academia – Southern Fried Science

I can serve on your graduate thesis committee. Here’s what you can expect of me, and what I expect in return.

October 16, 2025 David Shiffman

By outlining my role and expectations as a committee member, my goal is to help make sure that we have a productive professional relationship, and that we avoid any conflict stemming from not being on the same page about these important matters. This document is a work in progress and may be edited. And this … Read More “I can serve on your graduate thesis committee. Here’s what you can expect of me, and what I expect in return.” »

R1 research universities – is a biased, flawed ranking system crippling academia?

February 16, 2017February 20, 2017 Chris Parsons

Academic life

If you are at a university that has graduate students, you have probably heard about whether your university is an R1 or R2 or R-whatever research institution. Universities tout their position in this ranking system, awarded by the Carnegie Foundation, to denote how “prestigious” they are in terms of research. From 1994, the ranking used to be given according to how much federal research funding they were awarded.

Source: clipart panda

Because of this, all the ranking told you was how much federal money a particular university received. This system is incredibly flawed. For example, if you have faculty more dedicated to writing grants and less dedicated to teaching, mentoring graduate students, publishing articles or doing other activities that are supposed to be the mainstay of academia, then certainly you will get more money. However, this will be at the expense of teaching, mentoring, publishing, etc.

The Yellow Admirals of Academia

October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 Chris Parsons 1 Comment

Academic life

As a fan of nautical writers CS Forester and Patrick O’Brian* I do like reading the rollocking adventures of the intrepid Captains of His Majesty’s Navy avasting their mainsails and hoisting their topgallants against the scourge of Emperor Napoleon’s forces. In these books I discovered a new nautical term, a “Yellow Admiral”.

When naval captains of the 18^th/19^th Century achieved seniority they were promoted to the ranks of admiral. There was no promotion on merit, it was simply a case of surviving until a position opened up. There were three ranks of Admiral (rear Admiral, Vice Admiral and Full Admiral) for each of the main naval forced: the Red, White and Blue squadrons, which were patrolling key strategic areas of the world’s oceans. However, there were some captains that you really did not want to be in charge of a single ship, let alone a naval battle group. These individuals were dubbed “Yellow Admirals” and were given administrative positions on land. As a result, a lot of naval logistics in the Napoleonic wars was mired by incompetence, ego-driven power plays, and financial irregularities. We have something similar in academia: instead we don’t call them Yellow Admirals, we call them Associate Deans.