American Society of Primatologists 2010 - happening NOW!

Hi BANDITs! I'm at the American Society of Primatologists meeting in Louisville, having a grand time. Lots of great papers and participation from the BANDITs: Magdalena Muchlinski, me, Katie Hinde, Cory Ross, Jessica Satkoski Trask, and other new investigators who are also new to bandit: Mike Jarcho, Adam Smith, Drew Birnie, Amanda Dettmer, and many, many others (let me know if I left you out!). Katie (incoming chair of the Education Committee) hosted a really great luncheon for students on the do's and don'ts of the academic job search. I was a panelist along with Paul Garber, Dorothy Cheney, Tom Gillespie, Dee Higley, and Charlie Nunn. Nice job, Katie!

My goal for the summer months is to put up at least one post per week, but, well, you know.

Thought leadership

I just stumbled across the blog Morgan on Science as I was searching for some tips on writing the specific aims portion of an NIH grant. Morgan Giddings is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Microbiology & Immunology, Biomedical Engineering, and Computer Science. I bring her to your attention because her mission neatly dovetails with that of BANDIT:

"Scientists go through many years of specialized training to learn how to do great science. But doing “great science” is only one part of having a great science career. The unfortunate thing is that most people receive little to no training in the “other stuff” that it takes to succeed in science. That “other stuff” includes things like marketing, managing money, managing people, and managing time. People like me who have climbed up the science career ladder have had to learn these things, usually by trial-and-error, and sometimes by getting lucky and having a really good mentor. But career success in science shouldn’t be a matter of luck. What is lacking is a systematized approach, e.g. a “blueprint” for success. I created this blog to develop such a blueprint. My goal is to help people figure out the “other stuff” that it takes to succeed in science."

From a recent blog post on women in science careers, Morgan offers this advice, again taking a page from the BANDIT playbook:
"Learn to promote yourself. A lot of us are really bad about this. We can’t promote ourselves, without feeling like we are violating some social taboo. But you won’t get anywhere in science (or life) without effectively promoting yourself. I’m not talking about standing up and saying “look at me, I’m great, I need to be appreciated.” That doesn’t work (I’ve tried, and that was a miserable failure). I’m talking about more subtle aspects of persuasion. Take, for example, my willingness to write on this blog, and take a stand on some issues here. That gets me recognized for some thought leadership. Ask yourself: is doing that an effective promotion of Morgan? If you answered “yes,” then find ways to do things like that... So, become a thought leader in your field. For example, organize a conference… write review articles … start a blog … or whatever."

The Higher Profile of Educational Debt

While it's long been a subject of anguished conversations in the grad student lounge, the topic of mounting educational debt and the toll it takes on young adults' earning power hasn't captured the public's attention. Until recently, that is. The New York Times published a story a couple of weeks ago about an NYU grad who has $100,000 in a combination of student loan and private loan debt, all for a BACHELOR's degree in religious and women's studies. Yikes. While this young woman and her family bear a large burden of WTF, the fact that NYU financial aid counselors, who were aware of the debt load, encouraged her to take out a loan through Citibank borders on the criminal. Today's Chronicle of Higher Ed reports that NYU has "discontinued the practice of callling prospective students and their parents to discuss the debt they could incur by attending." Why? Because they claim it didn't make a difference in people's decision making. This might be true, but considering the program lasted a single year, I would say the jury is still out.

Obviously, New York University isn't alone in having these problems. I am up to my eyeballs in debt (if I were this tall) and I attended a public university. As a graduate student, I didn't have financial support from my family, but was fortunate enough to not have any debt from my undergraduate degree. It didn't occur to me to seek financial counseling - taking out loans was just part of the program. I had a few tuition-remitting gigs in my department and then shifted into teaching anatomy. Because the anatomy program had its own graduate students, they did not offer tuition remission to "outsiders", even though anthropologists filled most of the teaching slots. To qualify to teach, I had to carry 6 credit hours. To be able to afford those 6 credit hours, I had to take out loans. I never sat down and did the math until it was too late. As an independent adult, I bear a ton of responsibility for that, but it is troubling that the system has so few off-ramps, and that so few advisors are aware of the student loan hamster wheel. Talking about finances is considered too personal, and debt is so shameful, that we avoid the conversation altogether, but for people entering such an uncertain job market, these enormous debt loads can be a real handicap and we need to start talking about it with our prospective students. In the short term, it may mean that programs only accept students to whom they can offer full financial packages, but in the long term it will require an overhaul of the financial aid system.

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is teaming with graduate students at Columbia University's Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism to investigate abuses in the student debt industry. You can share your story, and read about other people's struggle with student loan debt.

College page on Huffington Post

Just wandered over to the Huffington Post to check on the state of the BPocalypse and came across the college page, a nice little digest of higher ed related news stories.

Five things to do with your evaluations...

How I wish that were the title of a borderline profane YouTube video, but alas, it is merely advice from the Chronicle of Higher Education. If we take evaluations seriously, how do we incorporate the actionable suggestions into our next round of teaching? The main suggestion I gleaned from my evaluations is that I need to teach this class a few more times, which the Lord and my college's administration willing, I will. Ta-daahh!

It's a two-fer!

Just noticed that Kris Carlson strikes again in the June AJPA with Gait Dynamics of Cebus apella During Quadrupedalism on Different Substrates, co-authored with Brigette Demes.

BANDIT members in June AJPA

Southern Illinois University PhD candidate Matt Nowak, Kris Carlson of Indiana University and the University of Witwatersrand (and Australopithecus sediba fame!), and Biren Patel of Stony Brook University have published Apparent Density of the Primate Calcaneo-Cuboid Joint and Its Association with Locomotor Mode, Foot Posture, and the "Midtarsal Break" , a neat analysis of mechanical joint loading in the foot in a range of quadrupedal and arboreal primates, as well as humans. Also, there are some very cool figures in this paper - Figure 1 is a super drawing of the feet of three different primates, all in lateral view. I can see this figure being used in a ton of class lectures. Nice!