Monthly Archives: October 2013

Quitting academic jobs: professor Zachary Ernst and other leaving tenure and tenure-track jobs. Why?

Continuing the theme of a reblog we posted yesterday: ..there’s an important way that Ernst’s essay distinguishes itself: Most I Quitters are like me, which is to say failed academics, or like Lord, whose disillusion hit her midway down the … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Public Pedagogy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Right and left are fading away in politics – Steve Fuller – Aeon

Right and Left are fading away. The real question in politics will be: do you look to the earth or aspire to the skies? via Right and left are fading away in politics – Steve Fuller – Aeon.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Economy Does Not Depend on Higher Education – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education

The notion that a person without a degree is doomed to unemployment is at best a widespread misconception, as unwarranted as blaming an economic recession on a paucity of skilled workers. The high unemployment numbers are not due to workers’ … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, Public Pedagogy | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Despite new studies, flipping the classroom still enjoys widespread support | Inside Higher Ed

…”Our goal is to better understand the conditions under which flipped classrooms lead to better student outcomes”… via Despite new studies, flipping the classroom still enjoys widespread support | Inside Higher Ed.

Posted in Future of the University, Public Pedagogy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Inklings: Why I Jumped Off The Ivory Tower

For a long time, I”ve been the uncomfortable owner of a coveted faculty position that I didn’t want. My decision to leave isn\’t really about my department or university in particular, but about a perverse incentive structure that maintains the … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, Public Pedagogy, Transdisciplinarity | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Modern Eco-Friendly Homes Set Amongst the Trees – My Modern Metropolis

Primeval Symbiosis (Single Pole House) is an architectural design project by architecture student and interior designer Konrad Wójcik that seeks to organically install living spaces in forests without disrupting the innate beauty of nature. Wójcik\’s detailed presentation lays out the … Continue reading

Posted in Basic News | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A Wizard of Oz Moment for the Web: Pull back the Curtains

Lightbeam, a download produced by Mozilla, the US free software community behind the popular Firefox browser, claims to be a “watershed” moment in the battle for web transparency. Everyone who browses the Internet leaves a digital trail used by advertisers … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Open Access, Philosophy & Politics, Public Pedagogy, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Scenes from another academic conference

In Binghampton, NY for ‘Making Possible Futures in Research: Working Across the Disciplines’. I don’t seem to know how to make this rap more popular. I’ve been thinking about this for 25 years. I think it’s right, or at least … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

How can we do interdisciplinarity if disciplines dont exist?

Disciplines have little or no epistemic basis: they are managerial entities, congeries of skills collected together at some point to address one or another problem, which then became ossified into institutional housings called departments. Disciplines mainly exist in textbooks taught … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Book by Robert Frodeman: Sustainable Knowledge

What is the future of the university? The modern university system, created in the late 19th century and developed across the 20th century, was built upon the notion of disciplinarity. Today the social, epistemological, and technological conditions that supported the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TableTalk. A call for submissions

For those this may engage: A fellow student from Reed College and I would like to introduce you to a new journal that will be coming out February 2014. Welcome to TableTalk. TableTalk will be a space that will bring … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses | Wired Business | Wired.com

…Juárez Correa didn’t know it yet, but he had happened on an emerging educational philosophy, one that applies the logic of the digital age to the classroom. That logic is inexorable: Access to a world of infinite information has changed … Continue reading

Posted in Public Pedagogy | Leave a comment

Nietzsche’s ‘active forgetfulness’ in the face of the avalanche of digital data | This Is Not a Sociology Blog

When there were limits to storage we had to think carefully about what was really worth keeping. Today we store first and think whether it is useful later. Companies store vast quantities of data on us as customers and we … Continue reading

Posted in Metrics, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The History, Honor, and Travail of the Nobel

Mark Jackson takes a look at the prize against which most other prizes are measured and how sometimes, winning the great honor precedes the slowing down of an innovative research career. Via The Not-So Noble Past of the Nobel Prize http://theconversation.com/the-not-so-noble-past-of-the-nobel-prizes-18939

Posted in Innovation, Peer Review, Philosophy & Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Metaphysics of the Shutdown

In all the commentary about the government shutdown and the impending breaching of the debt ceiling, no one has yet noted that we are witnessing a clash of metaphysics. Andrew Sullivan calls it a “cognitive abyss:” “That’s where we are. … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How Higgs owes his Nobel to an editor and a biologist | Science News

In his talk, describing the events that led to the prediction of his boson, he provided an enlightening case study about how science really works. As with so many good ideas in science, Higgs had trouble getting his paper published. … Continue reading

Posted in Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity, Peer Review, Science and technology ramifications | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

8 New Jobs People Will Have In 2025

New technology will eradicate some jobs, change others, and create whole new categories of employment. Innovation causes a churn in the job market, and this time around the churn is particularly large–from cheap sensors (creating “an Internet of things“) to … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, Graduate Studies, Public Pedagogy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

CFP: HASTAC 2014 – Hemispheric Pathways: Critical Makers in International Networks | HASTAC

The challenges facing the Western hemisphere are multidimensional  and complex.  Urban agglomeration, economic development, ecological crisis, military conflict, digital privacy, impediments to advanced learning, negotiations of multiple cultural and historical perspectives—these are problems with scientific and human factors that must … Continue reading

Posted in Calls for papers, Conferences Upcoming, Future of the University, Interdisciplinarity, Open Access | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Schoolhouse Block: Science Students and the Government Shutdown | The Student Blog

It’s Day 5 of the government shutdown and the Panda Cam is still off. What does this mean for American science students? One of the biggest effects making its way around the science blog-o-sphere is the cutting of funding for scientific research. … Continue reading

Posted in Economics & STEM Research, Graduate Studies, Peer Review, Public Philosophizing, STEM Policy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Cantor and Smith on the NSF

Two prominent republicans have taken NSF to task, in the pages of USA Today. Overall, it’s a rather toothless piece:

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Outlook for Earth

This Nature special issue explores the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – an international body of hundreds of scientists and policy experts that regularly assesses the state of knowledge about how climate is changing, what impacts that will have, and how … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Environmental policy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment