The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Colleges Confront The STEM Gender Gap

Even if they start college majoring in a STEM field, women are more likely than men to change majors, federal data show. Some critics of the focus on gender parity say the concern is overblown. A number of colleges that specialize in these fields have recently taken steps to increase female enrollment and are seeing results. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-23/math-science-gender-gap/56669934/1

Fewer Job Opportunities For Science PhDs

Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned a traditional academic science career: PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab. But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field. That reality runs counter to messages sent by President Obama and the National Science Foundation and other influential groups, who in recent years have called for U.S. universities to churn out more scientists. Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-pushes-for-more-scientists-but-the-jobs-arent-there/2012/07/07/gJQAZJpQUW_story.html?hpid=z1

An Underrated Computer Science Department Extends Silicon Valley Into The Northwest

SOME budding entrepreneurs and computer whizzes based here in the Pacific Northwest are starting to turn heads down in Silicon Valley. They are professors and students at the University of Washington, home to what may be the best computer science department you’ve never heard of. The U.W. department’s growing recognition has been a blessing for its students, who are getting juicier job offers with top companies. But some Seattle technology executives say the competition is crimping the city’s homegrown technology scene, making it into something like a colony of Silicon Valley. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/technology/u-of-washington-a-northwest-pipeline-to-silicon-valley.html?ref=technology 

 

Keeping College Students In Science By Moving From Large Lectures To Active Learning

The U.S. has a surplus of science jobs but not enough college graduates to fill them. Studies find that 40 percent of students planning to major in science, technology, engineering or mathematics end up switching majors or don’t finish. Some say large lecture classes are chasing students out of science. There's an initiative at Johns Hopkins to engage students in so-called “active learning" entry-level science courses.  Read more at:
http://www.voanews.com/content/colleges_innovate_to_fill_science_job_surplus/666487.html

Science Cafes Allow Faculty To Explain Their Research To The Community

The small lecture-style lesson on the neuroscience and drug research behind efforts to fight the disease marked Brandeis University’s inaugural Cafe Science event. The series of three lectures, slated for the first Monday of each month at the Main Street restaurant, is part of a national trend that has specialists in physics, biology, and other scientific fields explaining complicated topics in a straightforward way for mainstream audiences. According to the university, the grass-roots phenomenon has given rise to more than 250 science cafes across the United States, most associated with colleges and universities. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2012/04/05/brandeis_offers_science_for_the_average_person_at_cafe_science_in_waltham/

How One College President Increased The Number Of Female Computer Science Majors

When Maria Klawe became president of Harvey Mudd College in 2006, she was dismayed — but not surprised — at how few women were majoring in computer science. As recently as 1985, 37 percent of graduates in the field were women; by 2005 it was down to 22 percent, and sinking. And the situation at Mudd was even grimmer. How Dr. Klawe (pronounced KLAH-vay) and her faculty turned things around — this year, nearly 40 percent of Harvey Mudd’s computer science degrees will go to women — sheds light on a gender gap that elsewhere remains stubbornly resistant to changing times. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/giving-women-the-access-code.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120403

At MIT The BMOC Is A Math Wizard

The first student to solve the problem correctly would get the hat and the grandiose title that comes with it: The Grand Integrator. At MIT, the annual Integration Bee, which began two decades ago as one of the many quirky diversions during the school’s January independent study period, has grown into something more. At a school without a traditional “Big Man on Campus,’’ becoming Grand Integrator, some say, is the closest thing to it. But winning the Integration Bee, former winners say, does make you stand out. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/01/20/mit_math_competition_creates_bmoc/ 

 

Advocates For Open Science Say Systemic Change Is Inevitable

For centuries, this is how science has operated — through research done in private, then submitted to science and medical journals to be reviewed by peers and published for the benefit of other researchers and the public at large. But to many scientists, the longevity of that process is nothing to celebrate. The system is hidebound, expensive and elitist, they say. Peer review can take months, journal subscriptions can be prohibitively costly, and a handful of gatekeepers limit the flow of information. It is an ideal system for sharing knowledge, said the quantum physicist Michael Nielsen, only “if you’re stuck with 17th-century technology.” Dr. Nielsen and other advocates for “open science” say science can accomplish much more, much faster, in an environment of friction-free collaboration over the Internet. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/open-science-challenges-journal-tradition-with-web-collaboration.html?src=me&ref=general 

 

Harvard Accelerator Fund Helps Scientists Commercialize Inventions

Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development has an Accelerator Fund that has been chugging along for four years, with some notable results. As of last month, the $10 million fund had given out $5.2 million in grants, to support more than 30 projects over five annual cycles. It’s still early to add up the returns, but the investment has led to more than $10 million in partnership money for the university, and several start-ups that have received outside venture funding.  The Accelerator Fund was created to help Harvard scientists commercialize their inventions by forming industry partnerships, licensing technology, and starting companies, primarily in the life sciences and biomedical fields. Read more at:
http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-15/business/29889583_1_harvard-labs-life-sciences-universities

Quite A Few IHEs Have Applied To Develop New York City's Science Campus

More than a dozen universities have submitted proposals to build an applied science school in New York City. The city began reaching out to higher-education institutions in December to urge them to build a new applied science and engineering campus in New York. A total of 18 schools from around the world, including Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, have applied. Read more at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/03/17/citys-push-for-tech-campus-draws-interest/?mod=google_news_blog