I’ve been through a few of them by now. Today’s Chronicle on-line has an interesting take on them that’s actually quite positive….
“To be useful, the plan must give an honest assessment of where an institution is and where it wants to go, planning experts say. It must also include specific, honest budget numbers.”
This is at odds with the camp that views “stretch goals” as the key method of strategic plans to take an institution up to the next level.
Jim
Here in Virginia, the business cycle has turned “south” again….it does this fairly regularly, this time the culprit is the sub-prime mortgage fall-out. In Michigan, this same financial stress, shut down the state government for several hours early this morning. Here in the Commonwealth, Governor Kaine announced a series of cuts and the use of “rainy-day” fund dollars to balance his budget.
For public universities, like Mason, these downturns are always challenging. For an institute for advanced study, where the revenue-side is more sponsored research (as opposed to tuition increases), this puts enormous pressure on the science faculty to succeed in what is clearly already a very tough federal funding environment.
For this reason, private sector gifts and grants are ever more important. As our Advisory Board comes together this month for its regular meeting, I’ll be asking them all to step up their level of support for the Krasnow Institute so that in these budget-cutting times, the science continues unabated.
Jim
In my class yesterday we practiced framing a proposed scientific program within the constraints of a given Request for Applications from an agency. I think this is quite an important exercise for trainee scientists because success in grant writing depends on it. It’s not enough just to have great ideas and some great experiments planned to test those ideas. Additionally, one needs to develop the facility to take those ideas and plant them firmly in the context of a funder’s ideas and goals.
Jim
George, as you may recall, moderated the recent Decade of the Mind conference at Krasnow in May. Here is his take on where AI is these days: human brains mated with computer algorithms are powerful tools.
Money quote:
What is spreading through the Web is not exactly artificial intelligence. For all the research that has gone into cognitive and computer science, the brain’s most formidable algorithms — those used to recognize images or sounds or understand language — have eluded simulation. The alternative has been to incorporate people, with their special skills, as components of the Net.
Go to Google Image Labeler (images.google.com/imagelabeler) and you are randomly matched with another bored Web surfer — in Korea, maybe, or Omaha — who has agreed to play a game. Google shows you both a series of pictures peeled from the Web — the sun setting over the ocean or a comet streaking through space — and you earn points by typing as many descriptive words as you can. The results are stored and analyzed, and through this human-machine symbiosis, Google’s image-searching algorithms are incrementally refined.
This is an article about the Mcgovern Institute up at MIT….and a proliferation of similar institutes funded by super-wealthy individuals. Money quote:
McGovern is not the only technology billionaire to dedicate a fortune to the brain. Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, donated $100m to establish the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. And Jeff Hawkins used his fortune from Palm Computing, creator of the Palm Pilot, to set up the Redwood Neurosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
Jim
Money quote from Joel Achenbach….
Ten years and $4 billion: That’s a reasonable cost. The evolution of the human mind is arguably the most important biological event in the history of our planet since the origin of life itself.
Jim
Here’s a really interesting piece from Cnet News about a rather strange Russian Institute that claims to “manipulate the subconscious minds” of terrorists.
Money quote:
SSRM Tek is presented to a subject as an innocent computer game that flashes subliminal images across the screen — like pictures of Osama bin Laden or the World Trade Center. The “player” — a traveler at an airport screening line, for example — presses a button in response to the images, without consciously registering what he or she is looking at. The terrorist’s response to the scrambled image involuntarily differs from the innocent person’s, according to the theory.
My students know I have a dim view of meetings in academia. My colleague Tyler Cowen has a different view.
Money quote:
Meetings also confer a sense of control. Attendees feel like insiders who have a real voice in decisions. This boosts their motivation to implement ideas discussed as a group. For this reason it is especially important to listen to the blowhards and the obstructionists, who otherwise would pursue their own agendas rather than support a common plan.
Jim
First, I’ll have my news regarding Decade of the Mind up on Sunday.
Second, I’ll try to get my slides up from my recent talk on the next five years at Krasnow. Also probably over the weekend.
I’ll also link to a couple of faculty job opening advertisements, also probably over the weekend.
Jim
Stay tuned for some important Decade of the Mind updates here. I’ll be announcing some substantive next steps to the May meeting.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 