With November upon us, the academic semester, holiday season in sight, builds in intensity. Nevertheless, as the trees hit their peak colors, I am reminded of how beautiful this season is here in the Washington area. We are so lucky to be here–all of us.

In Washington *and* in academia, there is a fine art to blocking,
obstructing that which you may not wish to come to pass. It’s a
delicate dance of course because there are often powerful
constituencies behind initiatives. I remember when I used to live
near the National Zoo, my wife and I met a politically well-connected
guy who pointedly told us that it’s possible to block anything or
anyone “in this town”.
Hmmm.
I’m bringing this up because of course I think such process
“filibustering” is inappropriate. If you are against something, then
the proper way to oppose it is to come out, make your best case, let
the decision-makers have at it, and live with the course of history.
And definitely such a proper course requires both more courage and
more importantly, a greater respect for the folks who are charged
with saying yeah or nay.
Along these lines, may I recommend Jane Smiley’s novel of academia
“Moo”. It’s a delightful description of academic obstructionism taken
to obsession–and very entertaining!

Jim

I know that most of us are just getting used to the notion of the new Krasnow Expansion project that’s in the final stages of being contracted, however I’m now starting to think about Phase III–yet another 12,500 sq. foot addition that will bring the Institute up to its final, permanent physical footprint. This will enable us to eventually support in the neighborhood of 120 scientific staff, which I think is a good critical mass for the long haul.

Jim

I’m joking of course about Amherst College–where I went to undergrad. The link is to the Daily Jolt which provides a fairly accurate picture of undergraduate life at the “College on the Hill”.

I have mixed feelings about my time there. Without question, AC provides one of the best liberal arts educations available in the US today. Each year, it’s a horse race between Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore for the number 1 ranking in the US News and World Report best liberal arts college category. On the other hand, as a native Angelino arriving in blue-blood Amherst Massachusetts, the culture shock never wore off–even after four years. I probably should have stayed in California.

What is interesting about Amherst, is how seriously it treats the undergraduate neuroscience major–that’s something we would do well to emulate here at Mason.

It’s also very interesting about how Amherst promotes from day one, an entirely rigorous approach to critical writing and analysis–skills that of course are very important in basic research

Jim

The link (click above) is to Wikipedia’s entry on tenure.

I have a couple of thoughts on this matter which are relevant to research institutes such as Krasnow:

The first is that tenure serves a real function for us at Krasnow (especially when viewed in comparison to stand-alone research institute’s which may not grant same): it allows us to recruit top flight faculty under conditions when we otherwise might not be able to. In other words, tenure is a major carrot.

The second is that the reason for tenure was originally to protect academic freedom–particularly during the 1950’s when academics who had sympathies for left-wing causes had reason to fear for their jobs. That raison d’etre is no longer a valid concern. Academic freedom is reasonably secure in the Academy.

What concerns me is that the granting of tenure may remove the powerful job incentive that most other high performance professions have as a matter of course (imagine the coach of the Washington Red Skins having tenure!). And in science, particularly basic research, this loss of incentive can be a very bad thing.

Jim

Hello to friends from my alma mater who have found this blog. I plan to write about Amherst College in the near future.

Jim

Serving on an academic search committee is one of the most significant
roles that one can play as a professor. Interestingly, there are a lot
of misconceptions about such service, most of which revolve around the
concepts of representation (that is whether a member of the committee is
the representative of some academic unit or polity) and confidentiality
(preserving the integrity of the search).

What follows are my thoughts on these matters. They are by no means the
final word–just the results of my own learning experiences with the
additional pointers from my academic parents (in both senses of the word
parent).

First, it’s often the case, that when one is asked to serve on a search,
one’s first thought is that one is representing one’s colleagues in the
selection process. While this is true to an extent–yes, one is supposed
to think about what type of individual would be a best fit for one’s
department–it’s definitely *not* the case that one is there to
represent the consensus of colleagues on the dossier/application files.

Rather, the the search committee member’s role is to render his or her
own best judgment, realizing that colleagues (and perhaps one’s Chair)
have selected one to do so–it’s like being nominated and confirmed for
a judgeship: we don’t expect John Roberts to poll President Bush and the
other senior members of the administration on cases before him, even
though he clearly was selected by them and in some sense is representing
their ideas on the Court.

This leads directly to the idea of confidentiality. It’s extraordinarily
important not to discuss the search with one’s colleagues who are not
serving also on the search committee. Preserving this confidentiality
preserves the very integrity of the search. It prevents the application
of raw political power (at least at the level of the Committee) in the
selection process, while at the same time protecting the applicants
themselves–who may wish their job search to be secret from their own
colleagues and peers.

Interestingly this doesn’t preclude a bit of detective work with regards
to candidates. It *is* appropriate to make phone calls and ask
professional colleagues (generally at outside institutions) about
candidates–this is a critical addition to the information provided in
letters. At the same time, there’s a bit of judgment required here,
since such inquiries can often compromise the confidentiality of the
candidate’s application.

I’ll try to cover promotion and tenure as a topic very soon.

Jim

There are a number of rumors going around about the new building and
I think soon will be a time to have a town meeting, which will be
organized by Ken and myself. Briefly however, the new building is on
track. We are in negotiations with the winning team in order to bring
their bid into line with the funds available–and we are making good
progress on this. There are some changes in program for the building
and at the moment they aren’t set in stone, but we’ll be able to
discuss in hopefully some real detail at our meeting.

Jim

Our MRI machine makes the news (click on the link above).

At Mason they’re called “Study Leave”, but around academia they come around every six years or so (at least that’s the unspoken rule) and provide either one semester or two for the purposes of “re-charging” the old intellectual batteries. Novels have been written about sabbatical. Somehow they always take place in delightfully urbane locations which feature perhaps a flat in London or a small pied a terre in Paris. Less is written about the supposed re-charging. It leaves the question: what ought one do with one’s sabbatical?

Academics get a bad rap, of course, on this. At most cocktail parties that I’ve attended with non-academics, it’s a matter of course before someone brings up such experiences as the ultimate academic sinecure besides tenure. In fact however, most professors I’ve known have treated sabbatical as a serious period to focus exclusively on scholarship (as opposed to teaching), very often staying at their home institution during the entire period.

For many scholars, their teaching and service responsibilities leave, on average, very little time for pursuits of the mind–research. That is why institutes for advanced study, like Krasnow exist of course. Such time needs to be protected, sometimes as a place (Krasnow) and sometimes as an institution (sabbatical).

Jim