Future Professoriate

I just wanted to write a quick summary of my research paper, because I was amazed by my findings. A lot of the literature talks about how there are far greater men than women in the academia on tenure-track. In fact, some of the literature states that there are less women on the tenure-track, yet more women on non-tenure positions. Some people are under the impression that preset biases cause men to be hired at a much greater amount than women. However, others assume that there aren’t enough women interested in a tenure-track position. However, the literature suggests a variety of reasons.

First, I’d like to say that this information is solely based on data I got from research papers, and it isn’t my data in anyway. If you’re interested in some of the references, please comment and i’d be happy to post some of the papers. That being said, let’s move on to the findings.

What it boils down to is that there are less women trying to pursue tenure-track positions. They maybe interested in tenure-track positions. However, they don’t pursue them. You may think it’s because their male counterparts are hired more than them. However, according to an experiment performed, female candidates had a 2:1 preference while being hired. This in fact, was interesting to me… and caused me to research more. This piece of research in particular was published in 2015. This research can be found here. Despite this, a Nature article mentions that there are still ways to go until this means equality for women in the academia. This article is titled “Leading Scientists favor women in tenure-track hiring test”

However, the most interesting research was talking about the choice women have to make between their careers and having a family. Many times, it seems like having family is the biggest turn away from those who want a tenure-track career. A lot of these view are shaped by experiences in graduate school. Dr. Lodish recommends a change in the way females are handled in the academia, so more become tenure-track professors. This interesting paper can be found here. What he states in a nut-shell is it’s important to give women the support and mentor them while they’re in the academia. In addition, he advises people going on to graduate studies to make sure that their future advisors are tolerant of having a family. No student should be obligated to answer such questions.

In summary, it seems like if women successfully find it easier to balance their personal life and a tenure-track career, there will be more women on the tenure-track.

ORI has a program named “The Research Clinic”. This is an initiative or project that ORI made to help promote integrity in research.

This program can be found here. It begins with a video on how research can go wrong, and how people can make bad choices to end up falsely affecting the outcomes of their research, and to negatively affect their institutions.  It’s an interesting intro video, that’s not boring… and in fact gets you interested as to what will happen to the institution… That’s something really unique about The Research Clinic.

Then, things become really disastrous for the researchers, people get fired, and grants are threatened. However, suddenly you’re told that it’s not the end, and that you can undo all this, and influence the outcomes of the situation yourself. You are then invited to click ‘next’ and choose to be a character, and to play a role of one of of the characters in the show, to change the outcome.

I think it’s really a genius way to do this, and to get people interested in research integrity. Also, after running through some of the parts, I think this module is especially important for those who deal with human subjects.  I think it’s particularly important to deal with human subjects in the proper most diligent manner, while also following protocols.

One of the slides in this show, where you have the choice to decide, is when one of the older subjects gets done with chemo, and is asked to rate the struggle she faced in the last 4 weeks. She is clearly tired, and she’s unable to answer and is asking for help. However, at the same time, there is a certain protocol one should follow while doing research. The older character requests help greatly to answer the question properly… Although it maybe etiquette or kindness to help in answering the question, it’s not correct. This is because, it’s research, and you can’t influence your subject’s responses. I think a better choice would’ve been to wait until the subject was better able to answer the question.

I just think it’s a good way to present academic integrity, in a way that gauges people’s interest. Check it out, at http://ori.hhs.gov/TheResearchClinicVideo/.

Thanks for reading!

Trending in the news today, was the threat The University of Chicago’s Hyde Park Campus had faced… When the FBI notified the university that there is a potential for a “gun violence threat” on campus, as stated verbatim in this article.

It is unfortunate that there are a great amount of threats lately to students in general, or depending on students in a particular group.

After the University of Chicago consulted with the FBI, and thoroughly studied the situation, they choose to cancel classes. I was hoping that they would cancel classes, when this first was shown across the news earlier today. I strongly stand with their decision to close campus… Safety comes first!  Some students decided not to go to campus on Tuesday, as stated in the article. I hope that the university as a whole safeguards the safety of students, and closes on Tuesday if there is a potential threat.

In that light, I wish our campuses would be safer. I wish that the most educated people in our nation also be the least violent. No student should ever feel threatened while obtaining an education. It is totally unfair.

I hope and wish that one day soon, no campus would ever be threatened or face violence. It would be wonderful if the next generation doesn’t have to face the non-stop threats that trend in the media consistently.

I was recently reminded, by a stranger, that the news always reports the negative stuff that needs to be rectified. However, I really wish I can find a headline about something positive in the academia or universities in general.. Impossible is nothing!

The Atlantic recently published an article named “Being Muslim on Campus”, which can be found here. This article states the type of things Muslims face on US Campuses, and the attacks their religion faces as well.

As The Atlantic mentioned, it is clear that Muslims are greatly facing prejudice judgement, and threats due to their religion. As the article has stated, some students find it unsafe to roam around campuses at night, due to their obvious religious affiliation. In fact, some groups at some universities posted hate posters that were Islamophobic. However, in addition to these circumstances, students also find that racial profiling is being addressed, and yet religious profiling is not necessarily being resisted. In fact, there was citation to the fact that student groups have requested the resignation of different faculty members in the administration of different universities for racial profiling, as stated in the article. However, this was never done for religious profiling.

One of the incidents in the academia that this article begins by citing is the threat to Muslims at Virginia Tech, which occurred earlier this month. However, in this particular case, the University, President, and all those running the University did an excellent job condemning it. In fact, other student organizations came in and condemned the threat. Not just that, but people spoke to the fact that Muslims are members of the society, and should not face profiling. Many of the Muslims are as American as can be, they’ve served in the army, were veterans, were policemen, have been born and raised in The United States, and would do anything for this country just like any loyal American would.

However, it seems like sometimes the issues of free speech and religious profiling collide at times, and sometimes Universities prefer free speech over religious profiling. One case was in the Vanderbilt school of law, as the article states. Professor Carol Swain wrote comments following a terrorist attack that were Islamophobic. However, the University didn’t respond. Months later a diverse group of Students containing atheists and a variety of religions petitioned to have Dr. Swain suspended. However, after months, the University said that Dr. Swain’s views aren’t Vanderbilt University’s views. However, her views are a matter of free speech to the University, and they won’t take action against her despite 1,500 signatures requesting action against her. However, I feel like it’s not right. It would be nice if she actually researched the religion, and realized how many people served the country, and how many people protect this country with their life. In addition, it’s simply Islamophobic comments that are useless. If this was said that any particular race was a threat to the nation, her comments may have not been sectored under free speech.

However, some people tend to overlook that if a terrorist happens to call himself Muslim, then the whole religion is wrongly charged for his wrongdoings. In fact, this is not fair. Islam as a religion condemns the killing of human beings, and revokes the actions of terrorists. These people are NOT considered Muslim by any Muslim who practices the religion, or anyone who’s done some religious studies.  In fact, one of my professors from undergrad also had an Islamophobic post about Islam a couple of days ago, on social media. Many of these events of racial profiling and threatening are occurring repetitively, and it’s time to put a solid stop to profiling due to religion, race, etc.

Due to the fact that the Academia is the most educated environment, it would be great to reduce profiling there. The academia is a lot better than the norm in society when it comes to profiling. Given that most people in the academia are the most educated in the Nation, we take the lead on obtaining better practices and applying them. No one should ever face profiling because of who they are, or any of their beliefs. As much as talking about religion in society is taboo, so should profiling against people be taboo.

I read an article from The Atlantic titled, “The Globalization of America’s Colleges”, which talked about US colleges and the number of international students in the college. This article can be obtained here. Part of the argument in the article was stating that only 20% of the International Students have funding from their actual institutions… In other words, these students were accepted in these institutions and were offered funding. While others, a whopping 80%, either financed their own undergraduate/graduate education or were given funding from their institutions.

At first, the article was a little contradictory. Part of what it states at the beginning was that students had the money to finance their education… Yet at the end of the article, it stated that students didn’t in fact have the money to finance it, and that their families made an average of $2,100 per year… Which they said would take them decades to gather the money needed to pay for an education.

The article begins by strongly stating using the figures, that the number of international students is on the rise, as time passes. The numbers are increasing greatly. In fact, they have a graph comparing the number of graduate students to a decade ago, and the number has doubled.

However, the point that the article implied very clearly, was that the rise of international students was for profit. It wasn’t because they were the most qualified or the best for the university, but it’s because they could pay the most expensive tuition ever made.

In my view, although this may be true, a lot of these students have scholarships from their university/government/institutions/work to go pursue their degrees. This is because, if it’s considerable that people make less than a fraction of the tuition, then they probably need external funding. In fact, there are many cases like this.

It’s interesting that some of the universities had more international students than students from the midwest. I guess that’s because the midwest is a big area in the US, but it’s also one of the lower numbers of population… Also, as I expected, these states are more into the natural resources that they have. This link shows that a while back, the most popular jobs in parts of the midwest were farmers. Then the midwest transitioned into the most popular job being truck driver, like a lot of other states in the US. However, in the Northeast, the most popular professions in these particular states required academic degrees, etc.

The article goes into stating there are benefits for American students to get to know International students, and I totally agree to that. However, the article closes by asking, about public colleges, and the number of students that should be in a public college… And how much is too many international students… And that they’re educated using a public college, which depends on tax payer dollars. However, I disagree. I believe International students pay a lot more than we the US Citizens do. In fact, I really doubt our tax dollars really funds their education. And some the International students are some of the brightest, and hardest working from my experience while dealing with them.

All in all, The Atlantic’s article had some eye-opening facts, but didn’t in fact seem to be completely fair in how they stated the issue. American students should definitely have top priority to a given university. However, it’s not bad that public or private university’s have international students. Especially that many of these students don’t have competitive options in their countries. In fact, some countries don’t have enough spots for their brightest students, according to the article.

I recently heard about an episode that CNN Student News had about Student loans. It was an interesting episode about the present student generation, and the amount of debt that they accumulate. The episode can be found here.  Most of the information I’ll be sharing, will be courtesy this episode.

It turns out that the generation born in the 80s and the 90s are the most educated, the largest group, and most in debt group in the generation, according to the student news episode. They say that this generation has about 80 million people in the US between 18 and 35. The average debt that students have leaving college is $21,000. Many students have more debt, and others have less.  There are many tips and pieces of advice they gave people about the student loans, and how to manage them.

One important point is that students should live like students while they’re pursuing their college degree. This will help them do all they can to reduce the amounts of loans necessary for them to get by. The other piece of advice is for undergrads to try their best to finish their degrees within 4 years. That is very important.

My favorite advice is to try to go to an in state public university, which is usually the best bang for the buck. On average, public university’s cost more than $9000 per year. Also, some of the advice given is assuring that students don’t need to take out more than what they need to barely get by… In addition, they are also stating that students should make sure that they pay off their loan payments on time. If they don’t, it will affect their ability to reacquire loans, or request loan forgiveness. In addition, they recommend not accumulating debt more than your potential annual average starting salary.

In addition, the video talks about other issues regarding student loans that are affecting students. They say that many of these students, 30% of them, live at home and still accumulate great amounts of debt. In addition, they said that previous generations used to get married in their early 20s, and now this present generation does not before the age of 30. This generation wants to do their best to pay their debt off, before taking on responsibilities, etc.

Also, the rest of this CNN Student News edition talks about interview tips, if anyone is interested.

Virginia Tech is a wonderful and innovative university that exists in Blacksburg, VA with many international branches. Being a solid location for obtaining education, makes the changes with time make Virginia Tech even more innovative, and make it an even better place with the years that come. Through my experience in VT-MENA, I’ve had a solid VTEL experience with some of my courses. Some of them were taught in the US, and we luckily had the opportunity to video conference in. In fact, I got to know my first master’s research advisor through that course, in particular. I believe that as the years progress Virginia Tech will continue to impact the world, have more online classes, have greater facilities, and will have helpful perks for the students perusing their studies.

First, I believe that Virginia Tech’s impact will continue to affect the world. With the research at Virginia Tech, it will be possible to even get more innovative affects when facilities are upgraded. My field needs a physical lab usage on a regular basis. The equipment is old, and it breaks down on a regular basis. The equipment is really specialized too. And it’s really expensive. Sometimes some of our equipment goes down for a really long time (a year!). Other times, we are limited by the limitations in our lab. However, in the future of VT I foresee future generations having it better than I did. I foresee Virginia Tech investing in equipment to further research. I foresee future generations never being told what I’ve been told and disappointed me… A lot of times people (many of them in my field) said that it wouldn’t be possible to do cutting edge research with the equipment that we have… However, we have some very bright researchers, and hard-workers who are limited by equipment. Beyond that, we might as well be number one in research in my field. I really think we have wonderful potentials, bright minds.. and just some equipment limitations. However, I’m certain that these limitations will no longer exist in the future of VT.

I believe that online classes are NOT a replacement for Brick and Motor classrooms and education. In fact, in a field like mine, physical classes are imperative to the success of the students. Students need to physically be in a classroom, and build circuits and test them, etc. However, there will be greater flexibility for graduate students. I believe that there maybe an innovative system that allows students and advisers to virtually be in one room, without specialized equipment. In fact, the benefits of this could allow less expensive of an education, with the flexibility for people who work full-time and are wanting to pursue a graduate education.

I also believe that the future of VT will have a lot of wonderful perks for students. First, there will be a solution to student debt. Students won’t have to get a steep student loan to get an education. Instead, at least for the honors students they will have other solutions. In addition, I believe that there should be great options for graduate students who went to work and came back to the academia. A lot of times, students tend to get rusty with what they learned during undergrad. I personally believe it’s good to establish a course that entails a quick summary of what people learned in undergrad, so they don’t have to go in and review every class on their own. I think this will be helpful. I also think that students will want to increase their enrollment in University. This is because, they will hear about all the passionate professors who teach at VT and adopt their teaching methods to strike student’s interest. In addition, they care for their students. These last three lines were inspired by Dr. Sible, our Assistant Provost’s speech at TedX last week. I thought the passion she has for students, and her interest in them individually was really inspiring. I thought her talk really really gave me hope about the future of education!

The American Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering is an open access Journal in Electrical Engineering. It is part of a larger body called the Science and Education Publishing that has a mission of publishing papers in an open access format. They are located in Newark, DE. They state that they are one of the biggest open access publishers. They cover a lot of different disciplines in a lot of different sub-journals, that are similar in the purpose of being open-access. This allows people around the world to access the journal articles whenever they need them, for free as stated here. However, according to the website, this doesn’t risk the standards of the journal. This is because, everything is also peer-reviewed, etc.

The areas of the American Journal of Electrical Engineering include a wide variety of areas. The scope includes electromagnetics, semiconductors, power, microelectronics, telecommunications, and many more common areas in Electrical Engineering.  The goal of this journal is to allow open access to the latest research, all over the world. Their concept is to allow people to access and to share the latest research worldwide.

According to this link, the Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering is under the  engineering area of the Open Access Movement. However, I wasn’t certain as to position of this journal in the open access movement. Especially that I didn’t find anything particularly referencing this journal Including the “American” in the title of this journal. I also looked at this link but I couldn’t exactly find the journal either.

I think it’s really nice for the journal to show that it is for free, but isn’t compromising anything one would get from a paid journal. In other words, one can get the information needed online, and from google scholar in the same way they would, if they had academic connections to paid journals. Here is a link to some of the publications of this Journal on google scholar.

The actual page for the Journal is pretty good, and a lot of the “front page” articles almost have a 1000 downloads for free. This is decent, considering that there are no resources supporting the entirety of the situation. I thought that this sparked my interest to download some of these articles (the next time I have some free time) and look at them. Some of the topics seem interesting. I think I do a lot of reading from journals/conferences that aren’t open access so it would be nice to compare, and realize the differences. It was wonderful to find out about this.

And just a note, it seems like I had overlooked the deadline for this particular blog, so apologies for the delay.

I looked up the professional code of ethics for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), because they are the biggest and most famous professional organization in Electrical Engineering. They are also one of the most respected, esteemed, and some of the best places to publish in their numerous journals and conferences.

I found the code of ethics here.  For some reason, I got the feel of ethics as it should be, if you would. It reminded me of that required ethics course in undergrad, that taught people what ethics are… And put them in controversial situations and asked them what the most ethical solution would be in any given situation. That class was one of the most memorable 300 person class in undergrad, because I learned about the different views of ethics and how people should act, etc… And to me ethics have been commonsense, since I was brought up to be conscientious about ethics.

In the IEEE code of ethics, one of the first things mentioned is the importance of keeping in mind the interest and the well-being of the public. In fact, it is the first thing. I believe this is necessary, because a lot of times engineers get in that zone of focusing only on their work, to the extent where they look up other important things. However, it is very important to put public safety, health, and well-being first.  Second, is avoiding the conflicts of interests. In all cases, associations, locations, and professional organizations– conflicts of interests must be discussed. This is because, people need to inform organizations when their is a conflict of interest, before doing something negative to sabotage their career and reputation. Therefore, conflict of interest has always been an important part of ethics to discuss.

Third and fourth on the list are having integrity in all presented data/situations and accepting no bribes. These are obviously common sense, and as was taught in ethics classes these things tend to come up. When people are in an organization/association and have power… they must avoid it. In fact, some places do not allow their employees to go out to lunch with companies presenting information about their machines… to avoid the environment that is conducive to bribes, etc.

Five and six are similar, and are related to one another. Technology is everywhere, and as engineers it is expected to help that technology be further understood by the general people. I personally believe this entails communicating science properly, and helping people understand in a less jargon entailed manner.  In addition, IEEE’s code of ethics asks engineers to always be up to date with everything in their field, which I find is a necessary skill for one to have… But isn’t very easy to maintain over the years.

Seven is really important, to be fair in all situations, and to accept criticism of work. I believe that constructive criticism is necessary for the growth of all academics, in fact, the growth of all humans. If one doesn’t see the mistakes they’re unintentionally making, they will always stay in the same place they’ve always been, and they will never grow. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for constructive criticism to be mentioned, to make better members of society.

Eight is important in academia, organizations, industry, and everywhere alike… To avoid discrimination and profiling. This is important, and necessary. We discussed the importance of that in the academia, and it is important. Avoiding the unconscious biases taking control of our conscious decisions.

Nine is about avoiding hurting other people’s reputation/property/ etc. Common sense.

Ten is about being a good member of society and helping others!  This is important. People shouldn’t be so stuck in their careers, and ignoring the needs of society and others.

There’s been a lot going on in campuses all over the nation. Some of it is negativity leading to positivity, like here at Virginia Tech… And some of the things going on are students standing up for their rights, and a better campus. It’s really interesting.

I’d like to start out, first by expressing my gratitude to Virginia Tech’s President and Board against the graffiti. I also, would like to express my gratitude to everyone who stood out in the cold in the drill field, on Tuesday night… in support for a safer, more supportive, more diverse, and most importantly, hate-free Virginia Tech. As a Muslim standing out in the drill field, it was wonderful to see President Sands, many association leaders such as the president of the NAACP at VT, and of course many of my colleagues from Virginia Tech. In fact, the things written in the media were heartwarming. Here, you have a headline: “A Campus Crushes Anti-Muslim Hate”. Another article, here: Virginia Tech Rallies in Support of Muslims. The picture in this particular article was taken well before the event began…  And here, here, The Collegiate Times, and many more… One of the best YouTube videos that originated at VT and went viral is this 45 second video.  However, we took the decision to rally for peace, and stand against hate. Virginia Tech will always be that safe and amazing Hokie Nation… Where everyone is welcome, and everyone is included, except for hate.  Long live the Hokie Nation!  On a personal note, I felt like my belief in the Hokie Nation was never let down for a moment, while I was standing there on the drill field.

In other news, was Missouri, which I had brought up in class a week ago. Missouri, too, stood up for their rights. However, Missouri’s administration took the opposite stance… They didn’t address what was happening there. They addressed it when it was too late… However, thankfully, we are Virginia Tech!

It seems like other schools are starting to stand-up, based on inspiration of what happened in Missouri. This article from the New York Times shows how different campuses began standing up for themselves. These are things happening in Ithaca College, Yale, and many others that would’ve gone unheard of unless they stood up.  I believe that inclusion needs people to address any microaggression occurring around… and not to ignore them. Feeling uncomfortable about things like that aren’t enough. People need to stand up for their beliefs, and call others to it… in a peaceful way, just like we did here at Virginia Tech… Submission to racial profiling isn’t the solution… Nor is ignoring it… However, standing up in a peaceful manner is the solution. When this is done, generations to come will live the peaceful world we built for them… And it’s going to be as if we gave many generations to come, a lot of what our ancestors gave us today.

And as Tim Wise mentioned the previous Monday, a lot of times people who profile fail to realize they profile… Thus, it is necessary to enlighten them peacefully. And build a peaceful world.