Reputation Markets

At leiter reports, they’re discussing letters of recommendation for academic job seekers, and the discussion has moved into a question of whether professors should make explicit comparisons (“this is my nth best student”, or “this student is at least as good as Justin was, which isn’t saying much”).

Naturally, what we need is a database of all the comparisons made by any given professor which can be used to judge their intertemporal consistency as well as their intrinsic plausibility.  Someone smarter than me can tackle the privacy issues.

Sometimes I say things and I can’t decide whether they’re sarcasm or wishful thinking.

Organization Tools

I’m beginning to think my organizational strategy of “trying to remember everything interesting I read in my head” may not be the best.  So I’m looking for tools to take the load off of my poor aching brain.  Do any of you use Evernote/Yojimbo/Devonthink/Zotero/other things I can’t remember offhand? If so, are they any good? Once I get my act together, I’ll probably start using BibTek for citations, so I don’t think I need a tool that’s primarily aimed at bibliographies.

Update: My experience so far is that Evernote is obnoxious and clunky.  On to a trial version of Yojimbo.

Status and Academia

Todd Zywicki says something a bit silly in discussing why academics tend to be less happy than people at large. There’s not actually any evidence for the fact that’s to be explained, but that’s being bracketed. He starts off by noting that academia is a sort of status economy instead of a monetary economy–the primary rewards come in the form of higher status, rather than higher payment.

First of all, I’m not sure this is true: as you move from low to high prestige schools, you end up doing less teaching for more money. There are also things like grants, which may give quite successful professors a chance to make money without working. It’s true that there’s an upper bound on what any academic might make, but that’s true of most jobs–once you’ve accepted a career, your salary is likely to remain within relatively narrow bounds.

Leaving that aside, Zywicki makes the following claim:

Now here’s where it gets kind of twisted–given that the money-based economy is the default rule in America, who is it that are most likely to self-select into a status-based economy? You got it–those are are most motivated by status.

This is only true if the kind of status that academics get is recognized as status by those outside of the academic hierarchy. But it’s not–most Americans do not see being the nation’s second best Proust scholar as a particularly impressive status. The best you could say is that of those people who initially are interested in being academics, the ones most motivated by status would be the ones most likely to persist.

Lastly, find your future academics in middle school. Do they look like the kids who are most motivated by status? Either some remarkable inversion happens between then and age 30, or the claim is not particularly plausible.

Hahvahd

While it’s somewhat in line with my own prejudices, Jim Manzi’s take on Harvard is much meaner than I’d be.  Check it out, if only for the surprising headline.  Also check out Brad Delong’s analogy between Harvard and a Yugoslavian corporation (Brad incidentally counts Harvard as his alma mater).

Quote of the Day

It’s simple, really: whenever my students hear me snap my fingers and quote Marx’s 11th thesis on Feuerbach, they spontaneously begin to decry homophobia, sexism, racism, ageism, monologism, lookism, bagism, dragism, and journalism.

That would be Michael Bérubé, in Public Image Limited, a tremendously delightful essay on the crimes of the PC professor that I just discovered today.

About Grad School

I think Timothy Burke’s portrayal of grad school is the most dystopian that I’ve seen yet.  While it’s no longer the time of year that prospective students are considering where to go, I’ll offer the following modest plug for the Pitt philosophy department: I have no fucking clue what he’s on about.

Some are not athletes

I lied when I said I wouldn’t be posting for two weeks (surprise, that!). See, it turns out that someone on the internet is wrong.

Matthew Yglesias has linked to a post claiming that colleges know how to take care of students, and ensure high graduation rates. The offered advice is: treat ‘em like athletes. Contrary to the stereotypes, athletes have better graduation rates than the student populace at large, and the gap grows the less advantaged the athletes are in the first place–unsurprisingly, there’s a large gap in graduation rates between middle class second generation students and poor first generation college students. However, there are three reasons to doubt the model will extend to students in general.

First, there’s money issues. The constant observation and interventions for athletes aren’t cheap for universities, so it’s an open question how many of them have the resources to extend them to the student body as a whole. At the same time, athletes’ graduation rates will be boosted by the fact that they are often on scholarship. The full scholarships that basketball and football players get at big universities are rare, but even a bit of money matters given that monetary difficulties are a huge reason for students failing to complete college. Even when students don’t drop out because of money, the need to work long hours is often a severe obstacle to getting good grades.

Second, there’s the issue of leverage. Perhaps it’s too bold of a conjecture, but I think not that many students quit college because they just can’t handle the work, but that they’re insufficiently motivated (or they’re so bogged down with none-college obligations that they can’t put in enough effort–see above). Even in logic, a course that is quite hard for many students (and oddly easy for others), the students headed for failure are more likely than not the ones who I can’t recognize because they don’t come to class, or those who can’t be bothered to turn in homework.

Athletes have a very compelling and immediate instrumental motivation–they can’t do something they love this year unless they keep their grades up. Non-athletes have the compelling motivation of lifetime earnings and such, but we know just how good Homo Sapiens is at reacting to anything not right in front of its face. More than that, some of the measures described by Rotherdam are unlikely to sit well with students: “they live in special housing and often eat in special facilities.” Leaving aside the question of how those special facilities work when extended to the student population at large, how many kids are going to sign up? Athletes also often have 7 AM weight training–picture the average student’s reaction to that prospect.

Third, many of the ways that athletes are treated undermine the educational goals of the university. The author of the post suggests that the stereotype of athletes enrolling in easy majors is just a stereotype. I’m very curious what he bases that on. Cases like Georgia’s basketball course, featuring questions like “how many points is a three point goal worth” are probably rare, but there are subtler ways of rigging the game. Athletic departments often compile lists of recommended courses, going so far as to guide students away from courses taught by particular teachers because of the workloads involved. The point is that what athletic departments are motivated to do is keep graduation rates up for their own sake, regardless of whether that amounts to giving the students a well rounded education.

Sartorial Mores

Several academic bloggers are really irked about Erik Jensen’s call for better attire among the professoriat. They’re annoyed because it’s a really stupid article. Brad DeLong has the best reaction: he analyzes the effect of wearing a tie on different audiences. Tyler Cowen has remarks about dressing up as a form of signaling as well. My personal theory is that wearing a tie is probably a good thing for the people who think it is a good thing. If you’ve internalized the norms to the extent that you feel slovenly without your tie, you should wear it.

Me? I’m busy browsing expensive ties on the internet. There’s a $54 banana republic tie that I like, but that’s the cheap one. Moving into $100 territory, I think my favorites are the Ermenegildo Zegnas. Needless to say, I wear a tie perhaps twice a year (and I’m a grad student, so $100 is a lot of money).

This guy reversed his decision to support Clinton and endorsed Obama. But what I’m really struck by is that he’s wearing a nice tie.

Famous Americans

Ross Douthat, who I typically find interesting, has a really dumb post about multiculturalism in public school teaching.  The issue is this set of poll results on the top ten most famous (non-President/First Lady) Americans, administered to high school students and then adults.  In order, they are:

Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Benjamin Franklin, Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey, Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein.

This is a crazy list, but it’s a little weird to get to multiculturalism.  I’m stuck on “what the fuck?!”  On the other hand, since it’s a list of the most famous, it’s somewhat self-ratifying.

The oddness of the list seems to be widespread, but in many ways it’s explicable.  Oprah is probably one of the most famous Americans now–her presence probably has nothing to do with history education.  Benjamin’s presence probably has to do with the $100 bill.  Martin Luther King is legitimately on any list of famous Americans.  Marilyn Monroe!?! Albert Einstein wasn’t American, but that seems unconnected to multiculturalism, etc.

The fact is, if you removed ‘multiculturalism’ from the curriculum, you would see a crazy list.  It would be a different list, but is there any reason to believe that the list is primarily distorted by multiculturalism?

A Few Words for Today

I don’t know the context because I’m in the middle of the post, but here’s Timothy Burke:

…the kind of work that I think all scholars ought to try and pull off at some point in their career, even in short form: a readable, lucid synthesis of scholarship (and scholarly debates) on a topic they know well.

I’d agree that the products of such work are under-appreciated and under-provided.  This is both a cause and symptom of my concern about philosophy’s place in a broader intellectual culture.

Hyperlexia

Last Sunday, I started a “philosophy inbox” that sits on my desktop and which contains all the articles I download which would otherwise clog the desktop and distract me while waiting to go somewhere out of sight. I’ve yet to move anything out of the inbox, which lets me see that an impressive 18 articles have now accumulated. This isn’t bragging (I didn’t say I read those articles). It just indicates a complete inability to prioritize. Did I mention that I still have ungraded student papers and I’m moving tomorrow (Ed–today)?  Over the past week there have been 18 different things I’ve thought that I needed to read and digest. But it’s worse: none of three articles on the modularity of mind that I found last night go into the inbox, or Nisbett’s blunt dismissal of hereditary racial differences in IQ. Nor do the chapters of Anil and Bob’s books that I read for their classes, nor does the Sellars I’ve been rereading, or the collected works of Descartes that I looked at on a whim.

Someone or several someones, I forget who, said that the central problem we’re each going to have to solve in the future is dealing with abundance–filtering it and finding someone way to find the things we actually need (of course this is “we” tube using nerds). They were right.

The Joys that Lie Ahead

It’s gauche to talk about jobs when you’re just a second year, but I can’t help but appreciate the delightful collective irrationality pointed out by Mark Van Roojen in a leiter thread on hiring:

It seems like we can learn two things about cover letters from this thread. (1) If you’re looking for a job paying some attention to tailoring a cover letter is a good idea because some people take such letters seriously (whether they ought to or not). And (2) if you’re hiring you should disregard cover letters because a pro forma cover letter is not evidence either of lack of interest or of a lack of common sense on the part of the candidate since the standard advice at many places is not to worry about cover letters.

More Unix Applied to Politics

Or it’s a really stupid idea to put colleges in the position of being legally obligated to support the RIAA and MPAA’s agendas. Colleges would be forced to develop “technology based solutions” relating to illegal downloading, and would apparently be pressured in some fashion to sign up for subscription based services. Schools that did not do this would theoretically be subject to loss of federal financial aid. The disproportionateness of this measure is staggering. (If the gag doesn’t make sense, try my earlier post on Unix and government).

Academic Acknowledgements

Apparently the style of the acknowledgments at the beginning of the book is the same in literature as it is in philosophy. Here’s the list.

Delaware Free Speech Issues?

The conservative blogosphere is really excited about a possible free speech issue at the University of Delaware. The claim has appeared on Marginal Revolution (with a responsible request for firsthand accounts), and is even getting spammed places (as in this CrookedTimber thread). There are probably hundreds of blog posts around the tubes at this point, almost all in conservative rags (I mean no negative implications there, that’s just for context). I’m not sure I can do justice to their outrage, so let me just quote:

“NEWARK, Del., October 30, 2007—The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a “treatment” for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware’s residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is calling for the total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of students’ rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled speech.” (FIRE press release)

It seems evident that Delaware has at the least, a ham-handed sort of residential education and diversity policy. It also seems clear that a presentation occurred in which the speaker claimed that whites were racists by definition and that it was impossible for minorities to be racist. In the Marginal Revolution comments, a former RA quite plausibly claimed that this was an outside speaker, not someone presenting part of the curriculum designed by Delaware.

Nonetheless, the whole affair strikes me as fishy. First of all, there appears to be very little student participation–instead almost everything seems to be coming from FIRE, the group that was quoted before. FIRE is not necessarily partisan–their website includes a couple of free speech issues which concern suppression of liberal oriented speech (kudos!). However, they are an outside group, and the contemporary dynamics of academic politics make me extremely suspicious of outside groups intervening in campus politics, unless they are obviously there in support of a pre-existing student reaction. However, I have not been able to find any evidence of public comment or reaction at Delaware.

In particular, I see no articles on the Delaware student newspaper. Perhaps they’re being suppressed, though the newspaper calls itself independent. Or perhaps, a la Occam’s razor, there are no stories because the students do not see themselves as victims of indoctrination. Obviously organizations like FIRE should be there to support students who are being treated unfairly, but it seems a relevant condition that the students find their treatment to be worth protesting (I was told students would be on Hannity and Colmes, but it was while I was in class, and can’t find it on the Fox website, so I don’t know one way or another).

The Overeager

Anyone who regularly reads student essays should rush over to Acephalous and check out the post “On Uppity Little Snots,” in particular, the comments by the professor which appear in the comment section.

Publicity Stunts

As I continue to waffle on Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia, I’ve once again turned around what I thought. I just saw Lee Bollinger’s statement during his debate with Ahmadinejad that “you described the Holocaust as a fabricated legend. When you have come to a place like this, this makes you quite simply, ridiculous. Mr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.”

If you meet someone evil on the street, it is perhaps appropriate to use such language. But if you are willing to say to a man’s face that he is a petty and cruel dictator–if you are willing to close off the conversation in that fashion, why would you invite him to speak?

With language like that, the invitation continues to look like a publicity stunt by Columbia’s president.

Ahmadinejad in New York

So far I’ve heard of two cases about what’s acceptable during Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York. First of all there’s the decision to prohibit him from laying a wreath at ground zero, which he has been prohibited from doing. Though the objective consequences of this decision will likely be slim, it is almost impossibly unreasonable. What could be a problem with him placing a wreath? Are we afraid that a conciliatory gesture would slow the run-up to war? (To my mind, it is actually strange that Ahmadinejad would make such a gesture, since he usually seems as bellicose as the Bush administration). Perhaps the thought is that Ahmadinejad might somehow himself be in danger, but that would not explain John McCain’s thuggish claim that “he should be physically restrained if necessary.” McCain inhabits a fantasy world in which Ahmadinejad would personally charge ground zero shoving heroic firefighters out of the way. McCain himself would be at the rim of ground zero, wrapped in an American flag and would tackle Ahmadinejad, finally preventing him from detonating his explosives into a big hole in the ground.

Back in the real world, there’s an interesting case involving Columbia, which has offered Ahmadinejad a chance to speak and answer student questions. I’m of two minds about this but (novel phrase for me approaching), I may actually agree with William Kristol that this is a bad decision. Columbia’s president plans to ask difficult questions before Ahmadinejad speaks, but one wonders what good it does to publicly challenge Ahmadinejad on the issue of whether the holocaust happened. Does it serve the purposes of Columbia as an educational institution to have a lively debate on the subject? I think not.

Connect the Dots

Seeing a post about HIV denialism made me think there’s something here:

1. It’s part of the common wisdom about many disciplines that there’s simply too much published research.  Even though this research may be peer-reviewed and published by competent authors, there’s just too much of it, because of the incentives for publication within the academy (I don’t know if this is true in the sciences).
2. Most professors are frustrated by their field’s inability to connect to a broader audience, and think that doing better in this regard could have an important impact on the world.

Do Unto Others (As An Academic Would Do Unto You)

Following on the heels of my Dawkins post, I’ll offer a tip to academics. At some point, you will want to publicly make fun of a jargon heavy abstract from a field of which you are ignorant. When that moment comes, do not submit to temptation, because you will end up looking like an ignorant douche.h

Today’s whipping boy is Steven Dubner, who found a hilarious linguistics abstract and shared it with his readers at the Freakonomics blog. Charitably, he noted that he loved to live in a society that valued such research, and was so interested as to ask his readers to “translate it out of the Croatian” for him. Unfortunately, the author of the abstract was a contributor to the only slightly less prominent language log, and Dubner found himself on the receiving end of a very tastefully delivered glance down the nose.

After leaving the language log post, I started to think that Dubner wasn’t all that bright, but I quickly reverted to ‘unlucky’ once it occurred to me that coauthoring Freakonomics sorta makes him a rock star. Less impressive writers will ensure that a lot of people view them as mentally challenged if they engage in this sort of interdisciplinary snideness.