NSF Funding

The president spoke to the National Academy of Sciences today to annouce a shift in funding back into science and engineering research.  Increasing he funds availible to NSF and creating the ARPA-E project will increase pure research spending in this country to the levels it was during the Space Race. 

Because a majority of research in this country is done at a university level hopefully this will further the economic assistance to Higher learning Institutions. It is exciting to be part of the reinterest in science and enginering.  The news today comes on the heels of the refocus of government spending on infrastructure.  As an academic in civil engineering I am posistioned at the intersection of the stimulus spending, education spending and now the increase in striaght research spending.

In an effort to cover all bases the program announced today also include making the research and innovation tax credit permanent in order to foster private investment in research.  I imagine many firms looking to take advantage of the credit don't have inhouse R&D outfits.  This may lead to an increase in private companies partnering with research universities to complete projects with an aim at marketability.  Again the prospect of any more funding at universities will benefit the student populations as well as the direct receipants of the funding.

Looks like I wont get to Lecture

PROVO — Last fall, David Wiley stood in front of a room full of professors and university administrators and delivered a prediction that made them squirm: "Your institutions will be irrelevant by 2020."

Teaching is one of the things I look forward to as an academic. It seems that straight lecture will become a smaller and smaller component of that as we progress. I am not of the opinion that a drastic shift will occur in higher ed because of institutional inertia.

However in order to better serve and educate students it will be come neccessary to create dynamic and flexible teaching methodologies. I expect these in my classrooms to include case studies, projects and cooperative work instead of lecture and regurgitation.

AAgh Qualifiers

I have a qualifying exam in less than a month and am starting to freak out a little bit. Its an 8 hour exam over the whole of civil engineering curriculum. I feel like I was pressured a bit to take it earlier than normal because my advisor is leaving for a sabbatical abroad. Either it will be over and done with in May or Ill have to take it again in august.

The semester is starting to pile it on too. I have a few papers to write and little to no direction on what to write them on.

Did we do that?

The library here was subject to the same budget cuts facing the entire university. As I understand it most of the library budget is tied u in licenses and subscriptions and to reach the $700,000 dollar target they were going to drop some journal subscriptions.

This got many of the graduate student upset to the point or organizing and formal protest. Meetings were held, letters written representatives pressured. In the course of a week it was announced that federal stimulus money would allow for the salvation of the library. In fact an increase in the budget was announced amounting to $300,000.

The question is was this million dollar swing a consequence of the graduate students lodging their complaints. The federal money came at a convenient time, any earlier and it may have rolled into the budget before cuts were announced. A late arrival would not guarantee a recovery of the library's budget. Its arrival coincident with the protest made the decision for the board very obvious. This was my first experience as a graduate student with the politics of school funding, I'm sure there will be more.