Best practices for writing multiple choice tests

Criticizing another scientist’s work isn’t bullying. It’s science.

Science Friday covers the movement to make alpha smaller.

This is a wonderful story about a course that meets once per week, with a 7 hour session, that involves focused reading.

How should we respond to student entitlement?

Why I don’t take attendance

If you heard about the latest paper on generalized insect decline — the “windshield phenomenon” — this is an excellent short piece by an insect ecologist who took the time to, you know, read and critique the actual paper. It’s full of the kind of insights and observations that you’d expect to emerge from a great journal club discussion.

Culturally inclusive STEM education

A living wage for PhD students is key to diversity in STEM

Ed Wilson has written another piece about the importance of biodiversity science, taxonomy, and natural history.

A solid piece suggesting that we can do entirely without letters of recommendation for faculty job applications.

This happened a couple months ago, but I just heard about how a major university press complied with censorship requests by the Chinese government.

“The No Apologies Initiative, to eliminate application fees for first-generation, low-income applicants.”

Take your pick of these two stories about the mess that was wrought by the organizers of the March for Science.

Professors are complicit in the brain damage of university football players

On the economics of consent

This story about Elie Wiesel being an ass-grabber has more nuance an insight than the title would suggest.

On ‘math bro’ culture in the math department of a university located in Boston.

Here is a report of a study that shows how women don’t interact differently with people at work than men — they just are kept from advancing because of bias.

Can we still rely on science done by sexual harassers?

Post-tenure mentoring networks

Here is a delightful interview with George Saunders from earlier this year. His first full-length novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, just received the Booker Prize. (I mentioned this book in RecReads104 by the way)

The fragile state of the midwest’s public universities.

Last month, I heard this NPR piece about government surveillance of Uighurs in Kashgar and was stupefied. Days later, this Buzzfeed piece painted a more complete picture. I think this is a critical listen + read for navigating the coming decades.

The Progressive Stack (or, why it’s perfectly fine in class to first call on students from underrepresented groups)

The Trump White House ramps up its war on science

How America went haywire

Parents: your children need professors with tenure

A subjective and spot-on history of twitter

The EPA is preventing their own scientists from presenting their data at conferences.

What am I reading at home? I just bought the new Philip Pullman, the first book in the Book of Dust series, companion to His Dark Materials. I have a feeling I won’t be able to read it until the holidays. I also have Christopher Kemp’s brand new book about discoveries lurking in the collections of natural history museums, The Lost Species, waiting for me, and it looks great. I just finished reading a new edition of Sarapiqui Chronicle, but I’ll not say anything now other than it was quite enjoyable, because I’m writing a review of this for the good folks of American Entomologist, which I’ll link to when it comes out in print, which is slower than blog-time, of course. I’m making my way, slowly but steadily, through Theodore Rex, a biography of TR during his time in the presidency.

Have a great weekend!