11 February 2004

Correlation does not imply causation (but...)


The building my department is located in has three floors. Chemistry occupies the top floor, and Biology takes the bottom two. My colleague, Scott Gunn, recently moved his office space from the second floor to the first. On his way out today, he commented, "It's a ghost town down on the first floor after 2 pm." Not like that on the second floor; people are hanging around considerably later. Intrigued by this, I felt compelled to point out an interesting correlation between activity levels and the faculty occupying those spaces.

Number of teure-track faculty on second floor: five.

Number of tenure-track faculty on first floor: zero.

Make of that what you will.

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