Life is looking good!

What a lovely week!  Rae Ann was in town to visit, which means we had TWO excuses to get together with the family, and one of those times Rae Ann showered us with outlandishly delicious food.  Grilled Shrimp AND Steak!  Grilled Veggies AND Grilled Peaches & Apricots!  I remember there was more, but not what it was because it sent me into a food coma.  What a great way to start the week!  Rae Ann is in town for her annual association meeting, but has been hanging around doing fun stuff with Nana all week.  Running off to Ikea, or to Gig Harbor or just sitting around reading companionably are pretty much what I imagine a fulfilled retirement looks like. 

Of course, Tuesday Matt passed his CDL test, so we got to go and celebrate, and on Wednesday I went to an AWIS social.  Of course, all of this out-and-about-ness is a side effect of my current work.  I'm contracting from home which means, well, I am at home all day.  So when I am Done With Work, I prefer to leave the house a bit.  It puts a nice bit of a break in there, and prevents cabin fever.

But the work is really good.  I may have mentioned this new company is very organized, has given me a lot of guidance, and generally has their act together.  We are using SharePoint.  I get weekly team updates.  I have an editor who basically responds to me within minutes of my questions.  It's grand.  I'm helping with a career development class for high schoolers.  The work is the right kind of challenge for me as well.  It's hard to write good assessments for some of these abstract concepts, but it also feels good to include some basic mentoring advice in the coursework.  I'm still not sure how much more work they will have more for me (pretty sure I've got stuff next week, not sure about after that...), but I'd like to keep working with them.

This weekend will be filled up with the types of activities one must willfully avoid from the home office, and becomes quickly negligent of when you spend all their free time gaddying about.  Yes, it's time to clear the mountain of tea mugs.  And possibly attend the farmer's market. And visit Nana some more.

Bioethics- the movie

This is the video I made to show my students in class, summarizing our time together. It is laced with reference, from the total meltdown my students had about the Personal Genomics Contest that declared Migraines the "winning" disease for more research, their resentment money (and the public) interfering with science, and perhaps even the super abrupt way I tend to start and end my class. I guess what I am trying to say is if you don't think it is interesting- that's way. They giggled and then politely clapped. What darlings.

Here is the video- BIOSCI1590, as retold by robots.

Almost done!

You may have noticed I've been a bit distant lately. I can't promise to fix that, but I am going to run out of excuses soon. Tomorrow is my last day of class! I am currently up creating an Xtranormal video to summarize some of the highlights from class. I think I should probably have someone else look at it tomorrow before I show it to my class (in case my subtle sense of humor doesn't translate well to alien robots talking in Stephen Hawking voice. As if.) If it passes QC, I'll share it up here. It's kind of nice to have a 5 min summary of the course content, major themes and running jokes. Right now I am totally cracking myself up with this- but that may just mean it is bed time.

I managed to donate blood today. It's been a while, I was on a 1 year deferment after we went to Mexico, and then I was sick so often I was usually getting on or coming off antibiotics. Finally had success today, only to find out I'll have to wait another year after we get back from Belize. Totally worth it.

My awesome students

There have been ups and downs to this whole teaching gig. It's a lot of work, but it is a really fun distraction. I feel compelled to provide my students with something valuable, and in return, they spend hours preparing for my class. I'm very self conscious of how I give them grades- but the fact is I have a bunch of awesome students.

A pair mind boggling examples:
-As I was tallying the grades from last week's assignments (3% of the final grade), I realized I didn't have one from one of my students. I figured I lost it, since I couldn't find some other articles I thought were with it, and emailed him to ask for another copy. He declined, saying he hadn't done the assignment. Seriously, I basically gave him a free pass to get those points, and he demurred. Wow.

-Two students led last nights discussion, and they did a fantastic job with the material- they brought in some cases I was unfamiliar with, and the rest of the class got on board. It was a really fun discussion. While I was pondering their grades (Do I want to give them an A++ because I am so interested in this stuff, or because they actually did A++ quality work?) after class, they started talking about Med School Interviews. Turns out, one of my students was just on her first interview THAT DAY. Yeah, at Pitt, a top 10 ranked program. And then she came and rocked in my class like it was no big thing.

We are now just 3 weeks from the end of the semester, and by the looks of it, I'll be giving 9 out of 10 As, which I think absolutely describes the quality of work I am getting out of these students. I supposed I should make more of an effort to tell THEM how thrilled I am with the work they have done, but I didn't want to ruin the magic by letting them all realize their grades are basically secure at this point. Perhaps next week's class will start with some epic gushing.

WIP- also how much I rocked that seminar

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that early in the semester there was some confusion with my boss about some seminars he asked me to give (angsty GSR eye-roll, is this HARD to keep straight?). It turned out for the best, I got to give a pair of seminars to two different Cancer audiences. The first one was a 'Prize,' and the second one was a WIP, or Work In Progress talk. The WIP was this morning, and I was worried about how I would stretch the 15 min Prize talk to a 50 min WIP. For cancer people. Since, I don't actually study cancer....

Turns out I had lots of extra stuff to add in, and it's easier to give the slow explanation. And dammit, my work is interesting. Dr. Boss and I drove to the seminar site together (it's off campus), and he was very supportive. He punted me prompts in response to the barrage of questions so I could come off as really bright. He was very gracious about the whole thing, so I felt good about it. I had loads of questions, which makes me feel like I explained myself way and other people think my work is interesting.

- - -
I've had some stressful interactions with students and my class recently, which have been making me question my motivation for teaching long-term. But really I've just been feeling busy, and not thoughtful or reflective, or in any position to respond well to students concern about their grades, or the overall course structure.

This weekend we are going out to the wood kiln- its expected to be cold. Fortunately, we'll have a raging inferno to keep us company, and distract us from real life.

2 weeks in, and still going

I've been taking it one day at a time here. I've got an ambitious To Do List most days, which are towards the long term goals of "Teach a Successful Class" and "Finish and Submit this Manuscript." This issue is that I've added a major distraction to my week at exactly the time I am supposed to knuckle down and mash out some good work. I'm trying to be as efficient as I can stand, which certainly means not wasting time doing stuff I don't have time to do well.

It also means I haven't had much time to look ahead or behind. Or blog, apparently. I had this great ambition to use this semester to really become the Wonder Woman I want to be- manage the stress of work balance issues by regular exercise and healthy meal planning. Ha! The whole plan isn't underwater yet, but this requires a LOT of leaning on Matt. To actually carry out the meal plan, and to be patient about actually seeing each other much. One insightful thing I did for this set up a 'Menu' for the house: 14 reasonably healthy meals that can be picked off the list, and assembled in about 20 minutes, which streamlines both shopping and cooking.

The semester seems to be progressing, but between staying late for office hours and getting up early to catch a bus that will stop for me (now that students are back, I can add and hour to my commute if I go in at the wrong time), I seem to spend the rest of my time trying to sleep. At some point in early graduate school, my brain lost the discipline to sleep after a long and stimulating day. If I can fall asleep, I wake up often thinking about my class, worrying about my science, and assembling the next to do list. I used to find thinking about the next day before sleep a relaxing way to end the day, but now that induces insomnia. And if I don't get enough sleep during the week, I universally get a cold- and being sick just doesn't seem to fit my schedule right now.

We did squash in some fun over the long weekend. We drove North of town, to Slippery Rock, stopped at a bunch of farm markets on the way, buying veggies and enjoying the drive. Then we had dinner at a really cool brew pub. It was a nice day out.

Survived first teaching!

Oh man was it a long day. But I made it, and had the foresight to leave myself some rice crispy treats to great me at home. It started off terrible : burned my breakfast, computer refused to start, lost my bus pass, wore a hole in my food to get a replacement bus pass... Any other day I might have called a truce and gone back to bed. But today was my first day of class, so no 11 am naps for me. I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding karma and trying to get my head on straight for teaching. Time well spent.

I just made up my mind about what to in class today, so I was a little nervous about how to do it. I wanted to go through the syllabus, breaking it up to talk with the students as much as possible, and then give them a taste of what the rest of the class will be like with some case studies- based on a photocopied reading, and a YouTube video.

The talking about the syllabus part was dull- as expected, and so I was slightly nervous about the first case study. But, they got talking, they had really different view points, and they were all VERY civil. Phew. My YouTube video slightly failed, as I hadn't considered how to project the sound, but they seemed to glean enough information off my computer's speaker to power another 45 minutes of discussion about "professional guinea pigs." The awesome part was that MANY of them had participated in trials, so were not as ignorant on the subject as a predicted. We did slightly veer out of control as we tottered into areas where no one seemed to quite now how things worked (wait, why is it unhealthy to donate your eggs? How much due diligence is done before a Phase 1 clinical trial?), but I am optimistic that with a bit more time (for them) to prepare, this could be avoided. It is a good group, they seem to be able to listen to each other, and I suspect will prove to be good thinkers as course progresses.

Next week we can skip the awkward start, and jump right into the interesting discussion. Hoorah! I'm confident the rest of the semester will come together well, and hopefully the students will enjoy it.

My computer is full

I'm not really one to procrastinate long term, but having a long term project, like putting together a course in bioethics for a year, has really tried my focus. I'm not really sure why it is so different from the rest of my work- I do sometimes have to sit at my computer and think about things. But that is the fairly exclusive mode of work for teaching. So I'll sit down, open up a spread of documents, start scribbling some notes and brainstorming, which leads to day dreaming...

I've learned to disconnect from the internet when I really need to get something done, but that can only go so far. I am at least fairly self-limited to actually productive activities. I organized my files for work into a smarter folder system. I sorted all the downloaded journal articles off my desktop. All of this is good, but it still isn't working on my syllabus.

The big kicker came yesterday, as I was really about to get serious on this syllabus. My computer popped up a message "Start up disk is nearly full." "Matt, what does this mean?" "... Your computer is full? What do you have on there?" Well! Let's find out! I hand cleared nearly 2 GB of random files (so now I have 2 GB of free space). Thank goodness for Matt's GIANT external hard drive, which serves as a reservoir for the kind of data I don't need to carry back and forth with me all the time. But will 2GB get me through the rest of this program? I don't know. Makes a person think about getting a new laptop- something I would rather do while I have the patience to re-learn all the new software (no, I am not running Office 2007. I like to keep my computer retro). But maybe this baby will pull through, and I'd hate to drop a chunk of change like that for no good reason.

Panic at the Start of the Semester

I'm sure I've mentioned before (a lot, maybe too much), that I am teaching a course in bioethics. In the past, I've been called in to give short workshops on these topics for a group of student researchers. This helped me develop my approach and some of the material I am using this semester, but is my no means equivalent to ACTUALLY teaching this class. The two big differences I see are 1) I have to give them grades, and 2) We will be enduring 14 weeks of eachother's company. These two differences result in a lot more, well, time being put into the effort. And obsessively re-writing my syllabus.

Although I've had a pretty good idea of what I want students to get out of this course for a long time, trying to define that in terms of a syllabus, gradable assignments, specific readings etc has proven to be challenging. Every few days, I'll get some other insight to how I want the course to go, or what the students should do/ get out of the experience, and I re-write the syllabus, re-tool the schedule and start writing new course documents. There is a lot to keep on balance. I want to have a lot of the structure for the course laid out, but still leave a lot of flexibility to cater to the interests of the students. I want to take on challenging subjects, but I don't my students to get incensed with eachother. And then there are my knowledge gaps. Besides the obvious fact that I have no formal training in bioethics, philosophy or social sciences, I am supposed to help my students with their writing, learning how to structure arguments, and I am totally dreading the big Environmental Ethics question.

We are a broad bio department, which means we graduate microbiologists ans ecologists side by side. I felt compelled to include an environmental ethics topics to include these students, and also because it is an important issue that future scientists ought to know about. I was waffling about picking some specific topic (Round-up ready plants, or mining issues), but after some soul searching and talking to Noel, I realized that I need to do for environmental ethics what I did for the other topics. Read up a whole lot, subscribe to blogs, and see what presents itself. And once I started in to that, I realized that I should just do the Big Environmental ethics topic (re-arrange syllabus, again). At the moment, I am thinking about environmental ethics is terms of "What happens when science and politics/economics disagree?" as a kind of capstone case study. I don't have a reading picked, and I don't know if my students will be up to this, but I think we will all benefit from the challenge.

Classes start Aug 30, and mine meets Tuesday nights. One way or another, I need to stop fussing with the syllabus and present it to my 8(! yes, I got an extra!) students. It's so soon!
* * *
The news round-up: summer drags along in a steamy haze. Matt and I went to Kennywood last weekend and rode on the NEW rollercoaster, compliments of our friend J. Tonight we are going to a fundraiser/beer tasting even at the zoo, which promises to be a blast. Matt's back has been troubling him most of the week, so he's been trying to be stoically low key. I'll probably send him to the doctor's next week, he is not a very patient patient. I am currently enjoying the juicy sweetness of a yellow seedless watermelon I bought at a farmer's market- awesome. Also, we are out of Q-tips. We are out of Q-tips because my crazy cat figured out how to get into the closet, so he can get himself Q-tips to chase around the house anytime he likes. Which is often.

Next Lesson

Summer brings in a new batch of HHMI fellow- the top notch research students I worked with during the school year- which means, they need to talk about ethics! And, weirdly, no one else volunteers to talk with undergrads about this stuff. It was a good chance to get some more course material for the fall, and try some new things before I commit them to my syllabus. Registration for the real class in the fall is still open- someone withdrew (aw, man!), but I have 6 students to work with.

We did a couple small case studies, and then talked about an article detailing a longer (very difficult) case of scientific misconduct. The short case studies were good ice breakers- but next time, I wouldn't do more then one at once. And for the most part, they seemed to get the points raised by the longer case study. It was a really sad case about how scientific misconduct (by a boss) ruined a bunch of student's prospects- ugh. When we finished, I immediately thought "That went awesome!" but I think I need to come up with a better metric for success then "No one cried or quit science."

It's getting easier- disarming the awkward silence, redirecting the errant conversation, getting to the point without rushing past it. I still feel like I talk too much- but, well, no one cried or quit science, so I must have been a success!

In which I admit I enjoy working with students

This week wraps up the HHMI undergraduate research fellows academic year program, and the last round of students presented their research for the department on Friday. It is such a pleasure to see the culmination of a year of work for these students- these are the students I had the chance to practice my bioethics lessons on, and I would attend their meetings otherwise just to hear what they were up to. I definitely developed an affectionate bias towards them, and I enjoyed sharing in their moment of recognition. The graduating seniors had put together an impressive amount of work, and gave half hours talks summarizing their research career. Two students from our lab gave talks, and fielded their questions really expertly. I got an extra hat tip from a couple of them, because of *wild waggling of eyebrows and shrugging* my work with HHMI.

While I was listening, I was also reflecting on how much I've enjoyed being able to work with these students. Of course, they are a very high performing group, and were very supportive of my efforts to get my class in shape. But I've also enjoyed having the opportunity to advise and mentor some of them, and I wish I had more time for those activities. And that's when it occurred to me that although I am looking forward to being done with benchwork after I graduate, I wouldn't mind working on a college campus. Y'know, career advising, or outreach or something- I am not so sure about teaching and grading and writing syllabuses and stuff yet.

This is in the light of last week's revelation to Mom, that I could be happy doing a lot of different things, as long I was doing them in Seattle. Don't read to much into it.

Registration begins

This is the second semester (ever) that Pitt has done online registration. This means I am in a unique position to cyberstalk my own class, not patiently waiting for students to register for it. (This is because I don't have any fancy instructor access- I am just pretending like I might want to register myself) Today was the first day of registration and I don't have a single student yet! Tomorrow is another day, for future seniors to get their act together, and juniors pile on next week. This was my primary target group- but they've got all weekend to decide what they'll be taking, and little fear of being beat out of the required courses. My undergrad still hasn't decided what he is going to take- why should anyone else?

I highly doubt that my boss obsesses over how many students are enrolled in his biochem lectures- but there is no chance that his class would get canceled on account of low enrollment. I, on the other hand, need 14 live ones to get the go ahead.

To kill time while I wait, I've got an appointment to give blood this weekend, and may be instigating a wine tasting. We are also on pins and needles for the final return of our favorite soldier. He's back in TX at the moment, no firm date on his return to Pittsburgh yet.

Oh, now I'm nervous

Because of my reputation as a The Virologist on our floor, the TA for Adv Virology Lab asked me to come and lead a day on SV40, which is the virus I study. I agreed, because I can confidently say I know more about SV40 then anyone else in the class. I marintated in the idea- what would I want them to get out of it, how would I get it all to work together, what would be a valuable activity for them? The activity came together nicely, just a chance for them to try their hand at something I've done a lot of, and I figured I'd fill in the lecture stuff later.

Well.... It's later now. I am giving this lecture tomorrow morning, and I am feeling desperate to convey- what is the most interesting thing about my research? What do I do that is cool? What do I do that I could tell graduating seniors about?? When I get this polished off, I am going to start right into my talk for next week for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I'll never put off another speaking engagement again!

Cooks Illustrated = Date Night

Seems like I've been spending a lot of time away from home these days. We have a standing Tuesday date with our most favorite friends, Wednesday I've been going to "Study Hall" (aka waffle/ice cream shop) to spend a couple hours working on writing, and this Thursday was WISC. Fridays I often get swept into an after work Happy Hour/ Dinner, so it can seem like ages go past before I get to hang out with just Matt. Which seems weird, since he is my favorite. For some reason this week felt especially busy- or maybe just bouncing back from being sick still- and I didn't feel like going out for a big to do, which suited Matt just fine.

Since I spent most of Saturday catching up on the latest Cooks Illustrated, we decided a good way to share the evening would be to make Cacio e Pepe and Brownie Sundaes. We've got access to things like imported cheese, and indulged in trying to find the Cooks Recommended brands for everything. Even though we had what amounts to cheese on noodles, Matt declared it the best meal we've made it ages, and I'll tend to agree. And it made us feel like real wizards too.
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Another project that has come together recently is a new scratching post for Raoul. It's time to give him a more serious option then the cardboard scratcher- and rather then shell out the Petco prices, Matt hypothesized (correctly) that he could make something just as good for cheaper. What he has now is a 6 foot tall post, with two shelves and sisal wrapping, hooks to hang dangly ribbons and carpet up to the top. It gives Raoul a new vantage on the kitchen, a new window and is the new highest place in the apartment, so you can imagine he is quite fond of it. So, yes, the cat is certainly spoiled. It is a bit of a monstrosity, but it's not as if our apartment is crowded- and frankly he spends the most time here. I am hoping this will lead to a ceasefire with the furniture, or at least lay the groundwork for those negotiations.

And Matt enjoyed designing and building it. I helped a very little with the whole process. Seems I don't have much patience for this sort of thing, and my slipshod attitude was designing an eyesore. So, extra kudos to Mom and Dad for sticking to their bathroom project for significantly more then the 12 hours it took this to come together- the proof is surely in the pudding.

Other news, most recent WISC was a great success, we talked about management- with two main outcomes for me. One, I am trying to be a more empathetic manager to my undergrad (whose foot is in a boot to protect a broken toe, and decided to use this week to work on summer fellowships- since I got to surprise him with another application last week), and two, I am trying to see myself as the manager for my project. Next up, we are going to try negotiation. I may end up hosting this one... I also taught again, for the last time, last week. This week I am going to let these students assess the content, and me, and the course, and get some good feedback from them. I am spending a lot of time pondering how to elicit this.

Which is silly, because I should be spending a lot of time pondering my annual seminar! And my thesis committee meeting! But I am feeling so jaded since before Christmas, I can't really connect "working really hard" with "impressing my committee so they want me to graduate." And it's hard to talk to Dr. Boss for more then 5 minutes at a time these days and.... I just don't want to keep working for more years.... ugh. Winter is a hard enough time, without trying to muster up enthusiasm for something like one's thesis. Actually, I think I am in mourning, I can't seem to find a solution where I graduate in time to get to the 2011 AAAS Policy Fellowship. Sigh. The seminar is the 19th, so think of me fondly then.

Happy birthday?!?

Today is my undergrad's 21st birthday. I normally count on him to demonstrate the passing of the seasons- he studies for midterms, takes holiday breaks, finishes finals and gets geared up for new semesters. We've been working together since he was a freshman, I've seen him make all kinds of growth in science, in his courses, in his attitude- but this one is throwing me for a loop. He was like a baby when we started working together- now he is 21?? How long have I been here? This is compounded by the premonition that he will graduate before I do (he'll definitely graduate in another year- I am far from setting a date yet). I'll still be at the grind stone in the time he has transformed from a dweeby kid to a scientist.

And then there is the whole matter of how to deal with being 21 particularly- I am pretty friendly with most of the undergrads here, but I find it much easier to treat him like a scientist without the details of his fratboy lifestyle. Pitt is no Penn State, as far as party schools go- but I still prefer to imagine that his interest in the brotherhood stems from their regular philanthropic gestures and the occasional PlayStation tourney rather then any other fringe benefit associated with fraternities. This well developed selective denial is just one of the thing my undergrad has taught me these last few years- and now I am feeling desperate to get the most out of our remaining ~16 mo together (if he gets this fellowship- otherwise I'll have another conniption fit when I realize he is going to graduate and abandon me here).

I'll be here, on the couch

*cough cough* I've got a bit of a thing coming on. Pretty mild actually, itchy throat, stuffed up head and a hot feeling in my lungs that might turn into a cough. (It's totally not H1N1- I'd have a high fever by now if it was) Odd as it is, I must say, the timing couldn't be better. Really, this is far enough in advance of our Thanksgiving trip to Washington that I'll just scale back my expectations at work, and spend the weekend in my PJs at home- which had been the plan before the cold anyway.

I whipped up a pretty awesome avgolemono last night, which will sustain us through the weekend. The downside is I had been planning to use the weekend to think of some good holiday recipes, and so far I've been through Cooking Light and Everyday Food and I can't quite get excited about any food stuff. Oh, delicious whatever cookies, ethnic something breads, fancy stuff salads... nothing really resonates. But I've got all weekend, and maybe after a run to the pharmacy I'll be in better shape to make the hard choices.

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In our undergrad discussion on Friday, we did this awesome exercise (I can say this because I can take no credit in it) where the students thought about how to best convey information about H1N1 to the general public, or their own friends and family. We watched two videos- the first from NPR, the second is the source of the footage from the biotech Zirus. The first is a fun, topical glance at how viruses cause infection, the second is a hardcore, long science lecture. Some of the students thought the NPR-fun version was too pedantic and uninformative, but mostly we thought the Zirus-lecture wasn't something anyone would willingly watch. My feeling is that the NPR video made science kind of pop- you might watch it because it is short and fun and heck, you might learn something or be interested enough to look up more. The second video, you HAVE to want to learn about viruses. We need both, but probably only the first type gets viewed much. Would you agree?

Take THAT, week!

I've either become jaded or really good at what I do here. This week has been busy, and stressful, but not the epic endurance test that any single one of these factors caused me in my first and second year here. The run down-

Monday and Tuesday, clear schedule to work on Midterm that turned out to be really hard. Minimal guilt associated with not doing experiments, this class doesn't take up much time otherwise.

Wednesday, present 1 hour-long lab meeting for Dr. Rockstar's lab. The process of getting ready to talk for an hour about the things I need help with is never fun, but didn't require multiple practice runs or anything like this has in the past. In fact, I was reading a paper for my midterm until I went to set up the projector. Dr. Boss thinks I am meeting expectations. Submit midterm ~7pm.

Thursday- go to class, what, there were TWO papers to read? Skimmed these during lab meeting and was still the most 'participatory' student. Check!

Friday, last push! I am leading the HHMI students in a discussion of Reserch Integrity. I am relying on the fact that the case study was really cool to give me some time to think about how to assess students in discussion. We have TWO hours, people! I didn't even decide what I was going to wear the night before (although jeans and a hoodie wouldn't have taken long to arrive at), I would have thought I'd be more nervous. I am a little worried about letting down the faculty who provided me these students, but I don't know what other kind of prep to do in the mean time.

Just a few more hours until this week is conquered!

Best Case vs Fears and Anxieties

The 'modern' thinking in course design is to think backwards- how do you get students to become inspired innovators for the 21st century? Or more likely, what do do students need to know before they can be expected to adequately describe the foodchain? As a student, I didn't realize that all classes weren't designed this way, but in retrospect, it does explain a lot of things.

Currently, I am reflecting on what I want my outcomes to be. In my dreamland, I inspire a generation of scientifically trained silver tongued mediators who descend on humanity to clarify the confusion surrounding modern bioethical debates. I am recruited to be a White House adviser, helping politicians understand science before they pass policy. More realistic though- especially for this first pass-, my pilot class is meeting from 3-5 on Friday afternoons. Ideally, they'll talk about it after we wrap up. Maybe some of them will sign up to take the real course. I won't have to do most of the talking (aha! I need more questions to ask, less 'things to tell them'). While my murky idea of success is marinating, I tried contrasting that to my worst case. No one does the reading. Not a soul talks, I say things that are embarrassingly wrong to fill the silence, debate gets too heated, students spend all weekend talking about the meltdown that resulted in f-bombs, tears or other unsuitable classroom material.

What I want is to filet the material, leave it out for the students to examine as raw as they can. At some point I am going to be asked to 'assess' this (what, give grades? Ack!), which means I do need to clarify what we are ALL getting out of the experience. There is a personal aspect to ethics, and bioethics is murky only in that it mixes the black and white of science with the personal and political. Not that it is too complex for undergrads to understand. I hope.

My first 'pilot' is set to be Oct 22. !! We are going to talk about Research Integrity- easily the MOST boring subject to tackle. This is the basic stuff of 'don't lie about your results' something that is not too distant from the 'don't cheat on your exams' stuff students get anyway, but something that is rarely explicitly stated in research. So, it must be done. I am going to take Noel's approach- try to help them understand that the public will believe them, as scientists, and that this gives them an onus to be responsible with the public trust. At the moment, what I mostly do is day dream and blog about it, but I like to imagine this is an essential component of the creative process.

Career path?

Sandlin, this is a very interesting idea. I would agree that bioethics will be an increasingly urgent need as our ability to manipulate genetic markers or just use them to predict potential outcomes gets more and more powerful. Not to mention the biological impact of climate change, altering brain chemistry with microchips or designer drugs . . or on and on . . .

As to a career path . . . I suspect there will be more opportunities to work on this within academia, or even government, than you might suspect, but you could always Google "Natalie Angier" or "Gina Kolata" for a possible plan B.

Bioethics- because someone should care

Based on some recent intense and precipitous conversations with various members of the department, I have decided to develop and teach a seminar in our department on bioethics. I wanted to share this for several reasons- 1) it is something I am suddenly thinking about a LOT, bigger 2) I chose to do this as a way of nucleating a new career path for myself. My teaching experience in the fall was very valuable, but got me thinking that I might not actually enjoy teaching in a classroom. But I enjoy being around people who learn things. The latest idea I have been toying with is to get involved in science policy making. Keep that in mind as I get back to point 1.

Last week, there was a seminar by an invited ethicist that I really enjoyed. She confirmed for me the idea that if scientists fail to engage the public in dialogue about the impacts of advances in technology, it will inevitably be mis-understood and legislation created to prevent/hinder it. Case in point- stem cells. I have long felt that there is a lot of mis-informed policy regarding science, and that this could largely be overcome if we had a more science literate public, which we can only get if scientists can be willing to talk about science at a level the public would enjoy. (How you get employed to make this happen is something I am still working on) The undergrads I work with felt very strongly after this seminar that the ethical ramifications and justifications of their research is something they should be talking about, and weren't. I figured, this is something I am interested in, would be good for me to get experience with and would be of value to a lot of people- I should lead this seminar.

So I sat down and wrote out a syllabus. This has been passed around to a few various faculty with lots of feedback and support... long story short, I am planning to get on the course schedule for Fall of 2010. In the meantime, I'll have time to gather materials and pilot units with a group of undergraduate fellows, so maybe by the time 2010 rolls around I'll be prepared to lead some contentious debate.

I am starting to get over giddy excitement and feel a bit of anxiety. I didn't really think I would make it this far without someone saying "that is ridiculous, no grad student in our department has ever proposed and taught their own class!" or "preposterous, you have almost no teaching experience!" or even "don't you have research you ought to get back to?" But no one has said that. Everyone has been universally supportive of this idea- faculty have proposed such a class be taught, but no one wanted to step up and do it. I have received lots of materials and ideas, and a lot of suggestions to make the course into something I am way less interested in teaching. In the meantime I am sifting through ideas of topics, formats and content that would be of interest to ~15 biology majors from a not exclusively medical standpoint, and of value to the community at large.

I need your help! If you happen to run across any good articles that you think might be of interest, I am on the look out for case studies to use in class. I am also really interested to know what kinds of things non-biologists would like biologists to start thinking about (personal genomics, a new food pyramid, defining Theory for the public?), since I am in a unique position to jump start the dialogue in the department. THANKS!