tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post8094320748285821040..comments2024-03-14T04:53:49.513-05:00Comments on FemaleScienceProfessor: Do Not ReplyFemale Science Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15288567883197987690noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-86341080838054347922011-02-04T23:02:10.080-06:002011-02-04T23:02:10.080-06:00Here is my own personal experience with my co-PI t...Here is my own personal experience with my co-PI taking sabbatical:<br /><br />1. Co-PI gets diagnosed with cancer.<br />2. Takes sabbatical to get chemo, etc.<br />3. Comes into the lab whenever possible.<br />4. When not possible responds ASAP to email.<br />5. Maintains throughout a sincere interest in the day to day goings on in the lab.<br /><br />FU HACKER!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-37454963928401192022011-01-15T20:44:36.353-06:002011-01-15T20:44:36.353-06:00Funny, I thought that - as a Professor Emeritus so...Funny, I thought that - as a Professor Emeritus social scientist - he developed his thesis by extrapolating from his own personal experience with his social science colleagues. <br /><br />For example, I take his reference to "pleasant sabbaticals" as an indication that social scientists treat their sabbaticals as a vacation, not as an opportunity to work even harder the way physical scientists do.Doctor Pionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12513786840852469648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-63720306510030059592011-01-13T23:08:51.289-06:002011-01-13T23:08:51.289-06:00"I hope you'll be able revive your lab. I...<i>"I hope you'll be able revive your lab. I still think it is pretty hard to recover from a no funding/no lab situation. How does a sabbatical help with that? "</i><br /><br />The sabbatical will help me clear some of the backlog of unwritten papers and will allow me to start work in a new field without the burden of teaching 5 1/2 classes as I'm doing this year. It is hard to start a new field when teaching twice everyone else's teaching load.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-65592461600666246692011-01-13T07:50:15.799-06:002011-01-13T07:50:15.799-06:00I hope you'll be able revive your lab. I still...I hope you'll be able revive your lab. I still think it is pretty hard to recover from a no funding/no lab situation. How does a sabbatical help with that?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-24763878570572828062011-01-12T18:25:02.073-06:002011-01-12T18:25:02.073-06:00"No money- no research-no graduate students-n...<i>"No money- no research-no graduate students-no publications-resuting in no research money, and the circle starts again. You'll never recover."</i><br /><br />I hope that is not true. I've been out of funding for 2 years and will be taking a sabbatical next year to restart my lab (perhaps in a new, more fundable field).<br /><br /><i>"I don't think in state tuition is that expensive, it's the same as daycare. Room and Board are what it's expensive. You don't have to go to Stanford."</i><br /><br />My son is in his first year of high school. It is looking likely that it will be cheaper to send him to Stanford than to the University of California in 3.5 years. (Financial aid is more generous at Stanford, and I'm not making so much that they would laugh at me for asking.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-80714813090135842692011-01-12T11:19:25.802-06:002011-01-12T11:19:25.802-06:00First of all, research is what has been driven thi...First of all, research is what has been driven this country to success over the decades and therefore research is of paramount importance for the U.S. Professors who are active in research work more hours, on average, than many 9 to 5 employees. It is not easy to do research, manage a group, obtain funds to pay salaries, decide the course of the lab, keep current etc. It is, in a lot of ways, exactly like owning a small company, and that is a full time, stressful job. In addition to this tremenduous work, these professors also teach and educate students. People in general have an inclination more towards one or the other of the activities, and that is natural. But research is much more stressful than teaching, at least at the level required at R1 Universities.<br /><br />Self-reporting here, if we just ignore the obvious reasons I choose this profession (passion, drive etc.) and just focus strictly on practical reasons, there is no way I stop working because of tenure. Not because I'm smart, or dedicated, or a hero, but because there are financial incentives. We have a 70yr old deadwood in the department, and he makes less than me when I started, six years ago. I am a single mom, I support my child on my own, and I cannot live without summer salary. We don't get paid summer salary from teaching. I have to bring at least 2 months of summer salary every year from research contracts, otherwise I'll go into debt, live on credit cards during summer. No, I don't want to move into a mobile home or apartment, I want to live in a nice house, send my child to a good school and pay for his extracurricular activities. That's a damn strong incentive to not stop doing research that would attract federal funding. With tenure almost here, and knowing my case passed, I am not one bit less stressed about bringing in money to pay myself, students, laboratory supplies. I still cannot sleep at night thinking of project ideas and how to better position them for funding. Because if funding stops, it becomes a vicious circle and you're dead. No money- no research-no graduate students-no publications-resuting in no research money, and the circle starts again. You'll never recover. Also, I really want to advance to full in a reasonable amount of time. And get salary raises. Not to mention, I wouldn't like to feel like everyone is not respecting me for not doing research. What's the point in having a job where you are not respected and despised, and are paid less than anyone else? While a few people may not care about the respect, a lot care about the money, and tenure doesn't help with that.<br /><br />Having your child go to Harvard, you don't do it for the "teaching", but for the opportunities and extraordinary people they'll come in contact with, which comes from the cutting edge research and the money Harvard has. Guaranteed they'll have a succesful career based on their Harvard education, it doesn't matter that the professor did not pump knowledge in their brains whether the kid wanted to learn or not. I think this idea that teachers must pump knowledge in the kids brains is not very clever. Smart and ambitious students will study and will learn. Students who are not interested will not learn, because they don't want to learn. But they'll whine plenty. I personally do not like the "customer service" attitude of U.S. universities towards the students. One has to always treat the bad, slacking student in a way that they do not deserve, walking on eggshells, giving underserved good grades, because the "customer" paid. On the other hand, if you, as a parent, are interested in sending your child to teaching intensive universities, they are available. Research intensive universities come with a different set of opportunities and anyone can make their own choices. <br /><br />I don't think in state tuition is that expensive, it's the same as daycare. Room and Board are what it's expensive. You don't have to go to Stanford.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-65289782281707371542011-01-12T02:52:53.994-06:002011-01-12T02:52:53.994-06:00The Prince et al. paper points out that there is e...The Prince et al. paper points out that there is evidence that there is a conflict at the institutional level between a strong research orientation and quality of education as measured by a variety of outcomes:<br /><br />"The claimed synergy between research and teaching is even harder to justify at the institutional level than at the individual faculty level. In his monumental longitudinal study of higher education in the United States, Astin found a significant negative correlation between a university’s research orientation and a number of educational outcomes. He concluded that:<br /><br />Attending a college whose faculty is heavily research-oriented increases student dissatisfaction and impacts negatively on most measures of cognitive and affective development. Attending a college that is strongly oriented toward student development shows the opposite pattern of effects."<br /><br />The study cited is:<br />Astin, A.W., What Matters in College? Four Critical Years Revisited, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1994.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-37418956884687619652011-01-11T20:26:15.821-06:002011-01-11T20:26:15.821-06:00And, a key paragraph from the Prince article:
&qu...And, a key paragraph from the Prince article:<br /><br />"...research and teaching have different goals and require different skills and personal attributes. The primary goal of research is to advance knowledge, while that of teaching is to develop and enhance abilities. Researchers are valued mainly for what they discover and for the problems they solve, and teachers for what they enable their students to discover and solve. Excellent researchers must be observant, objective, skilled at drawing inferences, and tolerant of ambiguity, and excellent teachers must be skilled communicators, familiar with the conditions that promote learning and expert at establishing them, and approachable and empathetic. Having both sets of traits is<br />clearly possible and desirable but not necessary to be successful in<br />one domain or the other. Moreover, first-class teaching and first-class research are each effectively full-time jobs, so that time spent on one activity is generally time taken away from the other. There should consequently be no surprise if studies reveal no significant correlation between faculty research and effective teaching. That is exactly what is revealed:"<br /><br />Then the article cites Feldman, Research in Higher Education, Vol. 26, 1987, pp. 227–298; and Hattie and Marsh, Review of Educational Research, Vol. 66, 1996, pp. 507–542. Two studies which apparently show no correlation between research and teaching.<br /><br />None of which excuses Hacker for being a jerk; but food for thought.literaturenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-44287185401649783112011-01-11T20:22:21.639-06:002011-01-11T20:22:21.639-06:00This question has been studied before: "Does...This question has been studied before: "Does faculty research improve undergraduate teaching?"<br />Prince et al, RM Felder, R Brent, J. Engineering Education 96, 283-294 (2007).<br /><br />Abstract: Academicians have been arguing for decades about whether or not faculty research supports undergraduate instruction. Those<br />who say it does—a group that includes most administrators and faculty members—cite many ways in which research can enrich teaching, while those on the other side cite numerous studies that<br />have consistently failed to show a measurable linkage between the two activities. This article proposes that the two sides are debating different propositions: whether research can support teaching in principle and whether it has been shown to do so in practice. The article reviews the literature on the current state of the research-teaching nexus and then examines three specific strategies for integrating teaching and scholarship: bringing research into the classroom, involving undergraduates in research projects, and broadening the definition of scholarship beyond frontier disciplinary research. Finally, ways are suggested to better realize the potential synergies between faculty research and undergraduate<br />education.literaturenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-37055418295392592612011-01-11T20:18:29.835-06:002011-01-11T20:18:29.835-06:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.literaturenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-37958833643290436272011-01-11T20:09:28.173-06:002011-01-11T20:09:28.173-06:00Anon at 6:09 said "I'm fairly skeptical t...Anon at 6:09 said "I'm fairly skeptical that teaching writing or Victorian literature is substantially affected by one's scholarship."<br /><br />Anon at 6:09 clearly has no idea about scholarship in Victorian literature, and would be better served by talking about something s/he is familiar with.<br /><br />Literature is not static any more than history is. How we understand Dickens is affected by what we know about Victorian society, about disease, about graveyards, and about popular fads in the mid-ninteenth century, to just give a few examples. Amazingly, these things are constantly being discovered or interpreted or further explained by active researchers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-44428339598904162222011-01-11T20:07:19.760-06:002011-01-11T20:07:19.760-06:00I went to a SLAC so faculty were were highly rewar...I went to a SLAC so faculty were were highly rewarded for good teaching, but it was a fancy-pants place and faculty were expected to have a research program too. So everyone did some research but their tenure and evals depended a lot on teaching performance. So there's a strong motivation for good teaching and a modest motivation for research. This seems like a good case to test whether research comes at the expense of teaching.<br /><br />In my experience there was a strong positive correlation between research activity and teaching quality. Those profs who did a lot of research were also the best teachers. Why? They were current in their field, engaged passionate, etc. but also probably they were just better. There's a fallacy that there is an inherent trade-off that we can measure. If everyone works to their absolute limits AND those limits are the same yes there will be a trade-off but there is variation in both faculty drive and energy and in just their quality as thinkers. Those that are good at one thing are often good at other things - their limits are higher. Thinking about research enhances thinking about teaching.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-9039623249612267182011-01-11T19:57:01.453-06:002011-01-11T19:57:01.453-06:00My gosh... have you seen a picture of this guy? He...My gosh... have you seen a picture of this guy? He was born when Herbert Hoover was president, please have some compassion ;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-58670514470935519032011-01-11T19:15:01.272-06:002011-01-11T19:15:01.272-06:00There is some research (mainly in psychology) show...There is some research (mainly in psychology) showing that most people are not that great at evaluating their own skills, so I can see his point. I might think I'm a good teacher but maybe my students don't. So good research wouldn't rely only on professor interview, but course evals and student interviews.<br /><br />Of course, maybe that's what they do in the book I have no intention of reading...<br /><br />All that being said, no researcher has the right to be so rude and condescending about their research findings and beliefs. Sheesh.Psycgirlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13476028853857792495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-22173426921847610052011-01-11T19:04:54.617-06:002011-01-11T19:04:54.617-06:00In defense of Hacker's thesis, I think there i...In defense of Hacker's thesis, I think there is a little bit of truth to the fears about teaching at R1 professors.<br /><br />In my experience, the problem is not that research makes you a poorer teacher. The problem is that, at some research-oriented schools, the incentives are set up to reward research but not to reward teaching.<br /><br />For instance, at my R1 school, salaries for tenured professors are determined by (1) research excellence, and (2) years at rank. (I've had my department chair confirm this to me.) Teaching doesn't play a role in our salaries.<br /><br />Moreover, at my school, the main way you get a big raise is by getting an external offer from some other school of similar prestige, but at a significantly higher salary. If your department chair and dean like you, then they typically match the offer. The school has a large budget devoted solely to retention cases; we have little budget for merit raises, but a significant budget for retention. So, this means that if you want a hefty pay raise, the way to get it is to do fantastic research that gets the attention of other schools. Doing great research can easily lead to increased visibility and an external offer -- but great teaching is very unlikely to raise your visibility outside your campus or to lead to external offers.<br /><br />Therefore, our compensation system creates heavy incentives to focus all your time on research, and (once you are tenured) do the bare minimum for teaching. And that's what many professors do. Not all (some do great teaching despite the lack of any financial reward for it, out of professional pride or love of their subject or generosity to their students), but understandably, most professors respond to the incentives set up for them.<br /><br />In other words, the problem is not with research per se. The problem arises if the incentive system values good research and does not value good teaching.<br /><br />That said, Hacker is behaving like a twit. Even if there's an element of truth to what he says, that's not an excuse for behaving so rudely.EngineeringProfnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-34905776036009980302011-01-11T18:16:51.508-06:002011-01-11T18:16:51.508-06:00Ooh, I see self-reports. I got my undergraduate de...Ooh, I see self-reports. I got my undergraduate degree at a super-prestigious R1 university. The teaching was occasionally mind-numbingly bad, occasionally mediocre, and occasionally excellent, and, I'd say largely uncorrelated with the quality of the scientists research programs, which ranged from very very good to excellent to super excellent. <br /><br />At that university, people were chosen for their excellent research ability. I was going to add some lip service about teaching, but I realized that it was probably irrelevant. Before tenure they'd probably have to check some boxes saying that they had taught, and if they'd been caught in some terrible scandal it might have hurt, but otherwise it was irrelevant. <br /><br />But, I would nevertheless go there again, because of the out-of-class opportunities, some of which I availed myself of, but some of which were even more important to other students, who contributed greatly to my experience.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-10397104640069811162011-01-11T18:09:30.562-06:002011-01-11T18:09:30.562-06:00"Back to Andrew Hacker. If he doesn't bel..."Back to Andrew Hacker. If he doesn't believe the evidence from interviews with professors,"<br /><br />Oh, come on, he doesn't believe evidence in the form of anecdotes from anonymous professors. That's what the "anonymous" jabs are about. <br /><br />I think Hacker is wrong when it comes to the sciences, mostly because doing research in the sciences I'm familiar with requires finding grant funding. Finding grant funding means that you have to be scrapping in there even if you have tenure. Scrapping means that you're working hard to stay on the cutting edge. Staying on the cutting edge could indeed have benefits to students (if you teach something where that matters, or if it keeps you fresh and engaging). <br /><br />But, it doesn't contribute much data to have an anonymous person describe their anecdotes about themselves. <br /><br />And, I'm fairly skeptical that teaching writing or Victorian literature is substantially affected by one's scholarship.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-91033179512972905522011-01-11T17:13:32.363-06:002011-01-11T17:13:32.363-06:00After reading all the comments, most of the things...After reading all the comments, most of the things I was going to say have already been said. But, I am struck by what is clearly a huge degree of variation in the teaching interest and ability of professors who do and don't have ongoing research. Even if objective research finds an average difference in teaching effectiveness between the two groups, the variation overlap might make it a moot point. If doing research or not only explains 2% of the variation in teaching effectiveness, clearly there are other and possibly more important issues to be addressed when it comes to educating undergraduates. <br /><br />It may turn out that knowing whether or not a professor does research or not only slightly improves your chances of predicting their teaching ability above totally random guessing. This obsessive focus on research may simply be the wrong approach to the problem, and will generate other problems like, so who is going to do the actual research anyway?jouskaaftermeantimehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17906742982757094459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-30359357812872183802011-01-11T16:37:35.029-06:002011-01-11T16:37:35.029-06:00I agree with Anonymous at 3:08, but I lean towards...I agree with Anonymous at 3:08, but I lean towards PR campaign.<br /><br />It just seems suspicious that Andrew Hacker would reply to your article after such a long time . . .<br /><br />unless interest in his book is drying up, and he wants to kick-start some fresh exposure :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-87754646657100727372011-01-11T15:15:13.081-06:002011-01-11T15:15:13.081-06:00I would make a necklace out of the smug little fuc...I would make a necklace out of the smug little fucker's teeth if I were you. Many pivotal works were written by anonymous or pseudoanonymous writers. I guess Andy is just grasping to whatever high ground he can get at.Genomic Repairmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07755692245709237397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-59186395326316477072011-01-11T15:08:17.371-06:002011-01-11T15:08:17.371-06:00i think these responses are either:
1. a troll
2....i think these responses are either:<br /><br />1. a troll<br />2. a clever PR campaign.<br /><br />I'll assume the former until proven otherwise.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-4216704951520284392011-01-11T15:06:11.325-06:002011-01-11T15:06:11.325-06:00One thing to keep in mind is that people teaching ...One thing to keep in mind is that people teaching at R1 schools are not the only researchers. I teach at a PUI and am also a researcher. I pride myself in getting good evaluations in both areas and am successfully publishing my work in well-respected journals. It's important to realize that there are also teachers who are good researchers, and not just researchers who are teachers (good or bad).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-86391838779476861802011-01-11T14:37:21.813-06:002011-01-11T14:37:21.813-06:00A little snark is fun. An entire short missive dev...A little snark is fun. An entire short missive devoted to snark shows that Hacker makes his career off of that. Colour me unimpressed.<br /><br />I didn't see anywhere in FSP's Chronicle article the outright assertion that research improves every teacher. I saw it as a counterpoint to the broadly publicized viewpoint (not rigorously proved, universally-applicable hypothesis) that active researchers are poor or uncaring teachers.<br /><br />I look forward to tomorrow's blog post with interest. After all, I'm on sabbatical with nothing else to do but research, write, supervise my undergraduate and graduate research project students and attend to various service obligations that will support thousands of other students. You know, the useless self-indulgent work of the academic!Janicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14093558563358431804noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-77023788845921189592011-01-11T12:53:10.302-06:002011-01-11T12:53:10.302-06:00Is this going to turn into a *cat* fight. I love ...Is this going to turn into a *cat* fight. I love cats too, fsp!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-1948226886125572212011-01-11T12:38:13.416-06:002011-01-11T12:38:13.416-06:00I agree that self-reporting is not enough. However...I agree that self-reporting is not enough. However, the only better way I can think of to know how research influences teaching at the individual level is to have people teach while they are active researchers and to have the same people teach while they are not active doing research. Have the authors done this?<br /><br />Why does teaching by researchers have to be superior than teaching by others? <br />Why is it held to different standards?<br /><br />What matters to me is that it is different, it provides different opportunities. Some students will prefer one and some students will prefer the other. And luckily, it seems to me that the choices are there. It's important to keep the choices...mathgirlnoreply@blogger.com