Friends don’t let friends study Psychology
In this video I encourage people considering pursuing an education in Psychology at any formal level – bachelors, research Masters/PhD, or Clinical Masters/PhD – to research and reconsider what they…
Academia
Friends don’t let friends study Psychology
In this video I encourage people considering pursuing an education in Psychology at any formal level - bachelors, research Masters/PhD, or Clinical Masters/PhD - to research and reconsider what they…
Can academics serve two masters?
The steady encroaching of the corporate sector into the decision-making processes of our societies is the greatest threat to twenty-first century democracy. This includes encroachment into academia. This troubling development…
An Adjunct Tragedy | The Nation
An Adjunct Tragedy | The Nation. The proletarianization of higher education, according to the associate general counsel of the United Steel Workers Union, has now claimed a life. In a…
Aaron Swartz, Intellectual Property and the Public Good
Should academic work be locked up like Disney artifacts? I’ve been quite inspired by this very good analysis of the context surrounding Aaron Swartz’s suicide. As news spread last week…
How are Psychology PhDs doing on the job market?
I am a reformed and rehabilitated ex-academic. In my previous life, I aspired to be a professor of Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science. I described my experiences in the academic…
What do you look for (part two)?
Having expounded in my previous post what kind of person I look for, when serving on the search committee for a tenure-track hire, now it is time to list the…
What do you look for (part one) ?
I am a faculty member in a university physics department, who finds himself periodically involved in faculty searches and hires. How do I evaluate the curriculum vitae of an applicant…
The Grad School Gospels – Part 4: On Grad School Goggles and the Cult-Like Nature of Grad School
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional…
The Grad School Gospels – Part 2: Passion, Fear and Indifference
In The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst, I juxtaposed Hayhurst‘s pro baseball journey – which he recounts in his first book,…
Binomial distributions and multiple choice tests
Readers of my blog know that I generally regard multiple choice tests (MCTs) as an adequate tool to assess student knowledge of, and proficiency with, a given set of topics.…
Tough Chewing for Sunday Brunch
Pop a Zantac and try to digest McMaster prof Henry Giroux’s lament on the Disappearance of Public Intellectuals. Here are a few excerpts: As a theater of cruelty and mode…
Who’s really obsessed with Impact Factor ?
What brings more prestige to a scientist, an article which receives hundreds of citations, even if published on a relatively minor, or even obscure journal, or one that is published…
Independent and original
I doubt if I can offer any deeper insight or more pointed advice to a tenure track assistant professor in the sciences, than what anyone can find on a number…
Education disadvantage
If a cash-strapped province or state had to make painful cuts to public services, the immediately noticeable effect would be the outright elimination of some of them. One would not…
Double whammy
We all understand that, sometimes, financial hardship is simply a fact of life. And I do believe that most of us are willing to endure painful sacrifices, in the pursuit…
On the road again
A long and tiring term is coming to a close. Time to celebrate the holidays, then head out to Vancouver for a few days, to end 2011, and then it…
Customers
Imagine the following, hypothetical situation: the owner of a small high-tech company needs all of his employees retrained, in view of the adoption of a new, company-wide software system. He…
Smeared But Still Fighting, Cornell’s Tony Ingraffea Debunks Gas Industry Myths
ingraffea.jpg Cornell University Professors Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea made waves in April 2011 when they unveiled what is now known simply as the "Cornell Study." Published in a peer-reviewed…
The boss is out to lunch
The two basic criteria to establish whether someone is your boss are: – Can they fire you ? – Can they give you a raise ? Unless the answer to…