Undocumented Groundswell

While I have a longstanding interest in political issues, I generally try to avoid spouting off on subjects political that are outside research and academic funding.  That said, the issue of undocumented students is hitting me in the face these days.

Just after the Arizona undocumented alien issue hit the fan I was contacted by a prospective graduate student.  The student even came to campus to talk about my research.  His spoken and written English where not great, but in California that applies to many people born in US, and more than a couple of faculty members.  Interestingly, the prospective student told me that their family was paying for school and that he was not interested in being a TA or GA.  Of course the idea of an MS student who would actually spend all day in the lab had visions of publications dancing in my head.

Later when discussing the prospective student with the department's graduate advisor it was pointed out that the undocumented are not interested in being TA's because they would need to provide a social security number in order to get paid.  The student in question had indeed noted that they are undocumented on their application.

In the second slap, a regional community college has recently announced an endowed scholarship in the name of a student who was killed in an automobile accident.  The requirements of the scholarship are that recepients must be undocumented.  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher blasted the school for sending a message that encourages people to enter the country illegally.  He noted that they put their public funding at risk by such actions.

Putting these two things together with the mood of the community, I wonder how a faculty member dedicated to lifting people up though publically funded education should balance their responsibilities.  For me, living in California, I can't win.  No matter what I do, people will be upset and someone will not be served.  For me this brings home the need for some resolution of our immigration debate.

T.S. Hall

Getting Lost

Hi, I'm Thomas and I'm a "Lost" addict.

The show "Lost" reminds me of my research.  Just when I think I have locked down the variables and understand something, I am proven wrong.  And, the Smoke Monster has also made a few appearances with disastrous effect.

With the show coming to an end, I am going to go out on a limb and put forward my speculation on the putting things together.  You can all laugh a what complete crap this is on Sunday evening.  On Monday we can all go back to the lab were we belong.

I think the key is, "Live together, die alone."  The coming face off with the smoke monster will turn on the individual characters putting their own issues aside and coming together.  I think this is also the key to "getting of the island."

All the main characters arrived lost in the sense that they were all inside themselves.  Charlie, Sun, and Jin may have died on the island, but they all did so at the point when they let go of themselves and committed to another, or to each other in Sun and Jin's cases.  Remember, Juliet said "it worked" after her selfless act of setting the bomb off.  Sayid was even selfless in his last act.  Bernard and Rose have in a sense already escaped in that they found their peace in each other.

The man with no name (not the character played by Clint Eastwood in the Leone films), before he became the smoke monster expressed disgust with living with the other people on the island because they were venal and self absorbed.  I have speculated the Jacob was bringing other people to the island to prove to the smoke monster that people were capable of more.  The Darma communal project might have been such an attempt.  The monster has been trying to prove otherwise to Jacob by his interactions with people and his attempts to manipulate them to kill Jacob.

Desmond through his experiences with EM fields has recognized the need to connect the part of each character in the parallel "sideways flash" existence with themselves in on the island.  In a sense to reconnect them with their souls.  This is critical to getting them to come together to face the smoke monster.  Once the castaways have faced down the smoke monster, Desmond can be revealed as the name at 108 degrees, and as the replacement for Jacob.  Having put others ahead of themselves the Oceanic 815 folks who have stood together can leave to their sideways existence, now knowing how they are all connected and taking the lesson of "Live together, die alone".

OK, back to grading.

T.S. Hall

Stages of Science Evolution Part II

I wrote yesterday about Alexander Shneider's "Four stages of a scientific discipline;  four types of scientists" article.  Just as Shneider cautions us about the effects of mismatch in stage of scientist and stage of reviewer, should we not also consider the possible disconnection between the expectations of those who support our departments and the faculty that do the work of the department?

I have been thinking about my department's "Friends of the Chemistry and Biochemistry" group.  This group is made up of alumni and regional industry representatives who advise us on direction and curriculum.  Our friends of the department (FODs) group frequently chastises us for not training our students in the specific topics they feel students need to succeed in industry.  Many blogs written by industry types mirror the same sentiments.  If industry scientist are generally stage four types, while faculty are in stage one through three, the disconnect is understandable.

At RO1 institutions there is an expectation from those on the outside that faculty be at stage one, two or three, but at PUI and MCU campuses the expectations often differ.  In some cases, by State mandate MCU and PUI campuses are discouraged from research in the first three stages.  Our mission to train students to meet the needs of the community places emphasis on stage four thinking.  At the same time, the expectations of granting and publication activities overseen by stage three scientists demand that faculty be in the stage three.

In trying to envision how a forward looking university administration might deal with this problem the answer might be to develop faculty hiring to ensure that faculty who represent all stages of scientists are employed.  In this fashion there are representatives in the program for all constituencies.  Then one must encourage and enforce a collegial respect among the faculty at different stages so that they respect the value each person brings to the department as a whole.

I think I just went a bridge too far.  Perhaps I should have mentioned that I have been thinking about all of this while plowing though exam grading.  It makes one crazy.

T.S. Hall

Stages of Science Evolution Part I

I was giving a final exam in my graduate class yesterday and elected to use the time to clear up some of the items in my to-read pile.  Near the top was the May issue of "The Scientist".  The magazine is described as being for life scientist, but even an organic chemist like me can find in every issue at least one item of interest.  In the current issue there was an article titled, "Evolution of Science" about a 2009 article from Trends in Biochemical Sciences by Alexander Shneider.

Shneider's article is rather interesting.  It reminds one of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which Shneider does make note of.  He builds an argument for there being four stages of development of a scientific discipline and four stages of scientists.  Mismatches of stages of scientist and science, or stages of grant or paper author and stage of reviewer can result in problems staying in the field or with getting funded or published.

Stage one is a conceptual idea stage where someone sees something not previously recognized and adds new objects or phenomena to the discipline.  In stage two, new methods and techniques are developed to move the new discipline forward.  Stage three is where most academic scientists reside and where new methods and techniques are applied to the new discipline to define and expand the discipline.  In stage four the science is institutionalized as the knowledge generated in the first three stages is applied and in many cases makes the science "real world".

In dealing with the STEM pipeline and retaining students one might consider the stage our students reside in.  As Shneider suggests, if a student is attracted to science by stage one ideas and is funneled into a stage three or four science career they will tend to become unhappy.  Students might be better served by recognizing the stage of evolution they are attracted to and guiding them to a field at a similar stage.

The thought I had on reading this is that many of today's students in my classes are really stage four folks, looking for careers and institutionalized knowledge rather than the stage one-three thinking of their faculty mentors.  In trying to make them into stage three scientists we may be contributing to the pipeline problem, by chasing these students out of the profession.  In a related fashion, much of our NIH and NSF STEM resources are focused on encouraging creation of stage three people.  Again, by placing emphases on a single stage of evolution we may chase those in the other stages away from the professions.

We might be better served by recognizing the value of having professionals of all stage types and encouraging the development of professionals of all stages.  Of course this will require that we faculty are open enough to appreciate those stages other than our own.

T.S. Hall

Seasonal Affected Disorder College Edition

Those from northern climates know that in the Winter the short days and dreary weather cause Seasonal Affected Disorder, also know as SAD.  It is characterized by depression, lethargy, and a longing for Spring as February drags into March.  In academia we feel it too, only just as Spring arrives the end of the semester and finals creep in to lay a blanket of overcast on us.  With this year's budget crisis, and furloughs combined with the national economy that leaves our students worried about what they will do after graduation it has been hard to find Spring.  But Spring will come in a few weeks after the finals end.

This year I find my students worn out long before the final exam.  They are a good group and I wish I could offer them some Spring.  While faculty may decry the sorry state of today's students and their poor work ethics, I was fortunate.  My students took the challenge I put before them to go beyond memorizing and master the logic of the science.

So for all those writing exams and those about to take them, keep your chin up, Spring will come.

T.S. Hall

Lower-Learning Skills

As I prepare to write and give final exams I have been thinking about the ACS Standardized Exams.  In my department, we give them to provide some assessment in our courses.  This means that my two semester organic class will take the ACS exam as their final.  The problem I have had with the ACS exams for organic majors courses and higher level courses is that they are multiple choice only.  Even Wikipedia recognizes the disadvantages of multiple choice exams the major of which is noted in the quote below.

Multiple choice tests are best adapted for testing well-defined or lower-order skills. Problem-solving and higher-order reasoning skills are better assessed through short-answer and essay tests.

As we are pushed to standardized assessments we move away from the very concept of "higher" education.  Multiple choice standardized exams are about lower order skills.  Most importantly we need to spread the word that these tests are not really appropriate by themselves for high school let alone college.

If we are going to train true scientists capable of addressing fundamental questions in graduate school or in careers as science professionals we need to get beyond the multiple choice exam.  The SAT, MCAT, and GRE exams all have non-multiple choice parts.  We could create our own non-multiple choice questions, but with the ACS exams coming in at 2 hours and the typical final exam time at 2 hours there is no time for the non-multiple choice exam component.  If the ACS exams were designed to be something more on the order of 75 minutes we would have the ability of go beyond lower order skills testing.

T.S. Hall

The Other Gulf Coast Oil Spill

At one point in my life I spent some time living at that avernal entrance to hell that is the northeast gulf coast of Texas.  During my time there I absorbed much butadiene into my lungs and some local history into my brain.  With the current oil well blowout in the gulf I have been thinking about one bit of largely forgotten history.

The gulf coast of Texas is prone to oil seeps where crude oil seeps up from the sea bed.  In many parts of the beaches you will find tar balls on the sand, which people often assume is pollution from the refineries, although at least part of it is from oil seeps.

Historically there was a "oil pond" off the coast west of the Sabine River estuary (The border of Texas and Louisiana).  I am talking about a major oil spill that lasted for centuries.  In the 1890s through 1910 it was described as being a mile wide and four miles long.  Dating back to spanish colonial days ships would shelter there during storms.

It "disappeared" in 1910.  Many people believe that this corresponded with the tapping of the salt dome that was the Spindletop oilfield.  Spindletop was the largest single oil producer in the world when it came in on 7 Jan. 1901.  (If memory serves, it produced something like ten percent of all the oil in the world that year.)  When oil was struck, the well blew out and the gusher of oil estimated at 70,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day for 9 days formed a lake of oil in the surrounding countryside before the workers invented the first device to cap a well blowout.  Imagine to pressure in that salt dome.  This well is responsible for the start of the Mobil, Gulf, and Texaco oil companies, and making Texas an oil state.  The salt dome oil fields also were a source of sulfur, which was produced by the Frasch process.

I have always wondered what we might learn about the effects of oil spills from this chronic spill and the recovery of the coast since the end of the oil pond.  Of course the presence of multiple oil refineries in the Sabine pass area would complicate any such research.

T.S. Hall