"Most dangerous" professors: Harvard's not even on the list!

You may have heard about David Horowitz before. He famously made the transition from 60s radical to right-wing attack dog, and now makes his living as an author, columnist, and Web publisher.

His new book, The Professors, describes the 101 "most dangerous academics in America." I've taken a look at the list and was surprised to see that Harvard wasn't even on it! Columbia is the winner, with eight or nine names. Locally, MIT has one, Boston University has one, and Brandeis has two. But Harvard, with its top-heavy concentration of intellectuals running wild in the heart of the People's Repubic of Cambridge, can't even get a single ideologically suspect professor on the list? What is this world coming to?

At least Yale didn't get any ...

A tale of two theses

Just returned from an outing to the Grossman Library, the Extension School library on the third floor of Sever Hall. It's a nice place to read, study, and take notes, and also contains many of the reserve books for Harvard Extension School classes.

But I was there for a different purpose: To review theses by other Extension School students. Every year, a handful of exceptional theses (and proposals) are placed in Grossman for other students to refer to as they plan their own theses (suggestion to the library, or the Extension School: How about putting these theses online as well, so students who don't live in the area can access them?). I am getting ready to draw up an outline for mine, and thought it would helpful to see how others have approached theirs. In certain fields, such as biology, ALM theses have to follow a certain structure, but this is not the case for history.

The two theses I looked at were "Changing Lives of Women in the 1960s: Ladies Home Journal and the Early Women's Movement" by Rachel Ryan (2004), and "China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. and The Nippon Yesen Kaisha: A Company-Level Analysis of China and Japan's Contrasting Expereinces with industrialization from 1870 to World War I," by Stephen McCourt (2001).

Both had very different outlines. Ryan took a minimalist approach. There were only about 70 double-spaced pages, most of them relating historical evidence in three subareas, which provided the foundation that supported the hypothesis. There was very little in the way of analysis, maybe three or four double-spaced pages in all, most of it presented at the end of the paper. It seemed thin to me -- my 22-page proposal has more -- but there is beauty in having a limited scope. The research question and areas of inquiry did not go off on tangents or get tripped up in multiple variables, which I fear will happen with my thesis. Also, while the topic was more suited to qualitative research, the author made a point of citing quantitative evidence where possible, usually from academic surveys or the U.S. census. In the appendix there are about a dozen photocopied advertisements from Ladies Home Journal, which Ryan uses as primary source evidence.

The bibliography for Ryan's thesis was interesting. About 40 or 50 sources were listed, plus another two dozen "works consulted." No journal articles or Internet sites were among them. Additionally, only two or three sources had been published in the five years preceding the publication date of the thesis. There are several explanations for this: There wasn't any recent applicable research owing to the obscurity of the topic; Ryan or her thesis director were unable to locate more recent applicable research; or the author had been working on the thesis for more than five years (this is possible -- I have met an ALM candidate who completed his proposal four or five years ago, and is still searching for a thesis director).

McCourt was far more detailed in his presentation of evidence. The area of study he chose to examine already has a strong body of existing research to draw upon, which McCourt discusses in depth -- Unlike Ryan, who explores only one secondary source in depth.

Additionally, McCourt makes a point of pointing to quantitative evidence from company records and other sources in tables scattered throughout the 200-page thesis. He takes a very structured approach to presenting evidence and analysis, often recapping arguments just made, or what readers can expect in the following chapter. Sometimes this seems like overkill, but on the other hand it lets readers keep track of his hypothesis and the multiple factors he cites throughout his thesis.

McCourt's bibliography is about the same length as Ryan's, except there is no additional "works consulted" section. There is a lack of recent works in his bibliography, maybe three or four published within the previous five years of the thesis publication date. There are no Internet sources. However, he does cite journal articles, something which Ryan did not do.

Summer School 2006 Course Catalogue

The Summer School catalogue is out. You can pick up a copy at 51 Brattle St., or browse online. Summer School courses can count for undergraduate or graduate credit for Extension School degrees.

One special aspect of Summer School classes is that many are only offered during the summer -- there is no Extension School equivalent. This is often because the Harvard professors who teach them don't have time except during the summer, or they are taught by visiting faculty from other universities. Summer School courses are also shorter than regular Extension School courses, although in my experience the instructors try to cram in an entire semester's worth of reading and writing into a two-month period. One of the most challenging classes academically and intellectually I have taken at Harvard was Sally Hadden's History of the Old South in 2003. Sally has a Harvard Ph.D. but teaches at FSU; she comes up to Cambridge every summer to conduct research (her areas of interest are the history of the South and the American Revolution) and teach at the Summer school. She offers two classes this summer: The American Revolution and History of the US Constitution. As much as I'd like to take both, I won't be doing so because they meet during the day and they are outside of my own focus -- modern Chinese history and Chinese media. However, I may take Film and History in Postwar Japan and Post-Mao China. It seems interesting and relevant; the question is whether I will have enough time -- I will probably start writing my thesis within the next few months and should be going full steam ahead during the summer months.

Cost is another concern, too: Summer school classes are $2,200, compared to Extension School's current $1,450 course tuition (graduate credit).

ALM Program: Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

A few months ago another ALM candidate emailed me some questions about quantitative vs. qualitative research at the Extension School. My answers are below:

Q. from the knowledge you've gathered about the thesis process, does the thesis have to be quantitative?

A: No. In fact, almost every government and history proposal I have read or heard about has been qualitative in nature. During my proseminar, the two professors (the Bond brothers, both very serious scholars of quantitative content analysis techniques used to understand current events) asked the class who intended to do a quantitative study for their thesis. Only one person raised her hand. (I didn't, at the time I thought I was [still] going to take the qualitative route).

Later on I found out that historical quantitative studies are rare -- when I did a test run using my quantitative methodology during my class last spring, my professor -- who has been at Harvard for decades -- said he'd never seen something like this. Prof. Ostrowski [the research advisor for government and history concentrators] is very used to getting qualitative proposals; at the thesis discussion sessions almost everyone seems to have plans for a qualitative methodology.

Q. I will have finished six classes by next May and hope to join the thesis discussion group next fall. So far, you've mentioned that 6 people were at the November meeting and all were history concentrators. I was told that the government concentration was the largest one so I'm wondering - are there any govt. students in your thesis group this fall?

A: The makeup of the group changes from session to session. The first one I attended had about half history, half government, and there were about 10 people in all. The last one just had six, only a few of them who I knew from past sessions, and all were history.

Q. Have you applied for 'special student status' to take classes outside Extension? Do you know anyone who has? If so, can you offer any tips on it?

A. When I still worked at Harvard I had the option of taking classes at GSAS without applying for special student status, and almost did (a class on Chinese nationalism) but left my job at Harvard before I had the opportunity to take this class. I don't think I will be able to do it for my remaining classes, because I work during the day in Framingham and most GSAS classes are during the day. I wish I had taken a GSAS or KSG class when I was still there -- there were some great topics that go beyond the offerings of the Extension School.

It's official: Summers resigns, Bok is interim president

Just received this at my FAS account:

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

I write to let you know that, after considerable reflection, I have
notified the Harvard Corporation that I will resign as President of the
University as of June 30, 2006. I will always be grateful for the
opportunity to have served Harvard in this role, and I will treasure the
continuing friendship and support of so many exceptional colleagues and
students at Harvard.

Below are links to my letter to the community, as well as a letter from
the members of the Corporation and a related news release.

Sincerely,

Larry Summers

The message also included links to a Gazette article, the text of a letter to the community, and a letter from Corporation members.

Derek Bok will return as interim president July 1.

Students like Summers. Does it matter?

Apparently some of my sentiments about President Summers are held by many other undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard. This morning's Globe has the story.

Does student opinion matter? Maybe not -- the Wall Street Journal says he is going to resign sometime this week (report and additional commentary from the Crimson).

Helping out the B-list, C-list and Zero League blogs

There's been a lot of talk recently about "A-list bloggers" -- blogs which seem to net a large portion of the blogosphere audience, either in specific niches or across many niches. The talk invariably turns to why it's so hard to break into this group.

A lot of people equate "A-list" bloggers with quality blogs. I think this is a mistake. Many A-list bloggers are undeniably good at what they do (write, opine, report, comment) but others are A-listers by virtue of the number of inbound links they've picked up from other bloggers, and their appearance in others' blogrolls -- which is often the result of how long they've been in the blogosphere, rather than being consistently good quality. Unfortunately, blog search and aggregator/popularity services (like Memeorandum) propel this trend, by giving high rankings to A-list blogs, even if the posts are of questionable quality. A common scenario are A-listers that are pushed to the top of the rankings, even if they just excerpt another blog, or report someone else's news, without adding any commentary.

So where does that leave the B, C, and Z list bloggers? Unfortunately, in a lonely place. Good writing will take them only so far. If they get noticed, they might be blogrolled by a few people, or linked every now and then, but unless they scoop a major story or two (think Bush National Guard memos) or spend a lot on promotion (Huffington Post) they're destined for the minor leagues -- or the zero league, which is my way of saying that no one reads or comments on their posts. Use the "next blog" feature in blogspot.com blogs and you'll see there are quite a few of the zero-league blogs out there.

But here's my idea to remedy the situation: Create an aggregator service like Memeorandum that deliberately excludes the A-listers, and use an algorithm somehow does a better job of getting original commentary -- perhaps by excluding quoted text, or copy that matches items in Google News. This could also be incorporated into search -- an "exclude A list" button. The idea would be to highlight unknown or lesser known commentary that is just as worthy of being highlighted by the A-list luminaries.

A quality post is a quality post. Why should it be excluded because it lacks inbound links or a few years' experience?

The knives come out for Summers

President Summers is in for a rough ride in the next few weeks, judging by these articles in today's Crimson:

Summers' Backers Worry He May Leave

Former GSAS Dean Calls for Summers To Resign

Yes, Summers has problems. He's stubborn. He's arrogant. He doesn't seem to know how to effectively listen to people, or know when to keep quiet, or show contrition. Someone quoted in the Crimson a few days ago pointed out that what works in Washington doesn't work at Harvard, yet Summers still doesn't seem to get it.

But I really think it would be a shame if Summers is forced out. He really has some great ideas about the University, and how it should be developed. Worthy academic initiatives will likely be abandoned if Summers and his appointees are driven out. It would also throw a big wrench into Harvard's fund-raising plans.

Additionally, while speaking one's mind can be a liability (as he has learned many times) I think it's also an important attribute for someone heading one of the country's most important idea incubators.

I hope that some type of compromise can be reached -- to me, the most obvious choice would be for Summers to pull back from his centralization drive and give the tubs more autonomy to choose their own deans and programs.

And of course, learning better people and management skills would also help.

Content analysis becomes fodder for The Onion

The Onion is a spoof newspaper. In this week's issue, they use content analysis techniques as fodder for an article. It discusses the opening of an "archive" of hundreds of thouasnds of Denny's comment cards, and what it reveals of the nation's psyche -- and the food service industry -- since the late 1950s. Fromt the article:

Historians have only just begun to unlock the secrets the cards hold, as there are over 270,000 to go through. According to Brayton, trends are already beginning to emerge.

"By examining these comment cards, we have unique insight into not just Denny's, but the tapestry of food-service heritage itself," [University of Chicago history professor Kenneth] Brayton said. "Here is a history writ large, with little yellow golf pencils."

Brayton later looks at the comment cards in light of recent events:

"Every one of the 1,579 comment cards filled out between Sept. 12 and 17, 2001 is firmly in the 'excellent' category." Brayton said. "The nation was healing, and eating a lot of Two Eggs and More Breakfast platters. After that brief, nearly utopian period, the 'fair' assessments started to trickle in. Also, we began to see a rise in the positive ratings of onion rings, although it remains unclear whether this is related."

The entire article is here.

Ex-censors attack censorship

This is hard to believe, but I spotted it in the news, so it must be true:

A group of former senior Communist party officials in China have launched a scathing attack on the country's handling of the media and information.

In an open letter, the group denounced the recent closure of investigative newspaper Bingdian (Freezing Point).

They said strict censorship may "sow the seeds of disaster" for China's political transition.

Among the signatories are an ex-aide to Mao Zedong, a former newspaper editor and a former party propaganda chief.

"History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance," the group said in the letter, according to Reuters news agency.

I am frankly quite shocked that a group of cadres who achieved positions of great power in China thanks to totalitarian methods of information control have had such a dramatic change of heart.

Or is something else at work here? Perhaps an indirect attack on the current Party leadership?

Anyone know where I can see the letter, in original or translated?

Five reasons why Chinese authorities won't be able to regulate the 'Net

I've been thinking about Chinese authorities' attempts to regulate the Internet and other networked communications (a few descriptions are linked from Rebecca MacKinnon's blog here, and here). In my opinion, the new regulations won't work, for the following five reasons:

1) Chinese communications needs: Chinese people today have an expectation of open, multipoint communication that didn't exist before, when there were two main forms of communications: Traditional mass communications (i.e., the Chinese press, rallies, etc.) which spoke with one voice (most of the time); and person-to-person communications, usually within one's neighborhood or region. Nowadays, Chinese people have many more options, thanks to the Internet, mobile communications devices, and an active press. People can easily talk with or message someone on the other side of the country, instantaneously. If a conduit is shut off -- for instance, a forum, website, newspaper, or mobile phone network is shut down -- users can switch to another.

2) The nature of interpersonal communications in China: Sometimes Chinese can be very direct when talking about a certain subject or expressing criticism. Sometimes they can be very indirect. How can authorities effectively regulate subtle discussion of a sensitive subject, or indirect criticism of the government or official policy? Keyword filters won't work, and even human review of content won't catch some of the more subtle messages.

3) The basic nature of the Internet: The Internet is global computer network designed to facilitate communications. Exploiting the positive aspects of this medium while restricting other types of content is probably impossible. Look at the global attempts to eliminate spam and child pornography. Governments have passed laws, nonprofits have put their best minds and technologies to work, corporations and users have spent billions, but spam and child porn still plague the Internet.

4) The evolving nature of the Internet & technology in China: Five years ago, blogs and SMS were not widely used in China. Now they are. The government is attempting to catch up with regulation of these communications channels, but there are too many to monitor, and new channels and technologies keep popping up every year. There will surely be new networked communications technologies five years from now, and the government will still be trying to catch up.

5) Limitations of the Chinese bureaucracy: What makes Chinese authorities -- who haven't been able to stamp out corruption or piracy -- think they can do any better regulating the Internet and other networked communications? They can't handle the job now with more than 100 million Internet users, and an unknown number of mobile telephone subscribers. How will they cope when there are 250 hundred million Internet users, and half the population in China has access to mobile phone service?

Am I missing anything here?

Harvard's top 10 feeds

I received an unusual and unexpected honor last week -- Harvard Extended was chosen as one of Harvard's top 10 newsfeeds.

More interesting to me, though, were the other feeds that editor Mackenzie Chan, a junior in Harvard College, was able to locate. A few were blogs by students at the College (Cambridge Common, to hold eternity in an hour), the Harvard Business School (Mark and Jie's Journey to B-School [Hello Jie!]), and the Law School (Magic Cookie, who links to about 40 other Law School student blogs). Mine is the only student blog from the Extension School.

There are also two blogs on the list by Harvard faculty (HBS Prof Noam Wasserman's "Founder Frustrations" blog) and John Palfrey of the Law School, who is also Executive Director of the Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and has taught at the Extension School.

The two miscellaneous feeds are The Harvard Crimson (the College newspaper) and a very interesting flickr collection called the Harvard Photo Pool.

First NCNA data chart: Kampuchea dominates Vietnam coverage during Deng Xiaoping era

As promised, I've produced some graphs of the NCNA data I gathered for my thesis.

The first one below charts New China News Agency (新華社) English Service news items that mention Vietnam-related terms plus one other set of terms: Kampuchea (K, the dark blue line) Laos (L, magenta) the USSR/Russia (S, yellow) the U.S. (U, light blue) the U.N. and related agencies (I, purple) and ASEAN (A, brown).

Each line charts the V+1 variable combinations as a percent of all NCNA items that mention Vietnam, spanning Deng Xiaoping's (鄧小平) de-facto leadership (late 1970s to early 1990s). In other words, in the mid-1980s, more than 80% of all NCNA items that mentioned Vietnam also mentioned Kampuchea, but less than 10% mentioned Laos. (The combinations are not exclusive). You can download the full-sized PDF of the chart here.



I'll throw in a little analysis, too: There is a strong correlation between Vietnam and Kampuchea in the data: Between 1979 and 1989, more than 65% of all items that mentioned Vietnam also mentioned Kampuchea (when measured by year). Between 1980 and 1985 it was over 80%. The correlation was expected -- Vietnam occupied Kampuchea during this period, something that angered China very much -- but the prominence among all Vietnam-related items was a bit surprising. Not surprisingly, as soon as Vietnam withdrew from Kampuchea in 1989, the number of items that also mentioned Kampuchea dropped sharply.

I'll share some more charts this weekend or next week.

Rebecca MacKinnon live webcast tonight

This just in from the Berkman Digital Media in Asia blog: Tonight from 5 pm to 7 pm, Rebecca McKinnon (an early and influential critic of Microsoft's Internet-related policies in China) will join with Harvard Law School professor and cyberlaw and evidence expert Charles Nesson to lead a two-hour discussion at Harvard "on how the internet, weblogs, and the media/entertainment/sports industries can be utilized to create international bridges between cultures." The program will have a live webcast feed. Details and links at the DMA blog.

More faculty trouble for Summers

Faculty are pissed. Wicked pissed. Marcella Bombardieri at the Globe describes the angry mood at yesterday's faculty meeting, but Evan Jacobs and Anton Troianovski at the Crimson capture a few additional details, such as the standing O for Kirby, and complaints specific to the ongoing Curricular Review.

Gary North on the Ph.D. "Glut"

Gary North has penned an interesting essay about how the American higher education system produces Ph.D.s. He thinks it's a terrible system, and anyone joining a PhD program is making a terrible career choice, unless they are in one of those disciplines in which there are chances for private-sector employment. From the essay:

Ph.D. students are a lot like gamblers. They expect to beat the odds. The gambler personifies odds-beating as Lady Luck. The Ph.D. student instead looks within. "I am really smart. These other people in the program aren't as smart as I am. I will get that tenure-track job. I will make the cut. I will be a beneficiary of the system."

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Also, if ego were marketable, all Ph.D. graduates would get tenure.

Why does any Ph.D. student at any but the top graduate schools believe that he will get tenure at any university? The odds are so far against him, and have been for a generation, than he ought to realize that he is about to waste his most precious resource – time – on a long-shot. Investing five or more years beyond the B.A. degree, except in a field where industry hires people with advanced degrees, is economic stupidity that boggles the imagination. Yet at least 200,000 graduate students are doing this at any time. Of the 46,000 who earned a Ph.D. in 2003, at least 50% got to ABD status and quit. Probably more than half of the others quit before they got to ABD status.

North says this is a long-term trend:

The Ph.D. glut has existed ever since the fall of 1969. The number of entry-level full-time professorial positions has remained stagnant. Few new universities have been constructed. Legislatures have resisted additional funding.

This has led to a reduction of the number of tenure-level positions. Universities and community colleges have been able to staff their entry-level positions with inexpensive instructors.

Those few Ph.D.s who receive a full-time position at a university find that they are paid much less than tenured members of the department. They are assigned the lower-division classes, which are large – sometimes 200 to 1,000 students. These mega-classes require lecturing skills that most professors do not possess. Those untenured faculty members who perform well in mega-classes are kept on until the day of reckoning: the decision to grant them tenure, usually eight years after they go on the payroll. They are usually not re-hired unless they have published narrowly focused articles in professional journals. But mega-class professors do not have much time to do the required research.

Reading this made me reflect on why I am attempting to get a master's degree. It's been very demanding on my personal time -- I've spent well over 1000 hours on class time, homework, and research for my ALM thesis thus far, mostly at night. This is time that otherwise could have spent with my wife and children.

Where will my ALM degree lead? Certainly not a professorship. In the field of Chinese history, I feel there is an excess of expertise and limited number of University teaching positions. Attempting to start a PhD program after I complete the ALM program would be a major investment in time and money, and upon receiving a degree, there is no guarantee I could find suitable work. That's a risk I cannot take with my family.

And in any case, I didn't start the ALM program as a stepping stone to a PhD. I started because I love history, and the Harvard Extension School program was convenient and free, at least while I worked on campus. It's not free anymore (I left my Harvard job in 2005) but I still love the intellectual challenge. It's exhilerating and very, very interesting.

There's a career benefit, too. The classwork and research are giving me critical thinking skills, the ability to evaluate other people's statements and research, and develop my own viewpoints according to very rigorous standards. It makes me a better writer and a better researcher -- and potentially opens up doors to other non-journalism jobs in government or the private sector that require strong analytical skills.

One thing I would like to note about the Harvard Extension School ALM program is that many graduates do go on to PhD programs, or use their degrees to change careers. The Extension School alumni magazine (The Lamplighter?) lists a lot of the success stories, you can sometimes grab a copy at 51 Brattle Street.

Draft Proposal -- Complete!

Tonight I finished the proposal. It took a lot of work over the past week, but I feel it does what it's supposed to do -- provide a roadmap for my planned thesis.

I have to format the text, do a spell-check, and then it's off to the research advisor. I'll try to post a copy as well as some of the charts of my data later this week.

Oops!

News from Cambridge (in the U.K.):

A visitor to a British museum tripped on his shoelace, stumbled down a stairway and fell into a display of centuries-old Chinese vases, shattering them into "very small pieces," officials said Monday.

The rest of the story is here, courtesy of AP and the San Francisco Chronicle website.

So much for the Jan. 31 deadline ...

Last week I expected to finish the draft of my thesis proposal by the end of January. It's now 20 minutes into February 1, and I am not done, despite a marathon four-hour writing session tonight.

But I am certainly in a better place. I just finished Part IV (Background) which is basically a literature review/summary of the main issues being studied. My literature review touches upon four areas: Sino-Vietnamese relations, international relations theory, Chinese media, and content analysis methodologies. It takes a long time to pick out the most relevant works in each category, summarize them in one paragraph, add my critical analysis, and relate how my own research fills in certain holes that they did not address.

So my new deadline for finishing the remainder of the draft proposal: This time next week. I might even pull an all-nighter on Friday to get the remaining sections and bibliography done.