Third time is not the charm

Rejected by the NSF again. This is the third time we've submitted a proposal to the Research Experience for Undergraduates Sites program. It seems like every time we make revisions, the reviews come back no better or maybe even worse.

Other lousy news: Our department was vandalized over the weekend. Only one room so far, the downstairs student lounge, but yeesh.

Ah well. Time to work on a manuscript instead of a proposal. We have a pause in lectures, anyway, that gives me a little time to do such. We have arrived at that peculiarly American phenomenon known as "spring break."

Some things I've been looking at. I just discovered the Creating Passionate Users blog and love it. I particularly like the recent posts on How to be an expert and how Dignity is deadly. Also Guy Kawasaki's blog, which I was led to by his excellent talk on innovation. Although it is geared at businesses, I think there's a lot for academics to take away from it. For instance, Guy talks about the idiocy and generic nature of mission statements. Most universities have mission statements. Heck, I was asked to write one for our graduate program. But I think he's on the mark with his alternative, which is to make a three to four word mantra instead of a mission statement. My mantra as the grad coordinator in my department is, "Springboard students' careers."