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Math Geek Mom: The Center of our (Political) Landscape

There is a concept in geometry known as the “centroid” of a triangle. This is the point at which the...

Loyalty cont'd: Graham Spanier of Penn State Indicted

A very sad way to make the point from yesterday's post.

Open Online Education and the Canvas Network

Instructure announced today that it’s launching a new service called Canvas Network. The service is being positioned as an alternative to existing MOOC vendors or platforms (such as Coursera or EdX) to allow schools to teach open online courses on the Canvas platform.

Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

The Girl dressed as a Tootsie Roll, and The Boy as a Jawa from Star Wars. They were endearing, but not scary. I had front door duty.

Long Distance Mom: Adopting Mr. Pants

I’m not sure if this blog has ever acknowledged how close the emotions attached to raising a pet are to raising children, even though I would venture a guess that there are just as many academics with pets as kids. Universities do, in fact, offer insurance for animals (even before domestic partner benefits), and a $7.6 million donation was recently made in a cat’s name to UC Davis’s School of Veterinary Medicine, but it doesn’t seem politically correct for pet owners to insist that their animals are loved and return affection every bit as much as human dependents. As someone who has raised both, though, I think I can safely say that my cat seems to love me with more dependability than my teenagers.

Is Loyalty a Good Thing?

Or does it present a risk to making decisions in the long-term interest of the institution?

Rogue Data

Like most colleges, mine was born before IT became a fact of life. IT had to be grafted onto a pre-existing culture, or, more accurately, set of micro-cultures. Different departments and support programs have their own ways of doing things; some have welcomed technology, some have grudgingly adapted, and some have shoved it over in a corner, hoping it would eventually go away.

Ghosts and Goblins of Grad School

Halloween on a college campus is a wonderful time of year. Free candy can be found in bowls on every secretary's desk, normal clothing can be eschewed for fun t-shirts and costumes, and we're all given a short break from reality. However, the tricks and treats of this day can be found throughout the year for grad students. Sometimes it can be hard to identify the goblins and ghouls that haunt you when they aren't dressed up, but they're still there.