Timothy Gowers: A leader for our times

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Ghoussoub

Timothy Gowers is much more than an outstanding mathematician. A Fields medalist, Tim is a global thinker, an eloquent and prolific writer, a pioneer among scholars, and a leader. “Un grand homme”, the French would say. Tim is an innovator in scholarship and also in scientific publishing. He is a committed pedagogue, an outspoken critic of “bureaucratic dirigisme,” a tireless advocate for basic research, and an imperturbable leader in the face of scientific publishers’ greed and business practices. Tim has just announced his decision to boycott anything “Elsevier”. This post is to announce our solidarity with his courageous public stand, but also to inform and to solicit the support of fellow North American scientists for this cause. Continue reading →

Posted in Honouring friends, Op-eds | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Business Development Bank gets into the “NSERC Act”

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Ghoussoub

“First, I want to reassure you that we did not take this decision lightly.  This is a decision that is made by NSERC staff, independent of the peer review process.  Every year we reject applications based on mandate ineligibility.  This decision was based on … the NSERC Act.”  Who said that “there has been mission drift for the granting councils”, when all their decisions are so firmly based on their original Act? But then, what to think of NSERC’s recent foray into business development? Was this also enshrined in the NSERC Act? Continue reading →

Posted in Op-eds, R&D Policy | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Grade inflation, instability and uncertainty in Discovery Grant competitions

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Ghoussoub

It is reported that in a still embargoed presentation to the 2011 Canadian Mathematical Society meeting in Edmonton, NSERC’s President, Suzanne Fortier, cited “Grade inflation” as one of the factors for the disastrous collapse of grant levels in mathematics in the 2011 Discovery Grant competition.  Fortier’s statement led UVic Professor, Anthony Quas, to do what any good scientist would in such circumstances: Check the facts, let the data speak and extract conclusions. This is one in an upcoming series of  “You are not alone” posts. Continue reading →

Posted in R&D Policy | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

You are not alone!

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Ghoussoub

Yet, that’s exactly what bureaucrats want you to feel. “You are the only one complaining. You are isolating your community…”. That’s what they said when 336 mathematical scientists, 27 Canada Research Chairs and 35 fellows of the Royal Society of Canada wrote NSERC’s President about the flaws in the new system at Discovery.  The Astronomy community also wrote and  they were met with the same “Everybody loves it! Stop complaining, it’s you not us”.  That’s what the physicists, who are writing next week (stay tuned) will hear. And  that’s what UBC’s computer scientists and engineers will be told after their forum  (next Monday) on NSERC’s new ways.  There is nothing further from the truth, because when a system produces “a decline in both fairness and trust” (as the Physicists will be saying), all decent and serious scientists in the country feel it, if  not react to it, simultaneously. You are not alone! Continue reading →

Posted in R&D Policy | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

My opening remarks at the UBC housing forum

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Ghoussoub

Various and somewhat distorted versions of my statements at yesterday’s UBC housing forum were published on several websites. I am therefore posting here the full text of my opening remarks.
Continue reading →

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You have been awarded a research grant of $1.4 billion

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Ghoussoub

“How come I haven’t been reimbursed yet?”, I wrote to the organiser. More than three months have already passed since that glorious conference in Nice. Long enough to feel the pinch on the purse, but not enough to forget this luscious city on the French Riviera.  And with a poster like that, how could anyone  resist such an invitation? OK, I am sorry to have missed the external review of the Faculty of Science and that they had to read the strategic plan without my help! Then came my friend’s response, much more startling than I had expected: “Le délai est en effet anormal. Espérons que ce n’est pas la faillite de l’Euro(pe) qui est en cause.” UhOh! Continue reading →

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My name is “Small Number” and I was born in Banff, Alberta

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Ghoussoub

I am not a character from a Stanley Kubrick movie. I am “Small Number” and it was exactly on November 22d of the Year 2009, that I was born in the Canadian Rockies at the intersection of three glacial valleys at a place overlooking the rushing Bow and Spray Rivers, and not far from the birthplace of another one of my enlightened ancestors, Chief Crowfoot (1830-1890) of the southern Alberta Blackfoot Nation. Continue reading →

Posted in Banff International Research Station | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

“Campus as a living lab”… for sound governance and common sense

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Ghoussoub

Review committees for Deans and VPs should not comprise direct aides and immediate subordinates of the person under review. Besides fueling –often unwarranted yet prevalent– skepticism vis-a-vis the evaluation process, current practices have the potential to undermine it by shutting down debate, discouraging input, and preventing potential criticism regardless of how constructive it is. Continue reading →

Posted in Board of Governors | 1 Comment

New perspectives on functional inequalities

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Ghoussoub

No, this blogpost has nothing to do with social stratification and class struggle nor does it address gender or racial inequalities. It is about Mathematics. The occasion? I have finally finished a book, which has been 3 years in the making,  “Functional Inequalities: New Perspectives and New Applications” (Sorry, it’s just the preface, the introduction and the table of contents–publisher oblige!). Why am I talking about it? Because it was hard, taxing and technical and I am so relieved it’s over. What is it about? Continue reading →

Posted in Op-eds | 6 Comments

Don Fraser, Officer of the Order of Canada

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Ghoussoub

“There are too many of my students on the dance floor”. That was at a wedding party (mine!) more than twenty years ago, and Don Fraser was resisting efforts to make him dance. Many of the guests (on the dance floor) were actually my colleagues at UBC and elsewhere, full professors and all. Most were indeed former students at the University of Toronto, where for over half a century Don Fraser taught and guided generation after generation of mathematicians and statisticians.  Don Fraser is simply the founding father of Canadian statistics and for that he was recently appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. Continue reading →

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“A no-brainer, if you ask me”

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Ghoussoub

That was in an email from a colleague at one of UBC’s better departments. “Gents, In your capacities as …, and BoG-dude (AKA faculty representative on the Board of Governors), have a look at these two links. A no-brainer, if you ask me.” One link is to starting salaries, the other to house prices. Both for Austin, Texas. That was in response to an email from the Head.

Continue reading →

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Happy New Year everyone!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Ghoussoub

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Lessons learned: Housing at NYU, Columbia, Harvard, UCLA and UC-Irvine

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Ghoussoub

Last June, I and a few other UBC Governors and senior staff visited NYU, Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, and UC-Irvine. Just like UBC, these universities are located in areas where housing prices are prohibitive. And just like them, UBC is in the business of competing to attract and retain the best talents, well aware of the need to create favorable and affordable living and working conditions. Continue reading →

Posted in Board of Governors, UBC Housing Action Plan | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The problem with developing a “Housing Action Plan” for UBC (II) – Cash Flow

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Ghoussoub

The UBC administration is quite aware of how critical the issue of housing is to the future of the university and is committed to addressing it. The President said as much in his latest town hall meeting, and the Board of Governors did after all set up a task group to develop a “Housing Action Plan”.  But no  assistance plan is cost-free and a key question is how much they are willing to forfeit in revenue loss from land leases in order to produce a serious response to the housing crisis. I wish I already knew the answer to that but I don’t. However, I know enough to say that the university’s current financial pressures will be another hurdle to reckon with en route to developing affordable housing options for UBC-affiliated personnel. Continue reading →

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A weekend of obituaries

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Ghoussoub

In an ironic twist of fate, Christopher Hitchens, Vaclav Havel and the “official version” of the Iraq war ended on the same weekend. A most intense propagandistic time, which must have been a field day for students of journalism everywhere. When the eulogies from the political and media class became too much to handle, I turned to my “Twitter friends” for a bit of perspective, but the hagiography continued. The blogosphere was more real. For one, a few independent thinkers were correctly  pointing out how much  Iraq was a turning point for both men, and not only for Hitchens. Continue reading →

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The problem with developing a “Housing Action Plan” for UBC (I) – Attitudes

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Ghoussoub

Many hurdles face the prospect of a sound “Housing Action Plan” for UBC, not the least of which being personal attitudes shaped by Vancouver’s real estate subculture, the variable academic standards within the university, the ethical issues of eligibility and sustainability, as well as the cash needs of a UBC administration that is engaged in an aggressive agenda of development and renewal. Continue reading →

Posted in Board of Governors, UBC Housing Action Plan | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Telling a Gaussian distribution curve from a Faustian one

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Ghoussoub

“Thank you so much for this opportunity for a non-mathematician to be part of the BIRS community”, wrote Alice Major. It doesn’t happen often that an illiterate mathematician gets an email from a Poet Laureate. Major was writing about her experience at last week’s workshop at BIRS (The Banff International Research Station). Entitled, “Mathematics: Muse, Maker, and Measure of the Arts”, the workshop was a BIRS classic. Her email made me feel even worse about not being there, and not only because I missed the likes of Ingrid Daubechies, David Mumford, and Robert Moody, who were merely the math. reps. for that event. Artists, musicians, poets, physicists and engineers were also there and they are now writing about it. Continue reading →

Posted in Banff International Research Station | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Firing a President for all the wrong reasons

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Ghoussoub

I kid you not! The president of the University of Oregon, Richard Lariviere, was recently fired because he wanted to use non-state funds to provide badly needed salary increases to retain and recruit faculty at his university. Robert Berdahl, a veteran of the US public university system (and the father-in-law of a dear friend of mine) was appointed last Friday as the interim president of U of O, but not before he had chastised, in a scathing public letter, the very same Board that has now asked him to replace Lariviere. Continue reading →

Posted in Board of Governors | 1 Comment

Unethical science or just another gold rush?

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Ghoussoub

When did my chain-smoking leftist Italian friend move to Saudi Arabia? I wondered. I had just received his recent preprint, in which he cites King Saud University  (KSU) as his affiliation.  The answer to my query was even more colorful than I thought.  Add KSU or KAU (King Abdul Aziz University) as a second affiliation on your papers, and earn $72,000 a year. OK, you may need to spend a week or two a year on their campuses, but that requirement is flexible. The main one is that your name must be on the Institute for Scientific Information’s (ISI’s) list of highly cited authors. Darn! Continue reading →

Posted in Op-eds | 2 Comments

The two main threats to good governance: “Yes people” and sound leadership

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Ghoussoub

Institutions require strong governance the most whenever they are stuck with mediocre or abusive leadership. On the other hand, institutions that are going through an era of sound leadership have a tendency to drop their guard, ignore, and eventually weaken their governance processes. Continue reading →

Posted in Board of Governors | 1 Comment