Archive for November, 2010

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Gender Gap

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

The underrepresentation of women in science and engineering can feel insurmountable. Women earn only a quarter of PhDs in the physical sciences, mathematics, and computer science. It would appear that the cause of this disparity is deeply rooted and hard to eradicate.

Professors at the University of Colorado, Boulder attempted a seemingly minor intervention with 400 students in a challenging physics class. Twice during the semester, students in the test group wrote for 15 minutes about their most important values. The control group wrote about values that did not have personal relevance for them. These exercises were unrelated to the material of the course, but they displayed an outsized influence on students’ performance.

As published in Science, male students in the control group significantly outscored female students in tests of physics mastery and the course exam. But women who took part in the “values affirmation” exercise erased that gap and even exceeded the male students’ scores on some measures. The results suggest that women students underperformance has more to do with stress and psychological barriers than any innate deficiency.

Their findings reinforce what psychologist Claude Steel has argued in relation to racial stereotypes. Stereotypes influence self-perception, and self-perception determines performance. A simple confidence booster can prime a student to achieve at her or his highest level.

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Why Wait?

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Procrastination seems so central to human behavior that it's hard to believe the word did not enter the English language until the sixteenth century. It's comforting to know that even during a period when workers had few options for  distraction, they still found a way to put off what they should be doing.

The study of procrastination has become a topic of scholarly research. In a review of the field, New Yorker business writer James Surowiecki outlines some of the leading explanations for why we shirk our duties:

  • Inability to defer immediate rewards for long-term success
  • Fear of failure leads to excessive planning
  • Miscalculation of how much time a task will take
  • Sense of being overwhelmed by a large, vague task

Knowing the cause of procrastination suggests some options for overcoming it. Most of the strategies involve limiting choices and imposing constraints. A popular software program allows Windows and Mac users to block internet access for a specified period. You can break down a task into more manageable, defined chunks.

Finally, you can subject yourself to negative reinforcement. Some folks trying to lose weight will make a bet with friends. For every pound lost, the friend will donate to a favorite charity. But for every pound gained, the dieter must donate to a despised charity. When it comes to tackling academic tasks, which tend to be self-directed and open-ended, this kind of skewing the consequences can help us stay on track.

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MedEd Portal

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

On the MedEd Portal homepage, the first featured publication is a submission from our Department of Medicine colleagues, Dan Alford, Angela Jackson, and Jane Liebschutz (with Ben Siegel from Pediatrics).

Their publication, Prescription Drug Abuse: An Introduction, started as a two-hour lecture for internal medicine residents. After receiving evaluations, they enhanced the presentation with PowerPoint slides and references. For submission to peer review, they included learning objectives and lessons learned.

The Faculty Development Seminar series will include a presentation on how to publish educational scholarship using MedEd Portal. It is scheduled for Monday, December 13 at noon in Evans 118. The on-line database is also a helpful source for ready-made and tested teaching materials.

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Recess for Grownups

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

By now everyone knows the benefits of physical activity for health promotion. As unequivocal as the research is, few of us seem to follow the suggested guidelines of 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day.

If finding 30 minutes out of a jam-packed day sounds implausible, how about 10? Toni Yancey, a professor of health services at UCLA, is promoting brief bouts of exercise in a new book called Instant Recess. The idea is that for ten minutes twice a day, colleagues take a break for structured exercise like a brisk walk around campus or a group dance.

By building exercise into the work day and making it social, instant recess bypasses individual excuses to stay sedentary. Companies like L.L. Bean have incorporated short exercise breaks into their factories. As a result, workers are more productive and less likely to get injured. What starts at the workplace builds confidence and skills to continue physical activity at home.

It may seem silly to dance with your colleagues for a few minutes a day. But the camaraderie it builds and the health habits it instills could be worth the embarrassment. And it's only for ten minutes.

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Tips for Grant Writers

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

After I finish reviewing a stack of grant proposals, I'm reminded of how few applicants take their audience into account. Many proposals include obscure acronyms, few paragraph breaks, and no succinct summary of the research question.

A grant reviewer in the sciences has released a similar list of suggestions for grant writers. Not coincidentally, the reviewer advises applicants to show empathy for the overworked reader. Some of the tips:

  • Use headers. Bold them and use them to show the flow of your argument.
  • Include figures and visual aids to illustrate key data or methods.
  • Give as much attention to the broader impact and diversity statements as you do to the project.

For BU faculty, we have additional resources available to help conform your grant to the new NIH format. Of course, reading too much advice can sometimes serve as a distraction from the actual writing of the grant.

The overriding message to keep in mind is to think like a reviewer. What are the criteria that reviewers are looking for? What formatting, figures, and language can you use that enhance clarity? In most cases, a reviewer comes to a conclusion by the first page and then looks for confirming evidence. Make that first page shine.

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The End of Tenure?

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

Advocates for granting tenure to university professors usually base their arguments on the principle of academic freedom. Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, defends tenure as necessary to shield faculty from capricious complaints. What if a parent complained that her child was being taught about evolution? Surely we value the spirit of free exchange in higher education enough to protect it.

When university presidents discuss tenure, they frame it through a different lens. In a poll of 30 U.S. college presidents published in the Atlantic, only 4 said the abolition of tenure would stifle academic freedom. In fact, 17 of them--the largest block of respondents--said that eliminating tenure would have no effect at all.

Without tenure, all faculty would be put on limited-term contracts, requiring an intensive system of review. At least with tenure systems, universities are forced to make a choice of promoting or releasing a faculty member rather than keeping on a mediocre professor year after year. Still, in a competitive academic market, no university wants to be the first to end tenure. Only if a large group of institutions coordinated their decision could widespread defection be avoided.

Nelson's point about tenure freeing up academics to publish unpopular views does not have much relevance on a medical campus. I see that faculty receive validation for their work from their peers or students, not from politics. If tenure promotes institutional loyalty and allows for long-term planning, than its benefits outweigh its downsides.

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An Urgent Call

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

The National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine issued a report calling for an increase of minority students in science and engineering. Underrepresented minorities comprise just 9% of the college-educated workforce in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). It would take a tripling of those numbers to reflect their portion of minorities in the general population.

The scarcity of minorities in these fields will not come as a surprise to anyone in academic medicine. The specific recommendations of the report, however, are novel. It identifies undergraduate retention as a key area. Minorities pursue science degrees in equal numbers to their peers, but fewer complete their degrees. Some reasons for attrition are financial, but the drop out rates can also result from inadequate support networks.

Freeman Hrabowski, contributor to the report and President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, describes how his campus made inroads in encouraging minority students. They conducted focus groups to understand how different groups felt about the problem or if they even acknowledged it. They also engaged students with a more collaborative curriculum and opportunities to conduct research with faculty members.

The physical separation of the medical campus makes mentoring of undergraduates more difficult, but it is one way that we can prepare the pipeline for a more diverse faculty.

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Gen X Faculty

Monday, November 15th, 2010

The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, a research consortium based at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, conducted a survey of its member institutions about junior faculty satisfaction. As part of the project, researchers interviewed 16 faculty members born between 1964 and 1980, the cohort known as Generation X.

Although the sample size was small, it included faculty in fields as diverse as medicine and theater and roles from professor to provost. The surprising conclusion was that Gen X faculty perceive no clash in generational cultures in the workplace. They certainly prioritize differently than older colleagues, but they share a commitment to excellence in scholarship and institutional loyalty.

The area where Xers may stand out the most is their struggle to balance work and life. Dual-career couples and parents feel the pinch acutely. They do not expect their universities to solve the problem, but they welcome programs to mitigate the stress. These programs should have as their goals mentoring, community-building, and collegiality. In, this way, Gen X is leading the way for improving the work environment for all faculty.

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The Power of Adjectives

Friday, November 12th, 2010

Academics tend to be open-minded people and understand how unproductive stereotypes can be. Despite this tolerance, hidden bias creeps in.

Take letters of recommendation. This time of year faculty receive requests to write on behalf of students applying to graduate school, trainees applying to faculty positions, and colleagues applying for fellowships. There's a conventional format for these letters, which are uniformly positive.

Yet, in a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers found that letters of recommendation for junior faculty positions at a research university showed a distinct pattern. Letters for female candidates stressed their "supportive" and "compassionate" qualities. Letters for male candidates characterized them as "confident" and "ambitious."

Both kinds of adjectives have a place in academia, but when search committees reviewed the letters, they rated the male attributes more highly. Without intending to, letter writers may be disadvantaging female candidates. The NIH is now funding a study to see if this pattern holds true in medical schools.

Inside Higher Ed's  report on this research generated over two dozen comments. The study's authors say a candidate can show the research to potential recommenders to make them aware of hidden bias. Of course, as some readers pointed out, another solution is to educate search committees to value the communal qualities associated with women. Because when it comes to obtaining leadership roles, being known as "caring" and "nurturing" won't help a candidate.

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On the Wall

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Among its libraries, office buildings, and dining halls, Harvard hangs 750 oil portraits of illustrious university citizens. Of those, 690 depict white men and only 2 are of minorities.

According to a Boston Globe report, Harvard is now devoting funds to adding images of women and minorities. The move signals to current students and faculty that diversity is not a fad but an essential part of the institution's history.

Boston University's School of Medicine also celebrates its forefathers with a wall of portraits near the main entrance:

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It's an imposing line-up that effectively conveys the longevity of the school. But it also paints a limited picture of the inclusive history of our campus. If there are images of the first Native American MD or the first African-American woman physician, they are not prominent. Celebrating our past visually makes everyone here today feel welcome.

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