La Profesora Abstraída

It has been 540 days since my last blog post

2010-04-30T12:23:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time, I had a blog. The last post was a subdued celebration of the election of Barack Obama. A lot has happened in the world since then. A lot has changed in my life, too. Consider this both my last post on Profesora Abstraida and my first post here. I can't promise regular updates, and I won't promise the same level of scrutiny of Mexican politics as before, but I will try to do more than short Tweets. In the meantime, here's an abbreviated update of what I've been doing for the last 540 days.

In November 2008, I interviewed for a faculty position in the Political Science Department at McMaster University. Everyone was very welcoming and nice, and I enjoyed my visit. Neither Brian nor I had never really been to Canada before, so he flew up after the interview for a weekend in Toronto. Though it was abnormally cold (according to my hosts), we enjoyed the Annex, the AGO, and Queen Street West.

January 2009 was a busy month. I heard that my tenure file had passed through the Institute-level committee, so things were looking pretty solid for promotion and tenure at Tech. I was also invited to interview at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. I was also offered the position at McMaster. Though I enjoyed my campus visit at Texas State, I had to respond to McMaster before their interviews were going to be concluded. McMaster, though far from 'home' in Austin, seemed like a better fit for me, and Toronto seemed like a better fit for Brian. So, we decided to make the move. I accepted the position (though we didn't tell anyone for several weeks).

In February, I received the official letter confirming that I had been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at Tech.

In March, we used spring break to move several things to a storage unit in Austin and to tell Brian's family in person that we were moving to Toronto during the summer.

In April, we packed up the house and said goodbye, though things were so rushed that we didn't get to say goodbye to everyone personally. That made me a little sad. I also started a new website to chronicle all the great things Brian says.

In May and part of June, we stayed with my mom in Austin and visited Toronto to sign a lease.

In late June, we packed up the Jetta with our 3 cats and 80lb dog for the drive to Toronto. Most of July was spent Craigslisting and unpacking. August, more of the same. Brian's parents came to visit for 5 days in mid-August. Brian helped my grandparents move from Corpus Christi, TX to Flint, MI.

Classes started at McMaster in September. For the first time, I was teaching a graduate class in my area of research interest. So far, so good.

Over the holidays, I visited in Flint, while Brian went to Austin.

Spring semester, I taught intro graduate statistics and an undergraduate senior seminar in the politics of public policy.

In late January, my grandma passed away in her home in Flint. She left me a voicemail singing me happy birthday the night before.

In February, my book was published, and we went to Austin during reading week to visit and help my grandpa get everything settled.

In April, I received notice that my SSHRC Standard Research Grant was funded for the next three years.

...which brings me to now. I am happy in my new Department and University. We are happy in our new city.

And, I am looking forward to my second summer since graduate school in which I have not either:

a) moved our household internationally;
b) ran or participated in a summer study abroad program for at least 6 weeks; or
c) taught two courses during summer school.

I have lots of old projects to wrap up and new ones to begin. In the meantime, I'll try to post here periodically.

2008-11-06T21:48:00.002-05:00

Presidential endorsements

2008-10-29T21:39:00.002-04:00

I thought these lists were interesting, if not exactly surprising. Perhaps most Wikipedia contributors are democrats, and that's why Obama's list is so much longer?

At the same time, just like I don't care who Joe the Plumber endorses, I also don't really care who Christie Brinkley is likely to vote for.

Why do we care about Joe the Plumber's opinion

2008-10-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

Really.

Obama first to record entire campaign ad in Spanish

2008-10-23T21:52:00.001-04:00

Also, the Obama campaign site has debate 3 'traducido al español'.

Opie, Sherriff Taylor, and the Fonz for Obama

2008-10-23T18:24:00.002-04:00

Only in the U.S.

2008-10-19T13:23:00.002-04:00

...would this headline make any sense:

McCain Assails Obama's Plans as Socialist
GOP Nominee Recasts Campaign in Bid to Court Working-Class Voters

Otherwise, shouldn't working-class voters want 'socialism' (at least of the democratic variety)?

Tell it, Ann

2008-09-25T12:32:00.002-04:00

Wow. Brian told me this morning about reading Ann Richards's DNC speech from 1988. It could have been given at this year's convention.

I had the opportunity to hear Ann Richards speak twice while in high school. She could have you giggling one minute and crying the next. I'll never forget her pointing out that its the same company that makes Sara Lee desserts and uncomfortable girdles and other undergarments to keep women 'slender.'

In any case, if you are too young or too senile to remember her address, I highly recommend revisiting it. She was a great Texan.

Professors and time

2008-09-23T12:33:00.002-04:00

Given the Georgia (state) budget crisis, higher ed institutions are cutting costs everywhere. At UGA, they are limiting professor travel, even if paid for out of pocket (not that I'm sure how professors can afford to do this with potential raise freezes and rising health & parking premiums, which result in a net pay cut), due to the perceptions that professors should be on campus, focused on teaching. Note, no one is really talking about how course offerings (fewer electives, no summer school, few sections and larger classes) are likely to affect students. I have at least one student who is now worried about being able to graduate on time if particular courses aren't offered. But, I digress... I really just wanted to share this:

Original context.

...to which should be added, how legislators and the public (to the extent they pay attention) think professors should spend their time: 95% teaching, 5% service, unless of course its sponsored research which accounts for about 36-37% of GT revenue.

Thank you, Brian!

2008-09-15T11:10:00.008-04:00

Brian just bought me a new ~~toy~~ productivity tool!

img from Gizmodo.com

Action Hero!

2008-09-09T22:48:00.000-04:00

Professor fantasies

2008-08-30T10:19:00.000-04:00

Are pretty G-rated.

Johnston HS to reopen as Eastside Memorial

2008-08-14T19:26:00.001-04:00

My alma mater was closed in June and will be reopening as a 'new' school in the fall.

Thinking about data

2008-08-14T15:52:00.004-04:00

The following observation in Grant McCracken's musing on the qual/quant debate in business echoes an uneasiness of my students in globalization class:

The numbers people sneer at the hopeless imprecision of a world without numbers. The concept people believe that anyone who waits for the world to manifest its intentions in numbers will have waited too late.

In class, it wasn't just that sometimes the data we analyze or use to measure the extent or impact of globalization are sometimes several years old, but also that much of our academic writing on the subject is outdated by the time it reaches press.

Nevermind the implications for a field like political science, which seems to be creeping ever more steadily toward the quantitative end of the qual/quant spectrum.

Students today

2008-08-11T14:12:00.000-04:00

This is a nice video about today's college students.

Do you hold your breath?

2008-08-11T09:59:00.004-04:00

When you get ready to read your course evaluations? I do. Even if I think a class went well and am happy with my students' overall performance, I'm still oddly affected by even one harsh or cruel comment--like a punch in the stomach. I don't get them often (and usually have a good guess as to which student made the comment, especially if they make the same grammatical errors that I've seen all term in their papers), but they still are like a right hook out of left field. (How's that for mixing metaphors?)

Anyway, just read my comments from summer school, and there were no sour grapes or right hooks. Instead, I got:

Great teacher. I really enjoyed the structure of class. Being able to discussed what we read was a big help in understanding the material. I think that I also learned more critical reading skills in understanding complex material.

and

Professor Dion was an amazingly effective teacher and really helped explain complex material that I never would have understood on my own. I felt like I was really learning beneficial and pertinent material in this class that would help me in the ''real world.'' This course was challenging but also very rewarding!

and

I felt like I learned a lot in the course without the addition of unnecessary stress. In other words, though the material was challenging and the reading was time consuming, it seemed very proportional to what I was actually getting out of the class.

That just goes to show that students sometimes do want to learn and like to be challenged, at least at Tech anyway.

I'm just relieved because these will be my last set of course eval scores to be added to my tenure packet.

Cool funk

2008-08-02T18:46:00.001-04:00

You should check out my buddy's mp3 blog. He also has a record store in Austin that I have yet to visit.

Eerie parallels

2008-08-01T18:25:00.003-04:00

My mom really likes watching The Golden Girls. She leaves it on late at night. Having sat through a number of episodes over the last couple of years, I have come to realize that the Golden Girls were really just the women from Sex and the City in their retirement years.

Samantha Jones becomes Blanche Devereaux.
Charlotte York becomes Rose Nylund.
Miranda Hobbes becomes Dorothy Zbornak.
And finally, Sophia Petrillo becomes Carrie Bradshaw.

I could go through several specific similarities, but sitting and watching a couple episodes of each would probably provide more compelling evidence.

Happy dance

2008-07-29T14:03:00.001-04:00

Have just had this paper accepted for publication in Comparative Politics.

Wordling away the time

2008-07-22T09:15:00.002-04:00

Inspired by Chris, I thought I'd share.

My book

My delicious

Couldn't agree more...

2008-07-16T17:08:00.002-04:00

...with this advice from Google:

And then keep on challenging yourself, because learning doesn't end with graduation. In fact, in the real world, while the answers to the odd-numbered problems are not in the back of the textbook, the tests are all open book, and your success is inexorably determined by the lessons you glean from the free market. Learning, it turns out, is a lifelong major.

Reformed Pride of the East Side

2008-06-21T15:02:00.002-04:00

The plans to reopen Johnston H.S. as a new school have been approved.

Happy coincidences

2008-06-13T14:51:00.004-04:00

Today I am turning in the last pieces of my tenure file to be sent to external reviewers. (I am burning *8* CD copies of my file as I write this.)

And, I received a UPS box filled with cookies and a thank you note from one of my best and brightest undergrads from the last two years.

I know who is going to go home and have celebratory homemade cookies and milk!

Update: The cookies are personalized!!!! She's going to UGA for law school--hence the black and red, but I'm not sure about the shape. Bulldog maybe?

Update2: It's the head of a gavel. The handle broke off.

Holding me back

2008-06-07T00:20:00.003-04:00

I'm scheduled to get a new GT laptop this fall. Given the spyware that OIT installs on machines that log into the domain, I started thinking about getting one of these or these (back when there was a Linux option--WHERE DID IT GO!?!?!?!?!). Since I get lost without a right click and am baffled every time I'm forced to interact with a Mac, I was leaning toward the Linux option (which has now apparently disappeared!).

The only thing keeping me from Linux was the lack of a PDF editor. Perhaps by the time there's another small PC option that comes with all the drivers preloaded for Linux, there will also be a PDF editor.

Really unfortunate Post title

2008-06-06T13:19:00.000-04:00

Really?

APSA08 program online

2008-06-05T18:22:00.002-04:00

Though you can't find a link to it on the APSA page, you can find the searchable program here.

Johnston H.S. RIP

2008-06-05T13:00:00.003-04:00

It's official. My alma mater is officially the worst school in Texas and will be the first to be closed for noncompliance with required improvements in ~~educational~~ testing outcomes. It was probably failing when I attended, too, though the liberal arts magnet probably camouflaged the failing test scores. This was my district school--even without the magnet. Now, students from the neighborhood I grew up in attend Akins HS.

Required reading for university students

2008-05-26T10:55:00.002-04:00

While I really disagree with some of this blog's posts (as discussed here), this one has a good warning for students today. I find that too many students feel they can effectively multi-task, that somehow multi-tasking makes them work better. Instead, I've found that students with laptops, especially in my grad methods class, tend to have more problems with the material. Or maybe the effect is spurious--they are on their laptops because they have already disengaged from the material.

In any case, I find that students have very poor poker faces when it comes to recreational surfing during class. The amused faces they make while browsing Facebook, YouTube, or their email are clearly not timed to match my occasional in-class wit.

At GT, apparently more faculty are banning laptops from class. This will be the policy in my methods class this fall, especially since very few (if no) students would be able to really efficiently take stats notes on their laptops, given the need for special characters. And, I give them handouts with the slides every week so they don't have to copy equations but can take notes around them.

I still haven't decided about my two summer school classes that start June 16.

What kind of logic?

2008-05-24T12:07:00.003-04:00

According to the NYT, more than half of the undocumented workers at an Iowa meat-packing plant are going to be sent to prison for five months before being deported. Some are being put on probation. Imagine the cost of prosecuting and imprisoning those workers.

Meanwhile,

No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company. In pleading guilty, immigrants had to agree to cooperate with any investigation.

See also this news of a sweep in California.

Fines levied against PAN & PRD for 2006 campaigns

2008-05-21T13:37:00.002-04:00

According to La Jornada, the federal election authorities finally resolved the complaints about negative campaigning from the 2006 presidential election. Both the PAN and the PRD coalition were fined.

You can find links to some of the offending ads here and here.

Spiritual leaders and big guns

2007-10-21T12:23:00.000-04:00

On our way to the Emory library (from which I'm writing this), we saw the Dalai Lama's motorcade leaving campus. Brian spotted him in a sleek four door sedan, while I was too busy staring at his security. He was followed by at least two SUVs: one with big security guys in suits facing outward and another in which commando-style guys were sitting in front of each open window (including the rear window) facing outward with some of the biggest automatic weapons I've ever seen in real life. Pretty intimidating.

We've seen the Pope's procession before. Though this one was smaller, it clearly had more firepower.

Analyze this

2007-10-20T10:14:00.000-04:00

Since graduate school, I have periodically had stress-related dreams in which I'm racing to the airport to catch a plane and have invariably forgotten my suitcase, passport, etc.

Last night, I had a new type of stress-related dream. I was on my way to work, but it was like Disneyland and along a river walk. The bus let me out on this little finger of land (about 2-3 people wide) that extended over the middle of the river. There was a crush of people.

Just as I was turning around to walk away from the edge of the finger and to take the long way around to the edge of the river, a party boat for a loud morning radio show passed under the finger and exploded a bunch of silly string on all of us. The crowd on the finger tightened and surged.

I decided to just jump into the river and swim to the edge, since that would be the shortest route to work.

Once I was in the water, however, I realized that I had my laptop bag and another bag filled with research-related papers on my shoulders. I worried that my data would be lost. I decided to swim more quickly.

As I neared the edge, I noticed someone else swimming and having a time of it. Like Harry Potter in the Goblet of Fire, I had to decide whether to save my data or this person. I decided I was strong enough to save both and with one last burst of energy pushed myself and the other person to the surface.

Once on the sidewalk next to the river, I opened my laptop bag to discover that my laptop was only a little wet and booted up fine (though Windows in my dream was very Disney--imagine puffy fonts and bright colors) and my papers were half soaked, but salvageable and not disintegrated.

So everything was o.k. I gathered my things and continued my way through the crowds to work.

So what's that about?

It's in the mail...

2007-10-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

Actually, it's already on the editor's desk.

Yesterday, I sent off my book manuscript on the development of welfare in Mexico since the 1920s. You can browse chapters online. (Of course, I'm willing to send hard copies to anyone willing to give me feedback!)

Of the most interest to my Mexican readers will probably be the very-up-to-date discussion of the ISSSTE reform in March 2007.

Yesterday, I also re-estimated some equations (with some alternative measures to those we used in the first version--and the new results are even better!!) for a joint paper with one of our grad students and typed up some of the response-to-reviewers for a very simple R&R at JofLAS. I'll finish the revisions/response today.

And then, it's on to the next--the R&R at CP, which essentially is only cutting/tightening the literature review. It should be done by Friday, which is good because tomorrow I meet again with my RA to run the data for my new project with Andrew Roberts. He's going to present a first iteration of the project next month at a small meeting at TAMU. So all weekend is likely to be consumed with "fun with Stata." Oddly enough, I'm totally looking forward to it. (It sure beats formatting a 30+ page bibliography!)

I'm also sitting on some revised figures to insert into the paper Vicki Birchfield and I presented in early September in Florence. Once she sends me the revised text, I can do some touch-ups to the discussion of the methods, insert the new figures, and it's off to a journal. Another fun project for this weekend.

Why EndNote has a new customer

2007-10-14T16:59:00.001-04:00

I have spent probably 20+ hours over the last three days correcting, checking, finding AOL, and formatting bibliographic and interview entries for my 300+ page book manuscript. Talk about tedious.

Democracy and the quality of legislation

2007-10-08T11:43:00.000-04:00

I've read lots of Mexican social security law. Lots. I couldn't tell you if it's really getting that much better, but I can certainly tell you that it's getting a lot longer.

In the days of the PRI, social security law was vague, like a set of suggestions for benefits and practices.

The 1995 Social Insurance Law (Ley del Seguro Social or Ley del IMSS) was a little bit more detailed and longer.

The 2007 Social Security for State Workers Law (Ley del ISSSTE) is downright tedious. It's long and filled with lots of legalese and technical language that just wasn't there before.

On the one hand, perhaps you might argue that privatized pensions require more detailed legislation. But, even PAYGO systems are still pensions and probably deserved or required just as much detail in the legislation.

On the other hand, I suspect that the changes in (this piece or type of ) legislation have more to do with two recent trends. First, the authors of the laws have changed; this law was drafted by a bunch of economists in the Ministry of Finance, rather than party or union leaders. Second, now politicians want to use laws to "lock in" certain types of transparent or narrow behaviors, whereas the PRI wanted laws to be vague and flexible.

I'm less familiar with other types of legislation in Mexico or even legislation in other Latin American countries that have experienced dual transitions (in this case, the rise of neoliberal economists/technocrats and democratization). But, I wonder if this trend is occurring in other legislative domains and in other places? And how would you measure the "quality" of legislation? You could certainly measure its length. You could maybe use some form of discourse analysis to compare the types of language used. You could probably come up with some dimension of narrow versus flexible (or open-to-interpretation) legislation.

I believe some researchers on American politics have analyzed patterns of legislation and may offer some methodological and theoretical insights. In countries like Mexico, I would expect the changes in the form legislation takes to vary over time due to increased democratization and efforts to tie the hands of future elected officials. I'd also expect the changes in legislation to vary across types of legislation, with laws related to structural reforms and political liberalization to be more detailed and constraining.

It's not something I have time to research now (being neck deep in the ISSSTE privatization...) but it's curious.

Adventures in OSS computing

2007-10-06T14:17:00.000-04:00

Time to get both R and WinEdt installed and working properly on my Vista laptop: 2+ hours.

I'm guessing it will be another 5 to produce the scatterplot with confidence intervals that has led me to R in the first place.

I've never listed statistical software on my CV before. I always assumed that folks would know that I'm proficient at various packages if I use various methods in my research and teach a graduate level baby-stats course. But, if my progress with R goes how I think it is likely to go, I can now understand the temptation to add it to your CV--that is, something that takes so much time should get its own line.

Update: I gave up. I found a package in Stata that will do what I need. Also, I discovered that the iTunes download of Season 3 of Veronica Mars is what ate all my laptop disk space--a mystery that has been plaguing me for a couple of weeks.

Update 2: I am the Stata graph master!

Amazing tidbit of the day

2007-10-05T09:58:00.000-04:00

The 2005 proposal to privatize government pensions in Mexico defined one of the family beneficiaries as:

"El conyuge, cualquiera que sea su genero, o a falta de este, el varon o la mujer con quiern, segun sea el caso, la Trabajadora o el Trabajador o el Pensionado o la Pensionada ha vivido como si fuera su conyuge durante los cinco anso anteriores o con uien tuviese uno o mas hijos(as), siempre ue ambos permanezcan libres de matrimonio." [apologies for the lack of accents]

The clause, I think, is meant to say that a female worker can cover her husband and count him as a beneficiary. In the IMSS system, female workers can only cover her husband if he is unable to work. (I don't remember off-hand the rules under the 1983 ISSSTE law.)

However, the way the clause is written, it seems to me, could open the door to same-sex couples claiming benefits.

I wonder if this has happened yet?

Update: It seems this loophole was found and closed in the final version of the law.

Are transparency and technology good things?

2007-09-30T19:22:00.001-04:00

On the one hand, the recent tendency of the Mexican government (including various bureaucracies) and civil society organizations to post all sorts of documents on the web and the availability of online newspaper archives means that I can easily download a couple of GB of information related to President Calderon's March 2007 privatization of ISSSTE pensions.

On the other hand, I can easily download a couple of GB of information related to President Calderon's March 2007 privatization of ISSSTE pensions.

Given that I have been periodically checking various government and organization websites since the proposals first went public in 2003-04, I have many, many files in many, many folders. For instance, I have about 5 versions of a Powerpoint presentation of the Ministry of Finance regarding the ISSSTE privatization proposal that are dated between 2004 and 2006.

Whereas before (i.e., pre-2001) the challenge was getting information, now the challenge is figuring out what information is useful.

Steps closer to electoral reform in Mexico

2007-09-28T10:30:00.000-04:00

Several more states have approved proposed national electoral reforms. Most look like they are designed to reduce negative campaigning and improve transparency of funding. I'm not holding my breath for real change.

Texas BBQ in Atlanta?

2007-09-18T21:12:00.000-04:00

As anyone who has ever asked me how I like Atlanta will know, one of my only complaints about the city is the lack of good Texas-style (which is the ONLY style, really) BBQ. (One of my other complaints is no real Mexican food, but that's another post.)

So, imagine my hope when I saw that a place purporting to have Texas-style BBQ had opened down the road from my neighborhood. In fact, it's located on the way home from work. Of course, I had written the place off entirely even without trying it because Brian and I have been repeatedly disappointed by places claiming to have real BBQ or real Mexican. Then, I saw a review in a local rag that raved, so I convinced a skeptical Brian to try it Saturday afternoon on our way home from the university library. (Yes...we spend our Saturday afternoons at either the Emory or GSU libraries.)

I had the brisket plate with potato salad and onion rings. Brian had the mixed plate of brisket and chicken with potato salad and beans. Neither of us ordered cole slaw because they make it with vinegar. That's a no-no for Texas BBQ.

The brisket was good--indeed better than any other I've had in Atlanta. But they cut it too thick and it didn't have enough pink smoky goodness. It was even better the next day at home when I reheated it and added Stubb's spicy BBQ sauce.

Their BBQ sauce was too thin and too sweet. Perhaps they are trying to appeal to the tastes of the South, but you shouldn't mess with Texas BBQ. It would also be nice if they added a spicy option.

The potato salad had too much mustard.

They didn't have cornbread. They did have Brunswick Stew (which I've never seen at a Texas BBQ joint).

The chicken wasn't smoked. The beans were too sweet.

So, it was only partially authentic, and Brian has declared he won't go back ("It's just too depressing...").

I will go back, but only to get brisked to go when I'm really desperate for a taste of Texas. I'll take it home and add a little Stubb's.

So while it's not perfect, it's the closest I've found in Atlanta so far, so I'll just have to accept it.

For those that still tune into this channel periodically...

2007-09-18T21:00:00.000-04:00

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've just been distracted by work.

The week after classes started, I left for Chicago to present a paper at the annual meeting of the APSA. My paper (corrected link) was very well-received, indeed the comments left me blushing with embarrassment. I also attended a short course on using R to make graphs. I really just wanted a cheap (in terms of time invested) way to learn about R, and I believe I got that and then some. I suspect I'll be using R sometime soon.

Then, the next week, I left for Rome and Florence to present another paper (written with Vicki Birchfield) at the ISA-RC19 conference. Unfortunately, our discussant wasn't able to attend at the last minute, so we didn't get much in the way of feedback. On the other hand, I really liked Rome and thought Florence was ok. Brian took over 2000 photos, a handful of which are online. (While I was at the conference, he saw just about every work of art in Florence.)

Now, back in Atlanta, I've been buried in 100+ emails, meetings with my various RAs and writing. It's a nice start to the semester, but a little hectic.

Maybe someday I'll have time to read the news again. Unfortunately, it won't be before the end of the month.

Haven't done this in a while

2007-07-27T11:06:00.001-04:00

Luckily, "teacher/professor" is listed as an appropriate job. Unfortunately, W is apparently the same personality type. But, then again, so are Lucy and Leia.

Back to work.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

2007-07-23T13:46:00.001-04:00

Returned to the office today to find R&Rs from CP and the J of Latin American Studies waiting for me. This is in addition to R&Rs from PS and J of Policy Modeling that I received earlier this summer.

Oh...and there's that ~$40K grant that Andrew Roberts and I got this summer, too.

Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy.

Posting will be light for the next 7 weeks as I crank out lots of work.

Happy Valley, PA

2007-07-23T13:27:00.000-04:00

I just returned from this summer's PolMeth meeting at Penn State. Burt and Suzie did a great job hosting the meeting. This was my 5th Polmeth conference, second as a faculty member. This year the format changed to allow more people to attend and participate. I heard rumblings among some of the younger core of polmethers about the new format. Understandably, some of the core group of methodologists resent the presence of those they perceive as interlopers who make the conference too big and impersonal for their tastes. True, this year's presentations sometimes lacked the humor, inside running jokes, and quick wit of presentations from earlier conferences. At the same time, as one of the applied methodologists (or interlopers) who attends the meetings (and by the way, pays my Polmeth dues regularly), I'm grateful for the opportunity to attend what amounts to a 4 day seminar on cutting edge methods. Further, it seems that the old core is busy replicating the smaller polmeth experience with small meetings in the bay and NYC areas, which should placate those who resent the growth in popularity of the summer meeting.

From my perspective, if you want applied methodologists and the discipline in general to adopt more sophisticated methods (i.e., you want to proselytize to the masses), you have to let the masses join your flock and attend your church.

Peanuts

2007-07-14T18:11:00.000-04:00

I've been working 12+ hour days the last few days. Today, I'm the only one in the building and have been here since lunchtime. For the last hour, the network, including internet and printing, has been down and the statistical software I've been using (HLM) has been refusing to run commands, either fatally terminating the program or just not running the options/tests I've requested.

I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and Sally is there to pull it away at the last minute.

AAARGH!!!

Does this mean I can stop for the day and go see Harry Potter instead?

The night is young

2007-07-10T22:23:00.000-04:00

I spent the last seven hours troubleshooting SPSS syntax files. I finally got them all recoded and merged into one megafile of almost 400K respondents from 15 multinational surveys between 1985 and 2004.

[Finally got that one file to work, though I'm not sure how. I removed all blank spaces in the file and coded all variables as scaler, and then it worked. Thanks Chris!]

Now, I'm back home with three new Buffy DVDs from Netflix (Discs 2-4 from Season 6) and a chocolate frosty from Wendy's. I'm ready for what Brian called a "Stats Party"! Let the fun begin!

I hate...

2007-07-09T18:55:00.000-04:00

... debugging data analysis syntax files.

In particular, I hate the following SPSS error message, for which I can find no explanation:

>Warning # 511
>A division by zero has been attempted on the indicated command. The result
>has been set to the system-missing value.

>Command line: 58 Current case: 11444 Current splitfile group: 1

The offending code:

*Re-code for education*.
RECODE educyrs (93 thru 99=SYSMIS) (0=SYSMIS).
AGGREGATE OUTFILE = edumeans.sav
/BREAK=cnty
/sdedu = SD(educyrs)
/meanedu=MEAN(educyrs) .

I've gone to the case where the problem begins and there's data there. I've double-checked the system missing codes. I've looked at the group means, etc. I've done everything but pull my hair out.

Closing the Pride of the East Side?

2007-07-07T12:59:00.000-04:00

It appears the Texas Education Agency has ordered the closing of my former high school due to unacceptable academic standards and progress.

My initial reaction was one of disappointment. The first year that I attended was the first year that mandatory busing was not used to integrate the school. Instead, they opened a Liberal Arts Academy, which has since been moved to another East Side campus.

Ironically (or perhaps not so ironically), my freshman year was also the first year that students from my neighborhood would be bused to Johnston, 10 miles away. Though another high school was geographically closer, it was just on the West side of I-35, which meant it was a world away. I always thought that it was strange that they ended busing for integration only to bus a bunch of minority kids from a low income area to a low income area on the East Side, rather than busing us to a school on the West side. But I digress....

When I attend Johnston, the dropout and retention rates were high, though test scores, including those for minority students, were not too bad. The high dropout rates were most evident at the football pep rallies, where the freshman always won the spirit stick for yelling the loudest. The freshman class was always 800+; my graduation class had just over 200--at least 70 of them high achieving Academy kids. It seems the test scores were pretty bad back then, too.

However, once they moved the LAA to Johnston, even voluntary integration ended at Johnston. The percentage of white students fell from 20% when I was a Junior in 1991 to 1.9% in 2005. Some of that drop was due to the opening of a new high school in 2000 (?) to serve students in Southeast Austin, so they were no longer bused to Johnston as I was. Since I graduated in 1992, this campus has seen a steady stream of new school administrators, almost every year.

I'm still annoyed that the AISD abandoned Johnston and ended integration--which surely made a resource-poor school even worse off. (I remember that teachers would put plastic garbage cans in the hall to catch water in the numerous places that the roof leaked...) On the other hand, Johnston had failed to serve its core population for a long time, and in some ways, the 'integration'--voluntary or otherwise--only hid, by inflating test scores and other school success indicators, the real failure of the school and the school district to educate and prepare kids on Austin's East Side.

So if current Johnston students are spread far and wide throughout Austin high schools, I may be saddened by the closing of my old school, but at least I'll be hopeful that those students will get the attention and resources they deserve elsewhere.

10th anniversary of the Mexican pension privatization

2007-07-06T12:53:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week marked the 10th anniversary of the implementation of Mexico's privatized pension system. El Norte ran a couple of stories on the issues facing the pension system, including these two in which I am quoted.

This front page story appeared next to a photo of one of my favorite players on the Seleccion Mexicana, second only to Oswaldo. Since they both play for the Chivas, I might have to realign my futbol allegiances. Thank goodness they don't play for America because I don't think I could handle that.

For a couple of days, the first story was among the 5 most emailed stories on the Reforma website.

When it rains...

2007-07-02T14:52:00.000-04:00

It pours.

That's all.

PS. If any reader has access to the news stories on pensions in El Norte that appeared July 1, I'd be super grateful for an email copy (michelle.dion@gmail.com).

Tech on Tec

2007-06-06T23:26:00.000-04:00

My study abroad students have a group blog for class. We're here at Tec de Monterrey, and my class "Mexico Contemporaneo--en ingles" has 15 Georgia Tech and 6 Monterrey Tec students. So far, the posts far exceed my expectations.

How about a few of you head over there and leave some comments? Please be nice. They are newbies to blogging. :)

El Charro Norteno and me

2007-06-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

This charming man let me take my picture with him at the Expo Guadalupe in Guadalupe (just outside of Monterrey). The hat on my head was his idea, not mine. See below for his contact information.

Free advertising for Charro Norteno:
La Musica del Pueblo. Musica 100% Mexicano. Contrataciones: El Padrino Zancudin y Representacion Tex. Tel 81 8360-4311. Cel 044 81 1475-8951.

People in funny suits, again

2007-05-31T19:40:00.000-04:00

Houses at the baseball game. For most of the game, they just 'sat' in the stands. Very surreal.

And, at a pedestrian mall in downtown, on a Sunday....

Suggestions for nice steak or Mexican high cuisine in Monterrey?

2007-05-27T23:36:00.001-04:00

Anyone? Brian and I are looking for a nice place for dinner later this month. Not for the study abroad group. Any suggestions?

Las luchas!

2007-05-27T23:33:00.000-04:00

Last night, our study abroud group went to the luchas here in Monterrey. I think the students had a good time, at first. They were worn out by the second to last set of matches and couldn't hang for the main event. I guess you have to build up your stamina.

Back in Mexico, and you know what that means...

2007-05-24T18:34:00.000-04:00

People in funny suits and scantily-clad women.

Last night, some of the study abroad group went to a Sultanes baseball game here in Monterrey.

Monterrey traffic laws

2007-05-15T16:28:00.000-04:00

I'm reading the traffic regs for Monterrey and have found that:

Los conductores de vehículos tienen prohibido lo siguiente:.... XIV. Circular zigzagueando....

Rough translation: Vehicle drivers are prohibited from the following....driving 'zigzagging.'

Mexican laws are so nice and precise.

Updated to add this additional prohibition:

....XXVII. Manifestar una conducta evidente de hostigamiento hacia otros conductores haciendo mal uso del vehículo que conduce...

Or, showing evidently harrassing conduct toward other drivers making poor use of the vehicle they drive.

Also updated: The fines are adjusted according to 'economic capacity, social condition, education,' etc.:

ARTÍCULO 139. Al aplicarse la multa, deberá tomarse en consideración, la naturaleza de la infracción cometida, las causas que la produjeron, la capacidad económica, la condición social, educación y antecedentes del infractor. Si el infractor fuese jornalero u obrero, jubilado o pensionado, la multa no deberá exceder del importe del salario de un día. Tratándose de trabajador no asalariado, jubilado o pensionado la multa no excederá de su jornal o salario de un día.

Study of bilingual bloggers

2007-05-14T16:54:00.000-04:00

One of my colleagues here at Tech just finished a study on code-switching by bilingual bloggers on the interweb. You can read the full paper here. Here's a taste of her conclusions:

In analyzing Spanish-English bilingual blogs a few evident conclusions surface. First, and answering the former research question posed at the beginning, yes, bilingual bloggers switch languages when writing these public journals. I speculate that while code-switching has often carried a social stigma in oral production, such stigma does not seem to obtain in informal written expression, especially in such a democratic forum as the Internet.

Current wherabouts

2007-05-14T16:48:00.000-04:00

Somewhere in Central Texas--frantically buying unsweetened Silk, cereal, and violin strings before our trip; dropping $1K on car maintenance; and hanging out in the lobby of the Mexican Consulate to get car papers.

We're heading to Monterrey by car this week to prepare for the brand-spankin-new Georgia Tech Summer Study Abroad program at Tec de Monterrey, directed by yours truly. The students arrive May 22.

We'll have a class blog that should be up and running in a couple of weeks so others can follow us on our adventures. I'll post the link here.

And again, I'm humming

2007-04-21T15:05:00.000-04:00

"Dunt, dunt, dunt...another one bites the dust!"

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

The problem with having 4 papers under review?

2007-04-17T17:25:00.000-04:00

Some are bound to come back as R&Rs before you have the time or are ready to do the revisions.

I must remember not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Apparently, I hum a little tune...

2007-04-10T17:24:00.000-04:00

...when I hit the "send" or "ok" key to email or upload a paper submission to a journal. It's involuntary, I think. I just realized I was (unconsciouly, and all alone in my office) humming this tune as I sent an email submission to the Journal of Latin American Studies.

Do you have a funny thing you do when you submit a paper?

Real life Scrubs

2007-04-08T17:25:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in Caribou, with two young female doctors at the next table. Picture two of these (though less made up). They have talked about:

whether its worth buying new jeans since they will only get to wear them 4 days a month, whether they should wear their white coats ("They weigh, like, 20 pounds. How do you wear your stethoscope?"), and different attending Docs ("He was really good. He asked me lots of questions, and I was, like, always wrong, but that's ok.").

One has a copy of pocket medicine. And she admits she can't follow a recipe to bake oatmeal raisin cookies and left her keys at the counter (someone found them).

I'm afraid they don't instill much confidence, but perhaps it's different when they're dressed up in their nice white coats.

More fodder from today's reading

2007-04-02T12:14:00.000-04:00

From an article related to the status of women in political science, a reference to this cartoon:

Link to original.

Lame professor sentiment of the day

2007-04-02T11:17:00.000-04:00

Today, I'm reading about trends in teaching and the pedagogy of political science faculty. [And, not just for fun. It's related to my presentation on a roundtable on teaching strategies for women at next week's Midwest Political Science Association meeting in Chicago.]

I came across this lame and somewhat rude statement in an article in the January 2003 issue of PS:

...don't be obscure, in either your speech or your assignments. Your students are attending the school where you are working because they couldn't get into the school from where you graduated.

I'm not sure that always assuming your students aren't as smart or prepared as you is a useful mindset. I prefer to think that if we challenge our students, most of them will step up to the challenge. Of course, it may require more effort or support from the prof if students aren't very well prepared for our courses. There's a difference between being smart and being academically prepared. Most students are smart, but not all have sufficient preparation for success in college. And then, there are those that are both smart and well prepared but not well motivated.

But then again, I do have the privilege of teaching undergrads with average SAT scores exceeding 1200, most of whom are smart, well-prepared and highly motivated.

How to know if you're making research progress

2007-03-27T18:31:00.000-04:00

You can finally stop carrying one 2 inch-thick file folder filled with notes and drafts for one project back and forth between home and office. You can finally file that folder until you get reviews/funding news back.

During the same afternoon, you will either unfile or create a new file folder, fill it with printed articles or copies of journal issues off your bookshelves. You will now carry this file folder back and forth between home and office for the next several weeks.

The electronic equivalent entails files, folders, or shortcuts to either files and/or folders saved onto your desktop that can now be filed away in your computer innards. If you're like me, shortly thereafter, you'll have cluttered your electronic desktop with new downloaded articles to be read or shortcuts to data and draft folders.

This is like a revolving-Groundhog Day dance, where the projects may change, but the process stays the same, day in, day out.

More pension shenanigans

2007-03-21T10:02:00.000-04:00

While I'm busy writing about social insurance in Mexico through the Fox administration, Calderon and others ar working to privatize the pensions of government employees--with some interesting political results.

No links, but browsing the front page of the La Jornada over the last week will give you a sense of the dimensions of the conflict.

Impuestos 2

2007-03-17T18:14:00.000-04:00

Time to do taxes using tax software: over 2 hours

Time to receive state refund once submitted: less than 1 week

Time to receive federal refund: less than 2 weeks

Time to spend the refunds: N/A. The money was already spent before I even filed.

Impuestos

2007-03-03T22:30:00.000-05:00

It appears that the time it takes for me to file our US and GA income taxes is exactly equal to the length of the most recent Harry Potter film.

Stress dreams...

2007-02-21T16:43:00.000-05:00

...in which I resolve the source of my stress and end up happy.

My typical stress dream involves preparing for international travel and discovering that I can't find or have left behind my passport.

Last week, my stress dream was about going through security at an airport. I had taken my rather large laptop out of my big laptop backpack to go through security. The security person told me that I could only take one bag with me on the plane, and that I'd have to leave my B&N tote bag filled with novels and poli sci books behind. Luckily, my laptop backback is huge, so I told the woman that I'd just put the books in my backpack.

So the last part of the dream was me reassembling my stuff on the other side of the security line and carefully organizing all my paperbacks so they would fit in my laptop backpack.

My interpretation? This was a dream about tenure worries and my ability to get everything to fit... poli sci books, novels (outside work life?), and laptop all together.

It sucks to be this....close

2007-02-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

To having a paper accepted by one of the big 3 with summary comments from two reviews like:

Publish and minor revisions. I think the revisions would be pretty modest and should be easily manageable.

...and...

I think this is a very good and interesting contribution to the literature on social policy in Latin America and the developing world more broadly. I suggest that the author be given the chance to revise and resubmit based on the aforementioned suggestions.

Only to be derailed by reviewer #3. What did I ever do to him or her?

UPDATE 2/15, 2:15pm: I've already made the revisions suggested by and addressed the concerns of the reviewers and sent the manuscript on to another journal.

Good company

2007-02-08T08:36:00.000-05:00

The description of the forthcoming book on pension reform in Latin America, in which I have a chapter, includes this gem:

This section concludes with two chapters with differing views on reform and the role of gender (an important and understudied topic).

My contribution on the role of gender in pension reform.

Testify

2007-01-24T18:22:00.000-05:00

I use STATA for my quantitative research needs, but have always taught SPSS in my statistics course for our M.S. in International Affairs. I chose SPSS because it's easy to use and because it was the second most popular statistical package (after SAS) listed in job announcements on monster.com. Today, I received this email from a former international student who has a good job with a large MNC whose headquarters is in Atlanta:

Dr. Dion,

I just wanted to say hello, and I wanted to let you know that I AM using SPSS. :-] One part of my job is to analyze marketing communication effectiveness. We work with few outside companies who collect and provide data for us (they are using SPSS for all their analysis). So, during our first meeting they were VERY surprised and impressed that I know what SPSS is and that I understood their whole presentation.
So, thank you for teaching us how to use that program… the hard work really paid back!

No, I have not fallen into one of the large potholes that plague the Altanta streets

2007-01-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

I've just been busy and am about to get busier. Today, I polished off revisions to an article that had already been conditionally accepted for publication and to a book chapter for an edited volume under contract. Now if only I could get comments back on that other paper out under review at a place that shall not be named for fear of jinxing everything.

I still haven't resumed normal browsing of the news in Mexico. Luckily, Greg has been keeping the ball in the air with his coverage of the tortilla issue. I did read somewhere, however, that Calderon had made an agreement with producers to control the prices of tortillas. Since this is a voluntary agreement, the administration has said it's different from the official or mandated price fixing of tortillas that ended in the late 90s or early 2000s.

Soon, though, readers can expect to be bored to tears with excerpts and discussion of my book manuscript! Yay! Something to look forward to... she says with a wink.

Actually....

2007-01-09T16:24:00.000-05:00

This post could be about me. I have very little in common with David Brent, and in fact, he makes me cringe. However, those that know me well will know that I find it hard to tell short stories.

Hi. My name is Michelle. And I am an anecdotalist.

Happy new year

2007-01-07T21:15:00.000-05:00

Happy new year all. We arrived back from Austin early Saturday morning, and I'm not really ready yet to face the new semester. I have a 'to-do' list a mile long, but I'm not alone in that.

I can't imagine when I'll get around to posting again, so in the meantime, enjoy this image of a sign hanging in a South Austin bar-b-que restaurant. I grew up south of the river, and east of the Interstate. The latter is perhaps a bigger social blunder than the former.

Conditional acceptance

2006-12-14T16:41:00.000-05:00

This paper about the role of international financial insitutions (like the ILO and the World Bank) on social security policy in Mexico has been conditionally accepted for publication in Global Social Policy. The revisions are not extensive and should make the paper a much stronger article.

Now, this means that I've fallen below Munger's 3 under review rule. Drats. Must. do revisions. quickly. and get something. else. out the door. soon.

When I send out my book ms, will that count as 3 at once?

Hmmm....

To my grad students: Thank you

2006-12-07T11:23:00.000-05:00

Dear grad students,

Thank you very much for recognizing my contributions to your academic and professional development. I am very proud to be the first faculty member to receive the INTAGO "Friend of Graduate Students" award for my teaching and mentoring activities.

I know that my classes can be demanding and difficult and that I have high expectations for you and your work. I know that statisitcs, and even IPE, has not always been easy.

I'm glad you feel I've made a positive contribution to your graduate experience. I enjoy teaching you all and wish you all the best in your studies and beyond.

My very best,
Michelle

Highest praise

2006-12-06T11:32:00.000-05:00

Our advisor for undergrad international affairs students stopped in to tell me that the other day, she asked a young woman what she wanted to do when she grew up. That young woman said she wanted to be just like me! She wanted to travel, do research, and be a professor. I haven't taught more than a handful of undergrads in several years (I was in Mexico and since have taught only MS classes), but it was nice to hear that I have made an impression on at least one young woman. It's a good reason to promote diversity in University classrooms, because you'll note that she didn't just want to be a professor, she wanted to be like one of the professors she could identify with and imagine herself becoming.

Interesting discussion regarding "pedigree" and the poli sci job market

2006-12-01T14:41:00.000-05:00

You have to wade through many, many inane comments before the interesting ones that begin on November 30, 2006.

Update: Thanks to Chris, you can go straight to the pedigree discussion.

Plan to throw one away

2006-11-30T13:05:00.000-05:00

I've been reading this book that combines a little history of computing with a discussion of the open source software movement. Brian has a stack of other books he's reading for a research paper that I'll probably wade through, too.

Among the several tidbits that struck me as interesting was the advice: "Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow," which apparently first appeared in this book. You can read ESR's discussion of the advice here (halfway down the page at #3). In any event, the short version is that you should plan to throw out at least some of what you code because you'll end up doing so anyway.

This seemed particularly interesting to me last night just after I answered umpteen emails and class discussion board posts from my graduate students as they busily sought to finish the drafts of their first regression papers for my methods class. If I could get students to understand this principle, perhaps their research projects would be less stressful. Perhaps they would also really re-write rather than superficially edit their drafts before turning in their final papers.

In my experience, the paper I first write for a conference and the paper that ultimately gets published in a journal are often very different. Parts have been substantially re-written and even some of the data analysis re-done.

Students, however, seem to cling to their text and results and won't let go, even when they need to. They just can't bring themselves to delete a whole paragraph, even though it doesn't belong in their paper. I suspect that the paragraph may have been difficult to write in the first place, and that's why they are so attached to it. The same thing happens with their regression "models." They resist letting go of a bad model sometimes because they've gone to all the effort to write it up.

In my methods class, they turn in their projects in parts (first the lit review, then the data description, and then the data analysis) before they revise and complete the final product. In my experience, students seldom do the amount and type of re-writing necessary to turn very rough drafts into solid final papers. And, though I provide extensive comments, they still can't or won't re-write. My comments often ask them how a paragraph relates to their research question, or to explain how the critique they are making is important to their overall argument. I tell them that such questions are part of a dialogue we are having about their argument/paper and that they should work on making sure their papers are coherent wholes.

To many students, revise seems to mean, "fix the obvious grammatical errors." In some cases, it may be a question of time. In other cases, I suspect it's because they really don't understand that revise means substantially rewrite , or knowing when you write something the first time, you should plan to throw some of it out. So, how can we get our students to be less wedded to what they write and more willing to re-write, especially when they are learning a new method and way of writing? How can we convince them that it is to be expected that they'll "throw one away."

Not a good sign of things to come

2006-11-29T11:08:00.000-05:00

As the time nears for the swearing in of Mexico's new President, the PAN's Felipe Calderon, the situation is not looking good. Earlier this month, the PRD's Lopez Obrador had himself sworn in as President in an unofficial ceremony. Yesterday, a small fight broke out in the Congress (for the leftist version of events) when members of the PRD tried to take control of the dais and the PAN stepped in to stop them. This is not the first time there's been a tussle in the Congress, though I can't find the link to my earlier post about another shoving match that occurred during the desafuero period.

Lovely.

And now, in a display of.... what? determination? stubbornness? Members of each party are planning on camping out on the dais until the swearing in.

I admit I was skeptical

2006-11-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

I wasn't too crazy about the choice for the new Bond. But I have to admit I was wrong.

Am I really so alone?

2006-11-15T15:37:00.000-05:00

Various anonymous bloggers have been discussing why they blog anonymously, or why their blogs do not reveal their identities. Greg points out that men tend to blog under their names and women tend to do so anonymously. Then, he suggests that I'm the only non-anonymous, female political science blogger. (Say that three times quickly.) Perhaps.

I wouldn't dare speculate as to why others blog, and some political scientists explain for themselves why they blog.

For myself, I've discussed why I blog and the pros and cons as I see them regarding the ways that I blog.

A related public service announcement

2006-11-13T15:08:00.000-05:00

I don't get as many hits as Chris from folks looking for the political science rumor blogs, but I thought I'd provide a related public service announcement in the interest of political science productivity.

It seems that the rumor blogs can suck a lot of potentially productive time from candidates and faculty. If you find yourself checking the rumor blog comment threads more than once a day, I suggest using either co.mments or co.comment to track the comments. I prefer the former, but understand that the latter has more market share. Each will require a little time to set up your comment tracking but not nearly as much time as obsessively re-checking the rumor sites for new entries.

Life on the tenure track

2006-11-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

I just finished this really short book. Though some of the experiences are more specific to those at predominantly teaching schools, many of them (such as figuring out how to get students discussing or how to understand department dynamics) are more universal for new faculty. I'd recommend the book to new faculty or advanced grad students. Some parts might also be good for senior faculty, some of whom can easily forget what it's like to be a newbie.

Going downhill fast

2006-11-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

The situation has been deteriorating in Oaxaca over the last several months, though the news is reporting that negotiations have begun again today.

Last night, in Mexico City, three bombs exploaded. One each at the PRI headquarters, the election court, and a bank. No one was hurt, but this is not good news. As far as I can tell, no one has claimed responsibility yet, and it's not clear if it's related to the protest in Oaxaca or the incoming administration. Visit the front page from the leftist daily in the DF.

Optimism

2006-11-06T10:56:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in almost a full moon cycle because I have been super busy with research (and grading lit reviews and data descriptions for my grad students' methods papers). In the last month, I've written a chapter for an edited volume on pension reform in Latin America that will be published with Oxford UP, and revised two papers to submit them to journals. By the end of the week, I expect to be on my way to having 3 papers under review and a book manuscript only a couple of weeks from being 90% done, as all harding working untenured folks should. All this while also trying to recruit students for my new summer study abroad next summer in Monterrey.

This year has been a good one so far, I've written three new papers that are all under review (or will be soon), revised one other, and written (100+ pages) or revised almost all of my book manuscript. This semester has been especially hectic, but I am also very excited about my research and what I'm working on. I've got a couple of new projects with co-authors slated for the spring, and I'm looking forward to those, too. In the spring, I'll have a one course reduction (much to the dismay of some of our grad students, I understand, since a rumor had been going around that I would be offering a course they could take), and it'll be great to focus even more energy on my research. I haven't felt this optimistic about my research in a while, partly because I've usually had new preps or responsibilities coming my way.

Things are good for me. Now, a post about how they are not good for Mexico....

Report on last spring's Fed conference on pension reform in Latin America

2006-10-17T10:36:00.000-04:00

This report summarizes the papers and comments made at the conference on pension reform in Latin America held at the Atlanta Fed last March.

From pages 27-28:

Michelle Dion, assistant professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, elaborated on some of the points made by James and proposed some alternative interpretations and solutions to gender inequities. While she agreed that women have made significant gains in lifetime benefits under the reformed systems and that raising the retirement ages in Chile and Argentina would reduce gender discrepancies, taking the gender equity perspective makes it is necessary to interpret the findings more cautiously. The new systems actually compound labor market inequities and such policy changes as raising women’s retirement age in Argentina and Chile might not be effective. Even if women were to work five years longer, the average married women’s replacement rates would still be less than
50%.

In addition, women do not disproportionately benefit from transfers. In Mexico, for example, the social quota (a government-paid benefit) only favors women by a very slight margin. Furthermore, most women do not contribute enough to earn these public transfers. World Bank data show that in Argentina, for example, women with university degrees must meet the thirty-year requirement to get the flat benefit, which means that the transfers do not actually materialize for most women. Incentives do exist for women to work longer, especially in Mexico, which would qualify them for the minimum pension guarantees. On the other hand, she said, evidence from the Chilean Social Protection Survey suggests that people overestimate their contribution rate, so incentives would have to be very strong to encourage women to stay in the labor market long enough to earn the minimum pension.

Intra-family transfers do not favor women. In fact, the reforms have made it harder for women to claim partner benefits because they require documentation, which many Latin American women do not have given the large number of common law marriages. The burden of providing evidence of cohabitating for a certain amount of time disproportionately affects lowincome women. From a sociological perspective, a reliance on intra-family transfers erodes women social citizenship rights and reinforces a male breadwinner bias that undermines women’s independence. Finally, relying on intra-family transfers may create a potential strain on the welfare of the extended families that support women in old age. In Mexico, for example, a large percentage of elderly women get most of their old age support from their extended family. Trade-offs are being made in terms of investment in human capital for younger members of the family.

Dion concluded that alternate reforms could be more appropriate and would help resolve some of the gender disparities. These reforms could address wage inequalities between men and women, invest in women’s human capital, and support women’s workforce participation.

I quote the report at length to remind myself of the points I made in March as I write up a paper for the conference volume now in October.

Clearly not talking about public universities

2006-10-13T08:01:00.000-04:00

A recent NYT piece is woefully wrong about what's wrong with higher education. Hickok makes some claims that probably don't accurately describe the situation at most public schools, and certainly is nothing like my experience at Tech. He says:

Faculty members decide what they want to teach and when they want to teach, if, indeed, they teach at all. This is particularly true regarding undergraduate instruction, which is something of an afterthought on many campuses. Faculty members typically spend fewer than 200 hours a year in the classroom. That amounts to just five 40-hour weeks.

In my first 3 years on the tenure-track at Tech, I have taught 2 classes every semester except one. I also taught 8 different classes in those three years and all but 2 were required or core elective classes for either our undergraduate or graduate degree. [I'm not even counting the 2 new courses that I taught in Spanish during my Fulbright year.] The two electives were: Latin American political economy (hardly superfluous) and Latin American popular culture and politics as part of an 8 week experiential learning program in Argentina and Brazil the summer after my first year at Tech.

I should admit, from what I understand from my collegues elsewhere, I have perhaps taught several more different course preparations than the average political science professor at a research 1 institution. I am almost certainly one of the few at a research 1 school who has taught in nearly every subfield of my discipline (American, IR (IPE), Comparative, and Methods) at the undergrad level and in two subfields at the graduate level, neither being the primary field in which I conduct my research.

So, did I choose to teach so many different classes? Not really, but my department needs those courses taught, and I am able to cover many different areas, so they ask me to. Only one of the classes that I teach regularly is a class that I would be expected to teach in any political science department at a R1 school: Latin American politics. For all the rest, they would have specialized faculty who would teach in those areas, rather than me.

Do I get to choose when I teach? No. I have taught at 8am. I also teach one class every semester from 6 to 9 at night for our graduate program. This semester, I am teaching it on a Thursday night, arguably the worst slot for a statistics class because everyone is dog tired by then and too exhausted to read/prepare for class. And, I miss Earl and The Office on Must See TV. I would much rather teach that class 3-6pm on Mondays when everyone is fresh and happy from the weekend.

For each of those 8 different classes, I had to develop the course and reading list since we don't teach a cookie cutter curriculum like they do in many high schools. I suspect that few professors, even those teaching classes like American Government where the textbooks come with ample testbanks and supplementary materials, actually just use the powerpoints or slides that come with the textbook. I sure hope Hickok isn't suggesting we should "teach to the test" in college and all just some canned curriculum.

This fall (the 4th on my tenure clock), I am teaching yet another new preparation, but this time by my choosing. I am team-teaching with an Economics faculty memberour senior seminar for joint International Affairs and Economics majors. I offered to do this because

1) no one else wanted to do it,
2) I get along well with the Econ professor, who I would also count as a friend,
3) the Econ professor and I quickly agreed on what we wanted to cover in the class,
4) I want my research to move more in the direction of the political economy work we are covering in the class, and
5) I see it as an opportunity to have a class that I will now be able to teach repeatedly (which will reduce the likelihood that I have to teach some other new or less desireable course).

Hickok also argues:

Take a look at what passes for subjects of scholarly and instructional focus on campuses. Should taxpayer dollars really go to underwrite courses in such things as the history of comic book art? Policy makers and tuition payers need to be made aware of what sorts of courses institutions consider appropriate to fulfill core academic requirements, if anything resembling an academic core even exists. And there needs to be a greater emphasis on teaching students what they need to know, rather than what faculty want to talk about.

Most of my discussion above covers these points. Anyone can look at our curriculum online. It's not hidden. We teach our students what they need to know. I rarely get to talk about what I want to talk about. (I'm so desparate to talk about the Mexican election, that I'm going to have to go to other people's classes to do it because I'm stuck teaching something removed from my research interests.)

He also claims:

Colleges and universities need to be able to explain why they charge the tuition they charge, what their graduation rates are, what they feel constitutes an educated person and how they propose to get first year students from here to there. The various college rating systems and publications are entertaining and interesting to read, but they don’t provide the sort of objective data tuition payers need to make informed decisions.

Let me start by saying that I think that many of the ranking systems have serious flaws. At the same time, even the US News and World Report rankings punish a school if their completion rate is low. In fact, Georgia Tech used to be punished heavily because many students left Tech once they realized they didn't want to be engineers. In response, the Institute decided to develop the social sciences into degree granting departments to boost our retention rate. Georgia Tech has only been offering undergraduate degrees in the social sciences since 1990. International Affairs now has 400 majors (some jointly with Modern Languages or Economics) out of 13,000 undergraduates. It seems that this is evidence that universities do respond to the incentives created by (even flawed) ranking systems to improve student satisfaction.

Overall, the title of the NYT post implies that Hickok would have universities adopt some objective measures of student performance at the end of their college education, a la standardized testing at the end of secondary school. Clearly that policy has not done much to improve public education, and in fact, has done much to hurt students who no longer are able to think critically or write well. Once universities begin "teaching to the test," families will really not be getting their money's worth and the U.S. will fall further behind the rest of the world in innovation and development.

So, what is wrong with U.S. unversity education? Well, there's probably too much emphasis put on sports, but then again that makes money for universities that they can't get from their state legislatures. Then, there's the problem that they have to build multi-million dollar recreation centers to recruit students instead of spending that money on faculty salaries or classroom facilities. I'd say a big problem is that many families don't want (or can't afford) to pay what a good college education costs. Another problem is that universities compete with one another for the favor of 18 year olds, who often (due to their age) are short-sighted and looking for something other than education. So universities woo these students with rec centers, luxury dorms, big sporting events, and other perks that have all to do with student life and little to do with academic learning.

But can it make me appear taller?

2006-09-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

Then, I might be in the market for one of these.

All My.... Absurdity

2006-09-16T21:57:00.000-04:00

Mike Patton and blogs on All My Children.

Too wierd. What will they do next in their lame attempts to attract young viewers?

My new blog

2006-09-12T21:35:00.000-04:00

It's the program page for the study abroad program I'm leading next summer to Monterrey Mexico. I finally figured out that I could install Wordpress on the Tech servers.

I say it's a hooptie blog...and it's totally pimped out. That is, it looks totally fancy with every plug-in and widget possible, but if you look under the hood, the code is totally hacked and rickety. [Just don't look at it with iexplorer!]

It actually didn't take as much time to set up as it might look [in part b/c it's a hooptie, but also] because Wordpress rocks and Brian helped troubleshoot stubborn code.

Cajones

2006-09-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

[Misspelling intentional.] If only I had the nerve to tell my students these things.

About the Mexican presidential election

2006-09-10T10:54:00.000-04:00

This post is long overdue. I'd like to be able to say that it's overdue entirely because classes have begun, I went to the APSA meetings, and then to NYC. But that wouldn't be true. I've avoided writing about the election situation in Mexico because I haven't wanted to write about it. I've been too disappointed to write about it.

I'm disappointed not only in the outcome but also the process that led to it, not for partisan reasons as much as the impact it will have on the new administration and the government for the foreseeable future.

I'm disappointed that Calderon resisted a full recount that could have given his administration more legitimacy.

I'm disappointed that Lopez Obrador seems intent on further disruptions despite the electoral court's ruling.

I'm disappointed that the IFE didn't better police before the election those 3rd party ads that were clearly partisan.

I'm disappointed because I suspect that many Mexicans, on the left, right, and center, are also disappointed in their leaders. That can't be good for collective confidence in political institutions and democracy.

I'm disappointed that though Mexico's new democracy has so far survived this crisis, it is still in critical condition.

So that's why I haven't written a post about the Mexican presidential election lately. It's just too disappointing.

I never would have guessed

2006-08-24T17:45:00.000-04:00

In fact, I might have predicted the opposite.

Another national title for UT-Austin

2006-08-21T17:26:00.000-04:00

Top party school. Of course, I was always working and studying too much to take much notice as an undergrad.

Linked with no comment

2006-08-16T12:47:00.000-04:00

Analysis from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs regarding the electoral situation in Mexico.

Violence outside national legislature in Mexico City

2006-08-14T18:52:00.000-04:00

According to news sources, the national police force sought to remove PRD supporters from their encampment outside the national legislature. The reports of what happened are often contradictory or confused, such as this report from Milenio:

A las cuatro y media de la tarde, los legisladores agredidos se presentaron en la 50 Agencia de la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Distrito Federal, para denunciar a Vicente Fox, al diputado panista Alvaro Elías Loredo, la Federal Preventiva y Estado Mayor Presidencial por las agresiones cometidas en su contra.

A este respecto, Elías Loredo se deslindó de las acusaciones perredistas y dijo que se presentará un informe para aclarar que sucedió en este operativo.

Pero estas declaraciones no fueron tomadas con satisfacción por la bancada del PRD, e incluso Inti Muñoz, vocero de los diputados federales, dijo que se presentará una denuncia contra el panista Elías Loredo por ser responsable de esta actitud represiva, lo cual fue rechazado por éste.

Se dio a conocer que García Ochoa además de presentar una herida en el ojo izquierdo, y posiblemente la fractura de una costilla.

Clara Brugada, dijo que Elías Loredo ordenó la represión en contra de sus pares, por lo que lo responsabilizó de las agresiones en contra de doce legisladores y simpatizantes del PRD.

Dolores Padierna, dijo a Formato 21, que los federales preventivos los agredieron sin mediar conversación "fue un acto de represión", acotó.

El panista Alvaro Elías Loredo, dialogó con los responsables de la PFP para que cese esta situación, además de que se evalúa que se pronuncie al respecto, se desconoce si lo hará mediante una conferencia de prensa o un comunicado.

Al cuarto para las tres de la tarde, inició el desalojo de cientos de manifestantes que desde temprano intentaron irrumpir en el recinto.

He said. She said.

New additions to my fall syllabi

2006-08-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

Since I was on leave in 04-05, last year (05-06) was my first year at Tech where laptops and wireless access were ubiquitous on campus and in the classroom. I can tell which students are using laptops for notes and which are using them to IM or browse the web (i.e., those with blank stares, very little typing or eye movement to the front of the classroom, etc.).

Usually, I would ask those students questions when they appeared distracted, and often that would get them back on task. Sometimes, I would joke with them about what they might be looking at to get their attention. (Humor is my preferred way to deal with such classroom issues.) I used to think those students are just hurting themselves, not unlike sleepy students, so I'd tend to ignore them. (My classroom is pretty animated and interactive, and if they're tuned out, there's not much more I could do to engage them.)

However, last spring, I had some students specifically complain that the web habits of other students were distracting during class. This realization has led to the following addition to my fall syllabi (new material in italics):

Course attendance and participation, 20%
Your success in the seminar will require regular attendance and active participation in class discussions. To be able to participate actively in the discussion, you must have done the reading prior to class and you must attend class regularly. The quality, not quantity, of your participation is the key to a superior class participation grade. Asking thoughtful or insightful questions is just as important as answering questions posed by others in the class. Absences, tardiness, cell phone disruptions and abuse of internet technologies (e.g., web browsing/IMing during class) will adversely affect your participation grade.