Thoughts on university leadership
What should universities and colleges do when students don’t want to take our courses? What if no one wants a degree in German? What if Art History only attracts a handful of students?
We read often about the lost value of humanities degrees for the students who take them and how institutions lose money by maintaining a broad offering. Should we just shut those programs down?
Traffic to my blog has jumped recently. Twitter and Facebook are the trick. I’ve been blogging for just over 6 months. While I’m writing this entry, my blog will be visited for the 9,000th time. 2,000 of those visits came in October, and over 4,000 more have come in November. Most of my visitors have… Read More…
Spanish professors hold women back. The system is easier on men. Women have to do significantly more to reach the top. This is the clear conclusion of the Spanish government’s White Paper on the Position of Women in Science in Spain. Men, the White Paper concludes, are 2.5 times more likely than otherwise identical women to become… Read More…
Keep writing. Every day. That’s what the experts say. Maybe you just have time to write a single paragraph. Can you summarize what you wrote yesterday? Can you write a few notes about the next section in your project? Find your strategy and stick with it. Don’t succumb to Writer’s Block — but if you… Read More…
In my short life as a blogger, I’ve had success converting my blog posts into op-ed pieces. Publishing in traditional fora gives increased impact, which motivates me to blog more. It demonstrates that social media and blogging can lead to crossover into traditional media. I search on Twitter to identify relevant hashtags and to find… Read More…
Watson & Crick’s 1953 article in Nature revealing the double-helix structure of DNA was not peer reviewed. Many scientists claim this paper presents the most important discovery of the 20th century. The peer review system is what gives science integrity. Yet this paper was published based on the evaluation of the editors that it was obviously true…. Read More…
What makes your blog successful? How can you get more readers and more comments? What leads someone to “subscribe” to your blog? How can you use your blog to feed your other activities ? I’ve been blogging for about 6 months, and these questions become more and more salient for me. I love generating the… Read More…
A decision to implement equality targets is a decision to pursue quality. Equality targets should lead to increased gender balance. And increased gender balance leads to many improvements, such as employee satisfaction and, concomitantly, the productivity of the organization. The concept of targets is the heir to the concept of quotas. And the claim that… Read More…
Discovering something no one knew before is research. Discovering something that you didn’t know before, but someone else did, is education. I love the idea of universities. I spend my days with people who work to understand something better: the universe, the world, societies, brains, kids, change, books, and more. That’s research. What do we… Read More…
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