9/19 Links from the Editor

Haven’t posted anything for a bit, so I’ve had a lot of time to accumulate interesting stories and articles. Here we go!

Study: Male Scientists Want to Be Involved Dads, but Few Are – As a male who eventually wants to be a father possibly in academia, this is a problem. There’s a lot of talk about how women often get screwed out of academia by family issues, and the opposite seems to be true for men. While it’s probably not a finishing solution, a little equality on both sides of the sex divide would probably be very helpful towards fixing some of the issues that arise when academics have families.

After Ferguson, Some Black Academics Wonder: Does Pursuing a Ph.D. Really Matter? – This is ridiculously sad on so many levels for me. Obviously, I personally have no idea what it’s like to be in the shoes of these men and women (turns out my skin color gives me the privilege to not have to worry about things like this in my everyday life), and it really bothers me that things are so damn unfair. As if it wasn’t already hard enough for people who don’t share my skin color in this country?

Too Few University Jobs for America’s Young Scientists – If you’re an aspiring academic, or perhaps an academic in charge of advising some of those up-and-comers, this is something you should know about, and speak about openly. In astronomy, a majority of us end up in non-academic positions, but it’s not a discussion you hear too often. My personal department happens to be very good about this, but not all of them are.

The Stressed-Out Postdoc – Mental health is another one of those issues that is little discussed, yet fairly prominent, in academia. Early academic careers are stressful as all hell. In fact, academic careers as a whole can be rather stressful. Many academics also have to deal with depression, anxiety, impostor syndrome, and so forth on top of everything else. The more we become aware of these issues, the better job we can do at fixing, or at least working to alleviate, them.