Academic Mixtape X
good stuff to read and know about
A new review paper is out detailing exactly how problematic outdoor house cats are. Here’s a writeup in NPR that I thought was pretty good.
Sexism in academia is bad for science and a waste of public funding. You knew this but yet again it’s another academic paper with data to explain how important this is. And this picture speaks a thousand curse words:
The most mysterious song on the internet.
A country of “walking coffins”
Here is another installment of “quitlit,” but I think that’s not a fully apt label for this post: Dr. Ambika Kamath is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, and she announced on her blog that she’s leaving her position take a leading role in a science communication strategy consulting firm that she’s re-launching. She explains that engaging with broader audiences about science can have a substantial impact on the science itself and how it is done. And she also explains how she’s about to publish a book with some cool and important ideas about animal behavior (which I am excited to read), and how she isn’t so excited about spending so much of her time in her career to promote and defend these ideas, but is more interested in letting ideas take root and move on to communicate about a variety of other consequential things. I found myself really sympathizing with her motivations. It says a lot when some of the most motivated scientists with big ideas and a desire to change the status quo are finding that doing this within the professoriate isn’t the way to go.
Another piece of kind-of quitlit: Stephen Heard reflects on retiring, right at the point when he figured everything out. At one point, he says, “I’m quitting” so there’s that.
Funny/not funny that Ambika's making that big shift (in light of the paper you cited above the link to her announcement). As someone also working to bridge science/academia/scicomm, and as a former consultant turned academic, I'm fascinated by the many directions we all take to do that work. Also, my podcast co-host and I just shared an alternative take on (not) leaving academia in our last episode of the season: https://www.meteorscicomm.org/podcast. I'm a 1st-gen kid, and, having worked most of my career outside academia first, I still see extraordinary opportunities for change within the academy. I'm increasingly convinced that one challenge we face in academia that leads to people leaving is that academia doesn't equip people to imagine concrete change and take tangible action toward that change. For many reasons, change seems more possible outside the academy (for many colleagues and students I work with), but I don't think that's the full picture. I totally applaud people doing all kinds of things but also don't want to abandon what is good and possible in higher ed.
I’m so surprised/so not surprised to read about Ambika’s next steps. Thank you for pointing me to her blog.