For the Fall of 2010, I have been assigned (through the College of Engineering’s Dean’s Teaching Fellowship program) to be a Workshop Leader for ENGE 1024. Having come from a liberal arts university (UNC), I was unfamiliar with the idea of such a class. All incoming first-years who think they may want to pursue a degree in any of the majors in the College of Engineering, must take the course. The course is designed to serve as a bit of extended orientation to VT and engineering, but more importantly to enhance the students’ abilities in teamwork, collaborative problem solving, design, and communication. They have a 1 hr lecture each week, and then a 2 hour workshop. I am leading 2 of these workshops. Basically, I present some concepts and discuss them with the students (such as an iterative design process) and then they work in teams to solve some problem. The first week they built towers from 25 or fewer straws and 10 or fewer paper clips. They were trying to maximize efficiency as defined as the quotient of the squared height of their tower in cm and the sum of the number of paper clips they used and the number of straws they used. I am learning about managing the classroom, particularly through transitions between group work, and discussion. I am also learning a bit of the content they are learning. I hope to learn more about mentorship, and some unpredictable lessons as well.
Emily’s dad, Charley, has a saying (hopefully not, as Urban Dictionary suggests, from King of Queens), “now that’s a classy problem to have.” Well, due to some awesomeness at VT, I will have my very own Large High Resolution Display until I leave. Hooray! It’s my dream computer! I got to build it piece by piece! Well, in order to use these 6 monitors in 3 columns of 2, I would need some kind of stand or mount at least for the upper monitor (classy problem).
Well, I got to discussing this with Charley, and I asked him “What do you think about that design for the stands?” “Well, that’s pretty good. Of course, you could do it with metal, if you wanted.” “Really? I hadn’t thought of that. What do you think would be the benefits either way”
So then after he had gone through lots of planning, drawing out the design to scale, planning the angles and lengths, and then welding posts onto his work table to serve as fulcrums around which we could bend the steel, Charley taught me how to use an acetylene torch and to arc weld. We worked for about 3 hours and had most of the first of three stands finished. The majority of this time was me learning and erring. One week later, he had finished (and even painted) the three stands!
So now I have an awesome power-house of a machine with 6 monitors. I can just feel my productivity increasing (in anticipation of my return to BBurg, when i’ll get to work on this daily).
At the beginning of my Preparing the Future Professoriate class this semester, Dean DePauw asked us to write what we thought it meant to be a professor. Below I will copy my response from the beginning semester (which I will have pasted in after I write how I now feel at the end of the semester).
To be a professor (as in the sort I think I would like to become, which I recognize is certainly not the same kind all would like to be) is to commit to a lifetime of learning and mentorship and service. As a professor, I will teach, mentor, and serve in a way that makes the world a better place. I would like to provide opportunities for undergrads and grads to do research and to learn both in and outside of the classroom.
To be a faculty member is to commit one’s career to research, teaching, mentorship, and service. There are also implications for the personal life of a faculty member. For example, in many settings, faculty are seen as spokespersons and representatives of their institutions; new faculty might fare well to keep PR in mind with respect to public statements. To be a tenured faculty member is to then be able to make statements and do research with more concern for veracity than for political harmony. I think it is very important that tenured faculty feel quite secure in their position so that our knowledge can advance whether or not the interests in power condone a line of research.
It appears that I removed research from what I thought it is to be a professor; however, I now view research as one of a professor’s primary ways to serve the community and humanity, contributing to public knowledge seems to be a Great way to make the world a better place.
For many grad students, the process of choosing an adviser can be likened to courting. I cannot speak for other students, but I imagine I am not unique in my feelings. It is important to me that I share interests with my professor, but I would like them to be different enough from me that I feel that we will have much to learn from each other. It is also important to me that I can imagine a working relationship with the person: some form of prompt feedback/communication, our preferred working hours should overlap enough that we can meet face to face, our expected levels of hygiene for each other should be compatible, our senses of humor or lack there of should not be completely incompatible, and etc. So if this process of choosing an adviser is in some ways similar to courting, what of the courting etiquette does/should carry over? (What is the etiquette of courting anyways? Whether or not the etiquette carries over, what is the etiquette of this process?)
As I meet different professors and their students, aside from concerns about taking their resources, at what point am I being too much of a tease? When is it understandable for a professor to assume that I am their student? At what point do I need to stop working with professors so that I am not leading them on?
How does Intellectual Property play into the work of grad students? Particularly, when should the grad student and their group (professor, other students, etc.) seek out IP rights of their work? It seems to be that it would be nice to give the institution and opportunity to recover some of its investment in the project, but when things like patents are concerned, it complicates the work. For example, when I am no longer just trying to get things done, but now trying to finish work that will be patented, must I start recording every conversation so that who contributes what and therefore what percentage of the patent they will hold is more obvious? Why should my group mates share anything with me at all? Wouldn’t it be in their best interests to keep any ideas to themselves to patent as their own (in conjunction with the institution as necessary) so that they do not have to divide the ownership? Won’t this lead to less openness in research groups and inefficiencies due to record keeping of each persons every contribution? Am I devaluing the importance of IP? Maybe all projects should pay very close attention to precisely who contributed what whether or not there is a patent in question? If there is not patent, then maybe the only outcome can be name recognition or “fame” anyways, and so to receive one’s rightful recognition, their contributions should be meticulously documented? How do I know when I share an idea that the idea is new to the rest of the group? In order for me to get credit for the most ideas should i just spew out unfiltered stream of consciousness brainstorming and basically try to say every possible thing first? Should I write in a similar way publicly rather than speaking it so that my group doesn’t have to hear it all, but at least received notification that i thought of it?
At what point does patenting a work become contrary to the mission of sharing the knowledge that the public enables me to research/find/acquire?
It’s not at all about the Benjamins. In fact it is all about the minute hands. Professors all have different ways of managing and interacting with their students. I tend to prefer the professors who have a model most dissimilar (in their own various ways) to a business model of management. I don’t really want to think of my professor as my employer (Hooray I won’t need to anyways!). Even the professors that run their group most unlike a business, there is still the reality that this professor has a limited amount of time. How much time should a new student, especially one who has not chosen a particular professor as their adviser, take from that professor? Depending on how the professor manages its time, the new student is just stealing time from existing students. Ethically how much time can I take from a professor without declaring them my adviser? A professor has to spend some time recruiting new students, but at what point is the student exploiting this fact and taking more than their unfair share of professors’ time?
I’m quite late on this post, but HOORAY! I have been awarded one of the 2010 College of Engineering Graduate Teaching Fellowships! (At the time of this writing my picture had not yet been uploaded.) This will facilitate development of my teaching skills and philosophy. The fellowship also provides me 3 years of funding, so I need not depend on an adviser for funding. And, the flip side, is that an adviser need not fund me. As part of the fellowship, I will teach Engineering workshops, then I will be a TA again, but with a more participatory role than might be typical, and finally I will be the instructor for a course! The program also requires that I take a number of courses in the Preparing the Future Professoriate program, but I’ve already started on them! This program, and the resources it will provide are sure to accelerate my becoming an excellent professor.
Happy 31st monthiversary (This is still 3/16 for me)! Today Emily and I have been together (and by that I mean mostly not in the same state, but in a relationship with each other) for 31 months.
What better way could we celebrate than for me to send her an email you might be wondering? How about if she sends me a FORT in the mail?!
And as if that wasn’t enough, there was a really sweet note and some almost-as-sweet almost-vegan cookies and some brownies in there too! What else could I need to brighten up my cell?
While I am becoming a student with a concentration in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), I have been for at least 4 (non-contiguous) years a student of Professor-Graduate Student Interaction. I think trying to decide how to interact with your professor is an interesting problem. Coming from industry, I know more than I ever thought I would about image management. Do I want my professor to know my like my framily know me? Like my coworkers know me? Like my bosses have known me? Of course this is also dependent on to what kind of relationship the professor is open (grammar?).
As I move toward becoming a professor, I will also have to think about the kind of relationship I want with my students, and other colleagues.
Having come from families (divorced parents) with low SES, I have known and seen others who believed the myth that if we just work toward a higher education, we will be more marketable in the job market. This article that Nathan sent my way is quite cynical, but probably an important discussion starter especially for those pursuing higher education, more especially if it’s in liberal arts.