School is starting soon

Yesterday, a bunch of colleges and schools started up for the year.  Our campus is on the quarter system, so I still have a few weeks left to prepare.  My browser has become cluttered up with education-related articles that I've been saving up to comment on, but I think I'll just dump them out here.

A conversation with Sean Carroll - in this NY Times interview from April, I was a little disappointed to read this response from Sean:

Whenever you say you’re a physicist, there’s a certain fraction of people who immediately go, “Oh, I hated physics in high school.” That’s because of the terrible influence of high school physics. Because of it, most people think physics is all about inclined planes and force-vector diagrams. One of the tragedies of our educational system is that we’ve taken this incredibly interesting subject — how the universe works — and made it boring.

I get what he's saying.  But I'm disappointed that he would paint all high school physics teachers with such a broad brush.  I believe that at some level, ALL physics teachers got into teaching physics because they found the subject to be terribly interesting.  What about giving them the tools and motivation to make their classes interesting?  What about structuring schools so that biology teachers are not teaching physics?  These are complex questions that the interview does not get into.

His response to the follow-up question which was about what he would do to improve physics education was a little better in spirit, but I think it's a little unrealistic to think that starting with the Big Bang and particle physics is something that will lead to better scientific literacy.

No grading, more learning - This was an article from "Inside Higher Ed" that I found via Metafilter. A professor at Duke dispensed completely with the traditional method of grading (where the professor assigns grades for work turned in) and chose to "crowdsource" the grading.   The class as a whole (I guess) assessed whether or not student work met the standards for the course.  The discussion on Metafilter rightly pointed out that many classes have cliques of students which professors may or may not be aware of.  I am impressed with how this professor was able to turn the focus of the class away from the grades and onto the learning.  I am, however, not deaf to the concerns raised by many of the commenters talking about this method.  I don't think this would work for my courses where almost everything we do is a "right-or-wrong" type of assignment.  Still, it was interesting and inspiring to see faculty get their students to focus on learning.

Does Professor Quality Matter? -  You should read this article (from the Journal of Political Economy) to get the whole story, but I'm just going to skip to the end and quote from the conclusion:

Our findings show that introductory calculus professors significantly affect student achievement in both the contemporaneous course being taught and the follow‐on related curriculum. However, these methodologies yield very different conclusions regarding which professors are measured as high quality, depending on the outcome of interest used. We find that less experienced and less qualified professors produce students who perform significantly better in the contemporaneous course being taught, whereas more experienced and highly qualified professors produce students who perform better in the follow‐on related curriculum.

I'm not sure how much to read into this as it relates to teaching physics, but it was a somewhat interesting article.

Cory Doctorow: What I do - Not education related, but if you're a nerd who follows Cory Doctorow, now you can do what he does.

You say up, I say yesterday - This is a great profile of a cognitive psychologist who has studied a fascinating topic of how language relates to thinking.  I was really blown away by these ideas. (Cog psy is ALMOST as cool as physics...)

Plan B: skip college - This NY Times piece doesn't say anything that hasn't already been said about whether or not college is the best economic choice for all people.  But, it is a good reminder that we (as a society) should constantly be questioning how ALL people can best be served by education at all levels.

What if College Tenure Dies? - A series of essays in the NY Times opinion section.  Really good, thought-provoking stuff here.

Tenure, RIP -  Closer to my heart (and life), though, was this article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. about how the percent of tenure-track positions available across the country has shrunk dramatically in the past few decades.  I don't have the time to go fully into what I really think about this situation, but from a personal level, I would just be THRILLED if I could get offered some version of a permanent job.

This press release talking about a research project connecting a poem by Walt Whitman with a meteor shower caught my eye.  The research was cool, but I LOVED the interview with the student research assistant:

...get involved and be as active and connected with whatever department and professors they have. That's been the most beneficial thing to me. Once you start talking to your professors and meeting with your professors and they realize that you're a real human with a brain and you're interested and excited they'll do anything for you, and you'll do anything for them. With that, find someone -- it doesn't matter who it is or what department they're in -- find a professor and make a connection...Also, fear can get you down. That's why I didn't want to be a physics major [initially], because I was afraid I couldn't do it. Don't be afraid of boys, don't be afraid of professors -- once you get over that you can do anything.

The part about "Don't be afraid of boys" was because the question was about advice to give to other female physics majors.  But, I just found her overall attitude throughout the whole interview to be great. She has everything that every faculty member is looking for.

Hanny and the Mystery of the Voorweep - New graphic novel about the discovery of a weird astronomical object.

The Hot Young Teacher they Hired Instead - Along with the Tenure, RIP article, this sort of struck a personal nerve, simply by being about the hiring process in education and the pain that a teacher goes through.

Hot for the Wrong Teachers - This article from Slate is about 2 years old, but it was new to me.  This gets into some of the reforms that have been implemented at one school in NYC.  There is also a discussion of proposed ideas and what is and is not working currently.

Whew!  I had more stocked up than I had realized.

Job search woes n+1

Today I found out that my one-year contract for teaching at the university has no chance of renewal for next year. The department had a record number of faculty on sabbatical this year, and next year no one was granted leave. I was getting to the point where I was about to ask for any update on next year, when my supervisor wandered into my advisor to deliver the news.

As much as I am disappointed to not be back next year, I am not really upset. First, I knew from the outset it would likely only be one year. Second, the department informed me of their intentions as soon as they had figured out next year's schedule. That doesn't really excuse the lateness of their decision, but they are on a quarter system, so they feel they can be slower than other places.

So, I have had 2 phone interviews this year that went nowhere. And, I have one application that I never heard back from one way or the other. So, I sent that place an email to inquire on the status of that search. Then, I sent an email to a contact I had made at a nearby university several years ago at a conference. I asked if he had any research opportunities available to apply for or knew of anyone in the area who does. Within 20 minutes, he replied asking for a resume! I'm certainly not counting any chickens on that front, but it was temporarily exciting.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

Job hunt woes #2 (but should be #23 or greater)

It's been a long six months (minus one day) since I submitted an application for a permanent job.  The application that I submitted was to the university that I am currently at, so I was essentially applying to keep my own job.  (That's an oversimplification, I realize, but it's not the point of this post.)

It has been a long, long, long six months. In December I had two phone interviews with the search committee (who are my colleagues). Then I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more. Back in March, when I couldn't wait any more, I finally asked the chair how the search was going.  I was told to wait a couple more days any he would be able to tell me more.  So I waited a few days, and nothing.  After one week had passed, I decided to ask again.  It was a Friday afternoon at 2:30 pm, before my 3:00 class when I was able to track the chair down and ask if there was an update.  I was told there was an update and that it wasn't good news for me: the search committee had decided NOT to bring me on as a candidate for the position.  What then followed was about 20 minutes of administrative double-speak that did nothing to explain why I had not been given an interview.

Had I not asked on that Friday, I would not have learned about not being a candidate until Monday morning, when the poster announcing the first candidate was posted in the division office.

Slowly but surely the three candidates came to campus.  The first candidate came and it seemed that his schedule was purposely arranged so that I would not have any contact with him.  I was not even introduced to him when we passed in the hall.  It was a little surreal.

Then a week or more passed before the next two candidates came to campus.  I think Spring break was mixed in there as well.  The second candidate was coming on a Monday, and the poster announcing his talks was posted the week before.  When I saw the name on the poster, it looked vaguely familiar.  I went to my email and checked that, sure enough, I had met this candidate before: when he was on campus last May as a candidate for a visiting position that he ultimately did not get offered.  Talk about insulting.  The department thinks a person is not qualified to be a visiting professor, yet he can have an interview for a tenure-line job?  Meanwhile, the visitor that is going on THREE YEARS in the department is not worthy of even being considered?  So when that candidate was on campus, we bumped into each other in the hallway and he remembered me and was kind enough to say hi and ask how things were going.

The third and final candidate came immediately after the second candidate left.  I ran into him while he was being shown my lab.  No one offered to introduce him to me, so he made the initiative to introduce himself.

Meanwhile, while the interviews had been going on, my students were starting to figure out the situation. The campus is small and there are very few secrets kept in the community.  More than one of my students, without my prior knowledge, contacted the department on my behalf and voiced their support of me.  It was nice, but ultimately meaningless.

Also, somewhere along this time, my chair and one of my other colleagues were having trouble looking me in eye or even acknowledging my presence in the department.  One of my other colleagues, who was not involved with the search even commented how the department seemed a little unfriendly or at least not at ease.

Through the grapevine I heard that an offer had been extended to the first candidate.  Then, on April 17th, the colleague who was not involved in the search pointed out that the minutes of the faculty meeting announced that the physics search had been successfully completed.  So the news went public before I was informed.  I suppose it could be argued that I had no right to be told, but it was pretty unprofessional the way the situation was handled.

I was really hoping that the search would ultimately fail, or that for other reasons I would be granted a fourth year as a visitor (which I had been told was not out of the realm of possibility) but today in the afternoon campus mail I received a memo from the registrar and provost explaining procedures for departing faculty.  This was news to me, since I had been expecting to be verbally told one way or the other whether I would be back next year.   Anyway, at least now I know.

I'm trying to look at the big picture and not get too down on myself.  It's really hard though, because I feel like I spent the last three years building up a research project out of next to nothing that I brought to the cusp of where I think I could squeeze out three papers from the data we took this year.  My plan for the summer was to write that all up.  I do suppose I can still work on it this summer, but it will not be as easy if I have to split my time between that and looking for jobs/place to live come August.  I just don't want to see the last three years as being wasted, which I know they were not, but it's hard to put my finger on what it was about my time here that I have to show future search committees.

I thought I had learned that I was right for a liberal arts school and that a liberal arts school was right for me.  Now I have to consider other options in the short term.  I never thought that I was entitled to the position that I applied for.  I guess I made the mistake of believing that I had earned the respect of getting an interview for it.  I know that these sorts of decisions happen all the time at colleges and universities around the country, but that doesn't make it any easier on me.

The last visitor that we had in our department warned me before he left to not trust anyone in the department.  I did not believe him, because I thought that he was just saying that because he left on not-so-good terms with a few of the people in the department.  I now see that you can get along with people you work with and still not trust them.  So I have some advice for the visitor(s) that come after me at this institution: don't trust anyone in the department if you are a visitor.  And, anyone that you find that is not in the department that you CAN trust, will ultimately not be able to help you.