Friday Fragments, March 26th
Requiring student vaccinations, peer tutoring, promotion/tenure advice, and negentropy.
What I’m reading…
Look to fall, Rutgers is (I believe) the first to announce that all students will be required to be vaccinated before coming to campus.
Here’s a thoughtful piece about peer tutoring, from the perspective of a professional tutor. He notes the benefits of having someone to look up to but who is not too far removed, and who has content knowledge but also study skills and academic navigation skills to share.
I thought this was a nicely organized and concrete list of advice for success as a higher education faculty member: Mic-Drop Advice for Getting Promoted and Tenured. I appreciated that in addition to teaching, service, and research, the author offered a fourth element: family care-taking.
Negentropy, or negative entropy, is the idea of thinking about where energy loss happens and taking steps to counteract those losses.
Our work suggests that when people keep the idea of negentropy in mind and take actions that limit or reverse energy loss, social systems are more efficient and effective. This might even make it easier for people to achieve larger goals. In other words, yes, you should pick up that sock, and yes, you should improve your meetings, and doing so may allow you to see other ways to avoid future energy losses…Seeing things through a negentropic lens won't solve a bad relationship or help you love a job you hate—those are complicated issues. However, if you begin to notice where energy is lost in your life, it will be easier to prioritize and act in ways that can improve the social systems around you.
I’m not at all a physics expert, but I found this article very layperson (and student!) friendly.