Danny Crichton

I will attack ABC News again, this time for writing about the Congressional Gym (the link is to the syndicated article). Ever since the release of more Anthony Weiner photos, some of which were taken in the gym, there has been a ballyhoo over this exclusive perk denied to the general public.

The outrage is starting to bite me though. First, many white collar employees at corporations are provided subsidized gymnasium memberships as a benefit of their employment. Considering the background of most members of Congress, this would seem to be a typical benefit.

More importantly though, why on earth should congressmen spend time commuting to a private gym? The reason that companies provide on-site services like exercise rooms is to give their employees more time to do their jobs. Congressmen are already over-scheduled. It seems to me that paying for a gymnasium should be thought of less as a class warfare issue, and more as an investment in ensuring that our representatives are given every opportunity to succeed at their duties. Considering their effect on American society, I think the people are the ones who are getting the bargain.

Rahm Emmanuel, newly installed mayor of Chicago, has released the salary data for all municipal employees "in a bid to follow through on a campaign promise to bring transparency to government." ABC News looked at the data and found that "The data showed that 2,400 city workers are paid $100,000 or more per year." Furthermore, their analysis showed that "the city's inspector general Joseph Ferguson, in charge of fighting corruption in the metropolis, is paid $161,856, but Emmanuel's administrative secretary is paid $162,500."

Release of salary data is supposed to encourage civic activism - citizens can go through the data themselves and point areas of possible corruption or waste. Unfortunately, this kind of release rarely does more than encourage the kind of short-term thinking that is currently plaguing our government.

The issue here is context - sure, it may sound immediately awful that there are several thousand employees making six figures. But what does it mean in a city with 34,219 employees if the proportion making such incomes comes out to roughly 6% of the workforce. There are lawyers, accountants and other highly-trained professionals working for the city government, all of whom are going to command large salaries. A figure like 6% gives us no ability to determine whether there is waste, but rather encourages the kind of potshot analysis offered by ABC News.

More insidiously though, the release of these data encourages politicians to abscond from their duties as public servants. Just posting salary data is not going to solve corruption (in fact, corruption at the municipal level has traditionally been offering your supporters jobs - not ridiculous wages). Politicians are supposed to be leaders. The mayor should have his staff investigate wage data and bring concerns

The Republican primaries are coming up, and as a voter from Minnesota, I am excited to see my state delivering not just one but two potential candidates for the presidency. Minnesota is a state that has traditionally served as a base of the progressive right-wing, the kind of independent, pragmatic, get things done kind of politician America so vitally needs (Minnesota's government works extraordinarily well compared to California, although that isn't much of a comparison).

Unfortunately, the two politicians that Minnesota is serving up this year are anything but progressive. Tim Pawlenty, the former governor, was at one point a pretty good leader. He was certainly not centrist, but he was a welcome respite from the antics that plagued wrestler now conspiracy theorist Jesse Ventura. As time went on, Pawlenty moved to the right, no doubt feeling the pressure of the 2008 presidential campaign and looking ahead to 2012. By the time he left, there was very little goodwill toward him.

The other candidate is Michelle Bachmann, and that needs no explanation.

Instead, the candidate that is coming from the center happens to hail from the most conservative state in the union. Jon Huntsman, Jr. is a towering candidate, if only voters would overlook his moderate record. Time wrote a fairly glowing profile of him, but ultimately voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will decide who to run against Obama. And apparently, they don't like what they see.

It is telling that a moderate candidate with across-the-board strength in leadership positions, fluency in Mandarin and a track record of success cannot find succor within the Republican party. So he tried to tackle large issues like health care and the environment. Perhaps this isn't surprising - Republicans made a point of bringing back styrofoam cups

After 18 months, I finished my thesis, entitled: "Academic Revolution and Regional Innovation: The Case of Computer Science at Stanford 1957-1970." Due to the nature of the academic journal market, I can't immediately post the entire piece - journals often don't like online postings of articles before they publish them. A part of this paper has been accepted at the Triple Helix Conference at Stanford this July, and three articles will eventually be published from the thesis. I also hope to adapt the thesis into a policy brief on thinking about academic departments and their relationships with local economies.

The abstract:

There remains little consensus in regional studies on the origins of Silicon Valley or other innovation hubs. Different approaches, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the field, have examined the issue from institutional, cultural, and network analysis perspectives. At the same time, historians of science are beginning to construct a more detailed narrative of the development of computer science in the United States, particularly in the divide between academic theory and industrial practice.

This study embraces these two literatures by analyzing the case of Computer Science at Stanford University and its connection to the rise of Silicon Valley. It finds that the dispute between computer science faculty and other basic scientists led to an academic culture in the Computer Science department that encouraged research on theory, while at the same time, limited funding from the university developed a pragmatic culture that encouraged engagement with industry and created valuable knowledge networks that helped to spark the development of Silicon Valley. This study provides the first archival-based research analysis of computer science at Stanford, and will be useful to scholars in history of computing, history of higher education, regional studies as well as scholars in science, technology

The journal Nature posted a special section on the current issues facing the doctorate in today's marketplace.

From a comment by Mark Taylor:

The technologies that have transformed financial markets and the publishing, news and entertainment industries are now disrupting the education system. In the coming years, growing global competition for the multibillion-dollar education market will increase the pressure on US universities, just when public and private funding is decreasing.

This seems reminiscent of the recent debate about higher education on TechCrunch prompted by Peter Thiel's drop-out-of-college entrepreneurship program. Thiel argues that higher education is in a large bubble, mostly because we value undergraduate and graduate degrees more than they are intrinsically worth. Thus, dropping out and starting a company might be a better approach to teach useful skills and prepare students for the workforce.

My personal take on the whole debate is that higher education is about to be disrupted, but it is not a bubble. The value of further education is not overestimated, either in terms of pure economics like income over the life course or more generally as a means to provide contentment in one's life. High school graduates don't seem to have much pull in the marketplace, regardless of their actual skill set. I will leave the debate about whether that should be the case for another time.

However, the means by which we will acquire education are going to change dramatically, and quicker than most in higher education realize. Programs like the Khan Academy or iTunes U (and other web-based learning approaches that are getting started) can provide most of the learning available in the classroom at a university, in convenient bite sized chunks with plenty of additional material for assistance. Are university lectures with 400

This article was originally written for the Stanford Review's Fiat Lux blog

I brought up the issue of transfer admissions a few weeks ago, focusing on the nature of the current class of transfer admissions. What I did not have time to do was look at the historical data for transfer admissions to Stanford. Let's get to a couple of graphs. First, the total transfer applicants to Stanford:

This graph has been lost to the internet

The trend line is mostly unchanged throughout the last decade of transfer admissions, hovering around 1300 applicants. This is actually quite interesting given the decreasing admissions rate of freshman applicants (a naive assumption would be that transfer applications would increase as students did not get into the schools of their choice, but this seems to not be the case). Now, let's look at another graph:

This graph has been lost to the internet

The number of transfer students admitted has decreased continuously since 2001, falling precipitously in 2007 from 72 to 23 spots. Despite some Google searching, I couldn't find an article on why the admissions was cut to a third of its former number (Stanford's current Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw joined on Sept. 1 2005, and new policies may have been instituted in the first full cycle following his arrival). For completeness, we have the admissions rate chart:

This graph has been lost to the internet

As I argued last time, transfers provide a wealth of diverse experiences to the Stanford body, and are among the most passionate people that I have met here. As we talk about expanding the number of students at Stanford, the need to evaluate the goals of transfer admissions must be part of the conversation. Harvard, for instance, entirely eliminated their transfer

This article was originally written for the Stanford Review's Fiat Lux blog

Back in 2007, Stanford University President John Hennessy wrote a column in the Stanford alumni magazine exploring the idea of expanding the freshman class. A few months later, a financial meltdown and a multi-billion dollar loss to the endowment pretty much ended that discussion. Times are changing though. The endowment is back up, and the trustees recently granted approval to building the first new undergraduate dorm in 20 years.

With more spots, Stanford will be able to make changes to its admissions policies concerning the number of admits and the number of students per class (policies that have by and large remained unchanged for years). Part of that conversation should include the current status of transfer applicants to the university.

I have attached two pictures to set the tone.

Note: These pictures have been lost to the internet

Stanford obviously has a vested interest in expanding the freshman class, but I want to direct attention to the interesting advantages of expanding the transfer classes. Transfers offer the university the ability to admit students with vastly different life experiences than is typical of freshman applicants – they have attended other universities, and many of them have unique interests that are particularly well suited for Stanford.

More than anything else, admitting transfers acknowledges that there is more than one “path” in life, and that people can and do change and develop over time. Should we increase the number of transfers, and if so, by how many? Much like the original Hennessy column, the answers can develop over time, but the conversation should begin now.

Last year, the National Academies of Science published a revisit to their seminal "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report. In appendix A, they cite notable people regarding science and technology. On page 74, the report quotes from such luminaries as Bill Gates, Thomas Jefferson, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, and apparently, me.

From the report:

"When someone tells you that 'Oh, math is not really my thing,' respond back, 'and working at McDonald's isn't mine.'"

Danny Crichton, Stanford University Student

Considering my academic focus on science policy, I find this rather cool (and I like the company on the page).