Tag Archives: McGill University

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A Paradigm Shift: How universities can support effective outreach

This post is written by Chris Buddle, Associate Professor at McGill University. Click here for contact information, or follow on twitter.

    On Wednesday,  COMPASS published a commentary in PLOS Biology on the journey from science outreach to meaningful engagement. This post is part of a series of reactions, reflections, and personal experiences we hope will expand the conversation. Read the summary post here, or track the conversation by searching for #reachingoutsci

I really enjoyed the article by Smith et al. – it presents a clear rationale for why effective science communication is so important, and it discusses some of the key issues, including the need for the right kind of training and right kind of institutional support.  This quote from the article really struck me, and I think it gets to the heart of the issue:

“Academic institutions and tenure committees must measure and reward time and effort devoted to outreach. And that, we’re keenly aware, will require dedicated leadership and collective effort to change the culture of science”

Good, but how?  Without answering the ‘how’ we will struggle to get further ahead.  I realize that individuals must lead the charge in doing and valuing outreach activities, but in addition to this bottom-up movement, there must be top-down support, training and direction from Universities. This is especially relevant for the Academics who may be keen to do outreach, but whose institutions don’t support this endeavor in a direct manner. So, to achieve a broad, more global acceptance of outreach activities, Academic institutions have some important things to do, and in this post I will explore these.

I will also expand the discussion beyond ‘scientific communication’ to ‘outreach‘ more broadly defined. Outreach is a term that includes the type of effective communication discussed by Smith et al., but also includes other outreach activities that I see among my colleagues -  it could be sharing knowledge with local elementary schools, writing blogs or articles in the local newspaper, to organizing nature walks and delivering public lectures.

Outreach just doesn’t fit easily into the typical and traditional parts of an Academic’s job. Academics are incentive-driven, and the currency of Academia remains the peer-reviewed publications, effective teaching and some form of service. The latter category is a catch-all for various committees, involvement with scholarly societies, editorial work, and anything else that doesn’t fit into teaching and research. What about outreach? Is it service?  Outreach is certainly at the intersection of research and service, but can also be part of teaching (e.g., social media as a way to take the classroom beyond the walls of the institution…).  A while ago I tracked my own work hours, I didn’t include writing my blog as part of the hours – I just wasn’t sure how to categorize outreach activities, nor did I feel that my institution would necessarily see outreach as a core duty. And that is the crux of the problem.

How can Academic institutions incentivize and value outreach activities?

1) Academics who do high quality outreach activities should get paid more. Promotion and salary increases should be tied to the level, but more importantly, the quality of outreach activities done by Academics.  Those who do not engage with a broader audience about their work would not be eligible for full pay raises. Extreme?  Perhaps so… but I suspect it would work.  This does not mean the quality of the research will decrease, nor does this imply any kind of shot-gun approach to outreach will work.  In fact, a measured and careful strategy with outreach is required, as Simon Donner argues in his excellent post.  And, of course, the research upon which the outreach is built must be strong and high quality – we cannot give up research excellence for outreach – they must go hand in hand. If outreach is tied to pay raises, this raises the question of evaluating these kinds of activities. How do you measure amount and quality of outreach?  This is incredibly difficult (“hey, I got 500 hits on my blog – I guess I’ll get promotion to full professor now!”). A reasonable Chair or Dean may be able to judge effective outreach, and the onus would certainly be on the Academics to make their case about their outreach activities; after all, we do this already, all the time. We need to justify journal choice, our level of funding, why we may or may not have a certain number of graduate students, etc. Adding commentary about how much outreach we do could be included in the mix.  There could be a system by which an Academic is only considered for a certain level of a raise if s/he can provide evidence of high quality outreach activities. Judging this quality will be difficult, and will certainly require some deep conversations about what kinds of outreach activities are valuable, and why.

2) Institutions need to make effective outreach activities a part of their institutional culture. Home Depot, for example, includes ‘giving back to the community‘ as one of its core value, and people working at Home Depot go out, as a community, to help build homes for people in need.  Almost all Universities have mission statements that include words about ‘service to communities’ (not convinced? Check out a few – here’s the one for McGill) but by in large, Academics don’t do this on a regular basis, and in most cases it’s certainly not a requirement of the job! Institutions must work to build outreach directly into their culture and this must include active and direct participation by Academics – the people who are doing the research need to be in the community giving mini-workshops, talking to the general public, writing articles for the local press, and writing blogs that explain their work in a manner that is accessible to a broad audience. Universities can help facilitate this with effective marketing about outreach activities, highlight the ways their researchers are engaging with the public, and making it clear how Academic staff are really working with the mission statement in mind. I do recognize that some of this is already done, but I am arguing that it could be done more broadly and better integrated into all facets of the institution. As mentioned above, this could be a reality if pay raises were linked to outreach activities…

3) Coordination:  Academics cannot do outreach in isolation. The article by Smith et al. does point to the incredible value of COMPASS and how that framework can bring people together, and can be a true collaboration in all the rights ways. However, this also has to happen at a more local level, and I find that outreach activities tend to be done in a haphazard manner at Universities.  There is often a lack of co-ordination between media offices from different parts of the University, among researchers, and between researchers and media offices.  Most Academics don’t do any outreach. Of those that do, a few might be in regular communication with a media office, but many ‘go it alone’ and independently engage some outside organization, journalist, or write their own blog and publicize work without support or without much attention to the subtleties or nuances of the process. This is certainly what I do, and although it’s been fun, validating and a positive experience, I don’t have the training, nor do I really know if what I’m doing is correct ! Media office, despite their best intentions, may not always get the story right and/or may not get the required materials from the researchers.  Despite a willingness and interest for effective outreach from different arms of institutions, a lack of coordination means work is being duplicated, and stories are missed. A solution? Media relations offices at Universities should spend as much time with ‘internal’ media and communication as with ‘external communication’ with journalists or other news media. There must be an easy and clear process by which Academics can communicate laterally within their institutions. Media offices must effectively aggregate the various blogs, research findings, big grant winners and Academics must have a willingness to engage with these media offices, provide them content and access. One way to make this process much, much easier is through the use of plain language summaries.

4) Write and speak in plain language. Institutions, publishers, and peers need to demand plain language summaries for all research papers. We are used to writing abstracts; we also need to write plain language summaries. I’ve written about this before, and I am trying to write plain language summaries of my papers (e.g., see here and here for examples).  This has been a very interesting process, and what has been especially useful about these summaries is that they have provide me an easy way to talk to my media office, students, my family, and peers about my work. These summaries have forced me to think about the broader meaning and impact of my research.  It’s forced me to think beyond ‘I’m doing this research because little is known on the topic‘ and clarify the meaning behind the work – the broader framework. I think this is the start of effective outreach. I have worked with a few other authors on plain language summaries, and what has become clear is that these are not easy to write, and require a different set of writing skills.  Training is required to help Academics write in plain language.

5) Institutions must require communication workshops for all Academics. When I first started my job, I attended a lot of workshops, and the topics included things like ‘how to prepare a course outline’, ‘research ethics’, ‘the tenure process’, etc.  Communication courses must be part of this mix, and a requirement of the job should be training in communication and outreach. As Smith et al. point out, we lack training – some of us can write in a jargon-free way, and are happy to put together a talk for a local naturalist club, and are willing to speak to journalists: many of us don’t know how to do this, don’t know where to start, are afraid to take the leap, or have done things badly and are perhaps nervous about outreach activities. We’ve been trained to write research papers; we’ve not been trained to write in other ways, or in language that is more accessible to a broader audience.  We’ve been trained to give specialized talks at conferences, or to speak to undergraduate students in a familiar lecture hall.  Many of us don’t know how to put together a presentation to a room full of school kids. We need help, and our institutions need to provide quality training opportunities, and ensure Academics take advantage of the opportunities.

A key issue, and one that is pointed out by Smith et al., is that Academics don’t have the time to do outreach activities. We are pushed and pulled in various directions, and it’s hard to juggle the regular and required part of our jobs, so how can anyone rightfully argue that we must also include communication of our research to a broader audience? Jessica Hellmann talks about this in her lovely post about science communication and outreach. There’s no denying that it’s a chronic problem, and there’s no easy solution. However, finding ways to dovetail the research with outreach can lead to efficiencies, new collaborations, and new ways of doing things. Smith et al. do discuss the value-added that can come from outreach.

The chronic time issue is exactly why outreach MUST be incentivized, and why institutional cultures must shift to require, accept, and reward effective outreach activities. This will have to happen from the top-down and the bottom-up. University Principals need to make it clear that their institutions are truly at the service of the larger community in which they reside and live. From a bottom-up perspective, individual Academics need to buy into the idea of effective outreach, and may need a nudge here and there to make it happen, and be fully supported in these endeavours.  But it can happen! Universities can change, over time, and they have the skills and the people to make it work.

It is also very timely to be thinking seriously about how Academic institutions re-think outreach activities - the place of Universities in today’s society is being questioned, and effective outreach is one way to help ensure that everyone sees what we do, and why. How our work relates to policy, government priorities, our environment; how we are working to understand climate change, fight against persecution of the poorest members of our society and how are working to understand global health issues. The list goes one. Donors will be more willing to give money if they really had a clear handle on what Academics do and why. Media offices could do a better job of promoting our Universities if they had access to a all Academics who are engaged with outreach Activities.

To finish: Smith et al.’s paper was optimistic, exciting, and a truly great contribution to the discussion about science communication.  What I worry about is that we must move beyond this article to some clear ways that institutions can properly incentivize and support outreach articles. I hope these ideas (and others) are discussed, debated and that institutions can move towards a new paradigm that includes effective outreach.

If we can figure this out, we’ll all win. 

A special thanks to Elena Bennett for reading over and helping me with an earlier draft of this post.

Reference:

Smith B, Baron N, English C, Galindo H, Goldman E, et al. (2013) COMPASS: Navigating the Rules of Scientific Engagement. PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001552. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001552

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Ecology and Mathematics: perspectives from undergraduate students

Post written by Chris Buddle and Carly Ziter (MSc student at McGill – you can follow her on twitter)

Population and Community Ecology is an introductory undergraduate course at McGill University and each lecture typically starts with an x-axis and a y-axis drawn on the chalkboard – something like this:

Chalk board, with x- and y-axis. The start of every lecture.

Chalk board, with x- and y-axis. The start of every lecture.

The course is taught from a quantitative perspective, and it uses equations, models and graphs to cover concepts ranging from logistic population growth, to metapopulation ecology and estimating species diversity.  The class uses Gotelli’s “A Primer of Ecology” as the text – a book that walks through many ecological concepts from first principles. It includes calculus, probability theory, statistical distributions, and null models.

It was therefore fitting that the ‘E.O. Wilson versus Math” debate was discussed during lecture last week.  Students were asked to read Wilson’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, and read some of the blog posts that reacted to this, including Jeremy Fox and Brian McGill‘s posts on dynamic ecology. Students were also asked to look at some of Terry McGlynn’s writing over at small pond science, and to come to lecture prepared – to have opinions and be willing to discuss these opinions.

For those not fully aware of this debate, here it is in a nutshell: Wilson argued that a ‘deep’ understanding of math may not always be prerequisite for doing great science, or at least may not be required for generating big ideas and concepts. Wilson was in part trying to encourage people who are ‘math phobic’ that this phobia needs not be a reason to stay out of science.  Not surprisingly, this stirred up a lot of debate (and some of it was rather harsh!), and the debate was particularly interesting from the perspective of Ecology since this discipline has always struggled with this topic (see Terry’s excellent post about tribalism in ecology for some perspectives on this).

Here is a summary of the key points that were discussed during lecture – and let’s just say that a 50 minute lecture slot was NOT enough time for this topic! (by the way, there were between 50 and 60 students who attended this  lecture, and the class is comprised primarily of students studying environmental biology).

Many of the students were surprised at the tone and overall discussion points that emerged from Jeremy Fox’s post – they argued that when they read Wilson’s piece, they didn’t feel the intended audience was ‘established’ ecologists – but rather the post was meant for students at the start of their careers. Some of them found the blog posts way over the top, and the academic discussions took away from the main message.  Some felt that Wilson was arguing in part about the need for freedom to think without any boundaries (mathematics, or anything else).  Creative thought need not be constrained, and students coming up through the system, whether they are math literate or not, should never fear heading into science (indeed, some confessed that an increase in math courses may have driven them away from biology altogether).  Related to this, mathematical models all require assumptions (we talked a LOT about this when working through Gotelli’s book!), and any assumptions are limiting and could distract from thinking out of the box about any topics, including ones that are ecological. These students worried that the constraints imposed by math could force ecologists to view the world through a particular lens.

That being said, many of the students also agreed that a deeper understanding of mathematics was absolutely required for ecology – especially since the world is complex, with complex problems – problems that require multiple disciplines to solve.  However, while these disciplines include mathematics and biology, they also include literature, history, environmental policy, and more.  What a solid argument! And it was great to see that argument expressed by 20 year-olds.  Yes, math is important, but it is one tool that we need in this world, and it’s not necessarily more important than other tools.  While some ecologists are strong in math, others may prefer to hone their policy skills, for example. Ecology’s strength, in part, is in its ability to bridge different disciplines and students expressed how ecology is actually a ‘great uniter’ of biology and math (and other fields, certainly some areas of ecology draw upon a range of ideas from sustainability science, medicine, economics, history, etc).

The students also expressed concern about how mathematics is taught, from elementary school all the way to University – they expressed how learning mathematics in isolation of other topics is ‘ok’ for individuals with an intuition and natural ability with math – but many students felt that a better way to learn about math was applying it to the ‘real world’. The application of mathematics is the best route to learn mathematics. Ecology was again touted as a perfect example of a discipline in which application of mathematics is clear – from predicting distribution of invasive species to modelling species richness in fragmented forests.  For some students, math was not a subject they initially enjoyed, or strove to learn – it was ultimately through their study of ecology that they began to value math as a tool they could use to support their discoveries, and lend credibility to their work.

By in large, students agreed that mathematics was required for ecology, but there was certainly debate about how much was enough – whether it was enough to use mathematics as a tool, or that perhaps mathematics was more like a language.  A language in which fluency is required so all the nuances can be understood and that the full meaning is in place.  From those advocating mathematical “fluency”, there was a strong opinion that like languages, mathematics can be learned with hard work and focus (yes, they agree with Wilson on this point!) – this opinion comes with a wealth of experience in the classroom at McGill since many of the students are mother-tongue French and have learned English after coming to McGill.  In other words, if you can learn a language you can also learn math.

The final argument put forward by students was that this entire discussion about Ecology was from a very narrow perspective – what about the role of traditional ecological knowledge?  Ecology is a much older discipline than Clements, von Humbolt, Haeckel, or even Aristotle. Throughout history, humans have been interacting with their environment, and have been observing nature.  By this act, humans have been counting, developing models, and making predictions… for thousands of years.  Linking mathematics to nature is very, very old.  Ecologists ought to pay more attention to other ways of looking at the natural world, other ways to visualize, predict, observe and count. Although this is certainly not the same kind of math as presented by Gotelli, perhaps it could be as insightful.

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In sum, the discussion with undergraduate students on this topic was insightful, fascinating and important. There was clearly a strong appreciation for the role of mathematics in ecology, but also different ideas about the degree to which a deep understanding of math is required – which often related back to the students own struggles with, or aptitude for, math earlier in their studies. It was validating to hear that they appreciated using Gotelli’s book to learn the foundations of ecology, and recognized that ecological models can be both limiting and liberating.

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Ten tips when asking for a letter of recommendation

Academics get asked to write a lot of letters of recommendations, and we are pleased to do this!  Letters of recommendations can be really, really important when students are applying to grad school, or applying for scholarships.  Strong letters can make a big difference, and that means it’s essential that students approach this with seriousness, maturity and professionalism.

When asking for a letter of recommendation, here are ten things to do, more or less in chronological order:

1) Plan ahead: Ask for letters well ahead of the deadline!  Never, never assume your Professor will have the time or inclination to write a strong letter if the deadline is two days away.  Give lots of advance warning (at least several weeks).

2) Ask nicely.  Approach your Professor (in person, if possible; with a telephone call, or over email), explain what you are applying for (and why), and ask whether s/he might be willing to write you a letter of support.

3) Ask what kind of letter you might get!  You need to know whether it’ll be a strong letter, or one that is perhaps less in-depth.   In many cases, if I’ve only met a student in one class, and only have a grade to base a letter on, then I won’t be able to write a strong letter.  You deserve to know this, and it may affect whether or not you should ask someone else.  Don’t worry – most Academics are able to be honest (and nice) about what kind of letter they might be able to write.  You must find out, early on, so that your chances of success are as high as possible.

4) rite gud.  In all correspondence with the person who is writing a letter for you, ensure there are no grammatical or spelling errors.  Be professional, respect credentials (e.g., don’t start with  Hey prof Dude….), and make sure what you write is readable.  Avoid common writing mistakes.  This makes a big difference.  Sloppy writing, poor grammar and spelling mistakes make me think less of a candidate and will affect the strength of a letter.

5) Include ALL the relevant details, in one well-composed e-mail:

a) What you are applying for (in appropriate detail – don’t just say “I’m applying to do a Master’s in Biology”)

b) When you don’t know your Prof. all that well, remind them who you are: it is helpful to state what course(s) you might have taken with the Professor, in what context, how you did in the class, and anything else to help those old minds recall who you are!.  You may think that your instructors remember you well, but this is not always the case (we see hundreds of students each year, and we are all getting older…),

c) Provide a ‘statement of interest’ to give some context to why you are applying for a particular position or scholarship,

d) Provide an informal transcript, or at least your GPA so your Prof doesn’t have to ask for this later, and possibly your CV.

e) Provide the deadline for the letter! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to email  a student to ask them what the deadline is.  It’s annoying having to deal with email overload, especially when it is avoidable.

f) If there are PDF fillable forms, or web-links for the reference, make sure to include these!

g) if the Professor is going to get an e-mail from an Institution to which you are applying, make it clear that they should expect this.

 6) Follow-up! If you haven’t heard anything within a week of when you sent your one e-mail, stop by the Prof.’s office, or give a phone call, to make sure that s/he received the details.

 7) Make it easy: Always make the process of writing a letter of recommendation as easy as possible.  In many cases PDF fillable forms have parts that are to be filled out the by candidate ahead of time – do this!  For hard copies, make sure to fill in parts that you are supposed to, and always include a stamped envelope with the address written out.  It’s YOUR job to ensure the letter gets sent by the Professor, and you don’t want their Department to have to pay for postage!  If you are required to pick up the letter and send it in as an entire application package, provide two envelopes – one for their confidential letter, and another that they can slip the official envelope into – arrange a system by which you can pick up the letter.

8) Send a reminder... A few days before the deadline, send ONE reminder e-mail – politely remind your Professor that the deadline is approaching.  For me, this is absolutely critical!  I am usually aware of the need to write a letter for a student (it’ll be in my ‘to-do’ list), but that little reminder will stir me into action.

9) Say ‘Thank you’ – It is classy and professional to say thanks to whoever writes letters of recommendation for you.  If your application ends up being successful, or you get that scholarship, you can even send a post-card, or a short thank-you letter (yes, in the mail!) – that leaves a very positive and lasting impression (and you never know when you will need another letter…). As a minimum, send a short ‘thank you’ email.

 10) um, sorry, I don’t actually have a tenth tip.  Except, perhaps, be sure to follow the nine that are written above! (maybe you have a tenth?)

…I hope this helps!

Students: you will get a better letter if you follow the tips. 

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How “professional baggage” may be a key barrier in changing how we teach

A little while ago, a colleague in the UK sent me this article (via twitter, of course!):  “Barriers to Faculty Pedagogical Change: Lack of Training, Time, Incentives, and…Tensions with Professional Identity?” by Brownell and Tanner.  He knew I’d be interested – I’m always experimenting with my own teaching, but I’m also aware that I’m in the minority.

The article starts by making an excellent argument that we KNOW how to improve teaching at Universities, but little change takes place regardless.  Brownell and Tanner make the argument that barriers to Professors wanting to improve their teaching are often related to lack of training, lack of time, or lack of incentives.  This fits with my impression of Academia, especially at a research-intensive University such as McGill.  When I arrived over 10 years ago, I had little training as a teacher (other than a couple of short workshops), I had little time to devote to teaching improvement (I was barely ever one lecture ahead of the students!), and I was mostly encouraged to concentrate on developing my research program.  There were not a lot of incentives to foster, improve, or change my teaching approach.  I don’t blame anyone for this, nor am I bitter about my experience.  It was the norm, and perhaps still is for most tenure-track Professors at a University with a significant research focus.  So, as I began reading Bronwell and Tanner’s paper, it resonated, and I agreed that training, time and incentives were key barriers to changing pedagogy.

Brownell and Tanner, however, ask a clever question: if we imagined those three barriers gone, would we see immediate improvements in teaching?  Would Professors suddenly value pedagogy and teaching improvement differently, and find ways to change their approach to the classroom?  Perhaps not – and this is where the article gets interesting.

The article focuses on “Professional Identity” as being a key barrier to improved teaching, but one that is often understudied and underappreciated.  They define professional identity to be the following: “how they [scientists] view themselves and their work in the context of their disciplines and how they accrue status among their professional colleagues as academic scientists”.  In other words, it’s the process related to the way that we become an expert in our discipline – the culture, the context, and the training we receive.  It’s the intangible as well as the tangible things that become our professional baggage.  Brownell and Tanner argue that, for many scientists, we learn early in our careers to value research over teaching, and there is (for the most part) a greater emphasis placed on developing our research profile.  There is often time and incentives to do some teaching (e.g., Teaching Assistantships are paid, and have hours associated with them), and there is training available (McGill’s SKILLSETS programs are a fine example).  Regardless, the culture of science is mostly related to research and we are ultimately judged on research production rather than teaching.  My personal experience supports this idea, and I have found myself often discussing this with my graduate students – I sometimes have advised them to avoid extra teaching responsibilities if it is going to slow down their research productivity.

Brownell and Tanner go into a lot of detail about the tensions between the development of professional identities and participating in pedagogical change.  They make a very strong case: among several lines of arguments, they illustrate that scientists are often afraid to change their teaching approach for fear that it may be frowned upon by their peers, or that their teaching evaluations might suffer (and, in in the short term, this may be true).  They also argue that the scientific culture, at large, places a lower value on teaching than on research, and it’s hard to overcome this.

The article finishes with some ideas for change: “we need to find ways to challenge the assumption that a scientist’s professional identity should be primarily research-focused and consider ways in which teaching could become more integrated into the fabric of the discipline“.  The authors suggest 1) graduate student and post-doctoral training goals need to be broadened, 2) scientific journals should include/value papers and research related to education, 3) scientific conferences should better integrate education into the (typical) research focus.  These are intriguing, thought-provoking, and interesting ideas.  But are they enough to shed some of our professional baggage?  I’m a bit skeptical, but I do agree that some pretty fundamental paradigm shifts are required if we want to shake up the system, and see Professors placing higher value on teaching improvement.

Reference:

Brownell, S.E. & K.D. Tanner 2012. Barriers to Faculty Pedagogical Change: Lack of Training, Time, Incentives, and…Tensions with Professional Identity? CBE – Life Sciences Education. 11: 339-346  doi: 10.1187/cbe.12-09-0163

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Why care about Higher Education? (Quebec, please listen)

I don’t usually get political with my blog but this issue of Higher Education in Quebec is too important to sit back passively.  The Provincial Government of Quebec is imposing budget cuts to Universities, and the manner in which these cuts are being imposed is irresponsible, disrespectful, and the demands are untenable.  As is discussed by my Principal in her letter to the McGill community,   Universities are expected to cut budgets before the end of this fiscal year (an unprecedented challenge), and this was only brought forward in December.  No institution in its right mind would change the course of budgets mid-way through a fiscal year.

This makes me angry and frustrated because the cuts will affect people and will affect the ways we do our jobs.  They will affect livelihoods, morale, and they will affect services to students.  Universities in Quebec will struggle with recruitment of students and professors, and struggle with retention. These budget cuts will have wide-ranging  and long-term consequence for Higher Education in Quebec.

It’s time to reflect on the important question that is at the heart of this discussion:

Why care about Higher Education?

Caveats:   this list is not exhaustive, and it is certainly not complete.  These are my opinions, and I do not have expertise with all of the points I have raised – rather, they are my observations, ideas and are based upon my experience working at McGill for over 10 years.   Please share, add to the ideas, and comment.  

1.  Creating Leaders: My institution is helping in the process of educating creative thinkers, good communicators, and global citizens.  Our society need people with these characteristics as we move towards a difficult and uncertain future – a future with wide ranging environmental problems; a future with strife and conflict; a future with much economic uncertainty.  We need young people to become leaders, and regardless of their discipline (biology, economics, physics, etc) the individuals coming out of my institution will become these leaders.  We cannot turn our back on our students – we have a responsibility to continue to create and support a positive environment of higher education that will help train the the decision-makers of the future.   At our doorstep are complex problems that need individuals with creativity, curiosity, imagination and motivation – the sorts of characteristics that I see in the students in my lectures and in the students in my laboratory.

2. Creating Communities:  I work at a small campus that has a broad reach.  Some examples:  we have an Apiculture association that is developing workshops about beekeeping – an art and a science that we must understand and foster as we recognize the value of pollination for the food we eat.    We have a working farm – a  farm that invites school kids from the local area in to see the process of farming: work that is often rural and less accessible to people living in cities.   Professors in my Faculty give seminars about their work and invite anyone with an interest to come and listen to how we are working to solve global problems.  Higher Education is more valuable now that it has ever been in the past. Universities are becoming places with a focus and appreciation for outreach – outreach into our communities – our surrounding towns, schools, and community centres.  Universities are more than lecture halls filled with students. Universities are more than Professors talking to each other and writing research papers for their peers.  Universities are part of  fabric of our communities and integral to the well-being of our communities.

3. Creating Knowledge:  The beauty of higher education institutions is that they provide a home for the creation and dissemination of knowledge, and a kind of knowledge that can be gained from the intangible, the curious and from the process of reflection.  Although funding systems have changed, the job of a tenure-track Academic is stressful, and we are busy, I still think that most academics have some freedom and a bit of time in their jobs that allow for that pure and amazing process of ‘thinking about neat stuff‘.   Knowledge is dynamic, and knowledge is a product of the times we live in.  Knowledge cannot be generated with cookie-cutter approaches or prescriptive top-down directives – my University still allows some flexibility and freedom to engage in the process of creating knowledge.  That’s a very, very good thing.

4. Creating Friendships:  I have coffee with colleagues who have become my friends.  I see my Departmental administrative assistants every day – we talk about how the hockey practices went over the weekend – we talk about the local ski trails.  We discuss the fun and frustrating things that happen in our lives.  Students move through the system, but some become friends over time.  Students who have long graduated have come back to say hello – we talk about what they are doing now, and about how their little brother is going to come to University because he has heard so many great things about the place.    We discuss how they see the world after graduation, and talk of dreams and ambitions.   Like any good workplace, my Department is more than faces and names – my Department is about people and about friendships.  This is what happens inside the building and in the hallways of Universities.  Expanding this -  my University supports lives – it supports my family and the families of my friends at my workplace.

5. Creating Economies:  There are strong economic arguments about the value of Universities to the economies of the region and province and country in which they operate.  Students rent apartments and buy groceries, employees of McGill travel to conferences, and pay for taxis to and from the airport.  We cater meetings, and drink a lot of coffee.  We get business cards printed, we need to buy paper, computers and phones.  Universities help make small, local businesses become successful. On a bigger scale, our research programs are catalysts for larger economies in our cities and in our province, whether they be advances in medicine or solutions to global food security.  Graduates from our Universities go on to become lawyers, CEOs, and they build businesses and create opportunities for thousands.  Universities support and create economies – big and small.

Yes, higher education is about creating great things that are much bigger than the footprint of the buildings we work in.    Higher Education has values that are far beyond the curriculum and far beyond esoteric, and intellectual pursuits.

To the Parti Québécois:  making rash, and ill-thought decisions about funding to Universities is a serious mistake.  I urge you to step back, reflect, and move carefully with rethinking the budgets of Universities.  As my Provost stated, your economic approach is an assault on higher education, and this is truly alarming.

To my colleagues, my students, my friends:  please speak up.  Please raise your voice and be heard.  Let us stand together as a community (this is starting).  Let us ensure higher education remains a central part of Quebec.  May we continue to create great things.

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There is an upcoming summit about the future of Higher Education in Quebec.  I sincerely hope that part of the discussion can reflect on the bigger question about the value of Higher Education in this exceptional and incredible province.

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Careful what you say in lecture: a tale of tweets, ice-storms in Quebec, and population ecology

While discussing age pyramids in my ecology class last week, I mentioned that there was a mini baby-boom in Quebec following the 1998 ice storm. In other words, after an extended period of time without electricity, more babies were conceived.  This is one of those ‘urban myth‘ stories for which I had no data to actually discuss whether this was fact or fiction, but it was mildly amusing, and certainly related to the discussion we were having about population ecology and the effect of the baby-boom generation on Canadian demographics.

I expected this story to stop there, but a savvy student in my lecture tweeted what I had said (yes, there are definitely pros and cons of being an active participant in social media, including twitter).  I was being called out, publicly, about my casual comment in lecture.  This forced me to look to the data and test my hypothesis that the birth rate in Quebec may have been higher after the ice storm of 1998.

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Data required?  Yearly population estimates of areas affected by the ice storm (i.e., numbers of females), and number of births in these regions.

Thankfully, these data were readily available.  However, not all data were tabulated in the same way by geographic region in the Province.  This meant that I had to narrow down the region to just the island of Montreal (thankfully one of the more populated parts of the province).    I took the number of births, divided by the number of females to get a per-capita rate of births per female per year in Montreal, and I looked at the years from 1997 through to 2000.

I predicted that if my hypothesis was true, birth rates would be higher in late 1998, therefore if data were collected properly, the ‘boom’ in births would likely be in that year (…or possibly in 1999).

Here are the results:

1997: 0.012 (babies born / female)

1998: 0.012 (babies born / female)

1999: 0.011 (babies born / female)

2000: 0.011 (babies born / female)

So, the data do not support the hypothesis that the ice storm resulted in a higher rate of births in Montreal.

Caveats?  There are a lot.  I have made quite a few assumptions, and my methods are partially flawed… I do expect students in my class to think about this…

Two other points to mention:

First, while searching for information about population-level effects of the ice storm, I came across a McGill press release about how babies born during the ice storm may be stressed later in life – Interesting!  And also somewhat counterintuitive to what I originally proposed in lecture.

Second, (and less related), we must be wary of these myths – they pop up all over the place (e.g. increase in births after the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey?), but without a more detailed look at the data, we must be careful what we say.  Thankfully the urban myth about mini-baby booms and power outages are debunked with some regularity.

In sum, I learned an important lesson. Careful what you say in lecture.

…and thank you to my student who forced me to look more carefully into the story of the ‘ice storm babies’

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WANTED: graduate students

Interested in arthropod ecology?

Interested in graduate school?

I’m seeking at least two graduate students.  One, at the MSc level, on a project related to pollinator diversity within an agroecology context.  This is a Quebec-based project, and bilingualism would be required. The second, at the PhD level, will be about Arctic arthropod biodiversity with a particular focus on temporal changes in community structure. The Arctic project will involve a combination of field and laboratory work, and will in part deal with historical specimens. Both projects will require a student with interests in both taxonomy and ecology.  In other words, significant time at a microscope as well as time doing quantitative ecology.  Start dates are negotiable, but there is potential for field work to commence in May/June 2013.  Required skills include excellent communication skills, ability to work in a large, dynamic laboratory, passion for arthropod ecology, and abilities/interest in quantitative ecology.  Experience in Entomology and/or Arachnology would be an asset.

Please do your homework:  read my blog, and do research about my research; try to assess if you think you’ll be a good fit within my laboratory group.

Interested candidates should e-mail me with a brief (<200 words) statement of interest, a brief (<200 words) statement that outlines relevant experience and skills, and a brief sentence or two about your expectations in the context of graduate school at McGill University.  Please submit these to me before the end of January 2013.

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Misadventures in teaching: Technology Begone!

At the start of term, I discussed my continuing adventures in teaching, and I professed about how a tablet + whiteboard app would make me a better instructor, and help me deliver content more effectively in an introductory ecology class. Here’s an update.

At first, it just didn’t work.  I was sure it was because I had yet to perfect the technology – the writing was sloppy, the interface was awkward, and stuff I was writing was always appearing on the wrong part of the screen.  Students were chuckling in the classroom. I think the students could see the potential opportunities with the i-pad and whiteboard, especially being able to bring in complex graphs from a textbook.  However, potential is one thing and reality is another.  The biggest problem was that my writing on the i-pad was positively ridiculous.  

Example #1:

Just admire this amazing handwriting!

Just admire this amazing handwriting!

So, that was lecture #1.  I did not give up – I practiced in my office, worked on my penmanship, tried different i-pad apps, and kept at it.  It saddens me to say that Day 2 and 3 were not much better.

Example #2:

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Another problem was that when I exported the whiteboard as  PDF (i.e., so students could have a record of the lecture), I realized that over the course of the lecture, my handwriting continually got bigger.  Let me clarify:  the whiteboard app was an ‘ever expanding’ whiteboard – so if you wrote and filled up the screen, you simply move down or sideways to expose more whiteboard, and you can continue writing.  The problem is that if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to change the size of what you write without realizing it until you look at the entire whiteboard, as a PDF.  The student did not, therefore, find the exported whiteboard very helpful.

Example #3:

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I also tried using the typing feature a little bit – instead of writing like a 6-year old, I would sometimes bring up the keyboard and type.  However, I am not much of a fan of typing on an i-pad.  I need a real keyboard in order to be quick and in order to not make any mistakes (And let’s not talk about that dang auto-correct feature!).  Sigh.  The efforts at typing were a complete failure.

I’ll point out one final problem with the technology:  there was not a 1:1 ratio between the i-pad screen and the whiteboard that was projected.  This meant I would write away on the i-pad, assume everyone was following along, but would sense some unhappiness from the audience.  Sure enough, when turning around to see the screen, not all that I had written was  being projected.  This led to more fiddling around, more wasted time, more swearing under my breath. I’m sure there was some technological fix for this, but I was out of patience.

Yesterday I went back to using the chalkboard, and the lecture went smoothly, the class was happy(ier), and most importantly, I felt the content was being delivered in a more effective manner.

Technology: BEGONE!

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Teaching with Technology

Classes start today.  You can sense the excitement in the halls as undergraduates and instructors rush to classrooms – eagerly awaiting the start of lectures.  OK, perhaps not EVERYONE is that excited… but I am.  The start of term is always fun, and the start of class provides new opportunity to adjust, and hopefully improve, my own teaching .

I wrote a post about a year ago that expounded on the value of teaching without technology (In Praise of Chalk).  Fundamentally, I can’t stand Powerpoint – it’s annoying, boring, causes information overload, and puts people to sleep.  In my course that starts today (Population & Community Ecology), I have traditionally used the chalk board, and feel it has numerous benefits. It allows for a more engaging and interactive classroom environment, facilitates high attendance, and slows down content delivery.  That being said, using a chalkboard also has some important drawbacks including (but not limited to): a) students having to decipher my poor handwriting; b) having to frequently have my back to the class; c) inability to easily bring complex graphs and figures into the lecture (i.e., from the textbook) – to do this would require switching between the data projector and the chalk board – an impossibility in the classroom in which I am teaching.

So, it’s not without a heavy does of irony that this term I am reintroducing some technology into the classroom.  In fairness, I see this as a natural evolution from the chalkboard, and will hopefully allow to overcomes some of the disadvantages of the chalkboard (In my previous post, I did discuss how a ‘smartboard’ or ‘whiteboard’ may be worth trying…).  This term, I will try using a tablet (i-pad), connected to the data projector (via a $35 cable), along with a tablet-friendly pen, and a piece of free software (a type of whiteboard – I’m going to try the Educreations app).

Teaching tools.

Teaching tools.

I’ve been playing around with this for a few days and here are my initial impressions:  this approach will allow me to import photos – in particular, I will use images of complex graphs/figures from my textbook, and I can use the pen to highlight / draw / write on these figures.  I should also be able to face the class when writing on the i-pad, and the software does have a function which allows for typing – this will help with the handwriting problems.   The software does have a few issues – it doesn’t allow easy options for saving (i.e., you must create an account with educreations, etc), nor does the app come with an eraser (it does have an ‘undo’ button, but that button only works on the page you are currently working on – so, if you have to return to a previous slide, you can only add content, not remove what is already there).  Nevertheless, I think the app will serve its purpose.  If I really like using the i-pad for teaching, I might invest in other apps – there are many out there.

So, onwards with another exciting adventure in teaching!  I’ll keep you posted about whether this approach works or whether I return to the comfort zone of dusty chalk.

What are your opinions and experiences?  Please share….

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Reflections: how social media has changed my life

About a year ago I started to write blog posts regularly – this was partially because I was invited to give a talk on social media in Academia at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of Canada (held this past November).   It was around the same time that I started using Twitter more regularly.  Up until that point, I was a casual user of twitter, and did not understand it.

After one year, I can sum up my feeling about blogging, twitter and social media in one word:  exhilarating.

Writing regular blog posts has changed my professional life.  It has allowed me to hone my skills as a writer, and learn to write in a different way – a way that attempts to bring science to a broader audience - an audience beyond the walls of the University in which I work.  An audience that is articulate, intelligent, interested, engaging, and passionate.  Writing blog posts has forced me to articulate clearly about my research, and to think about what I do as a scientist, and why I work on small, obscure animals.  It helps me think about the sort of advice I might give to graduate students, whether it be reviewing papers or thinking about how to succeed as a Professor.

I have learned that there is an incredible community “out there” and this community has something to offer.  I can now keep track of key happenings in science by following Malcolm Campbell, Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, and others.  I can learn about Higher Education in Canada by paying attention to Melonie Fullick, and I can learn more about my own University thanks to McGill’s amazing twitter feed.  I can learn about Entomology around the globe, and take part in  inspired,  meaningful (and sometimes hilarious) conversations with new friends and colleagues including Morgan Jackson, Derek Hennen, Dr. Dez, Chris MacQuarrie, Bug Girl, the Bug Chicks, Crystal Ernst, Alex Wild, and many more….  These interactions are barrier-free.  It doesn’t matter if the conversations are among Professors and undergraduate students, or with high school students.  It’s about keeping the conversations relevant, of high quality, and respectful.

I now have new colleagues from different countries – colleagues that I now collaborate with, including Graham Scott in the UK – he and I share many similar ideas about the value of field work in University courses.  Or Leslie Brunetta – she and I are now discussing neat ways to take spider silk research into new areas. Social media has also changed how I teach, and using blogs and twitter in the classroom has allowed students to see value in their course work that goes beyond the classroom. My undergraduate students tell me that they feel their University education is more valuable when they can interact with other experts.

Writing blog posts allow me another way to share my passion for all things Arachnida, from spiders to Opiliones and Pseudoscorpions.  Yes, our eight-legged friends are awesome, whether they are on your ceiling, in your windowsills, or living on the tundra. Social media has allowed me to write about things that I write about anyway – I am constantly answering emails about spiders, whether it be identification help, or general queries about venomous spiders.  By writing a blog post about these topics, (including “spiders do not bite” – my most popular post!), I can now refer people to posts instead or writing emails.  Writing posts does take some time, but it is a productive use of time.

On a more personal level, social media has given me meaningful and important connections to people: really good people.  People that I respect, people that are now part of an evergroing circle of friends.  We need to surround ourselves with good people.  Life seems to throw a lot of challenges – whether it is managing with the work-life balance, coming to grips with local and global tragedies, constant worrying about the health of our planet, or struggling with mental or physical health. It’s a big, sometimes scary and often intimidating world out there – and it’s easy to feel insular, lonely, and scared.  Social media is one antidote.  Social media is not a cure, nor should it be used as escapism – instead, I am saying that it brings a ray of light, a smile and a shot of optimism.  I am grateful to have become a part of this community.

As my PhD student Crystal Ernst and Bug Girl discussed (partially reflected in this post): social media is a tool that allows for productive discussion about science, life and the confluence of these.  It’s a discussion that can take part in a REALLY long hallway – a hallway that is inclusive, honest, and filled with bright lights.

I will finish with a big “thank you” to all my followers and friends (of this blog, and on twitter).  Your interest, comments and enthusiasm are so important to me and highly valued.

I wish everyone terrific end to 2012 and I look forward to continued discussions into the new year!