In Memory

It's Memorial Day in the US: unofficially the (non-astronomical) start of summer and officially a day to remember US soldiers who have died in wars.

My family is swarming with active and retired soldiers and sailors, some of whom have spent substantial time in war zones, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, and several of my friends are married to military personnel. I have also had quite a few soldier-students in my classes in recent years. I can spend Memorial Day being grateful that not one has been lost.

I once asked an uncle, a retired Marine, what he thought about remembering people other than soldiers on Memorial Day. That is, people who have died in war -- any people and any war -- or Americans who have died in other service to the country. What about policemen and firemen? What about children in war zones? No, he did not think that was appropriate. Only US military personnel should be considered. That is what the holiday is for and it does soldiers a dishonor to include others.

I disagree. The only people I personally have known who died in war were those caught in the fighting in a certain troubled African country where I lived for a time as a child. These were my friends and neighbors. I am not in any danger of forgetting them, and I am not dishonoring anyone else by remembering them today of all days.

For many people this day is just a holiday, totally detached from its original intent. I must admit that for me it is mostly just part of a 3-day weekend as well. My daughter doesn't have school, so we sleep in a bit, hang around, admire the cats, maybe bake something strange but festive, and then I go to campus to work in my nice quiet office for a while. Maybe I will even clean a particularly cluttered corner of my office; something I've been meaning to do since last summer, or maybe the one before that.

But it is Memorial Day, a day for memories of family, friends, soldiers, sailors -- even people we never met but who are somehow important to us.

If you take time on this Memorial Day to remember important people in your life other than close family members or friends, how many of these people were your teachers, colleagues, mentors, or students?

The Glow of the Lagoon Nebula

The Glow of the Lagoon Nebula

Gas and dust condense, beginning the process of creating new stars in this image of Messier 8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. Located four to five thousand light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the nebula is a giant interstellar cloud, one hundred light-years across. It boasts many large, hot stars, whose ultraviolet radiation sculpts the gas and dust into unusual shapes. Two of these giant stars illuminate the brightest part of the nebula, known as the Hourglass Nebula, a spiralling, funnel-like shape near its centre. Messier 8 is one of the few star-forming nebulae visible to the unaided eye, and was discovered as long ago as 1747, although the full range of colours wasn’t visible until the advent of more powerful telescopes. The Lagoon Nebula derives its name from the wide lagoon-shaped dark lane located in the middle of the nebula that divides it into two glowing sections.

Lagoon Nebula – click for 1280×1303 image

Too Broad for Impacts?

A recent article in naturenews (Nature, 26 May 2010) discusses NSF's "broader impacts" criterion for proposals and notes that the definition of "broader impacts" is so broad that many PIs are confused. Although NSF does provide a handy list of examples, questions remain about what types and amounts of BI activities are most appropriate for a particular project (and PI).

[Note: Here are links to a few old posts on Broader Impacts: 1/10, 11/09, 10/08, 6/06]

Although some PIs do innovative BI activities, many do not. Apparently, the #1 BI in proposals submitted to NSF's chemistry division involves the training of graduate students and postdocs; an important goal, but that many of us do anyway. Hence the perennial question: Do BI activities have to go beyond what we usually do, or do we just have to do a better job at the advising/mentoring aspects of our job, or at least say that we will pay more attention to these things?

I don't know, but I found one of the relevant anecdotes in the article strange and unconvincing. The story involves the admirable efforts of a physicist, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, who conducted a project in 2001:

In many ways, it was typical of the kinds of things that NSF-funded researchers do to fulfil [sic] their broader-impacts requirement. She took three female graduate students on weekly visits to local classrooms, where they spent 45-minutes leading nine- and ten-year-old children in practical activities designed to teach them about electricity and circuits. The visitors also talked about their lab work and careers. In addition, Leslie-Pelecky did something less typical of broader-impacts efforts: she brought along education researchers to study the effect of this interaction on the children's perception of scientists.

Those assessments were startling, she says. After three months, most of the students said that they still weren't sure who these young 'teachers' were – except that they couldn't possibly be scientists. In their minds, scientists were unfriendly, grey-haired old men in white lab coats.

"And that's what I worry about with broader impacts," says Leslie-Pelecky. "There are a lot of people putting time and effort into [these sorts of activities] and they have no idea if they're making any difference or not."

The anecdote ends there, leaving me a bit confused. I can see being concerned that these kids didn't understand that the graduate students were scientists, but that doesn't make me worry about "broader impacts" activities. That makes me even more convinced that we need programs of this kind, perhaps with a different approach to explaining (in this particular case) that the young women were scientists. What else, other than meeting real live examples would convince these kids that scientists don't necessarily fit their image of scientists as cranky old men -- an image that surely discourages a lot of kids, especially girls, from considering science as a career option?

The article mentions the idea that the goal of BI might be better achieved if BI activities were organized at the level of the institution, involving people with expertise in such things, who would then involve certain faculty in particular programs.

There are some aspects of that idea that I like, but I think it would be a mistake to remove all responsibility for BI from the individual investigators. The BI criterion, despite the confusion surrounding it, is a move in the right direction: that of asking investigators to think broadly about their research, to pay attention to the training aspects of our research, and possibly to consider how our research affects the non-academic world.

Furthermore, in the individual project-based system for BI, there are many opportunities for creative integration of the "intellectual" and "broader" aspects of research. A centralized office of people who are experts on "broader impacts"-type activities, but who don't necessarily understand the science and engineering research itself, might not innovate in the same way that individual PIs can.

I also would be concerned about a system in which this centralized office called on "certain faculty" to be involved in BI. I have a feeling I know who these faculty would be and that level of involvement would vary drastically across the institution, with confusion about whether this type of activity was valued by departments, was appropriate for tenure-track faculty etc. etc.

I agree, though, that if the intent is to do effective outreach on a large scale, then that type of BI activity should involve those who have specific expertise and time to devote to such things. Perhaps there is a way to have the best of both types of systems: e.g., to have more institution-based support systems to help PIs with BI activities (some universities have this; some don't), yet without completely relegating the organization and implementation of BI activities to the institution.

Arts and/or Sciences

At various times and for various durations, I have been in departments that were in academic units that included or did not include the liberal arts. That is, I have been at universities in which some or all of the science departments are part of an "Arts & Sciences" college within the university, and I have been at others in which the sciences (and other STEM fields) are separate from the liberal arts.

Does it matter?

In my experience, what matters more is who the Dean of the College is, not what the College is.

And by who, I don't mean in what discipline the Dean's PhD is or what department is the Dean's official "tenure home", but rather who the Dean is in terms of their personality, administrative philosophy, and breadth of view.

I have known liberal artist deans who were excellent administrators of colleges of arts and sciences, and I have known others who resented the science and engineering departments.

There are also science/engineering deans who are fascinated by the liberal arts and see them as an integral part of any great university, and there are of course others who are contemptuous of the "research" done in liberal arts departments.

Deans of any intellectual background can be great or they can be evil political schemers who have favorite departments and less favorite departments for unfair reasons, erasing any benefit to some STEM departments of having a dean who understands the needs of a research-intensive science department.

So, my overall opinion is that the right person can do a great job leading any sort of administrative organization at a university, at any level.

But, I must say that I have had a few recent experiences that made me I wish that more administrators (deans and/or others) who have a direct effect on my professional life had experience running a research group or, at least, would listen to advice from those who do. I know that this experience does not ensure a wise and fair leader, but it's an easy explanation for some of the more baffling decisions made by certain administrators in my corner of academe.

Some important information that seem to be missing from the administrative world view of some of these people include:

- An understanding that we professors do not spend all of our working hours in our office. If we have labs, we may spend time there. For administrative purposes, in terms of keeping track of where we professors do our jobs, labs should count the same as offices. And some faculty conduct some of their research off-campus. And I don't just mean cafes.

- An awareness that postdocs exist, and that they are neither students nor faculty. In an economic crisis, the university can do all sorts of unpleasant things to faculty positions and salaries, but postdocs should be protected from these measures. Postdocs are typically paid from grants, so they should get whatever raises are budgeted in the grant, and the administration of their salaries and raises should not rest with a central organization that seems to have little understanding of the role of postdocs in a research university that is swarming with them. (Bizarre, no?)

- A realization that policies related to oversight of research conduct and grants management should not be so onerous that faculty spend a vast amount of time on administrative matters that should be simple, obvious, and straightforward rather than complex and time consuming (and that assume we are all thieving drug dealers who want to do heinous experiments on humans). For example, I object to the fact that my colleagues and I now have to:

justify research expenses (again and again) that clearly can have no other purpose but research,

spend our own money on research items or activities because it is so difficult to deal with the accounting system in a timely way (some research activities are time sensitive and the research will not occur if an order form is bogged down somewhere in the accounting system), and

navigate an increasingly opaque system of measuring the time we spend on different research projects (especially in the summer).

I don't care if the most important administrators of my university are experts on robots or Rabelais, but the complaint that the dean (or president) doesn't understand Science (or whatever) is an obvious one to make when certain strange and annoying new policies and requirements are handed down by non-scientists.

I have been known to make this complaint (recently), but, even though it might be somewhat accurate in some cases, I know that it isn't a completely satisfying explanation.

Some Dreams are Bad Dreams

Today I was perusing online some of the 2010 commencement speeches given thus far; skimming transcripts, watching some videos. I am particularly fond of the videos because they capture the energy and excitement of graduation ceremonies more than a transcript does.

Or, at least, they capture the energy and excitement of graduation ceremonies if these exist. My university is particularly skilled at conducting boring graduation ceremonies that suck the soul out of anyone daring to sit through one. That's part of the challenge of a BigU; in terms of the thrilling atmospherics of a graduation, it's hard to compete with a small but joyous crowd of graduating students and their families all packed into an historic quadrangle at a college.

I am quite choosy in my commencement speech grazing. I do not watch commencement speeches given by a university administrator. I am not that interested in celebrities who are famous for being famous. Some speeches I do not read/watch because I have read a synopsis, and that is enough for me. [Commencement speech 2010 trivia: Which speaker's speech included an endorsement of Louis Vuitton shoes?]

I am potentially interested in speeches by authors, journalists, scientists, and heads of state.

Some speeches I read/watched all the way through. For example, I liked Gail Collins' speech at Mount Holyoke College, especially this part:

Ellen [Goodman] said her women friends tended to be much happier than her men friends. And she theorized that was because the men had all grown up expecting to be president of the United States. But instead, they became state department officials or college professors. And the women had all grown up expecting to be receptionists. And they wound up as state department officials or college professors.

That refers to a generation before mine, but nevertheless the statement resonated with me.

For another example, I was intrigued by Rachel Maddow's speech at Smith College. It started with a description of events leading up to Prohibition, with a focus on the activities of Carry Nation (Google Carry Nation if you want to read about why she is known by this spelling as well as by Carrie). I had no idea where this protracted anecdote was going, although I hoped it was going somewhere interesting. And it did.

Said Maddow:

I would like to offer the hypothesis .. that personal triumphs are overrated.

And later in the speech:

Some dreams are bad dreams.

I like that. Graduates are often told to follow their dreams blah blah blah, but Maddow is right: Some dreams are bad dreams, especially those involving achieving galactic fame at any cost (even if the dreams are of the obscure academic sort within particular disciplines).

Another piece of classic commencement advice is typically along the lines of "Live each day as though it were your last". Maddow thinks that it is a bad idea to live as if you will never be older than you are right now.

I agree. Despite the carpe diem appeal of "live each day etc.", imagine if we really did live according to that philosophy. We might find it emotionally freeing to tell ourselves "This is the last time I ever have to grade a stack of illegible problem sets that have so many cross-outs and scribbles that the pages could be mined for graphite" or "I never again have to sit in this small room with all these obnoxious colleagues who say strange, irrelevant things (at length)".

Maybe it helps you get through these trying activities to think this way, but imagine the behavior of your colleagues at a faculty meeting if they really believed that they were never going to be held accountable for what they said or how they voted. Imagine how someone might behave if they knew that no student would ever question their grading decisions.

These are little academic examples of what is ultimately a cosmic point, but, speaking as a middle-aged person, I can see the benefits of taking the long view in life and work. For example, it would be nice to think that, little by little, in the various ways that we professors have at our disposal, it is possible to make a positive impact on someone's life (as teachers and mentors) or on the world (via our research, however impractical it is or seems).

At the very least, it is probably a good idea to assume that you will be accountable for your actions and that what you do and say can have an effect (for good or ill) on other people.

For no particular reason, I was recently remembering one of the summer students who came to work with my research group years ago. This summer student (SS) was 20 ± 1 years of age, and obsessed by the fact of being younger than anyone else in the research group that summer. I noticed this youth-mania right away because SS kept saying things to me like "I can read that sign at the end of the corridor, but, since you are so much older, you probably can't read it." (me: "Do you mean the sign that says [FSP reads sign aloud] or the invisible one next to it that only professors can read that tells me to tell you that people don't automatically lose their eyesight when they turn 40. And even if they do, so what?"

Even my 20-something grad students complained about this student. This SS made a 25-year old feel ancient and deteriorated. What was this SS thinking and what was up with the obsession with youth? And what would happen when SS turned -- eek -- 25, or 42, or .. (impossible to contemplate) 50+.

SS is now closing in on 30. Perhaps SS's definition of Youth has expanded, or at least 'matured'.

Perhaps SS now realizes that, if we are lucky, life is long (to paraphrase another part of Maddow's speech) and there are many interesting things we can do at every age.

Retract?

An FSP reader has a conundrum.

Imagine that you find yourself in this situation (anecdote condensed and edited from the original e-mail): A friend and co-worker has lost his/her job. You think this person has been treated unfairly, but you don't know the official facts of the case. Rumor has it that this person had done unethical things, but you have worked closely with this person and had found him/her to be very professional and reliable. On the basis of your own very positive professional interactions with this person, you write positive letters of reference for faculty jobs.

You later receive credible information indicating that this person was in fact lying about a great many things to a great many people, and that there was substantial unethical conduct. You can no longer stand by the statements in the letters of reference that you sent on this person's behalf.

This person claims to have found a position that will begin in the fall, but you don't know if this is true and there is no one at that school whom you can ask informally. A web search doesn't turn up anything, but it probably wouldn't for a recent hire anyway.

Do you have an ethical obligation to contact the schools to which you sent the positive recommendations and inform them that you can no longer stand by the statements to which you signed your name? Would search committees and department chairs want to know this?

Aside from the ethical considerations, what might be the consequences of these now-discredited letters for your professional reputation, especially if you are an early career faculty member trying to get established? Are the consequences worse if you retract your statement or if you do nothing?

What would you do?

First, I want to reassure my correspondent that he/she should not regret writing the positive letters. The letters were written in good faith, based on personal experiences working with the colleague in question. The letter no doubt mentioned these positive interactions, perhaps providing specific examples. If there were no indications of unethical behavior in these interactions, the letter was a fair statement of what the letter writer knew to be true.

If the letter stayed close to the specific interactions that the letter writer had with this colleague, perhaps a retraction is not necessary. If, however, the letter writer made some broader statements that really should be retracted, perhaps a brief letter should be sent to the relevant search committee chairs and/or department chairs.

The letter need not elaborate on the situation, but could just say something like "Owing to facts that have come to my attention since I wrote the letter on behalf of Colleague X, I can no longer stand by the positive letter that I wrote on his/her behalf. Please retract my letter, if this is possible and relevant to your search." You can decide whether you are comfortable mentioning that you are willing to provide further explanation if necessary, and then list your phone number.

If Colleague X has a new job, there must have been more than one positive letter.

Another possibility is to discuss this with a trusted senior colleague -- e.g., a mentor or the department chair. Perhaps they can intercede in the situation, especially if there is a senior person with more direct knowledge of the unethical doings of Colleague X who would be willing to help figure out the best course of action.

But perhaps various readers will have various other suggestions..

CERCular Reasoning & Excellent Men

The purpose of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program is "to attract Canadian and international leading scientists" in critical areas of research: "environmental sciences and technologies; natural resources and energy; health and related life sciences and technologies; and information and communications technologies."

Recently, nineteen CERCs were chosen after ".. a rigorous peer review and selection board process". This process involves a first stage, in which Canadian universities vied for the opportunity to get one of these Chairs, and a second stage, in which the selected universities "nominate leading researchers.. The final selection of chairholders is made by a selection board and based on the highest standards of research excellence."

In an article on May 18 in The Globe & Mail, the results of the program are described, including the fact that Canada was able to "poach" leading researchers from other countries and lure them to Canada with the millions of research $$ associated with these Chairs. The article effuses about the aggressive program of luring top researchers:

For Ottawa, it was one of the biggest bets on scientific research in a generation. But for the man at the centre of Canada’s worldwide drive to recruit top scientists, it was a “ballsy” play that at times resembled a bidding war for NHL free agents.

These CERC chairs are referred to by the following terms: star researchers, renowned scientists, foreign researchers, and, more generically, as "individuals", or simply "these people".

Two days later, The Globe & Mail realizes that it might want to mention that "these people" are all men. In fact, there were no women on the short list of 36. (see also another article on this topic)

That there were no women on the short list might have been the first clue that there weren't going to be any women in the final list.

Government officials noted that there was no "deliberate attempt" to exclude women. It just happened that way.

Well, that's fine then! As long as no one said "Let's not nominate any women for these lucrative and prestigious positions", then everything must be fine.

There are lots of comments on The Globe & Mail article, including the usual lame ones stating that the lack of women is not a problem because there are no qualified women in these fields, women are whiners to complain about being excluded etc. etc. Can we assume that these particular commenters are qualified to make this statement about the lack of qualified women?

I am having trouble believing that there are no qualified women among all the scientists in the entire world in the above listed fields. Was is really not possible to come up with a global short list of ~40 scientists that included at least a few women based on their accomplishments as researchers in the fields relevant to the CERC program?

Let's assume, just for fun, that there are qualified women. Why didn't any women make it through the rigorous selection process, not even making it as far as the short-list, not to mention the 19 finalists? Some possibilities listed in the article are:

..the tight deadlines for the competition, the areas picked for research and a competition where candidates on the short list had only a 50 per cent chance of winning probably all worked against female candidates.

I must say that none of those reasons are very convincing to me. Can someone explain the "tight deadline" reason to me with respect to why that would work against the inclusion of (qualified) women on the short list? And the areas picked for research? Are there really no female "star researchers" in "health and related life sciences and technologies"? Are the CERC men really so awesome that there are no women of that caliber anywhere in these fields of research? Even in "health and related life sciences and technologies"?

I also read that there are so few women in these fields that naturally the chances were lower for a woman to be selected. But give women 10 more years, and watch out! We'll be well represented then. The funny thing is, I've been hearing that since I was in grad school, more than 20 years ago. And I still don't believe that a short list of 36 "top researchers" in the world contained no women because there are so few women in these fields.

And then there's the women aren't flexible enough in their personal and professional lives to make a big move such as required by the CERC program explanation. Evidence: The University of Manitoba approached one woman researcher but she withdrew herself from consideration because of "personal reasons".

Alas, women had one shot at a CERC, and that opportunity was blown. Women have such complicated personal lives; there's probably no point in even nominating any women. [<-- sarcasm, in case you aren't sure]

I would be curious to know more about the personal situations of the 19 excellent CERC men. Do any have wives with academic positions or other difficult-to-move careers, and, if so, what happened to them?

And whatever happened to the stereotype of the single woman researcher monomaniacally dedicated to her research at the expense of everything else. Couldn't the CERC panel dig up some of those?

And can someone explain the 50% reason mentioned above? The short list consisted entirely of men, resulting in a 100% chance that the final list would be 100% men, so presumably the 50% reference is to some pre-short list stage of the selection process. Women only apply for prestigious big-money positions if there is a >50% chance of success? That will be news to many women researchers worldwide who routinely submit proposals to funding agencies with success rates of <<50%.

Anyway, lest anyone think I am bashing Canada, let me briefly note that I have longstanding personal and professional connections with Canada. Part of my family is Canadian. One of my relatives is the answer to a Canadian Trivial Pursuits question. I have lived in Canada. Some of my best friends are Canadian. I have been to all but some of the more remote provinces. I enjoyed a trip to Saskatoon not long ago. In February. I like Canada and Canadians.

But, like the US and other parts of the world, academia in Canada seems to be at a stage where, as long as no one is saying out loud "Hey, let's not hire any women" or "Let's deliberately exclude women from this lucrative and prestigious program", many will say there is no problem or, least, not a big problem.

I find it as disturbing as ever, however, that anyone with any real knowledge of the science and technology fields could sincerely say about the lack of women in a program like CERC: "It just happened that way", or "This type of program had various aspects that did not appeal to women researchers" or even "There are no qualified women anywhere in the world in these fields" (as is clearly proven by the lack of any women among the 19 selected CERCs).

That type of reasoning is rather CERCular.

Vole upstages President Obama's Rose Garden Press Conference

The headlines read: "Rodent Scurries Past Obama in the Rose Garden".

The vole has been described as a gate crasher and upstager, because the critter has definitely caught our collective attention. That may be true, but in actuality, maybe it was President Obama and the Press Corps that was disturbing the rodent. It was scurrying back and forth making its way from one safe area (the cover of bushes) to the other past the podium and eyes of hundreds of upright potential predators (the press).

Everyone has debated the species identity of the critter as a rat, mouse, or mole. It was in fact a vole. I dare say it was a meadow vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus. I say that because of it size, length, of tail, geographic location, and general appearance (assuming I’m seeing a good quality picture). I wonder what my other Microtus researcher friends would conclude?

Unlike rats, voles are much smaller in size. Unlike mice (and rats), voles have very stout bodies with short tails and ears. And the names rhyme moles and voles are not in the same order of mammals. Moles are insectivores (predators). Though small in size and with short tails, the head, legs and running gait of moles is entirely different than that of voles. And it was a rather healthy and chubby vole, perhaps a pregnant female? If so, there will be more scurrying voles in the Rose Garden very soon.

Pictures and link to full article about the event from Huffington Post.

Research Opportunity Paradox

Many universities have summer internship programs for undergraduates from their own institutions and/or other institutions. In recent months I have read/heard the following from various people with varying levels of power over and knowledge about these programs:

Professors at small colleges care about their students and therefore, lacking grad students, involve undergrads in research. Since there are more research opportunities for undergraduates at small colleges, students from large universities should be given priority in these summer internship programs.

Professors at large universities typically involve undergraduates in their research. Since there are more research opportunities for undergraduates at large universities, students from small colleges should be given priority in these summer internship programs.

These statements are not as contradictory as they may seem and are therefore meaningless because each institution -- not type of institution, but each institution -- is different in whether there are opportunities for undergraduate research experiences. Each institution differs in whether a research experience is something that requires great effort to arrange or whether all students are expected to participate in some form of research and therefore there is a system in place to encourage this.

It is not possible to make a general statement like the ones above about small colleges vs. research institutions. You would need to specify institutions and disciplines.

When making decisions about applicants to an internship program with which I have been associated, we do not differentiate between students from small colleges and research universities. We look to see what courses they have taken, how they did, what they say about their interests, and whether someone at their home institution thinks they would benefit from a research experience. We do not expect students to arrive with research experience; we expect to provide them with a research experience.

Without even trying, we end up with a good mix of students from different types of institutions (small/large, public/private, prestigious/not), a gender ratio that matches the applicant pool (typically there are more female applicants than male), and a % of minority students that is low but nevertheless slightly higher than their representation in the student population as a whole.

What's not to like about these results? Apparently our program is not reaching the "right" students. We are apparently supposed to reach out and recruit students who do not otherwise have access to research experiences.

That's where the contradictory statements above come in because different people have different opinions about where the students-lacking-research-experiences are: Are they at small colleges or at large research universities? [Students from 2-year colleges have participated in our program, but most of our applicants are from 4+-year institutions.]

Of course they are at both types of institutions. Should our summer program really check to see whether the internship we offer would be the student's only chance at research? Should we institute a check-box on the application to ask students to promise that they are woefully isolated from all possibilities of other research experiences? Should we compile a list of those institutions that do a particularly bad job of providing research experiences for their own undergraduates and give preference to applicants from those schools?

I understand the importance of research experiences for students who want to continue in Science after they graduate, but, other than helping provide just such an experience for some students, I am not sure we can do more than seek out motivated and talented students who want to do an internship in our department, at our university, no matter where their academic home is.

BigU

For the first two years I was in graduate school, I shared an apartment with a math grad student. We had both come to the BigU after graduating from a small liberal arts college, and, in graduate school, we shared the opinion that BigU, despite its reputation for excellence, was a giant organization that didn't really care much about its students, undergraduate or graduate.

Our experiences as grad students diverged, however, because I was fortunate to find myself in a department with an ambitious but supportive group of graduate students. As I've described in previous posts, I have remained friends and colleagues with many of my fellow graduate students, and in fact credit my continuing in academia to this remarkable group.

My friend found herself in a highly competitive and hostile department in which the graduate students undermined each other (perhaps imitating their advisers?) and were generally unfriendly. Some were pleased when a classmate failed because it reduced the pool of candidates applying for jobs.

My friend went on to become a successful math professor at a 2-year college, but her loathing of BigU lives on, undiminished after more than 20 years.

We were talking recently, and I asked if her son, who will be a senior in high school next year, is interested in big universities or small colleges, and she said, emphatically, that he will definitely go to a small college. Her son is interested in computers and possibly electrical engineering, but she is quite certain that big universities are terrible places to be a student. [Yes, I know that there are other types of universities, but I asked her about the extremes in the US higher education spectrum.]

I have found when talking to friends and colleagues about their offspring's college choices that, unless I also know the offspring well, it's difficult to discern the opinion of the parent vs. the opinion of the offspring. For this discussion, however, it doesn't really matter. What interested me is that my friend thinks that large universities are just like BigU: ghastly places to be a student of any sort.

If I had had no other experiences of universities other than graduate school, I would probably continue to share her opinion, despite having emerged from BigU with more positive experiences than she had.

Now, however, I disagree with this view about big universities based on my subsequent experiences at various other universities.

I therefore mentioned the following to my friend:

- Even 20+ years ago, I think that BigU was extreme in its lack of interest in its own students. Even back then, there were other big universities that did a better job of providing a good intellectual environment for their students. It's not a good idea to extrapolate from our BigU experiences of bygone days.

- Today, even BigU has programs for first year students, has an honors program, allows students to take courses in cohorts, has orientations, better advising, encourages research experiences, has more pleasant on-campus housing, and has professors who care about (and are rewarded for) excellent teaching.

A motivated student at a large university can have some of the same experiences that are so highly valued at colleges; e.g., small classes and research experiences advised by a professor.

Certainly there are major differences between colleges and universities, and I do not regret at all the fact that I went to a small college, but I have a very positive view of the educational experiences that can be found at the BigUs.

I am years away from exploring college/university options with my daughter, but unless she has her own strong opinions about college vs. university, I hope that we will look at both types of schools and see what each has to offer.

Blogging While Brown Conference Twittercast

Join The Blogging While Brown Conference organizers, attendees, and presenter tonight, Wednesday, May 19, 2010 for a Twittercast.

It will be a chance for fellow conference attendees to discuss objectives, answer questions and connect. It's also a sneak peak into to the dialogue and people who will be at this amazing conference.

Twitter address is http://www.twitter.com/bwbconference (@BWBConference)

The hash tag for tonight's twittercast is #bwb

You can follow the discussion be either following us on twitter are going a twitter search for #bwb.

The Twittercast will go from 8:00PM to 9:00PM EDT. That's 7:00PM-8:00 CDT.

I'll be there: @FeteSociety (www.twitter.com/FeteSociety). Ask me questions about the panel Beyond Gossip, Hip Hop, Hair, and Politics:Bloggers as Change Agents and Educators

I want you to participate, too.

Now, until the conference (June 19-20, 2010) there will be weekly Twittercasts at 8:00 pm EST/7:00 CST.

You can also attend the conference. I've been informed that there is a special discount for my blog readers. So, let me know if you want to go (or have signed up) and I'll make sure you get the special 10% discount code.

The conference will be interactive. In fact, the conference is more of an "Unconference" - with an adjacent room designated for “table talks” and in depth Q&A with panelists and fellow attendees. Attendees will be able to request and propose discussion topics on the day of the conference and they will be assigned a table or tables to lead their own discussions.

And if you can't make it to conference, then watch it! Theye are sending the entire schedule to CSPAN. Although they have no control over which sessions they will choose to broadcast if any, but will let us know as soon as they find out.

More details about the conference at bloggingwhilebrown@gmail.com.

Good For You

When reviewing an NSF grant proposal, the choices for rating the overall proposal are:

Excellent : Outstanding proposal in all respects; deserves highest priority for support.

Very Good : High quality proposal in nearly all respects; should be supported if at all possible.

Good : A quality proposal worthy of support.

Fair : Proposal lacking in one or more critical aspects; key issues need to be addressed.

Poor : Proposal has serious deficiencies.

The overall rating includes evaluation of both Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts components of the proposal, but for most Science proposals, the Intellectual Merit score is typically the one that drives the overall rating.

Obviously it is important to get lots of Excellents, but it's possible to get a grant with some Very Goods. In some cases, it is possible to get funding with mostly E/VG but also a Good (or worse) if the negative reviewer amply demonstrates a lack of objectivity, knowledge, or sanity.

As is well known by those who have submitted an NSF proposal, a rating of Good is Not Good. Reviewers who interpret Good as indicating "a quality proposal worthy of support" are typically those outside the NSF system who think this description actually means what it says. It does not. Good is Bad.

A reviewer who has serious concerns about a proposal or a PI can do a lot of damage with a rating of Good, but Fair and Poor are the real killers. When is a rating of Fair appropriate? When is a rating of Poor appropriate? (Let's assume that the reviewer is objective and is not downgrading a proposal for evil reasons.)

In ~ 20 years of reviewing NSF proposals, I have only given a few ratings of Poor. From what I've seen on panels and other NSF committees, this is not just because I am nice; a rating of Poor is rare in my field of science. Also, I am not particularly nice.

For a proposal to be Poor, it has to be so bad that there is no hope that the proposed research will be successful in any way. A dull but otherwise solid proposal (i.e., "We are going to get some data but we don't really know why") is not Poor. Such a proposal might be Fair or Good, depending on whether anything of use or interest could be salvaged from such a study. A Poor proposal is apocalyptic. A Poor proposal has no redeeming qualities.

I have given more ratings of Fair than Poor over the years. Fair (in my opinion) indicates a flawed proposal but not one that generates feelings of anger or disgust at the stupidity of the proposed research. A Fair proposal involves poorly defined ideas and/or inappropriate methods. It is possible, but unlikely, that the research would result in anything useful or interesting, but awarding the grant would not be a major travesty; it would be a semi-travesty.

What if a proposal is not well written or organized but the research is not as bad as might seem based on how the proposal is written? That can be a difficult situation to assess. Does the bad writing and organization indicate a problem with the research design or implementation? Or are these aspects technical flaws that mask the excellence (or very goodness) of the research?

In these cases, I make a decision based on the research, but I may mention in my review the aspects of the proposal writing/construction that are problematic if it seems that these might impact the research. A proposal is not a manuscript, however, so I don't do any pointless technical editing.

If the PI has experience with writing proposals, the only technical flaws that are important to note are those that might indicate a problem with the research. An inexperienced PI, however, might benefit from advice about proposal writing; ideally this advice will be constructive and not patronizing.

Most proposals that I review are Very Good. A few are Excellent. More are Good or Good/Very Good (although split ratings are kind of lame). Some are Fair. Rare ones are Poor.

These ratings are important for determining whether a proposal is further considered, but an essential aspect of the review is the comments, which should match the rating. I recently read some reviews of one of my proposals and there seemed to be no correspondence of the comments and the ratings. Some of the most negative ratings had very positive comments; it was odd.

Just as with reviewing manuscripts, though, I know that my opinion is just one part of the process. If I rate a proposal as Poor or Fair (the equivalent of recommending rejection of a manuscript), I am not making the final decision to reject the proposal (or manuscript). I am providing my opinion, and this will be considered along with other input from other reviewers and panel/program officers (or editors, for manuscripts).

If my opinion is honestly given and is based on a careful reading of the proposal (or manuscript), then I don't feel bad about giving a negative rating. I might feel sympathy for the PI (author), but I was asked for my opinion, and I gave it, explaining the reasoning for my negative opinion. It's up to others to evaluate my review along with the rest of the review information and make a decision.

Falling Short

Salary compression and general issues of salary inequity are perennial issues in the departments with which I have been associated over the years. These are challenges for department chairs and other administrators who need to balance economic reality with fairness, all the while attempting to maintain a moderately high level of morale.

A common scenario that results in salary compression is when a new hire negotiates a high salary relative to peers or more junior colleagues in the same department.

You might think that such issues would become moot during an economic crisis. Many of us are fortunate to have secure jobs with decent salaries, however challenging it is to do our jobs with decreasing resources for teaching and research, and thoughts of alleviating salary compression must be set aside for now. For the most part, these issues are indeed temporarily on hold until we can be done with furloughs and pay cuts and unfilled positions and even terminations of positions. This was my impression, anyway.

But..

For some reason a certain administrator recently told me that, although I had had (in his opinion) "a spectacular year" in terms of publications, grants, students graduated, teaching, service, honors etc., he was going to allocate what few extra resources he had at his discretion to some of the assistant professors. He said his decision is not based on "merit" but on what he thinks is fair.

OK, that's fine.. sort of. I am not going to argue that I deserve more of these scarce resources than my hard-working junior colleagues, and my morale is not crushed by this turn of events. My so-called "spectacular" year was made possible in part by the fact that I am a mid-career professor with an established research group that is functioning well. My younger colleagues are still building their research programs, and the contents of their annual reports should therefore by viewed in this context, rather than by a strict comparison of numbers of publications or grants etc.

And yet, there is still a very large difference between my salary and that of a peer (male) colleague whose higher salary is not based on the fact that he is more productive than I am (because he is not). He was hired as a full professor and negotiated a higher salary than what his nearest peer colleague (that's me) was making. My initially low salary has of course increased over the years, but not at a rate that would put me at the same level as this colleague anytime soon, if ever.

I told the aforementioned administrator that I understood and even supported his plan to help some of the assistant professors, but I also said that I didn't want my situation to fall entirely off the radar screen in future years, as I saw it as an equity issue. One could argue that my colleague is paid "too much" and that my salary is more appropriate for my position and job, but that still leaves me as a good example of a woman paid ~85% of what a man makes for the same job.

The aforementioned administrator replied that I should have done a better job negotiating my salary when I was first hired.

Ah yes, maybe I should have. And maybe the assistant professors who need an economic boost to bring their salaries in line with other young colleagues should have done the same thing or else they also would not now be in such dire need of assistance.

But for some reason, my poor negotiating skills are relevant here, not theirs.

I was OK with the plan until the administrator made this gratuitous swipe at the circumstances of my hiring more than a dozen years ago with a different department chair and in a situation involving a 2-person hire.

Why did he think it was reasonable to criticize my negotiating skills and not those of my younger colleagues? (FYI, these younger colleagues are all men). He was telling me that I should just accept my salary situation relative to my peers but he's going to help these other colleagues who are experiencing salary compression for the exact same reason that I am??

Lucky for me, I am doing quite well despite my evident flaws as a salary negotiator lo these many years ago (although this will apparently haunt me, or at least my base salary, forever), and I feel fortunate to have a secure job. I do not begrudge my younger colleagues the fact that they have an administrator looking out for their best interests. These young men are fortunate in this, despite their lousy salary negotiating skills.

And yet, although I think I will not pursue the matter further this year, I am not inclined to remain quiet about it in perpetuity. I work hard, I believe I am an asset to my department, and I should be compensated fairly relative to my peers, just as my younger colleagues are.

Group Write

** Note: I'll be roaming around with limited internet access until sometime Sunday. I will moderate comments when I can. **

Last spring, I wrote about my efforts to get a group of people to work on a collaborative writing project. I tried a wiki for the first attempt, with little success.

Later I tried Google docs, which had some advantages over the wiki, but it was not significantly more effective or efficient than the classic method of sending lots of documents and parts of documents as e-mail attachments. Most text was sent to me, the main organizer of the project, and I compiled everything.

The group seemed to glance occasionally at the collaborative document online, and that was convenient because it reduced the number of drafts that I had to e-mail to everyone. We never reached the point, however, at which most participants were using the online document for their major editing. One or two did some editing of the online document, but most preferred the classic method of sending me comments or attachments by e-mail.

My being the group-write hub was convenient in some ways because I was able to work on the overall document bit by bit and integrate the various parts. In the end, the final document reflected significant contributions from a large number of people, each with a different style/format of writing, but the text ended up being coherent.

I think it is interesting that the online document/collaborative writing method wasn't particularly useful (or, at least, was not well used) for this project, and I still don't really know why my colleagues weren't comfortable editing the online document. I'm not sure what it would take to make an effort this like work well: different people, different project, different organization, different organizer?

I don't know all the participants of this particular project well enough to have any insight into their personal relationship with writing. It's possible that the online collaborative writing didn't work in part because of the organizational structure of the group. Although each group was semi-autonomous and had control over the content of its contribution to the final document, the organization had a specific 'director' (me) who was responsible for making the document coherent.

Perhaps the explanation for the lack of interest in editing the online document is the simple fact that it was easiest for everyone to send things to me, knowing that I would put all the pieces together.

Someday I would like to work on a truly interactive collaborative document. Perhaps the project would need to be shorter and simpler than the one I most recently worked on, so that each time a contributor accessed the document, it wasn't a monstrous task to digest all the recent edits and start in with new ones. And perhaps the project would have to involve an organizational structure in which everyone had an approximately equal role and responsibility for the final product (and/or no alternative but to work on the online document).

Soul Nebula

Soul Nebula (4/2/10)

This WISE mosaic is of the Soul Nebula (a.k.a. the Embryo Nebula, IC 1848, or W5). It is an open cluster of stars surrounded by a cloud of dust and gas over 150 light-years across and located about 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, near the Heart Nebula (partially seen in the WISE image of Maffei 1 & 2).

The cluster of stars, IC 1848, formed about a million years ago from the material of the nebula. Winds and ultraviolet light from these young stars are excavating a cavity in the cloud. Parts of the cloud that are more dense than their surroundings are being eroded more slowly and form giant towers, or pillars of dust and gas, which all point toward the central star cluster. It’s reminiscent of the landscape of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Material at the interior edges of the cavity is also being compressed by the winds and radiation from the star cluster. This triggers new star formation in those areas. The pillars inside the Soul Nebula are each about 10 light-years tall and have stars forming at their tips.

Soul Nebula – click for 800×418 image

It's Not About You

At a conference earlier this year, I went to some talks on a research topic that is only sort of related to what I do. That is, I am not directly involved in any of the research presented, nor are any of my close colleagues, but I'm moderately interested in research in this field and I wanted to see what was new and interesting.

The strongest impression that I took away from the talks was not about any new or interesting results, but about how the research was presented. The research topic is one that involves many different research groups from all over the world. These groups, some of which do not have very collegial relationships with each other, have been working on this research topic for a long time. There is a long long history of research and debate on this topic.

At the conference, the talks I attended were dominated by the history of the research groups: who did what when, who said what when, who was right, who was wrong (in the opinion of the speaker), and who was redoing the flawed work of others using a new and better approach.

This made me think. Certainly we should not ignore the relevant work of others when talking about a particular topic, but there's a difference between presenting research as if it is motivated by the personalities involved (who is right/wrong) and presenting research that is driven by fundamental questions and new ideas about how to make progress understanding them. The former seems more appropriate for a review of the history of a particular scientific endeavor, and the latter for a conference presentation on new research results.

If you think it is important to place your work in its historical context (relative to other research on that topic) and/or if you really want to distinguish your own work from those of others and/or settle scores, you may well be able to do this in a more effective way if you focus on the questions, ideas, and results, giving due credit (or criticism) in a way that does not dominate the substance of the presentation.

Of course, if your presentation is titled "I Am Right and Everyone Else is Wrong About Z", then go ahead and make it personal. You could even (as was done in a recent talk) include photos of the people who (unlike you) got it wrong. Maybe, if you are feeling like being very dramatic, you could have a big red X appear across the faces of those who (unlike you) have stumbled in their research endeavors.

I am certainly not implying that research is the work of faceless, nameless people whose identities are inconsequential to the progress of Science. If, however, you only have 10-20 minutes to present the latest results of your exciting work to a general audience that consists mostly of people who are not personally invested in the research itself, I bet many in the audience will want to hear your recent results and ideas and not see a presentation dominated by a graphic display of intra-research group animosity and/or boasting.

Or am I being boring and cranky/middle-aged, somehow not appreciating that research is a Sport and conferences are tournaments of some sort?

Where the action is in black hole jets

The object known simply as 3C 279 is rather distinctive for several reasons, in spite of the rather unassuming name. For one thing it's an active galaxy – that is, it has a supermassive black hole at its center, and that black hole is sucking in surrounding matter at a rate high enough to generate as much energy as all stars the in the galaxy where it resides combined. Only about 1% of visible galaxies are active galaxies like 3C 279.

But that's not all. 3C 279 is also a radio galaxy, a subset of only about 10% of active galaxies that also feature strong radio-frequency emissions. Such strong emissions are generally thought to be produced by a violent outflow of matter from the vicinity of the black hole in the form of narrow jets. The flow is so violent that matter in the jets reaches velocities close to the velocity of light.

And if that's not enough, one of the jets of 3C 279 is pointed almost straight at us. Only a few percent of active radio galaxies are oriented that way, by chance. Because we're looking essentially straight into the most active part of the object, with basically no dust or gas to obscure the view, 3C 279 appears especially luminous – the term for such an object is "blazar".

Although its jet is aimed right at us, there's nothing to be particularly concerned about, since 3C 279 has a redshift of z=0.536, which means it's actually about 6.5 billion light years away.

3C 279

I just wrote at some length about active galaxies, here, in some detail, so you might like to review that if you need to refresh your memory on many basics of the subject. There may be some aspects of the present discussion that will make more sense in light of that.

Even though 3C 279 came to the attention of astronomers over 40 years ago, because of its unusual apparent brightness and radio emissions, it is not an especially powerful active galaxy, as those things go. The central black hole is estimated to have a mass around 6×10⁸ M_⊙, somewhat short of 10⁹ M_⊙ that is typical of the largest quasars.

The peak velocity of matter in the jet of 3C 279 has been inferred to be about 99.8% of the speed of light, which is "relativistic" by anyone's definition. In other words, this velocity is v=0.998c. It's customary to express this velocity as β = v/c = 0.998. The inference is based on apparent (but not real) "superluminal" (faster than light) motion of jet-related material. This is a common phenomenon seen in active galaxy jets that are nearly parallel to our line of sight. A related quantity, the Lorentz factor, is defined as γ = (1-β²)^-1/2, so in this case γ ≈ 16. That'll play a role in an important calculation later.

Since astronomers have been interested in 3C 279 for over 40 years, it's been studied a lot, although that's been difficult, because of its rather large distance. Radio galaxies like this produce electromagnetic emissions all the way from radio frequencies on up to gamma rays – spanning 11 or 12 orders of magnitude in photon energy, from under .001 eV to over 100 Mev. Many of those frequency ranges can be observed only from instruments in space, so until recently it hasn't been possible to observe a single object continuously for long periods of time in many bands. This has now been done for the blazar 3C 279 – and perhaps by chance something rather interesting showed up, which could only have been observed in an active galaxy whose jet is nearly parallel to our line of sight.

A change in the optical polarization associated with a γ-ray flare in the blazar 3C 279

It is widely accepted that strong and variable radiation detected over all accessible energy bands in a number of active galaxies arises from a relativistic, Doppler-boosted jet pointing close to our line of sight. The size of the emitting zone and the location of this region relative to the central supermassive black hole are, however, poorly known, with estimates ranging from light-hours to a light-year or more. Here we report the coincidence of a gamma (γ)-ray flare with a dramatic change of optical polarization angle. This provides evidence for co-spatiality of optical and γ-ray emission regions and indicates a highly ordered jet magnetic field. The results also require a non-axisymmetric structure of the emission zone, implying a curved trajectory for the emitting material within the jet, with the dissipation region located at a considerable distance from the black hole, at about 10⁵ gravitational radii.

The main thing that this paper reports is an "event", evidently some sort of disturbance affecting the jet, manifested in the spectrum of 3C 329. The event was most pronounced in the γ-ray part of the spectrum, which – in this object – is the dominant and also the most variable part. The γ-ray flux of 3C 279 can vary over an order of magnitude, and at one point – the beginning of the event – the flux increased rapidly from an already elevated level to its maximum value, then dropped a little more slowly, over a span of 20 days, to its minimum.

Other parts of the spectrum were also affected, but not so dramatically. Flux in ultraviolet, optical, and near infrared bands also decreased from somewhat elevated levels during the same 20 days, though there was no spike up at the start. There was, however, little change in the X-ray and radio bands during this period.

There was one additional dramatic change in the same period. The percentage of polarization in optical emissions (blue) dropped from 30-40% down to 10% before recovering at the end of the period. And at the same time, the direction of polarization changed smoothly over the 20 days by about 180°.

Since our line of sight is nearly parallel (to within about 2°) to the jet, it is difficult to distinguish where in 3C 279 different emissions originate. Strong γ-ray emissions are typically associated with jets (when present), but a key question that the paper examines concerns what part of the jet the dramatic changes in γ-ray flux could have been associated with. Was it relatively close to the black hole, or much farther out?

It's not too surprising that there was little change in X-ray flux, since that's normally associated in active galaxies with the "corona", which is symmetrically distributed in a region with a radius of a few hundred light years around the black hole. Radio emissions, however, do generally originate from the jets, but often from "lobes" at very large distances from the center. In this case it would seem that the source of radio emissions had little to do with the "event".

On the other hand, since distinct changes in ultraviolet, optical, and infrared flux – as well as the dramatic change in polarization – occurred at exactly the same time as the γ-ray "event", it's natural to suppose that whatever caused the disturbance affected a part of the jet where these emissions originated.

So what can be said about the size and (perhaps) location of the disturbance? The key fact is that the event was observed to last 20 days. However, since we're dealing with matter moving at a relativistic velocity, it doesn't at all follow that the disturbance affected only a portion of the jet about 20 light days in extent. It's not hard to calculate the "actual" size of the disturbance, but it does take a little work.

Suppose we let r₀ be the distance along the jet from the central black hole at which the disturbance began, and r₁ be the distance at which the state of the jet has returned to "normal". Then r₁ >r₀. The distance d = r₁ - r₀ is what we want to compute. If v is the average velocity of matter in the jet when the event occurred, then we have already noted v = 0.998c, so that β =v/c = 0.998.

Note that d is the distance in our reference frame. The time (in our frame) it takes light to travel that distance is d/c. If we assume that the matter within the jet that's subject to the disturbance is moving with velocity v, then the time it takes the leading edge of that matter to go the same distance is d/v. Since c > v, d/v > d/c, so by the time the leading edge reaches r₁ it is lagging behind the corresponding photons by a time interval Δt = d/v-d/c > 0. Since we're aiming only for an approximation, assume for simplicity that the spatial extent of the disturbance (from leading to trailing edge) is small compared to d. Then the photons from the time the disturbance began at r₀ will reach us by the same interval Δt ahead of the photons from the time the disturbance ended, when the affected matter was at r₁.

So the data we have to work with are just β and the observed elapsed time between the start and end of the event: Δt ≈ 20 days. We'll get an expression for d in terms of Δt.

We have Δt = d/v-d/c = (d/c)(c-v)/v = (d/c)(1-β)/β. Multiplying that by (1+β)/(1+β) gives Δt = (d/c)(1-β²)/[β(1+β)]. Using 1-β² = 1/γ² and solving for d gives d = γ²cΔtβ(1+β). But in this example, β≈1, so d ≈ 2γ²cΔt.

Plugging in actual numbers, Δt≈1.7×10⁶ seconds, c≈3×10⁸ m/sec, and γ²≈256 gives d≈2.6×10¹⁷ m. A light year is about 9.5×10¹⁵ m, so d is about 27 light years. That's quite an extensive part of 3C 279's jet that is affected by the disturbance.

Another way to appreciate the size of that number is to compare it to the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole, r_s=2GM_BH/c². M_BH is roughly 6×10⁸ M_⊙, so with G=6.67×10^-11 m³ kg^-1 sec^-2 and M_⊙=1.99×10³⁰ kg, we find r_s≈1.8×10¹² m. Thus the size of the disturbance is more than 100 thousand times the black hole's Schwarzschild radius – 5 orders of magnitude.

So, now that we have some idea of the impressive extent of this "disturbance", is it possible to draw any conclusions about what caused it?

To begin with, keep in mind that we have assumed the matter that is disturbed is propagating along the jet with velocity v=0.998c. That assumption is the reason the estimate of d is so large, because of the factor γ². If v≪c, then β≈0 and γ≈1, so that d ≈ cΔt ≈ 5×10¹⁴ m – about a factor of 500 smaller. In this latter case the disturbance affects the jet only in a small zone at a distance of r₀ from the black hole, and the matter "flows through" this zone without much long-lasting effect. This could happen, for example, if there is a narrow knot in the magnetic fields that keep the jet constricted.

The evidence that this latter possibility is not in fact what's happening is that the polarization of light turns around by 180° in almost perfect synchrony with the event in which γ-ray flux has a large bump. This implies that there's a large-scale bend in the jet at that point, so that the direction of the jet crosses over our line of sight. This apparent change of direction persists far longer than the event itself.

Of course, that hypothesis still doesn't explain either the γ-ray flare or the change of direction itself. It is possible, for instance, that the jet encounters, at an oblique angle, some large concentration of matter that deflects the jet. Perhaps the jet passes very close to another black hole. We simply don't know.

There was no guarantee that we could quickly learn how to explain all the behavior of black hole jets with ease – so the observational effort must continue, with increasingly sensitive equipment and larger data sets.

ResearchBlogging.org

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Further reading:

Extreme Jets Take New Shape (2/17/10)

Fermi pins down a colossal accelerator (2/18/10)

Astrophysics: Cosmic jet engines (2/18/10)

Related articles:

Active galaxies and supermassive black hole jets (4/25/10)

Winds of Change: How Black Holes May Shape Galaxies (4/19/10)

Galactic black holes may be more massive than thought (6/8/09)

Black hole outflows from Centaurus A (2/6/09)

Evidence that quasars are powered by black holes (10/21/06)

The wind from a black hole (7/8/06)

On Record, continued

If you know well in advance that your conference/workshop/seminar talk will be recorded and distributed widely, does this influence the content of your talk?

For example:

Would you be more likely to present old (published) work than the latest (unpublished) results and ideas?

Would you work harder to ensure that any images you project are either entirely of your own construction or, if borrowed from another source, properly credited?
Would you spin your talk in a different way, in recognition of a possibly wider audience beyond those present during the initial recording?
Would you do anything different about your dress, mannerisms, voice, piercings etc. knowing that you are being recorded vs. just speaking to those you can see sitting rapt in their seats in front of you?

Before a recorded talk, I would have to think long and hard about the first issue: i.e., how much new stuff to present. I am not a raging paranoiac about having my research ideas "stolen", although thefts certainly do occur, but I'm not sure I'd want to lose control of some of my newest work by having a presentation of this work flung about on the internet. I think I might tend to leave out some of the crazier ideas that can be fun to explore in a talk, thereby making my talks a bit more conservative.

Maybe that makes for a better, more focused talk. Maybe that makes for a more boring talk. I don't know, but although recording and distributing talks has many positive consequences, recording a talk and making it available for a wider audience is not a neutral activity and would certainly have some impact on talk content and perhaps also style.

Professors With Boundaries

Of course I have heard (a lot) about that wondrous website, ratemyprofessors.com, but I have not been tempted to examine its contents. I think I looked at it briefly about 10 years ago when it first came into existence, but I didn't find it particularly interesting or illuminating, and did not return.

I looked at it recently, however, because I was semi-horrified to see a link appear on Facebook to the ratemyprofessors.com page of one of my colleague-friends. A student who is a "friend" of my colleague-friend had posted the link so that it showed up in the FB feeds of all the colleague-friend's friends. The student had done this to show his professor-friend how great the ratings were for a recent class my colleague taught, so the link was posted out of admiration and affection.

Even so, would I want a link to my evaluations on ratemyprofessors to appear on FB? Unlike my colleague-friend, I no longer friend (on FB) my undergraduate students, so this is unlikely to happen to me, but still I wondered: Would I want my (real) friends to see my teaching evaluations? Of course anyone can look these up at anytime, but I doubt most people would, unless a handy link appeared in their FB feed one day.

So I looked. My evaluations are quite nice; I need not lie awake at night in fear that a link will be posted on Facebook. The only surprise was how few there are, despite the large number of students I have taught in recent years. From the frequency with which ratemyprofessors.com is mentioned in articles and conversation, I thought that there would be more evaluations for someone who has taught as many students as I have.

I'm not sure what this means, but I have an unoriginal hypothesis, developed when I looked at the ratings for a colleague who had recently lamented the sorry state of his ratemyprofessor evaluations.

This colleague is an excellent teacher. The last time he taught a big intro class, the students clapped at the end of his last lecture. He got very positive (official) teaching evaluations. Nearly 100% of the students would take a class from him again. Students who hadn't expected to like the course instead found it interesting. The students loved him and were very happy with the class. Not one of them went to ratemyprofessors.com and wrote about this.

A few years ago, however, this same colleague was asked to team-teach the same course with a younger professor who was struggling with teaching. The course had some rough spots related to the times when the struggling professor was teaching, but my colleague worked hard to keep the course on track and to make it interesting (in terms of content) and fair (in terms of grades). The course was not a disaster, but it was not great. Quite a few students were inspired to go to ratemyprofessors.com and rant in a rather hostile way.

I can understand that students in this course may have had some difficulty separating the teaching abilities of the two different professors. To the students, it was one course, and they blamed both professors for the disorganization of one.

What is too bad is that the students in the later, excellent course were not similarly inspired to broadcast their happiness with their professor's outstanding teaching. If you only look at the evaluations for this professor on ratemyprofessors.com, you would not be tempted to take a course with this professor. That would be too bad, because he is an excellent teacher.

Of course, some professors do get rave reviews on ratemyprofessors.com. I was reading recently about the instructors who have the top ratings on this site, so there are some students somewhere who are sufficiently inspired by the excellence of their teachers to provide positive ratings.

At some universities, websites such as this may be the only way that students can get information (however flawed) about a particular professor. At other universities, the official teaching evaluations are available to students. I wonder if there is a difference in ratemyprofessors.com participation at different universities as a function of whether official teaching evaluations are available or not.

There are pros and cons of having official teaching evaluations made available to students, but at least these evaluations are a bit more comprehensive in terms of who participates. Or at least they used to be, back when evaluations were mostly done on paper in class, thereby capturing all those who weren't skipping class on the day of the evaluations. Now that many evaluations are done online, participation levels have dropped. Now that students can do evaluations anytime, anywhere, many don't.

The fear is that only those students who are unhappy -- perhaps the same ones who would be inspired to go to ratemyprofessors.com to share their complaints -- will now dominate the official (online) evaluations.

I personally have not experienced a downturn in evaluations, in part because I make a concerted effort to get students to do the online evaluations. I repeatedly remind the students (in class and by e-mail) about the evaluations, I request specific information in the evaluations, I explain why the evaluations are useful, and I share the %completion number with the class, showing the number increasing day by day. I typically end up with 80-100% participation, depending on class size (100% for small classes, closer to 80% for larger classes).

With these numbers, I can get a reasonably balanced view of how a course went, to the extent that one can get that sort of information from teaching evaluations.

It seems that we are all supposed to want to share everything about our lives with all our friends, but I guess I'm not quite on board with that yet. I am happy to share all sorts of information with my friends, but, however (mostly) positive my teaching evaluations are, I'd still rather not see a link to them appear one day on Facebook, wedged in between one friend's many graphic veterinary woes (TMI for dogs) and another's daily note to Jesus.

My evaluations might make more interesting reading for my friends than how I felt about my flight delays this spring owing to Icelandic volcanic ash (there are worse reasons for flight delays) or whether I liked the most recent books I read (The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif Batuman, and yes, in fact, I loved it; also The Ask, by Sam Lipsyte.. both excellent books), but, if I have a choice in this particular case (and I may not), I'd still rather not share this aspect of my professional life with anyone other than my department chair and a few hundred students.

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