Being a faculty member is a prestigious profession in society that brings respect to a person. It is also a very beneficial job. Faculty members have a tremendous role in nurturing young peoples’ minds, who are the most powerful and influential group in all societies. Students thrive and grow by absorbing faculties’ knowledge and then improve their society using the great combination of knowledge and youth power. Additionally, for faculty members, being surrounded by a young group is rewarding. The youth energy that flows all over the university can affect faculty and keeps them energized.

Besides teaching, being a faculty member usually includes research. Faculty members mostly can lead the focus of their research toward what they really like and enjoy the time, effort and energy that they put on their research. The idea of being paid to concentrate on reading and writing about topics that we love is fantastic and tempting. In the process of research, collaborating with other members of the professional community is mostly a reward that comes with the job. It mostly happens through seminars and workshops that are the inseparable parts of a scholarly profession.

Working as a faculty member also gives scholars the opportunity to broaden their horizons and step out of the comfort zone of their technical area of expertise. Faculty members are usually required to help bring money into their university with grants.  It, however, is not possible without having great communication knowledge to attract and convince potential clients. Additionally, in order to have a fair and reasonable contract, having some business knowledge is also useful and required. These two skillsets are applicable to all other aspects of a person’s life and helps one to flourish and succeed in personal life as well.

On top of all the great aspects of being a faculty member, another opportunity is to have influence on university policies; even though it might be a small influence. Most faculties can get involved and try to affects the major decisions by serving on different committees. Due to the leading role of universities and colleges on society, faculties, in fact, indirectly have a positive effect on their community.

In spite of all positive specifications of the profession, in my opinion, being a faculty member has a negative aspect, which is the level of stress during the first few years. In the last decades, the competition to get and keep a job as a faculty member has increased tremendously. The number of applicants increased, but the needs for new faculty members have not kept up with the increment. It all leads to a huge and in some cases unbearable pressure on new faculty members, who are working toward getting tenure. The thought of losing all that one have wished and worked hard toward for more than 20 years looks like a nightmare more than a dream.

Considering all aspects of being a faculty member, in general, the profession is perfect for one who loves to learn and know more every day and who likes to be in contact with others. The career helps one to grow in all aspects of life, personally and professionally, and provide the ideal situation to experience a dynamic profession. To me, being a faculty member makes every day of life more interesting and worthy to live.

In spite of all positive aspects of higher education, there are something that I would like to change, if I had the authority.

First change would be the process of getting tenure track. The level of stress during the first few years of a new faculty member is too much. In the last decades, the competition to get and keep a job as a faculty member has increased tremendously. The number of applicants increased, but the needs for new faculty members have not kept up with the increment. It all leads to a huge and in some cases unbearable pressure on new faculty members, who are working toward getting tenure.

Second change would be putting more emphasis on concept of knowledge; learning for the sake of learning. Nowadays, universities mostly try to attract new students by selling the concept of success not knowledge. Their advertises mostly focus on how much more money students will make after their graduation.

CALL FOR ART WORK AND PHOTOGRAPHY: WORLD WITHOUT FOSSIL FUELS

All students are invited to submit art work and photography with the theme of “World without fossil fuels.” The perspective might be alternatives to substitute fossil fuels and the consequences. Submissions are limited to three pieces (art and/or photography) per participant. Cash prizes will be awarded. Submit any kind of art work along with the following information: title of your art, authors’ name, contact information (email and phone number) by 5:00 PM Tuesday, Dec 5.  Artwork will be displayed for public viewing. Please direct any questions to Bahareh Estejab, bestejab@vt.edu or text 865-771-4097.

CALL FOR 6-WORD STORIES: WORLD WITHOUT FOSSIL FUELS

All students are invited to submit six-word stories with the theme of “World without fossil fuels.” The perspective might be alternatives to substitute fossil fuels and the consequences. Submissions are limited to three stories per participant. Cash prizes will be awarded. Submit your story by email to bestejab@vt.edu along with the following information: authors’ name, contact information (email or phone number) by 5:00 PM Tuesday, Dec 5. Stories might be displayed for public viewing. Please direct any questions to Bahareh Estejab (bestejab@vt.edu or text 865-771-4097).

All students and members of community are invited to submit art work and photography or a six word story. The theme is “World without fossil fuels”. The perspective might be alternatives to substitute fossil fuels and the consequences. Submissions are limited to three pieces for each category (category one: art and photography, category two: six word story) per participant. Cash prizes will be awarded for each category. Submit any kind of art works or six word stories along with the following information: title of your art (for artwork only), Authors’ name, contact information (email and phone number) by 5:00 PM Tuesday, December 5^th.  Artworks will be and six word story might be displayed for public viewing . Please direct any questions to Bahareh Estejab (bestejab@vt.edu or text 865-771-4097)

The last class we talked about educational system in different countries. Here, I would like to use this opportunity to bring up the Stereotype treat subject.

Stereotype treat is an inseparable factor of diversity. I believe that regardless of how much we try to keep our opinions unbiased, we all can remember times that we judge others just by what they wear, how they look, what gender they have, what nationality they are, so on and so forth.

I read somewhere that our brain can be set on “pilot” and “auto-pilot”. I believe that it is true but the point would be: does “pilot” mode means full control of our thinking? I don’t think so. If stereotype poisoned our brain in any shape, it would somehow affect our behavior. It could even show itself in the opposite form. Try to recall times when one tried to compensate a common stereotype by leaning toward the other side and gave more credit to that group even in mind.

In some aspects, our brain is likened to a computer’s memory. There is always ways to retrieve data from your PC, even though you had deleted the information. It doesn’t matter that one dose not want to recall data and tries hard to forget them, they are still somewhere in there!

Individuals are defined and somehow judged based on their communication with their surroundings. Each one of us has a unique analogy in our brain, which lies behind our unique life, that subconsciously categorizes people in our mind: smart, beautiful, nice, affectionate, …. Regardless of our unique analogy, some characteristics are mostly defined as positive and some as negative. For instance, beauty has always been attractive for people. We all try to look nice and neat every day. Buying nice cloths, using beauty products, having regular trips to beauty salons are all some prices that we pay to look sophisticated and beautiful. People enjoy their nice appearance because it somehow absorbs more affection, respect and attention.

Smartness is almost always positive characteristic too. People like to look smart and like to hang out with smart people. After the last class, I kept thinking about the outcomes of all activities. Almost all activities that we did in class tried to teach us how to look as smart as we really are. The ultimate outcome would be more attention from our surroundings; it could be in the form of new opportunities, new funds, and new relations. My point would be how the unwritten rule of communication can define every aspects of our life!

Dear Friends,

ISVT (Iranian Society at Virginia Tech) first event of the semester, Mehregan, will be held on Oct 18th, at the Commonwealth Ballroom, Squires Student Center. ISVT board is proud to announce that we host Dr. Nader Majd and his group (traditional Persian music) and dance performers from Washington D.C.

Halal food is also going to be served for dinner. You can buy your tickets from the following link. The deadline for buying the tickets is Oct, 10th.

Regards,
ISVT executive board and Mehregan organizers.

http://www.iranian.org.vt.edu/events.htm

Notwithstanding the fact that many research misconduct has been reported so far, I think that the one that I am going to blog on is one of the major one because it gave hope to so many paralyzed people around the world. Although so many paralyzed people are totally capable of regular routines and live their lives as regular people, they will continue to hold out hope that they will be healed. Hwang Woo-Suk played with their heart.

Hwang Woo-Suk, a south Korean scientist who was a professor of biotechnology and theriogenology at Seoul National University, had been considered one of the pioneer experts in the field. In 2004 and 2005, he published two articles in Science journal and claimed to create human embryonic stem cells by cloning. The results of this research spread hope to millions who were paralyzed or know someone who was paralyzed. It was not far after when it came out of shadow that his results were are all based on falsified data! He was charged with embezzlement and bioethics law violations, released from his position at University, and sentenced to a two year suspended prison sentence.

1. http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/rio/research_misconduct_examples.htm#woo

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/science/10clone.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1208885616-O3zsrqSTadwpnwni5G+Fqg&

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-Suk

As a VP of events for IDR interdisciplinary honor society, I would like to dedicate this post to the beauty and importance of interdisciplinary researches. First thing first though, “our honor society is accepting applications for membership from Monday, September 2 through midnight on Sunday, September 22, 2013. IDR was founded at Virginia Tech in 2011 by graduate students promoting interdisciplinary cooperation and research at Virginia Tech and all other colleges and universities.  We have two levels of membership – Full and Associate.  We accept both graduate and undergraduate members.  Our membership application, requirements for membership, and information about our society can be found at http://www.idrsociety.org/membership/application/.  Any questions about our memberships, the application package, or assistance with your application can be directed to our VP of Membership, Tammy Parece, at tammyep@vt.edu.”

Disciplines are more than just knowledge about a certain science, a few courses that teachers teach and students learn. Each field teaches students a certain method of thinking. After graduating from college an engineer does not see the world around the same way that an artist does. An engineer sees the world from the engineering window and an artist from the art window. If a group of people are asked about a familiar object, for instance a bicycle they all would say “it is a bicycle” but if they were asked to explain it in one unique sentence, each individual will define it differently. An engineer sees it as a machine that converts energy. An artist would see it as a combination of lights and colors. All of that is because we are all tough to see differently, which is the beauty of science. And it gets more interesting and more useful when all of these methods of thinking come together and solve a complicated problem. This is called the Interdisciplinary research that has caught more attention in the last decade. An interdisciplinary research is defined as integrating knowledge of various disciplines and tackle a complicated research that cannot be studied otherwise. Although the definition is complete, but I think there is more in this type of researches. It brings different methods of thinking together!