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Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand
in Required Reading
"Recent policy reports claim the United States is falling behind other nations in science and math education and graduating insufficient numbers of scientists and engineers. Review of the evidence and analysis of actual graduation rates and workforce needs does not find support for these claims. U.S. student performance rankings are comparable to other leading nations and colleges graduate far more scientists and engineers than are hired each year. Instead, the evidence suggests targeted education improvements are needed for the lowest performers and demand-side factors may be insufficient to attract qualified college graduates."
The Tenure Chase Papers
in Required Reading
Dana Mackenzie's poignant tale of a tenure case gone awry.
Changing Career Paths of Young Scholars in the United States: Example of the Life Sciences
in Required Reading
An interesting presentation by economist Paula Stephan showing a restructuring of careers for young life scientists.
Doctors Without Orders: Highlights of the Sigma Xi Postdoc Survey
in Required Reading
Results of Sigma Xi's survey of 7600 postdocs at 46 US institutions. Very interesting discussion of salaries, training, and administrative oversight.
Technology and Courage
in Required Reading
by Ivan Sutherland, a CS pioneer. Some personal perspectives on success in technology research. Well written, thoughtful, and thought-provoking.
Careers and Rewards in Bio Sciences: the disconnect between scientific progress and career progression
in Required Reading
by Richard Freeman, Eric Weinstein, Elizabeth Marincola, Janet Rosenbaum, and Frank Solomon, August, 2001.
The Tragedy of the Commons and the Science Community
in Required Reading
Brian B. Schwartz, APS and CUNY Brooklyn. Presented at the March 1970 APS Meeting. (Requires Adobe Acrobat)
At Cross Purposes: What the experiences of today's doctoral students reveal about doctoral education
in Required Reading
Results of a University of Wisconsin survey on graduate education. Key findings: " The training doctoral students receive is not what they want, nor does it prepare them for the jobs they take. " and " Many students do not clearly understand what doctoral study entails, how the process works and how to navigate it effectively. "
Doonesbury: Faculty Hiring at Walden College
in Required Reading
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury (9/9/96-9/14/96) looks at the faculty hiring process at the fictitious Walden College.
How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers
in Required Reading
by Eric Weinstein, Project on the Economics of Advanced Training, Harvard University / National Bureau for Economic Research. Working Draft.
Slaves to Science
in Required Reading
Salon Magazine , Feb. 28, 2000. An outsider's take on the working conditions of postdocs in science.
Nice Work If We Can Keep It: Confessions of a Junior Professor
in Required Reading
by Kathy Newman, Academe , May-June 1999. " After two years on the academic ladder, a lonely, anxious, and overworked assistant professor recommends collective action to give junior faculty members more control over their situation. "
Casual in Blue: Yale and the Academic Labor Market
in Required Reading
An analysis of teaching at Yale. The findings: * 70% of the undergraduate teaching is performed by non-permanent teachers, graduate students, and instructors not on the tenure track. * The pool of graduate teachers has almost tripled in the last thirty years, while the number of tenure-track faculty has declined. * Yale has preferred to lower the rate of endowment spending rather than maintain or increase the size of its faculty.
Uncontrolled Experiment
in Required Reading
by Scott Stossel, The New Republic , March 29, 1999. An interesting and balanced article about the rise in scientific immigration and its consequences.
The Postdoc's Plight
in Required Reading
by Joanne P. Cavanaugh, Johns Hopkins Magazine , February 1999. " Underpaid, overworked and often underappreciated, today's postdocs find themselves locked in a limbo that can stretch on for years. " An excellent article describing the grim working conditions of postdocs in general and at Johns Hopkins in particular. [HTML version]
PhD's and Unemployment on NPR's Talk of the Nation
in Required Reading
Dec 1, 1998. " Most students figure if they spend many years and lots of money pursuing a graduate degree, the job market will be wide open on graduation day. But today's Ph.D candidates are facing a grim reality if they hope to find work as college professors; the jobs are few and the pay is meager. And as the number of positions shrinks, the pool of qualified doctoral candidates grows. Join Ray Suarez and his guests to discuss Ph.Ds and the future of academia. " (Requires a RealAudio player)
What Hath English Wrought: The Corporate University's Fast Food Discipline
in Required Reading
by Cary Nelson, Workplace . Does the collapse in the market for English PhDs point the way to the future in the sciences?
Out of Academia
in Required Reading
by Annalee Newitz, Salon Magazine, Nov 6, 1998. Why do we think that Ph.D.s are only good for making someone into a professor?
Graduate Education Is Losing Its Moral Base
in Required Reading
By Cary Nelson and Michael Berube, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 23, 1996. " What does it mean to face an academic future in which many graduate students will have none? What are the ethics of training students for jobs that few of them will ever have? Thanks to the dramatic collapse in the humanities job market, for example, many graduate students and newly minted Ph.D.'s teach more than 30 different courses at two or three institutions and publish articles in refereed journals, before they earn a tenure-track position (if they do so at all). It is time bluntly to name the consequence: Graduate education is losing its moral foundation. "
Going Adjunct
in Required Reading
By Andreas Killen, Salon Magazine. " When all the postal workers have been sedated and locked away, will adjunct professors follow in their gun-powdered footsteps? "
Unlocking Our Future: Toward a New National Science Policy
in Required Reading
A new congressional vision statement intended to guide federal funding of science and science education well into the next century. Contains important sections on graduate education.
Trends in the Early Careers of Life Scientists
in Required Reading
Executive summary of a 1998 National Research Council report that recommends (1) the life-science community constrain the rate of growth in the number of graduate students, (2) every life science department receiving federal funding for research or training should be required to provide to its prospective graduate students specific information regarding all predoctoral students enrolled in the graduate program during the preceding 10 years, and (3) all federal agencies that support life-science education and research [should] invest in training grants and individual graduate fellowships as preferable to research grants to support PhD education.
Is Science Talent Squandered?
in Required Reading
We've all heard about the over supply of Ph.D.'s. This article argues that many of the most talented students leave science long before they get a Ph.D.
The Big Crunch
in Required Reading
by David Goodstein. " Exponential expansion cannot go on forever, and so the expansion of science, unlike the expansion of the Universe, was guaranteed to come to an end. I will argue that, in science, the Big Crunch occurred about 25 years ago, and we have been trying to ignore it ever since. "
Scientific World's Low Tolerance For Controversy May Be What's Excluding Young Investigators
in Required Reading
The Scientist , Vol:8, #24, p.13, December 12, 1994. " Of all the information recently brought out on sponsored research, one fact is truly alarming. This is the decrease in the number of young scientists who apply for grants. According to a new report by the National Research Council (NRC), applications for National Institutes of Health funding from researchers under 36 years of age declined about 55 percent between 1985 and 1993.... If this trend continues, it will lead to the decline, if not the extinction, of academic research in the United States. "
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