Give them an inch….

From today’s SCIENCE magazine:

A frantic grant-writing effort that has consumed biomedical research scientists this spring came to an end last week, resulting in a huge pile of new applications—more than 10 times larger than expected—to be reviewed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). After this enthusiastic response, there will be many disappointed applicants: The rejection rate could run as high as 98%.

Mason Commencement 2009

Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up early and drive from Arlington to the Fairfax campus. I’ll park at the Institute and walk across the Mason campus in my University of Michigan academic regalia –FYI the trademark “M” isn’t a part of the get up–to join with colleagues at the Patriot Center, putting a full stop on the academic year that began last August. Commencement paradoxically derives from the verb to commence, but ends the academic year rather than beginning it. To my mind, that’s because commencement exercises aren’t about the faculty or the deans, but rather about the graduating students, who now are about to commence their post-degree lives.

And that thought brings back the memory of an earlier commencement day in May of 1978 in the main quadrangle of Amherst College. On that day, long before there were such things as the Web or Iphones, it was hot and muggy, the sun shown bright. The black cap and gown was hot. As I recall, many of my fellow graduating seniors wore, additionally, the green, red and yellow arm band which protested apartheid in South Africa. The College President John William Ward had been arrested for protesting the Vietnam War at the local airbase; I vividly remember receiving my diploma from his hand under his stern New England gaze and then it was done–I was off to commence my own life, one that initially took me to Capitol Hill and later to graduate school in Ann Arbor–and finally here to Mason, where I’m completing my 11th academic year, and watching our graduating seniors commence their journey.
To all of them, good luck!
Jim

C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures–FT vs NPR

Somehow both the Financial Times and NPR’s Science Friday have both decided that it’s time to return to pondering C.P. Snow’s famous “Two Cultures” lecture in which he postulates a problematical divide between scientists and scholars in the humanities. Actually the occasion is the 50th anniversary of that seminal lecture. It’s never lost its relevance.

Jim

Another academic year

We are on the cusp of commencement here–it’s 12 days away–and yet another academic year is about to end. I did a walk through of the building with my associate director, Ken DeJong, this morning and was astounded to see some of the places that I rarely frequent. There was a time when I knew where everything was–we’re too large for that now, so there are funny surprises for me, as well as our students and faculty who have been here for less time.

On thinking back, this has been a fine year for Mason’s Institute for Advanced Study, in spite of the much vaunted Great Recession. I continue to be impressed by our incredibly bright trainees, our productive faculty and the general willingness of all to reach out across their disciplinary boundaries to new colleagues, all while maintaining a vibrant collegiality.
That and the extant willingness to take on scientific risk, makes this a dream job.
This weekend, I went to the ballpark and watched as the hapless Nationals easily disposed of the St. Louis Cardinals. It seemed an apt metaphor for those of us living here, in proximity to Jefferson’s and Lincoln’s monuments: in the worst of times come the most pleasant of surprises.
Greenshoots,
Jim

Old rivalry–Amherst vs. Williams

I couldn’t help but smile at this mention of my Alma Mater’s ancient grudge match with Williams College reported in today’s Chronicle of Higher-Education on-line.

For those who can’t get behind the fire-wall, money quote:

A century and a half after an Amherst College senior, James L. Claflin, challenged the boys at nearby Williams College to a game of Massachusetts-rules “base ball,” the two colleges will square off once again on Sunday, marking the 150th anniversary of the first college baseball game ever played.

Swine flu–maybe not so bad

From Clive Cookson’s science blog over at Financial Times….

Money quote:

The Mexican strain currently lacks some of the molecular characteristics associated with the most virulent viruses – adding to the emerging epidemiological evidence that it causes mainly mild illness. Experts believe the apparently high mortality rate in Mexico is due to the result of vast under-reporting of less severe cases.