Academia

I finally got the receipt from my school.

They divided my gift as I instructed them to.

I’m happy with this - it means I can still donate money to the parts of the school (i.e., faculty) that do so much, without worrying that it will get filched by the parts (i.e., administrators) that don’t.

I rarely admire the work of Naomi Wolf, but I found a three-year-old article of hers which I’d like to recommend.

It’s a candid description of an experience which she had during college - one that was inappropriately foisted on her by someone who should have known better. It surely evokes a flinch of recognition from anyone who’s experienced the same. But that’s not why I think it should be read - it should be read because it gives an irrefutable depiction of what happens when college administrations rely on hiding indiscretions behind closed doors, on silencing accusers rather than disciplining offenders.

Wolf takes the time, as I could never do, to systematically speak to the young women who are hurt by her alma mater’s lack of candor. And she, unlike Yale, rises to the occasion and refuses to discard pragmatism for ideology. In her last paragraph, she remarks,

The saddest part? If a Yale undergraduate came to me today with a bad secret to tell, I still could not urge her to speak up confidently to those tasked with educating, supporting, and mentoring her. I would not direct her to her faculty adviser, the grievance committee, or her dean.

I wish that someone had been so honest with me when I was an undergraduate! Instead, I found out the hard way that complaints were unwelcome (and hard evidence moreso).

At least I can take comfort in the fact that mine was a different sort of complaint, not one of sexual harassment - my career might never have recovered otherwise.

For quite some time now I’ve been promising myself that when all is said and done, I’ll write a letter to my alma mater detailing exactly what they’re doing wrong. The reason I make this promise is that I can’t imagine a better faculty anywhere, and I think that they deserve to have their dedication to their students fully appreciated. The reason I keep putting it off is that my uni has a complement of truly terrible administrators, and that with these particular people it goes without saying that if they are in any position to punish me for my remarks, they will. They’ll have less power to do so once I’ve started my new job, and even less once I’ve started a graduate program, so I’m planning to send the letter after one or the other of those events.

What I originally planned to say in this letter was that there’s a huge gulf between our faculty and our administration, and that the faculty should demand more of a say in the selection of administrators so that they can get a few who are basically honest and who care about students.

Then I found out (not the hard way, thank gdb) about the Involuntary Medical Withdrawal provision in our rules, and I went ballistic. So that had to go in the letter too.

Then I stumbled across one of the ways we cheat to bring up our U.S. News & World Report ranking, and of course that had to be written about.

Now I’m discovering just how insidious the graduation and commencement requirements are, and I’m adding to my letter again.

The letter is now eight pages long. It will never be sent in this form. I might as well just chop it up by subject and send it to the school paper as a sequence of letters to the editor - at least then SOMEONE would read it. As it is, I strongly suspect that whoever screens the president’s mail will open it up, take a look and say, “Looks like someone suggests we change things around here!” Then she’ll toss it in the garbage (recycling’s too good for complaints), largish donations be damned.

Excerpted from my plan file. Master’s degrees I’m considering taking while working at MS, in the rough order I’m considering them. Durations are (more or less) minimums. Probably only of interest to those of you who are in the area (and similar careers).

Online Master’s Program in Applied Mathematics
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Washington
Degree: MSc in Applied Mathematics
Program starts: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Tuition: $599/credit
Credits: 36 (22 core requirement, 10 elective, 2 seminar, 2 journal, final oral presentation or exam)
Duration: 1 year
Reference: http://www.amathonline.washington.edu/amo/

Professional Master’s Program in Computer Science
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington
Degree: MSc in Computer Science & Engineering
Program starts: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Tuition: $452/credit resident, $917/credit nonresident
Credits: 40 (32 elective, 8 seminar)
Duration: 2 years
Reference: http://pmp.cs.washington.edu

Professional Master’s Program in Computational Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
University of Washington
Degree: MA in Computational Linguistics
Program starts: Autumn, Winter
Tuition: $558/credit
Credits: 40 (24 core requirement, 6 elective, 10 thesis, seminar)
Duration: 2 years
Reference: http://www.compling.washington.edu/compling/

Evening Master’s Program in Applications of Physics
Department of Physics
University of Washington:
Degree: MS in Physics
Program starts: Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer
Tuition: $420/credit resident, $983/credit non-resident
Credits: 36 (9 core requirement, 3-9 final project (?), 18- 400-level, 18- pass/fail, oral presentation)
Duration: 2 years
Reference: http://www.phys.washington.edu/ms_overview.htm