On Books and Shoes

I met my honor's class for the last time today and gave them each a science-related general interest book for summer reading. Among the books I handed out: Bright Earth by Philip Ball (to the Art major), Critical Mass by the same author (to the student interested in nuclear issues and politics), Cities in the Wilderness by Bruce Babbitt (to the student interested in sustainability), and Oxygen (the play) by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann (to the theater major).

I do this occasionally for non-majors in small (<10 students) classes when I've enjoyed their enthusiasm (and I think they will read and enjoy them). I also give books as graduation presents to our majors. Total cost for the non-major class: $105.73. (Paperbacks, nothing fancy.) I figure I bought these and these for myself recently for no defensible reason^*, so what is $106 to support lifelong learning in science?

 

 

^*Other than my obsession with Reebok Freestyle hitops which I've been wearing for 25 years.

Things I forgot to do today

1) Wash my hair

2) Show up for a review session that I scheduled for 11 a.m.

3) Buy cooking oil

Not really what I was expecting

Dalton: Here you go!

Me: What?

Dalton: Take this!

Me: Uh O.K. What is it?

Dalton: [Hands me a booger]

Me: Ew!

Some numbers from a weekend wedding

Number of days between finding out about Dr. H's brother's wedding and the wedding itself: 20

Number of times this wedding has been scheduled: 2

Number of times this wedding has been canceled: 1

Number of times we have purchased plane tickets for this wedding: 2

Hours spent this weekend engaged in air transit with two children under four: 16

Minutes children slept during this time (combined total): 6

Minutes required to check into hotel room at 2 a.m. Saturday morning: 35

Hours spent driving in rental car with two or more children under four: 5

Number of children of mine who are girls: 1

Number of children of mine who wore dresses to the wedding: 2

Hours spent away from home this weekend: 46

Number of suitcases arriving home with us: 0

Two track mind

Me: I know what you are thinking, but I have a lot of work to do.

Dr. H: How is it you always know what I'm thinking?

Me: You are always thinking about the same thing.

Dr. H: Not true. Sometimes I get all distracted by an interesting statistics problem.

 

Two Institutions, Two Sets of Students

I decided during my senior year of college that I wanted to be a professor at a small liberal arts college. I expected to get married to another academic once I was settled into an academic job. I expected to have twins, a house near campus, and a dog, once I got that tenure thing out of the way.

Instead:
1) got TT job at regional master's level institution (loved it)
2) got cats after going to shelter "just to look around" (awesome, no regrets)
3) found a partner who was also an academic (in another city...oops)
4) got tenure (yea!)
5) got married (yea!) (also acquired 3rd cat by marriage)
6) took a leave and went into administration near husband's new TT job (missed teaching)
7) got a job at a small liberal arts college (same metropolitan area, woo hoo!)
8) bought a house (over 25 miles from both our colleges)
9) got another cat (yes, that is four for those keeping track)
10) had twins (Clomid)
11) got tenure (again!)

The first deviation from my original plan was taking a job at a regional master's level (public) institution. When I was considering my options in college, the truth is, I had no idea such institutions existed. In my world there were (1) larger public or private research universities (2) small private colleges and (3) community colleges. It was only in graduate school that I learned about M.S. granting mixed teaching/research institutions. A woman from one of these institutions was doing a sabbatical leave at my graduate school. She was asked to speak to a small group of grad students who were interested in teaching at primarily undergraduate institutions. She was shocked that "small group" turned out to be packed room of more than 20 (mostly women). I liked what I heard there. When applying for jobs, I found a job announcement at one such institution that seemed written for me. To make a long story short, I liked the place, they liked me, and I took the job.

It turned out to be a great fit, in ways that surprised me. The student body consisted of a wide range of students. Some were quite weak, coming in needing remedial work in math and writing. Some students were hard working, some were distracted with other responsibilities, many were both. A few were absolutely brilliant. (Really.) What was remarkable and rewarding about this job was that I made a difference. And moreover, I made a difference to all those groups of students. I developed teaching techniques that "raised up the bottom" while still challenging the top. I rarely had to fail students - yet students often reported my class was the hardest they'd ever taken. I sent students to excellent grad schools. I also got to teach graduate courses in my specialty areas more than occasionally.

Leaving was hard, especially after attaining tenure. I did so to solve my two-body problem. That is a whole bunch of other posts in itself - which I will save for another time.

Today, I find myself at a small, private, liberal arts college, just as I always imagined. My students at SLAC, on average, are much better students than my students were at Regional U. This is nice for a number of reasons. I have to worry less about compliance on homework and class attendance. I also have to spend a lot less time working on basic math skills. These are all good things that make my life easier. On the other hand, the range of abilities demonstrated by my students is considerably narrower when I compare them to the students I had at Regional U. Here's one issue: this means that I don't feel like I make that much of a difference. These students are reasonably good students who will do okay with or without me. I would not have thought I would miss weaker students, but there you go. Something else unexpected: the narrower distribution at SLAC also means that while I have many strong students, I have yet to encounter any truly brilliant students. Maybe Regional U. was an anomaly, but I had two students in my short time there who blew my mind. (Cleverly, I sent one to my undergraduate institution to do an REU, and sent the other to my grad school to get a Ph.D., thus instilling in my former mentors a deep belief in my sound judgment.) My explanation for this is that some really incredible students chose Regional U. because of financial concerns - not something that is going to get such students to choose my SLAC over, say, Prestigious SLAC or Ivy U.

On the other hand, at SLAC, my students are really nice and I have a lot of freedom within the classroom. The faculty is 1/5 the size of Regional U, and the student body is 1/8 the size, which (often) means less bureaucracy. I have a lot more freedom to schedule classes, design new courses, even to pick textbooks, than I ever had at Regional U. I also feel I can make a big difference on campus. Lots of things on my campus are changing right now, and I feel very involved. Usually, that is a good thing. This is a different sort of making a difference than I mentioned before, but one that I also enjoy.

The last big difference between the two institutions is in research support. I had much more research support (time, money and students) at Regional U and consequently was able to do more research. Happily, however, my SLAC has started to put more resources into undergraduate research. I may be in a position to help direct how that happens. This is the last piece of the puzzle for me.

Now, if I could just find a way to shorten my commute....


scientiae-carnival

File under not my job

We are having an important speaker come to campus Monday. Our chair has been involved in coordinating this at the college level. Today, this comes to my inbox:

To: twice@slac.edu
From: chair@slac.edu

T,

Could you get up some notices about the Mon talk? Inviting all science students.

The [physchembio] of [topic of current interest].

P.S. [secretary's name] will be here tomorrow (Fri) morning).

Thanks,
Chair

Hmm, perhaps he could have just sent the request to the secretary then?

Things I've learned in the last 24 hours

1. When the hard drive of a MacBook starts to go, it behaves just like a laptop running Windows.

2. Hard drive failures are a lot less stressful when the computer is still under warranty and there is just enough life left in the drive to do a full backup.

3. Watching a computer report that there are fewer and fewer files in a directory each time you click on it is somewhat disconcerting, item 2 (above) notwithstanding.

4. The order of priority of my electronic files appears to be: sabbatical research data, kid pictures, other documents. In fairness, the kid picture folder was 1 GB, the research folder was more like 10 MB.

5. To describe the same program, art faculty come up with entirely different graphics than science faculty do.

6. Other faculty members who want to needle you about how the upper division students in their class can't do stuff they should have learned in your class should first check to make sure said students have taken your class. While they are at it, perhaps it would be best if they recalled that they had in fact advised said students to wait to take your class until next year.

Two observations

1) Everything I know about civil infrastructure I've learned from Sim_City.

2) My poster tube is totally lame compared to those belonging to everyone else on the plane going to big conference city.

Children of Men

Several months ago, Dr. H. and I watched the movie Children of Men based on a suggestion on Wil Wheaton's Blog. I was intrigued by the premise: a world in which no human child had been born in decades - and the social collapse and despair surrounding the impending end of the species. The movie was very good and I would recommend it, though it was not what I expected. (From the premise - I was thinking Sci-Fi - but really it was an action/adventure movie.) It came out in 2006, but totally escaped our radar somehow.

I was intrigued enough by the premise and the movie to follow up and find that it was based on a novel by P. D. James. I quickly ascertained that the book and movie were quite a bit different, so I stopped reading things on-line until I had a chance to read the book. Immediately after acquiring the book, Dr. H and I both read it in just a few days. It is short and quite compelling. I picked it up right after it arrived - just to look at it for a few moments and I was several chapters in without realizing it. I highly recommend it.

I found the book to be more satisfying than the movie as it gives a lot more context for some of the interpersonal interactions. Many characters are different and the political issues are related, but different. The movie is said to be only "loosely" based on the novel, and I understand why some of the major changes were made. The movie does do an excellent job of presenting the feeling and overall mood of the book, despite these major differences. One funny change (this does not give anything away) is that in the book, the main character is a history professor - this is not so in the movie. I guess professors are considered to be too boring. Perhaps it has been too long since we have had a movie about the archeology professor with the fedora - but apparently that will all change this May.

 

Doing my part for the Democrats

My mother, a white, middle-class woman over 60, is about to move from McCain country to super-important swing state.

She is a registered Democrat. She voted for Clinton in the primary. So far no problem.

She has occasionally voted for Republicans, but doesn't seem to remember doing so, or consider it to be significant. In the last four national elections she voted for Clinton, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. I really thought W had put her right over the edge and squarely into the Democratic camp for good. And if Clinton wins the primary, we can count on one more democratic vote in that swing state.

But, there is a problem in an alternate scenario: She is scared of the angry black people.

That isn't what she said of course - what she said was: "I'm just so concerned."

I really wanted to ask my mother, "What do you think is going to happen?" This wasn't going to get us anywhere, however, because admitting this sort of thing to me when she knows how I feel indicates she wants to feel differently - better to focus on that.

Instead, I urged her to listen to Obama's entire speech. She is open enough that this might be sufficient. She was surprised to learn that Wright is an ex-Marine. Fortunately, this alone convinced her that she might not know the whole story. She was also receptive to the idea that the images and sound bites she is being plagued with are taken out of context and politically motivated, something the UCC's Response to this whole thing sums up nicely:

What's really going on here? First, it may state the obvious to point out that these television and radio shows have very little interest in Trinity Church or Jeremiah Wright. Those who sifted through hours of sermons searching for a few lurid phrases and those who have aired them repeatedly have only one intention. It is to wound a presidential candidate.

I think anti-racism activist Tim Wise is also on to something here when he touches on white discomfort with black anger:

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

I'm not sure this last thing is something my mother is ready to hear.

Besides referring my mother to Obama's speech and trying to contextualize this whole issue, I'm not really sure what else to do. My whole family is like this - and that is just the ones who are Democrats. For example my aunt (a democrat) is really mad at Oprah, for supporting Obama over Clinton. "Isn't she supposed to be for women?" she asks. What I want to ask her is "Are you really mad about that, or are you just mad that Oprah has reminded you that she is black?" This is unlikely to get me anywhere, but I feel ill-prepared to confront racism, especially in my own family. At some point in the conversation with my mother, I turned the phone over to Dr. H, who has some more perspective. He reminded my mother of his adopted brother's experience as an African-American child growing up in a white family in a very white rural suburb - and the very understandable anger that resulted from the bias, prejudice and abuse he encountered.

Perhaps we made some headway with my mother. Time will tell.

---

Bitch, Ph.D. has some things to say on this subject and the comments are also interesting.

This is not directly related, but Jerald Walker has another interesting piece up at the Chronicle about race and the academy.

Another one

The other day, a worker at the kids daycare asked if we were planning to have any more.

I'm forty, so it is now or never.

So, we're thinking, probably never.

(Don't worry, I know the window of time is diminishing at an astronomical pace, and even if we did decide to go forward right now, there would be no guarantees.)

It is a complicated issue. We always said two, even before we were together.

Once we were together, the picture was even clearer, with only the little hiccup of anovulation to worry about. I gave H the number run down: This is my fertility issue, so first we try Clomid, it has an X% chance of working and if it works, a 10% chance of twins and and Y% chance of multiples where n>2. (At the time, I knew the numbers) Then, if that doesn't work, we go on to Pergonal, which for this situation, has a Z% blah blah blah. Full disclosure. We joked about twins, and "getting it all done at once." In fact, any time we imagined our future family, it was us and a set of boy-girl twins.

So, one could argue, we have the family we always dreamed of. So, what is the problem?

Even more puzzling, right before we started trying, I suggested we could consider stopping at one.

So why the ambivalence about stopping at two?

I think there are a few reasons. The first is that incredibly heady feeling of looking at these creatures and thinking, "Wow, we made those!" (I know that is a totally cheesy thing everyone says.) But it really does blow my mind, on a molecular and probabilistic level as well as a psychological one. Biochemistry just works - somehow putting all those molecules together to grow a baby. And, if I had not rushed back from that conference, making my colleague skip a meeting, it may not have worked that month. Indeed, we may have conceived a different set of twins on a different month, or a singleton, or even triplets. The ability to open up this set of possibilities again is enticing.

Another reason is not having the birthing or nursing experience that I wanted. (I'll write about this some other time.) I keep reminding myself this is not a good reason to have another child. Nor is the fact that I like the idea of using all the information I've acquired about pregnancy, birth and newborns again.

There are the other positives of course - the joy and amazement of watching a baby turn into an actual kid, Curie and Dalton having a little brother, having no regrets.

This last part is perhaps the crux of it. I am annoyed this decision can't be revisited later. In a really short period of time, my eggs will have had their day, and that, as they say, is that. It seems unfair that this is the case for women, but not for men. I object to the idea that the universe has put me in this position. If we had only had one the first time, I think we would have absolutely tried for a second by now. But given that we already have two, another seems frivolous. Not to mention tempting fate again - the chance of having a second set of twins is not insignificant.

Many of the cons about having another child are obvious: sleep deprivation, daycare $$$, less time, stretched resources, having to purchase a vehicle that will hold three (or more, gasp) carseats, age-related concerns and the like.

However, for me, I think the biggest drawback is starting all over again. We've made so much headway: We may have finally bought our last package of diapers. Dr. H and I often get enough sleep. We are starting to be more productive at work again. We even occasionally have a chance to talk and laugh about things which are not logistical in nature.

My dean, herself a mother of two, said to me "you won't believe what a difference it makes to your life transitioning from preschoolers to having kids over five" A former colleague and I had an opportunity to have lunch and catch up last week. He's a very involved father of three. "You are entering the best phase - the next eight years are the best part."

I really can't see hitting the reset button and heading back to level one, especially when we are four years in and on the verge of being in the zone.

.....

Hat tips to two academic bloggers who inspired me to write about my thoughts on this: Addy N. expecting her second child after a long break following her first, and Trillwing considering whether or not to stop at one.