Category Archives: academic life

How I (mostly) slept through the one of the largest earthquakes to hit NW Europe in 200 years

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Chris Rowan

In the early hours of 13 April 1992, the border region in western Europe where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet was shaken by a magnitude 5.4 earthquake, caused by northeast-southwest extension in the Roer Valley Graben. The shaking was … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, earthquakes

How useful are lectures, really?

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Chris Rowan

There has been an interesting discussion amongst the geologists on Twitter, that I’ve archived over on Geotweeps Discuss…, over the role of the lecture in undergraduate education. This was in response to an NPR story claiming that in physics at … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, science education

Writing Challenge: The end, or is it?

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams I’m a week overdue for my final sciwrite check in, and I didn’t make my goal of submitting the manuscript by the time … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, publication

Writing Challenge, Week 3: Slow and steady

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

It’s been three weeks since I issued the initial challenge to join me in a month-ish of intense writing activity. Last week I needed to redefine what I meant by making satisfactory progress, and several of you shared your own … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, by Anne, publication

Dear Nature, You got a sexist story, but when you published it, you gave it your stamp of approval and became sexist too.

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

Dear Nature, “Womanspace” by Ed Rybicki is the most appalling thing I have ever read in a scientific journal. When I read the Futures (science fiction) piece you published on 29 September 2011, about how the hero and a man … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, by Anne, publication, ranting, society

Writing Challenge, Week 2: Define progress.

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

It’s been two weeks since I issued the initial challenge to join me in a month-ish of intense writing activity. Last week, I told you what I was doing and how it was going, and 13 brave commenters shared (and … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, by Anne

Writing Challenge, Week 1: Are you making progress?

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

It’s been a week since I issued the initial challenge to join me in a month-ish of intense writing activity. I’ve seen use of the #sciwrite hashtag pick up on Twitter, and 41 of you have now publicly committed to … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, by Anne

A writing challenge

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

Are you up for a challenge? A writing challenge? A friendly, mutually-supportive writing challenge?* I need to write some papers. My tenure portfolio goes out for review in May, and I want to get a couple more papers into review … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, publication

Wisdom from the Geoblogosphere School of Learning & Doing (Accretionary Wedge #38)

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

Welcome to the Geoblogosphere School of Learning & Doing. Let’s begin with a story by one of our students, Michael Klaas of Uncovered Earth. He writes… “On a warm evening in May of 2008 I sat upon a cinder cone … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, geology, science education

Show me the data!

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Anne Jefferson

Some of my favorite memories of interacting with my Ph.D. advisor involve long sessions at our conference table, looking at data. I’d come to these sessions armed with many graphs showing data I’d collected and different ways of displaying relationships … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, by Anne