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A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
681–690 of 756 posts
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there’s a “collective will” then why isn’t the population forcing its collective will on those power structures?
as if the civil rights movement didn't have very significant events take place in mississippi https://bookshop.org/p/books/local-people-the-struggle-for-c...
Right so what’s stopping people from doing it now?
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can I ask why this is getting downvoted? Most of the other comments are basically saying this ("the pay is too low for too long for not enough reward"). Anecdotally: I'm teaching a course in "How To Be Successful In College" (not it's real name) at the US community college where I teach Computer Science. I've got more than 1 student who are going to get a credential for nursing because there's just no way they can sp…
I don't know that people even care, at that. The way most are forced to interact with the healthcare system, a doctor is just a nurse in a white coat who's also a bit of an asshole (aloof and/or smarmy). Especially when they misdiagnose or miss a diagnoses.
*diagnosis
I can never tell if I'm pissing off [professionals] or third-parties invested in the idea of [profession] not being dysfunctional.
Best medical system in the world, except for all the others.
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're (at least) 10 years into this mess now and still everyone is focused on restructuring our systems and prosecutions instead of putting forward a platform that broadly appeals to enough Americans to decisively win elections. What I said applies to both parties. We're not really all that different but all the incentives align towards pleasing extremists. Do you really need any more evidence of this than people get…
Do you really need any more evidence of this than people getting shot and people/press generally being okay with it? Democrats who push gun control at the cost of everything else -- such as the possibility of turning Texas blue -- are a big reason why the party lacks power to influence anything else.
It's First Pass the Post that causes that. We have maybe 30% is the population that wants guns highly restricted and a different 30% that wants abortions highly restricted. We have something like 52% that want Medicare4All. But we just seesaw between gun grabber and pussy grabber because those M4A aren't the majority of either party primary.
MMP means the person running on M4A gets ranked in the middle by everybody, which is enough for a seat.
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#685For some reason it's hard for me to read one paragraph sentences and come away with an understanding of what was being communicated.
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
A sizable chunk of the endowment likely has legal restrictions that limit how funds can be spent. E.g., they could be earmarked for undergraduate scholarships or a specific lab at a specific department. The endowment isn't a slush fund. It's also worth noting that the structural costs of research are far larger than what any single institution would be able to shoulder. For instance, MIT has extremely limited superco…
> A sizable chunk of the endowment likely has legal restrictions that limit how funds can be spent. E.g., they could be earmarked for undergraduate scholarships or a specific lab at a specific department. The endowment isn't a slush fund. Some of it has some restrictions, but money is fungible. I do not believe that MIT is actually limited (in practice ) from writing their own grants because of donor restrictions (if…
> Especially if they can play on their lib donor heart-strings about how mean the current administration is being to them.
Yes, like those famous liberals the Koch family who paid for prime real estate across from Stata.
It's just not as simple as you lay it out to be. Do you _seriously_ think that if hunkering down and paying out of the endowment to sustain nominal operations for a few short years was a viable strategy that they wouldn't be doing just that?
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#687It's ok. The top colleges are arguably now in China. China is providing free education in many poor African countries. Chinese is one of many subjects offered. Of course, a smart African college student will have no issue learning English, Chinese, as well her home countries language. The future belongs to China. We're elevating fine institutions such as Liberty University and celebrating comedians and edge lords. Ch…
>The future belongs to China. China's population pyramid is worse than the USAs. The present belongs to China. This is as good as it gets.
That might be the reason for the investment in education in Africa. Start opening up the gates for more immigration to replace their aging workforce
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#688Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking a longer time to graduate to become the “world expert” in their field is fine if grad students weren’t paid next to nothing for the 60+ hours a week that they are expected to work. As it is now it’s better to finish as quickly as possible so they can have a real life.
To make "next to nothing" concrete: MIT EECS PhD students are currently paid about $4700/mo. This is substantially less than they'd make in industry, but it's around the US median personal income across all working-age adults, and well above the average 24 year-old. They frequently make a substantial extra at summer internships, putting them well above US median in the years when they do. Also: it is school, not just…
What's the cost of living in that area?
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#689Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…
I've graduated many PhD students at a top tier university. That advisor was correct. What they were doing is teaching their PhD student. You must learn to write good reviews. That doesn't happen without writing quite a few. Of course grad students should generate the first draft of talks, collect data, and generate graphics. That's exactly the point of grad school. You need to learn how to organize and present knowle…
This is insanity. Then let them learn by advancing their own goals, not the goals of their exploiter. I won’t even call it advising because it clearly is not as you yourself admit.
Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
#690MIT Grad - a few thoughts:
1. MIT is one of the 'better' run institutions.
2. Most academic institutions are hilariously lean compared to most companies. The problem is the administrative burden associated with record-keeping, compliance, and 'student experience.' All 3 of these could reasonably be automated or cut.
3. On record-keeping: AI should help reduce that eventually.
4. On compliance, professors and universities need to restore academic freedom, period. Students have been pushing for 'all views' and the university model just doesn't support that. Different viewpoints will diverge, and some students will need to be threatened. Imagine a communist yelling at a business school about the principles of capitalism; an atheist yelling that God doesn't exist at Harvard's divinity school. Senseless.
5. On student experience: this is the shot in the foot. Students obviously want to choose the best social experiences, but getting gourmet food, shuttles, and super-designed buildings is nice to have. The competitive admissions process is competitive, but the cuts are probably stepping down the arms race. One $30M building can fund a lot of grad students. Which is more important to the institution?
On the tax itself, given most University's objectively socialist leanings, they should be proud to take an 8% tax on the GAINS of the Endowment, which is over $2M per student.
The breathless "let's go to Washington" on - again - a lower tax rate than nearly any graduate pays on their income on their massive per student endowment while they and their students preach and promote socialist policies across the board is beyond parody.
Where do they think the federal "funding" comes from?
All to say I find the response mostly spineless - unwilling to tackle the real issues facing universities today. For an engineering school to say 'let's beg for funding on Washington' suggests a wrongheaded institutional approach, regardless of politics.