• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

Scholarship Winners

volatile

Scholar and a Gentleman
volatile
Joined
Aug 19, 2006
Messages
6,729
Do the scholarship winners as announced today post here? As a PhD student in a related field, I'd love to chat to Robin Zebrowski, particularly, but I'm sure we'd all like to talk to all the recipients about their work.

Congratulations to you all, and I for one am looking forward to seeing your careers flourish!
 
Hello! I've been reading the forums here for years, but I don't post. I can't be trusted to get any work at all done if I get too involved in a forum like this :) So I've traditionally just lurked.

Thanks for the well-wishes, and I'd be happy to chat with you! (You may want to email me instead of trusting me to keep up with threads here, though!) My email is robinz (at) gmail (dot) com

(By the way, I love your signature quote!)
 
I read the forums on occasion; like Robin I'm afraid that doing much more will detract time away from the PhD, which sometimes has to compete for my attention anyway.

Matthew
 
*is that silence I hear?*
1 post for each and poof...they dissapear.

Regards,
Yair
 
yairhol said:
*is that silence I hear?*
1 post for each and poof...they dissapear.

Regards,
Yair
Click to expand...

Personally, I think the scholarship program needs an overhaul. What is the money really contributing to? I'm happy for those who won it, but how is it advancing the communication of critical thinking in the long run?

Athon
 
Athon, did you know that "Athon" in hebrew is the female of the donkey?
I think it's called a mare.

Regards,
Yair
 
I wrote Randi about one of the scholarshiip winners that was interested in nanotechnology. Didn't do much more than give her my email address so that I can possibly put her in touch with our new (evil) nanotech overlords*.


motto: we're coming to get you...but you'll never see us!!!!
 
Well, I don't know about the others but I'm busy at work on my PhD.

Athon: As to the overhaul... It's a bit early to suggest that, isn't it? Our scholarships are new and shiny and we're the first to be awarded them. You also shouldn't be expecting instant results; critical thinking is a considered, long term strategy. My thesis shan't be complete for a while but I was awarded a scholarship on the basis that when it is complete it will advance the cause of critical thinking, in this case in respect the sub-species of explanations known as Conspiracy Theories. I'm likely to publish before then, but probably in academic journals first (I do have a forthcoming article in 'The Skeptic,' but that is not related to my Conspiracy Theory analysis).

Also, most of us (recipients) are engaged in teaching Critical Thinking skills. I teach an undergraduate course in Critical Thinking as well as several adult education courses each year. I get interviewed on a semi-regular basis on issues to do with weird beliefs and so I'm active in advancing critical thinking discourse. Just because I'm not an active poster here doesn't mean I'm not engaging elsewhere.

Matthew
 
HORansome said:
Well, I don't know about the others but I'm busy at work on my PhD.

Athon: As to the overhaul... It's a bit early to suggest that, isn't it? Our scholarships are new and shiny and we're the first to be awarded them. You also shouldn't be expecting instant results; critical thinking is a considered, long term strategy. My thesis shan't be complete for a while but I was awarded a scholarship on the basis that when it is complete it will advance the cause of critical thinking, in this case in respect the sub-species of explanations known as Conspiracy Theories.
Click to expand...

Excellent. This is what I wanted to know - thanks Matthew.

There is no information (or, to be more honest, none immediately obvious) being put out by the JREF suggesting why the scholarship winners were successful where others were not. I'm not after immediate results by any means, but I was curious to know whether or not the scholarships were awarded on the grounds that the awardees would use it in a manner which contributed back to skeptical communication.

But you've answered that with regards to yourself, and it definitely sounds like a worthy cause. Good luck, and I hope you come back to share with us what you've learned.

Does anybody know if this is the case with all of the scholarship winners?

Athon
 
Part of the problem is that we were instructed to write our own (short) blurbs; they aren't exactly informative, I will admit.
 
Like the others, I'm pretty bogged down with both dissertation writing and job applications. I'm totally available by email to talk shop, but it's actually dangerous for me to get too involved in forum discussions for the most part - I have an opinion on everything! :)

I, too, teach critical thinking (I'm about to head out to the job market for a professorship, but as a Graduate Student I designed and taught 3 different critical reasoning courses at 4 different universities here in the US.) I actually consider teaching critical thinking to be among the most important aspects of the work that I do. It's *definitely* the most rewarding.

There's nothing quite like watching college students challenge their own belief systems (often for the first time in their lives) and come out the other side stronger and with a new desire to be able to account for those beliefs. Even talking about teaching those courses gets me excited! (I'm not teaching right now, just writing, so I actively miss it!)

Please don't hesitate to contact me via email if anyone wants to talk about this stuff - I'd even be happy to share some of my syllabi for those courses.

I really am immensely thankful for the JREF money - in my case, at least, it's paying some of my tuition while I try to get 250 pages written before June :) The sooner I finish, the sooner I can get back to the business of teaching critical thinking!
 
firepile said:
Like the others, I'm pretty bogged down with both dissertation writing and job applications. I'm totally available by email to talk shop, but it's actually dangerous for me to get too involved in forum discussions for the most part - I have an opinion on everything! :)

I, too, teach critical thinking (I'm about to head out to the job market for a professorship, but as a Graduate Student I designed and taught 3 different critical reasoning courses at 4 different universities here in the US.) I actually consider teaching critical thinking to be among the most important aspects of the work that I do. It's *definitely* the most rewarding.

There's nothing quite like watching college students challenge their own belief systems (often for the first time in their lives) and come out the other side stronger and with a new desire to be able to account for those beliefs. Even talking about teaching those courses gets me excited! (I'm not teaching right now, just writing, so I actively miss it!)

Please don't hesitate to contact me via email if anyone wants to talk about this stuff - I'd even be happy to share some of my syllabi for those courses.

I really am immensely thankful for the JREF money - in my case, at least, it's paying some of my tuition while I try to get 250 pages written before June :) The sooner I finish, the sooner I can get back to the business of teaching critical thinking!
Click to expand...

I'll keep that in mind, Firepile. Thanks.

I wonder how much JREF will promote of your work once you've finished. I'll keep my fingers crossed to see some articles come our way. :)

Athon
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom