We had a wonderful talk yesterday to kick off the Krasnow Monday
Seminar Series for the Fall. Chet Sherwood, newly arrived in the
department of Anthropology at George Washington, gave a fascinating
talk on neuroanatomical clues to what separates humans from the great
apes and our immediate evolutionary ancestors. Chet has had a slew of
recent high impact papers on the evolution of human intelligence that
are central to the scientific focus of the Krasnow Institute.

Our next speaker will be Guinevere Eden, from Georgetown who will
speak on “The functional anatomy of typical and impaired reading”.

These talks are always open–every Monday at 4PM. We typically draw
cognitive folks from all over the National Capital Area.

Hope to see you there,

Jim

One of the big drivers of resources in science is perceived prestige. I use the word “perceived” because perception is not necessarily related to reality–particularly as far as research institutions are concerned.

But what drives the perception of prestige? In the world of car advertising, unit cost is a big component. The fact that a premium brand costs a factor of two or so more than a less prestigious brand is actually a big driver of the perception of prestige.

I’m convinced that in the world of higher education, cost is also a factor in people’s perceptions of prestige. Amherst College costs a whole lot of money in tuition, and oh, by-the-way, it’s also a very prestigious undergraduate liberal arts college.

This is not to say that cost stands alone as far as cars and colleges are concerned. Amherst’s reputation is also tied up in what it’s alumni have done, and various other metrics that range from endowment/student to its physical plant.

What about science?

One aspect of science funding that is quite interesting is the fact that not all sponsored research support is equal. There’s nothing quite as prestigious as dollars from Howard Hughes Medical Institute or NIH in biomedical research. Same dollars coming from a US National Lab or a congressional earmark are viewed very differently.

By the same token, the same science published in PNAS is viewed through a different prism than if that work were published in say…Nature.

Scientist pedigree also plays a role in the perception of prestige. Knowing that a body of work was produced by a very famous scientist’s trainee as opposed to someone without that background matters a lot.

Should science care about the perception of prestige?

Jim

I direct you to a relatively new blog by the manager of cognitive computing at IBM’s Almaden Research Center, Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha. You’ll find there some excellent links to the 2006 Institute I attended earlier this year.

Here is Dr. Modha’s official home page.

A great review by Jerry Coyne in the Times Literary Supplement on Fredrick Crewes new book, Follies of the Wise.

Money quote:

“The quality of Crews’s prose is particularly evident in his two chapters on evolution versus creationism. In the first, he takes on creationists in their new guise as intelligent-design advocates, chastising them for pushing not only bad science, but contorted faith:

‘Intelligent design awkwardly embraces two clashing deities – one a glutton for praise and a dispenser of wrath, absolution, and grace, the other a curiously inept cobbler of species that need to be periodically revised and that keep getting snuffed out by the very conditions he provided for them. Why, we must wonder, would the shaper of the universe have frittered away some fourteen billion years, turning out quadrillions of useless stars, before getting around to the one thing he really cared about, seeing to it that a minuscule minority of earthling vertebrates are washed clean of sin and guaranteed an eternal place in his company?’

But after demolishing creationists, Crews gives peacemaking scientists their own hiding, reproving them for trying to show that there is no contradiction between science and theology. Regardless of what they say to placate the faithful, most scientists probably know in their hearts that science and religion are incompatible ways of viewing the world. Supernatural forces and events, essential aspects of most religions, play no role in science, not because we exclude them deliberately, but because they have never been a useful way to understand nature. Scientific “truths” are empirically supported observations agreed on by different observers. Religious “truths,” on the other hand, are personal, unverifiable and contested by those of different faiths. Science is nonsectarian: those who disagree on scientific issues do not blow each other up. Science encourages doubt; most religions quash it. “

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ve probably wondered who was Shelley Krasnow. The short answer is that Mr. Krasnow (who passed away in 1989), through a substantial bequest, established the endowment which allowed the founding of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. The slightly longer answer is that Mr. Krasnow was both an inventor and a very successful land developer here in the National Capital Region who came to understand the importance of trans-disciplinary scientific resesarch.

As I understand it, Mr. Krasnow’s major invention was a particularly quiet electrical generator that had great applicability to the silent operation of submarines. However he was very interested in biomedical research and the Institute’s focus on understanding the biological basis of “mind” would have fit in squarely with his own areas of intellectual curiosity.

Shelley Krasnow also invested early and often in land surrounding the Washington D.C. beltway–he was ahead of his time in realizing that it would become one of the key growth areas of the country. It was the proceeds from these major landholdings that made possible the Institute that bears his name today.

All of us at Krasnow owe Shelley Krasnow gratitude for the foresight he showed in providing the gift of resources that made possible our scientific work.

Jim

The 1910 Flexner Report (click on the link above) reformed medical education in the US and set the stage for the massive biomedical enterprises we call academic medical centers today. Today we are in need of a new reform effort in medical education for the simple reason that everything has changed: from the business model all the way to the emerging consensus regarding evidenced-based practice, medical education and the biomedical research enterprise (outside the federal government and big pharma)are largely in a different paradigm from the one created by the Flexner Report nearly a century ago.

The American Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is the organization that is central to the future of US Medical Schools. But it represents multiple strong constituencies and therefore tends to evolve policies based on consensus.

At the same time, some innovative medical schools are not waiting to reform. One of the leaders is Case Western Reserve with its new curriculum.

It seems to me that a new Flexner report is sorely needed: one that takes into account the current state of the playing field in medical education and the biomedical research that is intrinsic to the enterprise.

Jim

A colleague and close friend recently enumerated the vast number of SFN abstracts authored by neuroscientists at his institution. I’m not so sure that’s something to brag about. Your grandmother and my beagle can submit abstracts if they fill out the forms and pay the fee (actually it’s more complicated than this, but not much). They’re not peer reviewed.

But that brings up a good question: what are the appropriate metrics for success in the field? Peer reviewed papers in high impact journals? Sponsored research awards?

And another question: why can’t the SFN move towards a system for peer review of abstracts? They’d be worth a whole lot more consideration if there was some degree of selectivity.

Jim

How might the process that I’ve described in the last four posts be
improved?

For me, the answer to this question is shaped by my own perspective:
that of a director of a multidisciplinary institute. The process that
I’ve described (a general description that is not specific to any one
institution) is far too discipline-centric. Searches, as a result of
the academic politics involved, tend to hire individuals whose
scholarly interests lie at the point of a pin. An example: a
zebrafish neuroscientist who uses molecular biology to study
neurodevelopment or alternatively, a confocal imager who interested
in the cell biology of mitosis. While these hypothetical targeted
hires are actually very interesting, I would much prefer a more cross-
disciplinary hire: say a signal transduction cell biologist
interested in genes that may have facilitated the development of
language in humans.

How do we get there? For me the key is collaboration between units on
joint hires (faculty lines split between two or more units) and
search committees that reflect the diverse multidisciplinary
interests of those units. There is a problem here however: newly
hired faculty with homes in more than one unit tend to have
difficulty–for example promotion and tenure can be problematical, or
at the very least complicated.

And so perhaps we need to allow units which normally don’t grant
promotion and tenure (institutes for example) to begin to do so.

Just a thought….

Jim

Today we cover the offer itself. First, the usual caveat that the below is a description of the generalized process and is not specific to George Mason University.

Eventually, the search committee reaches consensus on a candidate to offer the tenure-line position to. Even at this point however, there is usually a back and forth up the academic chain of command on three key items: salary, space and set-up dollars. At times there is another component to be resolved: the fraction of the 9 month salary that the new faculty member is expected to support from grants. At some institutions, this last point even morphs into the fraction of the salary guaranteed by tenure.

When all of the above points are agreed to, a letter is composed that includes institutional legal boiler plate and that letter then constitutes the offer. It is typically time-limited and requires a written affirmation of acceptance from the putative new faculty scientist.

After receiving the letter, the individual who was previously a candidate, is now in a new position: negotiator. Very often the initial offer letter precipitates a back-and-forth process of negotiations (usually on the above key points of salary, space and set-up).

It is fascinating that many candidates actually forgo participating in this negotiating process and thus may give up obtaining key components of a package all in the passion of “closing the deal”. In my opinion, it’s during these negotiations that the candidate has the most power to affect the architecture of the eventual deal since a failed search is the bane of all search committees.

My final posting on academic searches will deal with ideas on how to improve the process.

Jim

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