Author: Nayara Faria

Extra Post 2: Virginia Tech and First Generation Students


Virginia Tech has a student club to support first gen, known as 1st Generation at Virginia Tech (1G@VT) (https://gobblerconnect.vt.edu/organization/1stGenVT). The group was founded in January 2007 by Sarah Umbarger-Wells, assistant director for the Virginia Tech Talent Search Program. The organization is dedicated to help first generation students to navigate and overcome challenges during college. They are committed to offer opportunities, services, and resources that unlock the vast potential first-gen students. In simple terms, the group acts as a support system, providing knowledge, emotional support and resources that the family cannot provide to the student. According to Khaila Ellis, a senior food science major and fellow committee member in the organization, this was an important step to promote inclusion in college. She argues that when first generation students get to college, they usually do not know what resources are offered to them, and therefore, they might feel that they are left behind and in disadvantage when compared to other students (First-generation students find connections, 2018). 

Resultado de imagem para first generation studentsThinking about the importance of engaging and supporting first generation students, the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE) declared that November 08 as the First-Generation Celebration Day at Virginia Tech. Also, on May of this year, electrical engineering alumnus Joe T (class of 62) and his family donated to the college of engineering $5 million to support first gen students. The goal of the May Family Foundation is to establish a multiyear program that aims to increase the number of first-generation students in Virginia who enroll at and graduate from Virginia Tech in engineering ( Corder, 2018). According to VT News, the May Family Foundation Pathway for 1st-Generation Students will begin this year with the selection of 60 first-generation students from Virginia. These students will spend two weeks in Blacksburg the summer after their freshman year of high school, where they will have hands-on experiences with engineering disciplines. Later that year, the same group of students will participate in the RISE (Recruiting Initiative for Student Engineers) Spring Game Event ( Neupane, 2018). Joe T believes it is crucial to support these students throughout their college life, in an interview for the Virginia Tech Engineer magazine he said: “A couple of people in small ways were very helpful in getting me on track and allows me to end up getting an engineering degree from Virginia Tech, so I need to give back” ( Corder, 2018). 


Sources:
  • First-generation students find connections. (2018, November 15). Retrieved from Virginia Tech Daily: https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2018/11/students-first-generation.html
  • Corder, E. (2018, Fall). Gift creates a pathway for first generation engineering students. Retrieved from Virginia Tech Engineer: https://eng.vt.edu/magazine/stories/fall-2018/joe-may-gift.html
  • Neupane, S. (2018, May 4). Collegiate Times. Retrieved from $5 million gift to establish program for first-generation students at Virginia Tech: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/news/million-gift-to-establish-program-for-first-generation-students-at/article_6f215104-4fe5-11e8-9040-2b3cc613f6b1.html






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Extra Post 1: UW and WSU support system for student athletes


Have you ever stopped to think what your college/university is currently doing to not only encourage people to pursue studies but encourage their students to maintain and persevere through their studies once they’re in? Have you ever considered your institution’s dropout rate? Many students do not finish their degree for a number of reasons. Reasons like insufficient funds, resources, motivation, incentives, and so on. Sure it is important for a university to have thousands of people apply every year for a chance to be admitted into their programs but even more important is for those people to be able to complete their degrees. Who else but former students can continue contributing to a universities’ prestige and reputation? Both University of Washington (UW) and Washington State University (WSU) are doing just that, specifically with their athletes. According to a data collected by the NCAA, UW athletes have an 89% graduation rate. Students tend to pursue sports in college to earn a scholarship so that they may be able to pursue a degree, such is the case for most minority students. This includes black, Hispanic, and women students. NCAA data on student-athlete graduation rates shows that women’s sports have a 90% graduation rate with the exception of bowling. Through the past decade black male and female students have increased their graduation rates by 24% and 15% respectively while Hispanic athletes have gone up by 21% overall. WSU doesn’t stay behind either achieving an athlete graduation rate of 81%. How is it that these two institutions operate to achieve these results? Simply put they encourage their athletes to do their best both on the field and in their classrooms. UW encourages their athletes to work hard on their courses as they help them along through any struggles they may have. UW offers tutoring, academic and career advising, psychological counseling and closely monitor their progress throughout their degree. By extending a hand, UW has successfully incremented their athlete’s graduation rates for the past decade. But why stop there? Earning a degree is both a challenge and a difficult tasks altogether, while the resources may be their some students lack the proper guide not only to use them but to have access to them. It’s true that both UW and WSU have done a good deed towards their athletes, but what about the rest of the students? Surely the same as well as different services are being offered to their students to help and guide them through their journey towards earning their degree. What about your college? Are you aware of any incentive or service your college currently provides their students to help them earn their degree? Do you have a different idea or approach that your college can take towards achieving this goal? How would you help or encourage your fellow student to earn their degree?


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Blog Post 5: The future of higher education


Today’s reflection is about the future of higher education. Specifically, I want to talk about three topics:

Resultado de imagem para student debtStudent debt/finances: According to the Federal Reserve, since 2004 student debt in the United States has more than tripled and it reached about $1.52 trillion in the first quarter of 2018.  Laura W. Perna University of Pennsylvania professor says: “We’ve come to a place where most students have to borrow in order to pay the cost of completing a bachelor’s degree”. In fact, it is estimated that about 44 million graduates hold student debt, and today’s graduates leave school holding promissory notes worth an average of $37,000. Therefore, there is evidence that many young adults after leaving college have to delay important steps in their life, such as buy a house, get married, have children and make a retirement plan. What do you think about it?


PhDs and postdocs: Currently, US produces more PhDs than openings for faculty or research position. In fact, there are too many PhD students for too few academic jobs. On the top of that, researchers feel the institutional pressure of producing over the actual and normal capacity on any laboratory for quality and relevant work. In this way, they bring postdocs to help them with their nth project. This is a crazy system: for each thousand papers published, how many do you think represent a transformative/impactful work? One or two? What can we do to stop this vicious cycle?


Resultado de imagem para open accessOpen Access: In the recent years, more and more have been talked about open access. In September of 2018, the European Union announced the Plan S, an initiative for Open Access publishing. This plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funders. The plan requires that, from 2020, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. This initiative has the potential of changing the face of science publishing in two years and therefore, it has provoked protest from publishers. Supporters from the movement say that “No science should be locked behind paywalls!”. What do you think about it? Should science be open for all? But, do you believe the general population is able of understanding the language used in formal papers? Will academics have to change language for open access? Do researchers have the funds to pay for the publication of their work? What is US doing to follow the trend started in Europe?

Let me know what you think about these topics!


References
  • http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/student-loan-debt-crisis/
  • https://qz.com/1367412/1-5-trillion-of-us-student-loan-debt-has-transformed-the-american-dream/
  • https://www.coalition-s.org/








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Blog Post 4: Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management


The Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (JIEM) is an European open access journal that aims to publish researches related to the understanding of industrial management and industrial engineering problems in organizations from four major perspectives:

(1)Production Planning/Scheduling/Inventory, 
(2) Logistics/Supply Chain, Quality Management, 
(3) Operations Management and
(4)Operational Research.

The main areas of interest of the journal include:
  • Supply Chain
  • Lean manufacturing
  • Operations improvement
  • Innovation management in operations 
  • Operations in service industry
  • Operational Research
  • Total Quality Management
  • Total Productive Maintenance
  • How to manage workforce in operations
  • Logistic in general
JIEM publishes three regular issues a year and authors must pay a fee of 295 euros per article accepted. According to the Journal's open access policy, research should be "freely available to the public and supports a greater global exchange of knowledge" and thus, all its content is immediate available and open to the public. JIEM adopts a new model of Dynamic Journal Issue in which authors do not need to wait a long time for publication as traditional publication systems. In this model, the journal is always open to new contributions and therefore, it accelerates accelerates the impact of authors' contribution and also brings the possibility of referencing the article in future research as soon as it is accepted by our reviewers and editors.

If you are from the Industrial Engineering field, access:

http://www.jiem.org/index.php/jiem
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Blog Post 3: MIT invests in Artificial Intelligence for Educational Purposes


MIT has decided to invest $1 billion to address the challenges brought by the prevalence of computing and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Within this, $350 million will go to the foundation of MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, named after the CEO and co-founder of Blackstone. This new branch of MIT will serve as the center for interdisciplinary work in computer science, AI, data science, and related fields seeking to establish its position as a key entity within these fields. This act from MIT records the largest investment that an American educational institution in AI as well as the biggest change to MIT since the 1950s. The college is currently scheduled to open its doors on September 2019 but a new building, specifically for these fields, is scheduled to be built by 2022. MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing will create 50 new faculty positions as well bring a new deanship for the college itself. 

I believe that MIT has made this investment not only to establish position at the very top but to bring new minds together to propel these fields towards the future at a faster rate. The college will develop a new curricula that connects computer science and AI with other disciplines and you can expect new innovative technologies to come with this new college to support its courses and research. MIT is without a doubt planning on creating a new legacy within its computing discipline. They have proved once again its commitment to enhance education in technological disciplines, make it accessible to those who wish to pursue it and advance our society through its numerous researches. MIT as always been ever present within the top engineering colleges in the United States and with this moves they have guaranteed their spot for decades to come.


Source: http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-reshapes-itself-stephen-schwarzman-college-of-computing-1015

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Blog Post 2 – Review of Sudbo, Jon

Ethics can be understood as a branch of philosophy that deals with the systematization, definition and recommendation of concepts of wrong and right that guide the human behavior to a better life in society. In general terms, if a person believes that a specific behavior is morally wrong, then it would be irrational for that person to do it. Ethic principles dictates our perception of moral that dictates how we act and live in society.


Jon Sudbo
Source: https://alchetron.com/Jon-Sudb%C3%B8
This week we have been reflecting upon ethics in research and therefore, I reviewed the Office of Research Integrity (“ORI”) of the US Department of Health and Human Services case against Jon Sudbo, D.D.S., Norwegian Radium Hospital. Jon Sudbo was a Norwegian dentist, physician and former medical researcher that was involved in a scientific fraud in 2006. 



In summary, Sudbo was found guilty of falsifying and fabricating research data in the field of oncology that allowed him to publish in several well known medical journals at the time. Sudbo plead guilty of fabricating and/or falsifying data for only three publications. However, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) and its Investigation Commission, concluded at least twelve other publications could not be considered valid by the same reasons. 

As this scandal came to light, in 2006 Sudbo was forced to resign his positions as associate professor at University of Oslo and Consultant oncologist at the Radium Hospital in Oslo. Additionally, his licenses to practice dentistry and medicine were revoked in the same year. Lastly, an investigation conducted by the University of Oslo found that Sudbo's doctoral dissertation was also based on fraudulent data and therefore, his doctorate in medicine was revoked by the institution in 2006. According to Wikipedia, Jon Sudbo is currently working as an assistant dentist in Seljord, Telemark.

Jon Sudbo's actions changed his career path forever. He went from a brilliant scientist to a well-known fraud with no credibility in the research world. Google can prove this to you! Just google his name. 



Even though Sudbo had several punishments he was not given any jail time. His research was in the oncology field and I feel that fake outcomes in this field can dangerously harm people's lives and even cause death. Therefore , why was he not considered a criminal? Do you believe he should be treated as a criminal?  Even though he does not conduct any type of research nowadays, he still allowed to work as an assistant in the field. Do you believe he should be allowed to practice within the field? Do you feel his punishments were adequate to his actions? Let me know in the comments! 

If you are interested in reading Jon Sudbo's case or other cases of research misconduct, access the Office of Research Integrity website.


Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
https://ori.hhs.gov/case-summary-sudbo-jon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sudb%C3%B8






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Blog Post 1: Mission Statements


For this assignment I decided to analyze two mission statements from Colleges in US: One located in Puerto Rico and the other located in US Mainland. Both universities are research type of college. 

Puerto Rico is an American territory located in the Caribbean. Because of its history, Puerto Rico has one of the richest cultural, historical and artistic heritage of all periods. Without doubts, Puerto Rican population and territory have several unique characteristics that distinguish their culture from any other in the American territory. By analyzing the mission statement from the best college in the island (University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez - UPRM), it is impressive how culture leads its values and actions. Even though Puerto Rican population are born as American citizens, they consider the island as a country, and therefore they are very proud and committed to the development of their nation. This is visible in the UPRM Mission Statement that says: Our alumni should have the necessary skills and knowledge to participate effectively in the search for solutions to the problems facing us, to promote the enrichment of the arts and culture (...) They should be able to contribute in an efficient manner to the cultural, social, and economic development of the Puerto Rican and international community.

On the other side, Virginia Tech (VT)  is a college located in US Mainland in the State of Viginia. Even though VT mission statement talks about serving  the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community, culture is not the center of its mission and they focus more on discovery and dissemination of new knowledge. 

Below, you can read in full the mission statement of both colleges:

University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez

Within the philosophical framework established by the University of Puerto Rico Act, the Mayagüez campus directs its efforts towards the development of educated, cultured citizens, capable of critical thinking, and professionally qualified in the fields of agricultural, social, and natural sciences, engineering, humanities and business administration. They should be able to contribute in an efficient manner to the cultural, social, and economic development of the Puerto Rican and international community.
This process is aimed at endowing our alumni with a strong technical and professional background and to instill a strong commitment to Puerto Rico and our hemisphere. Our alumni should have the necessary skills and knowledge to participate effectively in the search for solutions to the problems facing us, to promote the enrichment of the arts and culture, the development and transfer of technology as well as to uphold the essential attitudes and values of a democratic society.


Virginia Tech

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) is a public land-grant university serving the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community. The discovery and dissemination of new knowledge are central to its mission. Through its focus on teaching and learning, research and discovery, and outreach and engagement, the university creates, conveys, and applies knowledge to expand personal growth and opportunity, advance social and community development, foster economic competitiveness, and improve the quality of life.




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