Archive for the 'Newsletter' Category

Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed

SEATTLE — The average humanities doctoral student takes nine years to earn a Ph.D. That fact was cited frequently here (and not with pride) at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. Richard E. Miller, an English professor at Rutgers University’s main campus in New Brunswick, said that the nine-year period means that those finishing dissertations today started them before Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Kindles, iPads or streaming video had been invented.

So much has changed, he said, but dissertation norms haven’t, to the detriment of English and other language programs. “Are we writing books for the 19th century or preparing people to work in the 21st?” he asked.

Leaders of the MLA — in several sessions and discussions here — indicated that they are afraid that too many dissertations are indeed governed by out-of-date conventions, leading to the production of “proto-books” that may do little to promote scholarship and may not even be advancing the careers of graduate students. During the process, the graduate students accumulate debt and frustrations. Russell A. Berman, a professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford University, used his presidential address at the MLA to call for departments to find ways to cut “time to degree” for doctorates in half. More…

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By Robin McKie, The Observer

A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.

Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.

Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.

‘I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,’ said the article’s lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. ‘I am stunned.’

British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: ‘If the journal didn’t like the paper, they shouldn’t have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?’

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Andrew Pollen, The Economist

Should it matter to students whether a business school has a strong research base? Andrew Pollen, a first-year MBA student at ESADE in Barcelona, thinks not

A COUPLE of weeks ago, my economics professor introduced a new case study for us to mull over. It was dense and packed with historical background. We were split into groups and most of the class had only just finished reading it when we reconvened to wrap up the session. The professor explained some fine points for the case and suggested which tactics we should employ. Then he said he was very disappointed in us.

“I wanted you to work on the case in groups,” he said, “and instead you read the case individually. If you had worked together, I think you would have noticed that the first 10 pages of the case were absolute nonsense that you do not need to answer the questions.”

It was a powerful pedagogic lesson in using teamwork to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. I think ESADE emphasises the teaching ability of its faculty because it has never been a top research institution; faculty come from industry or consulting rather than academia. They view teaching as their motivation rather than an unpleasant side effect to their appointment. On the first day of my statistics class, the professor thanked the students and said, “Your being here allows me to do something that I love.” I felt that sentiment a lot less often during my time at a top American business school.

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Peter da Costa, University World News

The European Commission has proposed an historic adjustment to its research and innovation policies with a view to stimulating economic growth and shoring up the competitiveness of the European Union. The plans include a EUR30 billion (US$40 billion) increase in funding and a 16-fold rise in the number of higher education students being supported in their training.

Under the proposed Horizon 2020 programme for 2014-20, announced last week, Brussels has set out budgets totalling EUR80 billion (US$108 billion) to push forward the EU’s scientific and research strategies against the background of a difficult and dramatically changing economic environment.

The sums dwarf anything the EU has spent on research before, and may even challenge spending by the US, Japan and other research-oriented countries in some sectors. The current 2007-13 seventh framework programme is spending EUR50 billion.

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Image: Stuart Miles