Recommended reads #176
An extremely helpful guidebook to HyFlex teaching. (Which is when courses are delivered both in person and online at the same time by the same faculty member. And which is what some of us are being expected to do in the Fall!?). This Georgetown site also has other helpful guides to prepping for remote teaching in Fall 2020, too.
When professors hit on students, it harms their academic performance. We know this because a series of experiments have now been published. How can you ethically do an experiment on this? Looks like you gotta read the paper.
Some folks did an experiment with a randomized design to find out whether tweeting about scientific papers improved their citation rates.
A meeting report from the Gordon conference on undergraduate biology education research. A lot of great stuff in there.
“Antiracism in science must be about much more than challenging the bigoted graybeards of our past.”
The graduate student association of San Diego State University has assembled a petition to revote the Emeritus status of Stu Hurlbert. (If you share an academic field with me, you’re likely familiar with Dr. Hurlbert from his germinal work on pseudoreplication.) I’m glad this grassroots effort has developed. In the early 2000s, when I was at the University of San Diego, my department hosted him for a seminar. The first half was about conservation biology, and the second half was a toxic anti-immigrant screed, which he tried to connect to his message about conservation biology. I was appalled, and had no idea that he was going to use his seminar to advocate for a racist policy platform. Since then, he’s retired, and as his own department reports, he is still at it, and has a history of publishing articles in a venue supported by a recognized hate group. The grad students have assembled a timeline of his harassing behaviors. As a professor in the CSU, it seems to me that his conduct does not comport with expectations of an emeritus appointment. He never should have been granted Emeritus status by his department in the first place, but it’s not too late to do the right thing.
An open letter to the EEB community, which is essential reading if you’re in EEB.
Nature published an editorial about how they plan to be anti-racist.
On building science capital for underrepresented students.
The California State University system is supporting a state constitutional amendment to effectively repeal Prop 209, which in 1996 essentially eliminated affirmative action in the state. The UC system thinks it’s a good idea, too.
On the fairytale of perpetual economic growth [highlighted read]