What do you do all day?

I’m teaching four courses this year. My division head was kind enough to arrange my schedule so that only one of the classes is in the Fall. Thus, other than roughly twelve Mondays from 2:00-4:00, my time is my own. This came up in one of my classes, prompting my students to ask, “What do you do with your time?”

So far, the leading time-consumer is grant-writing. I’ve finished one external and one internal grant proposal. I also wrote a brief conference proposal for CIES. I have another external proposal to prepare in December followed by a couple more internal proposals. I’m a bit worried that I’ll spend more time my first year proposing to do research than actually doing research.

The second leading time-consumers are meetings, including numerous orientations and workshops for new faculty. On average, I’ve had roughly five hours a week spent in meetings, workshops, and orientations. Some weeks are worse—I’ve definitely logged twenty-hours worth of meetings in a week.

The next category is research. I’m reworking the better parts of my education dissertation into three journal articles. They’ve already been conferenced, so this is the next logical step. I’m also chipping away at a chapter of my unfinished dissertation in philosophy, though I don’t expect to make much progress here for a few more weeks.

The final category is teaching. Though I’m only teaching one course, it’s a new topic for me and thus requires more preparation than one might think. I also have bachelor and doctoral dissertations that I am directing. Teaching will definitely be a bigger part of my life next semester, probably consuming as much or more time than research.

I have two major goals for this first year. The first is to do right by my students. I want to make sure that every class is engaging and challenging. I also want to know that the students’ whose dissertations I supervise benefit from working with me, that their work is conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically stronger and more imaginative. The second goal for the academic year is to have everything from both dissertations published or under review by August 2010. This will clear out my schedule to build on some of my old ideas as well as pursue some new ideas that have been simmering.

Pace Alexander Lykins

Pace Alexander Lykins joined the family on October 15th, 2009. Mom and son are happy and healthy, as are the rest of the family members. Sorry for the delay--I've been posting updates to my Facebook profile and neglecting the blog.

The University of Hong Kong just approved a policy whereby faculty members can take five days paternity leave. I haven't taken them up on the offer, but it makes me think about the whole concept of "leave" as it pertains to academic work. What is five days worth of work?

Last post, June 10?

Well, life is changing quickly. First, I am now asking those who disapprove of my driving to refer to me as Dr. Expletive rather than Mr. Expletive. Second, I am now the survivor of a full Ironman distance triathlon. Third, this time tomorrow I will be waiting at the airport to depart for my new job at the University of Hong Kong.

Lastly, it's a boy! We expect to welcome the newest Lykins to the family October 10. Ashley is now outnumbered 3 to 1. Please address your condolences directly to her.

Race Report: Mach Tenn Triathlon

First race of the season! First race in a wetsuit! First race on my triathlon bike!

Ah, the excitement surrounding last weekend’s Mach Tenn Triathlon at Andrews Air Force Base in Tullahoma, TN. Mach Tenn is in between sprint and olympic distance, with a 0.6 mile swim, 16 mile bike, and 4 mile run. The short distance allowed me to approach the race as an actual race, rather than a battle of survival in which my only mission is to cross the finish line.

I had my best race to date, setting a personal best in all three events. The swim and bike were really outstanding, as I finished both in the top 20% of my age group. I also improved greatly on the run, though my placement was a bit lower. My pace of 7:17 put me at the 38th percentile in my age group.
Here’s a breakdown of my progression up the age-group ranks (M 25-29) over the last twenty months:

Music City Triathlon, September 2007: Finish time (83%), Swim (100%), Bike (76%), Run (76%).

Rocketman Triathlon, August 2008: Finish time (58%), Swim (92%), Bike (58%), Run (50%).

Music City Triathlon, September 2008: Finish time (31%), Swim (cancelled), Bike (37%), Run (31%).

Mach Tenn Triathlon, June 2009: Finish time (19%), Swim (19%), Bike (19%), Run (38%).

Granted, the competition at these races may be uneven. I suspect that Mach Tenn had a somewhat weaker field than Music City. However, rankings aside, my pace times are improving more rapidly than they ought given my sporadic training regimen.

Lessons learned:

1. My swim training is paying off huge. Those investments were multiplied by the fact that I wore a wetsuit for the first time.

2. That said, I could have probably shaved another minute off my swim if I had known how fast I’d go. I wasted a lot of time maneuvering around slower swimmers.

3. The investment in a dedicated tri-bike was a big help, but I’m suspicious about the value of additional investments, such as wheels, helmets, etc. I think that sort of stuff is left to people who are just shy of reaching the podium and need a small boost to get there. Not that I wouldn’t love some new Zipps…

Also, I should mention the overall race experience. The course is great. The swim was well-marked for easy sighting. The bike course had very little traffic and few turns. The run was challenging, but not so much that one wanted to curse the race director.

Mach Tenn is decidedly low budget, with one of the lowest entry fees around. There isn't much swag. They give a free technical t-shirt, but it's not the most attractive race shirt I've seen. They nail it on the important details--plenty of hydration, road markers, volunteers, and after-race food and beverage (alcoholic and otherwise). I particularly liked the black eyed peas. If I were in Nashville next year, I would definately race this course again.

Brooks Bombs Again

David Brooks gives Obama the old reductio ad nazium. I might bookmark this article to use as an example should I get to teach an introductory logic course.

This follows his much discussed (see here and here, for example) misreadering of Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zones. I think Brooks must be in some sort of slump...

My First Bike Crash

I sort of expected this to happen. The roads were wet. Portions of the greenways were flooded. Torrential downpours visited us sporadically. I neglected to put my better tires on the bike. I had just received a cautionary tale, as a friend of mine (and much more experienced cyclist) had a horrible crash a couple of week before, trashing his Cervelo P3 and putting him in the hospital.

All of these had given me cause for caution. I left my tri-bike at home, opting for the more stable geometry of my road bike. I took the descents slow. About forty miles into the ride, I approached a right-hand turn on a mild descent in Shelby Bottoms. I couldn’t have been going more than 15 mph. As I leaned in, I felt the rear wheel start to slide out from under me. I shouted something inane, like “Wheel!” I tried to unclip and get a foot down, but I was too late. The rear wheel slid all the way around and I began to slide down the hill on my right side, feet forward. After skidding to a stop, I jumped up immediately to survey things. To my annoyance, both shifters on the bike were damaged, as were both derailleurs. I found myself wishing I could have crashed on the left side so as to save the drive train. I got around to checking myself over. To my amazement my clothes were untorn. The skin underneath my clothes was not as lucky. My right hip was scraped and bruised. It grew a welt the size of a baseball. My chin was bloodied, as were my knees and shoulders. My shins were also a little bruised.

Which is all to say I got away with mild road rash, bruises, and some damaged components. As far as bike crashes go, this may warrant a reference to old Dr. Pangloss—it isn’t the perfect crash, but it may be the best of all possible crashes. After hearing about the crashes on the Giro—broken vertebrae, colar bones, shattered bikes, etc.—I harbor no complaints. The fact that the crash happened was my fault. But the fact that it wasn’t worse is also to my credit. I wasn’t so dumb as to try to hit the turn at normal speed.

Lessons learned:

1. It doesn’t take much to lose a wheel. I took the turn pretty slowly, sliding out at 10-15 mph instead of 20-25 mph. Had I been going any faster, the bike and I would have been much worse off. I can’t imagine crashing any faster than that.

2. Shaving might make sense. It’s pretty tough to dig little bits of asphalt out from furry legs. That said, I’ve heard enough humorous stories about shaving to convince me that this is a lose-lose scenario.

3. Gloves are important. My hands are unscratched. Without gloves, they would have been a bloody mess.

4. Don’t use the same rear tire on your bike trainer and for riding on wet roads. I wonder if my tire would have tracked better had it not been worn down a bit by my trainer.

5. If you have the option, ride your less expensive bike when you’re in dangerous conditions. It is some consolation that my somewhat more expensive tri-bike was sitting safely at home.

6. All the usual safety stuff applies—wear a helmet, carry a cell phone, et cetera. My riding partner helped me bend the derailleur back into shape enough for me to ride the five miles back to my house, but had the wreck been worse, we would have needed to call in some assistance.

Race Report: Country Music Marathon

Most endurance athletes taper before a major race. Somewhere between one to three weeks prior to the big day, they start scaling back their workouts to make sure there that they are in peek condition for race day.

I began the taper for my first marathon about eight weeks before race day, running roughly thirty miles per month for March and April. What I am actually saying is—I completely fell off the wagon. It was a perfect storm of dissertations, conference work, travel, family, and so forth. Even when I had the time to work out, I didn’t have the motivation. My mind was on other things. (Of course, it is often the case that when the more you need exercise the less motivated you are to actually do it.)

I did a couple of short runs the week leading up to the race. Last year I did the half-marathon at about 1:45:00, or an 8:00 minute per mile pace. I figured that despite my recent slacking, I was still in slightly better shape than last year. Thus, it shouldn’t be too difficult to maintain a slower 9:09 pace for a full marathon, finishing just under 4:00:00.

At mile twelve, I felt strong. It seemed that I could hold this pace forever. By mile fourteen, my heart rate spiked to 194, which I am pretty sure is my maximum. The hills on the first eight miles, plus the unusually high temperatures, plus my undertrained legs and lungs, finally got to me. I had to slow down and watch the pacer pull away from me.

Once my heart rate settled back into the 160s, I started feeling better. I alternated running and walking for the last half of the race. My finishing time was roughly 4:31:00, about a half hour over my initial goal.

Despite whatever troubles I had on the course, or perhaps because of them, this was by far the most fun I’ve ever had in a race. The organizers did a phenomenal job of keeping everyone full of fluid, calories, and salt. There were cool-down stations throughout the course, along with dozens of medical tents. I never felt dehydrated, bloated, cramped, or overheated. And once it was clear that I was going to miss my target time, I relaxed and just started enjoying the experience.

Though valuable in itself, the race was also a great diagnostic tool for my ironman training. I feel much more motivated to put in some long hours. I’m also a little less worried about how my stomach will handle thousands of calories of sports drink and gu packs. And finally, I’m more confident that even if things get really bad, I’ll be able to inch forward until I cross the finish line.

Peabody is #1

The U.S. World News Rankings claims Peabody is the best school in the nation. As far as individual programs are concerned, administration comes in at #1 as well, while policy clocks in at #5.

As I've written before, the methodology of these rankings is deeply flawed. But I don't object to the conclusion. Peabody is an amazing place to study and work.

Conference Report: AERA 2009 and UCEA Clark Seminar

Another AERA come and gone. I was a very good conference attendee this time; my session stamina was unusually strong, plus there were a number of panels directly related to my dissertation topics.

My favorite session was an exchange between Michael Feurer, executive director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education in the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, and Richard Shavelson, professor of education and psychology (by courtesy) at Stanford University. The two went back and forth about the relationship between research and policy. They seemed to be largely in agreement that policymakers have, at best, a technical advisory role in public policy formation. On both of there views, policy makers cannot pass judgment on which policies are better or best, as these are ethical judgments. On Feurer's view especially, such judgments are beyond the expertise of researches.

What seems to undergird both thinkers positions is a commitment to ethical noncognitivism--the belief that ethical judgments have no significant cognitive content and are thus beyond the scope of rational debate--that is, debate which uses evidence or reason. This is a fairly common position, even in professional philosophy (for instance, given Michael Katz's objections to a paper I gave last Tuesday, it is a position he at least partially endorses). But I don't think that it is defensible. In my dissertation in philosophy, I argue that the fact/value distinction is not only philosophically problematic, but that it creates confusions for other critical debates about the relationship between the public and private, experts and lay people, and human nature and human conduct.

Of course this argument is too long for a blog post. The exchange between Feurer and Shavelson was fantastic, both for the helpful insights they provided as well as for the evidence it provided of a need for a richer dialogue between philosophy and social science.

I spent the final two days of the conference as a fellow at the UCEA David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar. I conferene quite a bit, and I have never witnessed anything like this. I wish every professional organization would adopt the UCEA model of mentoring young scholars. The faculty had read our abstracts and each seemed genuinely excited to talk with us about our careers. I highly recommend the experience to anyone who is nearing dissertation stage.

Job Search

I've gone quiet again for the last couple of weeks, mainly to keep from prematurely blurting out the big news. I have accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. My primary teaching responsibilities will be in philosophy of education, education policy, and comparative education.

This is really the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I couldn't have written myself a job description better suited to my research and teaching interests.

HKU has an active triathlon club, and the demographics seem to tilt a bit more senior than the VU club. This could be great, as the scheduling might be better suited toward my lifestyle.

Ashley is actively searching for jobs. She has made several contacts in the last week, so we expect more good things in the near future.