Follow truth wherever it may lead you--Jefferson

research interests:

social indicators
  • subjective wellbeing (SWB), happiness, life satisfaction
  • quality of life (QOL)
  • culture, values
  • religion
  • freedom
    • urbanism and nature
  • urbanism as a way of life
  • city v nature
  • environment and sustainability
    • marxism marxists.org
  • inequality
  • preferences for redistribution
  • dominance and authoritarianism
  • commodity fetishism and conspicuous consumption
    • (social) data science or computational social science (CSS) gnu.org
  • data management
  • data analysis, mining, visualization
  • Python, Stata, Linux

    • (cynical) thoughts on academia took it from here

  • HR is not your ally; it’s the university’s shield against you.
  • Join a union. They’ll bend to management, but they’re your only defence against worse outcomes.
  • Universities brim with brilliance, yet administrators fear tapping collective wisdom.
  • Support staff are, compared to outside options, often woefully underpaid. Ponder the effect of this
  • Academic managers are often those least suited to lead. We need Cincinnatus, we get Caracalla.
  • What’s measured is treasured. Watch the metrics closely.
  • You’re not unique; you’re interchangeable. Welcome to academic Taylorism.
  • Work-life balance is publicly praised, and privately punished.
  • Your expertise will be overvalued in ivory towers but often scorned beyond campus walls.
  • Mock those who claim teaching excellence without research. They’re behind the curve.
  • Equally, deride research hermits who never teach. If nobody tells anyone does anyone care?.
  • Today’s frustrated junior is tomorrow’s frustrating senior. The cycle is eternal.
  • 99% of meetings are pointless. The rest are predetermined.
  • Every academic is a cocktail of impostor syndrome, arrogance, and ego. The best know this.
  • All metrics will be gamed. It’s academic nature.
  • Goodhart’s Law rules academia: Measures become targets which become benchmarks which determine assessments and by then people have forgotten why they measured.
  • Funding is input, not output. Management will never willingly understand this distinction.
  • Grant writing consumes more time than research. It’s both proof of engagement and evidence of failure.
  • When it comes to grant determination, Innovation is too risky; derivative, politically savvy projects get the gold.
  • Your most revolutionary ideas (in teaching, research, module design etc) will be deemed “too radical” by reviewers clinging to outdated paradigms. Then they will adopt them and claim them as their own idea
  • Job insecurity is the academic norm.
  • Your peers are both allies and rivals. Scarcity turns friends into foes.
  • Academic freedom ends where controversy or unprofitability begins.
  • Teaching evaluations measure charm, not competence or student learning.
  • The adjunct-tenured pay gap widens as equality rhetoric intensifies.
  • Interdisciplinary work is lauded everywhere except where it counts: tenure and promotion.
  • Academic publishers profit from your free labour while paywalling knowledge.
  • Self-promotion often trumps scholarship in academic success.
  • Recruitment promises are as hollow as political campaign pledges.
  • New “supportive” technologies are designed for everyone except the end-users.
  • Mentorship and more generally ‘collegiality’ is expected but unrewarded and is voluntary until you decline, whenit’s a black mark.
  • Networking is your real job. Conferences and cocktails matter more than your desk time.
  • Students read syllabi with the same attention they give to software user agreements.

    • What The Professor Really Means

    J. Timothy Petersik

    The Chronicle of Higher Education

    You'll be using one of the leading textbooks in the field. I used it as a grad student.
    If you follow these few simple rules, you'll do fine in the course. If you don't need any sleep, you'll do fine in the course.
    The gist of what the author is saying is what's most important. I don't understand the details either.
    Various authorities agree that... My hunch is that...
    The answer to your question is beyond the scope of this class. I don't know.
    You'll have to see me during my office hours for a thorough answer to your question. I don't know.
    In answer to your question, you must recognize that there are several disparate points of view. I really don't know.
    Today we are going to discuss a most important topic. Today we are going to discuss my dissertation.
    Unfortunately, we haven't the time to consider all of the people who made contributions to this field. I disagree with what roughly half of the people in this field have said.
    We can continue this discussion outside of class. 1. I'm tired of this - let's quit
    2. You're winning the arguement, let's quit.
    Today we'll let a member of the class lead the discussion. It will be a good educational experience. I stayed out to late last night and didn't have time to prepare a lecture
    Any questions? I'm ready to let you go.
    The implications of this study are clear. I don't know what it means either, but there'll be a question about it on the test.
    The test will be 50-questions multiple choice. The test will be 60-questions multiple guess, plus three short- answer questions (1000 words or more) and no one will score above 55%
    The test scores were generally good. Some of you managed a C+.
    The test scores were a little below my expectations. Where was the party last night?
    Some of you could have done better. Everyone flunked.
    Before we begin the lecture for today, are there any questions about previous material? Has anyone opened the book yet?
    According to my sources... According to the guy who taught this class last year...
    It's been very rewarding to teach this class. I hope they find someone else to teach it next year.