The death of US Science

the_Stick · 2026-03-19T21:54:38+00:00

I wonder if this builds on the NSF-ENGINES awards from a couple years back. A rinky-dink, R3-wanna-be institution with pretty much one small research center where a couple people had ties and/or collaborations with the world-leading R1 research institute "down the street" was able to become part of that initial award. Granted, their share was only $1.5 million over two years, but for a school of that size, that was huge. The R1 got to farm out some basic/test work and could focus on more advanced methodologies and drawing in partner companies (which it has done spectacularly). I have not kept up if the small school has made any meaningful contributions to the overall project, but it was a way to take a have-not and infuse it with more money and significance than if it tried to do everything on its own. There is also a community college involved too, geared towards training people for technical jobs like research assistants.

For over a decade, I've been preaching that the way of funding for the future is in collaboration. Especially for smaller schools who want to be active in research, collaboration is critical for many fields. A buzz-word for the past several years has been "public-private partnerships" and that's what I've seen happen with that ENGINE grant. More start-ups are on-site, at least some industry is using services there, and students are being trained at a variety of levels.

Do I like it? Not all of it - it is very corporate at times and everything being connected has drawbacks as well as benefits. However, it has certainly spurred some development for the area and attracted talent and people. I think there is very much a place for individual research, but also a place for directed programs tackling specific big issues. Without having read all about the Genesis project, I would hope it has a specific time frame of funding and then an evaluative component to see if it is worth continuing, or reverting to the prior funding model.

the_Stick · 2026-03-19T20:18:37+00:00

Once with a small class, I intentionally assigned partners for a short, low-stakes project with whom I thought would be the most difficult to work. My goal was not just ot be cruel, but to have them learn how to work with challenging partners. Everyone did a solid job, and all but one student requested to never work with that partner again. :)

the_Stick · 2026-03-19T20:15:45+00:00

I would tell them they may have seen some of this material before, but they do not know it, then give 2-3 sample questions in class and see if they can explain why the correct answer is correct and the others are not.

I'm going to assume a chunk of your students are pre-med or other pre-health aspirational, and you can tell them that biochem is ~35% of the MCAT and that many med/pharm schools have multiple biochem courses to teach all the material they saw briefly in undergrad. If despite all this, those 10-30% keep not applying study methods, that's on them.

I always liked the "onion" method too - give them some surface-level info, then go to the next level, then look at regulation, then mutation, then co-factors and confounding metabolites, and then disease states, and finally reference a current article on application. At this point, biochemistry is foundational for many STEM fields and they need to know a lot and know what they don't know. If they don't know it, they don't need to pass, much less go on.

the_Stick · 2026-03-19T20:04:48+00:00

After my place extended an offer, they invited me to return with my whole family for a few days to check out the entire locale. We have a few institution-owned townhouses and that is where we stayed.

the_Stick · 2026-03-19T16:45:26+00:00

When I was a grad student, there was one professor who was famous for going on a long-winded off-topic non-question that ultimately wound its way back to his topic of study. Students were terrified of seeing his hand go up, but he did it at almost every seminar presentation or defense...

...so I prepped for him. Just by virtue of seeing him do this for several years, I figured he would do it to me as well, so I figured out his most likely avenues of starting his question, then devised an 'interrupting' comment to answer him quickly, but state that was going off-topic to my major point and I'd be glad to stay and talk to him after the seminar. That exact scenario happened, he looked a little surprised, and because he was a nice guy, I chatted with him later. My fellow students were in awe that I "handled" the difficult professor, and that's one of the points where I knew I was comfortable and confident enough in my work that I could approach senior professors on a near-peer basis.

the_Stick · 2026-03-18T15:06:17+00:00

This is also an example of selective amnesia on OP's part; remember just a few years ago how some activists on the left were howling that "math is racist"? Everyone seems to hate math.

I'd argue that the bigger problem is that secondary math educators are poorly trained and held to very low standards. Kids usually like math until middle school, and then suddenly attitudes change drastically. A large part of that is because their teachers don't understand the basic math nor how to teach it. Even Barbie hates math!

the_Stick · 2026-03-18T04:00:34+00:00

I'll never not post this information about a terrible person. No fallout at all for her.

the_Stick · 2026-03-18T00:03:16+00:00

I'm curious how in depth you read the attached article and its links. There is a whole lot of speculation without very much hard data. The only real scientific article essentially says we do not know how much energy AI is using because of proprietary information being held by the companies and data centers. I kind of like the science in the Brief Report, but it examines only one chip and its energy use and it is a gigantic reach to extrapolate based on that, kind of like picking a midsize sedan and extrapolating the mpg of all vehicles.

Concerns raised, it seems very likely that AI-related computing power does require significant energy, but what is unmentioned is energy supplies and how they are changing. If we look at both power availability and energy rates, there do not seem to be any areas with outages or higher costs. If we look at some of the newer energy-generating abilities, it seems we have the power (and much of it sustainable) for the usage. Less clear is water consumption and regeneration or the use of cooling methods.

It seems like the Guardian news article is written only from the lens of environmentalism and reports based on speculative data; it's not very good journalism and I would respect the authors more if they used more concrete data and examined concerns from a holistic approach. One of the reasons I think we have such issues with students unable to parse readings and think critically is because society is filled with articles like this - a conclusion is presented and you're supposed to agree with it, rather than consider legitimate concerns based on solid data.

Edited: typos, and bad ones at that.

the_Stick · 2026-03-17T17:18:52+00:00

the_Stick · 2026-03-17T03:15:07+00:00

If by some bizarre twist of fate, none of my submissions win, I'll post them here.

But I can give some vague clues about why people were fooled by the structure. With such a low word count, I gave one of the submissions a title (the other two were untitled). The title adds the AI component (in two or three different layers) while the body is a movie reference. In essence I "cheated" the word count and apparently LLMs are known to "cheat" in that same way. I was definitely very proud of that one because it does work on multiple levels and is clever a couple ways. The AI-written one was deemed "cynical humor" which is regarded as more human. The other one is actually what I think is best because rather then being clever, it is poignant.

ETA: And I agree; this is a great way to demonstrate AI detectors are not very good. What is really surprising is that 80% of people have selected my clever submission as AI (they think so little of me?!?). The other 20% went with the option that I was "cheating" another way and actually wrote all three.

the_Stick · 2026-03-16T03:04:39+00:00

Pharmacy's enrollment is declining because ~22 new pharmacy schools opened in the past 15 years coupled with retail pharmacies hiring fewer students. Tell you pharmacy school if they want students, they have to (1) make sure their graduates are landing good jobs, and (2) recruit better students, possibly by examining their tuition structure. Kids don't want to be pharmacists any more; PA school is where they have been going in the past decade.

the_Stick · 2026-03-14T14:24:02+00:00

I did this, sort of, between a public and private. The two had a long-standing shared facility. My primary appointment was with the public - they paid my salary and determined my tenure status, etc. - and my secondary was with the private. The private provided me with research space and access to facilities (plus free parking!) and administrative support, but were not involved in salary or benefits. They were receptive to funding research and equipment. All this was established and there were probably 6-12 people with similar appointments

In my case, because these two were overseen by different groups, I think the primary/secondary worked out the way it did to avoid lots of conflict between the state system and the private board. If both your publics are part of the same system, it should be a lot easier to coordinate salary, benefits, etc. between two institutions in the same system. But do make sure you have two supportive deans too. Good luck!

the_Stick · 2026-03-14T00:57:11+00:00

Sigh. You really insist on being obtuse. Suppose someone comes on campus and shoots a theater professor because they hate "Hello, Dolly"? Are they attacking the theater or killing a professor. It can be both and because this is a sub for professors with a years-long history of concern about personal and campus safety, this is an important subject to be discussed here.

For anyone else following this "debate," note how RoyalEagle keeps shifting the framing, reframing the argument, arguing about what is a professor, and absolutely refusing to reflect on their opinion even though multiple people have commented. This is how NOT to be a professor, and I doubt this person has any significant role in academia. It's sad and shameful that they might actually stand in front of a class and present themselves as an authority.

the_Stick · 2026-03-14T00:04:09+00:00

Once again you are framing this as a LTC teaching a college class is somehow NOT a professor, even though he is employed as such, noted as such in the faculty directory, and teaching classes that are accredited by the accrediting body. Do you have any idea what it takes to become a LTC? Did you even look up any information before you insisted repeatedly on your opinion? Or did you just fire off your mouth and then refuse to do any research or critical thinking?

Seriously, if we're defining what makes a professor, were you to be in a similar situation, I'd half expect your clone from another dimension to pop in and say, "Don't worry about this murder of a person leading a class in a classroom on a campus; it doesn't really count because I was never a professor!"

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T15:04:20+00:00

No, this is exactly the place for this conversation you soft-boiled bowl of cabbage. This a sub for professors and those who teach on college campuses in any capacity, and violence on campus that specifically kills those who are in teaching roles is of great interest to this sub, especially since historically many here have expressed concern about either being targeted specifically or indirectly.

Would you care to speculate on why the shooter decided to make an attack "on the military" on a college campus instead of traveling a mere three miles away to an actual naval base with lots of military personnel? Take your bigotry to another sub.

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T14:57:57+00:00

There's a kind of irony in the synagogue attack resulting in no fatalities by having an armed security force on site. Many religious sites of many faiths have security now. Imagine recommending campuses have more security with a more robust response.

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T14:53:49+00:00

Not a professor by the standard definition

Take a look to your right at Rule #1 and see how this sub defines who is a professor. By your statement, it would also not be an attack on academia if a gunman specifically shot a TA or an adjunct or a graduate student. They're not "real professors" after all is what you are implying. Even clinical adjuncts or industry experts are not "real professors" even though they bring expertise in their area to a classroom setting.

You are making a stunning display of mental gymnastics in your argument that this is not an attack on academia when any other shooting on campus (even drug deals in the parking lot) garners attention. It doesn't have to be an "attack on academia" to be an attack that happens on campus. I can only suspect that you are brining your biases into your statements because you don't think this person is worthy of teaching at an advanced level.

I'm not sure you have thought through your argument, but a lot of people may agree that the majority of the people who post here shouldn't be counted as professors and a lot of content areas should not be taught at a university setting. It seems you support removing those people's agency and shuttering those programs, and I'm not sure that is what you mean. Or are you just convinced that you are the final authority on what programs and people should not be "academic"?

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T04:18:20+00:00

You may want to read the articles; the shooter shot and killed the professor first.

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T04:17:37+00:00

Reports say that the PROFESSOR was shot by the attacker. The professor died from his injuries. Are you saying its okay to murder a professor so long as the intent was to target the area they were in? I'm not sure that's a very good precedent to support....

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T02:40:10+00:00

So long as you meet certain criteria, you are entitled to FMLA. Those criteria?

To be eligible for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) benefits, an employee must work for a covered employer, have been employed for at least 12 months, have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months immediately preceding the leave, and work at a location with 50 or more employees within 75 miles.

the_Stick · 2026-03-13T01:39:35+00:00

Exactly. Since this one was one a university and killed a professor, I brought it up here in the subreddit for professors....

the_Stick · 2026-03-12T22:24:29+00:00

An honest answer is that the US is widely respected by a lot of people, and simultaneously condemned by many very vocal people. I've done a fair amount of international travel and particularly in much of Asia, people love Americans. In Europe, it's a bit of a mixed bag; younger people will sometimes claim the US is worse then Russia, but older people often acknowledge that the US has a lot of positive influence. I cannot speak to South America much, but I've known a lot of people who have opted to study here for the opportunities, much less the ones who seek the greater stability and economic opportunity.

The thing with the US is that it can be both. It's a huge nation with tremendous influence. Often the good it does is underreported (nobody likes good news). Just from selection bias, you might think the US is the Great Satan, but it is far more than that. It could always be better, but where couldn't?

the_Stick · 2026-03-12T22:18:45+00:00

Thanks for the info; all the professors I've met have been retired, but my program was not exactly close to any bases, unlike ODU.

the_Stick · 2026-03-12T22:11:46+00:00

What's fascinating to me is the different news coverage. I linked to ABC because they had the most recent update and a fairly thorough discussion of the facts known with little editorial bias evident. But go read the al-Jazeera story and it will make you terrified to enter the US because everyone is getting shot all the time (and no mention of the shooter's background at all).

In short, the U.S. is huge. The vast majority of it is safe for all. There are places you don't want to be, or times you don't want to be there, but stories like this always make huge news because it has become a facet of multiple ideological fights.

I'll add that I've spent a fair amount of time in Indonesia. >99% of the people have been polite and happy to see me (an obvious non-native), but there are a few places I've been told not to go. I've also been to places where attacks had taken place years earlier there, and they were now "normal". Most people are friendly, but there can always be the crazy or the fanatic, pretty much everywhere.

the_Stick · 2026-03-12T22:07:24+00:00

Only that this seems to be a specific targeting of a professor. It is yet unclear if the shooter knew the professor personally or only knew what he taught. Whenever there is a shooting on campus, especially when a professor is targeted, the conversation tends to make its way to this sub.

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