think it's absolutely amazing how solid vast majority of information on wikipedia is. I never thought it would be possible, considering the kind of flaming/trolling disasters most internet discussion forums or newsgroups were back in late 1990ies. And it is still somewhat magical to me.
I think one of the reasons that wikipedia is so popular is that it attracts true, highly dedicated nerds, (I am using "nerd" in a good way of the term). They feel passionate enough about knowledge, and wikipedia pages expressing the knowledge, to edit and protect from vandalism pages on topics that are dear to their heart. I personally edited less than 10 pages on wikipedia, so whoever does this work gets my respect. The success of wikipedia is especially remarkable considering anonymous, truly outward-oriented nature of the format.
In comparison, myspace, facebook, youtube and now twitter, are for the "cool" kids, egotistic/inward focused. Perhaps I am showing my age, but facebook and other networking platforms, including linkedin, have not really changed or affected my life - not nearly close to the way wiki did. Sure, due to facebook I have now access to random information - silly quizzes, daily routines, photos - about my so-called friends. In some cases it made me realize how boring and self-centered some of my friends are. (Michelle hates her job and is dreaming of going to her 5th vacation this year alone - thanks for sharing!). Frankly, I liked my friends a lot more before I learned about James' *love* for Justin Timberlake, or assorted photos of Jenn shitfaced at various parties, weddings and such.
Don't get me wrong - there are some moments where facebook turns out to be useful, but for the most part it's a giant waste of time - primarily used by people to project the fake "cool" type of person they want to be seen as, as opposed to their true self. What I really don't get is what people do with feeds from 200+ "friends" - surely vast majority of those are superficial acquaintances, or friend-of-a-friend type connections, at best.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, has already lived up to my expectations - and outperformed those by a few orders of magnitude. Ever wondered the difference between Lorentz and Lorenz? Or between Lennard-Jones, Lienard of Lienard-Wichert potentials fame and Lenard? Well, there you go - all nicely compiled, organized, cross-linked and growing.
Unbelievable!!!
I also find travelwiki extremely useful, especially for foreign travel.
I still think it's absolutely amazing how solid vast majority of information on wikipedia is. I never thought it would be possible, considering the kind of flaming/trolling disasters most internet discussion forums or newsgroups were back in late 1990ies. And it is still somewhat magical to me.
I think one of the reasons that wikipedia is so popular is that it attracts true, highly dedicated nerds, (I am using "nerd" in a good way of the term). They feel passionate enough about knowledge, and wikipedia pages expressing the knowledge, to edit and protect from vandalism pages on topics that are dear to their heart. I personally edited less than 10 pages on wikipedia, so whoever does this work gets my respect. The success of wikipedia is especially remarkable considering anonymous, truly outward-oriented nature of the format.
In comparison, myspace, facebook, youtube and now twitter, are for the "cool" kids, egotistic/inward focused. Perhaps I am showing my age, but facebook and other networking platforms, including linkedin, have not really changed or affected my life - not nearly close to the way wiki did. Sure, due to facebook I have now access to random information - silly quizzes, daily routines, photos - about my so-called friends. In some cases it made me realize how boring and self-centered some of my friends are. (Michelle hates her job and is dreaming of going to her 5th vacation this year alone - thanks for sharing!). Frankly, I liked my friends a lot more before I learned about James' *love* for Justin Timberlake, or assorted photos of Jenn shitfaced at various parties, weddings and such.
Don't get me wrong - there are some moments where facebook turns out to be useful, but for the most part it's a giant waste of time - primarily used by people to project the fake "cool" type of person they want to be seen as, as opposed to their true self. What I really don't get is what people do with feeds from 200+ "friends" - surely vast majority of those are superficial acquaintances, or friend-of-a-friend type connections, at best.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, has already lived up to my expectations - and outperformed those by a few orders of magnitude. Ever wondered the difference between Lorentz and Lorenz? Or between Lennard-Jones, Lienard of Lienard-Wichert potentials fame and Lenard? Well, there you go - all nicely compiled, organized, cross-linked and growing.
Unbelievable!!!
I also find travelwiki extremely useful, especially for foreign travel.
Friday, April 24, 2009
On teaching
there are several misconceptions about teaching that annoy me.
First one is that teaching three one-hour lectures a week is equal to three hours of work. It's more like 15-20 hours of work if the class it taught for the first time, less if you already taught it before and have lecture notes worked out.
Second is that professors in research-oriented universities, or professors who are active in their research, must be less serious about teaching. I actually think there is some (substantial) positive correlation between quality of teaching and quality of research, even though we can all find several examples of brilliant researchers who are terrible teachers.
Third, advising graduate students and postdocs is ALSO teaching, perhaps one of the most important kind, and must be recognized as such.
Fourth is a myth that professors at research oriented universities must hate teaching. I actually truly enjoy teaching - it's a lot of fun, and I miss it during periods when I don't teach. Would I enjoy teaching exclusively, three or four classes instead of one, at expense of research? Probably not. I also like chocolate, but wouldn't want to eat candy for breakfast lunch and dinner exclusively.
Finally, I believe quality of a teacher has a lot to do with interpersonal and communication skills rather than knowledge of material or teaching "experience". If anything, being overloaded with too much teaching load quickly turns many teachers cynical and burned out.
I recently glanced at teaching evaluations of several of my colleagues, and even though I never attended their classes, they are precisely what I expected. You only need to talk to someone for about 5-10 minutes to be able to guesstimate how effective they will be in the classroom. There may be some exceptions but usually you can pick on some personal qualities that make someone a great communicator/teacher.
First one is that teaching three one-hour lectures a week is equal to three hours of work. It's more like 15-20 hours of work if the class it taught for the first time, less if you already taught it before and have lecture notes worked out.
Second is that professors in research-oriented universities, or professors who are active in their research, must be less serious about teaching. I actually think there is some (substantial) positive correlation between quality of teaching and quality of research, even though we can all find several examples of brilliant researchers who are terrible teachers.
Third, advising graduate students and postdocs is ALSO teaching, perhaps one of the most important kind, and must be recognized as such.
Fourth is a myth that professors at research oriented universities must hate teaching. I actually truly enjoy teaching - it's a lot of fun, and I miss it during periods when I don't teach. Would I enjoy teaching exclusively, three or four classes instead of one, at expense of research? Probably not. I also like chocolate, but wouldn't want to eat candy for breakfast lunch and dinner exclusively.
Finally, I believe quality of a teacher has a lot to do with interpersonal and communication skills rather than knowledge of material or teaching "experience". If anything, being overloaded with too much teaching load quickly turns many teachers cynical and burned out.
I recently glanced at teaching evaluations of several of my colleagues, and even though I never attended their classes, they are precisely what I expected. You only need to talk to someone for about 5-10 minutes to be able to guesstimate how effective they will be in the classroom. There may be some exceptions but usually you can pick on some personal qualities that make someone a great communicator/teacher.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Erasing the blackboard: before or after?
There are several items of academic life that are so unimportant (in grand scheme of things), yet often elicit a lot of heated discussions.
Example: when teaching a class, is it a responsibility of a professor to erase the previous professor's board prior to their lecture, or should every professor end their lecture by erasing all of their writing AFTER the lecture, so as to leave a clear board for the next class/professor?
Once I got alerted to this "controversy" (one of my colleagues was badmouthing another colleague for always leaving the blackboard full of formulas), I always erase everything I wrote at the end of the lecture. Often I find myself erasing previous lecture BEFORE my own, and then erasing my own writing AFTER my lecture. Clearly I am a sucker.
If all teachers of the world could sit down somewhere and have a meeting, I suspect the vote would be in favor of: you erase everything BEFORE you teach, and leave your lecture for the next professor to erase. This is because students often keep copying down the lecture well after the class is finished, other students are asking questions, and it makes perfect sense to do erasing BEFORE, rather than AFTER. Otherwise I often find myself erasing my own writing, while talking to the student who is asking me questions about formulas I am about to erase. Some students may feel that by turning my back to them and erasing the blackboard I am sending them a signal: "go away, I don't really want to talk to you".
The only (weak) argument in favor of erasing your own board AFTER the lecture is that the next lecturer may be arriving just before the start of the class and then has to spend the first few minutes of the class erasing everything. To me it's not terribly convincing argument. Teachers should always arrive ahead of time, and there is always more free time available before class starts, as opposed to after the class.
Example: when teaching a class, is it a responsibility of a professor to erase the previous professor's board prior to their lecture, or should every professor end their lecture by erasing all of their writing AFTER the lecture, so as to leave a clear board for the next class/professor?
Once I got alerted to this "controversy" (one of my colleagues was badmouthing another colleague for always leaving the blackboard full of formulas), I always erase everything I wrote at the end of the lecture. Often I find myself erasing previous lecture BEFORE my own, and then erasing my own writing AFTER my lecture. Clearly I am a sucker.
If all teachers of the world could sit down somewhere and have a meeting, I suspect the vote would be in favor of: you erase everything BEFORE you teach, and leave your lecture for the next professor to erase. This is because students often keep copying down the lecture well after the class is finished, other students are asking questions, and it makes perfect sense to do erasing BEFORE, rather than AFTER. Otherwise I often find myself erasing my own writing, while talking to the student who is asking me questions about formulas I am about to erase. Some students may feel that by turning my back to them and erasing the blackboard I am sending them a signal: "go away, I don't really want to talk to you".
The only (weak) argument in favor of erasing your own board AFTER the lecture is that the next lecturer may be arriving just before the start of the class and then has to spend the first few minutes of the class erasing everything. To me it's not terribly convincing argument. Teachers should always arrive ahead of time, and there is always more free time available before class starts, as opposed to after the class.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
where your overhead is going
I am still trying to figure out where our overhead is going, and why is it so high - at the time when a lot of universities are struggling financially, and yet tuition is at record highs.
This NYT article can provide some clues. By "staff" I think they imply "university bureaucracy". Somebody somewhere has to get really outraged about university shenanigans - overhead, bloated bureaucracy, fake "tuition" that we pay for our graduate students who do not take any classes, you name it. Someone could write a great investigative piece about all these excesses.
This NYT article can provide some clues. By "staff" I think they imply "university bureaucracy". Somebody somewhere has to get really outraged about university shenanigans - overhead, bloated bureaucracy, fake "tuition" that we pay for our graduate students who do not take any classes, you name it. Someone could write a great investigative piece about all these excesses.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
economic stagnation
During a long drive with a co-worker (I was a grad student, he was a postdoc) back in 2003 or 2004, he proposed a theory that most if not all gains in US economy was illusory, since US doesn't seem to actually make anything. At the time it seemed as a crackpot conspiracy theory. Lately this crackpot theory seems more and more real, as Paul Krugman's latest column indicates.
A quote from the comments section:
A quote from the comments section:
if you eliminate the fictitious growth of financial services, the total U.S. economy has basically been stagnant for, what, 15 years?
Can you imagine how the entire political landscape, our national discussions, investments and priorities would have changed if we had realized our economy was stagnant?
Friday, April 03, 2009
military, finance, science/technology
US dominated the world in the following three key fields:
military, finance and science/technology. Recent years have demonstrated that much of dominance in the first two areas was overblown, or downright illusory. It's time for the remaining component, science and technology, to save the economy. US still has the best universities, best researchers, as well as healthy and well developed entrepreneurial system/spirit. But the key is to create something new, rather than destroy things (military) or move money around (finance).
military, finance and science/technology. Recent years have demonstrated that much of dominance in the first two areas was overblown, or downright illusory. It's time for the remaining component, science and technology, to save the economy. US still has the best universities, best researchers, as well as healthy and well developed entrepreneurial system/spirit. But the key is to create something new, rather than destroy things (military) or move money around (finance).
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Need... coffee... now...
I am teaching an 8AM class and someone could make a killing by opening a reasonable quality java kiosk on our campus - most campuses in fact. I am still not sure where our overhead is going, but I wouldn't mind if it was subsidizing some baristas and some good coffee.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
How much does salary matter?
the postdoc salary post made me wonder if the salary for postdocs really make as much of a difference as several comments indicate. Obviously, with all things being EXACTLY equal, a better salary is always preferable. But let's say you are faced with the two choices, one is clearly far superior, long-term career-wise, but the other one pays more.
Let's say door A is working in a top university, in a world leading, highly productive group, with excellent record for high profile publications and placing previous postdocs for permanent slots.
Door B is a lowly ranked university, little known PI who is not productive, publishes in obscure journals and has poor record of placement for former postdocs.
Assuming the base salary in case A of $40K a year, how much more would offer B have to pay to make you take their offer over offer A?
$1K? $5K? $10K? $20K?
There is a similar test for professors - say you are newly tenured, or maybe untenured tenure-track professor at the top physics department (MIT, Harvard, Stanford - you name it), have great colleagues, well established lab, talented students, grants, producing great work etc. But your salary is "low" - say $80K. You have a competing offer from a Podunk State (if you need examples, Podunk could be Oklahoma, South Dakota or Yukon Territories for all I care) which has no graduate program, no colleagues who are active in research, no general facilities, and no realistic prospects of attracting top postdocs to work in your group.
How much of a salary bump would be sufficient to convince you to commit what amounts to a career suicide? Is $5K a year enough? $20K? $50K? [Dr. Evil voice:] One "million" dollars?
Let's say door A is working in a top university, in a world leading, highly productive group, with excellent record for high profile publications and placing previous postdocs for permanent slots.
Door B is a lowly ranked university, little known PI who is not productive, publishes in obscure journals and has poor record of placement for former postdocs.
Assuming the base salary in case A of $40K a year, how much more would offer B have to pay to make you take their offer over offer A?
$1K? $5K? $10K? $20K?
There is a similar test for professors - say you are newly tenured, or maybe untenured tenure-track professor at the top physics department (MIT, Harvard, Stanford - you name it), have great colleagues, well established lab, talented students, grants, producing great work etc. But your salary is "low" - say $80K. You have a competing offer from a Podunk State (if you need examples, Podunk could be Oklahoma, South Dakota or Yukon Territories for all I care) which has no graduate program, no colleagues who are active in research, no general facilities, and no realistic prospects of attracting top postdocs to work in your group.
How much of a salary bump would be sufficient to convince you to commit what amounts to a career suicide? Is $5K a year enough? $20K? $50K? [Dr. Evil voice:] One "million" dollars?
blacklisting of unsuccessful proposals in UK
Science discusses the blacklisting of PIs who have repeated lack of success in grant writing.
Criteria for blacklisting?
I am not sure how UK system works, but I am sure these rules would quickly disqualify some of the most ambitious and productive applicants in the US.
Criteria for blacklisting?
Three or more proposals within a 2-year period ranked in the bottom half of a funding prioritisation list or rejected before panel [without review]; AND An overall personal success rate of less than 25%.
I am not sure how UK system works, but I am sure these rules would quickly disqualify some of the most ambitious and productive applicants in the US.
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