Blogs

One of the challenges in trying to get folks to understand how a future can be both more sustainable and subjectively better than what we're used to is getting them to step back from what they "know" to be true. Simple basic facts like "more money is better than less money", and "efficient is better than inefficient". For some reason, most Greenback students have trouble challenging either of those ideas. (Of course, so do most Greenback faculty. And most Backboro residents. And most everybody I've ever met.)

I am not done writing about the connection between big-money sports and rape culture on college campuses. Today, though, I would like to describe two experiences that highlighted for me the value of a shared activity that engages such huge numbers of people across geographical, cultural, and economic boundaries.

In 2012, I want to take action. But what kind? How? And to what end?

Sometimes I worry that libraries that try to create alternatives to big publishing are just adding more publications to the already bloated number of scholarly journals being published. I worry that well-intentioned alternatives too often end up filling a niche that may be valuable, but doesn’t do anything significant to change the way we share knowledge.

Grad school isn’t easy. It is a marathon and a test of will. As grad students, we are expected to get perfect grades, teach, publish, apply for grants, and somehow find time to work on our dissertations. Many of us balance these demands with our roles as parents, spouses, and significant others. Trapped between the worlds of students and faculty, we face a number of unique challenges. Gradhacker was created in the spirit of drawing support from our fellow graduate students.

Lego League is in the home stretch. TB’s team has its big competition soon, so it’s ramping up the practice schedule. The team meets in the coach’s garage, in which he has a massive robot obstacle course where his car should be. The team consists of a half dozen boys, all around ten or eleven years old.

When I first began working at the University, I was absolutely terrified of making an idiot of myself. I had graduated ten years earlier with an honours degree in Psychology, and had done very little of academic note since then. And while I still don’t relish the idea of broadcasting my ignorance when it happens to come up, I have realized that faculty and administration do understand that everyone comes from diverse educational backgrounds: one person’s expertise in bats does not make another’s knowledge of tree rings any less significant or noteworthy.

Great expectations UK-style: foreign students = export earnings (in an era of austerity)