Inside the tent
The students were the big winners at yesterday’s UBC Board of Governors meeting. Credits go to a disciplined, focused and resourceful UBC Administration that has come a long way, and to exceptional student representatives, notwithstanding the little help that both got from their friends on the Board.
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Students, who are often vocal against rising tuition fees, are uncharacteristically silent about the prohibitive prices of undergraduate textbooks. It is time to also speak up against the schemes employed by authors, publishers and bookstores to minimize -if not prevent- the emergence of an affordable and sustainable used-book market.
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An Oxford scholar discovered recently that “high art and low art were packaged, sold and read together in the 18th Century”. Indeed, it turns out that the secret of success for the poetry collection, “The Works of the Earls of Rochester and Roscommon“, was hidden in the very last chapter of its second volume.
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That research cost is a drain on university resources may be a good line for administrators to use on the federal government in their quest to increase the funding for indirect costs of research. However, university administrators shouldn’t get carried away by their own rhetoric and lose sight of the global picture. Research is what makes or breaks a university’s international reputation. It is an asset and not a liability.
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Post-secondary institutions need leaders who have a deep and first hand understanding of the core mission of universities. Only good scholars can create the right conditions under which other researchers and teachers will thrive. Unfortunately, the pipeline of potential applicants among top scholars is thin.
Simon Fraser University is under fire for accepting $10 million from Goldcorp. Stoking the flames even further, SFU elected to name its new arts facility in the Woodward’s complex the “Goldcorp Centre for the Arts”.
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Being somewhat “Asian” myself, I remembered being intrigued when the Administration brought to the Board of Governors the project of building a hospice on the UBC campus. Who managed to sell them this idea? I thought. I also recall mentioning in that meeting how “taboo” the subject of humans facing their own mortality can be, and how important it is to research the various facets of this natural, yet mysterious phase of the life cycle. But then I was struck for a moment by an intense feeling of embarrassment. What if I was the only one in the room who thought it was a “taboo” subject?
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The differences between universities and for-profit corporations are continuously being blurred by the evolving, self-imposed or not, professional needs of modern post-secondary institutions. Is it the dawn of an era where professional managers and not scholars will be leading the universities of tomorrow?
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It looks like one of the most entertaining sessions so far at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, was the one pitting Larry Summers, against Amy Chua. The unwillingly infamous former president of Harvard vs. the deliberately infamous tiger mom.
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L’Ecole is not what it used to be, and Laurent Schwartz, the hero of so many generations of French students, must be turning in his grave.
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I should have said that’s how California mathematicians settle their differences.
Didn’t the Unabomber have once an office in Berkeley’s Evans Hall?
Here are the new findings by the NSF, and
UBC’s response to the “Too Asian?”
As I was scratching my head trying to find new criteria to add to the NSERC formula for “binning” Canadian scientists, I contemplated adding an “Author’s Citation Index”. The thought didn’t last long.
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It is the number of billionaires among the university alumni! Yes, no one is talking about millionaires any more and the ranking exercise has so far been applied only to Chinese universities.
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They are: “success, culture, media, games, social norms, lawyers, museum, leisure, stimulus.”
I kid you not!
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With the increasing trend towards funding non-peer reviewed research, it was only a matter of time before everyone got in on the action. The colleges are the latest entry into what is becoming a packed field. And, the growing influence of Canada’s colleges amongst our decision makers is not to be underestimated. The Association of Community Colleges of Canada is reportedly one of the most effective lobbies in Ottawa and in various provincial capitals. Why not? After all, there are many more MPs representing ridings with small colleges than in those with major universities.
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There is a new journal around and here is a number of reasons you may choose to submit to it:
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Here is a comprehensive set of statistics on the 2010 NSERC Discovery Grants Program competition. This extensive report was prepared by NSERC and includes tables and figures that provide summary information on the 2010 competition, but also a few comparisons to previous competitions.
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Many thanks to our colleague David Wehlau, Professor of Mathematics at Queen’s University, for compiling the following data comparing average Discovery Grants, their numbers, as well as the available funding for each of the NSERC-supported disciplines. The data, which covers the 2008 and 2010 competitions shows an incredible discrepancy between the disciplines. David highlights the plight of the Math/Stats community, but the bottom line is that the total budget for the Discovery Grants has been idle for years, and NSERC has already announced that the support for basic research will be cut by $14.5 million over the next three years. See the 2010–2011 Report on Plans and Priorities and NSERC’s response to our post “Time to draw a line in the sand”.
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… wrote a Canadian scientist describing reactions to the posts of “Piece of Mind” on NSERC’s new evaluation system. I am reproducing (with his/her permission) the following email: You are definitely not alone!
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“I find your blog thought-provoking,” was one of the most pleasing comments I received since the beginning of this blog. Another colleague wrote: “It is very easy for people to become complacent and simply accept the sorts of changes that are happening, and it is great to see someone in your position speaking out (in public, rather than just in the lunch room).”
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Piece of Mind 