Be it resolved

I don't actually believe in New Year's Resolutions.  In a life focused on constant learning and teaching I figure we are always picking up new or improved ideas and methods and setting aside outdated and failed activities.  But, a little introspection could not hurt.

Research:
I was talking to one of my former students about their PhD work recently.  My alum indicated that their PhD mentor has a file of papers written that only lack the empirical data to make them publications.  While it makes me a bit uncomfortable to challenge the lab spirits in such a way, I see some value in this for my undergraduate and masters students and to my publication and granting record.  The research experience for my students could become more focused, and hopefully more productive.

Teaching:
I noticed this semester that my students don't know how to answer a question that requires justification.  Ask a student to pick between route A and route B and justify their choice and you get a mechanism for one route only.  As a class they don't understand how to support their answers.  I see this as a key skill for scientists, so I am going to spend some time on how to answer a question at the beginning of the semester and in our programs to help recruit and retain students in the sciences.

Service:
In bad economic times the service level of faculty increase more and more every day.  It's hard to say no to the needs of students and the university, but at some point you are spinning too many plates and all you are doing to running from plate to plate to keep them all spinning.  You need to determine which plates to let go of, finish the jobs that can be accomplished and not pick up new ones until your resources will allow you to.

If you don't have hope for the future academe is not the place for you.  The entire enterprise is about taking potential and making it into reality.

So, as we close out 2009, I wish all of you a better 2010 full of challenges and rewards.

T.S. Hall

One Last Rant for 2009

This the season of the year end review.  From the local paper to C&E News we are all taking a long look at our successes and failures in 2009, with an eye on 2010.  In academe it seems that this process in ongoing and unceasing.  We review our courses each semester/quarter, our research students and programs each quarter/semester and at the end of the summer.

In academics the 2009 calendar year was one were funding was front and center.  Actually, in higher education funding is always near the top issues every year.  The global financial crisis pushed the fiscal situation of universities to the breaking point.  Even at RO1 institutions money has become the major issue of concern.

I have always believed that when crisis comes we learn what really matters.  This year has shown the disconnect between the cost of a diploma and the cost of an education.  To the public, education has become the fundamental right to the receipt of a diploma, which magically imbues the recipient with career skills.  Our political leaders proclaim that everyone should be able to get a post-secondary degree and demand that institutions of higher education improve retention and degree completion without any connection to providing resources or ensuring educational quality.  Their theory appears to be that an educated populace is one where everyone has a diploma.  It then follows that all these diploma carrying voters will attract business into communities and create new businesses, filling the state house with tax money.  As in so many things in our society today, we no longer understand the difference between perception and reality. Indeed for most people perception is reality.

What of 2010 you ask?

Well, in 2010 the states will realize that since perception is reality the solution to the state's economic problem is to speed up reducing the cost of education to zero and still provide everyone with a diploma.  Starting in 2010, diplomas from public universities will be laminated onto the back of all drivers licenses.  Renew your license, get a degree.  High school diplomas will be printed on the back of all birth certificates.  With 100% college degree attainment the state will become the land of milk and honey (Our new motto in 2011).

T.S. Hall

P.S. You just got to clear this kind of stuff out of your head before the new year.

Race to the Bottom

Before I begin, I warn readers that this post is going to make some people see red.  I ask before you vent you spleen that you only do so if you are proposing an alternative that ensures that education is delivered with those grades and diplomas.

The Higher Education Commission of Indiana has recommended cutting funding to state colleges and universities at least partially based on what is euphemistically call "performance based funding."  By "performance" they mean retention and completion rates, not skill mastery, employability, etc.  Yes, you assume that retention and completion are welded to skill mastery and employability, but they are not in a academic community where student evaluations carry more weight than performance on standardized examinations.

The message of these types of actions, however well meaning, is that faculty challenge students at their own peril.  Students who face no real challenge to their intellect will be retained, give excellent course evaluations, and complete degrees.  Faculty will get tenure, schools will get money.  Well, at least until the realization hits that degree holders incapable of delivering goods or services that support the economy also don't fill state tax coffers.

I think the point of public education is to ensure that there is an educated populace capable of maintaining, and building an viable commonwealth by investing in the population of the state.  To succeed, education at all levels must challenge and measure.  Some will disappointed.  Some will fall behind and even fail.  If institutions of education can't be free to challenge and measure worthless diplomas will be awarded.  An unskilled populace incapable of meeting challenge will be reduced to the dole to live.

Surely, we must find ways to balance our state budgets, but printing diplomas on the back of birth certificates instead of funding education that educates only gets you a population with a high percentage of degree holders.

T.S. Hall

Public vs Private

From time-to-time I try to focus here on the differences between RO1 and PUI/MCU programs.  Today the NY Daily News brings us a story about the difference between public and private universities.  

It seems that the former NYU chemistry department budget coordinator had over a period of five years, submitted 13,000 receipts culled from the garbage of a local liquor store to support requests for petty cash.  The university forked over $409,000 to cover these bogus expenses until a student delivering the expense report paperwork questioned the deal.  Those of us at publics shake our heads as we stand in line at the local staple depot buying our own whiteboard pens out of our 10% lower paychecks so we can teach class.  

Public colleges and universities are so afraid of one penny being misspent that they spend large sums of money to make sure fraud does not occur.  I am sure some still does occur, but having no state funded department operating budget and needing all the dollars we can get in donations just to pay to operate the program keeps the amounts available for fraud pretty low.  Hell, $409,000 would cover our entire department operating budget for something over five years.  And at NYU it's part of the petty cash budget.

Oh yea!  And publics generally won't even let you use donations for liquor.

T.S. Hall

Year-End Giving

As I have spending all my time grading quizzes and labs, and writing and grading finals I have been listening to the local public radio station and checking e-mail to break the grading up.  In the course of this I keep hearing and reading multiple appeals for year-end giving.

A recent seminar speaker colleague from a California public university told of his university's plan to take $100 per key from the department for every key not returned by a student when they graduate.  Since the department has no state provided operating budget this means that the money will come from money brought in from summer offerings, grant overhead, and donations to the department.  While I encourage giving to your alma mater, you probably don't expect it to go to gauging by the campus key shop.

Particularly for those of us from PUI/MCU institutions we owe much to our alma maters.  So how do we give and make sure our giving goes to help bring up the next generation of chemists?

I suggest giving directly to the department of your choice, or to the faculty member of your choice by attaching a letter to your check which designates the uses to which the money may go.

When I give to my alma mater I designate that the funds must go to the corpus of the Synthetic Organic Chemistry Research fund they set up some years ago.  Giving to the corpus builds the perpetual nature of the fund, so my dollars continue to give long after I am gone.

If there was no fund I would do as the Friends of the Hall Group do and designate that the funds may be used to support the purchase of materials needed to advance the laboratory research and teaching program of a specific professor or group of professors.  In my case I use these funds to cover outside analysis costs, purchase of reagents, travel by students to present their work, printing of posters, student scholarships, and other such things.

So, as you plan your year end giving you might consider support the work of your mentor, who has seen support from the university for his research program slashed over the last couple of years.

T.S. Hall

Sommatropic Examinations

No matter how long you teach new things happen.  

Today during my examination I noticed a student sleeping.  He was in the middle of the classroom where it was impossible to get near him without climbing over the bolted down rows of chairs and their occupants.  Concerned for his grade I made a largely unnecessary announcement to wake him.  A few minutes later he was off to dreamland again.  After my third announcement I gave up and let him sleep.

Any other odd exam behavior stories out there?

T.S. Hall

No Gripe Wednesday!?

I suspect that Rep. Emanuel Cleaves of Arizona has had his fill of Sarcastic Wednesdays. He is trying to get a bill into congress to create Complaint-Free Wednesdays. Well in the spirit of Thanksgiving maybe I should take note of a few things I am thankful for this semester.

1) There are a few really good students in my classes, but more importantly there are a bunch of average students who are hanging in there and striving to become more than average.

2) Sure research is part of the institutional mission, but without outside funding I still need to buy reagents out of my own pocket. And just as I realized that bromine is a regulated substance that you can't purchase on a personal credit card an unexpected angle donated to the university a kilobuck for my research program. A great unforeseen gift with great timing.

3) While research can be a struggle I still love the puzzles of the lab and the technical work involved. Every once in a while I see something with the beauty that is found in the details and in everything falling into place in a nearly perfect or truly perfect way.

We live in interesting times. Sarcasm and griping may help us get through the day, but we must take the opportunity to fix our system ourselves, and be thankful for the opportunity.

Happy Thanksgiving

T.S. Hall

Cutting Edge Science and The Oldest Profession

OK Profies, the next time the grad students are complaining about their stipends you might remind them how lucky they are to not be in grad school in Britain.

In case you missed the news, the author of blog and memoirs that have become the cable TV show, "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" has come clean and identified herself as a PhD research scientist who worked her way through grad school with a night job.

Given the laughable salaries for MS graduate students at MCUs, I wonder if this explains why I can never find my research students when I go into the lab looking for them? And the fishnets hanging by the lab coats!?

T.S. Hall

Humility Aside

I have learned that my abstract submission for the Spring National ACS Meeting on San Fran has been accepted. I hope these last few experiments work out so I don't have to fill the time with the description of the great tragedy of Science.

"The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." -- Thomas Henry Huxley

Cost Savings

It's radical idea time in trying to fix Higher Education. Since I believe that we can't just bitch, we must offer solutions, here are a few that should get some dialogue going. These comments may only apply to California, but might be true in other states.

Radical Idea 1: Privatize remedial courses and use the money going to them now for college level courses.

All remedial courses would no longer be supported by state funds. The Taxpayers paid for the student to learn basic math, English, chemistry, etc when they covered the cost of the K-12 education. Students can still get these courses, but they must pay the non-student rate cost.

Radical Idea 2: Limit state support toward a student's education in all State supported institutions to 150 semester units attempted.

This number of units would allow the student to search around a bit and get a dual degree if it fits their career plan, but make the students take the opportunity they are being given seriously. I have seen students come from community colleges with 80-90 units of course work and then take another 100 or so at a four-year institution. Some CSU campuses have instituted rules in which they award degrees once they student is eligible regardless of if the student has requested, just so they can clear space for the next students.

Radical Idea 3: Any attempt at a course after the second is not supported by the State.

This connects to the two suggestions above.

I hope these at least get some of us talking.

T.S. Hall

Something for Nothing

From the Public Policy Institute of California we have a new study on Californian's views on higher education in the state.

Key conclusions are that Californians see budget cuts (70%) and overall affordability (58%) as major problems at the community colleges, CSU, and UC systems. At the same time, 68% oppose increasing student fees (called tuition in most places) and 56% oppose paying higher taxes to fund higher education. About half (52%) believe that a combination of better use of existing state funds and increased funding is the answer to the problems of higher education. Thirty eight percent say just using existing funding more wisely is best.

I find this last idea somewhat humorous in that with a 50% reduction in state support for the CSU over the last 3 years people actually think there might be fat left to cut. California's major problem is that the taxpayers demand services with no costs and the politicians are too busy being ideologues to actually bother with the practical mater of governing. But I doubt it is that much different in other states.

T.S. Hall

Tomorrow's Steep Decline Part III

So, what do PUI and MCU folks do in the face of the decline in majors I have suggested will come?

In my opinion chemistry and biochemistry departments have historically been focused largely on two groups of people. They are would be professional chemists and biochemists and would be health professionals. Others are relegated to general education science courses that often don't really teach much chemistry or biochemistry, or science. As a consequence we make ourselves an elite and separate community who spends much time decrying the scientific illiteracy of the general population and trying to entice people into the STEM pipeline so they will become professional chemists and biochemists. There is not much middle ground in our programs.

There are many students who have a level of science interest and ability that is strong but not sufficient to make a career as a chemists, biochemist or health professional. Our departments lose these students to other majors every semester. But should we? There are many allied careers where a background in chemistry or biochemistry would be of value. In my opinion we should offer the degree options that would give the "lost" students the opportunity to channel their science interest into an allied science career. Doing so would retain students in our departments and would make for a more scientifically literate society. Greater science literacy could lead to greater interest in the "pure" STEM fields, solving our pipeline problem.

If I were in a leadership position in a department, we would institute BA degree options that provide a minor or double major in areas like business, regulatory affairs, pre-law, science communication, public policy, etc. Having a variety of options that serve the students and needs of employers would make us less subject to the vagaries of public interest (which TV shows are popular) and high school guidance counselors. There are already some models out there in schools with Chemistry Business and other allied options. Important in this effort will be ensuring that these degree options are treated as equal to the traditional options and receive the same level of recruitment activity.

The time to start such initiative is now, before the decline begins.

T.S. Hall

Tomorrow's Steep Decline in Majors, Part II

Felix posted a comment on the original post suggesting that I update it in light of a recently published study by researchers at Rutgers and Georgetown. Derek at In the Pipeline has already touched on the issue twice . Given how far behind I am in reading, I thank Felix for his prompt.

The Rutgers/Georgetown study "Steady as She Goes? Three Generations of Students Through the Science and Engineering Pipeline" was released last Wednesday. I have not read all the details yet, but the gist of the report is that over the past 30 years the supply of STEM graduates has remained about the same rather than shrinking as most people believe. One of the points of concern raised in the article is that, since the late 90's the best students in the pipeline are opting out of the STEM fields in greater numbers. The authors suggest that the most talented STEM graduates are being lured away from STEM careers by better pay and benefits in other fields. The suggestion is that we need less, rather than more, STEM graduates to drive up the wages of STEM professionals so that youngsters will be attracted to STEM fields and will then save America from its decline as a leader in the world.

In my original post, I put forward my concern that we chemistry faculty must prepare for a sharp decline in majors in the near future as the guidance counselors of the nation come to the realization that ten years of pushing students into pharmacy has filled the pipeline. I wrote this realizing that even as our numbers of majors have doubled over the last decade, about half the chemistry and biochemistry majors in my department list pharmacy as their career goal. Suggesting that we need less STEM graduates will only make matters worse for chemistry departments if the guidance counselors read the report summary and opt to chase students from STEM careers.

There is much in the study to comment on, but I will focus on two things that immediately concern me. As others have noted, this study covers all of STEM and such a broad brush does not really paint the kind of nuance that would provide a clear picture of the future. Also, the economic theory behind the study makes no sense to me. It appears to me that the researchers are using an outdated economic model where countries are isolated and labor and services from other countries have little or no effect on wages and demand for trained professionals in this country. Outsourcing and Insourcing have contributed greatly to the pay and job prospects of graduates in this country. Producing less graduates will not raise wages. It will raise outsourcing and insourcing, in my opinion.

What should we PUI and MCU academics do? More on that later, as I just got a long awaited good lab result and I can't type while doing my happy dance.

T.S. Hall

Oh GATTACA

(A Late Sarcastic Wednesday)

As I navigated the highways on my way to work this morning I heard a story on the radio about the "Bad Driver Gene". Apparently our colleagues at the University of California Irvine have identified a protein called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) which is secreted in the area of the brain associated with with a task at hand, like driving. According to this very limited study about thirty percent of Americans have a gene variant which they have associated with bad driving, due to limited secretion of BDNF.

According to the researcher, Dr. Steve Cramer of UCI,

"These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away."

Now, I will leave it to others to warn of the consequences of this discovery on insurance rates and to opine about banning certain people from behind the wheel for the sake of public safety. We in academia will need to get ahead of the curve on this one. People who make errors from the get-go and who forget more of what they learned after time away sit before us in every class. I see two potential directions this story could go for us.

Option one is that in the future Low BDNF will become a recognized learning disability. The consequences for faculty will be requirements to adjust curricula accordingly. With thirty percent of Americans suffering we will need to stop expecting students to know material which they have spent some time away from. No more prerequisite courses!

Option two is that we genetically pre-test potential students and limit public support for those, that owing to genetic predisposition, are less likely to succeed in education or careers that require BDNF.

On the plus side, Biochemists with friends in Education, there's a couple of grants in this. Let's correlate BDNF genetic mutation to major and alternately to grade received in courses or to graduation rate.

T.S. Hall

Whose fault is that?

I am going to try to avoid making this a rant.

I was talking to one of my colleagues, who also teaches at a public comprehensive university program, as so often happens we were discussing organic chemistry students. The experts in medical education are calling for us to move away from rote memorization and toward demonstration of competency. We were lamenting the problems that students have when required to go beyond memorization and show that they can think their way around or through a problem.

To underscore his point that memorization rules the land, my colleague indicated that one of his fellow organicers publicly stated that their B grade organic students were generally better scientists than their A grade students. This is because, lacking memorization skills, the B students must think their way though the course, but the A students just memorize.

Thus, the title of this epistle. If we value the ability to go beyond memorization the course grades should reflect this!

Whew! I better stop before the ranting escapes and my head explodes. What's that I hear? Tis the siren call of the Dalwhinnie.

T.S. Hall

P.S. The distillers of Dalwhinnie Single Malt Scotch in no way supported a plug for their product. (Although if a couple of bottles of 15 year double maturation found their way to my door I would provide them a good home.)

Lab Stabbing At UCLA

It has been a bad year at UCLA. First there was the tragedy if a death in an organic research lab due to a t-BuLi fire, which drew international attention, and then yesterday there was a stabbing in an organic teaching lab. The facts of the latter case are not yet clear, so I will reserve commentary on the case.

In the last few years I have had a handful of students whose behavior in lab made me wonder about their stability. We faculty walk a fine line when we encounter a student whose behavior is troubling. Is the student just a bit strange or is what we are seeing a warning sign of future danger.

In one case the student had gone off his medication. After he verbally attacked and threatened with physical harm one of my colleagues in a class and the university became involved in the case the parents expressed upset that we had not alerted them to the situation. Explaining to them that we were not able to violate the students rights by contacting them until something happened that we could use to justify an emergency contact did not help. Faculty get trapped between the rights of the student as an independent adult and our en loco parentis (in the place of the parents) responsibility.

In another case, the student's only came alive when explosions or fires were discussed and placed his folding knife on the lab bench at the start of every lab in spite of my telling him every meeting to put it away. He never turned in a lab report all semester and was very hard to engage in conversation. After the end of that semester he did not come back to school and I often wonder what happened to him.

Every time there is an incident on a college campus right after I say a prayer for the victims and the faculty who will wonder if they could or should have done something to avoid the event, I think "There but for the grace of God go I".

T.S. Hall

Unblocking Pubs

I have always been bad about publishing. Partially because I never feel I have enough to make the paper worth reading. Being at a PUI, I don't get asked to frequently to give talks on other campuses, so I toil away always feeling that I short of publishing by a semester's worth of results.

One of the requirements of being on sabbatical is that upon returning to my home campus I am required to report out to my colleagues on what I accomplished. With this in mind I am preparing a seminar.

Going into the writing process I was lamenting how unfinished the sabbatical work was and how I was not sure if there was enough to talk about. After I prepared the first forty slides by stream-of-thought without getting to the end of what I had done I realized that the seminar might approach three hours in length. It was not just a matter of being more concise. There is just too much to say. At this point I recognized that I have two or three talks depending on the point of focus taken.

Perhaps those of us who are research active but not research productive (in the sense of publications) should get out more. Lacking that, in spite of the flashbacks of ritual torture, departments wishing to advance their research profile might require that all research active faculty who have not published in the last year should file a Research Report. It might help us get unblocked on publications.

T.S. Hall

Tomorrow's steep decline in majors

In my current class of organic students I conducted a poll asking about their career plans. Interestingly 50% of the chemistry and biochemistry majors plan to go to pharmacy school. I have been watching the numbers of would-be pharmacy students over the last decade as high school guidance counselors have sold the career to every student who got a C or better in Algebra I, and their parents.

In my opinion, guidance counselors commonly come in late when there is a shortage and stay too long when the supply is filled. Ask any nurse about this. On the point of pharmacy, has anyone looked at the pharmacy pipeline? When the current crop of students graduate will there be jobs for them.

How much longer should we push large numbers of students into pharmacy? When the pharmacy career door shuts, in what I suspect is the not to distant future, the guidance counselors will discourage students from the career and the numbers of chemistry and biochemistry majors will nosedive. We will do what we always do and panic.

This is a normal market cycle, but we should be preparing for it, since in the current funding climate declining enrollment could also mean that shrinking C&B programs get closed.

T.S. Hall

The Scientist Sabbatical Advice, Part 2

Sorry for the long delays between posts. A month ago I started a post about an article from The Scientist on Sabbatical Advice. Since I need a break from grading I am back to finish what I started.

Tip: Think outside the box

Tip: Home improvement

All of this tips from the original article made me think about how the sabbatical I took made me think about the direction my research projects and career had taken before the sabbatical. I did a lot of reflecting on were I was in research over the months I was away from my home institution. As I wrote early on (The Hammer Problem) I realized that I had become a slave to the limitations of my institutional resources. If was limiting the experiments I was doing and my thinking about the problems I would pursue. Getting away got me out of the box I was in and helped me think outside the box. I have made contacts who can make available to me the resources I lacked. I returned to my home institution with new ideas and new directions to my research program. My discussions with my RO1 colleagues helped me reprioritize my time and monetary resources toward being more productive in publications and grants.

Tip: Absorb new approaches

Related to the above. I may be old, but I still got hands. On those techniques that I mastered in graduate school and used since I am as good or better than the youngsters working on PhDs or postdocs. But I do still do things in old fashioned ways. My young colleagues taught me much about modeling and advanced NMR and MS techniques that were not around when I was last at and RO1. Sure I had read about these things, but there is nothing like doing them to bring them home into your toolbox of approaches to problems.

Lastly, my own advice. The sabbatical is about renewal. In my case it was about renewal of my research program. To renew one must begin with reflection. I designed my sabbatical around building from the program I have to a stronger, more productive (papers and grants) program. I associated myself with successful people and their students who are also trying to become successful. I did lots of chemistry, but not day went by that I did not ask myself how I was going to bring back to my home institution a more productive program.

Time will tell how successful I have been.

T.S. Hall

Timing is everything

I got back from class this morning to find the daily e-mail from The Scientist including an article titled "Can Unresponsive Brains Learn".

Based on the level of class participation this morning, I guess we will find out on next week's exam.

Monkey See

The news wires are abuzz about the use of gene therapy to correct colorblindness in a monkey named Dalton. Yes, named after the famed chemist, who in addition to inventing the miners safety lamp, training Faraday, being the first to isolate a few alkali metals, writing books about his travels and fishing, also studied colorblindness. (And I can't teach, do research, do some service, and keep this blog up!)

Way back when I took quant my colorblindness was a challenge that cost me more than a few points on precision. The one titration I could do was Bromocresol green. A bear of a titration for most people since the endpoint is at the green point between yellow and blue colors. Not being able to see the green I could titrate from color to clear to color. Unfortunately my instructor suggested that no one could achieve the precision and accuracy I attained and failed me on the lab anyway. I pointed out my colorblindness advantage and offered to titrate a sample of her choosing any time she wanted to test me but she never took me up one the offer.

I wonder when the human gene therapy for colorblindness trials start.

T.S. Hall

College, it's all about the lifestyle

One morning on my way into the building I noticed a pile of those fluff mags that appear near the student newspaper box. I noticed that it contained an article on the twenty things a student wished they know before they went to college. Now I realize that I have strange views about higher education being about education, so in the interest of presenting more enlightened perspectives I will share some of my favorites from the article.

"Grades don't really matter. . . . College is more about finding yourself and learning about who you are and what you believe in than what you achieve on paper."

"You don't have to read everything. . . . generally professors have read the required book and just lecture on what you need to know from it. . . . if it's a class that has a general textbook, chances are you don't have to go in depth and you can just use it as a reference tool."

"Scheduling is important. . . . Factor in the best nights to go out and the best time you'll be to listen to hours of lectures the next day when building your schedule. Also, once you discover the beauty of not having class on Friday's, it'll change your life."

Most of the rest of the list provides sage advice on issues of drinking and sex.

For many students college is more a lifestyle choice than an educational experience. Hey that's what I want my tax dollars spent on!

T.S. Hall

What do you mean it's been 2.5 weeks?

Well, if you have not guessed the Fall Semester has started. I have neither posted or read any blogs in the last couple of weeks. Sorry! In spite of not reading others blogs I have accumulated a number of articles to discuss once I get my head above water, so hang in there dear reader.

T.S. Hall

New Scientist Sabbatical Advice, Part 1

I am a fan of reading the material on the margins of my chosen field of organic chemistry. So, I subscribe to The Scientist. (It's free) It is very biotech which teaches me some new stuff, but there is also interesting Pharma stuff too. In the August issue there is an column in the Careers section on sabbaticals. There are some useful tips for people planning sabbaticals. Since you have the link I won't quote it but I will add my two cents.

Tip: Don't forget your students

I could not agree more that students can languish when the cats away. I have come to know another sabbatical faculty member who scheduled weekly visits to his students so they would not drift while he was gone. Not only was this not effective, they did not bother to show up for the meetings, sending e-mail that they had nothing to report.

The tip in the article is to have a create a mini-group of colleague faculty members who would meet with your students. In some cases this could work well, but in smaller campuses with diverse faculty expertise this might be hard. I came to the realization that many laptop and some desktop computers have built in cameras that enable video conferencing. All my students have them. I was the only person in my group that needed to update. This allowed for scheduled meetings for face-to-face video conferences. I still have trouble with students reporting that they have nothing to report, but that have to show up to the video conference to do it.

Tip: Say no

First, never do a sabbatical on your home campus unless you want to try out administration careers. With no classes you will find yourself on every committee and pulled into every problem, since you have all that free time.

Second, be aware that the same technology that allows you to keep in touch with students allows your department to pull you into departmental grants and repair of instruments. You are on sabbatical, that's your job this semester/year. If the department needs you to work on other issues they should contract with you for the work. Nothing stops the calls for you to come fix the mass spec like telling the chair that your hourly is $75 door-to-door from your sabbatical location.

My on sabbatical colleague seams to be indispensable in his home department, yet is the lowest paid Professor in the department. His sabbatical would have been a good time for him to get his department to reconsider his value to the department.

This is my last sabbatical week, so I have to get back to the hood.

T.S. Hall

Furlough Friday

You would think that I would be posting more given that my campus was on furlough last week. But as I am trying to finish up my sabbatical I violated the rules and worked on Friday, albeit on another campus.

I Know! Some of you are now angry at me for demonstrating to the state that they can just cut my pay and I will accept it. Sorry, but if I am going to spend future furlough days working on my vitae and looking for another position I need some more publications.

The entire furlough foolishness as taken on an absurd quality that makes my head spin. The faculty have been told that if they go to campus and are caught working in their offices or labs on a furlough day they will be charged with trespassing on state property and will be escorted from campus. We have also been told that we may not check e-mail or voicemail on furlough days. I wonder if the university will just shut down the e-mail server and cut off the phone service. This seems more effective then making the Chairperson monitor the faculty. Plus, if the Chairperson is monitoring our accounts to make sure we are not checking e-mail are they not working on a furlough day?

The university has instructed us to not work on furlough days, but to assign work to the students to make up for the loss of class time. But don't I end up grading that work? I guess so long as I don't grade it on a furlough day it's OK with the university. I sure hope the lab students don't get busted in an unfortunate misunderstanding resulting from their performing organic synthesis in their kitchens on the furlough lab days.

Perhaps I should spend the next furlough day organizing a on-line job fair to bring together campuses outside California with California faculty who are ready to bring their expertise to other college and university systems. I am just saying, if I can't work at my job I have to find something useful to do.

TS Hall

Volume and/or Value

Recently I was listening to a discussion of the healthcare problems of the country when one of the speakers commented that some of the problem in the US is caused by a system that pays for volume of patients seen and not the value of the healthcare received. My immediate thought was, "Welcome to my world". I have always thought that the problems of healthcare and education are in some ways similar. In both cases we demand the latest and best technology but don't want to pay the cost of staying on the cutting edge.

I feel that value is really the name of the game when it comes to education. While politicians and administrators tend to push degrees conferred after four or six years, the real measure of an education is the intellectual and practical skills the graduate has acquired.

The challenge is that it is very difficult to measure true value in education or in healthcare on a quarterly basis business cycle. Do you pay the doctor based on the number and percentage of patients in good health on January 1, April 1, July 1, and September 1. Does the faculty member get paid a percentage of each former students income?

To really solve the problems of higher education we need to focus on the value generated in the activities. Value to the student and value to the society that provides the lions share of the resources invested in the activity.

A colleague from a nearby university told me today about one of his fellow faculty members who upon seeing his section size go from 75 to 150 students said that given the workload he saw no option but to lower the standards, give memorization based questions, and pass more students in order to get tenure. As a taxpayer and an educator who cares about education and the future of my student and my society I wanted to scream. This tenure-bound faculty member has checked the wind and recognized that it blows in the direction of volume and value be damned.

T.S. Hall

Summing Up, Part 2

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I have been trying desperately to finish up lab work before I need to return, like Cincinnatus to the farm.

Today I will as promised comment on the good parts of my sabbatical experience.

Working in the lab space of a long time friend and faculty member at an R01 research university has allowed me to work with graduate students and postdocs and on high end instruments that I do not have to upkeep and repair. It has also provided time to reflect on my career and on what I value. (On the topic of evaluating values, readers might check out this week's ACS Careers Blog post on Evaluating Your Values.)

I have not worked with PhD candidates or postdocs since I was one back in the dark ages. I had forgotten the excitement about the science these folks bring to a research program. Their spirit and youthful exuberance certainly made my own lab work more enjoyable. For my part, other than offering a careers worth of anecdotes of lab experience, I was able to give some perspective from a faculty members point of view and some hopefully helpful advice about building a career.

In the lab I have made some not insignificant discoveries about the chemistry I have pursued for several years. These unanticipated results provide the questions that will support a new research grant, which will hopefully be funded. The data for the papers is not yet complete, hence my low level of blogging. Even as I did not get to the chemistry I intended, the new direction has been challenging and intellectually rewarding. I have gained a new set of colleagues and intellectual resources. Between the folks on my sabbatical campus and these future faculty I should be able to find instrument resources when I need them.

One of my fears in returning to my home campus is my ability to maintain research momentum after this focused lab time. In this aspect, the opportunity for reflection a sabbatical provides has become a positive. My R01 colleague recently pointed out that I have become a research perfectionist in an unhealthy way. Not submitting small studies because there are still unanswered questions. Being in the type of program viewed as "the minor leagues" and "inferior" to "real" research programs can make us desperate to prove ourselves with a big and beautiful paper or grant. If we are so obsessed with proving ourselves, our research becomes desperate and more subject to the hindrances those of us at PUI and MCU programs must deal with. My friend points out that I have good science hidden in files of work I don't feel is complete. So as I return to my own lab I will be focused on good small science that periodically is tied together in a nice big picture full paper.

Lastly, for now, walking away from my campus has allowed me to recognize that there are some things that I don't want to go back to. I can't do everything and trying to dilutes my resources to the point of my not moving forward the things I value most. My research will take a higher priority and some of the service work will have to be shared with others. I have become a believer that those faculty who are inclined to service should be supported to provide that service to move the teaching and research components of the department forward.

TS Hall

Lab Karma

The San Jose Mercury News is carrying an article today about what has to be one of those stories that will become lab lore for a generation.  Far be it from me to not do my part to spread the story.

Apparently, a "laboratory assistant" at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in an effort to reverse her "bad karma", pulled $500,000 worth of protein crystal samples from cryogenic storage and deliberately left them out on a counter to thaw over the weekend, destroying the samples.  She even left a couple of smiley face containing notes.

Faced with some extended bad lab mojo I have resorted to discarding previously made starting materials and beginning again from scratch, but never anything that would be difficult to replace.  This actually worked for me a month or so ago after I wasted six weeks trying to get some material, made by one of my students, to work in my current chemistry.

I once got into a argument with my postdoc mentor over a project I had worked on for a year.  He was calling me to task over my inability to make the chemistry happen even though he was sure it would work.  I was the sixth person on the project which he had once described as "consuming" the first five.  As the comments about my future got more pointed I angrily observed that in science when a hypothesis "consumes" five people one must ask if the problem is the hypothesis or the people.  I walked out and went back to the lab and back to work.  After a month of being ignored I was summoned to my mentor's office and given a new project.  He noted that every other student would have disappeared after our previous meeting for at least a week, yet I was continuing to try new ideas.  To which I could only reply that Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, "I am a great believer in luck.  The harder I work, the more of it I have."  The new project was finished in short order and resulted in my only postdoc pub.  

How we face frustration is one of the telling qualities of developing research scientists.  Clearly the SLAC case is an extreme one.  

T.S. Hall

Summing Up, Part 1

As I begin my last week of sabbatical I thought I should start to wrap up some of the many lose ends of this blog.

California Budget: The State of California is in the final stages of setting up the smoke and mirrors that they call a budget. In about three months the crisis will begin again. All those furloughed employees will be making less resulting in less income tax receipts. The cut backs will result in less income for businesses that provide materials and services to the State, so their tax contributions will be less. Everybody making less money will result in people spending less, driving more businesses under and lowering tax receipts further. With less money coming in mortgage defaults will increase putting pressure on the banks and increasing demand for State services. Come October the State leaders will wake up to the budget hole and start on the new budget to address the problem. Having sold off everything of value and crippled the public sector, the next round of cuts should finish off any pretense of the State acting in the future best interest of the citizens.

Furloughs at the State Universities: The California State University faculty (8,800 of the 22,000) voted 54% to 46% to enter into discussions on furloughs. This does not mean that there will be furloughs, but the time is getting short to finalize the issue. The faculty have not been told as yet how furloughs would work, but most expect that workloads will increase and pay will decrease. The CSU folks I know are hunkering down for even more cuts next year. The resumes are being polished.

Next week I will focus on wrapping more local things and happier thoughts.

T.S. Hall

Recruiting research students

One of the most important tasks for a research mentor at a PUI or MCU is selecting research students. Sure, it's important at RO1s, but there your graduate students have been vetted to ensure that they have some ability in the lab. In the undergraduate ranks faculty have little choice but to take unskilled people and make them able. As stated here before, this is part of the research productivity problem. When the only product that counts is papers, faculty can't afford to burn time and lab resources on training students who lack hands, brains or hands and brains. While I have been fortunate to stumble upon some truly gifted research students I can't afford to put my research program in the hands of fate.

Just because a student is good in class does not promise that they will have hands or brains in the lab. Fortunately for me, I get to teach lab. There I get to see if a student can follow instructions, can think their way out of a problem, can keep a notebook, can work independently, is willing to ask questions, asks good questions, etc. All those things are good predictors, but what works best for me in finding students is to recruit unexpected competence.

Some of my best lab students have been B/C students in lecture before joining the group. Some have tattoos, piercings, unusual hairdos, etc. While ignored by most faculty they have talents that surface in the lab. Once recognized, pointing their skills out to them can be the inspiration they need to transition to A/B or A status. Having been B/C students they tend to be less convinced of their own ability and deal with the bad days in the lab by looking both within and without to solve problems. They work harder, because they have always had to in order to succeed.

And, while it can't be documented in a list of pubs or in grant applications, with these students you get to change lives. These students often find that being good at something is all the inspiration needed to propel them in the direction of their dream career. For some that will be graduate school, for others into a pharma career. Some of you will think this a silly point, but for me developing the student is why the PUI and MCU schools exist, and why I do this work.

Don't get me wrong, I take any A student who wants to work with me, but in the final analysis I have got more bang for the investment out of B and C students. Truly gifted A students will succeed no mater where they are. They can be a joy to have in the lab. But, it's the unexpectedly competent student who benefits most from our time, and pays back more in the end.

T.S. Hall

Low Tech Advantages

While automated technology has many advantages in protecting us from mundane time consuming tasks there are some advantages to the mindless activities such as collecting chromatography fractions. I was reminded of this this morning as I was collecting fractions and thinking about the confusion of a reaction that appears to have three mechanistic routes competing with each other. I have been thinking about this problem for a couple of weeks and suddenly out of nowhere Balwin's Rules came to mind. Immediately I realized that Balwin's Rules fit my data and could act as a linchpin to give a less confusing explanation of the issues at hand than the one I recently gave in a group meeting.

Perhaps the best scientists don't need to allow problems to percolate to find the answer coming to them in dreams or while collecting tubes, but it sure happens to me frequently. As automation takes away the mundane will science suffer from less fraction collection inspired ideas? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

T.S. Hall

Shoot the Laggards

Some days research at a PUI or MCU is sisyphean. I have received a series of e-mails from my home institution recently concerning research resources that the university will no longer support. The most recent is that solvents will no longer be provided. This was the last chemical support we had as the department cleared the storerooms of all chemicals not used in teaching labs already. The basic message is that if a faculty member is going to engage in research they must provide all their own resources. It presents an interesting problem since scholarly activity is a requirement of our contracts and students do pay a lab fee for research units.

I do recognize that RO1 faculty must provide all their own resources. The thing is that PUI and MCU faculty don't have the same ability to produce the kind of results that support the level of granting that RO1 faculty have access to. Also research is not our primary mission, so we need to serve our research programs as a secondary activity to teaching.

Ironically, as we are changing our Retention, Tenure, and Promotion requirements to increase research requirements we are eliminating support for research. A friend refers to this increasing scholarly activity by shooting the laggards.

You give some modest startup and tell the new faculty to get outside funding. If by the time the candidate reaches tenure evaluation they have gone through the startup and don't have outside support their program is dead, and so are they as far as tenure goes.

T.S. Hall

Allusions to "Lost" are Accidental

My sabbatical time is running short and I have yet to get a publication finished, which frustrates me. I am also getting daily requests from the home institution to come back to campus for meetings. I have a pile of committee work to do for the home campus too. This is part of the spinning plates problem where one can't focus too much on one thing or all the other things come crashing down. I sometime wonder who keeps starting new plates spinning. I try to keep a couple up and all the sudden I see a couple more are spinning behind me and there is nobody around.

Some colleagues suggest that to be a "successful" faculty member you must be selfish about your time and personal resources. That definition of successful appears to be exclusive to the individual faculty member reducing their teaching load and getting publications and grants so they can do less teaching and service. I have seen several PUI and MCU departments tear themselves apart as tensions build between camps of "self focused resource sponge faculty" and "non-productive teaching focused faculty" disrespect each other. This is where it is critically important that the administration of the department and college must act thoughtfully to mitigate the problem before it gets out of hand.

As individual faculty members each of us must prioritize our resources including time and lobby our Chairpersons and Deans to support our individual priorities. As supplies of all resources shrink it will be critically important that administrators communicate with the faculty about the level of available resources and how they will be distributed to the long term benefit the department as a whole. In tough times we must work together or all fail individually.

Of course none of this solves my paper or grant writing problem, so it's back to the hood for me.

T.S. Hall

Seed Corn: It's What's For Dinner

Those Libertarian and other readers who know Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, know all about "eat the seed corn", where in the face of disaster one consumes that which is needed to survive in the longer term. In my opinion the dismantling of publicly funded education to balance state budgets falls into this category. While I have focused in the past on California, many states and their higher education institutions are facing difficult times.

In keeping with the stated focus on RO1 vs. MCU and PUI institutions I note that Inside Higher Education is running a series this week on the California budget disaster and the effect on higher education. They begin today on the University of California system (the publicly funded RO1 system) and will cover the California State University system (the publicly funded MCU and PUI system) later in the week. I don't know what they will say, but I look forward to some informative reporting.

T.S. Hall

Teaching Philosophy Statements

One of the components of an application for a PUI or MCU position is the Statement of Teaching Philosophy. As with all components of the application it is used to look for candidates that fit or don't fit into the philosophy of the search committee members and the department as a whole.

In some cases this statement is a formality which might get little attention. Departments that value bench research above all will want to see the candidate show that they respect their teaching responsibility, but they don't want candidates who intend to pour their energy into teaching at the expense of "scholarly activity". PUIs and MCUs generally don't fall into this category.

I personally see research as a valuable component of a learning by doing philosophy that is sometimes referred to as a polytechnic training concept. Since I greatly value this, my philosophy statement includes some discussion of this concept and how I bring it into my classes and laboratory experiences. More research active PUIs and MCUs appear to have appreciated this attention in the teaching philosophy statement.

Because training and developing students is generally a key component in the mission of the PUI and MCU program evidence of what the candidate values in their teaching should be apparent in the Teaching Philosophy statement. Is the candidate enamored of technology, a devotee of assessment, passionate about integrated or discovery laboratories, etc. In some cases the department will not share the candidates interests. The committee must then determine if the candidate will represent "new blood" or "radical ideas".

As I have noted in earlier posts candidates should not shotgun out applications, but should target applications to school where they believe they can make a contribution. This demands that the candidate risk honestly stating a philosophy that may not fit the institution. Then again, it may also cause some institutions to look at the statement and find an excellent fit. Ultimately, there has to be a fit between the institution and candidate. The teaching philosophy statement is one of the tools to identify the fit.

T.S. Hall

Chained to the Bench

Many a faculty mentor has jokingly chided their students and postdocs about chaining them to the bench. This morning I read about UK universities requiring faculty to spend at least 35 hours a week on campus. One explanation being that they did not want to become a virtual university.

I know many an academic who works from home when they need to concentrate, as when they must grade exams or finish grants. For some it's the only way to work without constant interruptions. After all, being available to students is fine, but we do have other faculty member duties that require considerable concentration.

Since being at home results in me wandering into the kitchen or out into the garden were there are always more interesting things to do than grade, I tend to stay on campus and close my office door. My reputation for not tolerating interruptions when the door is closed enables me to get things done. The rest of the time my door is open and interruptions are welcome, or at least tolerated. I am not sure what the difference to the university is between me being in my office with the door closed and me being at home.

I know many faculty who complain about colleagues who are only on campus the hours they teach or have office hours or meetings. They demand all seminars, thesis defenses, and meetings be on Tuesday or Thursday between their class, so they don't need to come to campus more than twice a week. I think this goes a bit too far. At PUI and MCU campuses where being research active requires training your students yourself, I have marveled that colleagues can pull it off.

I see some irony it the pressure to become a more impersonal and virtual university, with fewer tenured and tenure track faculty, mega-lectures and on-line classes and labs while chaining the faculty to their offices. Perhaps the future of higher education will be at least partially defined by the type of faculty model the schools subscribes to.

T.S. Hall

Impediments to Change - The Biggest

In the past I have written about some of those institutional factors that keep us from changing the chemistry curriculum to something that better reflects the state of the science and the needs of the community. I did so as a response to those that blame the faculty for the failure of the system that they themselves administer. The truth is that, as provocateurs tend to do, I overstated my case.

The biggest impediment to any change is the people who measure the field and find that change will be too hard, costs too much, or any number of other euphemisms that really mean that they are unwilling to try. Too often it is precisely the people who recognize the need for change who have found these scapegoats to blame for their own feet of clay. In honesty, I most certainly include myself in the above assessment.

Having the ability to see opportunity, what we can or should be able to do, can also give one the ability to see the rocky shoals and hidden reefs along the way to were we want to be. Too often, instead of using our knowledge to chart a course we sit at anchor and curse the difficulty of the course an all those impediments on it.

I have been thinking a lot about grant writing lately. One of the things granting teaches us is to make your case for exploring or making the change envisioned by our hypothesis. If we fail to get funding it has much less to do with the malice of the review panel than our ability to make a case for the work. Similarly, if the administration or the faculty see problems in the academy we need to make our case to each other in a way that invites shared participation.

I believe we must change higher education not just to save the industry, but to provide the service that higher education can provide the community. I believe that there are many honest brokers who care deeply about the mission of higher education. The challenges are many, but if we join together and create a viable business plan I believe we can sell the idea to those capable of funding the plan and willing to make the long term investment to see a program through to becoming self sustaining.

Since I believe that all endeavors must begin with a mission that is served by all the activities of the enterprise, I ask for input on the mission for our new STEM focused university. My initial thoughts run to:

Teaching the scientific way of thinking

Teaching both basic and applied science

Teaching allied skills necessary for careers with a science base

Contributing through scholarly activity to the field of study by both basic and applied means

OK, that's the general start. Readers are welcome to weigh in on the general mission and perhaps if there are enough followers we can get to specifics in the future.

T.S. Hall

I Owe You One Blog Post

Due to the inability of the author to budget their word usage, the author regrets the necessity to issue this warrant good for one blog post plus six percent additional words to be paid in full by October 2009.

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When frustrated some people drink. I get sarcastic, which annoys most people I know. So I try to clamp it down, which frustrates me! To eliminate this spiral I have decided to limit sarcastic posting to Wednesdays. After all, what better day. You have had two days of work to build your frustration and the end of the week looks far away.

T.S. Hall

Sad State University

Two articles from Inside Higher Education caught my eye this morning. Both show that the satirical posting from a couple weeks ago is not that far from becoming reality. The Semiautodidatic State University (Sad. State U.) is in our future.

In "U.S. Push for Free On-line Courses" we find a report of the Obama Administration's plan to move toward a "National Skills College" with free online courses and a certification for the on-line education. Granted this is targeted toward community colleges, but we don't need to look too hard to find the studies upon which the expansion to all Higher Ed will be be based.

In the very next article, "The Evidence on On-line Education" we find a report on how on-line learning is superior to face-to-face teaching and blended learning is even better. I do recommend reading the entire article and the comments.

The standardized on-line lecture will require less faculty and therefore less support. The budget problem is now solved. You can fight it, but the sides are forming up and I don't see anyone with power standing against this. The future of US Higher Education may resemble the Soviet Army in the Stalingrad of the Second World War. You dare not fall too far behind because if your not in the front line you risk being shot by your commanders moving up behind you.

T.S. Hall

Two-Day Furlough II

I felt I was too obsessed with this topic and have been trying to stay away from it so as not to depress my readers.  But, the fear, hopelessness, and anger associated with California's budget uncertainty is palpable on the CSU and UC campuses.  A very small taste can be seen in the comments to my previous two-day furlough post.

I was recently talking to a Provost from one of the CSU's when I expressed concern that the CSU system and the State have given up on their commitment to education, which is documented in the state's Master Plan for Education.  In the back of my mind I was hoping that the Provost would tell me how I was wrong and give me some hope that even though times are bad the commitment was still there.  Unfortunately, the Provost's reply was that I should forget about the Master Plan for Education as it no longer exists as a guiding principle.

My gut tells me that we faculty must look at this situation as we do grant writing, where we make a reasoned cases as to why extremely limit resources should be invested in us.  Pundits say, you can't raise taxes and fees or you will chase business out of the state.  A workforce that lacks people trained in STEM fields will do that to high tech industry also.  Pharmaceutical

 companies in California approach me regularly complaining that they can't find the science trained BS and MS graduates they need and waste precious resources bringing in employees from out of state, or outsourcing overseas.

My mind tells me that California has passed the point where logical arguments and thoughtful forward looking decision making will be applied to solving the budget crisis.   It's all about cost per degree sold at this point.  The STEM fields and particularly scholarship at CSU's cost too much for the bean counters to justify.  California, which built a reputation for high tech is divesting itself of education particularly in high tech fields and as in all things, the state will reap what it has sown. 

So to my CSU and UC friends I will close with the only advice I can give , Hang on, it's going to be a very bumpy ride!

T.S. Hall

Swamp Draining

I used to work for a fellow who's favorite aphorism was, "When you are up to your ass in alligators it's hard to remember your job is to drain the swamp." As the requests for my time back at my home institution increase, I have been thinking a lot about the difficulty in accomplishing research at the PUI and MCU institutions. One of the major challenges is the constant din of demands to spend your time on other needs.

At a some point each of us reaches the limit of the number of things we can do at once. For some people, like me, the problem is that if there is too much to do they tend to serve the needs of others before their own. Thus their research programs suffer. This explains why so many people advise that to succeed in research you must be selfish.

The problem I see in selfish faculty is that in institutions with limited resources collaboration is key to being able to succeed and in maintaining a collegial work environment. Many institutions transitioning to a more research active status end up with major rifts between the senior faculty who are committed to a COMMUNITY of scholars and a junior faculty who are looking to be members of a community of SCHOLARS. Departments tear themselves apart over these generational rifts which are often solved only by time, with retirement. But in many cases the "new" department becomes a dog-eat-dog environment filled with faculty who put their research programs first and students second. As the department advisor I have spoken to a number of transfer students who left newly more research active departments in favor of one where they feel the faculty "care more about the students than their research".

Being a moderate in most things, I am in favor of a COMMUNITY of SCHOLARS that incorporates the best of both extremes. To achieve such alchemy requires a commitment on the part of the institution. An institution that truly supports a culture of scholarship as an integral component of the education of students must demonstrate this by pulling some of the alligators from the swamp. This is the duty of good Department Chairs and Deans. Alligator wrangling should be one of the required skills asked of Dean and Chair candidates.

T.S. Hall

Allopath or Ostheopath

At one time I served on the Health Professions Committee. One of our jobs was to interview all the would be health professionals and write a University Letter of Recommendation. After reviewing the list of medical schools a student planned to apply to one of the questions we commonly asked was, "Since you have applied to both types, what is the difference between allopathic and osteopathic medicine?" Our experience was that if you don't know the difference and why you wanted to be at an osteopathic school you would not be accepted following the interview.

As earnest young scientists begin to prepare for the Fall hiring season I have already suggested they prepare research plans. Today I ask them, "What is the difference between the Research University, Masters Comprehensive University, Primarily Undergraduate Research Active College or University, Primarily Undergraduate Non-research Active College or University, or Community College?" In reality you are unlikely to be covering all those bases. (If you are, Stop! You need to begin by figuring out what you want to be before you shotgun out dozens of applications that will be ignored because they don't serve any specific institution you are applying to.)

I know you need a job as your postdoc mentor does not have money to keep you on forever and there are new young minds that need shaping in that hood you occupy. But, please don't waste your time applying to East Podunk Cosmetology College with your stem cell research plan attached because they need some who understands hair dye chemistry and you still have hair.

More realistically, if you dream of working in the lab training your students yourself, and RO1 is probably not for you. If you don't really care if you do the lab work and you know you will have the Nobel by the time you are 40, a MCU or PUI is not for you. Sure if you pull in a couple of million in grants and publish five papers in Science or Nature Chemistry in your first three years the RO1's will realize what they missed and call you up, but the reality of the resources and mission of MCU and PUI institutions generally will not allow you to achieve such success. So, even if you get the job, you will be unhappy and so will your colleagues.

Today, put your research plan aside for a moment and look into the real working conditions at the type of schools that are out there. Imagine that you will be there for the rest of your days. Will you be happy? Will your colleagues? Getting an offer is all about if you fit the institution, accepting it is all about if it fits you. Don't waste your time applying if the fit won't work for you.

Make a few notes on why the types of institutions that fit do fit. They will come in handy in your philosophy statements which I will cover later.

T.S. Hall

Say it ain't so!

I have followed the Gaussling's blog since its early days.  My favorite entries have been on the topics of industrial chemistry and his own reflections of the difference between industry and academe.  

My friend the Gaussling has announced that he is considering giving up his blog.  With only six months of blogging and a much smaller readership, I understand his feeling.  My sabbatical will be ending soon and I too will have to decide if I should keep blogging.  

Blog burnout is like chemistry burnout , where you tire of the same science everyday and the thought of writing another grant on the topic makes you think about opening a shoe store.  Honestly, I don't know how Derek at In The Pipeline does it.  

Blogging less might be the cure, although I have noticed that blogging less leads to less and less.  Eventually the whole enterprise stops.  Perhaps, we should start an Occasional Chemistry Blog with multiple writers and where everyone posts on a schedule like once every week or two.

Regardless of which choice he makes, the Gaussling has made a positive contribution with his blog and I am proud to call him my friend.

T.S. Hall

Department Websites

When times are tough it is useful to set yourself up for better times that will eventually come.  One thing departments at PUI and MCU campuses can do now at little cost is to make their websites better recruiting tools.  Not just for recruiting students, but for recruiting faculty when the freeze thaws.

If you advertise a position in a department which is not well known there are few better places for candidates to find out the true nature of a program than by looking at the website.  Similarly, if want to cut through the spin to know what your department really values, look at your website.

Is the mission and vision of the department clearly presented?  If you are in a time of transition, is there a strategic plan available?

If your department values scholarly activity, how is it evidenced?  Are research programs described?  Are outcomes celebrated with presentations or publication lists?  Are the lists less than two years old?  Are there pictures of people working in research labs and/or figures taken from papers and used to break up the web text?  In your listings of facilities (if you don't have one you are not recruiting faculty) have you separated out research equipment from the general teaching lab stuff, or are pH meters listed?  Do you have a seminar program list that shows more than your students giving seminars?

If your department values students and student outcomes, how is this evidenced?  Do you describe post graduation careers for students, perhaps even listing graduate programs and employers of recent graduates?  Do the activities of your Student Affiliate of the ACS have their own space?  Are there pictures showing the community of scholars that your department is?  Pictures from the annual Mole Day/National Chemistry Week activities, picnics, holiday gatherings, graduation, students standing by their posters at professional meetings, etc.

Does the page show outreach?  Aside from pictures of the student affiliate at elementary and middle schools, are the newsletters archived?  Is there a page listing the annual awards given to students and telling how people can donate to the corpus of the award accounts.  Is your development plan spelled out, with an invitation to donate to T.S. Hall Chair endowment.

If you have a MS program, is there more than the normal course advising and course description stuff?  Are MS student career outcomes shown?  Are the MS students celebrated with their own awards and research scholarships?

Lastly, the college website should mirror the department one.  It should be up to date and should also show what is valued in the programs.  For the benefit of the candidate Retention, Tenure, and Promotion documents and the Faculty Handbook should be available on the Academic Affairs website.  If you value scholarly activity the Research Office website should make clear how they aid faculty is securing grants and contracts.

It will take time to get all this together and make your website a better recruiting tool, so do it now while you are not able to do searches.  That way it will be up and working for you when the thaw comes.

T.S. Hall

Semiautodidactic State University

A week or so ago there was an article in Inside Higher Education on companies that sell lab kits for students to do lab coursework at home.  Which got me thinking again about the future of higher education.  

I understand that the European academy grew up in the days when books and other tools of education were costly and rare, so going to the Perian Spring to become educated took hold.  In the nineteenth and early twentieth century books became more affordable, but still costly, so communities showed a commitment to knowledge by sinking their own wells into the spring.  They started libraries and in some cases colleges (Explaining the inability to throw a rock in the Northeast US without hitting a college.).  In the 21st century knowledge is broadcast through the web, via podcasts, and on TV.  Libraries are falling into disuse and academe is under siege by those looking for a lower cost paradigm.  

How long will be before we see the opening of the Semiautodidactic State University.  Curriculum, but no classes or labs.  You can get those on your own through the free lectures available on the web and the lab kits you can buy.  SSU will only offer testing, credentials, and diplomas certifying work submitted.   The Bullet Heads, as students will call themselves, will be freed from the restrictions of the classroom and the costs of the literal "Old School" educational system.

You scream, No!  You worry about what society will lose?  

No problem, the administration at SSU will support the activities the public values most from higher education.  Hollow Point Football and Basketball teams will compete for the BCS Bowl Championship and in March Madness.  After all, without scheduled classes our athletes will be free to train and compete according to the game schedule instead of the class schedule.

T.S. Hall

As best we can

I was looking through the half written posts in the file today and realized that most of them were never posted because they involve too much complaining about university finances.  The topic wears me out, but just won't go away.  While I keep meaning to drop it, every day brings a fresh punch in the face to those that truly care about educating students and advancing the science.

Today's sneaky left came from the university administration.  A message sent to the community contained the statement about priorities, "First, the quality of education for our students must be preserved as best we can".  "As best we can"!  Thanks for the loser mentality pep talk.  They might as well say "forget quality, its degrees per dollar that will rule the day"?  

"First, the quality of education for our students must be preserved as best we can"

The leaders of academia must have have gone to our underfunded library and studied the business model.  GM became the biggest car company by producing more cars than anyone else and reaped the benefit of economy of scale.  The heads of academia know it will work with higher education too.  Too bad we stopped buying books during the early 90's downturn and they don't know what happens when you disconnect quality and quantity.

My biggest concern is that the fields that cost the most to teach (science, engineering, etc . . .) require costly face-to-face instruction, including labs that just can't be converted to auditorium scale.  In spite of efforts to develop take home and online labs, I am not convinced they provide a Grignard reaction experience.  On the degree per dollar basis the technical fields just can't provide quality at the cost targets.  So, we will do the "best we can".  Degrees will be conferred and the administration will say that if we can sell degrees at a cost of a dollar per degree, we can do it for 75 cents.  And, we will do "the best we can" and continue to confer degrees.  When the quality is low enough and the quantity is high enough, the State like GM will wake up to lots of unwanted low quality product.

Since university administrations and State legislatures don't believe faculty or the ACS on the issue, could you non-academics please define the minimum of quality, thus defining what is the minimum we must do. 

Thanks,

T.S. Hall