Make money: Invest in student research

Every so often, I write about a topic that is important to me--but nobody wants to buy it.  Maybe the draft wasn't good enough, or they have too many other pieces to run?  Maybe the publication thinks that the topic isn't important enough to their audience.  In other words, they don't think anyone cares enough to publish it.

This is hard because I've already invested the time in researching and writing it.  The hardest part though is when it's an important topic, but nobody has aired it sufficiently.  The Professor and I spent a lot of years as graduate students.  Since then, we've also mentored graduate students--in the classroom, the lab, or by feeding them on a holiday.  It was important to me to speak out about the poor levels of financial support grad students get in Manitoba.  Here's my piece on this issue.  It was just published in UM Today--despite the proximity to the end of the academic term, I hope folks read it!  I'm thrilled this piece found a home. I hope it might make a difference.

Op-Ed: Make more money: Invest in student research

Short version: Investing in undergrad and grad research offers huge positive outcomes from a financial perspective.  Personally?  It means grad students can afford to eat without using the food bank and avoid living in rooming houses while they continue their schooling.

In family news, we have continued our hibernation and making frenzy despite several viruses.  Here is a beet chocolate chocolate chip Bundt cake...Maybe the second or third time I have ever used this bundt pan we got for our wedding!  (we get a lot of beets in our farm share at this time of year.  It's a root veggie time of year..)

This year, my kids decided our gifts for teachers would be all handmade.  This morning we gave out four bags with homemade jam, pickles, handwoven and handknit items made by kids AND beautiful hand done colouring and cards from kids.  I was proud of my twins.

One of my guys is currently alternating between wearing only two handknit sweaters.  They are: Freestyle Super and Stripe Freestyle.  (The dude likes stripes.  A lot.)  We are now collaborating on yet another one, with hand-dyed yarns that both kids helped make last summer.  This sweater will be a mommy hand-knit, but I'm not going to write another pattern.  To my surprise, those patterns do not seem to be as popular with other kids as they are in my house.  Again, it's a mystery...but I'm glad the designs find a home on my kids' backs all winter.

Last but not least, one twin is exploring crochet.  This is his version of a lion, before he put on the mane.  Can you see it?  (This is an abstract thinker, I was  impressed.  Rorschach Tests are like this...)

Hope you are having a wonderful December, no matter what you make or celebrate! :)

a new op-ed on higher ed

Over the weekend, my new article came out on the CBC:
Underfunding higher education is hurting Manitoba's economy

As the partner of a professor, the two of us are sometimes wrapped up in knots over what's going on in universities.  How things are funded, how a professor's teaching load and classes are assigned, how to manage the hundreds of emails and students and details.  What is particularly interesting is that by choosing not to get a PhD or become a professor,* I have a different perspective.

From outside the ivory tower, sometimes you can see how individual professors or departments have lost track of their mission.  For instance, professors are, in part, teachers, but often lack any kind of training in how to teach.  So, they struggle with how to be effective instructors...and their assignments sometimes don't match the objectives they hope their students will master.  Their students don't learn all that they could, because the professors lack the teaching tools they need.  Some professors don't even like teaching!  Professors aren't perfect, by any means, but they are experts in their particular field of research.

Yet, in an era of cost-cutting at universities, there's a tendency to push professors to do many things they aren't trained to do:  master travel vouchers and reimbursement software, deal with all their grant funds with no training in accounting, nurture students with special needs or challenges (again, without any training) and more.  Getting a PhD means you are smart--in your specific field of expertise--but it doesn't mean you are good at everything.

Sure, smart people can figure out how to do a lot of things, but how long does that take?  I often wonder what would happen if professors were unleashed from some of the bureaucracy and allowed to really innovate in their areas of strength.  There would likely be new patents and ideas, technology and business start-ups.  There would also be some great teaching, because some professors are, at heart, very good educators.

If there were competent people in supporting roles, managing grants and travel and all the details that keep a university functional, well, professors might get to spend a lot more time on teaching and research-- in our house, that might mean more science and less time fighting over small bureaucratic change.

If you're curious:
*I have two master's degrees.  One in English Education, and one in Religious Studies.  I started out trying to get a PhD in Religious Studies, but midway, my advisor retired without any kind of plan in place for his grad. students.  I am the only one of his students from the period who got a degree out of the situation.  I had a serendipitous opportunity much later to go back to school again to earn the PhD, but at that point, I'd already done 5 years of grad school and two degrees. It would have required a long commute, more years of study and yet another university.  (I'd already attended three)  I decided I was done...I still wish I'd managed a PhD, but since it's hard to get two academic jobs in the same city, I might not have managed to stay married or have kids.  Life's all about choices...

Sometimes it rains

...and you don't realize you're in the middle of something bigger than a rain storm. When I wrote my last post, I was saying ...ok, we had a little rain here. I was maybe understating the situation. Winnipeg was on the national--and then international-- news. I know this because my sister-in-law in Virginia emailed to ask if we'd been flooded out.

So far? No problems at our house, and we have a lovely sunny day right now. That's good, because over 500 homes in the area (and many more unreported ones) are busy taking all the ruined stuff out their basements. HERE is a photo of what things looked like.

It's supposed to rain again starting tomorrow. Uh Oh.

The student that is visiting here has been exploring our connections. In April of 2007, we both went to hear the Yarn Harlot speak in Lexington, Kentucky. Last night, our resident student looked up the Yarn Harlot's blog post from that day. Take a wander over there...and you'll see, first, a photo of a woman in a bright blue v-neck top, holding up stripey socks. Our Resident Student is the red head to her left in the photo. (No, we didn't know each other yet.)

Keep scrolling down, and you'll see a photo of me in a bright red wool sweater. It made sense when leaving my home in the cool early morning to make the 2 hour drive. It was darn warm when I arrived in Lexington. Here's what Stephanie aka Yarn Harlot said:
(Joanne)
Who I know in from the internet and was trying her best to look like a Canadian (that was the plan...right Joanne?) wearing her very best woolies. Fabulous socks...yes? (It was hot in Kentucky. Joanne looked - besides fantastic, like I always do...warm.)

Note: the Fabulous Socks are available here in case they distracted you.

Anyhow, at the time of that event, I had no idea that I was yearning to live in Canada. Now I do live here! I also had no idea that Resident Student would become one of the Professor's research students, and eventually live on the third floor of my house while visiting Canada.

Connections are sometimes a long time in the making, huh? It took years (and a persistent undergrad) to see the long strands of yarn that connect all these events!

Here's the kicker. Back when I was undergraduate at Cornell, I often thought they'd made a mistake in accepting me. It was sometimes such a struggle--I felt stretched sometimes academically. One cold and dark Saturday evening, I promised myself that if I studied at the library for a couple of hours, I'd let myself go out afterwards. As I trudged to the library, I looked up. In every single window, at each library desk, I saw a student studying. It turned out sometimes everyone else felt the way I did. I wasn't alone in feeling like maybe I wasn't good enough to be there...and that I needed to study on Saturday nights.

Today I got an email from a student intern at the Cornell Alumni News. She asked if she could interview me for the magazine. I was so excited and surprised! Good thing I was sitting down. Apparently, 15 years after graduation, I am worth interviewing. Wow.

If I had to rate all this? Living in Canada, not having a flood at my house, or this interview? I'd be hard pressed to say which connection is best.

Nah. Just thought about it. Probably not having a flood is best.

Too bad it's going to rain again soon. I am just hoping to avoid a flood...