Archive for October, 2017

Michigan State University bans whiteboards … say, what?

October 31, 2017

This one gave me a false-positive flashback …

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First, the flashback…

When we moved into our new business school building a decade ago (yeah, it has been that long), I was assigned a new office.

It was at the end of a corridor (as far away from the academic action as they could put me) with a clear view of the building’s commercially-sized air conditioners and the Jesuit graveyard (no kidding).

One complete wall in the office was floor-to-ceiling with book shelves.

Since I only had 6 books (5 of them borrowed), I took out all but the top book shelf (which was suitable for displaying memorabilia) and installed a self-purchased whiteboard (a necessity, right?).

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In short order, I got visit from the Dean.

One of my colleagues had ratted me out for making an unauthorized alteration to my office.

Apparently, my whiteboard had violated some common law community standards.

I got off with a slap on the wrist (remember, Gtown is a Catholic school) … but still have occasional nightmares.

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OK, fast forward to today in Lansing, Michigan where whiteboards are now officially contraband.

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Posted in Political correctness, University policies | 1 Comment »

Girl wins golf tourney … denied trophy.

October 30, 2017

Penalized for being a girl … say, what?

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Let’s go to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for this one.

According to reports, Emily Nash, an 8th grader, won a teen boy’s golf tournament.

As allowed by rules, she entered the tournament as part of her high school’s team (since girl’s don’t play fall golf in her school district).

She shot from the same tees as the boys.

And, she shot 75 … which was 4 strokes better than the 2nd place finisher.

Not bad, right?

 

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But, Emily didn’t get the tourney trophy for best individual performance.

Why? You might ask …

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Posted in Gender equality, inequality, Gender identity, Sports & Athletics | Leave a Comment »

Yum, those burgers looks good …

October 27, 2017

Adding visuals to menus (and reports) creates interest and boosts credibility.

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Studies have shown that adding  icons and photos to restaurant menus increase sales up to 30% for the featured items.

The visuals draw attention to the items … if done well, they stimulate diners’ senses.

OK, we’ve all be menu-enticed … that’s not news.

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But, did you know that simply adding a visual – a graph or chart  or formula — to a report can boost the credibility of a conclusion by 50% or more?

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Posted in Cognitive biases, Visualizations | Leave a Comment »

It’s time to do away with SALT.

October 26, 2017

That is, the State and Local Tax deduction.

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Among the provisions of the GOP’s tax-cutting plan that has drawn intense opposition (mostly from Democrats) is the elimination of state and local tax (SALT) deductions for folks who itemize their deductions (versus taking the standard deduction).

All else equal, eliminating the SALT deduction would income taxes paid to the federal government by about $180 billion each year … providing some wiggle room for cutting income taxes in other ways.

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So, why the uproar? Who gets hurt if the SALT deduction is eliminated?

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Posted in Income Taxes, Tax deductions, Tax reform | 1 Comment »

WaPo: Proof of collusion with the Russians!

October 25, 2017

But, it was the Clinton campaign and DNC … not Trumpsters.

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In case your eyes were glued to the World Series (which the Dodgers won 3 to 1) …

Last night, the Washington Post – hardly a  right-wing conspirator – published an exclusive report (that has now been verified by several news sources) that provides evidence tying the Clinton campaign and the DNC to Russians.

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Here’s the story in a nutshell …

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Posted in Clinton, Hillary, Russia - Russians, Trump, Donald | 1 Comment »

Gates, Zuckerberg … and the limits on educational philanthropy.

October 24, 2017

Both threw much money at education with disappointing results.

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Two related reports hit over the weekend.

The first announced that the Gates Foundation would spend more than $1.7 billion over the next five years to pay for new initiatives in K-12 public education. The plan is a “redirection” of prior initiatives. More on that later.

As the Washington Post observed, Gates’ prior mega-contributions to improve K-12 education “didn’t go so well, but the man, if anything, is persistent.”

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The second story dealt with Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation to improving Newark NJ’s schools. A report was released indicating disappointing results. More on that later, too.

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I commend both Gates and Zuckerberg for throwing a massive amount of money at improving education. Their intentions seem good and the amounts of money are, as we say in academia, statistically significant.

That said, what’s going on?

 

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Posted in Education - Academics, Gates - Gates Foundation | 1 Comment »

Frat boys party more, study less and earn more … say, what?

October 23, 2017

Fraternities get a lot of press.

You know: Heavy drinking, hazing tragedies and pure goofiness.

Why would anybody want their sons to join one?

Well, a couple of economists at Union College did a study that makes joining a fraternity look like a very rational decision.

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Here’s the scoop …

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Posted in Education - Academics, Fraternities - sororities | Leave a Comment »

Words really do matter … especially in a kid’s early years.

October 20, 2017

Interesting study reported in The Atlantic …

A pair of psychologists – Betty Hart and Todd Risley –  got curious about why some 3 and 4 year old kids are more academically ready than others.

“They devised a novel (and exhaustive) methodology: for more than three years, they sampled the actual words spoken to young children from 42 families at 3 different socioeconomic levels: (1) welfare homes, (2) working-class homes, and (3) professionals’ homes. Then they tallied the quantity and quality of the words spoken to the kids. “

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The results were – in the words of the researchers – “astounding”…

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Posted in Early learning, Education - Academics | 1 Comment »

As if forgetting stuff wasn’t bad enough …

October 19, 2017

Study: Half of people “remember” events that never happened

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According to a recent study, once a person hears that a fictional event happened, there’s a 50/50 chance that they will believe that it took place and start to embellish it with details, even if the imaginary event is of a personal nature.

For example, researchers “primed” subjects with fake (but relatively harmless) memories, such as taking a childhood hot-air balloon ride or pulling a prank on a friend.

Researchers intimated that the imaginary events  were real.

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And, the result …

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Posted in Fake news, Memory, News sources, Psychological Traps | Leave a Comment »

Odds: I bet you’re a Democrat …

October 18, 2017

… if your parents were Democrats.

And, I bet if your parents were Republicans, then you’re a Republican.

According to Smithsonian.com …

“The party affiliation of someone’s parents can predict the child’s political leanings about around 70 percent of the time.”

That’s pretty good, but “new research suggests ideological differences between partisans may reflect distinct neural processes.”

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More specifically, researchers say that they can predict who’s right and who’s left of center politically with 82.9 % accuracy.

Here’s the study and its implications …

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Posted in Brain - thinking, Politics, Politics - General | Leave a Comment »

What’s the most common job in the majority of states?

October 17, 2017

Hint #1: 40 years ago, it was “secretary”.

Hint#2: It’s one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S.

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Census data was crunched by NPR analysts.

Don’t squint for the labels … just glance at the states’ color coding and make your guess.

 

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And, the answer is ….

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Posted in Automation - Robots, Careers & Interviewing, Census data | Leave a Comment »

How much does “healthcare” really matter?

October 16, 2017

For a long time I’ve railed that politicos and pundits confuse “healthcare” with “health insurance” – trying to fix health insurance (by throwing money at it) … rather than getting to the efficacy and efficiency roots of healthcare delivery.

Here’s another twist to the story.

I stumbled on a report from the Kaiser Foundation: Beyond Health Care: The Role of Social Determinants.

It’s punch line:

“Though health care is essential to health, research demonstrates that it is a relatively weak health determinant.”

More specifically, Kaiser concludes that healthcare has only about a 10% impact on the risk of premature death … dwarfed by genetics (30%) and individual behavior (40%).

Said differently, health behaviors, such as smoking and diet and exercise, are the most important determinants of premature death

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And, as the title of the article’s title suggest, there’s a social component (20%) that’s double the impact of healthcare per se …

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Posted in Health Care / Medical Insurance, Healthcare Economics | 1 Comment »

Fun fact: another apparent partisan divide …

October 13, 2017

Yesterday, we posted a Pew survey finding:

“Each party has become more ideologically homogeneous, and more hostile toward the opinions of members of the other party.”

Oh, my.

On a slightly lighter side, the nation is even divided on housing preferences:

“Overall, Americans are equally divided between wanting to live in a community with larger houses farther apart, where schools, shops and restaurants are not nearby (48%), and those who want to live in smaller houses closer together but within walking distance to schools and shops (47%).”

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Now, one might expect that housing preferences wouldn’t be a political flashpoint, right?

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Posted in Polls & Surveys, Urban, Urban - rural | Leave a Comment »

Pew: Even more divided now … moderates need not apply.

October 12, 2017

It’s no great secret that America is increasingly polarized politically.

For a revealing animated infographic, see America’s political polarization in 3 charts …

According to Pew surveys: (1) there was a political divide in the Clinton years, but also a sizeable overlapping middle (2) there was a slight convergence to the middle in the post 9-11 Bush years, and (3) there was a widening divide and shrinking middle during the Obama years.

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Fast forward to today.

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Posted in Political polarization, Polls & Surveys | Leave a Comment »

College: Making Freshman year (almost) free …

October 11, 2017

Let more students earn AP credits by putting “boilerplate” courses online and beefing-up certification testing.

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A article posted on Real Clear Politics caught my eye.

The author Steven Klinsky, is credentialed as a businessman and education reformer, chairman of Harvard’s Public Education Policy Group and founder of the Modern States Education Alliance (MSEA).

He observes that (1) traditional brick & mortar colleges are increasingly unaffordable, (2) that “the tuition cost for many online courses has been set every bit as high (or sometimes higher!) than for the same course delivered in the physical classroom” and (3) that increasingly popular MOOCs can deliver quality content but no college credits—just “certificates of completion”.

So, as a private citizen and philanthropist, Mr. Klinsky has been trying to “square the circle” with MSEA’s “Freshman Year for Free” program.

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How does Klinsky and MSEA plan to do it?

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Posted in AP - CLEP Exams, Education - Academics | Leave a Comment »

What do Americans fear the most?

October 10, 2017

The answer may surprise you …

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Chapman University does an annual survey of Americans’ fears

Here’s some quick background ….

The study queries on 11 “Domains of Fear”:

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The study deep dives into specific fears within each domain:

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OK, make your pick from the above list. 

What do Americans fear the most?

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Posted in Fears - phobias, Polls & Surveys | Leave a Comment »

Amazon is cornering another market … MBAs.

October 9, 2017

“Flooding the zone” to land the best & brightest.

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Now that Amazon has staked out territory the grocery business, it’s time for them to move on to another front.

According to the WSJ: “Another Thing Amazon Is Disrupting: Business-School Recruiting”

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Let’s put that in perspective:

In the past year, Amazon has hired some 1,000 newly minted M.B.A.s in the past year

Amazon is now the top MBA recruiter at Carnegie Mellon, Duke and Cal-Berkeley.

It hires the most first-year M.B.A.s at Michigan, MIT, Dartmouth College and Duke.

Last year, Amazon took in more interns from the University of Chicago than either Bain or McKinsey & Co., which were until recently the school’s top hirers of interns.

 

How do they do it?

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Posted in Amazon, Employment - Jobs, MBAs | Leave a Comment »

Score higher on the SATs … GUARANTEED!

October 6, 2017

Just make sure that your parents went to college.

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The College Board publishes a “Total Group Profile Report” on college-bound seniors …

One set of numbers caught my eye:

SAT scores by the student’s parents level of educational attainment.

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Note that about 2/3’s of the college-bound seniors taking the SAT came from homes with a degreed parent – either associate, bachelor or graduate.

Only about 1/3 came from homes with parents having only a high school education or less.

And, the performance differentials are substantial between the groups …

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Posted in Education - Academics, Family & Friends, Homa, Ken, SAT - tests | Leave a Comment »

Some “interesting” SAT results …

October 5, 2017

The College Board publishes a “Total Group Profile Report” college-bound seniors.

A couple of sets of numbers caught my eye ….

Let’s start with math scores/

Two big takeaways:

(1) The gap between boys and girls narrowed from the 40 point difference in the 1970s to about 25 points … but has remained fairly constant at that level for about the past 20 years

(2) Scores for both boys and girls have been falling for the past dozen years or so.

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OK, boys outscore girls in math, but girls do better on the verbal part of the SATs, right?

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Posted in Education - Academics, SAT - tests | Leave a Comment »

Are you addicted to, err, cookies?

October 4, 2017

Sounds like a “dog ate homework” excuse, but you may eat too many cookies – not because you’re a fundamentally bad person – but, because you’re addicted to them andmay want to enroll in Cookies Anonymous.

In some ground-breaking research to be present at a Society for Neuroscience conference next month,  a Connecticut College study concluded that Oreos are just as addictive as drugs.

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Here’s the skinny on the research findings …

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Posted in Academics - Research, Food & Drink, Nutrition, Research | Leave a Comment »

Memo to Michelin: Shove your stars …

October 3, 2017

3-star chef wants out of the rankings

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According to the NY Times …

Sébastien Bras, one of France’s most celebrated chefs, has stunned the French culinary world with an unlikely plea: Take my three Michelin stars away.

Mr. Bras is fed up with the pressure of maintaining those stars. He says he is seeking nothing less than culinary “liberation” and “a new meaning to my life.”

While the stars confer cachet and financial security, Mr. Bras’s audacious move is also reflective of a new generation of chefs, some of whom are eager to escape from the punishing strain of unpredictable rankings and malicious food critics.

“Three stars mean that everything must be perfect, at any time, in every plate. One must be passionate, a genius, but mostly a workaholic, because you have to be working in your restaurant from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day, nonstop.”

There’s also an economic angle …

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Posted in Food & Drink, Stress - pressure | Leave a Comment »

Want a good night’s sleep?

October 2, 2017

Mayo Clinic says Fido can help.

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“Most people assume having pets in the bedroom is a disruption,” says Lois Krahn, a sleep medicine specialist at the Center for Sleep Medicine on Mayo Clinic’s Arizona campus.

To test that pivotal assumption, Dr. Krahn and her team conducted a study on The Effect of Dogs on Human Sleep in the Home Sleep Environment.

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And, the results may surprise you …

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Posted in Dogs & cats, Mayo Clinic, Sleep - Sleep Disorders | 1 Comment »