Whelp. Grant submitted. Probably, a modest waste of time, since the earlier edition was recommended for funding** (if funds are available). But I couldn't risk not going in this round. Finger's crossed that this one is good enough to be recommended for funding immediately with no budget cut.
Because seriously, I can't see continuing this project on the same >50K less than modular that I've had the last two grants.
"When applying a risk assessment framework to universities, research is an activity that is inherently high risk, since we are working to create something that is not yet known."
I've had a pair of students who've taken every class I've offered all year and started out really struggling. Like, a lot. Like, getting Cs and Ds in their writing assignments. But they worked super hard, came to office hours, showed me lots of drafts, and their MA dissertation proposals are super good! Well-structured, well-written, showing evidence of really strong learning in both writing and technical experimental design skills. Proper A level work. I'm so proud!
For my upper division classes, there is a research project due at the end of the term. 3 weeks before they have a literature review due so I can make sure the students are going generally in the right direction. For the literature review, they have to list their sources (some peer-reviewed) and describe how they will use said sources. I green light the sources. The new thing is not to use those sources I approved but some crap sources. 🤦♂️ What gives?! #academia#academicchatter
All my students now were born after 9/11. I tell them I’m a being from another century. And I often feel that in my bones. I look around and am baffled by the world we have built. #academia#academicchatter
1 hour after submitting grades, LMS notification of student message. Bracing for grade complaint, procrastinated opening app and spent intervening day grumbling about youth of today. Buckled down + opened messages, to discover that student wrote to say what she loved about the course and learnt from fellow students. Friends, I am crying. #AcademicChatter
It's a very odd feeling, having played a role in Web 1, 2, & 3, to be mentoring students who only know of those moments via third-party scholarship.
Much of that scholarship is very good. But it's all coalesced around received wisdom & fixed narratives, and those tend to leave out a lot of important details.
I'm always torn about whether and how much to use my own memory/experience of the events to add nuance, or to just let the official story be the official story.
“Sorry, I couldn’t do the reviews nor submit that abstract. We had to hack a replacement for shitty #Sonos app for there’s no way we can do any scholarly work without appropriate music and nap timers”
Hey, has anyone here had experience examining a PhD thesis “by publication”? I’m doing an admin task around revisions to a thesis (in Australia we don’t have a thesis defence), and the student/supervisor team have dismissed any comments on chapters which were already published (there were many comments from 3 examiners). Is this common practice? #academicchatter#phd
Work: We really value grad student opinions in our new director search. Would you like to serve on the director search committee? It'll be about 60 hours of work during the fall semester.
Me: Cool. Is there funding to cover the students' time?
Work: ....
Work: This is a service position
In a donor list to an early 17thc convent, all the men (so far, only men!) are named & their titles given, & then the thing that they paid for is listed. One didn't just give money to the project; donors want their name on this window, that door, this meaningful space within the edifice.
And in my monastic chronicle, men evidently pay for things, while women pay more often for prayers and services. (This is ca. 1606-7)
Not entirely, of course: one of the women pays for a window, and two others for specific door-latches. ("I scrimped and saved and paid for this lock and key, look at me!")
Also, you could be a servant and still help fund the monastery.
#academic#academicchatter
Do you also have colleagues who, when meeting external visitors, tell that "the real research" is done in their institute, and not in the neighbouring one (which happens to be yours)?
Or are you luckier, and your colleague are less pathetic and less affected by egomaniac problems...?
I wonder if it is even ethical to enlist affiliation to the university if my funding comes directly from a funding institute, I'm buying and using my own hardware and software (down to the HDMI cable and mouse), and the data is also coming directly from another organization. The coffee and food is also off my own pocket.
The only things they provide are electricity (computer, coffee), water (coffee), and internet.
"Details about oil majors contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to top universities to build relationships that could help the industry avoid taking climate action were inside thousands of pages of documents unveiled Tuesday by Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability and the Senate Budget committees.
Of the files released Tuesday, many show the extraordinary lengths energy giants have gone to in order to maintain public support for the oil industry — a major employer that’s also one of the nation’s top corporate climate polluters.
Companies have acknowledged, then flat-out ignored, stark warnings about the fate of the planet in relation to their activities."
If you, or journals you work with, are publishing in multiple languages in #OpenJournalSystems (OJS), or are interested in learning more, we hope you can join us!