In which I am blown away.

In a comment below, I defended my position as a speciesist by appealing to the awe-inspiring extent of human potential. After I hit the "publish" key, the irony struck me: I use this blog as a place to complain about my students and the general stupidity around me. While I am able to wax poetic about the potential of a child, when children turn into the big galoots that sleep through my lectures, their potential seems significantly diminished.

Therefore I feel compelled to write about an experience I had when I was a faculty member at Ivy League University (ILU). I had just taught my first large lecture class at ILU. By "large," I really mean large: there were 200 students in this lecture. The undergraduate student body at ILU numbers around 4000. I learned that despite the practically impossible admission standards at ILU, a large subset of ILU students are just as lazy and stupid as the laziest and stupidest here at LSU. The difference between ILU and LSU students is the feeling of entitlement. ILU students are Paying Customers and they Expect Something In Return. LSU students slack off honestly, and generally do not expect special treatment when their behaviors result in poor grades.

It was with some trepidation that I agreed to serve on ILU's Ethics Committee. This committee is composed of and chaired by undergraduates. Two faculty members are placed on the committee as observers. The committee is only convened when an accusation of academic misconduct is leveled against a student. I thought that what I was going to see on this committee would be similar to what I experienced in the classroom. I thought there would be an us-versus-them mentality on the part of the committee members. The faculty member's accusations would be treated lightly and an attitude of "the customer is always right" would result in no action at all.

This particular case involved a pre-med student. At this time, the competition among pre-med students was so fierce that some students resorted to felonious behavior to insure their place at the top of the curve. Cheating was rampant and some students were injured. One of my students had to drop out of my course because of injuries he sustained in chemistry lab: a classmate had poured acid in his equipment locker and on his lab notebook, resulting in serious burns to his hands. At the time I left, ILU had hired a special dean whose job was to attempt to change the culture among the pre-meds. I don't know if the attempt was successful.

The accused pre-med student was enrolled in biochemistry, a required course in the pre-med program. This course was very large by ILU standards, with hundreds of enrollees. In a class this large, with three or four TAs, it's easy to get lost in the crowd, which was an advantage for this student. He had devised a system wherein he changed his answers on homeworks and exams after they had been returned to him, increased the assigned points, and then he complained that his points had been added up incorrectly. Over the semester, this student had submitted at least three separate pieces of work for grade recomputations. It was the last one, the last midterm exam, that did him in.

All the exams in this class were xeroxed by a single person on a single machine in a locked room, all at one time, and then numbered. (Did I mention cheating was rampant?) One page on this particular exam had question that used a band pattern from a gel electrophoresis. The student got this question right but, apparently, not the question immediately proceeding it. He carefully removed this page from his exam, used whiteout or some other masking agent to erase his original answer, wrote in the correct answer, and then xeroxed the corrected page. He then copied back the graders' marks with higher point values, using the same colored pens, replaced the page in his exam and submitted it for a grade recomputation.

Were it not for the gel electrophoresis it would have been difficult to detect cheating. The bands on the gel were reproduced in varying gray levels, visible after the first xeroxing, but after the second all shades of gray were just black and white. There was no way the electrophoresis question could have been answered correctly given the figure that resulted after the second xeroxing.

The student offered no defense. He said that he was being persecuted, that he was honorable, that he would never cheat, etc. etc. He was asked why he had xeroxed the page. He could only insist that he had not. His demeanor was such that everyone in the room was reluctant to believe that he could have so deliberately, and with such premeditation, cheated so blatantly. This was not the hurried and sloppy behavior of the panicked; this took a lot of time to accomplish, and he had over a week to do it and turn it back in to his TA.

The students on the committee were not what I had expected. Two of them had been students in my own classes. They were the good ones, not Paying Customers. I had given one of them his only B ever at ILU. (In retrospect, I feel quite badly about that.) As committee members they were sober, serious and mature. They asked questions of the accused and accuser, not to choose sides, but to get as much information as possible. They were distressed by, not dismissive of, what they were hearing. They took their jobs very, very seriously, and as I watched them, I knew I would not hesitate to have any one of them as my own physician some day. I also knew that I probably would not be given that opportunity, because these people were going to be too busy running the world. I was astonished.

Both sides of the case heard, the accusing faculty member left, not to return. The accused was also asked to leave while the committee discussed the situation and decided on a course of action. As the doors closed, the committee members stared at each other. Guilt or innocence was not a question here. The only issue to be determined was the punishment to be meted out. Once again, I was astonished. These students were appalled at their classmate's behavior. The premeditation of the act loomed large in their minds. They were all pre-med students themselves. They knew the pressure to cheat was nearly irresistible, and though none of them had ever bent under that pressure, they were willing to be sympathetic to a classmate who had a momentary lapse. This was not such a case and they were angry.

They were angry that an ILU student could devalue an ILU diploma in this way. They were angry that a person like this might someday become a physician. They were ready to pronounce the harshest sentence they could: permanent expulsion from the university. To my surprise, it was I and the other faculty who argued for leniency. What do we want to achieve? we asked. Can we prevent this person from ever becoming a physician? Would that be sufficient? Expulsion had other serious consequences, which in this particular case included deportation. Did we want that?

The students were swayed by our arguments. The student was not expelled. He was given an F in the course, placed on academic probation, and a notation was made on his transcript indicating that the failure and the probation was for academic misconduct. This, we thought, would be enough to keep him out of any reputable medical school. It also gave him a chance to reform. By working hard he could, we thought, overcome this black mark and turn ignominy into success. I don't know if I would argue for leniency if I were faced with the same situation today, but I still believe the punishment was fair.

I think back on this experience at certain moments. I was so proud of these kids - kids who are probably finishing their residencies now. When I look out over the sea of faces in my lectures, I find myself doubting that there are any students like them here at LSU. There was something about them, something more than genius and hard work. They had a sense of citizenship, of duty and responsibility; an unspoken agreement that they were going to use their talents to make the world a better place.

The number of students at LSU is an order of magnitude larger than the number at ILU. Statistically speaking, I know there are more students like them out there somewhere. I hope I find them, or they find me, eventually.

So maybe it's not such a good idea.

Sometimes, on bad days, I daydream about liquidating my portfolio, selling the house, buying a nice doublewide and a little plot of swampland in southern Louisiana, and getting a job at the local Home Depot.

These people are having a much worse day than I could ever have. Let's wish the best for them.

Some lives are more valuable than others.

Those of you with affiliations to universities with medical schools have probably received some version of the spam that I got today. This mass-mailing was sent by the reprehensible Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an extremist animal rights group devoted to the elimination of all animal exploitation. They want "total animal liberation," meaning a society with no zoos, circuses, or rodeos, no consumption of animal products as food (a vegan diet), no fur or leather products, no pets, and especially, no animal models in medical research.

PCRM is an especially unsavory bunch of individuals that use every media opportunity to denigrate and distort animal-based research. The letter I got today claims that very few medical professionals still believe that animal research is necessary for continued progress in understanding the effects of disease and injuries in humans, and that the use of animal models to advance our ability to treat disease is nothing but cruel. They delight in relating the gory details surrounding some of the methods used in animal research: "The tiny, fluffy, affectionate purring kitten is strapped into an immobilizing device so that the cold-hearted evil scientist can, by dropping a cantilevered weight onto its trusting little head, bash out its brains etc. etc...."

Deliberately left out of these disturbing descriptions is the fact that such procedures are very, very carefully monitored by both internal and external agencies to insure that the "horrors" they describe inflict minimal pain and distress on the animals involved. Deliberately left out of these disturbing descriptions is the fact that these research protocols have undergone intense scrutiny by peer reviewers, the local Animal Care and Use committee, and the agency that funds the research. Deliberately left out of these disturbing descriptions is the fact that animal models are the best way we have to prevent the transmission of disease and develop new treatments for debilitating and life-threatening illnesses like HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

PCRM's statements implying that all "good" scientists know that these kinds of research techniques are outdated and cruel are simply lies. The name of the organization (Physicians Committee) is a lie: less than 5% of the members of PCRM are physicians. The founder of the organization, Neal D. Barnard, is not a nutritionist or a clinical researcher as all PCRM's documents would have you believe, but trained as a psychiatrist.

Dr. Barnard and his ilk argue from the position that the life of a non-human, no matter how small, is just as valuable as the life of a human. From this position, one must also endorse the position that abortion is evil (they do not take any position on abortion), that mosquitoes and flies are to be tolerated and not swatted, and, one must assume, that antibiotics cannot be used to cure infection. Some questions I have about this ridiculous stance include: Are cats to be prevented from catching mice, and lions antelope? Are invasive species to be allowed to drive native species to extinction? The dogma of the extreme animal rights groups is internally inconsistent. In a strange perversion of logic, one of their spokesman has openly advocated assassination of animal researchers to discourage the use of animal models in research.

I am not an animal researcher, but I depend on data from animal research to advance my own research agenda. Despite the fact that animals are killed as an indirect result of my curiosity, I (and all the animal researchers I know) love and respect animals. We are grateful and respectful of the sacrifices they make on our behalf. Following an honest and frank description of what happens to animals in his laboratory, Steven Rose writes a deeply touching and sensitive essay on the relationship between society, animal researchers and research animals in the second chapter of his book The Making of Memory. I could quote the whole chapter to make my point, but I will quote one paragraph:

At home we have a much loved and exceedingly beautiful cat... But if I had to choose between saving the cat's life and that of any other human child, I would unhesitatingly choose the child. And my cat at the expense of a chick [Rose's research animal].

I will go further, and say that if I had to kill all the sweet, furry kittens in the world to save the life of one human child, I would. Some lives are more valuable than others.

Twitchy fingers.

Don't type http://gentlemansc.blogpot.com or http://gentlemansc.blogpsot.com/. If you do, make sure to wear sunglasses and grab your bible.

Google before you post.

Okay, it was filmed last month. Yes, only one month. So Tommy really didn't get a grade in Chem 101. Too bad: that would have been very amusing.

Was I the only one...

...who watched "Tommy Lee Goes To College" last night? It was about what I expected: lots of extracurricular activities and lots of moaning about Chem 101. I was amused (and not surprised, having played percussion myself) that Mr. "World-Class Drummer" completely sucked when asked to read and play music with real percussionists.

I find myself obsessed with when they filmed this stuff. Last fall? If so, I wanna know what Tommy's Chem grade was.

Random thoughts on a Friday morning.

I must be off that committee. The candidate is supposed to defend on Monday and I haven't been asked to sign anything. Either way, it feels good not to worry about it.

It cost $30 to fill up my tank yesterday. I have mixed feelings. Is the world coming to an end? That would be bad. On the other hand, we could turn into France, who has never had much oil. The French were paying this much for gasoline decades ago. We could see real public transportation in our cities, restoration of the country's rail systems, and the demise of the "Walmart" economy. Imagine a little market every few blocks. It could be wonderful!

All my zucchinis died. And so did all of my neighbors', all up and down the street. Tiny little worms burrowed into the stalk and destroyed the vines. I thought they were squash borers, but they look too small. Should I try to kill the worms next year? My local greenhouse says to dust the young plants with sevin, but won't that kill the mantises, too? On the bright side, I have lots of cucumbers and tomatoes.

Summer is ending. I feel cheated. Rather than getting lots of writing done, I agonized over bad theses and departmental politics.

Kids say the darndest things.

My daughter's current favorite song is "Frère Jacques," in French, of course. She asks me to sing it over and over again, every day.

She says, "Do Mother Fucker, Mommy."

We're granting too many Ph.D.s.

My little saga isn't over yet. I received another inadequate draft of the candidate's thesis revision last week, despite my urgings that he take his time and not risk failing a second defense. There are, again, lots of external deadlines that seem to be driving everyone's decision-making processes as this drama unfolds, and surprisingly little cognitive activity. This morning I wrote my formal request to the Graduate School to be removed from the committee. Wish me luck.

On a related note, I stumbled across this online service this morning, which claims to serve the role of advisor (for a fee) to students whose advisors are incompetent or have failed them in some way. Were I not so bruised by my recent experience, I would have laughed out loud, but instead I just hung my head in shame.

Some of the testimonials published on this website are disturbing in the extreme. Consider this one:

"I am extremely pleased with Dr. Granoff's work. He coached me in the statistics portion of my dissertation as well as advised me in preparation for my orals. He is very thorough and answered all my questions. The wonderful part is he understands the anxiety and emotional stress of the project, he is an expert in the field, and he will describe elements in lay terms to be sure there is complete understanding. Dr. Granoff’s work I rate at excellent and I would highly recommend him." --Anne

I first interpreted this remark to mean that Dr. Anne had to have her own research explained to her in lay terms. But it turns out that Dr. Granoff is the company's statistical consultant, and I've preached enough about this kind of attitude toward statistics.

Here is another:

"I'm in the process of reading the research document you sent and it is absolutely exquisite!! You have pinpointed the areas most relevant in the literature and to some degree I feel validated that much of what I intended to incorporate you have so eloquently addressed." -- Karen - Ph.D. candidate, Education

and another:

"Roxann did an excellent job of contributing to the writing of the first and last chapters. Her services saved me a lot of stress and she was a needed complement to a research advisor that was not very ambitious/thorough in his editing/proofing." -- Daniel Hennessy

What we have here, it seems, is more than an advising service. I can attest that some advisors do not advise very well, if at all. However, a Ph.D. is supposed to be a student's independent contribution to the scientific literature in his or her field. The role of an advisor is to advise, not to do the actual work. Reading over these testimonials it seems that even good advice would not have been enough to get them through their programs. They needed more: they needed people to do the analyses and interpret them, to do their proofreading, and apparently their literature reviews too. It's no wonder that many of them were dissatisfied with their advisors.

This service dances over and around the line between providing assistance with writing ("In fact, many college/university advisors will suggest that you obtain an editor to polish the narrative") and work-for-hire ("We will advise, edit, and rewrite portions when you are struggling to express your ideas"). It encourages their clientele to believe that a good advisor is supposed to do all these things for you: analyses, interpretation of analyses, literature review, writing, and more. It perpetuates the misguided belief that if, say, an advisor requires you to rewrite a chapter or two, rather than do it him or herself, then that advisor is neglecting his or her responsibilities.

Furthermore, despite their claims to anonymity, they seem happy to publish first and last names of their clients, like the Dr./Mr. Daniel Hennessy quoted above. I wonder how his thesis committee would feel if they knew that he had engaged the services of this company?

When I was a graduate student, one of my professors, who was wont to indulge in tirades about the decline of youth, began the class lecture bemoaning the poor quality of the exams we had just turned in, and declaring that most of us in the room had no business being in a Ph.D. program. Although I still believe that the man was an insulting little troll, there is one thing he said that I have never forgotten: people who get Ph.D.s don't get them because they want them. They get them because they are driven to them. Getting a Ph.D. shouldn't be easy, and it isn't fun -- unless you think that pulling all-nighters for months, working weekends for five years, and having to hear that your thinking is still muddled and your writing is poor four or five thesis revisions in a row is a good time. Even in the darkest days of thesis-writing, I would sooner have quit unfinished than turn to a service like this one for "help."

I suppose I could end this rambling little essay by wondering what the hell is wrong with graduate students these days, but it will make me feel too old (and trollish).

Parenting is hard.

I'm bug-phobic. Ever since I was a child, I just haven't been able to share my living space with bugs. I don't kill them when I find them, I just move them outside. The moving process can sometimes be very involved, as I can't bear to touch them. I usually employ a large drinking glass and a piece of cardboard. My aversion to touching bugs can extend to their images: I have a field guide to insects, and I have to be very careful about turning the pages, as I can't bear to touch some of the pictures.

I know that my inability to touch or be touched by a bug is irrational, and when my daughter first began showing an interest in the world around her I vowed that I would never let her see me behave like a ninny around a bug. With one exception (we were unexpectedly dive-bombed by a very large, drunken dragonfly), I have kept this vow. This means that, in the past few years, there are occasions in which I have had to touch a bug, or let a bug touch me.

Now that we are most of the way through the summer, life is pretty good if you're a bug. All the summer regulars, like the crickets and the cicadas, indulge in noisy all-night orgies of bug-making, and their exhausted bodies litter my porch and sidewalk in the morning. To my great surprise, I have found myself picking up these big monsters and moving them out of the way, without benefit of glass and cardboard. I have gently held, for my daughter's benefit, wasps, grasshoppers, crickets and a praying mantis.

I can now imagine touching something like a stag beetle without experiencing too much angst. I don't know if I could actually do it, but I can imagine it. In evaluating my progress, I realized that I have put myself through a course of treatment psychologists call systematic desensitization. I started small, with ladybugs and fireflies, and worked my way up to the challenging beetles and cicadas. I first imagined touching them, and then, when given the opportunity, gave it a shot in real life.

I am not completely cured. Like I said, I think I could pick up a stag beetle, but I'm not sure. And then there's this, which will always be a huge problem for me:

Brrrr!

Despite all my efforts, my daughter is also becoming bug-averse. I don't know if she's picking this up from friends or teachers at school, or if bug phobia is something innate that some people manage to overcome while others don't. Looking for a while at that picture of Mr. Roach up there, I'm inclined to believe that there's something prewired in my brain that prevents me from appreciating how handsome he is. Whether or not my daughter is able to put "entomologist" down on the list of things she'd like to be some day is rather beside my point, however. I just wonder: Will she ever appreciate how hard it was for me to hold a bug? Will she ever realize that I did it just for her?

If you have a moment, check out What's That Bug? It's a great site, with beautiful photos.

On being away from my desk.

My family and I have been visiting a Southern urban center since Monday. I have some business here in town, but mostly I'm here having fun. My roots are Deep South, and given only three days, I am struggling to keep a drawl from creeping back into my speech.

Things I have missed:

1. Sweet, sweet tea. By the gallon.
2. Grits with breakfast, even when I didn't order them. Push the butter in deep and pass the salt and pepper.
3. Red dirt.
4. BBQ sauce under my fingernails.
5. Fried okra.
6. "Y'all heyahv a nahce tahm hyeah, y'heyah?"